“Him? Who the hell is he?” Xander questioned, acknowledging my existence for the first time.

“He’s the guy we were meeting up with before we got teleported here, Xander.” Orange reminded him.

“Oh right, I forgot.” Xander recalled, “But what makes you think he’s the strongest, Cullen? I don’t even see anything that could be 13’s...Gift...” silencing himself after noticing Infinity on my waist.

“Haha, you son of a bitch, Cullen!” Razi elated, “This was the real reason you convinced us to switch sides, wasn’t it?”

“Well it was only a hunch since I haven’t seen him before, but I've yet to be corrected.” Cullen said, hoping for me to prove him right.

“God, what I hate so much more is when you make me glad I let you choose the Party's decisions.” Penelope smilingly stated, gaining a new perspective of the situation she found herself in.

“Hey, buddy. What’s your name?” Pocket asked, approaching me from behind.

“Does it matter?” I responded, still trying to mind my own business.

“No, but I’ll be taking 13’s Gift if you don’t mind.” He pressed his dagger against my neck and suddenly held me up at knifepoint—positioning us and his back against the wall.

“Mate, what are you doing?” Cullen asked him in concern, “Are you seriously trying to steal 13’s Gift from him?”

“Of course I am!” Pocket openly admitted, shouting “You’ve heard the rumours—if you steal a Guide’s Gift and kill the owner, it becomes yours! And with it, I’ll be the strongest Player in our Guide!” threateningly pressing his dagger slightly harder against my neck.

“I don’t know where he’s heard those rumours from, but they’re almost definitely not true since the Requirement for using Infinity is being me, and it's probably the as for the others too.” However being amused, I thought “I’ll just let them believe that and see how this plays out.”

“Woah, woah, woah!” Xander said, trying to calm him down, “Pocket, where’s this coming from?”

“Fuck you, Xander! I only followed you to use you as a leveling boost while in your Party, but once I steal 13’s Gift, I won’t need your stupid and moronic Party anymore!”

“Hey, that's not nice!” Tubby shouted back.

“Ooh, I’m gonna have so much fun kicking your ass later, Pocket.” Garret claimed, already cracking his knuckles.

“Well I never like you anyway.” Orange added, shrugging off his insult.

“You okay, man?” Razi asked me, making sure I was.

“Never better.” I replied calmly, telling Pocket “But I’d appreciate it if you let me go now.”

“Are you an idiot? Don’t you understand the situation you're in right now?” Whispering to me, “I’m really gonna kill you, you know? I just need to know I can escape after.” then shouting to everyone, “All of you need to get the fuck away from the entrance, or I’ll kill this guy before any of you can heal him!” Pocket grabbed me by the collar and shuffled us carefully towards the cave entrance.

“My god, you really are as stupid as you look, aren't you?” Penelope laughingly scoffed.

“What did you say, bitch! I dare you to call me stupid one more time! See what happens to him!” Pocket threatened his dagger to my neck again.

“Well I’m not the one planning to kill someone in an Event 13 just stated we couldn’t die in, so yes you are pretty fucking stupid, you brainless piece of shit.” Penelope smugly scoffed at him again.

“Oh, fuck me!” Pocket cursed himself, “I can’t believe I forgot that!” making the others laugh at his actually stupidity. He then angrily shouted, “Shut the fuck up! I still have your strongest Player as a hostage, and if I kill him now, I guarantee we all lose!”

Now feeling bored of being threatened again, I finally decided to intervene, saying “Okay, okay, let’s settle down. I don’t wanna die, and I’m sure you want to escape, so what do you want?”

“G-Give me 13’s Gift, and let me escape without anyone following me, and I’ll promise to let you live for now.” Pocket demanded, being nervously wary of the others.

Smirking to everyone, I agreed and said “Whatever you want, but 13’s real Gift is the elven circlet around my head.” telling him, “The quiver is just an enchanted quiver I carry around to trick Players into stealing the wrong item.”

“You better not be lying to me or I’ll kill you on the spot!” Threatening me again.

“I know, that’s why I told you the truth about the circlet—it let me read your mind so I wouldn’t get myself killed.” Completely lying to him.

“Well you should know to shut up then, and don’t you dare move while I’m grabbing it.” Then as he grabbed and tried to pull the crown off my head, its devastating effect activated like I knew it would, causing Pocket to instantly collapse to his knees and screamed out in pain. “Aaaahhhhhh!”

The others backed away out of caution while we all watched the red glow of the crown course through Pocket’s entire body, resulting in him eventually passing out from the excruciating pain. And feeling much more lifespan being sacrificed to crown this time around, I felt my body already being rejuvenated by its filling energy and extending my own lifespan further—along with a strong inherent urge to Annihilate.

A creature has sacrificed 234 years of their remaining lifespan to ‘The Cursed Crown Of Royalty’ attempting to break the curse between you two, but as the amount did not exceed the 275 years needed to overcome your growing bond, the lifespan was instead sacrificed to you, strengthening the bond and extending your everlasting Royalty.

“I don’t know what you did, but I knew you were the strongest.” Cullen smiled, feeling validated from his accurate assumption of me.”

