Elise stepped out of the corvette wide-eyed, joining hundreds of gathering onlookers outside the wall of ice staring in while police tried to set up a perimeter and keep them back. It wasn’t the wall of ice that had her surprised though, nor the snow falling from a cloudless sky, or the red dome.

It was that an overweight boy from her school had suddenly jumped 30 feet over the wall of ice and transformed into a little boy with a tail mid-air. That is why she was surprised.

“Tch, and who the hell are you, one of her group members?” The wizard said as he got back to his feet. “That was quite the fireball for a little level 31.” He added. Darith didn’t reply to him, he only glared back.

“Analyze.” He shouted. “Thomas Rakten, level 115, ice affinity, who would’ve guessed.” Darith said sarcastically.

“He wants to kill that officer over there, Jaese, and I can’t get them out of the dome with that ice wall. The guards can’t get inside here, he used a guild spell to keep them out.” Liana said, her attitude had suddenly changed from seeing Darith.

“So we’ve got to either survive until the red dome wears off, or give him game over?” Darith asked, and Liana nodded.

“Should we really fight him? He’s really strong and fast, he knows a lot about this game!” Liana said to Darith worriedly.

“Jacob got killed last night.” Darith replied to her. She opened her eyes wide in surprise but didn’t speak. “It was my fault, I wasn’t with them. Ryan was right. I’ve been treating this thing like a fun game, but I’m starting to get it.” Darith said as he tightened his grip on his staff.

“It’s so much more than a game.” The Ice Wizard replied to his words, making both Liana and Darith glare at him.

“We take him together.” Darith said.

“Okay.” Liana replied.

“Interesting, haha!” He screeched hysterically. “Here I was expecting a boring extermination, and I’ve got myself a pair of wanna be heroes who think they can challenge a member of the New World Order?”

“He talks a lot.” Liana sighed to Darith.

“Bad players usually do.” Darith shrugged back, stopping Thomas from laughing instantly.

“What can we do to help?” Jaese shouted from behind them as they stood back with the other officers.

“Don’t come anywhere close to us.” Darith shouted back to him.

“We’re taking orders from a little boy with ears and a tail now?” Arnold said angrily.

“Got a better idea?” Richard replied.

“Enchant. Chain Fire.” Darith shouted, dashing forward as his staff lit up in flames and a stream of firebolts began to shoot out at Thomas. Thomas didn’t move, he allowed the Firebolts to hit him, each dealing 560 damage but not bothering him at all.

Snow kicked up from the ground around Darith’s feet with each dash, moving closer and closer. Once in swinging range he pulled his staff back and used all his might to swing it forward.

“Ivencia.” Thomas said in monotone, and the ground beneath his feet began to glow bright blue for a moment. Seeing this, Darith canceled his staff swing and dashed backward, just in time as razor sharp icicles shot up out of the ground, not too unlike what the Ice Wraith did, but a much smaller scale. “Vedrica.” He then chanted, and a long thin needle of ice appeared. It shot straight at Darith at first, then levitated to the ground while rotating quickly, causing the snow to swirl around it until it looked like a drill. Darith continued to dash with his Chain fire actively hitting Thomas, but the drill was catching up.

“Time Warp!” Liana shouted, catching the drill in her purple dome and slowing it down to a near halt. Seeing this action, Darith jumped high into the air and held his staff out front.

“Fire storm!” He shouted, and in an instant an immensely large number of Firebolts shot from all directions, flying at Thomas from all sides as the light around them tinted crimson.

“That looks dangerous.” Thomas commented. “Crescna!” He called out, creating a sudden dome of ice around himself to protect against the barrage of countless Firebolts. It worked to an extent, but after enough hits the ice dome broke and many fire bolts got through, hitting him and doing a large amount of damage, but still he stood tall unfazed.

