Second World Online

The death of the Gargoyle Commander at my hands apparently became the peak marker of the second wave at the Eastern Gate. The remnants of the aerial monsters that had lost their leader began to scatter, flying aimlessly before finally being mercilessly wiped out by barrages of magic and rain of arrows from the players who had regained their combat morale. Down below, the ranks of Trolls and High Orcs were also slowly dwindling, devastated under the combination of the Mages’ area attacks and the brutal slashes of Vanguards like Arthur.

When the last monster fell and shattered into light particles, a relieving silence enveloped the battlefield. Various cheers of victory began to erupt from the players. Some of them even immediately sat cross-legged on the rocky ground, out of breath and Stamina, while others were busy picking up loot scattered everywhere.

However, that sense of relief only lasted less than thirty seconds.

Right when I was about to descend from the gate wall to check on Alya’s condition, a giant-scale spatial anomaly occurred. Without any warning whatsoever, the entire land mass around StoneBrook city trembled violently. It wasn’t a tremor from monster footsteps, but rather a magical tremor tearing through space and time.

A bright blue magic circle with a diameter of kilometers suddenly appeared from the ground, encompassing the entire city and the battle areas at the four cardinal gates. The blue light instantly exploded, swallowing my vision in a blinding flash.

"What the hell is this?!" I yelled reflexively, crossing my arms over my eyes. The signature nausea of long-distance teleportation instantly hit my stomach.

It only took a second for the light to fade. When I opened my eyes again, the sight of stone walls, ruined forests, and Orc corpses had completely vanished. The air that previously smelled metallic with blood and dust had now changed into a pungent scent of salt and gusts of damp sea breeze.

I set foot on incredibly soft white sand. The sound of crashing waves colliding with each other could be heard clearly in my ears.

I stared around wide-eyed. I was no longer at the Eastern Gate. I and 6 thousand other players were now standing shoulder-to-shoulder on an exceptionally vast coastline. Before us stretched the Boundless Ocean, a fierce sea whose waves were as high as a two-story building.

This was the Southern Area of StoneBrook city. Since the server first opened, this area was known as a Dead-End zone. Not a single player could step further into Area 2 from this route, because so far, no ship, magic, or any method had been found to cross that fierce ocean. This landmass was the end of the world for beginner players.

Why were we all forcibly teleported here?

I immediately looked for Alya’s whereabouts and found her not far from me, still in her two-tailed fox form, looking confusedly sniffing the beach sand. Around her, a sea of players from the Northern, Western, and Southern Gates had also been teleported. I could see Arthur and his group standing about fifty meters from my position, looking just as confused as the others.

Panic and confusion began to spread among the crowd.

"Hey! Why were we moved to the beach?!"

"My loot! I haven’t picked up my rare axe drops earlier! Damn devs!"

"Is the event over? Where are the rewards?!"

However, before the chaos worsened, the sky above the Boundless Ocean suddenly underwent a very extreme change.

The fiercely shining midday sun was suddenly covered by rolling thick black clouds swirling wildly at unnatural speeds. The air temperature plummeted drastically in a matter of seconds. The previously cool sea breeze turned into a fierce gale that slammed sand into our faces. Flashes of red and purple lightning struck behind the thick clouds, tearing the sky with deafening thunderclaps.

Amidst the apocalyptic weather change, a system notification blinked brightly in blood red in the center of every player’s vision.

[SYSTEM WARNING: DISASTER APPROACHING!]

[All Explorers, please prepare yourselves for impact immediately!]

"Impact? What disaster..." my mumble was cut short.

From behind the swirling, rumbling black clouds above the ocean, emerged a giant silhouette that made my heart almost stop beating.

It was a dragon.

Not just any dragon, but a Pure Dragon whose size was so massive it seemed capable of covering half the horizon. Its scales were pitch black like obsidian that absorbed light, its wings spread out covering the clouds, and its pair of eyes glowed bright red like two suns from hell.

As the dragon flapped its wings to emerge from the storm vortex, a deep purple ID name adorned with a golden skull appeared floating high above its head.

[Ancient Calamity Dragon - Level ???]

