43

Sacred Ground

As they passed through the forests, the midday sunlight warmed the air. Every so often, Rian saw familiar-looking creatures scampering between the trees, but he didn’t manage to inspect them in time. They almost looked like meina, but they were larger and taller, their fur sleeker.

Making their way toward Nostdal, the central city of Miracia, Rian wondered why they were walking normally. Kat had yet to cast Shadow Walk to speed things up travel-wise. When he asked, she explained that they weren’t Shadow Walking because they were in Overworld’s second layer now. Since they’d gone from level 20 all the way to 26 by sparring with each other and fighting in the Rift, they hadn’t encountered anything on the Overworld since then.

Now all the creatures had changed—from innocent and generally harmless to something a bit more aggressive. Using Shadow Walk, it was only a matter of time before a stronger, shadow-version of the mobs ran them down. They were significantly more dangerous, harder to avoid than before. Dying here in the area between towns meant they’d respawn back in the nearest town they’d been to—Elmguard. And then they’d have to start over.

Kat was pleased enough with the progress they’d made to take it slow for once. But after barely a minute of walking, a new creature stepped out in front of them.

It was almost twice as tall as a meina, standing more like a fox than a rabbit. When it emerged onto the footpath, there was almost something psychic about it, the way the wind stopped as it turned and locked its beady eyes upon them, its long ears trailing behind like ribbons. It shouldn’t have been as intimidating as it was, but the way everything else just seemed to stop was enough for Rian to take notice.

Meinakai (Level 24)

HP: 527/527

Difficulty: C (Uncommon)

“A beast of the Elmguard forests, formed of medium-density spirits. Watchful and intelligent, highly protective of its kin.”

It was a grown-up version of a meina. Not terribly frightening compared to everything they’d fought in the Rifts, but Rian didn’t let his guard down. Especially not anymore, after the battle with Altrexis.

Rian clenched his fists and felt electricity sweep through his gauntlets, a painless shock.

He and Kat made short work of it. Being at the upper-level range for the Overworld layer, with their new weapons they were attacking for over 300 damage per hit.

As they went further, a felling was thrashing its way through the forest—a much larger felling than the ones Rian remembered. It was almost half of an entire tree. The edges of its bark were rotting, and the tendrils suffusing its form were black and oozing, leaving behind a poisonous trail. In its grip were stray meina, squeaking in fear before the living tree consumed them whole.

Saporos (Level 25)

HP: 612/612

Difficulty: C+ (Uncommon)

“A decaying tree, bursting with poisonous sap and fungus reanimated by spirits of the forest.”

It was a bit more troublesome dealing with the extra armor that its bark provided, but Kat managed to land a square back-attack on it, critting for nearly a thousand damage. She downed it especially fast, as getting inflicted with poison wasn’t something they wanted to deal with right now.

In combat, Rian was a bit disappointed with his gauntlets. The low chance of the paralysis effect for the Electrified keyword was frustrating. But, as he learned, there were consumable items that could mitigate the randomness of it—luck potions that could re-roll or even guarantee the effect at least once. Almost every apparent problem in the game had a solution. It was just a matter of discovering the systems.

They were over-leveled enough for the fights to become routine once he saw the new creatures’ attack patterns at least once. As they made their way forward, Rian found his thoughts drifting. He couldn’t help but think about all that had happened in the Rift. About Decha, and what he’d said. Not his last words cut short, but before that.

I used the bonds.

Rian kept up his pace with Kat, falling into the rhythm of combat, glancing at times to the yellow EXP bar on his HUD as it crept forward. And yet the words kept echoing.

The bonds between the atoms of my body.

Rian froze, standing in place.

If Mirage’s System did go all the way down to the atoms, then there was no way it could just be a VR game. There was a point at which it stopped being a game and became a full-blown universe on its own.

And yet not a single other person he’d talked to in the guild seemed unnerved by it, the fidelity, the realism. The world-building. They’d always passed it off as being a quirk of the game, of the developers’ touch.

