Chapter 213: The Hornet's Nest

“I don’t believe it!” Samathara spoke to her audience as she leaned over the side of the Skyport of Kordas. “It’s… the abyss is pulling back! The darkness is receding!” She announced. Across the sea of buildings, she looked to the south where the forces of Kordas continued to fight against the swarming reapers and abysslings. But beyond the walls, the dark mist began to pull back, and with it, the creatures and monsters began to flee.

Elven arrows, and makeshift catapults, and bolts of magic of varying elements continued to rain down on the fleeing beasts. Viella continued to shadowstep along the walls, knocking down and killing any remaining enemies that had managed to climb on top of them. Alongside her, several low level players and the guards of Kordas continued to fight. It wasn’t long before the wall was clear, and the only remaining enemies were the ones seen turning tail and fleeing from the walls along with the black mist, as it abandoned the lands of Kalmoore and its conquest to swallow it in darkness.

“I think we’ve done it, old man.” Viella said with a smirk as she appeared next to Jael. Jael, who looked absolutely exhausted in maintaining his spell, finally released it and gasped for air, falling to his knees. Within seconds, the dark gray clouds that he had magically conjured in the skies above Kordas began to dissipate.

Cheers of victory erupted moments later. First from the players behind the walls who’d been manning the catapults, then the players on the walls, and finally, the NPCs who fought valiantly alongside them. It was contagious, and the cheers carried to the broadcasters as they stood up on the Skyport tower, allowing the world to see the results of the Kalmoore invasion.

“It’s not just Kordas, but Rene as well!” Samathara said as she motioned to her split screen broadcast, a feed being sent to her from a broadcaster who had arrived in Rene.

Savika, Celestian, Farlion, Clara and Ulaipu stood atop the crudely repaired walls of Rene, staring out towards the western fields at the dark mist as it pulled back towards the treeline along with the thousands of fleeing abysslings and reapers.

“I feel it. The Darkness is leaving these lands. We have won!” Clara declared, and following her words, there were loud cheers of victory from both the guard NPCs and the civilian NPCs who had joined in on the battle. Savika, on the other hand, dropped to her knees, and was nearly about to collapse on her side before Celestian caught her and held her up.

“You did it, Princess.” Celestian said encouragingly as tears streamed down her cheeks.

“It’s over! People in my chat are telling me the mist is leaving! Kordas and Rene, they’re both safe!” Keldan announced to the group of players near him.

“Thank goodness.” Yumily clutched her chest as tears swelled up in her eyes. Yuki saw her tears of relief and ran to Yumily, hugging her tight while Kenji smiled at the pair.

“I can confirm! Aint no darkness comin’ at us no more! Yeeeee-haw!” The Airship pilot shouted down to them as Yumily’s airship continued to hover over the yellow-leafed grove.

Aegis watched as Keldan, Vriflow, Rocknight and Swiftstar quickly huddled together and began chatting amongst one another, complimenting each other on how awesome they were.

He then turned to see Galanis and Eccen move together and give each other big hugs, looking much more intimate with one another than just friends would be. Then, finally, Josephine walked over to Aegis as he stood alone staring between the others, but eventually his eyes landed on the island stone.

“That felt a little close, huh?” Josephine asked as she moved to stand beside Aegis, and the pair stared at the island stone in front of them together. “One missed swing from any of us, and the stone was gone.” Josephine added as she eyed her shield, and Aegis took a glance at it as well to see it clearly dented and scratched up, showing signs of extremely low durability.

“Yeah…” Aegis nodded in agreement.

“But, you did it. You kept the island safe.” Josephine smiled and patted his shoulder. The moment her hand touched his shoulder, his knees gave out and he collapsed down to the ground. The powerful wave of relief and exhaustion was too much for his mind to bear, and it triggered a warning, followed by a complete game ejection.

*WARNING*

Mental Stress Levels are nearing the safe limit. You will be forcibly removed from the simulation if the current level of stress continues or increases.

[Force Log out] Take a break from the game and relax, you will respawn at the nearest Graveyard.

[Lower Pain Threshold] Threshold Change is currently Available for your account.

[Ignore] Keep Playing, acknowledging that Averon is not liable for any damages caused by continuing Simulation. (If conditions persists or worsen you will be logged out against your will as part of our Terms of Service)

*WARNING*

Mental stress levels have gone beyond the safe limit. You are being forcibly removed from the simulation. Emergency services will be called within 60 seconds unless otherwise instructed.

