Seven moved into action the moment she heard the voice of Archy’s cousin booming through the cavern. The enemy players and knight of Magnolia both charged towards each other. The enemy players were handpicked by Attracting and each was a famous individual that was or could be compared to a professional gamer.

But the enemy was completely outnumbered.

Seven charged forward with a few of the knights in front of her and focused on the battlefield. She saw Roxxy and Spark Joy travelling forward to the front lines near the boss with the majority of the knights. The moment the knights began to swarm around the monster the enemy players let out cries and made them move.

Then she saw them scatter across the field.

The entire cavern writhed as the boss watched the fighting underneath it. The purple smog was blown away to reveal hundreds or tentacles crawling over the cavern’s walls and ceiling. Each was a black monstrosity that looked like it could crush a knight underneath its weight. The knights were completely unprepared as the tentacles rushed towards them with startling speed.

The tentacles began smashing into them with startling accuracy. Dozens of players were injured as they failed to dodge the first wave of tentacles and Seven barely dodged the one that went after her. Suddenly the players didn’t seem like the biggest threat in the room. The boss was clearly a destructive force worthy of its name all on its own, and the enemy players were cutting through her confused allies.

She wasn’t sure who to attack first.

Suddenly the boss cried out as one of the eyes covering its skin popped. The thing that had been an eye now dripped purple blood onto the ground as whatever had attacked it had done so with pinpoint accuracy.

‘The eyes.’

Archy’s arrows were sticking out of the eye socket and Seven realised that he had already figured out its weak spot. With a cry, it unleashed more tentacles. This time they were dodged more expertly by the knights as they were watching out for them. Seven didn’t even have to move as none of the tentacles came after her.

Seven wasn’t being targeted for some reason.

-86

-172(Critical hit!)

She fired magic attacks at its eyes. She would have to let the knights and her teammates destroy the enemy players. She needed to try and eliminate this main threat alongside Archy. She was suddenly greeted by black bolts that shot out of its eyes towards her. The attacks cruised through the air towards her and forced themselves directly into her stomach.

“Damn.” She just barely dodged the bolts and realised that every time she hit the eyes she would be met with retaliation.

But she was confident that she could dodge them. They weren’t as quick as Archy’s arrows or as precise as TidalWave’s sword strikes.

She continued to fire magic blast after magic blast as the tentacles flashed past her and struck at the knights. She could see that Colt’s Crew and even some Dark Horse members were cleaving through the knights like they were rabbits. Her own allies were engaging them in the frontlines, she could see ice erupting among the throngs of knights and a giant shield made of light appearing in front of Roxxy.

She would need to kill the Corruptor quickly and go and help them.

Unfortunately, Archie seemed to have stopped attacking it and when she turned her head she could briefly see him fighting against enemy players. It wasn’t for nothing. The tentacles seemed to have already slowed down and without all of its eyes to guide it the Corruptor’s accuracy was lowered.

She kept her aim steady as she popped eye after eye. She also kept watch for any enemies that would try and aim for her. She could see that all of her allies had been engaged in different battles but it looked like nobody had been sent to stop her yet.

Then something shone on the side of her vision.

She saw the gleam of a sword flashing in the air and jumped back, dodging the attack that had been aimed to slice her in half.

“Ah.”

She lifted her head and came face to face with a man in sparkling armour. The paladin that had attacked her was smiling gently as he saw that his surprise attack had been dodged. He seemed to think to himself for a second before lifting his sword.

“No matter how much I insisted.” The newcomer brought himself up and stood proudly before her, “That fool Attracting wouldn’t agree to send anyone to fight you. And now I’m all alone against an extremely skilled opponent.”

The player was surrounded by a bright golden light and his entire body seemed to move lighter than air as he stepped towards her. His sword gleamed with a sharp glint and she noticed that he exuded the confidence that only an expert would have.

“Nastin.” She greeted the paladin warmly.

He was someone that had treated her respect despite what Attracting said about her. She had even written a whole two pages on him in her monster journal. He faced her without a single shred of cockiness. That was why he was such a dangerous opponent. When he came to attack her he was going to do so with his full force and skill, without underestimating her for a second.

He was also incredibly strong.

‘This is going to be a problem.’ She jumped back further and eyed him warily.

The leader of Dark Horse walked up to her slowly, waiting for her to unleash her magic blasts. They had dueled only a few times but he knew she was a dangerous opponent that would be at an advantage if he was the one to attack first. Her retaliatory strikes were deadly. She was extremely skilled in close range fighting.

But so was he.