Maybe he was wrong to assume that Decha’s words were true, that he’d actually manipulated atomic bonds to generate energy for those barriers and that final, explosive punch. It could’ve just been an in-universe explanation for a simpler, underlying system of magic. But then why would Decha have explained it that way?

Am I really the only one noticing these things?

He glanced at Kat, who was already fighting the next creature in their path, nothing but determination in her gaze. He would’ve loved to ask her about it without him sounding like he was insane. Maybe now wasn’t the best time to drop a question like that out of nowhere.

Hey, so uh, I’m really starting to think we’re actually inside another universe instead of playing a video game. Got any advice for the mental breakdown I’m about to have?

He still wasn’t entirely convinced either way, but he found himself shifting back and forth between one stance and another more often the further he went. The reassurances he got from other players were holding up only until something else came along and made him question everything again.

To be fair, the chance of the game being a true, simulated universe was almost impossible from a rational standpoint. Rian couldn’t imagine the amount of information that would be involved. Simulating a universe to such a degree would take something like a-whole-nother universe just to store the data on everything.

And yet.

The quantum server. The processing power of such a thing, the extent of its reach. It was like a black hole. Something beyond which he couldn’t see. Something he couldn’t know until he stepped close enough to see it for himself. The technology wasn’t magic, but the limitations weren’t anything like a traditional computer.

He wanted to tell himself that he was over-rationalizing it, projecting an assumption onto an unknown to fit what he was observing, but…

What he was experiencing right now, the sunlight warming his skin, the breeze softly passing by him, ruffling his hair. The pull of gravity against his body. The strain of his muscles during combat maneuvers. The memories of fire and lightning and blood. It had all seemed so real. Everything operated as if there really was an underlying physical system that didn’t merely approximate reality.

But more than that—among all his memories of the game—what stood out most to him was the look of fear in Decha’s eyes. The pain he’d felt.

Rian couldn’t deny it: that he’d felt Decha’s pain, his fear. His hopes for a better life, for himself and others. Maybe it was just because Rian felt like he himself was actually here, playing the game from a first-person perspective. When it felt like everything was happening directly to him, he couldn’t distance himself from what was happening. If it weren’t for the nature of Miriad and the apparent state of things, the way everything was so self-aware, he couldn’t convince himself that it was just an act that the NPCs were putting on.

It didn’t truly matter if there were subtle differences between Mirage and reality. Because those feelings, those emotions in him—they were undoubtedly real.

Drawing him out of thought, a level-up chime sounded as Kat withdrew her ice-dagger from the remains of a giant, living boulder with hovering limbs of rock.

LEVEL UP! (Lv. 26→27)

…

“Grats,” Kat said.

“Same,” Rian said, noticing her level. She was already level 30 from all the experience in the Rift and all the creatures they’d slain along the way here. “Though I guess I’m a bit late on that one.”

They continued up the path, a slight incline ending at the top of a hill. Smiling, Kat sighed and looked out over the forest behind them, the drifting clouds, the blue sky.

“Ah,” she said. “Early game’s always so comfy. You having fun?”

The breeze ruffled her hair in a moment of serene beauty. With the forest sprawling to the horizon behind her, she looked sublime. Or, well, at least her avatar did. Her Vessel.

“For the most part,” Rian said, nodding, smiling.

“Well,” Kat said, turning, “it’s all upward from here.”

***

Ahead was Nostdal, a towering collection of white marble spires sitting among the plains beyond the forest. Encircling the city were stone walls atop which were statues placed at equidistant points along the circumference: the carved figures of Goam, Ezre, Altir, and Yindra looked onward.

Rian stared up at the all-gray statue of Yindra standing on the massive wall. It was the second time he’d ever seen her. Though he wasn’t sure at this distance, the statue looked as she’d appeared in his dream. Flowing clothes amid the shapes of jewelry, fingernails like claws, four tall horns rising from her head. She looked a bit like an older, taller, female version of Corvis. The other three statues looked relatively normal. Human.