“Hm, not bad for a leve-” He began speaking, but was interrupted as a burning staff flew at him and collided with his face, knocking him backwards off his feet and letting off a slight blue flash of light. He fell on his back into the snow and quickly jumped back to his feet. “You’re pissing me off.” He screeched, and without chanting, he made over 100 ice bolts appear in front of himself and shoot forward at Darith with no delay, at incredible speeds. He had no time to react, but luckily Liana did.

“Time Warp!” Liana shouted, slowing the bolts just millimeters from Darith’s face, giving him time to dash away. This caused Thomas to turn to Liana and glare angrily, holding up an open palm towards her that began glowing blue. He then closed it into a fist before she or Darith could react. A sudden block of ice formed around Liana, freezing her solid and giving her a status effect. Once she was frozen, he turned back to Darith and released another 100 Ice bolts at him. With no time warp to protect him this time, he had to rely on his speed. He knew they were coming this time though, even without the chanting of Thomas, he pre-emptively dashed backward to avoid them as they crashed into the snow and cars parked around the parking lot of the hospital.

“Melt Ice!” Darith shouted, shooting forth a spell at Liana that removed the block around her, as well as the status effect icon on her health bar. A few seconds later she was able to move again and let out a gasp for air.

“Tch, annoying! Like flies buzzing around, hard to swat, but still just flies.” He shouted as Darith returned to Liana’s side. “You can’t even scratch me.”

“You can’t scratch us either. He’s a full wizard type player, that’s why he’s not dodging much, instead of raising his agility and strength he put it all into his spirit and intelligence. He’s not taking any damage because it seems to be going into that blue shield I saw just now, I’m guessing it's a shield based on his mana bar. His mana regeneration is probably so ridiculously high that the only way we’ll get through it is with a lot of damage all at once, that’s why he got nervous when he saw my fire storm spell.” Darith said to Liana,

“Hah... Hahahaha,” He laughed as he heard Darith speak. “You’re not just any fly, are you? A player who has actually played MMO’s before. You must be, oh perfect, wonderful, just great!” He shouted hysterically as ice began to form around him, rotating like a tornado of icicles.

“How do we beat him then?” Liana asked worriedly as she saw the tornado get larger.

“Need to make sure all of my Firestorm firebolts land. Once my mana is full, we go. Until then, stay mobile and I’ll keep him busy.” Darith whispered to her, so that this wasn’t heard by Thomas. Liana nodded back as the tornado got worse and the red dome got covered in a thick blizzard, reminding them of the Coldrinn ruins. Jaese, Arnold, Richard and the other officers backed away from the storm to take cover behind cars further away in the parking lot.

“What’s he doing?” Liana asked.

“I don’t know, but be ready for anything. This game lets you make up your own spells, so what he can do with his ice magic is only limited by his imagination.” He replied. Liana nodded, taking a second to look at Darith. She had seen him focus during difficult games before, but she had never seen him serious like this. His mind was calm, calculating every factor around him, gathering information about Thomas every second.

Suddenly giant chunks of ice started flying out of the Tornado in random directions. At first only a few, but more and more, until the ice shards were barraging the area around them. They smashed into cars, the ground, trees, the ice wall, and some started smashing into the hospital, shooting through windows and walls. Seeing this, Darith’s eyes opened wide, remembering his mom was working there.

“We have to stop that storm, time warp it on three!” Darith said, Liana nodded as he charged forward with his enchanted staff. Dash after dash he moved in a zig zag pattern towards it, avoiding shards of ice that shot out of it. It wasn’t aiming for anything in particular, the shards were being shot out completely randomly.

“Time Warp!” Liana shouted, creating a purple dome at the base of the cyclone, which cut the rest of it out of sync and sent the remaining ice chunks shooting all at once while the tornado stopped. Several chunks shot at Liana and forced her to quickly dash out of the way.

