The battle lines were drawn and set. Four years of gaming had led players to this event. Thousands of quests and preparations were complete. Countless monsters slaughtered and loot spent. From above a bird would be able to see for two leagues with no gap in the forces. Red against blue, the kingdom of Reckett and the clans of Treageia were sent to fight each other.

Even higher if one could see the world as one looks at a map splayed out in front of them several massive events were taking place the world over.

Near the center Reckett and Treageia while far to the east the Holy cities of Racsha was surrounded by thousands of massive warships from the Pirate Isles.

To the west the Draken Empire with their flying city islands flew alongside mountain peaks stretching skyward.

The south held The Dread Legions facing the Cursed of the Wastes. All these worldwide events led to the gathering of armies and players.

Millions of players sought out the conflict of their choice be it from the area or quests. Almost every player that had started a character in the game was currently playing.

“Charge!”

Serion ran alongside his mage group led by knights towards the opposing forces. Fireballs and other magic’s raced overhead to the enemy side slamming into large bubbles and shields of magic, their own side received quite a few attacks as well.

Early attacks easily blocked by the huge amount of mana currently available but later on as the mages fell they would start to leak through causing massive amounts of damage. He knew it was really a battle of endurance.

Above a faint blue dome followed their group. As they neared the opposing forces arrows started falling with greater regularity and many were blocked by small magic shields but a few of his group’s mages took some hits. The healers quickly cast spells dissolving the invasive weapons and fixing any lasting damage.

Ahead the front lines slammed into each other, both sides pushing and shoving. The lines lost all cohesion in the sudden melee and some were able to push forward. Figures fell below the rush and disappeared to be replaced by others only too eager to get within striking distance.

Artillery would hit groups of warriors suddenly creating a gap that would be filled in seconds. Serion had never seen anything like it except in movies and he was exhilarated to be a part of it.

“Halt here! Shield dome then rebuff, don’t forget the knights. Then spot and target enemy players.”

He quickly cast the two rebuffs he had on the group, Arcane Guidance which gave slightly better mana regen that stacked with other spells and Arcane Might a magic attack boost to casters. Several spy orbs appeared above them. It would tell any players nearby that squishy mages were to be found here but it also let them see the battlefield at a new angle.

“There’s one!” “Another over there.” “We have a group to our right.”

The group started casting spells, arcane bolts, magic missiles, and elemental attacks raced out and struck the few lone players in the sea of NPCs.

“Haha guildless bastards. That group on the right, concentrate attacks.”

His near two dozen party sent out enough magical attacks to quickly overwhelm the shields of a 5 man strong mage group past the enemy frontlines. Serion cast Shadow Tendrils which wrapped around the groups lone priest interrupting whatever spell he was casting and several magic missiles smashed into him and a bone spear suddenly took his head off.

“Got the kill!” yelled Morthius his fellow guild necromancer. “Corpse go boom!”

The priest’s body exploded taking out two more of the group. The last two fell to the combined magical assault.

“Disengage that group, we got them all.”

He stopped watching the group when they arose and started hurling spells into the nearby NPCs. Morthius gave him a big grin. One of their group’s Aeromancers was hovering above them probably looking for new targets. An arrow ripped through the bubble that surrounded them all and nailed him in the face, he dropped like a puppet with its string cut.

“Ranged assassin, enchanted arrows. Max that shield! We need a priest.”

“Brings a new meaning to aeromancers, get it hahaha?” joked Natas the guilds sole priest as she started casting a resurrection spell. She stood there for a moment looking confused and then she bent down and touched the corpse.

“I can’t bring him back. There’s no target.”

 “What do you mean? He just died. There should be no corpse decay yet. What does the prompt say?”

“It was there a second ago but faded out, it said no target and now I don’t see anything. It doesn’t say anything now.”

Serion had a few corpse based spells. He selected Shadow Puppet and targeted…nothing. The corpse at his feet was not being targeted. It wasn’t telling him anything in his sight, strange.

He selected Arcane Blast an AoE (area of effect) spell and looked in the distance but didn’t see a circle of enemies that would be in the affected area, the figures should glow faintly so he knew who would be hit. Of all the times for the servers to lag, he really hoped it didn’t crash. It had never happened in this game but this was the largest ever event so some glitching was understandable.

“Serion, look at that.” Natas pointed in the distance. The city ruins near the pitched armies had a blue shaft into the heavens.

“What the hell is going on? Who is casting that? I’m not getting any prompts. Our side or theirs?”

The silence more than anything got his notice. Looking around both sides were staring at the light. At the very front soldiers eyed each other and kept glancing at the beam, neither side had any idea what was going on. The beam grew in size and strength. It was like looking into the sun.

The ground started to shake and he could hear panicked shouts and questions. Suddenly the spell exploded outwards. Serion’s last thought was how could these sword swingers make an atomic bomb?