Everlast Online

The outcome of the first duel was in no way unexpected, not a soul in that audience had thought Smokey would lose.

They had not expected her to win the way she had or to have taken as long as she did, but ultimately the result was as expected.

However, that in no way reduced how awesome it made her look.

Firecracker had spent so long fighting off undead after undead only for Smokey to throw him out of the arena like it was nothing, demonstrating to even the thickest skulled spectators that she had never taken him seriously.

Loki simply could not stop themselves from laughing, each intake of breath causing an explosive shift in appearance as their body bloated and changed colour like an injured slime. However, their voice was eventually drowned out by the scraping of metal against stone from the platforms extending out once more to allow Smokey to re-enter her waiting room.

One man continued to seethe, his plan having failed. He of course had not expected much success from the idiot he had sent in, but nonetheless it was a significant blow to his ego to be shown up by Smokey once again.

At least no one knows it was related to me this time… He thought as he calmed himself; and in his clarity he had a momentary epiphany. She was testing the effects of holy magic? Why, though?

Everyone had heard what Smokey had said, every conversation between the participants clearly broadcasted to those watching, and everyone more or less knew undead were weak to holy magic - at least to some extent - so why was she testing its effects?

Perhaps there’s more to it than what I already know. He thought, the sides of his mouth creeping upwards as he did. It’s worth looking into.

Smokey had quickly returned to the waiting room she had come from, seeing no need to remain in the public eye any longer - she had already made quite the impression and she knew it.

With Smokey having returned the platform began to move once again, stopping at the furthest gate from hers.

As it opened an armoured foot stepped out from within, metal colliding with metal as a large and fearsome looking woman emerged. 

She walked with confidence and a giant, crimson sword draped over her shoulder; her vertebrae tail whipped back and forth against the walkway, sparks bursting from where it scraped against the metal.

Gloria had emerged and she presented a fearsome image - one unlikely to be forgotten for both her power and beauty, not even her armour hiding the curves of a beautiful woman.

She stepped onto the platform without fear, dust picking up from each of her steps, and so it began to move once again - opening the gate of her opponent.

From within emerged a core member of Wolf Fang, one easily recognisable for his terrible dress sense.

He seemed as though each piece of his equipment had been chosen at random by a blind man.

The fighter wore a bright pink tailcoat over a printed t-shirt that read “It’s wine o'clock somewhere” and blue camo-print pants with sandshoes rounding out the atrocious outfit he had put together.

And finally was the item he was most well known for: His blue bird mask, a staple item in every game he played. Even if the game didn’t have such a mask available he would either make one or send enough messages to the developers that they would just make it for him.

In the simplest of terms [Damien] (both his username and real name) was an annoying asshole.

He had joined Wolf Fang after its leader, Wolf, found him both hilarious and skilled - eventually allowing him to become an executive within the mercenary guild.

Worse still was that it was typically impossible to study how he fought and combat it as Damien chose a different class and fighting style for every game he played which allowed him to switch between different weapons and attack on a whim - so long as his stats were in the right places.

Unlike Gloria, Damien’s weapons were not on display as he reached the platform and so not a single member of the audience - excluding Wolf Fang members - knew how he would fight, especially since he had not taken part in any large conflict until this moment.

Loki began as they had to, with a brief history of each fighter.

Gloria’s identity as one of Smokey’s summons got a round of confusion and awe from the spectators while Loki explicitly chose not to give much of Damien’s information away - finding themself more and more interested in the duels, or more specifically the potential for tricks they held.

“So… You’re a summon then…” Damien called out, swaying aimlessly in the wind, “... What’s that like?”

“...” Gloria remained silent, raising her guard as the clock began to tick down, their fight quickly approaching.

“... Silent type.” Damien said, nodding his bird head sagely, “... You’re still hot. Wanna hang out later?”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Loki burst out laughing even harder than they had after Smokey’s victory, only making the bulging vein in Gloria’s forehead even larger.

Gloria’s foot stomped down the instant the timer hit zero and just as quickly as dust rose to obscure Damien’s view she had crossed half of the arena.

Her visibility was entirely clear and so she knew a single step more would put her directly in front of the idiot allowing her to end the fight in an instant.

“Guess that’s a no then. Haa…” Damien sighed, his hand reaching for something hidden beneath his coat.

He moved at speeds faster than most had anticipated - mostly because he looked like an idiot, but also because his last build was a heavy tank - and very few actually saw what he did; luckily Gloria was one of those few.

