Everlast Online

The first event had been decided in a bloody battle of nothing but skill and  both competitors had shown themselves to be dangerous in their own rights.

Not a single soul could possibly dare to argue that either participant was superior to another, even the thought of such a thing would insult the honour of both fighters.

And yet Wolf Fang could not help but celebrate. Just as Walpurgis had been sent to a strange pocket space, so too had their enemies, and now with the first event ending in their victory they could not help but burst into cheers - the brutal battle between Magnus and Wolf falling to the backs of their minds as they spoke of their strength.

The importance of the first event could not be understated, just as with the prelude to any war, the first verifiable victory had the power to determine the final results of any conflict - human emotions are simply too easily influenced by any manner of things, no less a defeat.

In contrast to Wolf Fang, Walpurgis had fallen sombre. Magnus was a man most of the guild looked up to, his loss could not possibly be taken lightly - but death was not such a foreign concept to these men.

“Bastards!” One called out as the sombre atmosphere began to lift, shouts in agreement with the first rippled through the crowd as all swore vengeance for their fallen leader - forgetting entirely that they were in a game.

“Shut it!” A voice called out from the front, Liz’s eyes darting to the side as she found a familiar figure stood beside her, his dominating force towering over her as it always did. Magnus’s voice, like always, silenced the crowd of gangsters as they all turned to look at him with respect in their eyes.

“He won fairly and he fought well.” Magnus yelled out, “He may be an enemy, but he is a fighter worthy of respect…”

Strangely similar speeches were shouted in the opposing camp. Wolf had found himself mesmerised by the prowess of Magnus and the mockery of one of his guild members had sent him into a rage at the insinuation Magnus was anything but an equal to him.

Although they would not know it for a time, both Magnus and Wolf had come to see each other in a positive light; the kind of respect one can only have with an equal.

As Magnus’s and Wolf’s bodies vanished from the arena, Loki’s form changed once again to announce their presence.

“What a wonderful fight!” They called out, clapping (now) grey hands together loudly, “Truly like the good ol’ days!”

With Loki’s final clap the sea stars and arena vanished into smoke like they had never existed in the first place and Loki simply floated above the same coliseum that Liz had first appeared in.

“Ah such great beauty in how mortals fuck each other up…” Loki said, faux tears falling from their eyes - created through magic - as they floated gently through the air with newly grown wings. They wiped away the tears only moments later and a broad smile spread across their face, “But anyway, onto the next event! Maybe this time Walpurgis will get their head out of their ass and win! But who knows?”

Shouts of anger rippled through the Walpurgis chamber at Loki’s jab, but there was nothing that could be done about it. With a click of their fingers Loki had brought back the illusionary roulette machine, hovering just above them as its handle flew downwards and the dials began to spin once again.

Liz immediately noticed that the equaliser image had been removed, leaving only what she deduced to be duels and collapsing castles; and like before there was a strange third image mixed in, one that caused Liz a certain level of discomfort every time it flew by.

Eventually though the event was decided:

“And it looks like we’ve landed on duels!” Loki called out, their voice carrying the subtlest hint of disappointment. They raised their hand once again, fingers primed to click, “And with it a new environment is necessary!”

Just as before Loki’s fingers sent a wave of magic through the arena and the world changed around them. The difference in arena for the second event was not so drastically different from what seemed to be the default, but there were clear differences as compared to before. Just as the default settings, the new arena seemed to be gladiatorial in nature - taking inspiration from ancient Roman structures - only the platform was not nearly as large and stood surrounded by a moat of murky water, creatures surfacing from within every few moments - their forms never entirely clear, but wholly terrifying to view.

The crowd was not delegated to a distant pocket dimension either, all the viewing players having been placed among the stands, their shouts much more defined.

There were no bridges to the platform and so many expected the participants to simply appear like they had before, but the more observant would notice six sets of bars built into the walls around the arena - the insides completely hidden by shadows.

In each of the six were participants of the duels, waiting for their turn to fight.

Loki appeared in a flash of light, their form the least flamboyant so far as they appeared as nothing more than an average human man. As before they began announcing the nature of the event.

“And with the second event we get a slightly more boring and longer version of the first event.” Loki sighed, presenting their disinterest quite clearly, “I mean if I can’t even watch some idiotic mortals beat one another to death then what’s the point?”

A loud audible sigh spread through the stands before Loki continued to explain.

“Haaah… Basically, three people from both guilds duel - the winner is best of three.” Loki explained, their disinterest clear on their face, “Like the overall war, if Walpurgis lose twice the entire war goes to the puppy guild or whatever they’re called.”

With Loki’s disinterest as clear as day, the event soon started without any introductions. The platform began to rumble, shaking off dust while slowly beginning to rotate.

