Chapter 205: Duel in the Throne Room

“Pyri!” Erikson shouted to her from atop the walls of Rene, while Pyri used her fly spell to patrol the skies above the town, looking off into the distance for any signs of the approaching abyss. Hearing Erikson, she didn’t reply but rather flew towards him and looked him in the eyes. “We’ve got incoming.” He announced once he was sure she could hear him.

“From where, and how many?” Pyri asked. Erikson looked towards his ranger guild member standing next to him, who nodded back at him.

“All of them. Together, from the west.” Erikson replied.

“Shit, they grouped up.” Pyri sighed in frustration.

“Mist is coming with them.” The ranger told Pyri.

“Okay.” Pyri nodded back before turning to look around the walls, until she spotted the elite NPCs standing amongst the troops. “Farlion, Celestian, Ulaipu, form up our soldiers on the western walls, the enemy is coming from there.” Pyri instructed them, and within seconds the NPCs were mobilizing and moving along the walls as per her instructions.

“What are we going to do? We had trouble taking out one of them, and that was with the help of the Black Lions.” Josephine asked as she joined into the conversation, standing atop the wall a few meters from Erikson. Pyri didn’t reply right away, but instead remained floating and pondering, staring up at the sky briefly while deep in thought.

“I’ll hold three of them back, and let one through. You guys focus it down, and once it’s dead, I’ll let the next one through. That will allow you to take them out one by one. Utilize the NPCs to hold back the abysslings and assist in your damage against the juggernauts one at a time.” Pyri explained.

“You’re going to hold three juggernauts back by yourself?” Yuki asked her with wide eyes, now also standing near them.

“I’m gonna try…” Pyri shrugged awkwardly, but her words were followed by the sound of loud stomping. The ground shook violently as several booming steps could be heard approaching the town of Rene from off in the distance. Everyone immediately looked to the west, but couldn’t see the source of the sound.

Pyri slowly levitated higher up into the sky above the town with her fly spell to get a better view, and eventually she saw them. The four large juggernauts were all stomping towards Rene, shoulder to shoulder. At their feet, the black mist moved forward like a wave along with them, swallowing up the western forests as the juggernaut feet crushed the trees with every step. Seeing them, Pyri took a deep nervous breath before casting her cinderbolts and causing them to begin rotating around her body.

“Here they come.” She called down to the players below her on the wall.

“Ah, there you are. My beautiful pawns.” Finley shouted excitedly as he flew towards the Black Lion guild, standing in the defense of the fourth island stone. The large, glowing white stone stood behind them as they fended off hundreds of abysslings swarming towards it. The Black Lions were not struggling with them in terms of being able to kill them en-masse using single strikes from their weapons and spells. But, they certainly looked exhausted due to stamina consumption.

Behind Finley, the Avatar of Jealousy also slowly lowered herself down out of the sky with her pink, bat-like wings. The pair landed amongst the dark mist just a few meters away from the Black Lions, with abysslings continuing to swarm around them and charge at Garrick.

Garrick nervously looked at Finley, then up towards the skies, then back down at Finley.

“You got here first, huh? Where’s the kid?” Garrick asked with an anxious tone.

“Don’t think he’s going to be making it, unfortunately. He put up a valiant effort, using you pawns just like we did, but, like I said, he never really stood a chance.” Finley shrugged.

“We’ll see about that. We ain't no pawns for no one.” Garrick growled back at him.

“Jealousy?” Finley turned to her expectantly, and she smiled back as black tendrils began to rise up off of her head, and she let out a light hissing noise.

“Shut em, boys!” Garrick shouted to his guildmates. Immediately upon saying this, every member of his guild shut their eyes tight as the black tendrils on Jealousy’s head began to whip around and hiss, aiming in various directions. As a result of them shutting their eyes, though, not a single member of the Black Lion guild became petrified. “Hah, just like they said. The petrification doesn’t work if we don’t look at her.” Garrick declared excitedly.