Before Eli knew it, his Simbox was opening up on its own, and he was staring at the empty living room of his house. He climbed out of his Simbox to the smell of his favorite food permeating the room. He made sure to hit the button his Simbox to cancel the emergency services call while he spotted some flashing lights in the corner of his eyes. Displayed on the television mounted on the wall was Hae-won, talking over edited footage of Aegis’ broadcast that Shinji quickly brought up due to Aegis’ feed being cut.

“Completely understandable, after all that hard work, that our hero Aegis would need a break from the game. But we, as his loyal viewers, have much to discuss and learn about today's events. Let’s go back and look over some of those intense battles to see just exactly how Aegis pulled it all off. And at the end, I’ll reveal my part in all of his secret plans! That’s right, some of you already guessed it, but I wasn’t actually sick earlier! I, too, fought in the battle for Kalmoore! We’ll get started right after this commercial break!” Hae-won cheered to his audience.

Without realizing it, Eli had been caught in her flow and, for some reason, felt himself wanting to watch what would happen next - he snapped himself out of this though as he remembered he was there in person.

“Come, food is ready!” Jillian called out to him suddenly. Eli heard her voice coming from the kitchen and headed over, surprised to see her already sitting down with the food prepared - macaroni and cheese.

“You weren’t watching?” Eli asked her curiously as he took a seat across from her at the kitchen table and grabbed the fork that was already set out for him beside his plate of food.

“I was, but also cooking. Figured you’d be hungry when it was all over.” Jillian shrugged.

“Yeah, pretty hungry.” Eli nodded before digging into the food and eating it. The two didn’t speak any other words after that, and the only sounds they heard were that of their forks occasionally clinking on their plates.

Abruptly, without having finished her plate, Jillian stood up and moved around the table, knelt down beside Eli, and put her arms around him and hugged him tight.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You did your best.” Jillian squeezed him tight. Unlike the rest, praising Eli for his success, she was the first one to realize and acknowledge how he was truly feeling - that he’d failed. He couldn’t hold it back, and tears began flowing down his cheeks as he pressed his face into his mom's shoulder.

“He was such a good lil buddy.” Eli got out, his voice muffled by the cotton of her shirt. Following these words, in the comfort of his mothers arms, he unleashed all of his pent up emotions from the pressure and intensity of the battle. It took a good long while for him to calm down, and in that time Jillian didn’t say any words but simply patted him on the back and held him tight.

Eventually, they got around to finishing their meal, and Eli made his way up to his bedroom to rest outside of the Simbox, being emotionally exhausted. He caught a glimpse on the TV on his way up that Yumily had started her livestream, and most of Aegis’ viewers had gone over to watch her as she made her way back to Kordas to check on things.

Knowing Kalmoore was in good hands, Eli collapsed on his bed with Jillian standing in his doorway.

“It’s the middle of the afternoon, by the way.” Jillian pointed out as she moved across his bedroom to close his blinds for him.

“Yeah, well, I’m tired.” Eli replied grumpily, his eyes red from crying earlier.

“Alright, well, take it easy. You’re gonna be a big deal when you log back in.” Jillian replied.

“Because of the invasion? Or because of the Mithral?” Eli asked with a huff of sarcasm.

“Both. And also, because for a bit there, you were the number one streamer.” Jillian winked before shutting the door, leaving Eli in the darkness of his room. The moment she had, though, he felt a jolt of energy surge back into his body.

He quickly tapped his wrist implant and saw several blinking messages, most of them from Derrick and Selena, but one was from David.

“We need to talk.”

A giant, devilish grin grew across Eli’s face as he hit the call button to respond to the message. It rang a few times in his ear implant before Makaroth, aka David, answered the call.

“Eli.”

“David.”

“You remember our deal, don’t you?” Eli asked with pride in his voice.

“I remember something about words we exchanged at one point, yeah.” David replied.

“I know that you know I am Aegis. So you also know I just surpassed you. Like I said I would.” Eli replied smugly.

“Hah. You call that surpassing me? You got lucky, a pop idol showed up on your stream while she was breaching her VGN broadcasting contract, making it temporarily against the rules for her to stream herself. You practically stole her viewers.”

“You seem to know a lot of details about that. Aren’t you also signed on with VGN?”

“Yeah, so? Of course I'd understand how our contracts work.” David snapped back at him.

