Still looking at the sky, he spotted a large, shadowy form passing in front of the moon.

"What was that?" Robyn asked.

So William hadn't just imagined it.

"Look, there it is!" Sid said, pointing.

William spun around and spotted it again for a brief moment before it dipped down into the trees. It looked to be round and bulbous, like a Demon Eye.

But there was no way it could appear that big without being close enough to be visible in the torchlight.

That meant... it was really big.

That was when it crashed through his wall.

Bricks and planks flew everywhere as an immense, bulging eyeball shot forward. Its iris was a deep blue, its pupil a dark mauve. Bulging veins of blood ran across its sides towards its back, where like the smaller Demon Eyes they were used to seeing, patches of blood flung off from its retina.

A label popped up on it. 'Eye of Cthulhu: 3640/3640'

It had over three thousand life.

They were doomed.

The Eye slammed into William and then Sid behind him, knocking both of them over like bowling pins. William took 29 damage, leaving him with 17 life.

"William, use the Nurse!" Robyn cried, getting out her bow. He noticed she'd upgraded it to an iron one. "I'll go fight that thing!"

He ran inside. Since it was night-time, all of the citizens had gone to sit or stand in their respective rooms. He ran past Gilbert the Merchant and into the Nurse's room.

Looking at her label, he saw her name was Emily. "Can you heal me?" he asked.

She cocked her head, then splayed out both arms. "Dear friends, we are gathered here today to bid farewell..." she dropped her arms. "Oh, you'll be fine."

He smiled. "Okay, then fix me up!" He thrust out his hand, expecting it to open up her shopping interface like with the Merchant. He saw one option – that getting healed would cost 80 copper.

He did it, and felt all the pain in his wounded body instantly subside.

"I managed to sew your face back on," the Nurse said. "Be more careful next time."

Sarcastic sense of humour. Nice.

"Thank you," he said, before dashing outside.

He saw Robyn was running along the wall, shooting arrows at the Eye. They appeared to have been tipped with flames, lighting up the sky and setting the Eye on fire. Tiny little number 1's constantly emanated from it as the fire burnt it, but overall it was barely making a scratch. The Eye still had over 3000 life.

Sid was throwing his Ice Boomerang at the Eye, and his purple fluff-ball-summons were chasing the Eye along the ground, jumping at it, but for the most part the Eye was flying too high for them to reach.

William looked down at his own Silver Broadsword and realised he was going to have the same problem. He didn't have a ranged weapon of his own for the Eye.

"William!" Sid called.

He spun to him just in time to see his icy boomerang flying towards him. But it wasn't spinning – it had just been dropped in item form.

Sid was giving him his boomerang.

William snatched it up. "Thanks!" he yelled.

"No problem! Just help us take it down!"

William took a quick look at the Ice Boomerang's label – it dealt a whopping 16 melee damage. Way more than his Silver Broadsword.

He threw the boomerang at the eye. It struck it in the cornea and spun back into his hand, and he threw it again.

Sid ran for the Eye and drew a sword of his own. He jumped up, and using his double-jump he was able to slice into the Eye's side.

"Attack me, monster!" he shouted.

He got his wish – the Eye charged for him, but that proved to be a mistake. On the Eye's part. Once the Eye got close enough to the ground the two purple summons jumped up and bit at it with their... noses? Beaks? Whatever they did, they dealt a decent amount of damage to the Eye, more orange numbers than William could count flashing up.

The Eye flew back up and began shooting smaller eyes from its iris. One flew towards William – he had a split second to notice its label – 'Servant of Cthulhu: 12/12'. A throw of his boomerang hit it out of the sky.

The Eye made another charge, this time at Robyn. To his horror, she wasn't able to get out of the way in time, and got knocked off the wall, landing on the outside.

"Robyn!" William cried. He ran for the wall, bringing his copper pickaxe through the wood layer, then the stone layer. On the other side he saw Robyn was trying to place torches to light up the area while dodging the miniature Servants of Cthulhu.

