Chapter 200: Downfall

“Coming at you live from Kordas in Kalmoore, I’m Samathara of the S-News gaming network. We’ve recently received word that the invasion of Kalmoore is beginning, and we have confirmation that it is case. Our investigative reporters are claiming to have sighted the abysslings and the black mist swarming up the sides of the island as we speak.” Samathara stood atop the Skyport of Kordas, motioning to the surrounding city. Beside her stood several other streaming reporters.

“So far, it seems relatively calm, but as you can see, the guards of Kordas are already getting ready for the upcoming battle, while many of the players are collecting their things in the storage hall in anticipation for the inevitable downfall of the island.” She continued, while motioning down to the streets below. Kordas guards were marching down the streets in rows of three, stepping in unison. They were being led by elite NPCs - the nearest visible one to Samathara was Jael, the Archmage of the Wizards tower.

“What are your thoughts on the invasion? Do you suppose Kalmoore has any chance?” An interviewer asked Makaroth from his broadcasting chair, with footage of Makaroth’s livestream on a screen floating behind him.

“Unfortunately, it looks like Vagosh has already won the battle.” Makaroth replied, motioning to another screen across from the broadcaster, of Aegis’ livestream. “But, we’re thankful for the efforts of the people of Kalmoore. They’ve revealed how the invasions work, more or less. It means we can prepare our islands properly in the future.” Makaroth replied cordially.

“And what about you, Feng?” The interviewer asked as he brought up Feng's livestream footage next to Makaroth's.

“I feel the same way. It is sad to see another island fall, especially to such dishonorable tactics like those which were employed by this Finley character. But we will learn from Kalmoore’s mistakes, and properly vet any new members from now on, so that this does not happen to Lanusk.”

“Yes, it’s tragic.” The reporter nodded along with their broadcasts as they floated side-by-side. “It’s especially tragic for Yumily, who we’ve been trying to get into contact with for her thoughts. Yumily, of course, was scheduled for a concert in Savringard, and will not be able to defend the island. And, with Aegis and the top guilds currently incapacitated, it’s unlikely anyone will be able to stand up to the invasion.”

“Yeah, particularly now that they’ve revealed there is an Avatar involved.” Makaroth nodded.

“Perhaps the monks and druids can put up a fight, and escape with some of the petrified members to cure them. I will not give up hope completely just yet.” Feng replied while motioning to the footage of Aegis’ broadcast, where Travis, Ren, Miranda, and the others prepared to battle with Finley.

“Yo, who cares ‘bout some invasion.” Seraxus sighed as he stood at the entrance to a gladiator arena. He was eying his livestream's chatlog as it scrolled rapidly past him, his viewers begging for him to watch footage of Aegis’ stream. “Oh, shit, they’re PvPin?” He read up on some of the messages. “Whos PvPin’? What classes?” He asked his chat, while Hajax stood idly by, leaning up against the wall of the gladiator arena and adjusting his armor.

“Monk and druids? Eh…” Seraxus seemed to be losing interest as he read the chat. “Oh, wait, Harbinger of Darkness? Yo I aint ever fought that class. Aite, aite, I’ll check it out, relax guys.” He reluctantly sighed to his audience as he began fidgeting with his interface to open up his livestream viewer.

“Zekor from VGN here, I’m on the ground in the city of Kordas, following up on Finley’s claims that his party would be going after the King. Behind me you can see the palace of Kordas where the King of Kordas presumably resides.” Zekor, the lizardfolk reporter, spoke as he stood in front of the Kordas palace gates. The walls were unmanned, with no signs of guards anywhere.

“Ah, look, over there! It’s exactly as Finley described!” Zekor whispered excitedly while motioning down one of the nearby streets. The VGN interview broadcast had switched over to follow Zekor’s broadcast.

Walking towards Zekor from across the way was Cheryl, Joltblade, Simon, and Quiver. They coolly strutted right up to the gates while Zekor took a few steps back, and Joltblade stopped to glare at him.

“I hope you don’t mind, I’m just reporting. I promise I won’t get in the way.” Zekor mumbled to them timidly.

“It’s fine, isn’t it? He’s just doing his job.” Quiver sighed unenthusiastically.

“I’ve always wanted to be on TV.” Simon rolled his eyes as he spoke sarcastically, then turned and began walking away.

“Hi mom!” Cheryl playfully waved towards Zekor.

