Chapter 304: Lament of Stormtop

Nicholas and Andrew looked at each other briefly with dumbfounded expressions, Aegis’ live stream hovering on a screen in front of them. His livestream followed Aegis as his avatar was teleported out of the arena and back into the waiting room, where all of his companions were waiting for him. 

Similarly, they all had wide eyes of disbelief and just stared at Aegis as he glanced between them.

“What?” Aegis shrugged.

“Nothing, nothing…” Darkshot shook his head awkwardly. “Sorry, got hit by the dark wave.”

“Yeah… same… sorry.” Rakkan added.

“Me too.” Pyri sighed.

“Don’t feel bad, it was nearly impossible to dodge and he kept spamming it. It’s my fault for not being able to block it.” Aegis began pacing around the room. “His party members are a lot better than we expected.”

“It’s ‘cause they don’t normally have a need to act. We had ‘em nervous and taking us seriously.” Rakkan replied.

“That’s a good thing at least, right?” Lina asked.

“Yeah, in a way.” Aegis paused to scratch the back of his head violently, his eyes darting around the room as he went deep into thought for all to see. “If we can just stop him from being able to spam those black waves with his sword and wings, we’d have a reasonable chance. But, I’ve already pulled out every trick I have to get rid of them. It’s really not up to us,” Aegis continued.

“Then we just gotta figure out how to kick his ass, even with the wings.” Rakkan gritted his teeth.

Nicholas flicked his fingers to pull up Aegis’ livestream chat, watching comments on his recent speech still flowing by. The speed at which it was moving was unreadable, and even trying to look at it in an office simulation running at simulation speed 4 was hurting his head, so he gave up quickly.

“Is that gonna work?” Andrew asked, still looking on in disbelief.

“What?” Nicholas asked as he started pulling up various other charts and streams, one of which was showing a live display of the amount of users logged into the game. Andrew saw this and pointed at the screen.

“That. He’s actually convincing people to log out. Look at those numbers drop. The viewership numbers are…” Andrew turned to another screen with several graphs and charts. “They’re going up, but the amount of people playing is going down.”

“I mean, technically, yeah. It’s not how Samantha intended these avatar’s to be beaten, and it’s a little on the nose in terms of meta… but,” Nicholas brought up Seraxus’ live stream alongside Makaroth’s and Serenity’s to get a wide view of the arena. In addition to this, a list of the most viewed livestreams came into view as he pulled it to the forefront alongside them.

• Aegis [FNS] - 2,3m Viewers

• Seraxus - 2,1m Viewers

• Feng [VGN] - 1.9m Viewers

• Makaroth [VGN] 1.5m Viewers

• Serenity [FNS] - 1.1m Viewers

• Daehyun [VGN] - 900k Viewers

• VGN News Network [VGN] - 740k Viewers

• Skar [VGN] 400k Viewers

• Mikael [DNV] - 240k Viewers

• Jensora [VGN] - 190k Viewers

“It doesn’t account for the NPCs, nor will it stop those who are fans of Seraxus from supporting him. Alone, it’s not going to be enough.” Nicholas concluded as he saw the live-stream chat of Seraxus still filled with players announcing their support for him and their hatred for VGN.

–

Makaroth looked on as player after player vanished from within the arena, logging out due to Aegis’ request. Some were quite unhappy with the request, throwing angry glares at Makaroth and Lilya as they did so, but did so nonetheless. NPCs remained, though, as did Seraxus’ supporters. 

While the NPCs of Stormtop seemed genuinely upset with Makaroth, the supporters of Seraxus who were scattered about seemed to be making a mockery of it. They laughed and cackled as they shouted obscenities at him and his Sages of Destiny members that remained in the stands, alongside the view Vindicators who hung back as well.

Their jeers and insults also found their way to the VGN broadcaster, Hae-won, and Serenity who were standing on the raised platform. Makaroth found his eyes wandering to them, seeing the same look of disbelief on their faces that he had as they saw the stadium empty.

Their expressions were what finally shook him out of his daze, and he pulled up his interface to speak with his guildmates.

“Synopse, what's the situation?” 

—

Synopse saw Makaroth’s message pop up in the center of his peripheral vision while he stood near the front of the Sages of Destiny Airship. The ship was moving into a defensive formation above the city of Stormptop, soaring just above the rooftops. 

