Assassinate Wonderwind [Book 1 Completed!]

Dragrath planted his dagger into GodWall’s armor to activate [Fracture], a skill that greatly reduced a target’s armor. A single stack of evisceration was left on GodWall. His shadowed figure moved so fast that making out the details of his face, beyond his long ponytail of brown hair, was too hard to catch.

The blade of Dragrath’s katana glimmered with moonlight as he swung with technique so precise it wouldn’t even appear in movies. GodWall was out-paced from the very first attack, already losing 30% of his health. Thanks to [Fracture] and Dragrath’s mythic katana, GodWall’s armor felt like paper.

Merami immediately healed him and FireBrand shot a [Fire Bolt], but that was all Zenith Protocol could do before the boss charged again. FireBrand gritted his teeth.

Even in this situation, Merami protected her guild leader with a perfect [Arcane Parry]. FireBrand survived, and the boss was out for a few seconds.

During the few seconds her attention had been off from Dragrath, her tank had been pushed two steps back with death one clean hit away.

FireBrand cast [Charbind], and a chain-like tether of solid fire launched from his staff. If hit, the spell would inflict the [Snared] debuff. Dragrath would be stuck on the spot, and he wouldn’t be able to dash out.

Creator and Shiraeth were also approaching. Dragrath had no choice but to jump back and [Shadow Dash] out. He disappeared into a crawl space near the ceiling, making a clean exit.

Zenith Protocol stayed on high alert while defending from the boss. FireBrand wasn’t pumping out damage but instead watched the entrances for Dragrath’s potential return.

I found my eyes glued to my screen, having barely blinked during that exchange. Griffin, the top three ranger player after Neige and Veilshot, was dead, and Dragrath had escaped with his gear.

In the end, Zenith Protocol decided to call off the boss raid. The main exit from the arena hadn’t been blocked, letting them back off. With the possibility of Dragrath attacking again, one member already lost, continuing the boss would have been too much of a risk.

I kept watching for a bit, but activity in the stream calmed from there. I eventually put my phone down.

Wow, I thought. What a timing to catch live. I’d just witnessed an assassination attempt of the absolute highest level in Wonderwind.

Well, in a way, it wasn't just an attempt. Dragrath caught the top one guild off guard and killed Griffith, escaping with his gear piece and without any losses of his own. But I couldn’t help but feel like he’d wanted more. A full guild wipe could have been possible with the Radiant Entity causing havoc in the backline.

Merami’s [Arcane Parry] had once again come clutch. She single-handedly parried the boss and let everyone focus on Dragrath. Zenith Protocol’s response was on point after that, forcing Dragrath to escape.

I shivered a little as I thought about the possibility of Zenith Protocol's main team suffering a guild wipe. With their teamwork, wiping them out was just about impossible. Merami was the MvP in my opinion, but everyone included was just so insanely good at the game.

I stretched, preparing to head downstairs to brush my teeth before bed when I realized something.

Zenith Protocol had always been an impenetrable wall in my eyes. I hadn’t ever considered attacking even their B-team. Targeting them was just way too risky. I’d always deliberately chosen the richest players, or guilds, who were the most unskilled or uncoordinated relative to the price of their gear. Zenith Protocol had the most expensive gear, obviously, but they were also the most coordinated and most skilled guild to exist.

I was competing against them now. In the wilderness, we were all enemies. If I wanted to frontrun the expansion as planned, I would need to face off against Zenith Protocol at one point or another. Each and every player in the guild was a higher level than me with much better gearsets.

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I could still duel their individual players if I got lucky, but I couldn’t say the same for Dragrath. He was definitely more skilled than me, and his gear utterly dominated me.

Winning the three versus three has made me overconfident, huh? I thought. Maybe frontrunning the event was still just a dream like it had always been. Everyone was competing for SS-tier quests.