“Yo, where are you going?” Joltblade turned to Simon as he left.

“You guys only paid me to take out the assassin guild. I’m done here. Besides, killing Elite NPCs is boring.” Simon replied without turning back to face them as he continued walking away, giving one final wave as he disappeared out of sight.

“Whatever. That guy creeps me out anyway.” Quiver muttered back as he watched Simon disappear. “C’mon, let’s get this over with so I can finally take a break. This island was exhausting.” Quiver then motioned Joltblade towards the gate.

“Yeah, yeah.” Joltblade grumbled as he pulled out his mithral swords and slashed at the gate. A single strike was all it took to blast it open, leaving a hole wide enough for them to step through. Cheryl, Joltblade, then Quiver, all walked through the gates into the palace garden, followed by a nervous Zekor stumbling over the broken pieces of the wooden gate that had scattered around the paved walkway through the garden.

“Weird, all the Royal guards are gone…” Joltblade commented as they looked around, seeing no other players or NPCs nearby.

“I saw them marching out to the outer walls to defend the city.” Cheryl shrugged.

“Kinda bad to leave their King unprotected, isn’t it? I thought this was their trump card.” Joltblade asked.

“It is, somethings up.” Quiver replied. “Be on guard.”

“Be on guard? Really? C’mon, this is Kalmoore we’re talking about.” Joltblade chuckled.

“Yeah, and you guys keep getting your asses kicked by them. Stop underestimating them, you’re making my job harder.” Quiver sighed.

Travis looked around the sea of statues that surrounded him, taking note of all the allies he had currently unpetrified. Five in total, it wasn’t much as he glanced between the Avatar of Jealousy and Finley. The Avatar was not paying attention to them at all, rather she was searching amongst the statues, looking at them as if they were interesting works of art and spending time stroking the ones that drew her interest.

“I won’t need her help for this. Don’t disturb her and you might have a chance.” Finley grinned as he saw Travis eying the Avatar. “I’d be more worried about stopping me from breaking your precious allies.” He began swinging his greatsword down towards Quinn’s statue, but was interrupted by a loud hissing sound. Ren beastshifted into a gigantic snake and lunged at Finley with venomous fangs, toppling over several statues nearby with his slithering body.

Finley stopped his swing to lift his sword and block Ren’s attack with the flatside of his gigantic greatsword, then applied force into a swing to knock Ren away. Meanwhile, Travis and Miranda both dashed forward with their fists glowing and began punching and kicking out towards him, forcing him to jump back and avoid their strikes.

“Entangle!” Kayliera shouted, causing vines to suddenly shoot up out of the ground and wrap themselves around Finley’s feet. This prevented him from jumping backwards anymore.

“Aura of darkness. Abyssal step.” Finley quickly cast in succession. Similar to Aegis’ Aura of light spell, he released a dome of black mist that engulfed the entire chamber, making it difficult to see. Following that, his abyssal step spell caused his feet to give off black energy and disintegrate the roots that were grabbing them, allowing him to freely escape from the druidic crowd control effect of Kayliera.

His movement speed from there increased drastically, and rather than simply dodge attacks from Travis and Miranda, he began striking back at them. The first strike was much faster than Travis was expecting, given the size of the sword, and as a result he took the hit head on, receiving massive damage.

Kayliera quickly jumped into action alongside the other druids in order to heal Travis’ damage, while Ren beast shifted into his giant crocodile form and opened his jaw, preparing to snap it onto Finley’s body to hold him in place. Finley saw it coming though and dashed away, eying Kayliera in the backline. Miranda dashed after him and attempted to grapple him to stop him from reaching Kayliera. She managed to grab his right forearm and stop his movement, yanking him back while Kayliera moved away to get more space between herself and Finley.

“Unfortunately, the difference between an advanced class and an intermediate is too great.” Finley looked at Miranda sympathetically. “Wings of Darkness.” He shouted, and suddenly two large black wings made out of mist grew out from his back, and he swung one of them down at Miranda. The wing pierced through her body dealing massive damage, causing her to wince and stumble away. As she released her grapple on his arm, he spun around with his greatsword and slashed out at her, the sword emitting black energy as it impacted, causing it to critically hit and kill Miranda before any of the druids could heal her.

“One streamer down, one more to go.” Finley smirked as he eyed Travis, Ren, Kayliera and the other druids glaring at him from different locations around the room. He then stopped to turn and look at the entrance to the boss room where he saw something else, causing the others to look as well.

