Chapter 275: The Storm

The reapers descended on Stormtop amongst the rainfall, darkening the already cloudy skies with their black wings. Before the first reached the walls, alarm bells began to ring throughout the city, emanating from several towers further within the walls. The sound of the bells caused Kelik’radanir to shoot its neck straight up to peer over the walls of the city, and glare in the direction of the nearest bell tower.

He then extended his monstrous black wings, with dark mist emanating from its edges - the sheer size of them resulted in them knocking several Stormtop guards off the top of the walls that were anxiously watching with crossbows drawn, as well as causing more destruction to the nearest pier on the skyport by which Seraxus and his companions stood.

Kelik’radanir then let out a ferocious roar and launched himself up off the edge of the mountain’s Skyport and flapped his wings, causing powerful gusts of winds to blow outward onto Yumily as both Kaito and Kenji ran to her sides.

“Run into the city, find shelter!” Yumily ordered the NPCs from her ship, some of which were crewmembers of the ship and others members of her musical group. They didn’t need to be told twice - they began fleeing frantically towards the open gates leading into the city from the Skyport.

“Yo, Seraxus, you serious?” Xaio said with wide eyes as he watched the dragon take off. “Call that thing off, man. You ain’t supposed to be starting shit here.”

Seraxus didn’t reply, but smiled smugly at Xaio as his full party gathered around him, and the large number of vindicators that crowded the skyport opposite to Seraxus looked on nervously.

“You realize we’re gonna have to kill you if you don’t stop, right?” Xaio warned him, but the nervousness in Xaio’s voice was audible by even Yumily. Unlike her NPCs, she remained standing near Xaio, and drew out all of her instruments from her inventory. They began glowing pink and hovering around her.

“He’s already planning to kill us all.” Yumily explained to Xaio as she saw the look in Seraxus’ eyes, as well as his party. Hajax, Zuon, Gambit and Sylvie were all sharing his devilish grin.

“Hah. You’re underestimating us a lot. You’re pissing off the top players in the vindicator’s guild. You realize that, right? There’s hundreds of us, and five of you, plus some reapers.” Xaio motioned half heartedly up towards the swarms descending on them. At this time, the soldiers manning the walls were already firing their crossbows up at the swarm, but they were vastly outnumbered. Many reapers fell, but many got through and began swooping down and grabbing the guards off the walls and then flying them up into the sky to drop them from fatal heights.

Xaio watched this briefly out of the corner of his eye, but the tipping point was another bellowing roar from Kelik’radanir as he flew over the city and unleashed a wave of powerful black magical breath from his mouth down on the buildings below him. The breath attack looked like mist, but it packed enough pressure behind it to destroy the structures it hit, sending chunks of debris flying outward in all directions from the impact point. The sound of horrified screams began to cry out from inside the city - a mixture of both NPCs and players.

“Let’s start the show, boys.” Seraxus declared after watching the breath attack end, speaking to his audience rather than replying to Xaio. He then instantly drew out all 7 of his battlemaster weapons and dashed with incredible speed towards him.

Xaio reacted by drawing his weapons and jumping backwards, but his retreat was stopped by a shield projection by Hajax, causing Xaio to bump his back into it and move nowhere. He was caught off guard by this, and fear took him as he watched the black blade of Seraxus close in on him in an instant, striking him down and killing him instantly.

This action infuriated Xaio’s party members who jumped into action, but the spells they cast were absorbed by Sylvie’s magic while a volley of arrows rained down on them from Zuon.

“GRAND MASQUERADE!” Kenji shouted, creating a hazy mass of illusionary Yumily’s all over the Skyport. The other vindicators were running to join in the fray, but the swarm of reapers began intercepting them. Despite their low levels, the numbers were terrifying, and their swooping attacks managed to grab a couple of members before they properly began defending themselves. Yumily watched the Vindicators get swept up by the reapers, but knew where her focus needed to be.

“Siren’s Symphony!” Yumily screeched in a high pitch scream, followed by violently loud notes coming out of her floating instruments all around her, the pink glowing magic surrounding them intensifying. The deafening loud sounds from her began doing indiscriminate damage to everything nearby, including herself and her allies but namely the swarms of reapers.