Meanwhile Darith took advantage of Thomas being inside the dome with the remaining bottom section of the tornado moving in slow motion, and maneuvered around the ice to swing at him with his staff. Thomas was ready though, and blocked the staff swing with his own in his right, then swung his left fist which was enhanced as a spiky ice ball at Darith to counter. Darith jumped backward out of the Time Warp, and as Thomas chased him, Liana canceled the time warp causing the last icebolts to suddenly speed up and slam into Thomas, causing damage to himself and knocking him off his feet.

“Are you having fun?” He said as he stood up angrily dusting himself off.

“Don’t you care about the people you are hurting? There’s innocent people in that hospital!” Darith shouted at him angrily.

“They’re not people, they’re NPC’s.” He replied coldly as he brushed the snow off of his cloak.

“They’re people, just like you. The only difference is you got invited to a game. That doesn’t make you better than them!” Darith shouted.

“Oh, but it does.”

“No! Why?! Why’s there gotta be players like you in this game! It has so much power to do so many cool things, giving people a chance to walk when they couldn’t before, making people popular who aren’t normally, going on adventures to places that could never exist in reality... That’s what the game should be, not this!”

“This is what it means to be powerful, to be better than everyone else.” Thomas replied with a long cackle.

“Oh shut up man. New World Order? Only Ice Skills, completely immobile? You’re high level, but that’s it. Aside from that, you suck at this game, and you’re a horrible person for trying to ruin it for others, and hurt people that aren’t involved.” Darith said angrily, his words clearly aggravating Thomas.

“The fly wants to tell me I’m bad? I’M BAD?” He screeched.

“Fly... Insect... roleplaying like you’re some sort of god. I’ll show you how a real gamer plays this game.” Darith glared, then jumped into the air as high as he could. “Fire Storm!” He shouted as his mana filled.

“It won’t work. Crescna.” He said, creating the dome of ice around himself to guard against thousands of Firebolts lighting up the War Zone dome, melting all the snow in the sky instantly.

“Time Warp!” Liana shouted, creating the purple dome on top of Thomas’s ice dome.

As all of Darith’s fireballs entered the small time warp dome, they stopped, just outside of the ice dome protecting Thomas. Darith then carefully swung his staff through the fire storm in a small opening of the barrage he made intentionally before he fired it. His staff connected with the ice dome and cracked it, then another swing created a tiny hole in it for Thomas to look out and see what Darith was doing, but by then it was too late. One last swing of his fire enchanted staff and the dome shattered. Liana then canceled the time warp, and all of the firebolts exploded around Thomas, not a single shot missing and creating a huge burst of smoke and dust as Darith jumped back a bit.

“It worked, you got him!” Liana cheered, but Darith wasn’t so sure.

“Hah...” Thomas said, surprised himself that he’d survived, running his hands over his body to make sure he was still in his game character. “Hahah, your strongest attack, all of it, I took all of the damage! Not a scratch! You can’t kill me, you can’t even hurt me! I am a GOD!” He shouted, then shot several ice bolts at Darith, forcing him to dash away to Liana’s side.

“It didn’t work? What’ll we do now?” Liana panicked.

“I don’t know... We don’t have enough damage to beat him right now... What’s the timer on this red dome?” Darith replied, still calm thanks to his Gamer’s mind.

“10 minutes...” Liana said as she checked it.

“Hahahaha, you’ll be long dead by then!” He screamed excitedly, shooting several more ice bolts at the two. Liana dashed and Darith dashed apart, then back together again.

“I’ll give you a choice, little flies. You can abandon your idea of being a Knight of Justice and escape the dome, or you can stay here and die to my legendary spell like the rest of the insects. Deep Freeze.” He shouted, the first spell he’d cast using English. From it, the ground around him began to turn into solid thick ice, growing outward from his feet. The ice crept up car tires, freezing them, deflating them, and then making them shatter into pieces as the rest of the car followed after. The ice continued to grow outward and froze everything and anything, even the ground began to crack, trees shattering into tiny shards of ice dust. Meanwhile, Thomas remained standing still, glowing blue as if he were channeling the spell.

