Spiteful Healer

“Stepping into the arena now are the final contenders for the quarterfinals. Rep-” The VGN Broadcaster was speaking from the raised platform, using his staff of voice amplification to carry his words throughout the stadium. “Stepping into the arena now are the final contenders for the quarterfinals. Rep-” She walked around the base of the stands with her own staff.

Hae-won interrupted him. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, How’s everyone doing!?” Hae-won shouted with an outstanding level of enthusiasm and energy, walking around the base of the stands with her own staff. Her question was met with loud cheers from the people around her and across the stadium. “Everyone enjoying the tournament so far? It’s been wild so far, right? No upsets yet, but that Serenity is something else!” Hae-won continued, as the audience agreed with her words.

The broadcaster cleared his throat aggressively and attempted to continue talking. “As I was saying…”

“Our last quarter final match will be deciding if everything from this point forward will be a boring VGN slogfest, or if the wildcard stays in play. Representing gamers, Kalmoorians, and good gameplay - it’s Aegis, the Harbinger of LIGHT!”

Stepping up to the blue transparent wall near the center of the arena were Aegis and the others. They walked forward in a line, shoulder to shoulder, with Aegis at the center. Once they’d moved as far forward as the arena would allow, they stopped and glared across the tiled battlefield to watch their opponents do the same.

“And opposite them, we’ve got Skar’s team. They’ve been using some sketchy tactics to get this far, defeating Eerie’s veteran team in the previous round without her having a chance to fight back. No doubt they’ll be employing the exact same tactic here against Aegis, as VGN streamers tend to lack creativity. But the interesting part of this match will, of course, be to see if Aegis and his party are able to find a countermeasure to the tactic.” Hae-won continued, and with these words, she had the audience completely on her side, doing more to get the viewers invested in the match than the VGN broadcaster had been able to do thus far, the entire tournament.

It wasn’t only those who were viewing from inside the stadium, either - nearly every player and viewer of the Shattered World Online had their eyes on the match, either from Aegis’ livestream, or the livestream of many of the other players in the stands. Serenity’s viewers could see the match as she watched it on the three screens inside Aegis’ waiting room, similar to how Seraxus and Feng’s viewers were watching it.

Makaroth and Daehyun’s viewers were watching it from the audience stands, as were the official VGN news broadcasts showing the match live from the VGN broadcaster, who was fighting with Hae-won for a chance to speak.

Through these many points of view, all players back in Kalmoore were staring at their screens, cheering Aegis on from within Rene’s tavern, where Erikson and the others watched, all the way to Kordas, where members of the Night Hunter’s guild were watching. Finley’s gang, the Shattered Pirates, and Iouen, even.

Most importantly, Nicholas and Andrew, from inside Nicholas’ office simulation, while Ryan kept an eye on it using a broadcast in his peripheral vision as he worked on other tasks his job required him to do from within his own office simulation. Last, but not least, were Tommy and Shinji. Not a word was spoken between the pair; they were both working furiously at their respective tasks, supporting Aegis as best they could. Shinji was making sure to angle one of the camera views around Aegis that he had control over to make sure it would capture Hae-won as she spoke. He still had no access to Aegis's interface to see the match begin timer counting down, but a public timer was on display, floating high above the arena for all to see.

Match begins in 10…

Aegis eyed it as he stood shoulder to shoulder with his companions, right up against the transparent blue wall in front of them. They were as far forward as the game would allow them to be, all preparing to sprint the moment the match started.

“Remember. I’ll most likely be dead in an instant, so it’ll be up to you guys. We’ve got three chances to figure out what they’re doing and counteract it.” Aegis explained. “Lina, shadow step to them as fast as possible, while Pyri Rakkan and Darkshot will open with their most powerful attacks to break down that shell ability.

“Right,” Darkshot replied while nocking an arrow. Rakkan did similarly, as he created his echoes and armed one with a crossbow pointed across the arena. Pyri had her staff out and her four large cinderbolt orbs floating behind her, ready to send them forward.