It came to a thundering stop only moments later and a metal bridge extended from the central platform, lined perfectly up with the gate built into the wall.

In only a few seconds a walkway had been created and the gate rose with faux ancient machinery - from within a figure most had been waiting for emerged, walking slowly across the bridge and onto the platform was the master of Walpurgis and most well known player in all of ELO: Smokey.

Smokey’s guild had already defied expectations. Despite most thinking her guild was made up of nothing but low level noobs, Magnus had single handedly dispelled any such thoughts about the lack of skill in Walpurgis - and now the masses were even more excited to see exactly what Smokey was capable of.

With the little undead standing on the platform it began to turn once again, however, Liz didn’t feel a thing - a strange act of magic preventing any and all disorientation. Like before the bridge met the wall and the gate opened, allowing a member of Wolf Fang to step onto the central arena.

From the darkness a figure not many recognised came forward, a confidence in their gait like they did not understand who it was they had to face or more accurately they had some kind of secret advantage.

They were a rather unassuming young man, short brown hair and bluish eyes - a regular human in every sense of the word. The only remotely abnormal part of his appearance were the freckles that passed from either cheek across his nose.

Liz did not dare let her guard down though, not after what had happened with Ustad’s summoning.

Do people know about my weakness to the holy element yet? She wondered, that seemingly like the most likely source for his confidence. I shouldn’t drag this out.

Loki gave a brief speech, with the barest amount of passion in their voice - though the reason for that slightest interest could hardly be discerned.

With their countdown the match began and the unassuming man struck first.

He moved faster than Liz had expected it, but not fast enough to prevent a defence from Liz; she created distance first of course by firing off a volley of her [Leach Arrow] spell to keep her enemy from approaching.

The man clicked his tongue as his first strategy had failed and a shield of undead appeared around Liz to protect her - she had already claimed the upperhand.

What’s more was her progress with the type of undead. Liz had spent a significant amount of time doing nothing but experimenting with her [Create Undead] skill; and while there were certainly more failures than she would care to admit, there were quite a number of successes - especially with [Bone Shaping] and [Flesh Stitching] allowing for a level of… Variety among her ingredients.

Skeleton professionals were in abundance of course, but there were more than just that; there were a number of larger skeletons with their bones hidden behind bulky white armour. These skeletons, [Heavy Armoured Bones], were quite a significant amount larger than all of the skeleton professionals and carried both shields and claymores so that they could be both offensive and defensive.

Behind them were Liz’s latest advancement in the flesh-category of her [Book of the Damned] skill: [Draugrs], the zombie equivalent of skeleton professionals - they were different in the sense that they lacked a specialisation and were quite a bit stronger than the average skeleton professional, but otherwise were the same stand evolution of zombies that professionals were to skeletons.

Liz had not come even close to summoning the bulk of her army, she hadn’t even brought out her dullahans or bone slayers, let alone her two death knights. This of course was a strategy in and of itself.

What she had brought out was a large amount of menacing and fearsome looking undead; and although to her it was merely a gathering of her fodder soldiers, to others it would most likely appear as everything she had available to her.

Her opponent, Wolf Fang’s first entry, was a player by the username [Firecracker] and he was quite confident in his ability as a player, but when faced with a horde of undead he couldn’t help but feel like he was in danger.

However, he did not immediately give up on his chances of winning as there was a reason he had been sent out first; a reason he had been sent to fight Smokey.

Firecracker had a rather rare class and one his boss determined would be quite adept at dealing with Smokey who had continued to get in their way. Firecracker was a [Battle Priest].

He took a deep breath as Smokey’s army began to move forward and pulled a golden mace from his inventory, with his weapon ready he made use of his first skill: [Ordained Strength].

His body began to glow with a weak golden shine, a colour all too familiar for Smokey. She clicked her cloth tongue (as best she could anyway) and changed her strategy, ordering only a small group of heavy bones to approach with a pair of draugrs.

Without restraint Firecracker swung his mace at the closest skeleton, his glowing weapon colliding with it like a bullet. Smokey watched with bated breath to see how much danger she was in; and it was surprisingly little.

As the heavy bone’s shield collided with the weapon it splintered under the force - a web of cracks running deep through the item - and a single hit more would shatter it into dust, but the heavy bone’s was only slightly injured. The holy energy had damaged it, of that Smokey was certain, but not as awfully as her first encounter with that type of magic.

I need more info… She thought, pondering with her split mind as she continued to command. Is it because of the shield? Because of the stronger undead? Or is it because he’s just weak?

With her interest aroused Smokey could not help but experiment. She ordered the heavy bones to withdraw slightly, allowing a draugr to approach with the intention of allowing it to tank a hit.