The sound began to disorient them and cause them to crash into each other, falling out of the skies as they dropped the players they had picked up. Seraxus identified her as a threat immediately due to her actions and lunged forward towards where Yumily was, cutting through her with his blacksword only to realize he had targeted one of Kenji’s illusions - her familiarity with Kenji’s magic allowed her to easily slip away and hide herself amongst his grand masquerade spell.

“Sylvie!” Seraxus tried to shout to her, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice due to the loud sounds from Yumily. He planned to tell her directly, but Xaio’s party was furiously engaging him. He took two hits that only dealt 100’s of damage, but it still annoyed him and he instead turned to focus on parrying their strikes and retaliating against their strikes. The moment he began putting effort in, he made it look easy. His style was a focus on using his floating weapons to create openings for the Sword of Hatred he wielded in his hands, then using it to kill anything it touched in a single hit.

Unfortunately for Yumily, though, Sylvie knew what to do in this situation without being told by Seraxus. She quickly enchanted her eyes with truesight warlock magic, causing her eyes to glow a bright purple. She then began rapidly glancing around the Skyport to identify where the real Yumily was standing. Once she’d spotted her out, she tapped Zuon’s shoulder who stood beside him and pointed her out to him, not bothering to use words due to the loud screeching sound still emanating from her weapons.

This time that Yumily’s attack bought was significant, it allowed the vindicators to orient themselves and prepare properly for the oncoming swarm of Reapers as they flew upwards back towards the clouds to get away from the sound. Several large explosions of magic and volleys of arrows shot up from the group of them, destroying large numbers of reapers.

“Ballad of Silence!” Zuon shouted, aiming an arrow at Yumily as he drew out 7 of his own instruments that began floating behind him with a pink glow. He released a pink glowing arrow that exploded a dome of pink energy from its tip. The dome followed the arrow through the sky, but the dome didn’t affect anything that entered or exited it physically - instead, it removed all sound from within the dome.

Yumily saw the arrow coming at her and prepared to dodge out of the way, but a shield projection from Hajax appeared to limit her movements at the last second. Instead, Kaito appeared with his katana drawn and cut down the arrow to prevent it from hitting her, allowing the sound to persist. The failed shot caused Seraxus to sigh in annoyance.

“Ya’ll really think you can stop us? I’mma have to shut this bitch up myself.” Seraxus groaned and began stomping away from Xaio’s party, of which now only 3 members remained. As a show of strength, or mockery, Seraxus decided to completely ignore them as he stomped towards Yumily.

Yumily took a few anxious steps backwards while Kaito positioned himself between Yumily and Seraxus. Kaito watched as the many attacks landed on Seraxus’ back from Xaio’s party, doing less than 100 damage per hit - some even doing only 1.

Kaito took an aggressive stance as Seraxus’ casual walk closed in, showing openings over his whole body as he held his sword of hatred limp at his side and made his other weapons hover passively behind him. Kaito was taken aback how this behavior continued right up until when Seraxus entered the reach of his sword. Seraxus then taunted Kaito by wiggling his fingers to gesture to him to bring it on.

Kaito gritted his teeth and caused his sword to begin glowing a deep teal tint as his ability began to empower it.

“Dragon Slash!” Kaito shouted, using one of his more powerful advanced attack skills. He swung his Katana down on Seraxus with an incredible speed, leaving a streak of teal magical energy in the air where the sword had traveled. The glowing remnants of the slash remained briefly, before shooting forward at Seraxus with a powerful blast of magical energy, hitting not just Seraxus but the pier of the Skyport behind him, shattering the wooden planks and destroying it completely with the force of the attack.

For all appearances' sake, the powerful looked devastating, but the red number that appeared above Seraxus’ head was insignificant, [152]. A look of disbelief fell on Kaito’s face - one that Seraxus’ enjoyed seeing. A look of hopelessness followed, and Seraxus nonchalantly stepped forward as if to walk past Kaito to ignore him completely so that he could get to the real Yumily. Once Seraxus had walked past him, Kaito snapped out of it and struck out at Seraxus a second time from behind. This time, though, Seraxus turned and grabbed Kaito’s katana with his freehand, taking minor damage as he blocked the blade with his palm. He then held onto the Mithral blade tightly to prevent Kaito from pulling it back, whilst swinging his black sword of hatred out at the Samurai class player, killing him instantly.