From it, he had a good vantage point and could see the surrounding mountain tops as the dark black myst of the abyss crept up their slopes. Juggernauts could be seen far in the distance, stomping through the mist towards the mountain on which Stormtop was built, and the black corrupted dragon was flapping his wings while circling the city with swarms of reapers around him.

As it looked from Synopse’s point of view, Stormtop was the only safe place remaining on the island of Tarolas, and that wasn’t going to last much longer. 

“There, it’s that keep.” Daehyun, who was aboard the Airship alongside Synopse, began pointing towards a fortified structure near the center of the city of Stormtop. “The last island stone is inside that keep, we built and fortified it to keep it safe.” Daehyun explained.

“Captain, take us over there.” Synopse commanded the player behind the stern once Daehyun had pointed it out. “That fortification should make it easy to protect, good thinking Daehyun.” Synopse praised him. “FENG!” Synopse yelled at the top of his lungs, eying another Airship soaring not far from his.

The Airship was covered in Vindicator symbolism, with a red mast and banners depicting the Lanuskian’s guild iconography. On the side of the ship, staring off the port side, he could see Feng looking down at the city streets below at the frightened and fleeing players and NPCs.

“Yeah?” Feng turned to look at Synopse after hearing his voice, just barely over the sounds of screaming and the whooshing winds in their sails.

“You’re not running away, are you?”

“Hell no. Who do you think the Vindicators are?” Feng smirked. “Besides. I don’t like being in debt to people. I owe the kid for this sword.” Feng patted the handle of his sheathed katana.

“Good.” Synopse grinned. “You gotta get your airships away from the port and into defensive formations around that keep. That’s where the last island stone is…” 

“Got it.” Feng nodded.

“I’ve already instructed the guards to order all vessels in the port to do the same…” Daehyun pointed in the direction of the Skyport of Stormtop, just outside the walls of the city where the top of multiple masts were visible peeking overtop of it. As Daehyun pointed this out, though, Synopse spotted the corrupted dragon and his swarm of reapers soaring towards the armada of Airships.

Just as they began to undock from the port and rise up above the city walls to move into defensive formation, the aerial attack on them began.

“Shit!” Synopse pointed it out frantically, but nothing could be done by himself, or anyone aboard his and Feng’s Airships. 

The dark red letters of [Kelik’radanir, The Corrupted Silver Dragon(ELITE) - ??] came into view as the dragon swooped near a merchant vessel carrying guards and players, opening his jaw wide and releasing a blast of dark black abyssal magic on the Airship. 

The blast was loud, and a deafening roar came with it as the breath attack blasted a hole into the airship, splitting it in half and killing all players and NPCs on board almost instantly. Any that were not killed were made into fodder by the swarm of reapers that followed up the attack, smothering the ship in black leathery wings as they overtook it and forced the broken airship fragments to plummet out of the sky, tumbling down the mountainside of Stormtop’s peak.

The sound was enough to draw eyes from not just Synopse and Feng, but everyone in Stormtop, and the screaming and panic increased 10 fold. Immediately after the first ship's destruction, the dragon swirled around with several violent flaps of its large wings and turned to face another vessel.

“If we don’t do something about that thing, we won’t have any airships left!” Feng pointed out as they watched Kelik’radanir preparing to shoot down one of the much better equipped Vindicator vessels as it left port. It fired several shots from magical cannons at the dragon, but it remained unphased.

“We can’t even see its level, and it’s a raid boss. We don’t really stand a chance against it, do we?” Daehyun asked Synopse with his voice slightly trembling.

“We’ve gotta try!” Synopse shouted as he waved at his captain and pulled out his staff. He was preparing to cast a spell to try and assist the Vindicator vessel, but they were too far away. Similarly, Feng drew out his katana as his airship began turning as well.

Both couldn’t do much but watch as Kelik’radanir opened his maw wide and prepared to blast the vessel from the skies, and a second black wave of violent magical energy shot out from its mouth at the red mast of the ship.

It didn’t connect, however—a second blast of silvery magical energy shot down out of the sky above Stormtop, intercepting it. The two waves of magic colliding created a sonic boom-like sound, momentarily deafening Synopse and canceling all sounds around Stormtop. The resulting explosion was a mix of silvery magic and black abyssal mist, creating a dome of energy at the impact point and a shockwave of force that pushed the vindicator Airship away to safety.