Draugrs wore rusty metal armour of varying amounts and each carried either a longsword or a battle-axe with their rotted flesh clear underneath and despite how slow most zombies were, draugrs were incredibly fast - likely as a result of their ties to norse folklore and viking myth.

However, despite all of their advantages, Smokey had ordered one of them to charge wildly and openly in order to see how her enemies' attacks would land.

And just as the heavy bones had, the draugr took the hit - but again it did not die.

The zombie was in a far worse state than the heavy bones with its entire midsection having been disintegrated from the attack - holy magic quite literally evaporating its rotted flesh - but it was still alive and using its hands to pull itself towards Firecracker as instructed.

He’s either weak or there’s a higher resistance for higher undead. Smokey thought, recognising that both [Heavy Armoured Bones] and [Dragurs] were higher ranked undead when compared to those being used during her first attack of holy magic.

However, either way, Liz was beyond happy at the chance to experiment and that is exactly what she did, sending different undead in different ways to test how they reacted to the enemies holy magic - all without revealing how powerful she really was.

Firecracker, being the arrogant and foolish person he was, did not realise this - nor did most of the crowd.

Cheers and shouts echoed through as Firecracker beat back dozens of approaching undead, a pile of bone and flesh and blood building beneath him.

He had gotten a sizable round of cheers after destroying a larger undead that inspection revealed to be called a [Bone Chimera] that looked to be made out of the bones of dozens of monsters. He was basking in the glory of fending off the most popular player in ELO, scoffing at the briefing he had gotten before the battle as he began to believe Smokey was nothing special.

I’ll probably get a promotion from this! He thought with glee. I might become a core member! I won’t have to lower myself to be the representative for some dirty mercenaries!

Firecracker’s delusions ran wild as he activated skill after skill, [Ordained Strength], [Battlefield Recovery], [Sanctified Ground] and [Weight of Faith] among many others that imbued his body, weapon and surroundings with holy energy.

Among the crowds whispers began to spread, doubting the prowess of Smokey.

“Is this all she can do?”

“Wasn’t she supposed to be like… The strongest?”

“That random guy is basically fighting on equal grounds…”

“I guess she really was just lucky.”

There were a few in the crowd who realised exactly what was happening, but many more didn’t.

There was one who realised that Smokey had not shown even a slight amount of her real power, but desperately hoped she would remain that arrogant until Firecracker finally arrived at her location; sitting with an apathetic expression in a VIP box and waiting for the moment to pay Smokey back for the humiliation.

However, there was none more aware of what Smokey was doing than Loki.

The previously disinterested deity watched with a wide and clear grin across their face. Loki was the god of mischief and tricks and so there was nothing they liked more than watching another person’s confidence disappear as they realised they had long entered a trap.

It was an exhilarating experience and they couldn’t wait to see how Firecracker’s ego would shatter under the weight of that realisation - to watch the crumpling of his face would be ecstasy in its purest form for Loki.

And of course that would come quite soon as Liz began to wrap up her experiments.

She had found that different levels of holy magic affected different undead in varying ways. Defensive undead had the highest level of resistance to size ratio while most undead could survive spells that diluted the magic’s effects like [Sanctified Ground] that created an area of weak holy energy around the user.

“Hahahaha! Is this all you’ve got!?” Firecracker called out, shattering the skull of a heavy bones with his mace. With his taunt Liz dismissed a large amount of her undead, keeping only a few to maintain the effects of [Voodooism], even if holy magic negated its effects, but of course Firecracker’s arrogance had reached the levels of icarus himself, “Ha! You giving up!?”

With a grin that could annoy even the most calm of monks, Firecracker strolled leisurely over to Smokey.

“Probably for the best, I bet you don’t want to embarrass yourself even further.” He mocked while swinging his mace. Almost the entire fight he had been making those kinds of remarks and while Liz had tuned them out while experimenting she certainly didn’t find them any less annoying.

“... No, I just got bored of experimenting on the effects of holy magic.” Liz responded, forcing Firecracker to stop in his tracks.

“... Hahaha! No point in lying now! Everyone can see you're full of it, and you call yourself the best- “ He was cut off as Liz activated a skill she had not made much use since it was fairly new. 

A hand manifested from behind Firecracker, [Earth Hand] creating just that from the arena itself. The creation wrapped tightly around Firecracker and despite his struggle to break free, he could do nothing to escape as he was thrown through the air - hitting the wall with a sickening crack and falling into the moat of monsters, as he sank beneath the surface all that came back up was his crimson blood.

“You’re not even worth using my good undead on…” Liz exclaimed, her victory punctuated by the giddy laughter of a shapeshifting god.

The crowd was silent and one man seethed that he failed.

Liz walked back to her waiting area, the next duel soon to begin.