Boom, crash, slam. The large scorpion-like creature charged into the open cavern, its gigantic needle claws at least 3 meters in length. It had no eyes, instead hundreds of wriggling feelers fidgeted around its large fanged jaw, dripping with saliva. It let out a horrendous screech as a gigantic flash of blue light came from the spell circles the 8 gathered knights had casted

Out of the circles shot large icicles, razor sharp, much larger than the ones Thomas had used. None were aimed at Darith, but instead at the girl's mother and the Needle Claw Queen. Darith jumped towards the mother, attempting to trigger dash as he pushed her to the ground, but it didn’t work. Instead he fell on top of the wounded woman, knocking her out of the path of the glacial shots just in time.

He saw in this girls character information that she had the ability to cast a massive amount of spells, virtually all spells in existence with an enormous mana pool, but no ability to control them. And no basic skills to speak of. The Needle Claw Queen reacted to the two falling on the ground and scurried towards them, thrusting its gigantic Needle at them with enormous speed. With no ability to sprint or dash, he had no way to dodge it.

Badump. His heart pounded as the large needle went straight towards his head. His body began to shake, his heart pounding so loud it shook his ears.

Fear.

One of the knights dashed in front of him at the last moment, wielding a giant blue-silver shield. The shield absorbed the blow of the needle and the knight was able to deflect it as he dug the heels of his greaves into the dirt to hold his ground. A second Knight rushed forward and grabbed Darith, pulling him off of the mother with ease. This girl did not have strength or agility, only intense magic that she couldn’t control. He struggled to break free of the knight’s grip, but couldn’t.

Darith watched as he was carried away from the girl's mother while stuck in the girl's body, unable to do anything. The knight that had deflected the Needle Claw’s strike quickly moved out of the way, no longer standing between the Needle Claw Queen and the girl's mother. She was now defenseless on the ground, bleeding with an arrow in her abdomen, the Queen towering over her, slowly getting further away from Darith as he was carried towards the other knights.

“I have the girl, retreat.” The knight shouted.

Panic.

It was happening so fast, it didn’t even feel like a quest or a game anymore. The girl's emotions were flooding into Darith’s mind. It was painfully obvious that while in this girl's body, he no longer had the gamer's mind passive. Was this what it felt like to play this game without the passive? Was he really this weak minded? Liana was able to jump to the safety of Jaese in that hospital, risking her life. She didn’t have gamer's mind. Snap out of it. It’s been a week, you haven’t felt this emotion since you started playing, but it’s not like you can’t handle it. Stop panicking. Stop being afraid. If you don’t do something, the mother will die.

“Gravity!” Darith shouted out.

WARNING!: Using advanced spells without high enough ranks in the corresponding mastery will lead to unpredictable results.

A black spell circle formed around the little girl and exploded in random directions, black cracks opening up in the earth beneath the knight carrying her. Suddenly the weight of everyone in the vicinity shifted towards the ceiling, lifting upwards. All the knights, his mother, the Needle Claw Queen, at once began floating upwards towards the ceiling at a falling speed.

But it quickly destabilized, changing directions towards the western side of the room, then back to the floor. Then up again.

“Dispel!” One of the knights shouted, canceling out the wild gravity magic that Darith couldn’t control. This caused them all to fall back to the ground, but the grip the knight had on Darith loosened. He broke free and ran back towards his mother as the Needle Claw Queen regained its composure and charged at the Knights. One Knight pursued him and reached out for his arm, the knight running much faster than Darith’s tiny girl form could.

The fear of being grabbed by these knights, clearly high level and way more powerful than he was, sent his heart rate through the roof. The knight wrapped his fingers around Darith's wrist and tugged him back away from the mother, yanking him off his feet. He turned and placed his hand on the knights plate chest armor.

“Fireblast Fireblast Fireblast!” Darith shouted, three giant spell circles formed at point blank range. The knight panicked and let go of his arm in favor of leaping away from the spell circles.

“Negation, Type: Fire!” The knight shouted out, and a grey spell circle formed over top of the three Fireblast spell circles. The grey circle merged itself with the Fireblast circles and cancelled them out, stopping the casts. Darith didn’t know something like that was possible. It was obvious, these knights came here to capture this girl. Of course they would be prepared to deal with her wild magic.

The commotion of the knights was more attractive to the Needle Claw Queen than Darith’s tiny footsteps, and it charged at them. They created a shield formation and blocked the claw strikes. Their equipment was extremely powerful. Despite the size of the Queen's needle claws, the shields wern’t even being scratched. Darith used this chance to get back to the mother’s side. She was still concious, though very pale. He tried to help her stand up. The only option he had in his mind was to rely on the creatures of the Darklight Cavern. He knew how to beat them, but these knights did not. If he could only get further into the cavern.