Yumily looked on in horrified shock as Kaito’s body began to disappear from the gameworld, not prepared to defend herself from Seraxus as he continued walking towards her. She anxiously stumbled backwards away from him until her instruments and her back bumped up against the outer walls of Stormtop, leaving her nowhere left to go.

Kenji jumped forward and released several bursts of magic, his incantations muted due to the continued screeching coming from Yumily’s instruments. Despite this, though, Sylvie was able to easily cancel out his attacks while Zuon landed several deadly arrows on Kenji from behind, killing him as well.

Meanwhile, Gambit and Hajax worked together to finish off the remnants of Xaio’s party. Yumily could do nothing but watch as Seraxus’ group took out all of the other capable players around her, then see the devilish grin on Seraxus’ face grow as he approached. He mouthed words to her but Yumily couldn’t hear it over the sound of her own spell. Instead, she quickly drew out her longbow of which she rarely used and nocked an arrow, firing it point blank at Seraxus’ face and dealing 1 point of damage. Seraxus retaliated by cutting down Yumily with his blacksword, killing her in a single hit and causing the horrifyingly loud screeching to stop.

“I don’t think she liked you very much.” Hajax said mockingly while rubbing his ears.

“Wasn’t her music supposed to be better than mine?” Zuon chuckled and shook his head.

“Unfortunately, guys,” Seraxus began speaking to his audience, “I don’t think Yumily’s gonna be able to play us some background music as we collect some souls. Sucks, I was hoping she’d make me a theme song or something.”

“I can make you a theme song, you know. I’m a bard too.”

“Barely.” Sylvie rolled her eyes at him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zuon grumbled at her.

“You know exactly what she means.” Gambit laughed, causing Hajax and Seraxus to chuckle as well. The lightheartedness of their interactions was a stark juxtaposition to the sound of screams that could now be heard coming from the city as Kelik’radanir continued to release torrents of abyssal black breath down on the city, causing massive amounts of destruction and killing countless players and NPCs.

The reapers, who’d been fleeing while disoriented, began to gain their confidence back and started veering back down from the rain clouds towards the swamps of Vindicators.

Within a few seconds, they were ripping through the sails of the dozens of Airships on the skyport, and grabbing up any straggling players or NPCs that stood away from the others. They then proceed to either feast on them with their large gnawing white fangs, or grab them in their claws and fly them up into the sky to drop them and deal fatal falling damage.

Despite their numbers and levels, with Xaio gone the vindicators lacked leadership. Several players were yelling orders in mandarin, and talking over one another. No one was listening, and Seraxus’ reveled in it. They were surviving the onslaught of reapers for a short while until Seraxus and his group began marching on the gates, and began cutting through them en-masse.

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“Xaio’s group sent me a message, they said Seraxus arrived in Stormtop on a dragon.” Feng spoke up as he walked alongside Makaroth and others. The group was standing around a large blacksmith crafting station as Jensora worked on a mithral blade schematic - namely a katana.

“Good, then everyone is here.” Makaroth smiled, turning to Synopse. “We’ll have our opportunity to put an end to his destruction once and for all, and we won’t waste it. Right?”

“Right…” Synopse nodded back hesitantly.

“Apparently, he rode in on a dragon.” Feng added while leaning in over the schematic Jensora was working on. “Ah, I prefer the hilt to be angled in this spot…” Feng pointed out the parchment around the hilt.

“Aye, I can change that…” Jensora replied as he began making the change to the parchment quickly.

“A dragon?” Calikgos asked in disbelief.

“Yes… I heard the report too from my guild members.” Daehyun confirmed.

“He’s not causing any trouble with that, though, right?” Makaroth tried to confirm.

“Don’t worry. Xaio will inform me if he tries anything.” Feng reassured Makaroth.

“Uh… Sorry to bother you guys but, Xaio says nothing is wrong?” Daehyun replied nervously.

“Nothing so far, why?” Feng asked curiously.

“My guild members say Stormtop is under attack. They’re destroying the city…” Daehyun replied.

“What?” Jensora stopped what he was doing to straighten himself out.

“He’s right.” Lilya commented as she fidgeted with her interface, pulling up Seraxus’ livestream in her livestream viewer. “Seraxus just killed Yumily. The dragon is attacking the city.” Lilya said nonchalantly.

