Evil Clown Evolution [A VRMMORPG Adventure]

Necroton's outer district no longer looked like a city.

Fires burned across three separate blocks, throwing long shadows over streets that had once been lined with market stalls and quiet homes. Smoke rolled low over the rooftops, and every few seconds another explosion lit the haze from somewhere near the collapsed eastern wall.

Smaller monsters, leaf-scaled things with hunched backs poured through the breach in endless waves, breaking apart into the alleys and courtyards the moment they crossed the perimeter.

Players who had rushed in hoping for easy loot and a good story to tell later were finding out the hard way that this raid had no mercy built into it. A party of five broke and scattered near the old grain market, screaming at each other over who was supposed to be tanking, and within seconds three of them dissolved into glowing particles at once.

"Group up! Group up, don't split!"

"It's already on me, someone pull it off!"

The voice cut off mid-sentence.

The knights fared no better. A line of Necroton's guard had tried to hold the gate, their shields locked together in a desperate wall of steel. It hadn't been enough. The monsters simply climbed over their own dead to keep coming, and one by one the knights fell, their bodies staying exactly where they dropped, because unlike the players, they did not get back up.

"Fall back to the second line!" Naldrom's voice thundered over the chaos. "Shields together! Do not let them reach the residential quarter, not one step further!"

Near the collapsed section of the eastern wall, two enormous figures stood shoulder to shoulder, holding the breach almost single-handedly against a tide that should have swallowed a hundred men.

Korak swung his massive stone club in a wide, howling arc, and the impact when it connected sent three of the leaf-scaled monsters flying clean over a burning cart.

"Hah! Keep coming! I haven't even broken a sweat!"

"Stop bragging and watch your flank, you idiot!" Drina snapped from beside him. She drove her fist through the skull of another creature an instant before it would have reached a knot of fleeing civilians.

"You keep swinging that thing without looking and you're going to take my head off one of these days!"

"You'd dodge it!"

"That's not the point!"

Far from the burning streets, across countless screens lighting up living rooms and game center booths around the world, the chaos unfolding in Necroton had already become the single biggest topic on every gaming forum and livestream chat, comment sections scrolling faster than anyone could actually read them.

"Okay does anyone actually know why there are two bullkin fighting FOR necroton right now"

"I thought bullkin only showed up to wreck villages lol"

"Pretty sure caelan tamed them or something, remember that whole scandal with the village girl"

"Caelan doesn't look weak anymore either what the hell happened to him, he used to lose to literally anyone"

"Who's the woman fighting next to him, she's cutting through those tentacles like they're nothing, look at that footwork"

"Wait…doesn't she look familiar"

"OMG isn't that the girl from the bullkin village attack video. the one that went viral like a month ago"

"No way, that girl was defenseless, she couldn't even run properly, this woman is straight up dueling a raid boss right now"

"maybe it's not the same person, lots of people have blonde hair"

"I'm telling you it's her, same face, same hair, i rewatched that clip like fifty times when it came out, you don't forget a face like that"

"Even if it is her, how does someone go from helpless village girl to THAT in a couple months, that's not how leveling works, that's not how ANY of this works"

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"Forget the girl for a second, since when does vesperion guild show respect to some random prince, i just watched siki take orders from him like it was nothing"

"He's not even using a sword, it's an axe, and he's still somehow keeping pace with six top tier players, whoever coached this guy needs to open a school immediately"

"Okay this stream just broke my brain, someone explain necroton to me from the beginning because i am so lost right now"

While the livestream chat continued to explode with comments, Jester had no idea any of it was happening. His entire focus was on the monster in front of him.

He and Lucia had finally broken through the outer storm of thrashing tentacles, the two of them clinging to the Behemoth's writhing flank as Fang and Faria fought for every inch of purchase beneath them.

The wind tore at Jester's coat, and every few seconds the whole world shuddered as another tentacle slammed down somewhere close enough to feel through his bones.

A massive tentacle suddenly lashed toward them out of the smoke, faster than either mount could dodge, aimed squarely at Lucia's exposed back.