“Yeah, true, but… You’re just fighting blind now, aren’t you?” Finley replied before suddenly dashing forward and swinging his greatsword down on Garrick, but to his surprise, Garrick blocked the strike with his two weapons despite his eyes being closed.

“That’s fine. We’ve got ears, don’t we boys?” Garrick grinned back at him before jumping away to avoid two strikes from Finley’s wings. Following this, the Black Lion guild members let out a warcry of enthusiasm.

“Jealousy, you mind handling this?” Finley sighed with disinterest as he jumped back away from Garrick into the swarm of abysslings. Wordlessly, Jealousy began stomping forward eagerly. Gigantic claws extended out from her fingertips and she prepared to use them on the Black Lion guild members in front of her.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Aegis groaned as he looked ahead, seeing a sea of black wings approaching him and Snowflake from the north-west, the direction that Aegis was flying. “Finley must be able to control the reapers, somehow. He’s trying to cut us off and stop us from getting to the fourth island stone.” Aegis explained to Snowflake, who squawked back at him in acknowledgement.

“We can’t waste any time flying around, or we’ll get there too late. You think you can fly through them?” Aegis asked as he looked down at his gryphon, who screeched back with determination. “Okay, lil buddy, I’ll keep you healed up and protected, you handle the flying. Just, try not to drop me, alright?” Aegis replied, and got one final squawk as a response before Snowflake pulled in his wings and flapped them more furiously, while tucking in his back legs and talons.

Aegis fastened his shield to his arm and held it in front, while tightly wrapping his legs around Snowflake’s saddle so that he was sure he wouldn’t fall off. Within seconds, they closed in on the incoming swarm of reapers screeching wildly in the sky in front of them. He felt a wave of familiarity to this encounter, having done something similar back in Hrath’mir, but the nostalgia wore off when he reminded himself that unlike Hrath’mir, there would be no respawning.

Within a few seconds after that, Snowflake met with the swarm of hundreds of Reeapers. Snowflake opened with a downward nose dive, pulling his wings in to soar underneath them and avoid the initial wave of strikes, but they quickly dove down out of the sky after them, and some reapers from the back of the swarm dropped down to cut off Snowflake’s dive, quickly blackening out the skies in front of them.

Aegis put full faith in Snowflake’s flying skills to handle it, though. To his surprise, rather than continuing to dive downward and trying to fly underneath the swarm, Snowflake suddenly halted mid-air out of the dive, then thrust his wings out and flapped violently to gain altitude, flying through the swarm to get up above it. The sudden change in movement worked in throwing the swarm off, and the reapers that were in pursuit began colliding with the reapers that flew to intercept him, all while Snowflake cautiously maneuvered through the swarm to get above it, Aegis using his shield and guard skills to fend them off and prevent any from grappling his gryphon.

Once above the swarm, Snowflake spun majestically in the air to build up more momentum, Aegis struggling to hold on during this maneuver but managing. Using the spiral momentum he continued to soar ahead, in front of the swarm as they re-adjusted and attempted to continue their pursuit. A few flaps later, though, and Snowflake had managed to bypass the swarm and had all of the hundreds of reapers now flying behind him, closely on their tail.

“Nice job!” Aegis cheered excitedly as he glanced back and saw them slowly creating distance between themselves and the reapers. Snowflake screeched back excitedly, loving the praise, but the moment was interrupted by a violent quaking of the island below them that continued for a good long few seconds. Aegis said no words, but instead opened up his livestream viewer to Samathara’s VGN broadcast while Snowflake handled the flying.

“They lasted longer than the Night Hunters and the Blades of Kalmoore, but, fighting a level 200 raid boss with your eyes closed was a bit too reckless.” Samathara commented as she looked through a scrying orb atop the Skyport tower of Kordas. Through it, she saw the destroyed fourth island stone, and the bodies of the Black Lion guild members disintegrating all around it.

Finley and Jealousy stood nearby, watching as shards of the stone collapsed to the ground around them and lost their white glow. The black mist overtook the stone and the abysslings swarmed over its fragments.

From there, though, Finley appeared painfully aware of the location of the scrying spell that was being used by Samathara to view the event, and began strutting towards it. Once he got close enough, he leaned in.