A question mark level! That meant the level difference between that monster and us was too vast to be calculated by the system, usually indicating a gap of more than fifty levels. For us players who on average had only just touched the teens in levels, the existence of that creature in the sky was no different than the god of death itself.

The aura pressure from the dragon was so strong that it made many Novice players automatically fall to their knees due to the fear Debuff status forcibly applied by the system.

In that very instant, the transparent World Chat interface in the corner of my eye immediately exploded, scrolling at a speed that was almost unreadable.

[World] [BraveTanker]: A DRAGON?! QUESTION MARK LEVEL?! ARE YOU CRAZY CHRONOS TECH?!

[World] [CuteMage]: We are all going to die! This is a mass slaughter!

[World] [KingSlayer]: DAMN DEVS! IT’S ONLY BEEN TWO WEEKS AND AN ANCIENT DRAGON IS OUT! WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FIGHT IT WITH?! TOOTHPICKS?!

[World] [ChillRogue]: Refund my capsule money right now you bastardsssss!

[World] [HolyCleric]: Help! Anyone who has an anti-fear buff, cast it now!

However, the giant dragon apparently had no intention of breathing fire or bothering to attack the horde of "ants" on the ground. It merely flew past, sweeping across the coastline from east to west at supersonic speed.

The problem was, merely passing by for this giant creature was a natural disaster for us.

The flap of its wings, which were the size of a football field, created shockwaves and hurricanes with speeds exceeding two hundred kilometers per hour that directly slammed into the coastline!

"TAKE COVER!!" I yelled with all my might, though my voice was instantly swallowed by the roar of the storm.

The incredibly strong wind hit my body like an invisible concrete wall. The beach sand flew wildly, hurting the skin like the pricks of thousands of tiny needles. Second World Online’s overly realistic physics system was now a nightmare.

Players with heavy classes like Warriors or Knights using iron armor managed to survive by planting their swords and shields into the ground, although their bodies were dragged several meters backward. However, a tragic fate befell players with light body weights like Mages, Archers, and Thieves.

Hundreds of players screamed hysterically as their bodies were literally lifted off the ground and blown into the air like dry leaves swept up by a tornado!

Curses and swear words flooded the World Chat once again.

[World] [ArrowOfLove]: WAAAAAAHH I’M FLYINGGGGGG!!

[World] [DarkMage007]: DAAAAMNNN CRAZY DEVS THE PHYSICS ARE TOO REALISTIC!! AAAAAAA...

Worse yet, the storm brought by the dragon didn’t just contain wind, but also a static electrical charge.

CRACK! CRACK!

Lightning bolts struck randomly from the sky towards the land. Several unlucky players who were flying carried by the wind or running in panic were struck dead-on by the lightning. Their HP bars were instantly depleted without a trace, turning their bodies into gray particles shattered and carried away by the storm, forcing them to respawn back at the temple altar inside the city.

Amidst that truly insane chaos, my Party Chat channel suddenly blinked in panic.

(Party Chat) [Yuuki]: BROTHER!!! HEEELP!! BROTHERRR!!!

I turned my head with great difficulty against the gusting wind. The sight to my right made it impossible to hold back laughter while panicking at the same time.

Alya, my beloved sister, who had just been boasting about her two-tailed fox form, was now in a very un-elite position. Because the fox-form Beast race had a body mass much lighter than ordinary Humanoid avatars, the hurricane easily lifted her tiny body off the ground.

She was now floating in the air about two meters off the ground, all four of her legs paddling the air frantically as if she were swimming, while her face was filled with a highly comical expression of terror.

"Hahahaha! A flying fox!" my laughter burst out accidentally, forgetting for a moment how critical this situation was.

(Party Chat) [Yuuki]: BROTHER DON’T LAUGH!! CATCH ME OR I’LL FLY INTO THE SEA!! AAAAAA!!

Realizing she was being dragged further backward nearing the open sea, I immediately threw away the rest of my laughter and moved. Fighting the wind’s thrust, I forced my legs to step forward.

When Alya’s body was blown passing right above me, I did a small jump, reached out my left hand, and gotcha! I managed to grab tightly onto the base of both her thick tails!

"Kyuuu!! It hurts, don’t pull my tail!" she screamed.