Skar’s team did no such preparations, though. They had their hands on their hilts and weapon handles, and were staring down Aegis’ group with confident grins.

3… 2… 1…

The blue wall disappeared, and Aegis’ group lunged forward as quickly as possible, while simultaneously the enemies immediately initiated the same tactic they’d used previously. A smoke bomb was thrown at their feet to obscure Aegis’s view of what they were doing, followed by a grand shell wrapping around them.

Aegis expected he’d only get a few steps forward before he was killed by their trick, and used that time to quickly cast bless on all of his allies' weapons - causing the weapons to glow with holy energy.

Darkshot fired an arrow, which split into a multishot as it soared across the arena towards the shell, and 3 of the arrows grew into gigantic piercing arrows. This was complemented by Rakkan charging his main body and two echoes forward, with the third echo hanging back and using his Rapidfire skill to shoot dozens of bolts from the crossbow in quick succession.

Pyri dashed forward quickly, but sent her cinderbolts forward even quicker, like bullets.

Lina, on the left side, made use of the shadows of the pillars in the arena to quickly shadowstep away, getting furthest from her companions and making the best time. Unfortunately, though, it was Lina who was attacked first.

In an instant, before Aegis could even think to react to heal her, her health bar took several massive hits in quick succession, and her body began to disintegrate.

Combatant Lina has been defeated.

This message didn’t faze Pyri, Rakkan, or Darkshot. They’d all been mentally prepared for these tactics and were expecting to lose members right out of the gate.

“Why Lina?” Aegis mumbled to himself in disbelief, trying to process it as he continued forward with his shield and claws out. He began casting smites from his right hand that shot across the stadium and crashed into the shell, and within a few seconds, the shell was taking massive amounts of damage from Aegis’ party.

Combatant Pyri has been defeated.

The next set of undefendable attacks came through, dealing an unrealistic amount of damage to Pyri within a few seconds, which caused her body and her cinderbolts to vanish. Aegis could hear Hae-won casting what was happening, her words describing every skill and action that Aegis’ group was using, and he could hear the audience cheering at the death of Pyri and Lina - primarily members of the Vindicators and Sages of Destiny.

He was able to tune this out and remained focused, trying to process every decision the opponents were making.

A mere few seconds after Pyri had disappeared, the damage from Darkshot and Rakkan was enough to destroy the shell, and Rakkan and his echoes had just gotten close enough to break the shell. The magical barrier shattered, signaling that the sage who had cast it had run out of mana.

The smoke bomb, however, remained, and in the next few seconds, another bombardment of damage was sent out - this time aimed at Rakkan.

Combatant Rakkan has been defeated.

“Aura of light!” Aegis cast, exploding a dome outward from his body, and causing the smoke bomb to be pushed away from Skar’s party. The moment the smoke vanished, Aegis saw all five enemies still huddled together, weapons drawn. The only one in the group that looked exhausted was the Male Elf sage in the back, wielding a slick iron staff. [Aspen - Level 159] was hovering above his head.

Both Aegis and Darkshot stopped charging forward. Darkshot positioned himself beside Aegis and motioned some hand signals to Darkwing on his shoulder, who cooed in acknowledgement.

From here, [Skar - Level 163]’s group moved into formation. Skar stepped forward, wielding a sword and shield as a guardian class player. Aspen hung back, with the shadow dancing Silverscale player [Alicia - Level 161] standing on Skar’s left, a dragoon class player [Hunger - Level 158] on his right. Finally, the fifth member stood between Aspen and Skar, with a scepter and shield, signifying her role as the Cleric healer for the party, [Darkless - Level 161].

“Why didn’t they try to take me out? They had enough time to take out three of us, and they didn’t prioritize the healer of our party?” Aegis asked, more to himself than to Darkshot.

“I don’t know. You think we can beat them 2v5?”

“I dunno.”

“You beat those guys in that FFA 14 vs 2, though, right?” Darkshot replied with hope in his voice.

