“Did you inform Gra?” asked Hebanyac. “There’s something weird about no one in the fortress being in a hurry. I’m a little uncertain about this kind of general equanimity.”

Mercyaa cursed and replied:

“No fucking reply, that dumb fuck. Why are you being sarcastic about, huh?”

“Contact Ghoton or Zeeaa and have them take over.”

Rdrag, worried and tense, spat and said:

“Are all of them under a mass blindness spell or something?”

***

Ghoton climbed the western walls and surveyed the battle preparations from above. The officer of attack squads was satisfied with the way the players were carrying out his orders, but the bacchanalia in the central square infuriated him. The wind was getting stronger, running waves through his moustache and hair. Ghoton took out his binoculars and looked at the western fortress, where Lettarongan’s army was located, then at the field.

Three messages from Mercyaa popped up on the HUD in a row. The officer lowered his binoculars and selected the read button:

Message number one:

The fucking dragon!

Message number 2:

There’s a dragon coming!

Message number 3:

Why isn’t anyone doing anything?

Ghoton almost choked on his own saliva. He looked up at the clouds and saw an enormous dragon flying towards them, black, majestic, terrifying. Its imposing gaze alone gave the officer a frightening sense of dread. The creature was about five minutes away from them. Ghoton pulled out his pistol, aimed as high as he could, and pulled the trigger. The flare zigzagged upward with a crackle and hiss, and then exploded in a toxic red under the clouds, releasing millions of little magnesium sparks. Immediately, sirens howled throughout the fortress with such a noise that most of the players’ ears perked up. The light attracted the dragon. The players in the attack squad turned toward the west wall and saw their target:

“It’s the size of half our fortress!”

“How can that be!”

Many laughed in fear, some froze and stared, while others lost all hope of victory in an instant.

The soldiers of the defense squads ran out of the barracks and stood five meters from the exit, staring up at the gray sky, which seemed blacker and darker than usual. Others shoved their backs, trying to get a glimpse of the living dragon. Ghoton hid in the shadows of the outermost building and kept the trembling in his hands to himself.

“Why is it so scary? Do I not believe in victory?” he asked himself. “It’s just a game. Pull yourself together. Come on!”

The legs of the officer of attack squads did not obey his orders. He sat there like a frightened girl and could not move, though he wanted to.

“Where is Gra? Why doesn’t he say or write anything? Where did he go?”

Where is Gra? Ghoton asked in the voice chat for officers, but others did not know the answer to his question.

Both officers of protection squads had badges with the sound and microphone crossed out in front of their aliases.

In Ghoton’s head, thoughts were creaking, switching, scrolling through a million possibilities and outcomes.

“Officer! Officer! What’s wrong?” asked a player who ran out from around the corner.

Ghoton turned his head and saw a frightened boy of about eighteen.

“We need you! Hurry! There’s a dragon flying!”

Something inside the officer’s head fit into place, and he raised. A huge number of people crowded the boulevards and avenues. Everyone was waiting for orders and did not know what to do. The alliance chat room was bursting with messages. The wind was picking up and blowing people off their feet. The flag of the Tough Rise guild was flapping on the tallest tower and tore and part of it flew away. Ghoton walked past the main masses and clusters, looked no one in the eye, and responded to questions like, “What shall we do?” and “What are the directions?” with the phrase, “Wait, Gra will give orders soon.” He noticed players with dirty, unattended weapons sitting under trees in a small alley, in the shadows of buildings, and on roads within his line of sight. All looked away, staring at the floor and praying that death would bypass them. No one respected the formation, for Gra had held none of the promised rehearsals.

“They fear even more than I do.”

Ghoton looked around for the officer in charge of the battle, tugged at the shoulders of the soldiers, and asked:

“Where the hell is Gra?”

Everyone was silent, shrugging their shoulders. Finally, one player pointed to the tower and said he had seen the officer go in there with his wife a couple of hours before. Ghoton went in the showed direction. His squad’s chat room was bursting with messages: Where are you? What should we do? He ignored them.

***

“Get ready!” Zeeaa shouted and jumped out of her chair. “We’re going to give this thing a hard time. Quickly! Quickly!”

Her people had taken up positions, but many had not yet returned from off-line.

“Don’t look at me, look at...” a cruel and long cry from the sky drowned her last words out. “What are you doing? There should be three of you manning one cannon. Why are there five? And only one here, eh? We’ve been through all this, haven’t we? Stop staring at me! Look at the sky! Shit! We should’ve recruited more girls as magicians. At least they’re more responsible.”