“They say the fights between highly-skilled opponents last seconds.” Nastin lifted his sword, “Let’s see if that’s true.”

He rushed towards her with his sword drawn and she tried to gain distance between them. His initial attack had allowed him to sneak up close to her. As a paladin, this was his playing field. He swiped at her with his sword and it glimmered dangerously with golden light.

She knew that the range of the attack was extending beyond the reach of the physical sword. She had almost perfected the combo of instantly attacking the moment she used her escape ability. She sent magic blast after magic blast at Nastin as she used her abilities to dodge his attack.

The sword aura was dangerous enough that she had to use her stone shift twice to gain distance and both retaliation shots were blocked by Nastin as he sliced them in half.

‘Suddenly people like TidalWave are appearing like hotcakes.’ She thought to herself glumly.

Nastin brought himself up to her side and stabbed his sword into her gut. Only to hit air as she sidestepped him and shot a magic blast into his chest. He smashed the edge of his sword through the magic and grimaced as he came dangerously close to missing.

-Blocked.

He immediately brought his sword around to follow up and she was forced to dodge back.

“Stone shift.”

She couldn’t keep this up. Her mana regenerated quickly but she would still need a few seconds to gain more abilities. If she used all her mana up in this fight she would either die to Nastin or to the next person to attack her.

The issue was that he seemed to be like a raging river. His form and body moved perfectly in sync with her movements and the air was covered in golden afterimages. The man’s attacks were flowing perfectly from one to another. If he was allowed to continue he wouldn’t give her any breaks and she would eventually fold under the pressure. He was by far the more skilled opponent in this match up. But only if she kept using her usual tactics.

She had to end this.

‘She will kill me at this rate. I have to end this.’

Nastin was having the same thoughts as Seven as he rushed towards her. He wasn’t going to give up his close-range advantage if he could help it. He swiped at her with a golden aura-infused attack.

She blasted him with magic while dodging, but he cut the magic in half with his sword. At the same time, he made sure that the sword attack would hit Seven. He couldn’t afford to let her escape by distracting him with attacks. She sent another blast into him and this time he sidestepped it, but because he was so close he’d left himself open. He realised his mistake and tried to stab at her before she could get off her attack.

“Stone shift.”

“Magic blast.”

-86

She dodged the sword and finally managed to land an attack.

Then instead of retreating back as he expected, she charged straight into him. She had already realised that she couldn’t win easily if she simply tried to outrun him.

“Wind blast.”

“Magic blast

-48

-Miss

His eyes widened as he was hit in the chest with the full force of her magic and was pushed back. Her magic blast would have ripped right into his chest but his dead body collapsed the moment her wind blast took the last bit of his health. Seven breathed a sigh of relief.

She had won.

She had also gained a red name from killing a player. But she would have to worry about that afterward.

She looked around the battlefield and realised that the tentacles had regained their vigor and were smashing into the knights with full force. It seemed that the boss was growing used to seeing with less eyes as the fight went on.

She began to fire magic blasts at the Corruptor sporadically. She still tried to pop the eyes but she wasn’t concentrating on only sending blasts constantly at it. There was nobody around to stop her but she needed to make sure her mana slowly regenerated. She took the chance to search around for anyone that needed help. She spotted IEatTortillas and TidalWave fighting close by and she immediately charged towards them.

But she didn’t interfere.

She instead chose to watch the other players observing the fight closely while firing at the Corruptor. She could see that assassin player, Colt, and another standing nearby and watching the fight patiently. Even the knights surrounding them didn’t try to take a stab at IEatTortillas. The fight was simply too high level. They all watched with awe as the two players fought.

Seven turned back to face the Corruptor and fired into its eyes. She had quickly gained back enough mana to fight for a while. She saw that Archy had already begun firing again into the eyes and suddenly she saw on her friend list that IEatTortillas had died.

She spun around only to find Colt and his ally facing TidalWave.

“Two on one?” TidalWave was trying to act confident but Seven had seen him use his abilities fighting against her friend.

He wasn’t in the right shape to fight two extremely skilled opponents at the same time.

“How about we make it two on two?” She jumped in and stood next to him.

“Seven?” The man she’d met, Colt, turned to his ally, “Attracting said she wasn’t anyone that mattered. Kill her.”

‘Damn it Andrew.’ She was starting to get really insulted by all these people being told behind her back that she was worthless.

Seven saw the figure behind Colt disappear into thin air and she smiled.

She had fought against Third enough times to know when someone was turning invisible. She stayed still next to TidalWave until she had counted enough time for the enemy opponent to reach her.

“Stone shift.”