A gigantic golden axe, conjured from pure light and easily twice the size of a man, slammed into the tentacle before it could connect, driving it aside with enough force to crack the scales along its length.

"Go!" Naevys shouted, already summoning another construct. "I can't hold this thing off you forever, so move!"

Jester didn't waste the opening.

The real problem was that the core itself was almost completely resistant to magic, which meant Naevys couldn't simply destroy it from a distance.

Serissa's rockets had done little more than make the Behemoth angrier, while Clover's wind blades simply passed through it as if there was nothing there.

Only physical force could hurt it. Only steel driven by muscle and desperation.

"Lucia, now!" he shouted over the roaring wind.

"Right behind you, Your Highness!" Lucia shouted back, already surging ahead of him.

They shot straight into the Behemoth's enormous open mouth as a deafening roar erupted from deep within its throat. The sound shook the air around them, but neither slowed down. They raced deeper inside, heading straight for the glowing core before their brief opening disappeared.

Their weapons struck at the exact same instant. Jester felt the impact travel up through the axe handle and into his shoulders.

A crack spread across the surface of the core, thin at first, then splitting wider and wider with a sound like grinding stone.

"It's working! One more!"

Jester summoned the Divine Scythe, and dark energy immediately erupted around his body, surging violently down his arms and into the weapon. In the next instant, the scythe expanded several times its original size, its enormous blade wrapped in swirling darkness.

Jester swung with everything he had. The massive blade tore into the exposed core with crushing force.

The Behemoth's entire body convulsed in response, a violent shudder running through every tentacle at once. Lucia was thrown clear before Jester even registered the motion, her body spinning away into the smoke as the monster thrashed wildly.

"Lucia!"

He barely had time to shout her name before the core itself detonated. A burst of raw energy tore outward in every direction, catching Jester square in the chest and sending him flying.

He was hurled backward through the open air, the world spinning around him in a blur of smoke and firelight until every sound faded into a distant ringing in his ears.

Did they actually do it?!

[Warning: Stamina depleted.]

[Harvest Mask can no longer be sustained.]

[Reverting to original form.]

The whisper of the system notification was barely audible over the roar still echoing in his skull, but Jester felt it happen regardless.

He felt Caelan's blond hair and features dissolve away in midair, felt his own crimson hair and pale skin settle back into place, felt the familiar weight of the clown nose return to his face as though it had never left at all.

Below him, the battlefield had become an unbroken storm of light and fire. Explosion after explosion tore through the sky around him, one detonation swallowing the next before the last had even finished fading.

He tried to twist his body, tried to find some way to slow himself down, but his limbs wouldn't answer. Every last drop of stamina was gone, burned away in the assault on the core, and his own weight dragged him down through the smoke like a stone.

This is bad.

This is really, really bad.

If Jester hit the ground looking the way he did now, far too many eyes would see him. People would start asking where Caelan had gone, why Jester had suddenly appeared in his place, and it wouldn't take long before someone connected the dots and realized that Caelan had been his disguise all along.

He couldn't even use Chaos to activate another skill. His stamina was completely gone. At this point, he was as good as a block of wood falling through the sky, unable to move his limbs properly or do anything to soften the landing. If he hit the ground like this, the impact alone might finish him.

Michel might be able to catch him down there, but that would only create another problem. The moment Michel saw him like this, his real identity would be exposed to her as well. It was only then that Jester realized something else.

The cloak was gone from his shoulders. Michel must have been struck and knocked away during the fight.

I hope she's okay.

Jester slowly closed his eyes as explosion after explosion filled the sky around him. His body continued falling helplessly through the smoke, with nothing left he could do to stop it.

Just before his eyes fully closed, he caught a glimpse of something rushing toward him through the smoke.

What... is that?

Before he could make sense of it, the figure crossed the distance in a single heartbeat and caught him in midair. Another massive explosion lit up the sky behind them, close enough for Jester to feel the heat wash over his body.

Someone had caught him.

Jester's eyes snapped open.

Who?! Who the hell had caught him?!