Snowflake stood with his head down, glaring across the chamber at Finley for a moment, before turning to scan the room of statues, as if looking for something.

“Aw, look at the cute elite NPC, here to save his master.” Finley said in a babying voice.

“Aegis is over there!” Ren shouted, pointing out Aegis’ statue to the gryphon.

“Don’t think so.” Finley replied, dashing forward with incredible speed towards Snowflake who was too preoccupied with looking through the statues to see him coming. Luckily, Travis jumped into action with a superman punch, intercepting Finley mid-air and knocking him out of his dash, causing him to stumble to the ground. His fist had landed right on Finley’s jaw, so that as he slowly stood back up he was rubbing his jaw and glaring back at Travis.

“Nice hit.” Finley replied while glaring at him.

“Thanks.” Travis smirked back.

“No, where are you going? Aegis is over there!” Ren called out to Snowflake as he watched Snowflake dash into the boss room beyond Aegis’ statue. It was difficult for Ren to make out what the gryphon was going, though, due to the increasingly thick black mist emanating from Finley's aura.

“Hah. Can’t trust NPCs, even the elite ones. They’re just dumb AI.” Finley replied mockingly.

“I know a few players who are dumber.” Travis clenched his fists and began stomping forward towards him, while Finley straightened his back and shook his black wings, preparing to use them.

“Oh? Me too.” Finley stomped towards Travis.

“Ren, forget the gryphon, help Travis!” Kayliera called out to Ren who was anxiously trying to follow Snowflake’s movements. Ren hesitantly glanced between Travis, then back to Snowflake, then finally sighing and turning back to Finley, charging forward as he beast shifted into a gray wolf with sharp spikes growing out of his spine all the way down his tail.

Finley opened on Travis by slashing his sword down on him, then striking out with both wings. Travis sidestepped the sword strike, jumped back for the wing strikes, then lunged forward with both fists together and punched Finley in the chest to deal a large amount of damage, expecting it to push him back. Instead, though, the black mist that was on Finley's feet dug into the ground and held him in place to absorb the blow. Following this, he spread his wings wide and then began closing them in around Travis, trapping him in a shadowy embrace.

“Downfall.” Finley spoke softly, releasing a blast of Dark energy that shot out from his wings inward at himself, dealing massive damage to Travis and killing him instantly.

Ren roared angrily in his wolven form, spinning himself into a spiked ball as he rolled forward, using the blades on his spine to turn himself into a saw blade. The attack was way too telegraphed, though, and Finley easily avoided it while dashing towards Kayliera.

“Wall of nature!” Kayliera shouted in a panic, causing a thick barrier of roots and vines to shoot up out of the ground in front of her in an attempt to block Finley’s attack, but he simply stopped in front of the wall and cut it down with a single strike of his mithral greatsword, then stepped forward and slashed his wings out at Kayliera repeatedly, until she too was killed before the last two blades of Kalmoore druids could react.

“Stop!” Ren shouted out desperately, shifting into his human form as he watched Finley stomping towards the remaining druids. “Please, why are you doing all this?”

“It’s nothing personal…” Finley shrugged. “We just discovered this to be the most optimal method of making massive amounts of money in this game.”

“Is it really just for money? Destroying these islands?” Ren replied with wide eyes of disbelief. “We can give you money, our guild has a lot. You know, if you stop this, it’d be worth way more, right?” Ren continued, causing Finley to pause before reaching the last two terrified druids, as they held out their staves in front of themselves defensively.

“Eh…” Finley put his hand on his chin for a moment, looking up at the ceiling as if considering this. “Nah…” He eventually concluded with, before continuing his forward movement.

“But this island is important to us! My sister worked so hard to make it like this, everyone loves it here! We all love it here, we have so much fun playing together. Please, don’t destroy it!” Ren begged him, but got ignored. “Stop!” He shouted one last time, before Finley mercilessly cut down the druids despite their attempts to defend themselves.

“Kid, you gotta understand something.” Finley turned to Ren, the last remaining unpetrified player standing amongst a sea of statues shrouded in mist. The Avatar of Jealousy was still off to the side inspecting various statues, touching their faces inappropriately. “It’s not that I don’t know how important these islands are to some people... How heavily you all get invested in this game world...” He motioned to the statues of players nearby as he began strutting forward towards Ren. “It’s that… well… I just don’t care.” He smirked. Following this, there was the sound of wings flapping, causing Ren and Finley to both look towards the entrance to the boss chamber and see Snowflake flying out of the room with a single statue in his talons.