She shifted out of the way as a player with a dagger in his hand swiped the empty air in front of her.

“Come play with me for a bit.” She said cheekily as the surprised enemy oriented himself.

She jumped back and soon she had already lost track of TidalWave.

Unfortunately, he would have to fight Colt on his own.

****

“KNIGHTS OF MAGNOLIA ATTACK.”

“Oh-my-god that shrimps voice is loud.” Roxxy smiled as the knights around her charged frantically into battle.

She had a single job to do, tank the enemy attacks and kill them in return. Even if none of her teammates joined her she was surrounded by the main force of knights as they swarmed towards the boss monster. There were a few enemy players guarding it and Attracting and they met the knights with full force.

She rushed as close as she could to the Corruptor. She had decided from the beginning that she would disrupt whatever Attracting was doing by stunning him. She just needed to get near enough to his body to do so.

She saw the enemy troops split up almost immediately. Some went after her teammates and others were grouped up to deal with the knights of Magnolia. She stayed with the main body of the knights and continued to move forward. She could see that not nearly enough players had been left to defend the stationary boss.

Then she saw why as the cavern’s smog lifted to reveal hundreds of wriggling monstrosities falling down towards them.

“Oh cra-” She swiftly lifted her shield as something big smashed into her from the side.

-42

‘Ah.’ She could see that it was a tentacle that had smacked into her.

It looked like the reason there was so little enemy players defending the boss was because it was a formidable foe on its own. It continued to send down tentacles and she could see some knights being thrown into the air and smashed into the ground. It was like fighting hundreds of enemies that were attacking from every angle.

Luckily she had managed to raise her shield in time to block some of the damage. She raised her head and saw that the ceiling and walls were filled to the brim with tentacles that wiggled and smashed against her allies. The knights scattered into smaller groups to deal with the boss and enemy players. The tentacles were attackable and could be fought off but the pressure was immense.

She tried to dodge them as wave after wave crashed into the knights around her. Most of the players were able to dodge the tentacles but the sheer number of them surrounding every speck of space meant that some of the knights were killed before being able to impact the battle.

Roxxy downed a potion to bring her up to full health and raised her shield to fire it at Attracting. She was close enough that she felt she couldn’t miss the player. He wasn’t even watching the fight as he closed his eyes and muttered something. It was probably a spell of some kind to help the monster.

Unfortunately, with all the tentacles in the air she couldn’t get a clear shot from so far away.

She made her way through the chaos of scrambling knights and found herself face to face with an ugly eye that stared directly at her. It was one of the Corruptor’s vital points. The creature had dozens of eyes across its body that were swivelling as they spotted players and sent tentacles after them.

“Shield throw.”

Instead of focusing on the eye she dodged another tentacle and threw the shield straight up so that it would smack straight into Attracting’s pretty little face. She jumped back from the rest of the tentacles as she was suddenly defenceless without her shield. She would need to wait a few seconds for it to come back down to her. She lifted her sword and took at a swipe as she watched her shield near Attracting.

“Ice barrier.”

Roxxy grimaced as her shield was suddenly blocked off by ice only a meter away from the priest. The buckler fell down into her hand and she eyed her surroundings warily.

She recognised that defensive spell.

Suddenly she spotted the intruder. Killing the knights around them were six players defending Attracting with their lives. She didn’t recognise most of them but there were two major threats that seemed to be shrugging off the knights with ease.

“Oh-oh-oh, Glacier and Blastar.”

“Roxxy.” The wizard of ice greeted her warmly, “I thought that was your shield.”

They’d had a lot of fun fighting against each other in the arena earlier in the day. It was due to those fights that Roxxy knew she was an extremely dangerous opponent. The ice mage dealt more damage than Roxxy and her ‘ice age’ magic was a wide-area attack that deals tons of damage and slows people down. She was a direct counter to Roxxy who had low damage and was meant to absorb attacks on purpose. She had fought against Blastar only once but the paladin had simply out damaged her. He could also heal himself.

She couldn’t win against both of them.

“Knights!” She called around her to the rabble of players that were spreading themselves thin due to the tentacles, “Fight those six bastards!”

The knights gave a cheer as someone finally decided to tell them what to do.

Roxxy didn’t know where Leo was but his loud voice clearly wasn’t being used to lead his troops right now. She pointed at the six players and the knights swarmed together to fight them. There were still hundreds of knights across the battlefield but all of them were spread out into big groups that were either fighting tentacles or defending against the skilled enemy players that flitted in and out of fights.

