YGGDRASIL. Múspellsheim.
In the world of fire and magma within the virtual universe of YGGDRASIL, the most popular DMMO-RPG on Earth, two beings fought crazily with all their might. Moving through the air like twin meteors of destruction.
One of the players, a Seraphim with six pairs of wings, swung his sword while calling out one of his signature Tier 7 spells.
"[Holy Blade Slash]!"
His opponent, a Dragon Lord, the highest rank of the Draganoid race class, similarly used one of his own signature skills to counter his long-time rival and friend's attack.
"[Resist Element] [Flame Strike]!"
The sword of the Angel that looked like it was made with crystalized rainbow thanks to its evershifting, kaleidoscopic light, clashed with the Tier 7 immunity spell, Resist Element.
The Angel reacted nearly instantly and pulled back, barely avoiding the counterattack from the Dragon Lord's follow-up attack, the Flame Strike, which created a blade of fire to cut through the defensive spells of his opponents, dealing Fire Damage status effect and increasing his own Critical Hit Damage should the blow land.
If the Player Avatars were capable of expression, there would be no doubt that these two would be grinning like madmen at this moment.
"How about we take this up a notch? Drakovahn?"
Drakovahn, the World Champion of Muspellsheim, the Tyrant of Ash, grinned in the real world at the challenge from his eternal rival and best friend.
"Took the words right out of my mouth! Aetherion!"
Aetherion, The Dawn Bringer, the greatest Solo player in the world of Muspellsheim, also grinned in the real world, preparing to end this fight quickly.
With a wave of his hand, the kaleidoscopic sword in his hand twisted, turning into a lance that could be thrown while the Dragon Lord activated his own special item, making the beautiful crown on his head turn grey like the ash in the air, while it burst into hellish black flames.
Aetherion pulled back his arm, preparing to throw the lance while spreading his wings completely.
"[Holy Strike] [Bless] [Aura of Purity]"
With the three Tier-10 buff spells, the Angel's stats shot through the roof temporarily as the World Item in his hand, Aurora's Oath, gained a substantial boost.
But he was not done yet, as he used a final spell to boost its damage further.
"[Heaven's Judgement]!"
A Super-Tier spell so powerful that it was comparable to another Super-Tier Spell famously used by the Guild Master of Ains Ool Gown, Fallen Down.
The additional effects of Heaven's Judgement immediately boosted Aurora's Oath to the point where its power was nearly unstoppable. The same power that earned its wielder the nickname "One-Man Raid" due to how powerful he becomes with this combo.
Of course, being the rival of such a being, Drakovahn was not someone to be trifled with so easily either.
"[Prismatic Resistance] [Scale of the Eternal Dragon] [Worldbreaker's Fury]!"
With his own buffs boosting his stats and resistance across the board, directly matching his rival's own power and even countering it on some level, Drakovahn used his own Super-Tier magic to boost his own World Item, Crown of Ashes.
"[Ethernal Pyre of Tyranny]!"
At once, the Crown of Ashes experienced a drastic buff to its abilities, which were already a ridiculous buff to Drakovahn's breath attacks.
Opening his maw, which engaged his brath attack animation on his avatar, he used his stronger Dragon Breath skill.
A ball of pure power manifested within the maw of Drakovahn while the Kaleidoscopic Lance of Aetherion struggled within said angel's grasp, desiring to leap out on its own and kill its target.
As one, the Angel and the Draganoid let loose their final attacks.
The Lance tore through the air, leaving behind a line of kaleidoscopic colors as if space itself had been torn asunder in its wake, while the breath attack manifested in a thin but potent stream of energy, as if an angry laser that sought to reduce everything to ash.
It was when these two attacks that brought great renown to their wielders clashed that the world of fire and magma turned silent, as if in respect and fear of these formidable beings.
However, it was at this moment that the Draganoid showed why he managed to become the World Champion of Muspellsheim while his friend and rival fell to him in that fateful tournament.
While his breath attack was still clashing with Aetherion's World Item, Drakovahn unleashed another Super-Tier magic, albeit at a great cost.
"[Dragon Hoard]!"
Instantly, 20 Dragons manifested in the air, each one at level 80 and wielding powerful breath attacks as an addition to their already impressive stats.
But Drakovahn was not done yet.
"[Dragon's Dominion] [Draconic Supremacy]!"
The buff, Draconic Supremacy, boosted the summoned hoard of Dragons to nearly level 90 while Dragon's Dominion negated the flight buffs that Aetherion had used some time before to boost his agility in the air, making him slower to react.
Familiar with his friend and rival's move, Aetherion used his own summoning spell, knowing that it would be a futile effort but unwilling to give up that easily.
"[Pantheon]!"
6 Cherubium Gatekeepers, powerful NPC Angel summons of Level 80, were summoned immediately by Aetherion's side. Their lion heads and manes and armored humanoid bodies painted a majestic and holy radiance as their four wings unfurled completely, giving them a divine visage.
And leading this group of powerful angels was the greatest Angel summon in the game.
Its pure and radiant form looked similar to an armored knight, wearing pristine silver armor with embedded jewels across its form, similar to a human knight, yet its ten radiant wings made of pure light gave it a divine visage similar to the stories of old.
