The Dragon's Wrath: Ashes of the Fallen

by Brent Roth

  The man to my left exploded in fire as numerous fire blasts hit him. He continued to run ahead while clearly already dead, as his body started to wobble and lose steam, eventually tumbling forward into the dirt below.

  Ignoring his sad end, I met the swing of an axe head-on as sparks flew from the impact of the metal. He buckled from the impact as he braced himself by digging a heel into the ground, but it was too little too late as I slipped the halberd down behind his shoulder and hooked his neck.

  Yanking forward the man tripped himself up and fell to the floor, where a quick stomp on his head sealed his fate. At that very moment, a fireball hit me in the chest and sent me flying backwards in reaction. My leather scorched and my face singed, the minor burns on my arms were easily ignored.

  My stamina on the other hand, had taken a huge hit.

  I was down to sixty percent already.

  Pushing forward, I ran back into the thick of things as I watched two players engage in melee combat with two warriors. The player used a low side-sweep from his sword to distract the warrior as the rogue rolled deftly to the left and stabbed the man in the side with his short sword and dagger. Before the warrior could pull back to defend himself, the swordsman lunged and thrust the sword into his chest, ending his life.

  The second warrior managed to land a blow to the swordsman's shoulder as the player winced in pain and jumped back, only to be healed as the rogue got behind and ended another one of my soldiers with a flurry of stabs.

  Reaching my men too late, I dropped a heavy swing on the swordsmen as he attempted to parry. His iron sword shattering upon impact with the axe-head as shards of metal scattered the air. In a blink, he looked at me as I kicked the rogue away from me and brought a circular swing around, lopping the head off of the man in front of me.

  Turning to face the rogue, he tumbled and rolled while throwing daggers at me, only to harmlessly land in my thick leather armor. Tired of the shenanigans, I dropped the halberd and began a lightning bolt, and thrust my arms out before he could react.

  A feint, he jumped thinking he had dodged.

  But I was still casting, and as he fell to the ground and looked up with a smile on his face, I returned a smile of my own. Lightning shot forth from my palms in an instant as it smashed into his chest and rendered him immobile for a second. Grabbing my halberd once again, I raised it up and quickly lowered it down, executing the helpless rogue.

  With his lifeless body before me, I risked a glance across the battlefield.

  Only looking around for a second, I noticed our numbers had dwindled. Half of our force had been decimated as buildings had started to catch fire. The closest cabins were ablaze with smoke billowing into the sky as a cloud of dark gray ash banished the sun.

  In the shadow of the ash, I stood alone.

  A glimmer caught my eye as I turned my head slightly in time to see a wave of frost bolts and fireballs heading in my direction. Swinging my halberd wide with the broad-side of the head impacting two frost bolts, the ice shattered and frosty mist sprayed harmlessly over me while a sidestep and a duck allowed me to avoid the rest.

  Their casters had wizened up.

  Another wave of spells came as I continued to run, dodging by way of leaps and rolls. Closing the distance between the casters, a few of their remaining melees dropped what they were doing to cut me off. Engaging them immediately, I cut down a rogue with relative ease as I met blows with another bastard sword.

  The claymore easily parried my halberd with its hefty weight and forced me back. He followed with a wide-arcing swing to my left that I braced for with both arms, meeting the edge with the iron shaft sent shockwaves through both of us as we recoiled from the impact. Recovering slightly quicker, I lunged forward and thrust the spear-tip out but was easily deflected as he brought his sword around.

  Pulling back and readying myself once more, the rogues and swordsmen that had surrounded me pulled off and ran in another direction, undoubtedly to push other flanks. I tried to raise an arm, to stop one of them with an arc lightning, but I was immediately sent backwards as a heavy swing rocked me.

  The man knew how to counter and our weapons were evenly matched.

  I wasn't going anywhere.

  A few casters had rotated slightly, to get an angle on me as a fire blast shot through the air and impacted into my shoulder. The sudden explosion blinding my left eye as pain registered in the blistering heat. Grimacing from the pain and wincing as my eyes were left watering from the flickering flames, the bastard sword made its appearance in a quick flash.

  Only catching the glimmer of the sword in the sun, I rolled backwards as it clipped my arm and took a chunk of my triceps with it. Right arm impaired, while lying on my back, the man quickly ran forward in an attempt to execute me.

  Left palm open, arm extended, I shot a thin pulsating tether of electricity out and connected the two of us. Stopped in his tracts as he started to convulse, I continued the channel while grabbing my one-handed axe with my right hand.

  Watching his health get stripped before my very eyes, a holy light engulfed him and topped him off as my mana quickly depleted. Completely ruining my attempt to fell the man, I was soon hit with the warming light as well, and my injuries closed up and began to slightly heal instantaneously.

  My arm was still gimp, as the chunk of flesh wasn't immediately returned, but it was enough. Switching hands, I let the man with the claymore charge at me as I stayed on my back, building electricity around my body with the intent to discharge.

  Half a second through the cast, he was nearly upon me.

  Then with sword raised, attempting to execute me once again, he dropped the sword only to meet a wall of static as electricity exploded outwards all around me, half into the dirt below me, and half into the charging man. Running straight into the wall of energy, the impact threw him back as he was stunned from the recoil.