“Where’s Xaio?” Feng asked.

“Dead already. He’s killing all your vindicators on the Skyport.” Lilya explained as she watched the stream.

“That kid is taking his role of villain a little bit too seriously.” Makaroth sighed in frustration. “Synopse?”

“On it.” Synopse replied as he began his incantation. Blue magic appeared on the tips of his fingers, quickly forming a portal that opened on the Portal Altar of Stormtop. Synopse was the first to rush through it, and the moment he had he looked up to see Kelik’radanir eying his magical blue portal in the middle of the city - the glow of magic drawing his attention. Makaroth peered through the portal to pass behind Synopse, but Synopse saw the breath attack winding up from Kelik’radanir’s mouth and quickly pushed Makaroth back through the portal just in time.

“SINGULARITY!” Synopse then waved his artifact staff, causing it to shoot out a burst of yellow stars that rapidly imprinted themself on his body. The breath of the raid boss rained down on Synopse as he closed the portal to prevent it from passing through and killing everyone on the other side of it.

The black abyssal magic was deflected upward off of Synopse’s body due to the spell he’d cast, but the surrounding area on which he stood was not so lucky, including the portal altar. With it destroyed, there was no way for any wizard to portal back to the city, leaving Synopse on his own and separated from his guild and the other gladiators of the tournament who were left behind.

“Shit.” Synopse sighed as the abyssal magic cleared away from him, leaving nothing but a crater of destruction on all sides. Kelik’radanir let out another ferocious roar as it soared past Synopse, looking to other buildings in the distance to destroy and unleashing more torrents of destructive breath down on the helpless players and NPCs.

He glanced around frantically, spotting guards who’d avoided the attack. Some were running in fear, but others had crossbows out and were shooting bolts up at the beast. Synopse followed their shots to see most were missing, but the ones that hit were doing very insignificant amounts of damage to the flying raid boss.

“Open another portal for us.” Makaroth messaged Synopse through the party interface.

“I can’t, the dragon destroyed the portal altar. You guys need to get back up here on foot, and fast. It’s bad.” Synopse continued to follow the dragon’s destruction with his eyes, seeing how much damage had already been done. “Really bad.”

“Alright, we’re on our way. Don’t do anything until we get there.” Makaroth replied.

“I have to do something. If I don’t, then…”

“If you try to stop them alone, he’ll make a fool out of you.” Calikgos replied, also through the party interface.

“I don’t care how he makes me look.” Synopse snapped back in annoyance.

“He’s right, Synopse. Stand down until we get there.”

“You’re really asking me to just sit here and do nothing? Seconds count right now.”

“Your gladiator team isn’t even with you.” Lilya joined in.

“We’re moving quickly, Daehyun is leading us. Don’t worry.” Makaroth tried to reassure Synopse.

“Alright…” Synopse replied hesitantly, watching another blast shoot out from the dragon's mouth, destroying several more buildings. He then moved away from the crater of destruction that was once the portal altar towards several NPCs he saw cowering and hiding in an alleyway.

“Come, move from here, to that Keep. It should be safer.” Synopse motioned to a large stone structure in the distance. “Move, all of you, to the safety of the Stormtop Keep!” Synopse shouted as loud as he could to get the attention of the others. His voice caused several other NPCs, and players, to come out of hiding.

Amongst them, he recognized the little girl whose autograph he’d signed, and her father. He led behind him a group of 4 tamed adult beasts, and multiple pups and kits of which he was raising. Most of them were elite, and were obediently following him without leashes.

“What’s happening, Synopse?” The little girl asked him worriedly.

“A bad player showed up, but don’t worry, we’re going to protect everyone. Makaroth is on the way.” Synopse replied to her, motioning them to continue moving forward alongside the other fleeing NPCs.

“What should we do?” Her father asked him worriedly.

“The safest building will be the keep, for now. Hurry there and keep your heads down.”

“Got it. Thank you.” The father nodded before leading his animals and daughter away. Synopse then turned to other NPCs and directed them similarly, but a loud screech from the dragon closing in on him got his attention.

“HIDE, TAKE COVER!” Synopse warned them as it neared, his voice barely audible over the sound of another roar that echoed through the streets from the dragon. It was too late - it’d spotted them out and began veering its wings to soar towards the people moving through the streets. “No chance I’m doing nothing.” Synopse shouted angrily as he slammed the base of his staff into the ground, releasing a blast of astral magic outward - a mix of yellow and white stars shooting out in a dome around him.