“That was different. They weren’t able to cast supportive spells on each other, were lower-level, and not nearly as geared as these guys. They were also complete strangers.” Aegis answered him pessimistically. Skar’s group charged forward towards them.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“So what, we give up?” Darkshot turned to Aegis, and Aegis returned a smirk.

“Nah,” Aegis replied, which got Darkshot to grin.

Alicia took the next offensive action of the match. She threw a smoke bomb at Aegis and Darkshot. They both, in unison, jumped backwards out of the smoke, as Alicia shadowstepped into it and fired out several daggers of shadow out of the smoke at them. Aegis smacked the daggers away that went towards him, bracing the hits to take minimal damage from the attack, while simultaneously forming a guard in front of Darkshot to block the daggers.

The smoke was only a distraction, though, as above it the dragoon named Hunger could be seen soaring through the sky with his spear at the ready, an orange magical glow surrounding him. A moment later, he shot through the air like a missile, sending out a shockwave of air pressure just from the speed at which he was moving. His target was Darkshot, who saw it coming and jumped up into the air as high as he could over the attack.

The jump was enough that he was able to avoid Hunger as he crashed into the arena floor where Darkshot had been standing, sending out a blast of orange energy and creating a crater in the floor as rocks, sand, and tiles were sent flying up into the air all around him due to the impact.

Now in the air above hunger, Darkshot knocked an arrow and shot it downward at him.

“Multishot.” Darkshot cast, splitting his arrows to rain down on the Dragoon. Darkshot then used his spell control to manipulate the arrows so that they all converged on him from a single point and guaranteed not a single one would miss. Instead, though, a shield projection appeared at the last moment above Hunger’s head to absorb the arrows, as Skar had gotten in range and emerged from Alicia’s smoke. Upon taking the damage from the arrows himself, Skar was healed by the cleric Darkless, who was following closely behind him.

From the smoke, Alicia jumped up with incredible leg strength - moving towards Darkshot, who was still in mid-air. She was losing momentum in her jump as she was nearing Darkshot, as he was free-falling back to the ground, so that the two would intersect. Darkshot put complete trust in Aegis, though, and Aegis didn’t let him down.

Aegis projected a shield under Darkshot’s feet to allow him to push off of it, going further up into the sky while knocking an arrow and aiming it at the falling Alicia. He fired the shot and split it, almost point-blank above Alicia, but she reacted by throwing a smoke bomb up at Darkshot. The smoke bomb flew past Darkshot and exploded in the sky above him as Darkshot’s arrows connected with Alicia.

She took the damage from the arrows, one of which had been a pinning shot. The vines attempted to shoot out down towards the ground a great distance to bind Alicia, but a dispel bolt was fired out from a great distance by the Sage Aspen, who’d recovered just enough to manage to cast it. Googlᴇ search 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✶𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲✶𝗻𝗲𝘁

Dispelling Darkshot’s pinning shot allowed Alicia to shadowstep into the smoke in the sky above Darkshot and dive towards him from above with her daggers. Darkshot could turn around fast enough to see her coming at him, but had no momentum to dodge. Aegis projected a shield in between them in time, though, to block the strike and prevent Alicia from reaching Darkshot. Darkshot then quickly shot an arrow down at the nearest pillar, using a grappling shot to form a rope out of the end of it. He then grabbed the end of the rope and yanked it, giving himself some mid-air momentum to shift him away from Alicia’s aerial smoke bomb so that she couldn’t use it to keep shadow-stepping around him. Alicia’s answer to this was to throw a new smoke bomb in Darkshot’s direction, but Aegis blocked it with another guard and caused the bomb to explode in her face.

During this time, Hunger recovered from his powerful spear attack and ran across the arena floor towards Aegis, taking several quick jabs in Aegis’ direction which forced Aegis to block and dodge the attacks. In between using his guards to support Darkshot in the air, he retaliated against Hunger by firing several smite attacks. This broke up Hunger’s spear jabs, but he was easily able to dodge the glowing balls of holy energy coming out of Aegis’ fists.