The source of the silvery blast was none other than Ysil’mareina, the silver dragon that Aegis had arrived on the back of. She was soaring through the skies above Stormtop in the direction of Kelik’radanir, and her appearance caused him to retreat while swarms of reapers covered him by flying forward towards both Ysil’mareina and the Vindicator vessel. 

The vessel opened fire, both from its cannons and the numerous high level players on the deck. Arrows and bolts of magic of all colors bombarded the reapers, and it wasn’t just from that vessel. All other vessels nearby began to join in the defenses against the swarm of reapers, cutting through their incredibly massive numbers and holding them back from swarming any more ships.

In this time, Ysil’mareina soared towards Synopse and Feng’s vessels and slowly came to a stop, flapping her wings to hover near them before carefully finding purchase with her claws on several tall, vacant buildings nearby. 

When she landed and pulled her wings in, a figure sitting on her back came into view for both Feng and Synopse.

“You guys got a plan?” Mikael asked as he held onto a set of straps that had been tied to Ysil’mareina’s back by Aegis for their initial journey between Kalmoore and Tarolas. Synopse and Feng both exchanged looks of disbelief, and hints of envy as they saw the level 150 paladin riding the silver dragon. 

“She’s following your orders?” Feng asked him.

“I don’t take orders from anyone.” Ysil’mareina growled back, her voice booming loud and echoing over the city nearby.

“We’re working together, we all want to protect this island, right Daehyun?” Mikael glared at him.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, of course.” Daehyun replied nervously, unable to look Mikael in the eyes. 

“The last island stone is hidden in that fortress.” Synopse pointed to it so that both Ysil’mareina and Mikael could see. “We just gotta stop the dragon and his juggernauts from destroying it long enough, so that Aegis can beat Seraxus. Once Seraxus loses, the invasion should end.” Synopse explained.

“And what if Aegis can’t stop him?” Mikael asked, and this prompted another tense silence between the group. 

“Then it’ll be up to us to stop him.” Synopse took a deep breath. 

It was a game—they all knew it. Just a game inside a virtual simulation, where not even the avatars they played were real. Despite this, though, the four players and the dragon all silently met each other's eyes, understanding just how serious and dire the situation they were in was. They felt it down to their bones, and excitement boiled in their blood alongside their fear. 

“The road up the mountainside arrives at the northern gates. I’ll instruct all the disqualified PvP players to move to defend it alongside the guards.” Daehyun said before he began fidgeting with his interface.

“We’ll cover the airships as they move into formation around the stone.” Mikael pulled on Ysil’mareina’s reigns, causing her to launch off of the building tops and start flapping her wings again, releasing gusts of wind that shook Feng and Synopse’s airships before she flew in the direction of the swarming reapers at the Skyport. Once he’d seen this, Synopse opened up his interface to finally address Makaroth’s question.

“We’re taking up defensive positions all around Stormtop using our Airships. Everyone is working together. It’s not going to mean much if no one can stop Seraxus, though.” Synopse replied to him. 

---

Makaroth got the response as he remained inside the stadium. He eyed the countdown timer of the intermission, seeing that there was only 2 minutes remaining until Aegis and Seraxus walked back into the ring. With this information, he opened up both of their livestreams and saw that Aegis was pacing and discussing strategy with his party, while Seraxus was making a mockery of Aegis’ speech to his viewers and still had his leathery black wings on his back. 

They weren’t as pronounced as they had been, but still very much present, as was the black mist emanating from his sword.

“If everyone who was spreading hatred logged out, he’d have lost his wings.” Makaroth mumbled to himself, but Lilya heard him. “He’s still got them, though.” He turned to Lilya.

“So what?” Lilya raised her brow at him.

“We’ve gotta get rid of the wings so he stands a chance.” Makaroth concluded with a deep breath.

“Wait. You want to help that guy? Did you not hear all the shit he just said about us?” Lilya looked at Makaroth in disbelief.

“None of that really matters right now, does it?” He said to her, but realized who he should really be talking to. Makaroth cleared his throat and straightened his back, addressing not just those in the stands, but the VGN broadcaster on the raised platform, and his audience who were flooding his chat with questions.