“ASTRAL ENTROPY!” Synopse shouted, casting a powerful spell that warped and distorted the space within the dome as magic gathered at the end of his staff and shot out in a beam upwards towards the dragon. It hit the underside of the raid boss, causing it to roar out in annoyance but nothing more.

“No, look at me you stupid…” Synopse watched in horror as Kelik’radanir soared past him and pulled back its neck, preparing a breath attack for the fleeing players and NPCs and ignoring Synopse despite having taken damage from him. As the breath shot from its mouth, Synopse desperately waved out his staff in the direction of the fleeing man and his animals.

“Singularity!” He cast, and a barrage of stars shot outward towards them just as the breath attack hit, smothering the streets and nearby buildings in black abyssal breath magic. Stones from the street and nearby buildings, as well as broken roof tiles and wooden beam fragments were sent flying in all directions, blocking Synopse’s view of what had happened.

The dragon soared onward, and a few moments later the black mist from the attack cleared out, revealing the extent of the destruction.

Synopse’s last minute casting of Singularity was only enough to protect a single creature - one of the adult elite Bolthounds had his stars imprinted over its body so that it took no damage.

Surrounding the Bolthound were the disintegrating bodies of all the young animals, the other adult, and the other players and NPCs as they were forced to log out from the attack. They sat in the crater left behind by the dragon’s attack, and Synopse could see the panicked look on the surviving hounds face as it watched it’s made disappear, then its owner. A distant roar from Kelik’radanir was followed by desperate whimpering from the hound as it started sniffing and patting its front paws at the final remnants of its mate and master, until it was left alone.

Only Synopse and the hound remained alive nearby, and the streets fell silent save for the distant roaring of the dragon. The silence was broken when the hound let out a pitiful howl towards the sky.

At first, it was disbelief. But it quickly turned to anger as Synopse looked in the direction of a sudden explosion that erupted at the Skyport in the distance - an explosion not caused by the dragon but rather the swarms of reapers descending on the city.

“Do nothing my ass.” Synopse gritted his teeth. “I’m gonna do something about that fucking drag-” He prepared to march forward, but stopped as a sudden blindingly bright flash of lighting shot out through the sky, shimmering through the stormclouds above.

A gigantic bolt of lightning formed up from the mass of clouds spread out above the city of Stormtop, converging on a single point and then shooting out into a gigantic spear of electrical energy that lit up the entirety of the city as it pierced through the sky and crashed into the body of Kelik’radanir, causing the dragon to let out a horrendous roar of pain from the attack.

The initial blow was powerful on its own, but it continued to surge with electrical energy after that, releasing bursts of static electricity from its body that caused it to struggle flapping its wings. The dragon began to lose its orientation and swerved downward out of the sky, dragging half of its body along the ground briefly and knocking over several more buildings before it launched itself up off the ground again.

However, the moment it managed to orient itself, another bolt of lighting pierced through the clouds towards it. This time, Kelik’radanir was ready and managed to swerve to dodge the bolt - but the damage had been done. The dragon swerved around and began flying away from the city in fear, as several more massive bolts of lightning formed up and fired at its tail, forcing it to maneuver around them.

“Who the hell?” Synopse watched in disbelief as the powerful lightning magic forced the dragon to flee.

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“I hate being right.” Mikael said as he stood guard in front of the Great Prophet of Zeus, who was focused on a powerful incantation that allowed him to control the lightning. “Keep focusing the storm’s energy on the dragon. If we can get it out of the city, we might stand a chance against Seraxus and his reapers.” He instructed the elite NPC, who could only nod back at him as he was deep in focus on the spell.

“You really think we can take em?” Jeremax asked worriedly.

“We better.” Mikael cleared his throat, eying his guildmates and the NPCs from Ryner’s airship who were present in the temple of Zeus. From his vantage point he had a good view of the destruction being wrought across the city - smoke rising up from several locations in the distance with multiple towers missing their upper halves.

“Schadenfreude. We make our stand here. There’s no running away this time. We fight until we win, or die.” Mikael spoke, and following his words his guild let out a loud battlecry of enthusiasm whilst drawing out their weapons.