“Too late, Shattered Healer.” Finley said to the spell with a big grin, before flapping his black wings and taking off into the sky. Jealousy followed suit, and within seconds, all the scrying spell showed was a thick black mist that had overtaken the area.

“It seems that Aegis was planning on joining them to fight Jealousy, but wasn’t able to make it in time. Now there is only one stone remaining that is keeping the island of Kalmoore in the air. Its location has been hidden so, we can’t view it through our helpful sages scrying. We can only hope that it remains hidden until the people of Kalmoore can figure out a way to put a stop to this Avatar of Jealousy. But with all of the top guilds on this island now wiped out, it’s looking fairly grim.” Samathara spoke to her audience, prompting Aegis to shut out of the livestream.

“Shit.” Aegis shouted to himself in frustration, briefly glancing back behind him to see the swarm of reapers still in pursuit. “Going to the stone is pointless now. Where do we need to be?” Aegis asked himself rhetorically, going deep in thought.

“There goes number four.” Joltblade smirked as he stood across the throne room from Rakkan, the two pacing from side to side. Rakkan had brought his echoes back to his side, while Joltblade had his shurikens spinning in the air behind him, giving off repeated sparks of lightning. “So, where’d you hide the King?” Joltblade asked. Rakkan didn’t reply, but rather briefly glanced at Zekor standing in the corner with his back against the wall, a look of dumb excitement on his face.

“I’ll tell you if you can beat me.” Rakkan replied.

“Deal.” Joltblade cheered, followed by a blast of electrical energy exploding out of his mithral sword in his right hand, while the one in his left hand grew black mouths all over its blade. He then shot his shurikens forward at Rakkan, and Rakkan spread his echoes out and charged them forward towards Joltblade.

“There’s no level difference anymore.” Rakkan said calmly as the first three shurikens reached him, and he sidestepped one while slashing the other down with his new mithral longsword, the other struck down by his Mosmir stinger. “There’s no gear difference, either.” He added as one of his echoes intercepted the remaining two shuriken. “The only difference left is skill.” Rakkan said with a cold glare as his last two echoes reached Joltblade’s real body. One echo, wielding a mithral bladed fist and a mithral battle axe, was used to occupy Joltblade’s swords. The final echo, wielding an Ironwood crossbow, fired mithral bolts at Joltblade’s openings, of which it was able to find many.

Rakkan made it look easy - he continuously maneuvered his crossbow wielding echo around the throne room to get clean angles on Joltblade and land attacks. Joltblade was managing to keep the other echoes, and Rakkan’s main body locked down, but he simply wasn’t able to handle the crossbow.

“Rapidfire.” Rakkan cast his fighter base skill, granting the effect to his echo and allowing it to repeatedly shoot the crossbow without needing to reload.

“Fuck off, you think you’re more skilled than me?!” Joltblade shouted in anger, pulling one of his shurikens back from Rakkan’s main body in order to strike it out at the crossbow wielding echo. But this freed up Rakkan’s spear from being used to deflect that shuriken, and he immediately took advantage of this by throwing his spear across the room at Joltblade.

“Rune:Enlarge.” Rakkan cast, causing his spear to grow gigantic, pushing the nearby shurikens and echoes to the side due to its sheer size.

“Shit.” Joltblade frantically dashed out of the way desperately, but his reckless movement allowed Rakkan’s nearby echo to land a hit with the bladed fist and battle axe.

The spear crashed into the wall behind where Joltblade had been standing, exploding a pulse of void energy out of its tip upon impact which blasted a hole in the throne room wall and sent chunks of stone and debris flying in all directions. A second later, the spear shrunk back down and returned to Rakkan’s hand while Rakkan maneuvered his crossbow echo away from the shuriken pursuing it, continued to block and dodge the two shurikens chasing his main body by utilizing his longsword, and was able to use the maul wielding echo to handle the last two shurikens off to the side.

As Joltblade stood back up, Rakkan sent his echo with the bladed fist and battle axe to continue putting pressure on Joltblade’s main body.

