by Nikita Thorn
Before anyone could make sense of what was happening, Mairin burst into her fox form, perhaps to sharpen her sense of hearing. A second later, a hail of projectiles followed. Four or five more arrows whisked through the crowd, and one struck an unfortunate NPC Festival-Goer [Level 16] in the chest.
Yamura let out a curse as the man fell right in front of him.
The shots were coming from the direction of Trade Street. Spinning around, Seiki drew his Kohagane to Upslash more incoming arrows. The wind effect knocked a few of them onto the ground by his feet. One clanked noisily against his dagger blade, sending a chill up his arms as he fought to hold on to the weapon.
Seiki drew a sharp breath. The force of the impact was much stronger than he had expected. “This must be some shooter.”
At first, he thought this was a daring move by one of the clans that wanted them dead, but he quickly realized that the arrows were not aimed specifically at him and his friends. The crowd had already erupted into confused motion, with NPCs letting out panicked cries as they fled.
Ippei’s eyes lit up. “This is some shooter all right.”
The arrows gleamed black, and beneath them, their wavering shadows exuded a strange purple mist.
“Demons.” Ippei grinned, his hand switching out his Jade Steel for the light-infused Hikari.
Around them, the crowd had descended into chaos. As stall minders started to flee, confused players drew weapons, some mistaking the commotion for a city brawl and trying to defend themselves from fellow citizens.
“Hey, that wasn’t me, you idiot!” someone yelled angrily from ahead of them. “It’s demons!”
“A Demonic Clan ambush,” shouted a Shinshioka NPC guard. “Get away from the parade!”
More black arrows shot through the group, and Seiki finally spotted the enemies. One of the stalls had fallen over, creating a gap that offered a glimpse of Trade Street. In the middle of the procession performers, some of the drummers were tearing off their bright red parade costume, revealing their full black armor and gleaming blades.
“Take cover!” yelled another voice of authority from the corner of the street. The mounted Shinshioka Patrol [Level 35] raised his arm and, from the middle of his hand, fast-moving white mist burst into a sphere around him.
You are now under the protection of Ward of Light. The spell prevents you from losing more than 25% of your health every three seconds. Engaging members of the Demonic Clan in combat will cancel this effect. 19 seconds remaining.
Seiki felt a slightly cooling sensation on his skin. “I see. This makes it optional.”
Six or seven Shinshioka Patrols in the area moved in to intercept the demons, giving people who did not want to participate some time to run out of range, and the area was quickly clearing out.
In the middle of Trade Street, among the wreckage of colorful festival stalls, some players decided to fight back. A high-level samurai was charging the group of demons on his horse, his long sword shining bright silver as he unleashed the samurai’s signature move Mounted Strike. Arrows flew into the mix from a few ryoushi who had positioned themselves to the side.
“Should we?” Seiki turned to his friends.
Ippei had already drawn his sword. “This is going to be a PVE brawl for once,” he said, sounding rather amused.
In a puff of white smoke, Mairin appeared in her human form, having returned from her scouting loop. “Okay, so about thirty demons. Pretty high level. So, we’re doing this?”
“Of course!” Yamura let loose several arrows at a Demonic Swordsman that was engaged in combat with the nearest Shinshioka guard. “I bet you get at least a few Tokens for, like, no effort.”
“All righty! Tokens!” Mairin grinned. A moment later, she was gone again. Seiki watched the white fox dash toward the middle of the crowd.
“Shouldn’t she stay close and try to heal us or something?” said Yamura.
Only a portion of the drummers turned out to be demons in disguise, but they were destroying the rest of the unfortunate NPC performers with alarming efficiency. The Shinshioka guards did not have much success trying their best to fend them off. Even the Shinshioka Patrol who had cast the shield earlier had been dragged off his horse by two demons, and a third demon gleefully leapt in and plunged its dark blade into the man’s chest, letting out a long inhuman howl of triumph as the guard went still.
