Assassinate Wonderwind [Book 1 Completed!]

[Astral Rage - Active Conditions Met]

[Oblique Transcendence - Blood Desperation Active Conditions Met]

[Straight Attacks Are 100% More Effective When Under 40% Health]

Thank you! I thought, health now at 30%. Veyra had read my mind perfectly, casting the spell to save me just in time.

The AoE of The Celestial Order’s own ultimate spread with a spectral explosion—not quite enough to one-shot anyone. Everyone was low, but still alive.

Renata9 was the worst off, her eyes wide in surprise.

I drove Sickle Of The Soul Harvester into her head.

Slash.

DJmikolele already cast [Searshot] at me, but [Reset] came through. I dashed through, and slashed hard with my sickle, driving it to his brain.

Slash.

I began another slash and dashed straight for my next target. SpiceGod, the closest person, blocked his neck defensively, but I dashed through him, to the next not-so-predictable target. My swing came through, and I finished Prancer2. Only then did I dash to SpiceGod, finishing him off from behind, while he stood in confusion.

The remaining targets were too spread-out, not having taken enough damage from AoE to one-shot. So I dashed back to Michelangelol, swapping my weapons back. Arcana Mimic Dagger clinked against the back of his helmet. He stumbled forward.

[Haunt]’s drain now dealt over two percent damage every second. I must have been close to the execution effect. I activated [Eviscerate], hitting him a final time.

The marks blew up, and the life drain of [Haunt] was enough to cover his health bar, activating [Harvester Of Souls]. His soul was devoured, eyes turning black as he fell with a slash. I quickly grabbed his gear piece and watched out for the next attack coming to kill me.

Nothing came. The scattered remains of Celestial Order’s backline was busy dealing with another [Frost Storm], while Veyra gunned them down from the side, having relocated with a portal. Another slash came as AuraMage took [Ray Of Time] to the face. They couldn’t deal with Veyra anymore. One by one, the Celestial Order fell.

I began grabbing gear pieces and glanced at the main fray, where Annath was still pushing forward. Somehow, Renlia was still alive, being protected by [Syntrix] Toonten. Lrekk was dead, though, and Renlia defended with her staff against Creator from the opposite side. Both guilds were down to their last members.

All of the gear pieces from the ground had been picked up from the dozens of dead players. Someone had picked everything up. And I was fairly sure Annath had most of it.

I [Shadow Dashed] straight to her open back and slashed hard with both of my weapons.

My attack hit her in the middle of her hop. The loud impact knocked her forward just an inch—enough for Toonten to slam his greatsword onto her shoulder, crushing her to one knee. Her health bar fell from 76% to 35%, [Staggering] her from the devastating blow.

The gods of the game may have been overloaded with mythic gear, with decades of practice fighting, but in a guild war as chaotic as this, even the best of the best were fragile, prone to misplays and miscalculations.

FireBrand cast [Whirlwind Of Fire], and three slashes came as Toonten, Renlia, and Annath all burned to ashes, finished off with one clean spell.

I felt the heat of the flames like a campfire burning too close as I jumped back, avoiding death with plenty of health still remaining. The spell continued burning.

GodWall approached the flames from the other side with no fear.

The gear pieces! I thought. Annath was dead, and she had dropped everything she’d collected. Within that pile of burnt corpses, there was a good chance to be more than one mythic item.

GodWall walked into the flames fearlessly. Merami cast [Wisp Of Fire Resistance] on him. FireBrand then [Enkindled] the flames, making sure that GodWall was the only player with the health pool to collect gear pieces.

He grabbed Renlia’s inventory first. Zenith Protocol’s healers focused everything on him as he advanced to Toonten’s corpse.

Goddammit! I thought through gritted teeth. Annath’s corpse was closer to me than him, but how could I snatch the loot with FireBrand pumping flames? If only Veyra still had [Astral Defiance].

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Three purple hexes of resistance penetration spawned under the inferno, and suddenly, GodWall’s health began dropping. Veyra shot a [Ray Of Time]. Sho got as close to the flames as she could get and cast the hex one last time, then began casting [Time Freeze].

Holy shit, his health was at 35%! Veyra would finish him off!

GodWall picked up Toonten’s items, when Merami cast [Grip Of Life].

Grip Of Life: Pull an ally to your location, healing them by 40% during the travel.

The ability pulled GodWall out of the flames just as [Time Freeze] blew up. I hugged Veyra to avoid damage, but there was no slash, and GodWall got out.

He hadn’t looted Annath, though. Veyra immediately cast a thick wall of ice to cut the loot from FireBrand. For just a moment, the corpse was free.

I took the chance and ran into the fray.

The wall of ice turned flame-red. [Piercing Flames] cracked it with the pure pressure of the most violent flames in all of Wonderwind. Veyra pumped mana into it, desperately holding on. I continued forward, feeling the heat through the ice, until I reached the loot orb above Annath’s head, picking up everything.

