As the Virus Hunter began to degrade into nothingness, Arachnaerok used her powers to yeet the being high into the sky before knocking it even higher with a mix of magic, psionics, and even some hyper-focused sonic screams. Eventually, the Virus Hunter’s vessel could not continue existing, and the creature exploded in a brilliant white light that could be seen even from a very long distance away.

This battle ultimately began with a nuclear bomb-like explosion, saw the second round begin with one as well and it ended with an explosion that would make Starfish Prime proud. As the dust settled and the new ruler of the former Republic took her time to undo all the damage (or at least some of the damage) caused by the Virus Hunter, she came to a startling and horrifying realization.

In her haste to fight the being that had initially driven her into a corner, her act of punching her way out of the underground pocket had caused one hell of a big kaboom. It was an explosion so massive and powerful that she understood that it would be impossible for Vaile to have survived it, and the realization that she may well have killed him was not something she felt good about.

However, as the newest addition to this world’s growing menagerie of deities forcibly calmed herself down, she realized that she did still feel that telltale sensation of being somewhat connected to Vaile. She had known what the lack of such a connection felt like, as she had existed in this new world for quite a while without him being around, as had so many others. But, after even a few short years of feeling that ambient connection, she knew the difference between its presence and absence.

She couldn’t tell where he was, only that his connection was faint. Whether that meant that he was near death, in some kind of other plane connected to the rest of the new world, or whether he was just very, very far away was something that she could not determine. However, she knew that he was alive, and, knowing him, even if he was on death’s door, he would still somehow find a way to come back just as strong if not stronger than ever. Besides, she had to admit that he had an absurdly volatile bit of luck. And, if he was in some kind of danger caused by other people, his potions and natural charm would likely see him through any danger.

She wasn’t worried anymore and now needed to focus on rebuilding the broken Republic into something more in line with her style. Anyone born here would immediately be hers from now on, but she did take Vaile’s lessons to heart. After all, as Vaile had said, “The best tasting meat is one whose former body was treated with the utmost love and luxury. There is a reason why Wagyu Beef is so damn good, after all.”

And despite saying that, Vaile had sworn that he wasn't a cannibal. It must have been... what did they call it? A Metaphor?

…

Vaile groaned as he lay on the ground, or more specifically, a cobblestone road. When he saw Arachnaerok open her eyes, he knew then and there that he needed to pop that random teleportation, and the fact of the matter was that he had indeed escaped utter obliteration.

Well… mostly. The teleport had gone off just as the blast reached him, and while there was no such thing as radiation damage in the MMO, he wasn’t too sure about how much that was true in this new world. Thankfully, the old menu showed nothing had affected him more than giving him some nasty burns and removing a single arm.

And once again, the fact that this was a world partially built off of the rules of an MMO was something that he was insanely thankful for. Though he was missing his left arm, which had unfortunately been unconsciously raised to shield him and thus took a decent bit of damage before the teleport kicked in, he could already see the stump beginning to regrow into a full arm. Plus, his clothes were remaking themselves alongside the regeneration of his missing limb, showing fully that the auto-repair option was one of the best things you could ever put on a bit of kit.

Still, he had popped into this place around a meter off of the ground and the force of the blast must have shot him through the teleport at a faster speed. He had no clue how that worked out, but it was the only thing he could think of as to why he had been essentially thrown back-first via teleportation at a cobblestone road. He was still very sore, and as such he decided to lay where he was and wait for the pain to go away.

Despite the annoying injury, he managed to open his eyes and look skyward. At first, he was glad that his eyes had only received the ‘Blindness’ debuff for a few minutes, but now he wasn’t exactly sure whether there was a lingering effect or if he had somehow found himself in upstate New England during some inclement weather. The sky was cloudy, dreary and there seemed to somehow be a light fog that was hanging just above the tops of the buildings around him.

Now, even a man who’s never seen fog outside of a movie will tell you that, more often than not, fog doesn’t just stay above things at a perfectly stable point. In fact, Vaile was fairly certain that the fog should, by all known laws of meteorology, be all around him right now and not merely kept at a near-perfect horizontal plane just a few meters above the rooftops.

He was getting a bad feeling about this place, and all the previous times that he had such a feeling were times when sit went downhill and went downhill fast. With that gut feeling urging him to move, he picked himself up off of the road and limped his way to the side of the street while chugging potions like a Kyle chugged Monster Energy or a stereotypical gamer from the 2010s chugged Mountain Dew. He eventually found a door along the side of the road that was unlocked and, hoping to all things that he wasn’t about to stumble into some nasty situation or be arrested for Trespassing or Breaking and Entering, he opened it and managed to get inside and then shut the door behind him.

As soon as he had done so, his gut screamed at him to get down and out of the doorway, and he followed that command to the best of his ability, essentially falling behind a corner and using his right arm and hand to pull a few discarded bits of clothing over him. Soon after he had covered himself, he heard the door open and slam against the wall as it was pushed open with extreme force. After that, he heard the sound of multiple sets of feet slowly walk around before they all stopped at once and then walked out of the building, closing the door loudly behind them.

Vaile continued to hide under the clothing until his arm fully regenerated, but as he did, he swore that he could smell the scent of a salty sea breeze along with the fog that was now rolling down from above and into the building. And, as if he was being driven crazy in the darkness under the clothing, he swore that he saw what seemed to be some kind of weird dog-like creature’s muzzle pop into existence within the pile along with him for less than a blink of an eye, slightly disturbing the pile and giving him a really, really bad case of the willies.