“Aegis and Seraxus, there is some truth to what they’ve said. I’ll admit it, I’ve played foolishly the past weeks. I’d like to take the time to apologize to everyone, and explain myself… but there is not the time for that. Right now, it’s time to clean up the mess I’ve made.” Makaroth spoke loud enough that all could hear him.

“How exactly are you planning on doing that?” Lilya asked as the angry crowd members continued to shout, and Seraxus’ supporters continued to yell and mock him, not taking anything he said seriously. Most were even talking over him, making it difficult for the rest of the NPCs and players still in the stands to hear his words. Serenity and Hae-won, however, were listening to him intently.

“That part’s easy.” Makaroth drew out his greatsword, causing it to give off a deep blue glow while several red balls of cinderbolts formed around him. “We just play the game,” He smirked.

Following this, he disappeared from Liyla’s side. With incredible movement, he began dashing around the arena stands, moving between the benches. His form was visible only due to the blue glowing magical light trail that his sword was leaving behind, and it took a second for Liyla and the others to see what he was doing.

DEAD, DEAD, DEAD — red text started popping up all over the arena stands as Makaroth was one by one killing every single player who was still logged in, jeering support for Seraxus. After the first few, the others started to clue in as to what was going on and began to shout and panic. Some tried to flee, but Makaroth wasn’t going to let them escape — he was the number one, highest level player in the entirety of the Shattered World Online. They didn’t stand a chance, and within a few seconds, every single supporter of Seraxus inside the stadium was killed and forcefully logged out of the gameworld.

“Leaders of Lanusk, Savringard, Tarolas, Kalmoore, and beyond. Guild leaders, players, adventurers, crafters and roleplayers alike, I need to ask you all a favor. Please, for this selfish, foolish old man, kill everyone you can see that supports the Avatar of Hatred. If they won’t log out on their own, we can make them log out. We’ll return the light to his virtual world by force.”

“Seriously?” Hae-won’s jaw dropped as she heard his words.

“I mean… technically…” Kenji whispered as he thought about it. 

“Ooh, we’re committing genocide now?” Liyla suddenly hopped in place with excitement. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.” She added with all too much glee. 

“Serenity, your music no longer needs to reach the ears of players. Just the NPCs. Do you think you can calm them down?” He shouted across the stadium at her, his voice now much more easy to understand now that all the dissenters had been killed. Jensora watched the exchange happen with eyes of excited disbelief. 

“I think so…” Serenity nodded, confidence slowly returning to her as she went deep into thought about her next performance. 

“Good.” Makaroth began fidgeting with his interface to bring up his guild chat once more.

“Synopse, have our shattered healer’s lend their Aura of Light spell to every bard and shadow dancer you can find. Activate it as efficiently as you can, so that it reaches everyone in Stormtop.” Makaroth ordered him through the Sages of Destiny guild chat.

—

“We should help too, right?” Ren asked, hopping around in place as he stood beside the other Night Hunters. They were inside a large Kordas tavern, drinking and eating together with several floating live-stream broadcasts on the wall of Aegis’ livestream, Makaroth’s, and several others.

“Well…” Quinn looked around the other players, seeing only her guildmates staring back at her. There were numerous other high level players present, but all were clearly in support of Aegis. “None of us support Seraxus, so, I don’t really see how we could…”

“I might be able to help with that…” Vriflow stood up from her table in the corner of the tavern, revealing herself alongside Keldan, Swiftstar and Rocknight.

“Oh yeah? How?” Sapphire asked her curiously with her ears wiggling, all eyes turning to Vriflow.

“Theremis. The goddess I worship, she gave me a skill… I honestly have never used it before because I thought it was useless…” Vriflow mumbled while fidgeting with her interface. 

“What skill?” Quinn asked her curiously.

“It’s got a really long cooldown, so we should probably try it outside to make sure it works.” Vriflow explained as she read over the skills description, then motioned them to the doors of the tavern that lead out into the streets of Kordas. Quinn, Ren, and then many others followed her outside into the streets that, at the moment, were somewhat empty. Many players were either logged out or inside a building to watch the livestreams of the events transpiring on Stormtop. 