Kat had continued ahead of Rian. The footpath ended a few steps further in a meadow that he recognized as the character-creation area from the beginning of the game. The mirror into which he’d looked was gone, but the tutorial NPC that Corvis had murdered was still here—not in the meadow but out beyond it, where a farm rested nearby. Chewing a stem of barley, the NPC was plowing a field in the sunlight, going about his day as if he hadn’t horribly died or anything.

“Looks like there’s a raid happening right now,” Kat said, drawing his attention forward.

Out on the plains ahead of the city, there was a clashing of players and creatures. As he and Kat approached to see around the walls of the city, a full-on battle emerged before them.

At first he’d thought it was the battle of Gorgheit all over again, and then he saw the sheer breadth of everything. There were at least two hundred players on one side, partying together in four-man groups and tearing through waves of monstrous creatures charging from out of the distant forest line. In the sky, airships cruised near Nostdal’s walls and rained cannon fire upon a gigantic, level 45 skeletal horse with tall and spindly legs. As it fell, crawling over it was a level 48 lizard-like creature the size of a house, hundreds of sanguine eyes peering out across its leathery skin, its body slithering forward on far-too-many limbs like a spider.

It was endless. All across the plains to the north was an ocean of horrific monsters screaming otherworldly cries as they charged toward the city. It was like the gates of Hell had opened somewhere out on the horizon.

They hadn’t stepped into an instance from what Rian could tell, and when he asked Kat, she clarified: it was happening on the Overworld itself.

“Happens about once a week to every major town,” she said. “It’s the Loyalists attempting to seize the city, and the players—or the Desecrators, in Loyalist terms—defending. We actually took out one of the major Loyalists in the Rifts, so Nostdal will be at a decent advantage now once they get to that phase.”

Altrexis, she’d meant. His defeat had helped the players as a whole. “That’s not…permanent, right?” Rian said. “Altrexis being dead?”

“Oh, no, of course not. He’ll respawn eventually, just like any other Loyalist that dies.”

Rian really didn’t want to deal with that guy again. Hopefully when he came back to life he wouldn’t personally try to hunt Rian down. Rian was already a bit paranoid about Torgo doing that to begin with.

Near the city walls, the players had maintained a line of defense. Swords cleaved through flesh. Arrows rained from the sky. Fire and lightning exploded amid the chaos. Tornadoes pulled creatures into the air only to impale them with spears of ice descending from miniature thunderheads. Gunslingers fired off dozens of bullets per second, reloading their revolvers so quickly that Rian could hardly see their hands move. Assassins hurled throwing stars, contributing their red critical numbers to the endlessly crashing tidal wave of orange and green numbers, damage and healing values.

There were even some classes that Rian had never heard of: Dragon Knights, swinging polearms and halberds with explosive effects, fire and lightning trailing behind their weapons. Mechanics, summoning hoards of machines to fight autonomously and envelope players in modular suits of armor to enhance their abilities.

They had to be the secret classes he’d heard hints of as far back as the first job advancement. Every class had a hidden fourth subclass.

Out on the battlefield, the fourth subclass of Fighters—a Kickboxer—stepped ahead of a party, crouched, and dashed. His feet erupted into fire that curled up his legs. Performing a Dash-cancel, he leaped through the air and lunged into a flaming kick. Midair, he hit a creature so hard that the explosion was almost as massive and bright as one of Decha’s Summonings.

It was so cool that Rian almost reconsidered his choice of subclass.

When he watched the incoming waves of creatures, he saw that there were even players fighting on the Loyalist side—attacking the city, defending the mobs, and dueling other players. As odd as it seemed, it was usually for money, Kat explained, as Loyalists could hire players as mercenaries to fight for them during the raid. There were plenty of NPCs assisting the players, after all.

Hearing that was a relief, as it meant whatever the hell Corvis and Yindra were doing to him was at least somewhat normal within the game. He wasn’t some kind of special, covert link between the two sides. Or so he hoped.

As creature after creature was killed, they dissolved completely into mist, leaving nothing but a rising, vanishing haze. Rian glanced up. Atop the wall of the city was a massive, hovering text window that displayed the number of slain creatures: it was rapidly ticking up from the mid-2000s.