“Hey, what do you guys wanna do with him?” Razi asked Xander's group, “He was your friend after all, wanna beat him up yourselves when he wakes up?”

Answering, Xander stated “We’ll get him get kicked out of The Guided after the Event ends, but for now—” Everyone was suddenly left in complete and utter shock, as they all witnessed me take both of Pocket’s daggers from his unconscious body, and cold-heartedly embedded them straight into each side of his skull—killing him with the simple twists of the daggers.

You have gained the Title: [Player Killer].

Once I knew he was dead, my senses returned back to me, and I saw a truly frightened expression on 13’s usually pleasant and composed face; but pushing me to the side, Penelope exclaimed “What the hell did you do that for?! He still could've been useful for the Event!” Immediately trying to use a Healing Skill to maybe help the already dead Pocket recover somehow.

"Shit! I just wanted to knock him out, I didn't think that counted as attacking another Player." Immediately letting go of the bloody daggers in my hands.

"You better explain yourself, you little shit!" Xander angrily lifted me up to my feet and pressed me against the wall.

"Oh, don't it, don't it, don't it." I told myself, holding back my natural instincts to push him off me. "If I retaliate, he's dead too, so I just need to do nothing." Taking a deep breath to relax.

“I know I didn’t like the guy, but tying him up would’ve been enough, you know?” Orange added, staring at me judgingly.

“It’s too late!” Penelope regrettably confirmed, giving up on her healing. “Wait, 13, the Siege Event still hasn’t started yet, right? Then it should be alright to revive him before we do, yeah? There’s no rule against it?” Trying to find a solution to having already lost a Player from our side.

“N-No...I can’t, he’s dead now.” 13 nervously answered, losing her composure the longer she kept her unbreaking gaze on me. “I-I...have to go.” Bluntly telling us, “Name your Leader and prepare for the start of the Siege Event.” before disappearing from our sight in an instant, leaving us with another Vote and Timer.

Name The Leader That Will Lead The Attackers To Victory:

[Cullen (0 Votes)] [Eyes Thalion Ven’Thyl (0 Votes)] [Garett Greatness (0 Votes)] [Orange Uglad (0 Votes)] [Penelope (0 Votes)] [Razi (0 Votes)] [Tubby Willis (0 Votes)] [Xander (0 Votes)]

*If the Leader is not decided before the start of the Siege Event, the Leader will automatically be assigned to the Player with the Highest Level.*

The Siege Event Will Start In: 9 Minutes, 59 Seconds

“What was that all about? She kind of looked like she was scared for a moment there.” Razi pointed out, noting 13’s clear distress over something.

“Yeah, she wasn’t even willing to revive a Player when we haven’t even started the Event yet, and now we’re already down to 8. This sucks!” Penelope felt down having one less Player on our side.

“Forget that, you two! Look at this name in the message!” Cullen frantically looked down at his invisible Menu and looked back up at me.

Setting me down, Xander said “So the unknown Player who owns 13’s precious Gift is the cheater, fraud, and killer Eyes Thalion Ven’Thyl?” as he then spit in disgust at my feet and scoffed, “Hmph, despicable.” with his men glaring at me in disgust too.

However I could care less what they thought of me, as I was still stuck in my own head about 13’s peculiar reaction to me. “From what she just said and the annihilation quest I recently got, this confirms it, doesn’t it? I don’t just kill Players, I annihilate their very existence—maybe even to the point that not even the Guides can revive them...” The very thought was honestly a little intimidating to think about.

“Hey, cheater! You got anything to say for yourself?” Xander started approaching me again, but Razi stepped in his way this time.

“It’s 4 vs 4 now, Xander. And we have the #1 Ranking Player on our side, so you sure wanna be picking a fight right after what we just saw him do to Pocket?” Razi asked smugly, his hands already on his axes.

“Xander, we definitely need him for the Event, so let’s let him go for now, okay?” Orange tried to reason with him.

Shrugging Orange’s hand off his shoulder, Xander reluctantly agreed “Fine, but I wanna be voted the Leader!”

“Mate, do you wanna win or not? If so, he should obviously be our pick for Leader so he can get the armour and Buff to carry us with.” Cullen rationalized.

“Actually, I don’t care who’s the Leader.” I expressed honestly, “I’m already strong enough to win this on my own regardless.” taking my time transferring all of Pocket’s Inventory into mine instead of having a trivial argument.

“Looks like it’s decided then, I’m the Leader!” Xander declared strongly, much to the annoyance of the 3 friends.

“Are you sure about this, Eyes?” Cullen questioned my decision, “Oh, and may we call you Eyes?”

“Yeah, with you as the Leader I’m sure we’ll definitely be guaranteed to win, so wanna change our mind?” Penelope asked, seemingly determined to really win.

“You can call me whatever you want, but you’ve been guaranteed to win the moment you decided to pick my team.” I told them; notably finding nine Lv.24-27 daggers, a set of worn Lv.25 leather armour, and a dozen Regular Healing Potions in Pocket’s Inventory—as well as 294 Gold, 73 Silver, and 99 Copper.

Regular Healing Potion

Common

Consume: Restore 15% of your Health over 60 seconds.

