Chapter 10

Something Beyond Normal

“Stupid…” Laughed the Mage. “It took you so long just to realize that? Pft…you’re underestimating us.”

The archer, again, released his arrows and the four arrows that came from a single one bounced off on her Dark Shield. But then, as she thought that the fire balls were coming next, what came next was the shadow of the Manna Blader who came with a slash from above.

Her reactions were too late as all she could do was to raise her hand to form the shield. She met the attack and as usual, she was pushed down with the player’s incredible force.

What’s up with this attack?! It’s abnormally strong!

A kick on her head woke her up from a moment of distraction and she was hit pretty hard for she fell back around 15meters.

When she landed, she was already on her back and as she raised her head, she was surprised that the Mage was the one who kicked her instead. But he was already in the middle of his casting and the fire balls were already complete when she saw it.

It flew straight at her and all she could do was to be a target with a Dark Shield.

Or so she thought.

Because right at the most terrible of all the bad timing it might happen, her manna was now 0, which is bad, but Ceres’s Tech Ability is also fire attributed so in short even if she activated the ability, it’s still going to be useless since both abilities are Tier-1 category.

She watched as the fireballs slowly approached her face. The light of the ball reflected in her eyes, saying that this direct hit will end her career. In so in her mind, the last dying thoughts she had in this world, the regrets of not having the last mouth full of the in-game super delicacy, Diamond Moss Pudding, the thought of her last adventure, the last time she had seen a friend, the last time she had been on her in-game house —it all came to her, flashing, shining like a vivid memory.

She don’t even know if she’ll get to buy the console and start again since she really had no plans for it.

Like most players, she entered this world to escape the chains of responsibility and loneliness in the real world, full of pretense and everyone only worked and almost forgot how to be free.

Lately, her best friend have been sad, broken even, because as soon as she met her first love, the guy just then vanished with no traces as to what had happened to him. They don’t even know if he’s alive or not. With this, her best friend had stopped working, shut her self up in her room and only cried or stare outside the window, wishing that one day he’d show up again.

It saddened her friend so much since they only had small time to be with each other. She hasn’t even told him about her feelings.

Though she had been successful on inviting her to go online in Terroa, when she’s inside, she’d only stare at the lake outside her starting city and spend the whole day doing just that. It even came to a point that she had been thought as a quest NPC since she’s really pretty.

The thought that she can’t do anything for her friend had caused her sadness too. She hasn’t even brought her to the best sight seeing places she had discovered in all of her time in Terroa.

But to die now, have her character deleted, all her hardship, all of her sweat on developing FlowerLord, all of her effort on trying to make this avatar the coolest girly character ever, all her plans on pulling the pretty avatar, Scion, to enter Terroa too…

…was it all going to end here?

She asked that question as she stared at the star that’s slowly approaching her.

It’s because somehow, she felt calm.

I won’t die here.

Because as soon as she knew that, she was certain, she believe she’s not going to die here. FlowerLord’s career won’t end here with a pitiful death in the hands of murderers. The legend of FlowerLord has just began.

There is no way the legend will end here where it’s just getting started.

But the attack came.

The explosion of the impact knocked her feet off and she felt the harrowing pain of the Burn magic spell. It melted her skin, torn up her clothes, blurred her vision, and made her remember every pain she had in her life put together in one. She cried a painful scream and got blown off several meters from her feet. But of all the bad news she had right now, the greatest news is just she was still alive. A little sacrifice but she was alive.

If she hadn’t at least tried to protect herself with the Ceres, then she might really have died back then.

But she didn’t die and it made her smile.

She laughed hard as she tried to stand up. But these guys are professionals and they didn’t give her time to recover as the Manna Blader continued to attack her with a devastating blow.

Using the Ceres, she bared with the pain of scorched skin and aching muscle and met with the attack backed with tremendous strength.

Weirdly, the archer from their group released arrows after arrows as if the log between using skills and the cool down of each skills wasn’t a variable. She was being pushed in a corner and if she don’t do anything, she might really actually end up a goner.

“Efel!”

“Get off her!”

At that, as if an angel, as the mage’s Burn magic spell was about to be cast out, hails of bullets came from behind her. And so to save himself, the masked Mage cancelled the release and instead used the fire balls as shields to melt the bullets and jump away.

Two screams bellowed and the hails never stopped. The beautiful twins with jiggling racks from the Tekz Race backed her up as the masked men took their defensive stances.

“Paak! Waan!” She called as the two got beside her.

Paak, the one with the blonde straight hair took a red potion from her QIP and gave it to her. She drank it up in one go and after a second, her HP came back to 60% and her burns started to heal one by one.

Then, Waan, the one with long black hair helped her stand and gave her a manna gem’s blessing to recover her manna to 1.

FlowerLord thanked them gratefully. “We‘re in a war. A single mishap will cause you your life here.” Waan told her and FlowerLord nodded with a weak smile.

“I got careless and forgot to maintain my manna.”

“That’s the problem with Dark Technology,” Said Paak who changed the magazine of her Gunryu. “they are too manna dependent and eat up too much of it.”

Then Waan slapped her butt with a wink. “Try not to enjoy too much. And never take your enemies lightly.”

“Why do I get lectures from you guys?”

“Because we’ve been joining wars ever since this game began, girl, and we are more experienced in these things than you.” Answered Waan and charged their group with magic buffs.