The moment she shouted at the knights the enemy team sprung into action. The four unknown players began to spread out across the tentacles and bobbed through the boss’s and knight’s forces alike, scattering them into groups that chased after each individual player. Glacier and Blastar stuck together as they struck down the knights around them. With the support of the boss, it was as though they were untouchable.

“Ice ag-”

“Shield throw!”

Roxxy interrupted the ice wizard as she tried to use her most damaging attack on the forces that surrounded her. By stunning the enemy player she would cancel the attack and force it into a cooldown period. But then Blastar used his sword to smack the shield out of Glacier’s way and caused it to fly back to Roxxy as he was stunned.

“-e.”

Glacier finished her spell and smiled as the knights around her froze. Some died from the damage let off by the attack but most were simply frozen into what seemed like statues. The extreme slowing only lasted a few seconds but in those few seconds dozens of tentacles crashed down onto them and Glacier and Blastar struck the rest down with ease.

“Crap.” Roxxy needed more help to take care of these guys.

She glanced at the knights that were around her. There were about a hundred or more knights on her side altogether. She had a definite number advantage when it came to the fight. The major issue she could see was that they had split off to fight each of the players that were guarding the Corruptor and Attracting.

And they were all getting their asses whooped.

The tentacles rained from all sides onto the knights and caused them massive amounts of damage. Grouped up as they were and so close to the monster’s eyes it was impossible for them to not be spotted and accurately attacked by the boss as it sat there.

She could see that unless something was done about the tentacles it didn’t matter how small the enemy’s numbers were they would be nearly untouchable.

-86

-86

-86

Roxxy breathed a sigh of relief as damage numbers appeared above the monster’s head. Seven had begun smashing magic into it like no tomorrow and was quickly destroying the eyes. The tentacles visibly seemed to grow confused as the magic hit more and more eyes and the boss lost sight of the knights.

“We can do this!” She shouted into the air.

The knights let out a resounding cheer in response as they crowded around her and followed her lead. With the boss confused the pressure on their forces eased immensely and she suddenly found herself able to reach the two Dark Horse players.

Somehow the knights had managed to kill one of the enemy players but three were left out of Colt’s Crew and Glacier and Blastar were nearly undamaged. Roxxy grimaced. Attracting certainly had a way of picking out skilled players. She doubted that these enemies were anywhere near the average level of skill compared to everyone else playing the game.

“Keep them divided!”

She rushed forward with the knights towards Glacier and Blastar. The three other players were besieged by knights and were forced back into their own group away for the Dark Horse members.

Roxxy found it was suddenly easier to move as Seven’s magic destroyed more eyes. The tentacles had slowed down and even the ones that swiped against the knights were doing so slowly and without the accuracy or ferocity with which they had first come down.

“Light’s guardian!”

The knights rallied as the tentacles began to slow and their attacks grew less concentrated. They smashed against Blastar’s sword and the paladin roared as he was forced to raise a gigantic shield made of light from the ground to block their onslaught. Roxxy suddenly felt that they could make a comeback.

But then suddenly she found that her cover fire was cut off.

“Looks like Nastin finally went to stop Seven himself.” Blastar grunted to Glacier, “He’s going to be in a bit of trouble. We need to go join him.”

They had both fought against Seven at least once and had recognised her skill.

“I don’t think so.” Roxxy said coldly as she appeared next to the paladin.

She had run around his shield as soon as she noticed Seven had stopped firing.

-36

The knights cheered as she went on the offensive but despite her courage, she was still a tank in the end. As long as the enemy was skilled enough to dodge her attacks and fend off the knights she couldn’t impact the outcome of the fight too greatly.

-25

-35

She found herself on the receiving end of Dark Horse’s attacks and she raised her shield to mitigate the damage. As long as they continued to attack her then the knights would get their chance. This was what she was built for.

Then she saw Glacier smile and point her staff towards the clambering knights, “Ice ag-”

“Sickle drag.”

Glacier’s spell was cut off as someone jumped up to her and wrapped her body in a chain, incapacitating her. The new player was holding a massive iron shield and dragged the wizard towards her.

“Spark Joy.” Roxxy practically squealed with glee, “It’s about time someone good showed up.”

“Hey Roxxy.” The iron guardian smashed her sickle against Glacier and dodged an icicle.

Blastar’s light shield also gave out and the knights moved forward as one, finally able to access the enemy players.

“Damn.” “Crap.” Glacier and Blastar suddenly frowned as they were overwhelmed.

Then they received a message that their team member, Nastin, had died. Roxxy and Spark Joy tunneled towards the two enemy players as Seven’s attacks began to rain back down on the Corruptor. Archy’s arrows also began popping eyes open again and suddenly the battle seemed to go back into their favour.