Seraph Empyrean. The level 90 Angel summon was unrivaled in terms of summonable creatures of the Hetromorphic kind.
Yet, Aetherion did not stop there.
"[Freedom] [Heaven's Ward] [Mass Sanctuary] [Holy Aura]!"
One after another, he stacked buffs on his summons and himself, trying to gain an edge against his rivals' attacks.
Freedom fought against Dragon's Dominion to release his and his angels' flight restrictions, Heaven's Ward struggled against Draconic Supremacy that boosted the Dragon hoard's stats while weakening Aetherion and his angels' stats, Mass Sanctuary worked to boost his own stats along with his Angels, while Holy Aura tried to shield his summons from being targeted by Drakovahn's debuff spells.
Yet, while doing all of this, he was distracted from his main attack by diverting his mana to other spells, just like Drakovahn wanted.
By forcing Aetherion to divert some of his mana, which fuelled his Aurora's Oath, Drakovahn could use his natural advantage in mana capacity to overwhelm his rival's attack.
Which is exactly what he did, causing his breath attack to quickly tear through the Aurora's Oath, reducing it to moats of light that returned to Aetherion's inventory.
The breath attack quickly tore through Aetherion's wings, causing True Elemental Damage, which instantly inflicted several debuffs on him and reduced his HP to a mere few points.
"HAHAHA! I won! Just like always!"
"Screw you!"
At the angry angel's shout, Drakovahn simply laughed again as the duel notice appeared between the two, announcing Drakovahn's win and Aetherion's loss.
With a shake of his head, Aetherion dismissed his summons and pulled out a few healing items while Drakovahn did the same.
With a few clicks on the console, the two top-level solo players disappeared from the central volcanoes of Múspellsheim and appeared at the edge of the realm where the main city of this realm existed. A place where most of the solo players gathered.
And yet, as the two players walked through the streets, they did not find the bustling area as they had expected. Instead, all they found were a sparse few players and a handful of NPCs manning the various stores.
"..I guess, not even such a big event would make people come back here, huh?"
Drakovahn's glum words made Aetherion stay silent, yet he too felt just as sad as his best friend.
They were veteran players of the game, playing since the day it was launched to escape the cruel reality of Earth and find some solace in this world.
Yet, who would have thought that even this final sanctuary for their sanity would be taken from them like this?
"It cannot be helped. Those bastards at the government have been placing increased taxes on everything, especially the entertainment sector, which has forced YGGDRASIL's developers to pay more money than they earn. It only makes sense that they would choose to let go of this project and focus on something else."
"What are they supposed to do now? Even if they make another game, they will still have to pay those unfair taxes."
At his friend's bitter words, Aetherion had no response as he too felt the same.
Because in their shitty world, where the planet had long since died and people lived in a dead world, with food, water, and even oxygen, being sold at exorbitant prices to the civilians while the big companies and governments relish in luxuries far beyond the wildest dreams of the common man, safely living out their lives of decadence within domes full of the last vistages of Earth's nature while ordinary people like Aetherion, real name David Goodman, and Drakovahn, true name Michael Conner, had no rights and no way to truly lead a happy life under the smog covered skies, the acid rains, the unbreathable air that required people to have artificial lungs to breath and the polluted earth beneath their feet.
Soon, the two arrived at the local tavern, where solo players normally gathered once upon a time to have some fun, yet now, it was nearly barren with only a handful of scattered players here and there.
The two friends silently sat down at an isolated table and watched as the shutdown counter started to tick down.
1:00
"I guess, I never did manage to defeat you, eh?"
Aetherion's words came steadily, yet in real life, there were already tears gathering in his eyes as he knew this would probably be the last time he would ever see his friend in person.
The travel charges for traveling between states were so exorbitant that most people could not afford such a luxury. In such a situation, it was a given that an ordinary factory worker like Drakovahn could never afford a ticket to travel from San Francisco all the way to New York to meet him, just like he could not afford the travel since he, too, was a regular worker in a private firm.
All they could afford was phone calls, which was not the same as meeting each other face to face like this. Not to mention their twelve-hour shifts, which were recently implemented across the country, making it really hard for people to have the time to do anything else aside from work and sleep.
Such is the cost of unchecked capitalism after all.
00:30
"Yeah. My record still remains. That means I am a better PvP player than you."
"Hey! That is uncalled for! I am still a powerful PvP player that is very well regarded, you know?"
"Sure. Except that I am still better than you."
"YOU!!"
00:10
With a sigh, the two friends watched the ticking timer.
"...I'll miss this a lot. Michael"
"So will I. David. But it's not like we will never talk again, right?"
In real life, the two friends had a wry smile on their faces as tears slowly fell down their faces, already mourning the loss of this friendship that had lasted for so many years, ever since they first met in the game during the launch.
00:03
"Goodbye, World Champion. Tyrant of Ash. Drakohvan."
00:02
"Goodbye, Dawn Bringer, One-Man Raid, Aetherion."
00:01
""May we meet again, in another branch of the world tree.""
00:00
With a flash of light, everything vanished from Aetherion's vision.
Yet, before he completely lost consciousness, he saw a peculiar sight that chilled his heart for some reason.
The counter that had gone down to 00:00 suddenly started counting up again.
And he knew no more.
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Author Notes: Read 5 chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/Ruijard1