“Avatar of Eirene.” Aegis cast, erupting in holy energy and causing white wings to form on his back. This spell gave Hunger no hesitation, though, and he continued to attack Aegis using his spear.

Aegis began rushing forward at Hunger, going on the offensive with his wings being used as weapons, but Hunger jumped back carefully and kept his distance from Aegis’ wings while still staying in range to reach Aegis with his spear.

Hunger was skillfully leveraging the extra range that a spear gave his class in order to out-range other melee fighters, such as Aegis, including Aegis’ wings - his footwork and repeated movements kept Aegis out of range to strike him. At the same time, he continued to jab at Aegis’s shield.

The damage Aegis was taking from the strikes that connected to his braced shield was very minor, easily healed through by his Aura of Healing, which he activated. The moment he activated his aura of healing, though, Darkless responded with her own spell.

“Blessing of Kuraokami!” Darkless cast, as a blue magical aura erupted from her body that encapsulated the arena. The weapons of all her party members began to glow with a blue magical aura, and tiny snowflakes began to appear and fall from them.

“Empowered Strikes.” Hunger cast on himself, mixing an orange glow into the tip of his spear that combined with Darkless’ enchantment.

With these two buffs, Hunger’s attacks started to deal more damage to Aegis.

You take 1301 Piercing damage.

You take 2,156 Cold damage.

Despite the attack being braced, it would still be enough damage that the aura of healing would not out-sustain it, even combined with the powerful self-healing enchantments on Aegis’ mithral armor.

Hunger knew this and leveraged his rapid attack speed with his jabs to allow more instances of the frost enchantment to deal damage, rather than counting on the raw physical damage of his attacks.

Aegis remained as calm as he could, though, and instead of continuing to try and get close enough to strike Hunger with his wings, which proved futile, he instead started using his wings to deflect the spear jabs and cause them to miss, lessening the damage going to Aegis.

However, it became very clear to Aegis that even though Hunger was pressuring him, he was not the focus of Skar’s party. Every other member was now going on the offensive to take out Darkshot - Aegis was being kept pre-occupied by Hunger, while the others went on Darkshot in a 4v1.

Given her choice of deities, Darkless had access to several offensive ice spells even though she was a cleric, and she was using them in tandem with her Blessing of Kuraokami to cause cold damage to Darkshot.

Aegis did his best to put up guards around Darkshot repeatedly, and Darkshot kept firing volleys of arrows out while expertly maneuvering around the battlefield. Still, Skar used his guards offensively just as Aegis liked to do, and continually threw off Darkshot and prevented him from moving the way he wanted to.

Several blasts of magic were shot out from the sage Aspen, which Darkwing negated on Darkshot’s shoulder, whilst Aegis noticed Darkshot’s health starting to dip low from the attacks that were getting through.

Aegis’ aura of healing wasn’t enough to sustain through Alicia, Hunger, Skar, and Aspen’s attacks, so he attempted to close in on Darkshot. At the same time, Darkshot seemed aware of the danger as well and kept trying to maneuver through the arena to get closer to Aegis.

Skar’s party counteracted this by continuously creating barriers and smoke bombs between the pair, though.

Hae-won was calling all of this out, with her game sense and awareness. She made sure the entire audience knew what was happening by casting the actions of Aegis and Darkshot and explaining what they were trying to do - get close enough so that Aegis could heal Darkshot. Simultaneously, though, with no bias, she was complimenting Skar’s group of 5 on how effectively they were using teamwork to prevent Aegis and Darkshot from doing exactly this.

Eventually, Aegis used several clever maneuvers to get around Hunger by flapping his wings and launching himself in unpredictable directions using shield projections at his feet, to get him in range of Darkshot. He immediately began casting his direct healing spell, Greater Heal, aiming it at Darkshot. Before the spell could finish, Skar switched his attack pattern from pressuring Darkshot to lunging at Aegis with a charging strike, dashing through the air of the arena with incredible speed.