  Grasping his head in confusion as he tried to get back up, I slipped behind him and ran the axe-head along his throat, slicing it clean.

  Now clutching his throat as he began to choke, a quick hack into the back of his neck severed his spine and sent the man directly to the floor, dead as can be.

  Another fire blast hit me as they were too fast to dodge, and as I recoiled from the pain, I turned to my side and saw a scene that sent chills through my spine.

  Surrounded by four rogues, Selene and Barkley were fighting them off in melee as Katherine was directly behind. Selene was obviously trying to stall them from attacking Kate… she was trying to pull her own weight.

  Starting to run towards them, the distance of seventy feet was a lot to cover, and my enemies were aware. I was suddenly hit by a freezing rain that attempted to cut me off, covering the land between Selene and I.

  Ignoring the rain and running through it, a frost bolt hit me in the side causing me to stumble forward. Regaining my stride, I kept running, nearly closing the distance for a flash step as a fire blast hit me once again.

  Falling to the ground, shoulder partially lit on fire, I rolled once and got back up.

  The rogues attacked one after the other, as Selene fended them off as best as she could, parrying and deflecting with her two daggers as the eight weapons converged relentlessly. Barkley jumped and landed his jaws on one of the rogues as he attempted to rip the player to shreds, but a second rogue side-stepped and plunged his sword into the back of the poor wolf.

  Barkley slumped and fell to the floor with a whine as his body went limp.

  Panicking, I rushed as another frost bolt clipped the ground in front of me and nearly tripped me. Ignoring the distractions, I immediately flash stepped thirty feet forward as I rematerialized ten feet away from them.

  Out of mana, I threw my axe into the back of one of the rogues as he reactively flinched and retreated. Another rogue attacked Selene with a thrust as she countered and plunged her sword through his chest, only, it left her exposed.

  And in a flash, horror struck.

  Two sw
ords pierced through Selene's back and out her chest, causing her to lock up and fall to the ground. They went for the finishing blow as I barreled through them, tackling two of them into the dirt, temporarily knocking one out with a blow to the temple, then stabbing the other once, up and under the chin.

  Yanking the knife out of the dead rogue and planting it into the dazed one, I finished him quickly as I turned to Selene. Rushing over to her, she had fallen to four-percent remaining health and was bleeding out.

  She only had eight seconds left.

  Calling out for a healer, yelling for a priest, none responded.

  I glanced at Katherine but saw she had spent all of her mana.

  She was kneeling on the ground next to Selene, holding her hand as she silently wept. I gently wrapped my arms around Selene in the midst of the battle, elevating her head slightly so she could breathe easier.

  She was down to three-percent now.

  Six seconds.

  I frantically looked around as the NPCs were too far away and too mired in conflict to react. Staring at Kate, her mana was recovering far too slowly, she would be late.

  Selene turned her eyes to Kate and struggled to bring a smile to bear as she weakly spoke, "be strong Kate."

  Then to me, she said, "take care of my sister."

  Gulping down the lump in my throat, I hugged her tightly while Katherine squeezed her hands, with her tears rolling down onto the ground below.

  As Selene lay dying in my arms, she asked me with a hoarse whisper that could barely be heard, "you're going to kiss me, right?"

  I could only smile and nod, "yeah."

  Moving in, she placed her hand on my face, and after the long kiss she lightly slapped me, as she had the first time we kissed, in front of the earl's men. Looking me in the eyes, she brought a light smile to bear as tears filled her eyes, then she closed her eyes for the last time.

  She was gone.

  The system notification popped up a second later.

  Confirming what my eyes had already told me.

  What my hands had already conveyed.

  She had gone limp, and on this strangely cold day in the North, the warmth of her body was slowly dissipating, away and back into the earth from which it came.

  [Your Companion, Selene, has died.]

  A few seconds later, Katherine had recovered the requisite mana to use a [Holy Light] and she immediately tried casting it on Selene, but it was to no avail.

  You couldn't heal the dead.

  Even I knew that.

  Sorrow and sadness overwhelmed me for a split-second only to be replaced by rage as a fire blast hit me in the face and melted skin and fat dripped down onto my lap. Turning my head slowly with half my face melting off, I stared at the casters that were slowly being pushed back.

  The warriors had mounted a comeback, and with every player that fell, the stamina of my soldiers overwhelmed what few were left.

  Then, my eyes caught something familiar.

  Milly.

  In the back, behind the casters that were now too busy fending off the warriors that had charged into them, she was watching the scene unfold.

  She met my eyes, and in that instant I knew what would come next.

  Milly, was going to die.

  Glancing at Selene once more, I gave her to Kate as I gauged my health, mana, and stamina bars. My health level was critical, at nineteen percent. So too was my mana, at under ten percent. Stamina, well, that was fairly low as well.

  It didn't matter, it was enough.

  I had a second to live for every half-percent of life, ticking down even now.

  I didn't need more than ten.