Seiki winced and drew his sword, and the group moved closer to the action against the fleeing crowd. The enemies were high-leveled, as Mairin had reported, and the closest ones were all marked Demonic Attackers [Level 30]. They passed a few players below Level 10 hiding in the shadows behind one of the upturned stalls—two men and a young woman, who were peering out at the scene with an expression both fascinated and horrified.
“It’s gonna start when the last guard dies,” Ippei turned to tell the new players as they made their way around wreckage toward Trade Street. “The Patrols are here to buy you some time to decide. So if you want to get out, do it before then.”
Just then, a rider-less Shinshioka Patrol’s horse crashed into a stall right beside the crouching players, a black-gleaming demon blade stuck in its side. The new players’ eyes went wide, and they quickly scrambled to their feet and ran.
“That way, not down the main street,” shouted Ippei after them, pointing to a smaller alley.
The area was soon clearing of people who had decided not to engage, leaving about seventy players in the vicinity. The Patrols were now overwhelmed, and the demons started to look for more victims.
The nearest Shinshioka Patrol collapsed, and the Demonic Attacker [Level 30] he had been fighting suddenly turned around. Its eyes gleamed as it spotted Seiki and his friends.
Like most of its kind, the demon was man-shaped, but with a deformed, slightly elongated face. Its weapon, a long blade, seemed to have been fused to its arm, and was dripping with fresh blood. Its red-glowing eyes widened in delight at new targets, and the demon charged toward him with a snarl.
“Level 30?” cried Yamura, leaping back out of instinct. “Isn’t that a bit much for a public event?”
Ippei, at the front of the group, readied his sword to Parry an incoming attack, grimacing as he anticipated a complete energy drain. “Hit it back if you can,” he told Seiki.
Before the attacker reached them, a white-glowing arrow shot from the side. Bright light exploded in a half-sphere in front of the approaching demon, sending it flying backward as if it had run into an electric fence.
The demon landed in the wreck of an upturned stall and Seiki took the chance to rush in with a Sweeping Blade. The move hit with a thick thud against the demon’s black armor, but did no visible damage. The Demonic Attacker growled at him. Luckily, a Level 24 samurai in a yellow festival-themed kimono stepped in and slashed it across the chest with her sword, drawing the demon’s attention before it could retaliate.
Having engaged a member of the Demonic Clan, you are now no longer under the protection of Ward of Light.
Behind him, he could hear Ippei and Yamura saying something about a ryoushi Free Slot, which must have been what the glowing arrow had been. Before he could rejoin them, a rider in Shinshioka armor cut him off. The gray mount leapt straight into a group of three demons, trampling one before bucking as another demon slashed a blade across its side.
It really felt like a brawl. Seiki suddenly found himself lost in a sea of armor and blades and whistling projectiles. Looking once more for his friends, he spotted Ippei a bit further away, caught up in a group being attacked by two demons at once. “They’re touch-aggro. So just hit and run,” shouted the samurai. “And they probably one-shot, so be careful.”
In the confused crowd, it was impossible to regroup. Seiki caught a glimpse of a white fox somewhere, dashing about in bursts of white smoke, too fast for the distracted Demonic Attackers to swipe at. Deciding that was probably a good strategy, Seiki located a group of three demons close together wi
th their backs turned. He rushed in to unleash a Vertical Spike stun, buying other players time to unload some more damage on them. Then he spent all his energy landing a combination of Slide, Focused Strike and Upslash on one of them, finding slight satisfaction in noticing that at least the combo managed to make a slight dent in the demon’s health bar.
He ran out before the demons had a chance to recover. That was about all he could do while he waited for his energy to recharge, but not much else seemed to be expected of the players. The demons, though max-leveled, were outnumbered by the group two-to-one, and soon most were lying on the ground in pools of dark blood. The one directly in front of Seiki let out an inhuman screech as a curved sword stabbed through its neck. Its killer was a man in golden brown armor and a ponytail, labeled Machida of the Sorano Wolves [Level 27], who had a smug look on his face as he flicked off the purple blood from his blade.