The little girl was barely strong enough to help the mother to her feet, and in that time one of the knights not wielding a shield, but instead a bow, drew an arrow and aimed at the mother like he had before.

Come on Darith. He shouted at himself inside his mind. This is a game. This is a quest. Games are made to be beaten. Think, don’t panic. If you weren’t feeling this girls emotions, what would be the solution? A light bulb clicked in his head as the arrow shot out from the knights bow towards the mother.

“TIME WARP!” Darith shouted as loud as he could. A gigantic purple dome formed around the cave, slowing the arrow to a halt, as well as the dirt and stone that had been knocked into the air by the rampaging Needle Claw Queen. It worked, this girl could cast it, a powerful spell that could be used without a mastery. The knight saw the arrow slow and quickly shouldered his bow, breaking into a charge towards the two while drawing his sword, the other 7 knights caught up in the fight with the Needle Claw.

“Firewall!” Darith tried shouting. It was only intermediate, perhaps he’d be able to control it somewhat. The concentration on Timewarp dispersed and the arrow sped up again, but they had moved out of the path of it. Instead, the entire ground of the cavern around them began to catch fire.

WARNING!: Using intermediate spells without high enough ranks in the corresponding mastery will lead to unpredictable results.

He had no control over it, as was expected, but it created a nice buffer between them and the Knight, or so Darith hoped. But the knight suddenly began to glow red and walk through the fire, taking no damage from the flames.

“Deep Freeze!” Darith shouted, a wild blast of ice magic shot out from Darith’s feet, encasing his feet, his mother, and the knights, dispelling a lot of the fire. In some spots the wild burning flames of the firewall turned to solid ice, a testament to the chaotic nature of this girls magic control. Slowly the ice grew outward, spreading not only across the cavern towards the Needle Claw and other knights, but creeping up his and the mother’s legs.

“Thaw, Thaw!” He shouted quickly, dispelling the freezing nature of the Deep Freeze spell that was occuring on them. It worked, but only temporarily. The wild ice continued to spread and re-encase their feet after a few steps, as the walls and floor of the cavern began to fill with blue cracks.

Once all of the firewall had dispersed or froze thanks to deep freeze, the pursuing knights changed the glow around his armor to blue, and all of the ice that had begun encasing him shattered. He had some sort of skill that could change the element he was resistant to, Darith thought as he watched. Only solution to that was to add more elements. He quickly scanned through the girls spell menu, picking a few at random that sounded like different elements.

“Chain Lighting! Upheaval! Holy Smite!” He chanted them all. He got the warning three times. The cracks of varying colors spread out from his feet, breaking the ice around him. The knight pursuing him heard the spell casts and dropped down to a kneel, holding one hand out in front of himself.

“Elemental Guard!” He called out, and a rainbow colored shield formed in front of himself, the colors constantly shifting in its semi-transparent form. The spells fired off seconds later. The chain lighting went wild, shooting all around the cave, bouncing off the walls. It hit the Queen and several knights that were fighting her, but it bounced off the Elemental Guard. Next came Upheaval, giant spikes of earth and stone erupted from the ground, crashing into the ceiling of the cavern. It scattered the formation of the 7 knights, while at the same time knocking the Needle Claw Queen back from them. None formed near the knight with the Elemental Guard, however.

Holy smite fired off last, the white spell circle completing in front of Darith. A bright beam of radiant energy shot forward like a cannon at the kneeling Knight, colliding with the Elemental Guard. Being a non-elemental spell, it broke through the guard and shot beyond it, piercing the knight as a pure form of energy and slamming into the wall behind him, creating a small crater. The beam held steady for a good 5 seconds before destabilising and bursting outward in all directions in a blinding flash. Once the light faded, Darith saw the kneeling knight had a giant gaping hole in his chest where the beam had hit. He collapsed down towards the ground, his health dropping extremely fast.

He felt a moment of relief. Finally something had worked, he was able to take one of the 7 out, until a sudden green flash of light shot out from one of the other Knights. The green light hit the dying knight and surrounded him with life magic, closing the hole in his chest and restoring his health back to full. The damage to his armor and gear remained, but he himself fully recovered.

A sense of helplessness and despair crept back into Darith’s mind. Is this even possible to win? As he was thinking this, a stream of the stray chain lightning shot directly towards him, forcing him to pull the mother down to the ground again with him to avoid it. He looked to her to see she was barely conscious, her eyes sunken in and her breathing sporadic.