From beneath his jacket Damien pulled out a beautifully ornate revolver with a silver body and real golden details that spread across the handle and barrel of the weapon like metallic vines - it was truly a work of art, but Gloria was not concerned.

Hmph. He should have brought a real weapon. She thought, arrogance flooding her mind for a moment before she cleared it once again as any good warrior should.

Mana gathered in the chamber of the gun and in only a few seconds Damien pulled the trigger, the bullet flying at speeds much faster than kinetic weapons of past eras on Earth.

(A/N: For those who don’t know, kinetic weapons are ones that fire projectiles, modern Earth in the story can produce essentially laser rifles and similar weapons, as a result kinetic weaponry is now obsolete)

Despite the incredible speeds Gloria was in no way concerned, she was significantly faster than a mere gun and she knew it.

Using her tail to balance herself she was able to completely lean out of the trajectory of the projectile and push herself forward that final step, putting her directly in front of Damien.

Her guard was lowered for that brief moment where she assumed her victory was assured, but this was not confidence: It was arrogance.

There were too many things she was ignorant of and she hadn’t even realised it, Damien’s ridiculous outer appearance ensuring that she never would.

Right as Gloria assumed victory Damiens free hand moved even faster than his other - a misdirection by using his non-dominant hand first - and pulled out another gun, equally as ornate and even more hidden than his last.

Gloria had no time to move. Gloria was wide open.

The mana gathered and the projectile was fired, a bullet crashing through Gloria’s armour and straight through the back - a different type of bullet having been fired.

Gloria was thrown back by the force of the weapon and just barely remained on the platform by slowing herself with her sword.

Blood gushed from her open wound while she pulled herself to her feet. Thankfully her [Dulled Pain] skill allowed her to ignore most of the damage she had taken, but the bleed effect of Damiens [Armour Piercing Bullet] would not only drain her health constantly, but also prevent her from making full use of skills like [Berserk] or [Inevitable Demise].

Damien was much smarter than most gave him credit for and it showed in that single encounter - at least to trained eyes like Gloria’s.

However, despite knowing that Damien was not as idiotic as she first thought ignorance won out once again.

That may have been a good shot, but now he’s defenceless. She thought. He can’t possibly have another gun.

With such convictions Gloria was once again confident in her victory and immediately activated [Inevitable Demise], ignoring the consequences of doing so.

She fully believed that her victory was assured, especially considering how much more powerful it was.

The skill had reached level nine and so the conversion ratio between HP and stats had risen from [1:2] to the significantly superior [1:5]. While that might seem low considering the level difference, stats did not increase linearly; meaning the difference between two and five was more than most would know.

With her enemy disarmed, Gloria did not concern herself with the consequences of her skill as she felt success was well within her grasp, however, this was arrogance.

“Back so soon?” Damien chuckled, “And I thought you didn’t like me.”

To punctuate his mediocre joke he raised his arm and fired yet another bullet at Gloria.

This time she did not dodge, or rather she could not.

Gloria had not for the unlife of her expected any more bullets to be fired at her for quite some time and so could not properly adjust her movements to evade the attack, being hit in the shoulder by the bullet; the force of which sent her rolling forward into the floor as it knocked her off balance.

The audience laughed and Gloria’s rage grew, her judgement clouded.

He was supposed to be out of bullets! She screamed in her head. Did he have another gun!?

Her confusion came from one single misunderstanding: Gloria didn’t truly know what a gun was.

Up until this very duel Gloria had only ever seen a single gun and that was two days prior when Liz managed to find one and use it to create a new type of undead, the [Skeleton Pirate].

Since the world Gloria had originally been born in had not reached a point where they could develop guns, that flintlock pistol was the only thing she could reference when facing Damien, which caused her to misunderstand exactly how powerful he was.

With such a gap in knowledge, Damien immediately had the advantage of launching a surprise attack - even if he didn’t know it.

He had found the weapons by pure chance after finishing his character creation, obtaining the pair of guns after completing his first dungeon. With two magic guns it didn’t take long for Damien to first become a [Gunner] and then a [Magic Gunner].

He had a number of different skills that allowed him to create bullets out of mana with multiple different effects, just like the two that had hit Gloria.

The first was a [Armour Piercing Bullet] and the second a [Poison Bullet].

Seems poison doesn’t work. He thought as he watched Gloria immediately pick herself back up and continue charging directly at him.