“It’s incredibly one sided! The Rune knight is keeping the battlemaster completely on the defensive!” Zekor squealed with excitement from the corner of the room, drawing attention to himself.

“I’ll show you something one sided, shitty leeching broadcaster!” Joltblade reacted with anger towards Zekor, sending a shuriken away from Rakkan’s maul echo towards the low level Lizardfolk player. Seeing this, though, Rakkan broke his axe-wielding echo away from Joltblade’s main body and sent it towards Zekor, using it to deflect the shuriken away from him and protect the broadcaster.

“Hah? The livestream hating Renault is protecting a broadcaster?” Joltblade asked with a look of confused disbelief.

“Yeah.” Rakkan replied with a smirk. “Because I know he’s watching. I want him to know that he’s next.” Joltblade reacted to Rakkan’s words by bursting out laughing.

“You…” He managed to get out between his laughs as his shurikens continued to clash with Rakkan and his echoes in the room around them. “You really think you can handle Seraxus? You’re talking about Seraxus, right? Buddy, you can’t even handle ME!” Joltblade shouted as a blast of electrical energy exploded out from his mithral sword, creating streams of lightning that extended out from the sword towards his five shurikens spread out around the room.

The shurikens then began rapidly rotating, cutting through the stone walls nearby like buzzsaws as they released sparks of electrical energy. They then began to spin around the room with Joltblade as their center, forming an electrical tornado of beams formed between themselves and Joltblade.

They easily cut up the walls and floor of the room, causing destruction in their wake and sending chunks of debris flying. The loud buzzing sound of electricity overtook all other sounds. Despite this chaotic mess of electrical energy floating through the room, though, Rakkan pulled his echoes back and was easily manipulating his echoes to duck under, or jump over the electrical streams.

“I’ve already seen this trick.” Rakkan replied coldly, as he suddenly dashed forward along with all three of his echoes, surrounding Joltblade while simultaneously carefully positioning them to avoid the streams of electrical energy coming off of his body. “Relying on overpowered weapons won’t be enough to beat me.” Rakkan said as he struck out all of his mithral weapons out at Joltblade. Joltblade was able to deflect two strikes, but it wasn’t enough - Aegis had crafted him strong Mithral weapons with bless enchants. The damage took Joltblade’s health to 0, despite his armor, and his body began to disintegrate.

The beams of electrical energy disappeared first, then the shurikens, then Joltblade’s body as he looked back at Rakkan with an expression of anger and frustration in his last moments in the game world. It took a moment for the light inside the room to dim back down, and Rakkan’s pupils to adjust, with the light of the electrical beams now gone. There were now several holes in the roof of the throne room where beams of sunlight were piercing through, due to the chaotic damage caused by Joltblade’s shurikens.

With no words, Rakkan turned towards Zekor who remained cowering in the corner, small pieces of stone and debris settling on his shoulders and head. Rakkan then held out his longsword in Zekor’s direction, pointing the tip of the blade out at him while glaring.

“The…” Zekor stuttered in disbelief, rubbing his eyes to clear them of dust and debris. “The Rune Knight is victorious. And, it looks like he’s issuing a challenge right now. Incredible showing!” Zekor mumbled anxiously as Rakkan remained glaring at him.

Seraxus remained seated within the empty gladiator arena in his own livestream, millions of viewers watching him. He was viewing the fight between the two players through Zekor’s broadcast using his livestream viewer, with Hajax seated beside him.

As Rakkan pointed his longsword at the camera of the broadcast, glaring, Hajax looked nervously at Seraxus to watch his face. Seraxus was gritting his teeth in annoyance, glancing between Rakkan in his livestream viewer, and his livestream chat log where his audience was begging him to have a showdown with Rakkan.

“Actin’ real tough for a guy who ran away to Kalmoore.” Seraxus grumbled. “Ya’ll wanna see me kick that clowns ass again?” Seraxus asked his chat, and they responded with thousands of cheers. “Aight. Looks like we goin Rune Knight Huntin’.”