Once Vriflow had a good number of the Night Hunters outside with her in the street, and several others including her companions, she looked to Swiftstar who gave her a nod.

“Go for it, it’s worth a shot.” he shrugged.

“Okay.” Vriflow looked from Swiftstar to the expectant Quinn. “Here goes nothing.” She took a deep breath. “Eye of Divinity, Judgement: Hatred.” She cast the spell. White yellow light swirled around her and shot up into the sky, clearing the clouds directly above them in the air above the city. A few seconds later, the light that released from her body formed into a gigantic eyeball made of holy magic.

“According to the spell description, Theremis will pass her judgment on the hearts of those under the eye, revealing to us any that is carrying a dark emotion of my choosing.” Vriflow explained as the eye blinked several times before firing off a cascade of light rays down on the city of Kordas.

The rays fanned out like an umbrella of shooting stars, hitting hundreds of points all over the place. 

“So if we believe in the spell, every single one of those beams will lead us to a player who is empowering Seraxus’ sword of hatred?” Quinn confirmed.

“I think so…” Vriflow shrugged nervously. Quinn exchanged looks with Sapphire, Travis, Herilon and Ren. Herilon was the first to act, drawing out his greatsword. 

“I was worried we weren’t going to be able to help Aegis from all the way over here on Kalmoore.” Herilon smirked.

“Wait, you’re just going to randomly start killing every player that the eye is pointing at?” Sapphire asked him with wide eyes of disbelief. Herilon turned to see it wasn’t just her, but everyone nearby was giving him judgemental stares.

“Yep. What're you gonna do about it? Arrest me?” Herilon asked her, to which Sapphire responded by drawing out her scepter. “No, just making sure we were all on the same page.” Sapphire shrugged. “I mean as long as it’s okay with you, boss.” She turned to Quinn, and all eyes now fell on her.

“Ahhh… I mean, we did promise we’d support Aegis. I guess we’re committing war crimes now.” Quinn rolled her eyes and drew out her longbow. 

—

“It’s…” Nicholas looked on in disbelief at the dozens of screens on display in front of him. 

“It’s actually working.” Andrew finished his sentence for him as they eyed the balance of Light vs Dark players, seeing it shift massively in favor of light alignment. “I don’t believe it. You didn’t need to nerf the sword after all!” Andrew cheered.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. They haven’t won yet.” Nicholas replied as he pulled up Seraxus’ stream to see a nervous looking orc, his wings beginning to flicker and lose their form.

—

The first Grand Finals match will begin in 60. Please exit the waiting area and enter the arena.

Aegis waved the message away, took a deep breath, and turned to face the doors that opened to the center of the arena. The light from outside crept in, and this time, no black mist flooded in with it.

“Focus. Stick to our plan, and trust in each other.” Aegis told them, and got several nods before he began marching up the ramp to the arena.

When he stepped through the threshold, out onto the tiled floor of the arena, he watched several domes of light erupt all over the city. Aegis recognized the spell as his aura of light even though he could barely see it over the walls of the arena around him. He was momentarily confused at this sight.

Furthermore, when he panned around the stands he saw that no players were present, only NPCs. The only players he did see were Hae-won, Serenity, Kenji and the VGN broadcasters up on the raised platform, preparing for a performance.

For a brief moment, Aegis locked eyes with Serenity and she gave him a nod. She then flicked out her arms and began waving her fingers, as a soft and serene melody began to play. It wasn’t loud, or upbeat, or provocative, but peaceful and calming.

A loud roaring explosion from the battle for Stormtop erupted, briefly overpowering the sound of her music and startling the NPCs in the stands, but she remained playing her instruments with absolute focus, drawing the attention of the NPCs back onto herself after a few moments.

Not long after the instruments began, her voice joined in with a calm soothing hum. This sound accompanied Aegis and his companions as they made their way to the center of the arena, where they saw across from them Seraxus’ party approaching.

The look on Seraxus’ face was no longer of confidence, condescending mockery, or anger. He instead had a calm, focused expression as he stared down Aegis from his side of the arena.

And, most importantly of all, Aegis looked to Seraxus’ sword and his back. There was no mist emanating from him, and the black wings of hatred had completely disappeared. By pure brute force, the entire Shattered World online had been cleansed of the emotion.

“Let's do this.”