“What is that, what is he doing?” Jaese shouted as he ran up beside Darith and Liana.

“I don’t know, I think he’s trying to freeze everything inside the dome.” Darith replied nervously as he stepped away from the impending ice.

“Can you stop him?” Jaese asked anxiously.

“N-no, I don’t think so, that was my strongest attack.” Darith said with a gulp. Jaese looked Darith in the eyes, then looked to Liana.

“Alright, just promise me you’ll get everyone out of here safely.” Jaese said before stepping forward in front of them. “You’re Thomas, right? It’s me you want isn’t it? So let all of these people go, just take me!” Jaese shouted to him over the freezing parking lot.

“It is too late for that, little insect. I cannot let those who challenge and insult me so easily walk away, I must make an example of you all.” He shouted back.

“There are hundreds of innocent people in that hospital!” Jaese shouted angrily at him.

“All insects.” Thomas replied coldly.

“God damn you!” Jaese pulled his gun out and fired several rounds, the bullets doing nothing as they hit Thomas except for releasing a tiny blue flash of light as they impacted his mana shield.

“Darith we have to do something! Can we use Dash to get everyone outside of the dome?” Liana suggested.

“The ice is moving too fast.. I mean, some of them, but...” Darith replied hesitant.

“You have to think of something! Please, Darith!” Liana shouted.

“I...” Darith replied nervously, glancing around with his calm mind, trying to recede his anxiety as he watched the ice get closer and closer to Jaese, who was more focused on loading another magazine into his gun than avoiding the ice from touching his feet. Seeing this, Darith’s eyes opened wide and he dashed forward, grabbed Jaese by his shirt, then jumped back away from the ice.

“I’ve got a plan, it might work but I need you and the other officers to help!” Darith said to Jaese.

“What’s the plan?” Jaese asked without hesitation. Darith quickly explained his instructions to Jaese who then ran back to Richard and the other officers.

“What the hell is going on, can they stop this guy?” Arnold shouted to Jaese.

“The little boy with the tail said to fire every single bullet we’ve got at that guy, but make sure they pass through the purple dome when it appears. The signal word will be ‘scald’” Jaese replied to him.

“What the hell? This is real life not a comic book! I’m not taking commands from a cartoon character.” Arnold snapped back.

“So what should we do then?” Richard asked Arnold as they could only watch the ice creep up on the base of the hospital from a distance. The parking lot was quickly becoming an icy wasteland void of anything but snow and mist.

“I don’t understand what’s going on, but it's pretty obvious who the guys trying to help are and who the bad one is. We should do what he says and ask them questions after.” Jaese said.

“This is crazy, I’m not giving orders to open fire and risk drawing that guys attention to us after seeing all that, I’ll just be getting good officers killed. You said this dome would be down soon, didn’t you?”

“Good officers have already been killed!” Jaese snapped at Arnold. “By that guy! And we have a chance to stop him now, one we might not get again. Those two fighting there, I think... I think they’re just kids, but still, if there’s a chance their plan can work, you can’t just do nothing and watch!” Jaese yelled.

“He’s right.” Richard agreed, several other officers nodded. Arnold glared at Jaese, then the others for a moment. It wasn’t their expression that made him decide though, it was snow blowing around in his face.

“Scald is the signal, full magazines, don’t miss.” Arnold said, holding his gun in a firing position. All officers copied him as they moved to stand in a line, ready to shoot.

“It looks like you are choosing to die with the insects, so be it!” Thomas cackled in his high pitched voice as the ice began crawling up the walls of the hospital.

“We need to end this fast, get my mana full quick.” Darith said, Liana nodding.

“Concentrate, Concentrate, Concentrate!” She casted multiple times, until she only had enough left to cast one last time warp.

“Time warp my scald.” Darith whispered to Liana, and she didn’t ask any questions, only nodded. “Mass Enchant!” Darith shouted, causing his and Liana’s weapons to glow with fire. “Scald!” He shouted, and formed a dark blue circle not far from Thomas.