Standing before the larger display, atop the ramparts and with her arms crossed was an NPC wearing a military uniform, a cape, and an officer’s peaked cap. She had at least a dozen other windows open, apparently sending out messages to various parties across the battlefield.

Yang-Li

Level 40 (Asc. 100)

General (NPC)

Alignment: Nostdal

Companionship Level: 0 (Indifferent)

Difficulty: A+ (Legendary)

HP: 7052/7052

…

Atop the wall, she was far away as hell, but her information window appeared close enough for Rian to read.

“That’s the head-honcho NPC for the whole game,” Kat said. Distant shouts and explosions crowded the air for a moment. “If she dies, then the raid defense is usually forgone, so she doesn’t step in until necessary.”

It all looked eerily similar to the battle of Gorgheit, however long in the past it had truly been. “But this isn’t happening in an instance, right?” he said, the thought taking him aback. “It’s the Overworld. What happens if the players lose? How do they reset everything?”

Kat pointed to the sky. “The GMs step in. It’s pretty rare for the raid to go that badly, though. You don’t see it that often.”

“If you lose,” Corvis said out of nowhere, almost making Rian jump, “then your gods descend from the sky and put everything back into place. They right the pieces to let it all happen again. And so the play continues.” He stepped out from behind Kat as if he’d always been there, just out of view. “Deus ex machina.”

“Ah, that figures,” Rian said, pretending to ignore Corvis. “I can’t imagine a major city getting destroyed would go over very well with the player base.”

“Oh, no,” Kat said, “the Loyalists just want control of it. The city can’t be destroyed. Did you forget about nullshards?”

“Oh. Maybe.” Rian scratched the back of his head. There were nullshards installed at the center of every city, though it was probably more accurate to say that the cities were built around nullshards. The major areas couldn’t be destroyed.

That wasn’t considering the fact, however, that most Loyalists seemed to have some form of nullshard weapon that could ignore the field that prevented damage. Corvis had one, and so had Altrexis. Maybe it wasn’t city-destroying levels of power that they were carrying, but it would be enough to cause at least some harm.

Rian couldn’t imagine how much it would disrupt things if the Loyalists won in a situation like this, taking control of a city or major town, and depriving players of access to entire parts of the game. It was almost unthinkable. But it was also kind of odd to think that the GMs had to personally step in to reset everything. He would’ve thought that the System could handle something like that automatically.

As he watched the carnage of the raid continue, it made him wonder: what was keeping players from sitting inside the city and throwing stuff at invading forces all day long? They could just set up some ballistas and catapults, maybe a refurbished Pyceian laser cannon or two, and just snipe whoever the hell thought they were strong enough to raid a player stronghold.

When he brought it up, Kat answered, and it was like a puzzle piece in his mind had snapped together. He’d been misunderstanding what nullshards did. It wasn’t that they negated damage or made everything inside the field invincible.

They sensed the intent to harm. And when someone attempted to inflict damage on anyone or anything, the nullshards retroactively undid the physics involved like a time machine such that the action never happened in the first place.

A weapon of their will, Rian thought, remembering, a chill spreading down him. Altrexis’s words to him, during their fight. Pacifism, made manifest, he’d said, brandishing that sword. A nullshard fragment.

A piece of a dead god.

There was no way around it, Kat told him. The field accounted for everything: not just the intent, but the very possibility of harm itself. Inside the field, physics worked properly and things could still collide. It would’ve been impossible otherwise to do things like construction and repair.

Setting up weapons inside the city to aim outside of the field wouldn’t work. The triggers wouldn’t pull. Arrows wouldn’t fly. It was like a strange curse overcame any device or object that was about to hurt anyone or anything in the immediate future, even if the people involved didn’t know it.

Because, of course, the game could look ahead. The System could see the future.

It knew the outcome—of itself. And of all things within it.

A strange, unsettling feeling came over Rian as they approached one of the gates to the city and stepped inside the nullshard field.