William ran towards her and began slashing the Servants out of the air with his broadsword.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said as she continued to shoot arrows into the Eye. William turned to throw his boomerang in the same direction, noting that it was about to get put down to 2400 life.

But that was when the Eye stopped suddenly and began spinning around in mid-air. With an ear-splitting roar, the iris and pupil were shed from its face, revealing an open maw lined with razor-sharp teeth. Four or five Servants flew from its mouth as it transformed, which barrelled towards William and Robyn.

"Eeeek!" Robyn screamed.

William sliced the Servants out of the air. One managed to hit him, dealing 24 damage, but that same one also dropped a red heart upon being sliced in half. The heart flew into William like an item, but instead of being added to his inventory it healed him for 20 life.

Uh... thanks?

The Eye pointed itself at them and charged forward, roaring again as it did so. William and Robyn jumped out of the way and ran back towards Sid.

"It's got some sort of second phase!" Sid cried. "Be careful!"

Right as he said that the Eye suddenly shot forward much faster than it had before, additionally roaring at a much higher pitch. It slammed through William and Robyn, damaging them by about a third of their life.

The three of them continued to keep fighting the Eye in the night. William and Robyn had to use the Nurse twice each during the fight due to the Eye's frantic dashes hitting them too many times, while Sid, who had more life, tried his best to keep the Eye focussed on him. The Eye was soon almost continuously dashing frantically, moving so fast Robyn could barely hit it with her bow, and it didn't help when Sid's summons got distracted by a random zombie that had wandered over to where they were fighting.

This was the longest fight William had ever been in, and he'd even stopped looking at how much life it was on, his mind on two things only – throw his boomerang at it and make sure it didn't crash into him.

But before too long, the Eye exploded into blood and slabs of retinal substance, Sid having dealt the killing blow with another double-jump-assisted sword strike. It additionally dropped a load of healing hearts, some sort of red-and-black item, and what looked like a shield but with its open mouth plastered onto the front. All the items rushed into Sid's inventory, as he had been closest.

William exhaled. He had never been in a fight that had boosted his adrenaline so much, not even when he'd encountered that skeleton in the underground. He was shocked they had all survived. The Eye had been the most powerful foe they had fought so far, coming from basically out of nowhere with little warning.

But they had done it.

They had defeated the Eye.

***

"You should have the Shield of Cthulhu, William," Sid said once they'd regrouped inside.

William stared at him. "Why?"

"Because I think you'll need it the most," he said, handing it to him. "You went into this battle with just a sword and no life crystals to your name. If you're going to be living out your knight-in-shining-armour fantasies, you're gonna need a shield."

William chuckled. "Thanks."

He held it up and inspected it. It read that it could be used to dash into an enemy, which dealt 30 damage. On first trying it he crashed straight into the opposite wall of the room – he'd grossly underestimated how far the shield would let him dash. The impact didn't hurt like it would in the real world – only getting hit by an enemy seemed to hurt in this world.

If I'd had this when facing that skeleton, I might not have needed to drink a Recall Potion! he thought with a smile.

Sid chuckled and stood up from his seat. "I might as well depart for greater adventures," he said. "You can keep the boomerang too – you used it very well."

William stared at him for a moment before shaking his head.

"I'd like you to stay, Sid. After we took down the Eye, I... had an epiphany. It's that... we're never going to be safe anywhere. The Eye tore through the wall like it was nothing. And I feel like... we're only at the beginning. Stronger beings will come after us.

"The only way we were able to take down the Eye was because the three of us all worked together." William gestured to Sid and Robyn, then looked directly into Sid's brown eyes. "You were right, Sid. Holing up in the fort until the end of time isn't the way to go. We will have to go into the great big world out there, in order to become stronger, so we can defeat anything else that comes after us."

Sid smiled and extended his hand.

"Stronger forever?"

William took it. "Stronger forever."