As Sevs charged he managed to get close. He was trying to use speed, momentum, and raw force to his advantage; however, it wouldn't matter much if you couldn't hit the target. When they engaged, they became too close for the recruits to fire at them. The other space elf might be able to make an impact. However, Bexy and Carl were good enough to keep him off. This was a very precarious balance. The two fights carried on simultaneously. Whichever skirmish tipped first would tip the entire conflict. So Sevs couldn't just fight to stay alive because he didn't trust the recruits to be able to finish off the two Tarlaki without volleys of fire.

Either way, Sevs decided he couldn't win a war of attrition. The blood loss in his neck was already slowing him down.

The Tarlaki danced in and out of his reach. His short blade flickering in and out, his rifle forgotten. Sevs had no melee weapon or experience with a melee weapon. He could use his rifle as a club, or Sevs could use his hands. He was reasonably decent at hand-to-hand combat, and a club was not something he had ever trained with. Even in all his countless playthroughs, Sevs had never gone barbarian.

Throwing caution to the wind in doubling down on his bet, he threw the rifle like a javelin, willingly disarming himself. The space elf knocked it out of the way, but Sevs shoulder followed behind it. The tackle took them both to the ground. He actually tackled them into the ankles of the other Tarlaki, who went tripping. Sevs thought he heard the space elf's ankle break.

The cover fire went over everyone. It was spraying into the back wall dozens of yards down the corridor.

Sevs felt something warm pooling underneath him. Looking down, he saw that the Tarlaki was crushed underneath. It had managed to get his knife up and slide it into a weakness in the stomach armor. There was no pain; it was too quick for that, and the blood was leaving too fast. The neck wound had already numbed him. There wasn't much he could do to survive this. But he wasn't dead yet. Sevs reached up for the face of the space elf and grabbed the helmet visor, and started to twist. The thing screamed. It tried to let go of the knife, but its arms were pinned to its side. Sevs could feel its neck giving away as he lost consciousness.

***

"You are now dead," flashed in large blocky letters. This time though, Sevs wasn't given the option to return to start over. Min deaths were not reached. Respawn initiated automatically.

Just like when he first entered the main world, the door of light appeared, and he stepped through it. However, he found himself in a different corridor. It looked like the same corridor, but the door was open, and there was no reception desk. He respawned with all his equipment. Even his rifle was apparently even close enough to respawn with him.

Sevs wondered what was going on. He hoped to get some food. Unless he was about to respawn into battle. One thing he had forgotten to ask, or maybe no one had ever told him, was how long the respawn took in this world. Sometimes they were instantaneous. Sometimes they were hours or days later.

He listened carefully for some sort of announcement about anything. Looking around, he saw no signs of enemies.

Sevs crept up the hallway, checking each corner as he rounded them. He ran into Jason, who was doing the same thing. They quickly lowered their guns when they saw each other.

"Oh, they got you, too," Jason said.

"Not before I got some of them as well," Sevs responded. "I think I managed to get as many as you by the time I went down."

"Hey yeah, but I needed, like, what a quarter of the time you did?"

"Well, you also died almost instantly. That's got to be embarrassing."

"What was the situation when you went?"

"Hard to say. I think I took the second last one with me and Becky and Carl were still up, so they should manage to get one by themselves."

"That was probably the most insane fight I've ever had, and I have played several thousand playthroughs at this point," Jason said. "Haven't felt so alive in forever!"

That was not the case for Sevs. It wasn't even close for him. He couldn't put a number on it, but he could give a percentage. That was definitely the top 15% of fights of all time. It likely was in the top 1% of all first fights in the world.

"Yeah, that was something this world is really hardcore," Sevs said. "Where are the others?"

"Just down this way. They showed up just a tiny bit before you. A command is set up too. We've started a perimeter, and we're slowly expanding. Bringing in everyone we can."

"Hey, Jason, did you ever actually get how long the respawn takes?" Sevs asked.

"No, I feel like an idiot, but I forgot to ask."

"Me too. You think after all these years I would know better. Never had to respawn this early. Well, I definitely have but usually not in an organization, and it's been a long time."

"Yeah, man, I can't imagine there are many things you haven't done," Jason said as they walked back towards the mission command post.

"I've never played this build before."

"Oh really? I figured there was nothing you hadn't tried."

"Yeah, well, I mean, I found something that worked very well for me, and I've spent too long playing an intelligence-based mage or something and done well enough that I figured that was my thing. Stuck with it for a bit, I tried a few other builds, but they never really got very far, so I kept returning to the basics."

"Was it true what Bexy said? You had characters get multiple tier 4 spells?"

"Yeah, but that's not the whole story. Back in the beta tests, there was a little less competition, and also I had a lot more help. Pulling off some of those feats required to get those abilities took an entire team, who would work together for millennia."

"Damn, bro," Jason said. "Still, it must have been fun."

"Yeah, it was."