The knights were beginning to thin out in numbers now due to their initial damage and the constant boss attacks but with Spark Joy’s help they were taking back the initiative. Spark Joy led the charge as they struck the paladin of healing repeatedly. They tried to get to Glacier but she quickly recovered from their set back and pointed at the mass of knights surrounding Blastar.

“Ice age.”

“Shield throw.” Roxxy tried to counteract the wizard’s spell with her stun.

The shield flew towards Glacier but it was blocked by one of the three players belonging to Colt’s Crew that were killing knights around them. The three were putting in solid work by tag-teaming the remaining knights under the cover of the weakened tentacles. Despite her lack of knowledge about their abilities, she could see that they were skilled.

“Damn it.” Roxxy was having all her attacks blocked before they hit their key targets.

Glacier’s spell erupted from the ground around the knights and due to their low health most of them were wiped out in an instant. Roxxy joined Spark Joy just as the tank was slowed and she managed to dodge the ice age spell.

“Hold them back!” Roxxy directed the knights to the three Colt’s Crew players as she and Spark Joy moved on to Blastar and Glacier.

-36

-20

-36

They jointly attacked the weakened paladin and he tried to frantically block them. But there were too many knights now that the Corruptor was taking on both Archy and Seven’s attacks. Blastar had been damaged by the many attacks and his mana was depleted after the constant healing. The knights quickly made swift work of him and he fell to the ground, dead.

As they landed the few final blows to the paladin Roxxy lunged at Glacier with her sword drawn out.

“Ice barrier.” Glacier calmly erected her shield and defended against Roxxy’s attack, “Come help me.”

Roxxy suddenly found herself dodging icicles and daggers as Glacier was joined by the three other enemy players from Colt’s Crew. The knights followed Roxxy as they moved on from killing Blastar but they were still precious seconds away. Spark Joy was tanking more attacks than Roxxy due to the damage she’d taken when the ice age spell had slowed her. She was being targeted and as soon as she died so would Roxxy.

The enemy was just too fast for the knights to catch up to them in time.

“Icicle.” Glacier fired at Spark Joy and the tank faltered.

Every icicle was would slow the tank’s movement by an extra five percent to a maximum of fifteen. For the tanks, it was a deadly weapon that they needed to avoid at all costs. Now Spark Joy had been caught by it. She was quickly hit by another and she shifted her attention from surviving to killing Glacier.

-20

-20

The three Colt’s Crew members swiped at Spark Joy and Roxxy.

Spark Joy’s health had fallen to dangerous levels now. No matter how much health she had, she'd taken too much damage from the wizard’s spell and the combined attacks of the three other damage dealers. There was no way she was going to make it.

But she would kill Glacier before she left.

“Roxxy get out of here.”

Spark Joy smashed her way through the three attacking players and rushed in front of

“Sickle drag.” Spark Joy threw her sickle at the enemy player.

“Ice barr-” Glacier was about to throw up her protection spell around herself.

“Shield throw!”

When suddenly Roxxy’s shield smashed into her and she found herself stunned. Before she could react the sickle wrapped itself around her and incapacitated her further. She was dragged towards Spark Joy and the iron guardian threw herself into the air.

“Ground pound!” Spark Joy roared at Glacier and smashed the shield onto the heavily damaged wizard, at the same time she felt the attacks of the enemy players stabbing into her.

Glacier and Spark Joy’s bodies fell at the same time as the wizard and tank were killed.

“Retreat!” Roxxy called to the remaining knights.

She quickly picked up the items both players had dropped and then ran off as the Colt’s Crew players chased after her.

With Spark Joy and so many of the knights dead, she didn’t have any hope that they could beat the three remaining players and fend off against the boss at the same time. She watched some knights follow her as others chose instead to swarm at the players. They quickly died as they tried to overwhelm the three skilled enemies while being attacked by tentacles. There were probably only around forty allied players left by the time the onslaught was over.

She could see Archy and Third were free enough to attack the Corruptor, now she needed to get to them so that they could regroup and kill the remaining enemy players. The entire enemy force was weakened. But so were their forces. She turned around as she heard the Corruptor shriek as its final eye exploded, dealing massive damage to the creature.

Then she looked up and saw Attracting rise and lift his wand towards them all.

‘Oh shi-, I forgot about him.’

“SHADOW GROUP HEAL.”

And then a timer appeared on top of the remaining player’s heads.

5... 4… 3…

“Uh oh.”