“Run, Nara, escape by yourself. Please.” She pleaded to Darith before coughing up blood. He hesitated after learning the girls name. The quest only said to survive, but he had this uncontrollable urge to keep this woman alive with him. He could feel the emotions of Nara mixing in with his own.

It was frustrating. He had so much power, way more than he could imagine, yet he couldn’t do anything with it. The sound of the earth rumbling behind him continued. The upheaval spell ran rampant, the chain lightning bounced around. He turned to see the knight with broken armor rushing towards them once more.

The Needle Claw Queen regained its composure, now cut off from the other knights by the rising pillars of earth, it turned towards the knight charging at Darith and the mother. His blue-silver shield still in tact, he lifted it just in time to block one of the claws of the creature.

This was his chance. If he could avoid the wild magic, he could get further into the tunnel. He stood up one more time, pulling the mother up to her feet and dragged her along. The tunnel was now in sight, the other knights were cut off by Upheaval, desperately trying to dispel the Chain lightning that kept bouncing around.

He saw the slope leading down to the Darklight Caverns. A thought crossed his mind, if this was in the past, perhaps some Avistion Conjuration students would be down there and could help him. He could get to the academy through the tunnels. The path to victory began to show itself, until he felt a sudden force thrust him from the side, knocking him down off of his feet.

It was the mother that had pushed him, knocking him out of the way. He turned to see her staring at him, her back illuminated by the bouncing chain lightning. Sticking out of the middle of her chest was a long 2 meter needle, and seconds later her body was lifted off the ground from the Needle Claw Queen’s tail that had pierced her chest, killing her.

Darith froze. Nara froze. Was that it? Just like that? Quest failed? He sat on the ground of the cave, watching as the Needle Claw Queen pulled back from the knight and curled its tail down over its mouth, opening it and dropping the lifeless body of Nara’s mother inside. Darith’s vision blurred.

He was standing next to Nara, watching her on the ground. On the opposite side appeared Nara’s ghost, flanking the living Nara and watching her blank expression as looked towards the Knights fighting the Needle Claw Queen.

“I thought it was my fault.” The ghost spoke, as suddenly time slowed down around them. Cracks of varying colors began to form around the living Nara, growing outward from her in random directions as enormous amounts of mana was released from her. “I thought maybe if I had done something differently, I could have escaped with my mother. If perhaps I controlled the power I was given better, the outcome would be different. I see now, after putting you in the same position as me, that the outcome was the same.” The ghost Nara spoke as the cracks around the cave continued to grow. “In the end, the truth is that it was hopeless. The world just isn’t a fair place.”

“No, let me try again! I can get her out of there!” Darith shouted back at the ghost.

“It’s okay. I have lived this scenario out endlessly for the past 50 years, No matter what I have tried, it always ends the same. You made it further than I had. You have helped in showing me that there was just no way. What happened was destined to happen. I can move on with no regrets.” Nara replied. “Do you feel it?” She asked as she stepped closer, turning to look at her living form. Darith looked to the ghost Nara, then looked at the living Nara sitting amongst the growing cracks.

“Powerlessness…” Darith replied to her. “But you aren’t dead, you survived? You are still alive somewhere?”

“No.” Nara said bluntly. The ghost disappeared and time sped back up. The cracks expanded wildly in all directions, the cavern began to shake violently and more and more mana released from the young Nara, first in the form of many elements, but then the mana went pitch black, releasing as large pulsing shockwaves. The energy sliced the Needle Claw Queen in half, the knights as well, but some managed to flee including the leader.

Darith’s vision blurred, he was now floating high in the sky, looking down at the city of Avistion. He could see, even from so high up, the black shockwaves being released from Nara. They caused tremors, fires, and storms in the lands around Avistion, the ground itself began to crack in places. Nara’s ghost appeared beside him, looking down as well.

“In my anger, I released all of my mana at once. It caused a chain reaction that ignited all other natural magic nearby, like pouring a stream of oil onto a flame, the reaction spread outward, causing the magic in the realm to act wildly. It broke the realm apart and shattered the minds of those who lived in it, creating the tears and mutating the creatures within to unseen aberrations.”

“This was… this is the Realm Breaking Incident.” Darith spoke, and his vision blurred. He re-appeared in the cavern. He was back in his Nemothyne body wielding his Black Iron Needle Spear.

Quest Complete!