Upon seeing this, both Finley and Ren turned to see that it wasn’t Aegis’ statue - Aegis was still standing beside Quinn in his petrified form.

“Dumb gryphon. Who’d he just fly away with?” Finley asked rhetorically. “Jealousy, can you go hunt that bird down?” He asked her, but she ignored him, causing him to sigh in annoyance. “Bah, she never listens. Whatever.” Finley shook his head. Ren, on the other hand, landed his eyes on his petrified sister's face, seeing Quinn unable to do anything to defend the island she loved. Rage built up in Ren’s eyes as he turned to glare back at Finley.

“Oh, scary.” Finley replied mockingly as he saw the anger on Ren’s face. Before Ren could do anything, though, the ground suddenly shook violently, causing bits of rock and dust to break off from the ceiling of the old temple’s boss chamber. It took a good few moments before the quaking subsided.

“Ahhh… I feel the light fading. It is invigorating…” The Avatar of Jealousy groaned once the quaking stopped completely.

“Looks like the first Island stone is already done.” Finley explained to Ren as he looked at her in confusion. “So, any final words you want to say, on behalf of the people of Kalmoore? You’ve still got an audience watching you.” Finley asked Ren while motioning to Aegis’ petrified livestream, now sitting at 3 million viewers.

Rather than reply, Ren roared out in a rage as he transformed into an iron-skinned gorilla and charged forward at Finley, but Finley made a clean swing of his greatsword and easily cut through Ren’s large body, following it up with several wing strikes to finish him off.

“Guess not.” Finley shrugged. A moment later, he canceled his spells, causing his wings to disappear, his feet to stop glowing, and the black misty aura to dissipate. “Don’t worry guys. There’s plenty more islands out there to play on. You get to keep all the items in your storehouse, so really, it’s not that bad…” Finley began speaking while slashing down various statues spread about the room, shattering and killing members of both guilds en-masse without remorse.

“Hell, you never know. Maybe someday, players will figure out how to push back the abyss, and you guys can come to the ground level of the gameworld and revisit this island. Hopefully it doesn’t break apart too badly when it crashes back down to the ground.” Finley continued speaking nonchalantly, until he had finished killing every last player except for Quinn and Aegis.

“I will admit, hiding the last island stone is making this a bit tedious. But, it just wasn’t enough. Sorry.” Finley said before piercing his greatsword into Quinn’s petrified chest, killing her and forcing her to log out for 24 hours. “And then there's you, the Shattered Healer.” Finley began pacing in front of Aegis’ statue while Jealousy moved to stand behind him. “Pretty sure your class is supposed to counter mine, but you weren’t really ready for all this, huh?” He smiled.

“You leveled fast and found mithral, all very impressive, but we were just too many steps ahead of you. Maybe if you’d started playing when the game launched, you would’ve stood a chance.” Finley shrugged. “Oh and, by the way…” As he lifted his greatsword up and prepared to strike it down onto Aegis. “I know about that ring Luryala gave you. I also know that you’ll be reviving in the Orm graveyard, it’s the nearest one to these ruins, we tested it already. So, if you’re thinking you’re going to pull something off using that ring of Rebirth, think again. There’s a nice welcome party waiting for you at the graveyard.” Finley declared triumphantly. Before he struck his sword down, though, another violent quaking occurred, signaling the destruction of a second island stone.

“Gee gee. Better luck next time.” Finley said once the quaking stopped. Following his words, he swung his sword down onto Aegis, shattering the statue and killing him. Aegis was prompted to utilize the effects of the Ring of Rebirth, and given a short time window of 30 seconds to decide.

Aegis took a deep breath and reached out to touch the button required to activate the ring. His vision went from black, to bright again as his body reformed within the Orm graveyard. Sure enough, just as Finley had said, there was someone waiting for him.

“Yo.” Emerill smirked as he waved at Aegis from atop one of the nearby gravestones, spinning his mithral daggers around in his hands. “Gonna be my first time killing someone in the top 10 streamer list. Try to make it a bit interesting, okay?”

Aegis fastened his mithral shield to his left arm, dug his feet into the dirt of the Orm graveyard, and glared at Emerill as he prepared to fight.