Gloria no longer held onto her preconceptions, her experience as a warrior allowing her to abandon what she thought she knew; She was at every disadvantage and yet she refused to go down.

She knew well that the moment her [Inevitable Demise] skill deactivated it would mean her loss and so she didn’t hesitate to activate her other sacrificial skill: [Berserk].

Her grasp on consciousness began to slip as her strength continued to increase, but Gloria just barely managed to retain control as the debuff set in.

With yet another self-destructive buffing skill activated Gloria moved even faster, appearing before Damien could even think to react - it was his bare bones instincts that caused him to lean back and evade an immediate death with blood beginning to gush from the large wound that had just opened on his chest.

Without allowing pain to cloud his judgement he activated the skill [3000 YD], granting exactly that much distance between himself and Gloria before he began shooting once again.

(A/N: 2500 yards is the max firing range of a 44 magnum, so a magic gun based on that kind of weapon has 3000 yards when using normal bullets)

Less mana gathered than normal as he activated the standard skill for a [Magic Gunner]: [Magic Bullet]. In an instant ten shots were fired from each of his guns, all heading right for Gloria.

Seeing this, Gloria acted immediately and used a skill she believed would counter the projectiles well: [Demise Sludge]. This was not a skill she used often due to its need for INT, but with it her sword was coated in a writhing black gel that she swung with all of her strength; the mass of corrosive mana colliding with the bullets like a wall.

Luckily the skill was just strong enough, corroding the bullets enough that all of their momentum and lethality was lost - leaving Gloria’s approach wide open.

Gloria and Damien moved around the arena at incredible speeds, bullets flew and clashed with steel constantly as both fighters moved with grace.

However, everyone began to notice who had the advantage - each moment the fight continued, the more obvious it became.

Gloria’s [Demise Knight] class walked along the path of a berserker and while those types of classes almost always gave the strongest abilities they came with an equally appropriate cost - something Damein had quickly figured out.

Damien’s class was exactly the opposite; His original [Gunner] class was one that focused on high-speed evasions while making use of short-mid-ranged guns and the evolved class [Magic Gunner] allowed him to create bullets with different effects. All of which resulted in an incredibly nimble and unpredictable fighter.

For Gloria whose power was slowly whittling away at her HP, this was fatal. 

She could not recklessly approach due to the unknown effects of Damien’s bullets, but similarly even when openings presented themselves he always found a way to evade her attacks.

The fight continued and Gloria continued to grow in strength as she sacrificed more and more of her HP, but Damien always remained just one step out of reach; Gloria had seconds remaining and she knew it.

It comes down to this. She thought to herself, steeling her resolve to push herself to the very limits.

“GRAAAAAH!” Gloria screamed out as loud as she could, her voice alone clearing the dust clouds that had built up with her skill [War Cry]; and furthermore she had managed to inflict [Stun] on her opponent.

The effect did not last long, but it also did not need to. Gloria’s strength allowed her to reach him immediately and raise her sword that was glowing with power.

[Veiled Slash], [Incompetent Strike], [Demise Sludge], [Destruction Slash], [Demise Burst]! Gloria activated every damaging skill she could for a single , all-powerful attack - even traces of her [True Aura] manifesting over the blade in a writhing, intangible energy she hadn’t seen since before her first death.

(A/N: First death refers to life before becoming a [Guardian])

As Damien was finally freed from his [Stun], an effect that felt like eternity stretched through a single second, he racked his brain trying to come up with something, anything at all.

None of his magic bullets were capable of saving him, his guns were not positioned correctly to kill Gloria and his movement skills would not activate quick enough to escape a beheading.

There seemed to be nothing he could do, but he refused to give up.

Damien knew the fight had been in his advantage since the beginning and refused to let what should have been his victory slip him by.

And so he acted in the only way he possibly could: He shot himself.

A simple, regular bullet flew from the barrel of his magitech gun and collided with his shoulder - the projectile milliseconds faster than Gloria’s sword - and the resultant force pushed Damien out of the blade’s reach, all the metal and magic passing him by.

And like a puppet cut from its strings, Gloria fell. All of her strength had been in that final attack and so she succumbed to [Inevitable Demise], the skill living up to its name.

Damien had won by the skin of his teeth and the crowd went wild.

Everything was in my favour and even then I still just barely won… Damien thought, a smile blossoming under his mask.

With this the score had been evened, each guild only needed a single win to end the event and determine the course of the guild war.