  Eyes clouded, my mind was consumed with anger, with rage… I was burning literally and figuratively with flames still flickering in the wind off my shoulder. I began to walk towards Milly, with no weapons in hand and only enough mana for a single flash step. I was going to end her, here and now.

  End her before she could retreat.

  Before she could utter a word, of excuse, of apology, or insult, I didn't care what it was, I wanted to hear silence.

  Breaking into a run with my eyes locked on her, she stood still like a deer in the headlights. Frozen in shock or fear, I didn't know.

  I didn't care.

  Realizing her predicament she started to turn, began to run in the opposite direction as her light frame and agility build aided her retreat… but she was too slow. I was faster, far more developed, with all of my time spent grinding, all of the development put into my weak legs that didn't allow me to run in real life.

  I was fast in this world.

  I was far faster than any of them.

  Catching up to her, she was within thirty feet as she glanced back at me once more. At that very moment, I flash stepped and traversed the distance between us almost instantaneously as the bolt of lightning carried my body from my past location to my new destination in the blink of an eye.

  Rematerializing out of the lightning like some spectral being, I thrust my good left arm out and grabbed Milly by the throat. She struggled as I lifted her off the ground and began to squeeze. Fumbling for her weapons and trying to speak, I crushed her throat and continued to constrict her breathing.

  She was suffocating, right before my eyes.

  She deserved it.

  She deserved all of it.

  It wasn't painful, no… not nearly painful enough.

  The game had restrictions for these things… sure, it looked real, but it wasn't.

  Milly didn't feel anything except, maybe some restriction on her movements. Her eyes were probably fuzzing up, becoming cloudy and dim as her strength left her. But, the game didn't let you feel any such suffocation.

  I learned that, when I wondered if you could drown.

  You didn't feel any of that.

  Too traumatic, some people said.

  Yet my face was burning, my arm hurt, my sides… my chest, my abdomen, all burned and stung when I was stabbed and sliced. That was fine, for those of us in the Ultra-Realism program. And everyone felt some pain from the cuts and stabs, from the impact of magic. Giving her a painless death like this was far too kind.

  Maybe, I should have burned her to death.

  Dropping the lifeless corpse to the floor, I stared at it in disgust.

  My health was low now, around fourteen percent left.

  It took me exactly ten seconds.

  And then an errant frost bolt impacted me, but I didn't budge.

  Turning my head slightly in the direction of the mage that cast it at me, he couldn't see my health and didn't realize that another cast would be the end of me. He was scared, having witnessed everything that had happened, while he shot wave after wave after wave of spells towards me, and towards my brethren throughout the fight.

  My family, my NPCs, my… people, he had put them in harm's way.

  My entire village was burning down to the ground as I stood and watched the mage turn tail. He wanted to run, to escape, to retreat from my vengeance.

  He was going to get away.

  And then a golden light engulfed me and brought me back to a comfortable thirty-two percent health, halting the bleed-out and restoring me to partial functionality.

  Katherine, most likely.

  Yeah, he wasn't going to get away.

  Starting to run after the escaping mage, a quick glance to my side had shown that the battle was won. A pious victory by all accounts, it wasn't a victory worth celebrating. The corpses that littered the field were numerous and the wanton destruction was vast, my village was destroyed and at least twenty of the thirty-one warriors had fallen.

  Eight warriors had joined the chase with me, as we ran after the handful of mages attempting to escape. All of the melee players were accounted for, in body bags. Now, it was the backline's turn to meet the same fate.

  We cut them down, one by one.

  Their nonathletic bodies betrayed them as they tried in vain to outrun us.

  It only took
a few minutes, to finish the slaughter.

  Stopping in the middle of the forest, with my village a few hundred yards away, I stared at the rising smoke as I contemplated my surroundings.

  My situation had changed.

  I failed.

  Chapter 65: For Far Too Many

  (Monday, September 23rd Game Day / Tuesday, March 30th Real Day)

  Twenty-four hours had passed by the time the funeral procession was ready.

  The longship returned with goods and good tidings, only to find the village in ruins and their friends slain. That was the reality, of the actions a guild decided to take.

  It wasn't long before the news hit the web, as a few guild members decided to stream the entire encounter live. They broadcasted their own demise, for thousands to see, and for hundreds of thousands to watch at a later date.

  I was now a celebrity, and an infamous villain.

  My brutal actions were seen as disgusting by white knights, fools to the so-called cause, rising up and clamoring for my destruction. It bothered them… that I would eke out justice indiscriminant of race or gender. How could I, brutally choke a girl?

  How could I, slice one's face off?

  Worse, how could I slit a throat?

  Disgusting, that's what I was.

  Of course, some others saw it differently.

  I was the unwitting victim of an attack, a surprise attack by a cowardly guild. Onlookers and outsiders didn't even know that Milly was a spy, but they knew the rules of engagement in the game.

  You declared your intent, honorably, or you didn't, dishonorably.

  They chose the latter.

  The fact that they lost, to what most players later realized was a troop of NPCs and one singular player, made me famous. The fact that I was utilizing lightning magic, a rarity in this game, made me special. Toss in the parts with my close-combat fighting, and utilizing a halberd in various ways along with an axe and knives, and I was the coolest kid on the block.