On the last night of the VR Game Advent of the Hero, a blood orange sky hung above the last city on the server.
Fire and shadow rolled over the walls in waves. Hordes of demons and dragons that breathed a wretched fire which streaked in from the horizon, akin to bright stars tearing across the darkness, dying it red.
The south of the city had already collapsed. Only a dark and endless crater remained in its place, as if something had eaten it out of the world. In reality, it had been consumed by the demons. Smited out of existence by one of their many arch dukes.
I stood on the fractured remains of the eastern wall as I watched the war unfold, spear in hand, and my eyes flicked to the raid frame on the left side of my HUD.
> [RAID][IronSaint]: F*ck, we're being pushed back on the south. The damn Vampire hoards are endless!
> [RAID][Kitsune]: Heal CDs up in 12, just hold out!
> [RAID][Warden-X]: The north's been breached by the shadows. One of the raid bosses is here!
> [SYSTEM]: Player [Warden-X] has fallen.
"North is gone," I said automatically, eyes tracking the top of the screen where another name greyed out. "The shadow legion will start pouring through to the heart of the city, and we'll be encircled within minutes."
"Hah! I told the dumbasses to run daylight in their spell books, no way they're stopping that boss without it." IronSaint chuckled and replied, his fingers gently tapping the blade sheathed at his side.
Kitsune snorted over comms, "They were running Daylight, genius. The boss still killed all the battlemages through it."
IronSaint whistled, "Hell of a heavy hitter. Isn't that a 50% debuff on all shadow-based damage? We still got wiped?"
"50%? Warden-X had the Bile Barathion set, it's a 95% damage debuff, and he still got one-shot." Kitsune clicked her tongue and hastily continued. "Shit is hopeless."
"Relax. LastLight, what's the setup with the rune surge?" IronSaint sighed, his eyes drifting towards the north end of the city. A dark, shadowy tide could already be seen spreading towards the centre of the city.
"That skill takes a long time to charge." I gripped the spear again; this time, faint runes lit up across its handle and climbed to the spearhead.
"How much longer?" Kitsune said, "We've already lost 3000 players and counting."
I sighed, "One more minute."
"It better be worth it." Kitsune trailed off. A moment later the distinct screech of an undead army echoed through her surroundings. "Necromancer is advancing on the West. The best our squad can do is hold out."
"That'll be fine." My lips curled into a smile. I nudged my avatar back along the broken parapet, boots kicking through dust and rubble. Haptics buzzed faintly along my legs and into my hands. The wall shuddered under another impact two towers down. Stone dust, particle effects, burning fragments of Demon flesh, everything mixed together.
"Try your best to lead them all here," I smirked, dragging the butt of my spear behind me.
As I looked down, from up here the battlefield looked like a broken ant farm. It was the clash of ten thousand players against an endless army led by the demon king in the final raid. Yet from up here, it almost looked eerily familiar to some RTS games I played back in the day.
My eyes narrowed. Demons already swarmed the base of the eastern, dozens of different models layered into one churning mass. The smaller ones crawled, scrambled, climbed, their claws biting into stone.
The larger demons stalked behind them, towering silhouettes that shrugged off ballista shots and spellfire. Farther back, in the shadow of an immense, half-rendered silhouette that bent the sky around it, Dragons shot out gargantuan fireballs into the city's heart.
Timers flickered at the edge of my vision. Cooldowns. Buff durations. Wave intervals.
"Forty more seconds," IronSaint said, tracking the timer of my skill. "Everyone, gather."
I gripped the spear tighter, and the icon near my name pulsed. My heart was racing. Every muscle in my body tensed. A heat spread through my chest. Almost as if my brain was celebrating having made it this far.
It was strange, I was ecstatic.
As a Rune Bearer, I wasn't the strongest nor the fastest on the server. I had no broken abilities or [EX] ranked spells, or even ancient powers to rely on. No, my class was far too simple. I wasn't a renowned player, at best, infamous in the right circles.
So a part of me still couldn't believe I was among the few chosen to lead the last raid for the entire server.
"Thirty." IronSaint echoed, "LastLight, get into position!"
"Got it." I flickered towards the top of the eastern wall, shuffling my feet to get inside a crude circle carved into the stone floor.
There was only one good reason for my participation in this monumental raid. So that the players could use the exclusive ultimate ability of a top-ranked Rune Bearer.
-World Imprint-
As luck would have it, I was the only one in the server who had reached the last tier of this class.