“Right.” Nodded Paak and put her Gunryu on her small shoulder. “So if they can use better magic, and is better in group fighting, then we just have to be better at them at those fields. Isn’t that right sisters?”

FlowerLord smiled and drank a vial of blue liquid manna potion. “Yup. Better and deadlier than them.”

“Ya finished?” The masked Mage said mockingly. “I was worried that you will be taking more time talking and not actually resuming our contest.”

“Come on, Black. We should’ve just attacked them while they were chit chat’n.” Said the masked Archer.

Then the Manna Blader took a step. “Let them have it. It’s no fun ambushing them two times in a row.”

The two others laughed and their shoulder shrugged. FlowerLord and the twins shared a glance and began their attack. The two girls who switched from guns to guns, rifle to handguns, to machine guns, volleyed their expensive bullets to the enemies while FlowerLord did a barrage of arrows with her archery skills.

Her enemy was the masked archer while the masked Mage faced the blonde haired Paak.

“Hahaha, pathetic.” The masked archer laughed and fired two shots of cloning arrows.

The arrows went straight for FlowerLord but she was already prepared and got used to the weirdness of her abilities that she used her Ceres to mechanically block the attacks. Two more volleys came, and this started to take a toll on FlowerLord’s senses.

“Surprised?” Yes she was as FlowerLord’s reaction to the words indicated that clearly. “You average users are very reliant to what you know. Pathetic. And that’s why you work hard and earn less. Gyahahahaha…”

Like a lunatic’s laugh, it crept out the hairs on her and she deliberately took a few distances more.

“You…what are you…”

“Simply put,” The masked Archer released an arrow that cloned into four and FlowerLord shielded herself, drinking a manna potion as it happen. “There are more in this game than what you commoners know. And as an example…”

As he spoke, the masked Archer dematerialized his bow and switched into a bright silver colored shield.

No swords?

FlowerLord looked puzzled as she watched him. It only took a few moments after he summoned it that the man motioned as if to have a charge and at the next moment, the shield began to shine. Then…

BOOM!

The masked man with the shield suddenly charged straight at him and the shield itself was basked in lights that was a reminiscent of a skill.

“What the…?!”

FlowerLord dodged with all her might and the shield and the man slammed the ground with monstrous force that the ground where she once stood became the center of a large crater. Rubbles flew, smokes and dust that’s a reflection of the blue colored moon above filled the area and so she jumped away as much as she could. But the attack continued, like a meteor going straight at her and so she summoned the Dark Spear and met is with a strike instead.

The charging shield was so fast that her return came a bit late as the Dark Spear and his shield met 10meters away from her. And so as the two attacks met, she, who was a fragile archer as she was at the start, was thrown off by the colliding force’s impact.

It felt like an explosion from the Crimson Overlord spell as the area around the collision point was reduced to rubbles and dust after the blinding light.

There were no traces of the masked man and she was in the ground lying there, motionless.

She raised her head to check and saw the masked man trembling somewhere in the middle of the crater as he tried to stand using his bow. He quickly tried to drink a potion from his QIP but since the distance was ten meters away, her thoughts came faster as she used her left hand to wave for the spear to attack the man.

The sound of a body being pierced by the Dark Spear resounded and the man became a black statue by the spear’s ability.

“That…that…was lucky…” She heaved the words in between huge breaths as she kept lying there looking up to the moon. Then, she drank potions and recovered her health and manna, then took a tiny silver cube from her inventory and put it on her chest. “Dark Spear is…still a superior…weapon…after all…”

What was that ability?

Though she wanted to think it over, the sound of war around her prevented her to wander her thoughts.

As the repair of her clothes took place, though she may looked like fresh and new, the fatigue in her body was still from the fight in this war and the reason she was trembling is because of those.

She stood up and tried to fix her bearing, using the Ceres to be her third leg. Looking around, the war still continued from afar but on her side, it was completely a chaos. The whole division was disorganized, her own Company was annihilated by the ambush of the Masked Organization, and there were still the ongoing fights of those like her that was ambushed.

From afar, she could see the Arch Mage, Merlock, in a deadlock with five masked men. Darna, the renowned mercenary, exchanging arrows with four archers. It was even a miracle that she could last against them.

Me, FlowerLord continued to look at her milieus, it’s a miracle that I survived that clash.

And then from above, the pirate ship Nicholas, with its descriptive UFO design, began to take fire as there was a long black alien-ish warship 1.5 of its own size crawling up above it with claws. And at that moment, it totally got blown off the sky as pieces of its burning parts fell down on the eastern horizon.

The explosion brighten up the sky and lighted up the surroundings. It felt like fireworks, only, massively big and a little bit horrifying in a sense.

On the side of the wall, there were winged players who started to take down the TGG forces on the ground with sniping skills. It looked like flocks of marauders picking up ducks on the pond. Those who were able to master the use of such wings did an ambush attack where they land and fly to kill enemies.

And so, in turn, from above, the same units from the TGG were launched from the Three Sisters. And they, in their sky diving formation, looked so fascinating as seen from the ground. But then, somehow, she drew her attention to the indigo dawn coming from the east.

At that, FlowerLord saw the dark horizon slowly becoming dyed in lighter blue. As dawn closed in, she couldn’t help but feel nervous as there was a silhouette of a ship, bidding an oppressive, negative vibe coming along with Terroa’s bright star.