“I don’t remember there being some conditional exceptions to that deal we made. I surpassed you. I did it without abandoning my friends or my family, or my life. It was easy. Only took three months.” Eli replied with an angry tone. “So do it. Delete your character, and your account.”

“Listen, kid, if you really thought I was going to give up this life because of your spiteful little tantrums, you’re delusional. Especially not under these circumstances. You really want me to quit, you’re going to have to do better than sit at the number one spot for 15 minutes using a pop-idol guest appearance.” David replied angrily.

“So, what, you’re moving the goalpost now?”

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“What is it? In what way do you want me to crush you, so that you realize how stupid all of this live streaming stuff is?!” Eli whispered back angrily.

“Hold the number one spot for a day, without the use of a pop idol, then maybe I’ll take you seriously.”

“Fine, done. I’m saving this call’s recording, and adding it to the recording of our previous deal. And once I do hold the number one spot for a day, I expect your name to disappear from the livestreaming database. If not, I’ll let all of your precious family-friendly viewers know just how big of a piece of shit you really are.” Eli replied before ending the call.

He felt as though he’d be happy, gloating over his father given the events that transpired, but in the end, he only felt more angry as he sat alone in his bed, in the darkness of his room. It didn’t last long, though, as slowly he calmed himself down and his exhaustion crept up on him, allowing him to pass out.

“FUCK!” David shouted in a rage, flinging a figurine collectible statue of his in-game character across his large, overly luxurious and well decorated living room. Within his mansion, many of the walls between the rooms were glass, and David had been sitting on a large fluffy blue couch in the center of the room with a gigantic screen projecting several livestream broadcasts in front of him.

The figurine smashed on the floor and broke into several small pieces, David watching the parts slide away from him across the polished hardwood. He breathed heavily, attempting to calm himself down as he panned his view around a glass wall that sat between the living room and the Simulation office of his home, where he saw the closed Simbox of his new wife who was still logged into the gameworld, oblivious to his outburst.

From there, he turned to face the television in front of him to see her livestream, sitting at 153,000 viewers as she was still sitting amongst their other guildmades within the tavern of Savringard, discussing the events of Aegis’ stream.

He then looked at the generic VGN broadcasting studio stream, which was in the midst of interviewing various top streamers that were contracted with VGN.

“So it’s true, then?” the interviewer asked Seraxus, the top PvP streamer known for killing other players ruthlessly, and repeatedly winning the monthly gladiator PvP tournaments. While the interviewer was sitting comfortably within his broadcasting studio, he was talking to Seraxus through his livestream broadcast as he remained playing in the game world.

Seraxus, along with his other party members, were boarding a dark wooden Airship engraved with ancient runes, and a strange ancient symbol stitched into the mainsail.

“You’re really leaving Puagas?” The interviewer asked.

“Yeah, aint got no choice, do we? First of all, that punk Rakkan basically challenged me. I gotta teach him a lesson.” Seraxus grinned as he made some gestures towards the nervous Airship pilot, motioning to him that they were ready to set sail. “Secondly, that kid Aegis thinks he’s hot shit now just cause he got bumped up above me on the streamer list for a few minutes doing some whack PvP. So, Imma head over there and teach em both a lesson. Educate them on what some real PvP looks like.” Seraxus grinned mischievously to his camera.

“Well, looks like things in Kalmoore are just beginning to heat up.” The interviewer replied while rubbing his hands together excitedly. “What was once the most peaceful, boring island is quickly becoming the hotspot for all the action within the Shattered World Online. Let’s hope Aegis and his companions are ready for the undefeated gladiator king.” The interviewer spoke, now to the audience.

Hearing this, a great big grin grew across David’s face, and he quickly began fidgeting with his wrist implant until reaching his contacts list, and opening up a call with his agent.

“Hey, I just had a great idea for our next big viewership event. Can you put me in contact with one of our other VGN livestreamers, Seraxus?” David asked into the call as the implant on his ear lit up. “I’ve got an idea for quite the collaboration.” David added, followed by some words from his agent.

“I know the kid is only 15 years old. But he’s in the PvP scene. It’s a great opportunity for us to reach a new audience, and elevate both of our streams to the next level.” David replied, followed by more words in his ear from his agent.

“Oh don’t worry, what I got planned will be way more exciting. It’s gonna make that invasion of Kalmoore look like a commercial break.”