Aegis made an attempt to dodge the charge, but Skar pulled a page out of Aegis’ book and blocked the path that Aegis was jumping in with a shield projection, forcing Aegis to take the hit.

The damage from the charging strike was minor, but the follow-up guardian spell that Skar used on Aegis was the problem. As Skar’s shield bashed into Aegis’, he was hit by the effect.

You take 353 bludgeoning damage.

Casting interrupted - the spell [Greater Heal] has been interrupted by [Staggering Strike] - Source: Skar

Spells of the Divine magic school can no longer be cast for 10s.

The holy glowing energy that had been growing around Aegis’ hands from him casting the healing spell vanished, canceling the cast completely.

“Switch,” Skar cast, replacing his shortsword and shield with a large battle axe and swinging it wide at Aegis.

“WORLD PIERCE!” Hunger yelled out from beside Aegis, still pursuing him despite Aegis having created some distance with his wings and shield projections.

“Aegis!” Darkshot shouted out worriedly, but it was too late.

Aegis had seen this in videos before - he’d watched guide videos on PvP and had it explained to him, but this was his first time experiencing it firsthand.

Every single member of Skar’s group suddenly switched their spell and attack targeting onto him. They’d been waiting for a window like this, where he was locked out of self-healing for 10 seconds. Normally, 10 seconds wouldn’t feel like too long a time, but as Aegis glanced around and saw shadow daggers and smoke bombs coming at him from above, with Alicia herself shadowstepped into the shadow being cast by Aegis’ own body and began lunging at him from behind, 10 seconds felt like forever.

Despite Alicia and Skar’s attacks, Aegis knew the worst of them was the one he’d heard from the Dragoon. Hunger’s body erupted in orange magical energy and shot forward towards Aegis. Aegis was preparing to dodge it by jumping upwards - Alicia was now behind him, and Skar was in front of him. But the moment he looked to jump up, a shield projection formed to cut off his path of escape. He was briefly confused where the projection came from, given that Skar had unequipped his shield, until he remembered that Darkless the Cleric was also wielding a shield.

He now had only one possible path of escape to avoid the deadly World Pierce skill being cast by Hunger, but Aspen used a short-range teleport skill to position himself in this location, putting himself in the path of the world pierce attack willingly, solely to make sure Aegis couldn’t avoid it.

“Multishot!” Darkshot shouted desperately, aiming at Hunger to try to interrupt the attack with a pinning shot, but it was too late. A streak of orange energy pierced through the arena, dealing massive damage to Aegis and Aspen.

Combatant Aegis has been defeated.

Combatant Aspen has been defeated.

“A perfectly executed target swap and combo attack by Skar’s party. All Aegis made was a single mistake. He allowed himself to get interrupted by the Guardian class player Skar and was locked out of using his divine spells, and Skar’s group was sure to capitalize on it. They were willing to sacrifice one of their party members to guarantee they took out Aegis, recognizing his healing capabilities as a major threat to their victory, even in a 5v2 scenario.” Hae-won continued to cast the match, unbiased - much better than any of the VGN broadcasters had been doing up to this point.

“Fuck!” Darkshot shouted in frustration as his volley of arrows pierced through Hunger, but Darkless quickly healed up the damage dealt by it. Alicia, Skar, Hunger, and Darkless watched as Aegis’ body vanished from the arena, then all turned their eyes onto Darkshot.

He desperately attempted to dodge their attacks and fight back, but all the damage he dealt was blocked by Skar, who had re-equipped his shield and healed up through Darkless. It was only a matter of time before the organized group of 4 players took him out.

Combatant Darkshot has been defeated.

“And with that, the first match has been decided and goes in favor of Skar, leading Aegis’ party 1-0 in this best of five,” Hae-won announced, a hint of worry in her voice. A big smirk grew across Makaroth’s face as he watched from the stands.