But that wouldn’t stop me and Veyra from squeezing as much value from the soulshard merchants as we could. I had already run ahead of everyone, and we had at least half a week to obtain as many resources as we could—hopefully gear pieces and a lot of XP.

I sneaked downstairs to brush my teeth and to grab a quick snack, which I ate upstairs like some goblin.

I performed my daily pushups, which I’d gotten to twenty-one, but today I only managed fourteen after eleven hours in the pod. I really needed to start taking my health more seriously.

I scrolled memes for a bit, saving some to show to Veyra later, before heading to sleep.

***

“Morning,” Veyra said when we met under the same tree where we’d logged off.

She stretched and let out the cutest noises of waking up. She then noticed me staring at her and asked, “What?”

“Sorry, your stretch looked way too satisfying,” I said. “Good morning.”

“If you were paralyzed, you’d know,” Veyra said. Her expression was firm, as if she was defending an opinion. “Imagine you’re crawling along with just your right hand in real life every day. Except, when you log in, you feel perfectly healthy. It’s amazing every time.”

Veyra had grown a bit more open to talking about her condition and her troubles in real life over the months, but she still tended to be uncomfortable when discussing paralysis.

As a response, I grinned and trapped her in a hug. “I can’t wait to see you again. In real life.”

She laughed, then said, “Why, though? I can barely even visit a cafe in real life. We’d just be playing in VR anyway.”

“Yeah, and logging in next to you would be awesome,” I said. “It’d be like going to a LAN event. The vibes are entirely different when you know your friends are right next to you. You know you’ll be playing together and having a good time.”

She studied me from the side of her eye. “If you want to sleep with me, we could just go to Movie Night Simulator, you know.”

My head perked up. “I mean… I wouldn’t say no to that. But my point still stands. Being near you is just comfortable.”

“Mm,” she said. She thought about something for a moment before saying. “Alright. I’ll give you a date when you can visit me tomorrow. Is that okay?”

My smile widened. “That’s perfect. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Yeah…” Veyra said. “Me too. Even if it doesn’t seem like it. I’m not avoiding it on purpose, I swear.”

“I know,” I said. “And sorry if I’m pressuring you too much. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. I just want to see you.”

“I mean, I can’t blame you for wanting to see your girlfriend...”

We stood around awkwardly for a bit. Tomorrow, then. She had promised to meet in January or February. It was already the third week of January.

“So,” I said, “any plans on how we’ll find a bondsmith collector thingy for the soulshards?”

“I was thinking about that,” Veyra said. “The best bet is probably to search for Shaltar’s castle first. We probably can’t breach or enter it, but there’s a high likelihood of finding more NPCs waiting around the castle’s outskirts. We can question them for information.”

“Good plan,” I said. “We’ll follow this path, then.”

“Yep,” Veyra said. “And just so I won’t slow you down, I grabbed this.”

She summoned a dark, raven-colored robe out of her inventory and showed it to me. The hood had a thick layer of black fur. The hem was made of strings like the fringes of a dark carpet. She switched it on, and in a flash, Veyra turned from a DPS time mage to a shady figure.

Shady when viewed from behind, at least. Inside the hood was still the same cute redhead I adored.

She shared the item’s stats with me.

Dreadraven’s Robe

Item Type: Rare (Unique)

Required Character Level: 149

Stats:

• +700 Spell Power

• +10 Defence

• +10% Cooldown Reduction

• +30% Monster Avoidance

Raven Of The Night (Active): The night shrouds you. Increase monster avoidance by 20% for one minute.

I couldn’t hold back the grin. “You bought a monster avoidance robe?”

She took the hood off and adjusted her sleeves. “It honestly doesn’t look as bad on me as I would have thought.”

“Everything looks good on you, I swear.”

She rolled her eyes, but was smiling. “Shut up, Aiden. I bought it for dirt cheap. Nobody wanted this trash.”

“It’s because monster avoidance was nerfed,” I said. “People just don’t realize that it’s still overpowered. Let’s go find this castle.”