The space around me began to distort—the players on flying mounts weren’t shy about using their Ultimas. I sent the damage back with Sleeping Vindication, knocking down the boldest. That repeated again and again, until I was finally alone in the sky. Unfortunately, the level gap was too wide for me to get experience.
A quick glance below: almost nothing remained of the legions of NPCs and most of the players, although the clans of the Alliance of Preventers were still whole, along with the priests and the Aspects of Light and Colossi of Darkness. They were still advancing on the temple.
Three hundred and sixty million health, rank four Resilience, Sleeping Invulnerability— I just had to survive a direct hit from Armageddonl I intercepted the first meteorite a mile in the air, meeting the red-hot fifty-yard-wide ball with a Hammerfist. For a few moments, I was in the epicenter of the explosion, curled into a ball and surrounded by a storm of hellfire. My health dropped right to the bottom. I could smell my own burning flesh, hear it crackle. My hair blackened and my skin bubbled and burst, but another came to replace it, Diamond Skin.
There was no time for a break. Gulping from my Bottomless Healing Potion, I restored thirty percent health and flew beneath the second meteorite. It was fired a little later than the first, so I managed to intercept it.
I had just enough time to glance down at the temple as I flew—my team was locked in combat with an Alliance assault group in the ruins. The enemy standard-bearers and sappers took their chance and did their job, setting up flags to demoralize and debuff us, and mining the foundation. Rogues in stealth guarded them, although I could see them clearly thanks to my high level. I fired off Sleeping Vindication, but was too high up to kill anyone…
Clenching reflexively in anticipation of the coming collision, I placed myself in the meteorite’s path and fired off a Hammerfist an instant before the strike, smashing the stone into pieces. The subsequent explosion threw me right onto a Colossus of Darkness.
I was as if in limbo—gloom and emptiness all around. I was shaken, then thrown from the Colossus. Diamond Skin ran out an instant before I was thrown through the sky with a debuff growing at a breakneck speed. I had no time to leave the raid group, to save my friends. All I could do was watch as my chest exploded from within and a clot of black mist burst from the hole.
You are dead.
Remaining time to respaivn 9… 8… 7…
While my corpse fell, I saw a flickering black and wiiite image: the sky, blinding in the north and dark in the south; the towering avatars of Nergal and Marduk; the huge figures of the Aspects and the Colossi; the battle unfolding at the temple walls and the portraits of my raid group members, all covered with skulls, including Patrick and the guardians.
Subconsciously, I was ready to lose my NPC friends, but to go through it for real… I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
My grim, hopeless grief turned to fury and a desire to take vengeance. A few yards before I hit the ground, a notification flashed up:
Second Life! You managed to dodge death!
I came alive, activated Flight to slow my fall. I looked around and began to quickly descend, reviving my friends and player allies where they’d died. I waited a few seconds to make sure that we were attacked first and Sleeping Justice activated, quadrupling my stats.
A high priest stood on a flying disk of light in the distance, his cassock gleaming. I headed there, preparing to summon all my pets at once. By then, Crash had respawned, and I sent the Diamond Worm to wreak havoc among the ranks of the Travelers and other dark ones from the Alliance.
As I flew above the raid of the light ones—Modus, the Children of Kratos and the rest—I summoned Monty, Iggy, Storm, Crusher and Sharkon.
The reptile grew to its former magnificence in combat and trampled through the panicking preventers, swallowing some of them whole. A heavy hit from Yary caught his attention and he opened his mouth wide, turned his head and breathed out a stream of white-hot flame. My huge wolf careered along beneath Monty, while the dragoness supported the terror with constant strikes of lightning. One after another, the many layers of magic shields and forcefields fell, and Modus’ second leading man left the ranks of Nergal’s army.
Sharkon, the underground terror, crashed through the earth’s surface and appeared next to a raid group consisting of women in gleaming armor that barely covered their bodies—by some irony of fate, they were the White Amazons, with the Ochre Witch at their head. I felt some satisfaction when I saw Elizabeth’s character disappear into Sharkon’s maw, and I followed it up with a flash of Sleeping Vindication.
When the High Priest of Nergal saw me, he pointed at me. Seven invulnerable Aspects of Light shot a thousand deadly narrow beams, burning through my armor and skin. I screamed in pain, sped up, but they continued to drill into my body as if locked onto me. My health quickly fell. Blasts of Vindication were all that saved me from death, allowing me to heal from Aid of the Sleepers when I killed players.
I kept seeing notifications of Resilience gaining levels, but my consciousness marked them in passing. I was focused on the high priest, his hate-filled gaze still fixed on me. I barreled into him, grabbed him by his snow-white cassock burning with light, and took off into the air. His clothes tore and I had to grab the praying servant of Nergal by a leg.
As I flew, I tore the fabric of creation with ceaseless explosions of Sleeping Vindication mixed with constant Hammerfists. Reapers Scythes flashed in the air, but my efforts were in vain. My enemy didn’t have