[Inventory full! You have picked up 11 out of 17 items from Annath’s inventory.]

The beam of fire cracked ice into pieces. The flames hit my cloak, devouring my health bar, just milliseconds away from finishing me off when [Shadow Dash] went through. If the hotel internet had been any slower, I would have died. I dashed as far as I possibly could, and took running, while hoping that Veyra was doing the same.

The quest to conquer the castle was still active, but there was no world in which we could attack Zenith Protocol right now. I ran like my life depended on it.

Holy shit. My inventory was full of legendary loot. Enough to call literal retirement money. Right now, I was the most wanted person in all of the Wilderness.

I glanced behind myself to find a barrage of destruction flying my way. I dodged [Shardshot] and blocked a [Homing Arrow], then drank a health potion. A projectile I didn’t even see hit me in my foot, mitigating the heal straight back to 5% health.

I dashed again, thinking I was out of everyone’s reach, when a deafening screech shook the air. I heard wings flapping and air hitting my back as something heavy took off into the air, casting a shadow.

Young Ray Drake (Pet, Level 314), a small drake, just like Heywin. FireBrand sat astride it as the beast flew after me.

Holy fuck! I thought, adrenaline burning as I ran with everything I had. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen a pet used for combat. Generally, mounts were only used for travel, because pets didn’t respawn in this game, and because gap-closing skills were generally better than chasing someone with a horse.

But holy fucking shit, that was a wyvern flying after me!

FireBrand shot [Infernal Blast] down at me, which forced me to [Shadow Dash] to dodge. My escape was blocked by the cliffside, though, and I only had one direction to continue—parallel to the cliff.

The scraggly leafless trees offered no protection as FireBrand cast another [Whirlwind Of Fire] from the air. The flames rapidly approached.

Shit, shit, shit, I thought, seeing no opportunity to escape. My dash was on cooldown, and I wasn’t nearly fast enough to outrun a wyvern.

Until a portal appeared on the cliff next to me. I dove into the dark view on the other side. I had no idea where I’d been taken, but I kept running with full momentum.

Not two steps in, I crashed into a thick stone wall hard enough to lose a percentage of health.

I nearly collapsed to the ground, out of breath and disoriented. I blinked a few times, then examined our surroundings, eyes adjusting to the darkness. The light from a crack above us was just enough to save us from total darkness. We were in a small cave, seemingly underground.

“Shh!” Veyra whispered next to me, not moving a muscle.

Fire magic blazed above the crack in the ground. The wyvern flapped its wings and continued past, scanning the area.

“A little deeper,” Veyra said. “We need to avoid Super Sensitivity.”

My head kept pounding with adrenaline as we descended deeper into the hidden cave—or whatever this miraculous crevice that Veyra found was. Each heavy step burned my legs, stamina utterly out. No matter how much I breathed in, it felt like I couldn’t catch my breath.

Glowing flowers replaced the light from above with a dim purple glow. Insects were collecting pollen, blinking like purple fireflies. A beautiful little cavern. If we weren’t being chased right now, I would have stayed to admire.

I glanced into my inventory instead, and my jaw dropped immediately, spotting an item. “Oh my god!” I said, practically panting. “I got the Celestial Runesword!”

Annath’s mythic sword. Literally the most famous weapon in the game next to Dragrath’s Moonlight Katana. I had it in my inventory.

Veyra grabbed my hand and tried to initiate a teleport. A system message came.

[You have partaken in excessive combat. Teleportation blocked.]

[Duration: 0:24 minutes]

“Twenty seconds,” she said. “Let’s hide.”

She decided to head deeper. An exit below seemed to open to a larger landscape. If there were monsters, we were fucked, but descending was probably better to avoid getting caught by Super Sensitivity. If Zenith Protocol found us now, there was no way we’d ever escape.

A cavern of magical purple revealed itself below, and my breath caught once again, this time by the sheer beauty of the landscape.

[You have arrived in The Fifth Level Of Caverns Of Creation]

The place was like a jungle inside a cavern. The ceiling wasn’t nearly as high as on the fourth level, but there was space to run around in. Dark flowers grew under small trees, the purple leaves of which housed more insects, which I could also call beautiful.

Veyra and I entered one cautious step at a time, while waiting for the cooldown. Beautiful as it was, I watched the thickets of flowers for any threats. A snake or spider could very well finish off the last of my health bar right now.

Nothing attacked us. Ever so slowly, the teleportation cooldown ran out. I grabbed Veyra’s hand, and she initiated a teleport out of here.

That was when something blinked brightly a short distance away from us. The color was blue, clearly separate from the colors of the jungle.

A teleportation stone!

A figure materialized and immediately threw a shuriken at us, canceling our teleport. [Suburi] Dragrath unsheathed his katana and dashed for me.