“Zeeaa,” one newcomer turned to her, “I don’t know what to do.”

A dozen more joined him with the same question.

She cursed and quickly explained their mission to them: “the first mage loads the concrete core, the second, during the shot, uses a torsion spell and increases the speed of flight, the third endows the core with a magical element.”

A shadow covered the fortress. The dragon landed on the west side of the fortress and blew smoke from its mouth. The ground shook. Its enormous hind paws clawed at the fourteen-meter-thick stone wall, which was more than half-ruined under the weight of its enormous body.

“Jesus Christ,” someone shouted behind Zeeaa.

“He’s three times the size of a Flying Fortress.”

Zeeaa stood there with her eyes bulging, thinking about how not to show fear to her people. Her heart was pounding hard as to get out of her chest, and her breathing seemed to stop.

***

No sooner had Ghoton reached Gra, when the dragon’s landing knocked him to the ground. He fell and hit his shoulder. A sprain, no big deal. The players picked him up, but they were not looking at the officer of attack squads, but at a creature twice the size they had imagined it to be. Ghoton rose and ran towards the tower, constantly stumbling over the uneven ledges of the paved road, wiping drool from his mouth and trying to stifle his involuntary groaning. The dragon roared, its forelimbs resting on the ground, which cracked and sagged under its weight, and its long serpentine neck crawled over the roofs of buildings and the heads of people. Ghoton turned around and cursed with fear and collapsed again and ran on all fours and opened the door and heard the screams and groans of Gra and his wife. He wiped his drools, took a deep breath, went downstairs and kicked the door with his foot and screamed:

“Fucking dragon!”

They - both naked and sweaty - turned towards him.

“The dragon! Fuck! Dragon! Get the fuck upstairs! People are waiting for orders while you’re fucking around. You disabled voice chat again. I will personally order you to be fired upon as a deserter!”

Ghoton did not wait for Gra to get dressed, grabbed him by the beard and dragged him upstairs. The officer of protection squads stepped outside with his pants in his hands and raised his head and froze.

“Orders! Orders!”

Gra did not react. Ghoton punched him with all his might and brought him to his senses. He shook his head and thanked and wrote in the alliance’s general chat: Take your places, prepare for battle. Listen to my instructions! Then he put on his pants and ran to the front lines on the western front:

“Don’t be afraid, boys. These shields can withstand temperatures of up to a thousand degrees.”

“But our bodies won’t!” someone shouted. “We’ll be boiled alive!”

“Put aside your doubts! Tonight, for the first time in this game, we’ll slay a dragon! Prepare yourselves! Prepare yourselves!”

The melee and magic defenders in the front rows gazed at the dragon’s enormous neck, looming over their heads. The scales shimmered with little golden lights, visible only at close range. Huge, sharp spikes along its neck, its spine. The front muscular paws touched where no one was standing. The dragon stretched farther and farther until the western wall collapsed under its weight. The monster stumbled back, but did not crush anyone, and continued to peer at the foreign creatures with interest. The first flanks retreated a few feet back. Gra was already standing in front of everyone, with his wife beside him.

Ghoton tried not to look at the dragon’s serpent neck above his head and ran to his magical detachment on the eastern wall. On the way, he crossed paths with his men on the rooftops of the towers and nodded to them for encouragement. On the way, some players were sneaking into buildings and barracks, and the defenders’ line in front of the central square was disorganized as they leaned backward one step at a time. Especially, cunning individuals went down into the sewers and ran through the pipes outside the fortress. The rest camped right on the road and went offline, saying that’s how it was.

“Nobody scatters! Get into formations! Goddamn it!” Ghoton shouted, while he was in a state of prostration and could not control himself. He walked as if he had drunk half a litre of vodka.

All who hide and those who turn a blind eye to it, after the battle, will get the debuff ‘enemy of the race’, wrote Ghoton in the open chat of the attack units. Now your courage and ability to fight are needed more than ever.

He continued walking at the sound of the players’ heavy and rapid breathing. By the end of the journey, it was getting easier.

The dragon, meanwhile, scrutinized the walls, the buildings, the cannons, and sniffed the machine gunners at the south wall, exposing bloody fangs, serpent tongue, and spreading ashy breath all over the perimeter.

“Are you all right?” Ghoton asked and turned to the two hundred mages on the wall.

Everyone who heard him nodded nervously in response. Some shrugged.

More confidence, gentlemen! Listen to my commands and all will be well! No one will die! The devil is only scary in appearance.

Ghoton watched the dragon’s muzzle, its eyes and behavior, and sensed some kind of catch.