“Easy,” said the man casually, perhaps noticing people looking at him.
Seiki could not help chuckling, while a girl beside him let out a quiet scoff.
As more enemies fell, most of the players started to fill their missing health with potions or glance around idly for something else to do.
“That’s it?” said a man’s voice, sounding a little disappointed.
“No, this is it,” shouted someone in reply from the middle of the crowd.
“This is what?” said the girl in dark gray who had scoffed earlier. A misty arrow still nocked in her bow, Raika of the Crafters’ Guild [Level 21] crouched down beside the nearest dead demon as she reached out to loot it. “Come on, one Shadow Essence.”
That was when Seiki noticed the demon’s corpse was marked Not lootable. “This isn’t over yet,” he told her.
True enough, a shrill laugh cut through the air, followed by a gleeful shriek.
“Fools!” A slim shadowy figure had appeared on the top of the wreckage of a parade float. It was the same shape and size as the Demonic Attackers, but its face was hidden behind a snarling demon mask, with red horns protruding from the top.
Masks always interested Seiki now, but this one unfortunately looked nothing like the one he had been seeing.
Raika sprang up to her feet and wiped her hand on her kimono. “Unlootable. You know what this is?”
It took Seiki a second to realize she was talking to him. “Oh, uh, no,” he said. Since the girl was from the Crafters’ Guild, Seiki wondered if she was an acquaintance of Kentaro’s, although there was no point asking at the moment.
“Utter fools!” The masked figure let out another laugh. It made an elaborate wave of its arms, and the Demon Attackers’ corpses on the ground started to hiss. The crowd yelped in surprise, and for a moment Seiki thought the demons were going to resurrect into undead enemies.
That guess was completely off the mark. A split second later, the bodies exploded into dark acidy dust. Disgusted cries went up all around and several streams of confused abilities and arrows shot toward the masked demon on the wreckage.
Seiki held his breath as the dust covered his skin with a sticky sensation. The air around had gained a dim, slightly purplish hue, like he was looking through tinted shades.
You are affected by the Curse of Dying Shadows.
“Can’t Cleanse it,” a houshi girl somewhere behind Seiki reported.
Raika the Crafters’ Guild ryoushi made a face as she grabbed a potion from her pocket and downed it. Her grimace confirmed that it had no effect.
“You have walked right into my trap!” The shadowy figure on top of the wrecked wooden float gestured its arms elaborately at its audience. “You pitiful humans! You think you are safe within your city walls?”
“No, you constantly get one-shot by high-level pricks,” shouted a man from somewhere to Seiki’s right, earning a few chuckles.
The demonic figure ignored the interruption. “Do you think your sacred animals will keep our superior forces at bay?”
“Skip!” someone yelled from the other side of the procession float.
“Not a chance!” screeched the masked demon, the timely response earning a few more laughs. “Now that we’ve lured out Shinshioka’s best, we’ll pick you off one by one. The irony of being ripped to shreds by one of your own sacred animals!”
“What secret animals?” asked someone else.
No one had time to laugh at this one. With an ear-splitting crackle, the demon liquefied into a pillar of swirling dark mass. Long-reaching shadows exploded outward from it. Only when one of them touched down on the ground right in front of Seiki, did he realize they were not shadows at all but streams of black ooze. The closest stream solidified as Seiki jumped backward.
A second later he was staring at a gigantic arachnid leg.
The sky darkened above the group of players. Towering over them was a beast the size of a train carriage, with the lean body of a tiger, but with eight spidery legs instead of feline limbs. From where Seiki was standing, its head showed at least six red-glowing eyes on the side and one protruding fang dripping with black venom. Dark smoke swirled around it as its skin hardened into thick, sharp scales.
Kogumo: Corrupted Divine Beast of the West Gate [Level Unknown] HP 520000/520000.
Someone cursed from within the crowd. “And I thought this would be some easy Tokens.”
Seiki recognized this particular voice and could not help chuckling. It was Yamura’s.