He got a notification, but nothing else. Instead, standing before him was the ghost of Nara and the ghost of Nara’s mother. Both of them had red circles above their heads, signalling they each had a quest. They smiled at him expectantly, holding out their left hands. He hesitated, his mind finally calming down as he regained his Gamer’s mind passive. He double checked to make sure all of his stats and spells were back to normal, then reached out and touched Nara’s hand first.

Quest: Choose the path of the Realm Breaker

Requirement: Defeat 1 or more players. Defeated players must have obtained a class to count towards completion.

Objective: 1/1 Players with a class defeated

Reward: [Class: Realm Breaker](?)

Restriction: Only one Realm Breaker can exist at a time.

Unable to Accept this Quest.(?)

Realm Breaker

Experience Bonus: 0

Effect Bonus: 0

Bonus: Gain 1% Experience bonus and 1% Effect bonus to all spells and skills for each player you defeat. Defeated players must have obtained a class to count towards this bonus. Defeated players that are 15 or more levels higher than you at the time of defeat grant 2% Experience and 2% Effect instead.

Bonus 2: For every 25 players defeated you may choose a class bonus to add to your own. The bonus will not activate unless you meet the requirements of that class. Defeated players must have obtained a class to count towards this bonus.

Current Bonuses: 0

Note: Defeating a player with the Realm Protector class will upgrade this class to Realm Destroyer.

(?)Info: You are unable to accept this quest because a different player has already obtained this class through another method.

Darith read the information on the class, then the information on why he couldn’t accept the quest. He got excited and disappointed at the same time, knowing someone else in this game had already taken it. He had no choice but to walk towards Nara’s mother and take her hand instead.

Quest: Choose the path of the Realm Protector

Requirement: Must have defeated 0 innocent players. Defeat 1 or more Boss Rank Enemy. Boss Rank Enemy must not be more than 5 levels below the player at the time of their defeat to count towards completion.

Objective: 1/1 Boss Rank Enemy Defeated

Reward: [Class: Realm Protector](?)

Restriction: Only one Realm Protector can exist at a time.

Accept(x) Decline(x)

Realm Protector

Experience Bonus: 0

Effect Bonus: 0

Bonus: Gain 1% Experience bonus and 1% Effect bonus to all spells and skills for each Unique Boss Rank Enemy you defeat. Defeated Boss Rank Monsters must not be more than 5 levels below the player at the time of their defeat to count towards this bonus. Raid Boss Rank Enemies contribute 2% Experience and 2% Effect instead.

Bonus 2: For every 25 Unique Boss Rank Monsters defeated you may choose a class bonus to add to your own. The bonus will not activate unless you meet the requirements of that class. Defeated Boss Rank Monsters must not be more than 5 levels below the player at the time of their defeat to count towards this bonus.

Current Bonuses: 0

Note: Defeating a player with the Realm Breaker class will upgrade this class to Realm Guardian.

“Kenneth was right. When you see the right class for you…” Darith said to himself as he hit accept.

Class Chosen: You have Chosen the Class: Realm Protector.

Info: You have the option to hide your Class from other players. Players with a high enough Scholar Mastery rank will still be able to identify your class.

Class: Realm Protector

Boss Rank Enemies Slain: 2

Raid Boss Rank Enemies Slain: 1

Experience Bonus: 4% (All Spells and Skills)

Effect Bonus: 4% (All Spells and Skills)

Once he took the quest, he read over the other notifications and made sure he understood it all. He was happy to see the bonus was retroactive, but 4% wasn’t much. Before he could think about it, a new quest icon appeared above Nara’s head, another red quest.

Quest: Discover the identity of the knights that ambushed and killed Nara and her mother, and destroy every last one of them.

Objective: 0/1 Nara’s Revenge Achieved

Reward: ??

Penalty: Abandoning the quest will make this quest permanently unavailable to you.

Accept(x) Decline(x)

“With pleasure.” Darith hit the accept button, simultaneously getting one last notification.

Quest Accepted!

Gate Key Obtained: Darklight Key

Darklight Caverns Upper: 22-35 (Dungeon)

Darklight Caverns Lower: 55-82 (Dungeon)

Seconds later, both the ghost of Nara and her mother dissipated, leaving Darith alone in the cave. He double checked his surroundings to make sure he hadn’t missed anything before using his return spell, and 10 seconds later he re-appeared in the living room of his house where his mom was waiting for him. She jumped up off the couch and ran to Darith, giving him a big hug.

“Thank goodness, you’re okay?” She asked worriedly while squeezing him tight.

“I’m.. mom... please... I need to eat something that isn’t centipede meat!” Darith pleaded.