“Time Warp!” Liana shouted, surrounding the scald spell circle so that the moment it shot, the scald projectile stopped moving.

“That’s the signal, open Fire!” Arnold shouted, and all officers remaining inside the red dome unloaded their bullets into the time warp.

“When I say now, cancel the timewarp.” Darith said to Liana as he glanced back to make sure the officers were done firing, but they started reloading their magazines and firing a second round. He looked to see the ice had reached the second floor of the hospital and start cracking and shattering the windows.

“Fire Storm!” He shouted, creating his thousand firebolts in the sky around Thomas. “Now!” Darith said, and Liana canceled the time warp.

“You already tried that. It’s useless, all of your mana isn’t enough to burst through my shield. You’re all going to die! I AM IMMORTAL!” He cackled hysterically.

[Scalded: Increases fire damage taken by 10% for 15 seconds. Does not work on non-organic enemies.]

[Standard Issue Police Firearm

Damage: 25-100

Damage varies depending on where the target is hit.

Requires Ammunition: Bullets

Fire Enchanted: This weapon is currently enchanted with fire and does additional fire damage with each attack.

Remaining: 9m31s]

[Fire Storm

Consumes all mana to fire as many fire bolts as possible at a single target, from all directions. Damage varies based on the amount of available mana, and the firebolt spells damage.

Current Maximum: 1300

Current Firebolt Damage: 550]

Scald first, then the rest. Thomas made no attempt to dodge given his confidence that Darith could not break through his shield, and a large burst of smoke appeared around the hooded ice wizard, but as it cleared this time, there was no laughing, only a message above his body as it fell over onto the frozen ground.

Game Over

At that moment the snow stopped, the Ice wall vanished, and the red dome disappeared, giving Darith and Liana a buff on their interface

Phasing In

You are entering an area controlled by the City Guard, make sure you do not reveal the game to any non players.

Remaining: 10s.

“Huh? The dome is gone... But isn’t it a bit late to hide the game from people?” Darith commented as he read it, then suddenly there was a big flash of light in the sky above them, and thousands of rays of light shot at the ground and area around them, blinding them momentarily, and when the light was gone, their entire surroundings had changed.

The snow and ice were completely gone. The destroyed and shattered cars were back to normal. The destroyed walls of the hospital were repaired. It was as if everything went back to normal instantly. He glanced to Jaese and the other officers who had blank, empty expression, turning and looking at each other confused.

“DARITH!” Liana shouted, startling him to turn around and see a man in a black suit standing in front of him, wearing a black pair of sunglasses with short black hair. The man reached his hand out and put his palm towards Darith’s face, and in his palm was nothing. A black void, as if his palm was sucking in light.

“Switch back, fast, the buff!” Liana pointed as the Phase in counted down from 3 seconds. He got a burst of adrenaline as he opened his menu, switching his appearance just in time while stumbling backward, landing on his fat bottom. The City guard stayed standing over him for a few more seconds, then turned and walked away. His heart rate was racing alone from that encounter more than the fight with Thomas.

“Phew...” He let out a sigh of relief.

“What just happened?” Liana asked, helping Darith get back up and then looking around the parking lot. The onlookers who had been watching from afar also seemed confused about what they were doing, and started wandering in different directions, including Elise who he watched get back into her sister's car.

“What am I doing here, and why... Did I drive here?” She mumbled to herself as she got in the driver's seat.

“And what about Thomas’ items?” Darith turned to where Thomas died, but a City Guard was already standing there, and there was no item to be seen. “They got rid of those too?”

“How did they do that? This isn’t like in dungeons, this is the real world, isn’t it?” Liana said in disbelief.

“I have no idea... But this is definitely more than just some video game.” Darith said with wide eyes. The two stood there for awhile, side by side and panning out their surroundings, not able to comprehend how something like that was possible.