The wall shook again. A section of parapet further along simply crumbled.
"Incoming!" IronSaint barked.
The horde surged.
Four gargantuan silhouettes flickered ahead from the shadows. Towering over the city walls.
"Four Unholy Titans," IronSaint said unsheating his blade. A golden aura enveloped his body. "Everyone, prepare for LastLights Rune. Keep him alive, if not, we will wipe right here!"
"You know we wipe anyway," someone muttered in the background.
We would wipe anyway. That was the point. This last raid. We weren't the only server to have attempted this. The developers had promised that it was impossible. And so, server after server, players tried to get through it. But no one could.
> [SYSTEM]: Player [Kitsune] has fallen.
In the end, everyone knew it was just a way for the developers to gently let down the players.
The game was shutting down. This was simply their last goodbye.
I knew that. I knew that and yet. A part of me wasn't willing to give up.
One of the unholy titans lunged forward.
"Ten seconds, I said into comms. My eyes tracked movement patterns, collision boxes, and my body was already moving with a rhythm that I had picked up after spending thousands of hours.
The spear twirled in my grip. I looked up.
A fist the size of a mountain descended from above.
Before I could react, a glowing mark appeared above. IronSaint flicked his wrist. His sword cleaved through the Titan's arm, splitting it in half before the blow could land.
The Titan wailed.
IronSaint's figure turned golden. He stabbed forward with an ultimate skill. A simple thrust and the Titan's chest caved in. A gaping hole remained where its heart had been.
[Unholy Titan Defeated (1/4)!]
I chimed in, "Five seconds."
The distant silhouettes of the remaining Titans flickered forward.
"Fire!" IronSaint bellowed.
A fraction of a second later, a thousand mage players released their strongest spells towards the approaching enemy.
But my focus was already somewhere else. It was time.
I raised my spear, and runic lines flashed along its body. The runes coloured everything around me, and I spoke.
[Masaredo]
The city shivered. A pulse of bright light burst out and covered every inch of it. A large magic circle spread out across the horizon. Slowly expanding to cover everything as a spell lingered at the tip of my tongue.
~World Imprint: Inverted Heaven~
I uttered.
Everything went white.
There was no big explosion. No roar. Everything had crossed into the city's boundary, the Vampires, the Shadowed legions, the Undead armies all collapsed into nothing.
Matter lost the right to exist. An invading force that had blackened the land was **erased**, blotted out so completely that even absence struggled to mark where it had been. No corpses. No ash. Just emptiness.
As the world turned back to normal, the players realised that for the time being, everything had been wiped clean.
But that joy didn't last long.
Beyond the city's edge, the remaining armies stood frozen, ranks intact yet unmoving, staring at the invisible threshold they now understood had meaning.
Then the pressure came.
The sky bent, space thickened, and something dark, something immense turned its attention toward me.
> [SYSTEM]: Player [AncientWizard] has fallen.
> [SYSTEM]: Player [GrimTycoon] has fallen.
> [SYSTEM]: Player [SpeedyFoot] has fallen.
> [SYSTEM]: Player [Erise133] has fallen.
.
.
.
[Special World Event: The Demon King Appears!]
Whatever I saw could not really be called a model. Advent's engine was too old to handle what the designers were trying to do at the end.
The King was more like a hole cut in reality, an absence dragging at colours and lines. Looking directly at it made my eyes burn.
"All right," IronSaint heaved a breath, still radiating golden light from his form. "So this is the infamous special last stage of the raid. Guess it really does appear if you manage to wipe out the armies in the City."
I felt a jolt run through my spine, and with a cough, I dropped to my knees. "Yeah. Guess the forums weren't lying." I panted.
"You good?" IronSaint waved his hand, a bit of his golden aura extended towards me. My health bar flashed green; I was being healed, albeit slowly, but the recovery was evident.
"All good. Just playing with high immersion on." I replied.
"Crazy bastard. You'll fry your brain someday." IronSaint chuckled. "Better get back to your feet. Looks like it's only you and me remaining from the raid leaders."
But as I got up. We both felt the immense presence of the Demon King hovering above us in the air.
"Give me everything you have," IronSaint watched it approach and continued with a smile. His sword gleamed with light. "We'll drag this out and make it the longest two-man in Advent's history."
"Who's the real crazy bastard?" I raised my spear, and Runes flared from my armour. But despite my words, a smile hung on my lips. The end was near.
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