Craftable

“I mean it kind of hurts my pride to let Xander be our ‘Leader’, but I guess I can’t complain if we’re gonna win anyway.” Razi said, relaxing and returning to us by the campfire.

Finished transferring the many random miscellaneous items Pocket carried in his Inventory, I called out “Hey, Xander. Here’s my vote, so don’t bother me anymore.” Voting for Xander and closing the message.

“Good choice, cheater.” Xander scoffed, seeing my vote for him. And shortly after, everyone else ended up voting for him too. Then all of a sudden, Xander’s armour erupted with a purple light, slowly causing it to change in appearance, and becoming more heavily armoured and finely detailed compared to ours—sharing the same overall design except for a dragon’s head encircled by a trinity of arrows engraved in the centre of the chestpiece. “Now this is what I’m talking about!” Checking himself out in his admittedly slightly cooler looking armour, while being praised by his men.

Distracting myself from not having the Leader’s armour for my own, I instead took the time to strip Pocket of his armour, deciding it was best to store it away in case I needed to replace any damaged pieces of my own armour during the Event—covering Pocket with one of my old cloaks right after I did. Then seeing there was only 5 minutes left until the Event started, I finally got up from the campfire and joined the others by the narrow cave entrance.

Shielding my face from the intense blinding snowstorm as I approached the outside of the cave, I asked “Did they really go out there in this weather?” not seeing Xander or his men anywhere along the cliffside the cave was located on.

“Yup, that’s our Leader!” Penelope replied sarcastically.

“I told them not to, but Xander said ‘You can’t tell me what to do, I’m the Leader!’, and then they all fucked off into the blizzard before we could stop them.” Cullen relayed shrugging.

Shivering from the intense blowing winds, Razi said “It wasn’t so bad inside, but man is it so goddamn cold out here!”

“I personally love the cold myself, but even I wouldn’t be dumb enough to go out there when it’s like this, it’s practically suicide.” I stated, not seeing anything past 5 meters ahead from all the blowing snow and the darkness of night, as well as feeling the temperature to be at least -50℃ even after the effect of the armour.

And starting to freeze ourselves from simply being exposed to the sheer coldness of the air outside, I suggested we step back inside and rekindle the campfire for warmth while we waited for the blizzard to settle down. They all agreed, and using the many broken arrow shafts inside Infinity and the random flammable miscellaneous items I stole from Pocket as kindling, we easily lit a fire again with the help of Cullen using a Fire Skill to light it all up.

“So, Eyes, have you actually thought of a plan yet or what?” Penelope inquired, holding her hands and feet towards the fire.

“Not really, I was just thinking of finding the Keep and taking out everyone inside at the same time.” I truthfully told them, throwing some more kindling into the fire.

“Haha, you’re just as crazy as Xander!” Razi laughingly commented, practically touching the fire from how close he was.

“I’m open to suggestions if you have any, but I don’t think...I’ll need them.” Though feeling extremely disturbed by the thought of being forced to potentially murder 91 people, I said “But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we came up with a plan where all of you deal with most of the Players instead of me.”

“There’s 37 Players below Lv.20 which we can probably deal with easily on our own, but the real problem is 54 Players above Lv.20—especially if their side did vote for Crystal as their Leader like we expect they will.” Cullen informed me, logically thinking about the situation.

“I guess killing 54 people is a whole lot better than killing 91 of them, but not by much.” I disappointingly shook my head at the morbid thought, and asked “Crystal? Who’s that?” never hearing of her before.

“She’s the—excuse me, was the strongest Player in our Guide. You know, before we knew you were in our Guide.” Penelope answered.

“Yeah, I’m not even sure I can beat her,” Razi admitted, “unlike how I’m sure I can beat Xander.”

With Cullen detailing, “Crystal Mornings; a brilliant Lv.32 Illusion Enchantress known for her intelligence and planning, currently in the Top 500 Players amongst the Highest Level Rankings, and an invaluable Founding Member of the Deicide Guild Faction.” concluding “If she really is the Leader, we'll assuredly be running into a whole number of her prepared illusions within the Keep.”

“Sounds like fun, I can’t wait to meet her.” Smiling at our chances now that I know their Leader is likely nothing but a cowardly mage hiding behind her illusions.

“Oh, before I forget. Do you want to join our Party, Eyes?” Cullen asked, clearly hoping that I would.

“I honestly would, but I just killed a Player...b-before we got teleported to the Waiting Hub.” Hiding the fact that Pocket was the Player I just killed, “Meaning I can't join a non-Player Killer Party for another 24 hours, so I'll have to decline.”

“Oh…” And they all nervously smiled and stared at me.

Trying to reassure them, I said “I don’t know what rumours you’ve heard about me, but as long as you don’t force me to retaliate against you, then you’re perfectly safe from my...cold-hearted wrath.” but that only them laugh nervously instead—slowly shuffling themselves to the opposite side of the campfire. Then after a whole minute of awkward silence, we suddenly heard a loud boom from outside of the cave, strangely causing us to feel the strong blowing winds to change and weaken from even in here, and bringing along with it the start of the Event.

The Siege Event Has Now Started!