"Be quiet! Be grateful I’m not pulling your ears!" I yelled back.

However, adding Alya’s weight to my body, which was also a light-leather-armored Archer, made my feet start to lose traction on the sand. The two of us were slowly being dragged backward by the storm.

Thinking fast, I immediately turned the Whispering Ash Recurve Bow in my right hand. I used the hard tip of that rare wooden bow like a stake. I exerted all my strength (my meager STR Stat) and thrust the bow deep into the fairly solid sand base, then crouched down, lowering my center of gravity.

With my right hand tightly gripping the bow planted in the ground, and my left hand grasping the tail of the flying fox continuously meowing hysterically in the air, I held on with all my might against the fury of the Calamity Dragon’s storm.

That event lasted for two minutes that felt like a feature-length hell. My left hand felt numb, and my ears rang severely from the dragon’s roar and the roaring wind.

Slowly, the wind pressure began to subside. The silhouette of the ancient dragon slowly disappeared, swallowed by thick clouds at the edge of the western horizon, leaving a trail of destruction and hundreds of players who had died in vain. The black clouds covering the sky began to open, letting a ray of twilight sunlight shine again on the devastated beach.

Gravitational force finally returned to normal. Alya fell on top of my face in a prone position, her fur covering my entire vision.

"Ugh... you’re actually heavy," I groaned while removing the fox’s body from my head and pulling my bow from the sandy ground.

Alya immediately rolled over, changing her position to sitting while panting. Her previously smooth white fur was now a mess like cotton that had just gone through a washing machine, standing on end in all directions due to the static electricity from the storm.

"W-what the hell was that?!" she whined in annoyance, shaking her body to tidy her fur again. "The devs of this game are truly insane! Why is there a question mark level dragon in the beginner area?!"

Before I had a chance to answer Alya’s grumbles, the sound of a more cheerful golden bell rang out, followed by a new global system notification.

[Global Announcement System: Congratulations!]

[All players who are still surviving have successfully passed the Disaster safely!]

[As the climax, the Third Wave, which is also the Final Wave, will begin shortly!]

[Prepare yourselves, Explorers. Please enjoy!]

"Please enjoy, it says? Bastard," cursed a fierce-looking Knight player not far from me, spitting sand from his mouth. That sentence instantly represented the feelings of hundreds of thousands of players currently cursing Chronos Tech in the World Chat channel.

However, amidst the wave of curses, a familiar shrill sound once again tore through the silence of the sky.

SKREEEEEEEEEE!!!

I looked up toward the open sea. From behind the storm clouds starting to fade on the horizon, emerged a massive amount of black dots, flying darting closer to the land.

Not Harpies, not Gargoyles, and fortunately not the Calamity Dragon.

Those creatures possessed emerald-green scaly reptilian bodies, pairs of giant bat-like leathery wings, long tails ending in sharp spear tips, and jaws spewing sparks of fire. They were [Wyvern - Level 30]! Distant cousins of the dragon race that were a terrifying scourge for ground fighters.

Their numbers were not just dozens, but hundreds, floating like a swarm of combat locusts ready to finish off the remaining players on this beach.

"They’re coming from the sea! Air defense formation, get ready!" emergency commands once again answered each other.

The panic and anger from being toyed with by the system slowly vanished, replaced by the survival instincts of a true gamer. The Warrior and Tanker players immediately lined up at the edge of the beach, raising their shields to protect the rear ranks. The Mages began chanting their strongest elemental magic spells, making the air crackle with magical power.

I took a deep breath, brushing off the remaining sand from my cloak. "It seems my complaint about not having a stage to show off my new power was just answered directly by the system."

Alya jumped to my right side, both her tails igniting again with roaring fire mana, her fox face radiating a competitive smirk.

"Let’s roast those flying lizards, Brother!" Alya exclaimed enthusiastically.

I smiled faintly, opened my inventory panel, and ensured all my supplies of poison arrows and Mana Potions were ready to use. I drew the Whispering Ash Recurve Bow until it formed a perfect arc, locking my gaze onto the leading flock of Wyverns starting to dive sharply toward the coast.

The biggest and final aerial battle in StoneBrook city finally began!