CHAPTER THREE
“More like repair bills!” someone let out a yelp.
The beast snapped into motion the moment it finished transforming. A strange low roar exploded from its throat, sounding like a thousand wood planks being crushed at once. The Kogumo turned on the group, its thick multi-jointed legs immediately knocking several unprepared players off their feet.
Seiki leapt back as one of the front legs struck out in his direction. Each of the monster’s limbs was as thick as a young tree, with hooked claws near the sharp pointed end that could both cut and stab. The Kogumo did not hesitate to put them to good use. Its legs busily swept out, splattering blood as it moved through the group. The crowd ran around, like schools of fish being chased by a predator, and Seiki tried his best to avoid getting run over by fleeing players or caught by the deadly clawed legs.
The safest location seemed to be directly under the beast’s torso. Many players quickly figured this out and moved in to take advantage of the spot, but its belly was higher than players could reach standing on the ground, and its hard, jagged exoskeleton warded off most of the ryoushis’ normal arrows.
The worst seemed to be the jaws. The beast’s mouth was wide enough to clamp over three players at once, and its fangs were sharp enough to impale the victims straight through. Only Explosive Shots aimed directly at the mouth seemed to deter it from snapping at the crowd, and most of the players fled out of the way as soon as they found themselves directly in front of the beast.
As Seiki repositioned himself, a notification flashed in his mind:
Stay within the shadow cast by the summoned demonic beast to avoid taking damage.
In front of him, a sweeping leg caught an unfortunate Level 16 samurai in the stomach, its claws hooking into his armor and raising him off his feet. The man grunted as he struggled to slice the hard talons off to free himself. Being shaken from side to side, his aim missed and the blade clanked uselessly against the exoskeleton, doing very little damage from the awkward angle. With a yell, he finally raised his sword and stabbed at the closest joint, and the leg suddenly flung him away. The man landed in a pile of collapsed wall, twenty feet from his original position, two-thirds of his health missing.
“Run back,” a girl shouted from the crowd.
The samurai blinked. “What?” Then his eyes widened as black dust around his body started to hiss.
“Run back here!” yelled the girl again.
With a curse, the samurai scrambled to his feet, but it was too late. Black mist fizzed around him, and a moment la
ter, he collapsed, his health completely drained.
Making a quick mental note not to make the same mistake, Seiki tried a Sweeping Blade as one leg crashed down dangerously close to him. If the move’s knock-back effect worked at all, it was too subtle to see, and the impact felt as if he was hitting a stone pillar with a kitchen knife.
Looming above the group, the beast let out another deafening roar. Its eight legs suddenly stomped down at once, sending a violent tremor through the ground and kicking up a thick cloud of dust. Seiki covered his nose and mouth as a few players beside him started coughing.
“It’s jumping. Run!” a man shouted.
Whatever that meant, the crowd stirred in reaction. The beast suddenly leapt up high and propelled itself forward. As if someone had unexpectedly yanked away a beach umbrella, the sky opened up above Seiki, nearly blinding him with sudden sunlight. The oily substance on his skin started to hiss.
You are exposed to the sun! Curse of Shadow applies, taking up to 25% of your existing health every three seconds. Get back into the shadow of the demonic beast to avoid damage.
An icy black mist formed around him. Seiki grunted and ran forward, following other players who seemed to know what they were doing. His armor was barely effective against the burning sensation on his body, and the curse started to eat away at his health.
Gritting his teeth, Seiki suddenly felt a touch of gentle cold that lessened the sizzling sensation all over his body.
“Thanks for the Soothe,” he shouted to the unseen healer.
Ahead of him, the monster landed on one of the shop walls, collapsing the storefront into a pile of rubble, bringing down with it a few unfortunate players who had misjudged its trajectory. Seiki sprinted forward toward the Kogumo, and as soon as he was in range, the scorch on his skin vanished.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Seiki now understood what this mechanic was for. None of the ranged classes could afford to run to the safe distance that they usually relied on, making it important for melee and utility classes to block as many attacks as possible.