by E A Hooper
“I was going to wait a few more weeks, just in case more people wanted to farm them, but if we’re heading that way, then I might as well.”
Vincent steered his Gravity Bubble toward Euclid’s world as Quinn refilled her mana and cast Warp Jump a few more times. He couldn’t see past the instance that covered the planet, but after all his visits there he could easily imagine the junk-littered world underneath. They closed in on that world within a few minutes, and Vincent directed them toward the part of the stem above the instance fog. As they approached, he tried to slow the bubble, but then realized he couldn’t stop quickly with so much momentum.
“Uh, I’m having trouble slowing us down,” Vincent warned.
“Don’t worry about it,” Quinn said. “I’ll redirect us before we crash.”
Vincent steadied himself for impact as they headed for the stem. A few seconds before they would’ve crashed, Quinn cast Warp Jump, which teleported them fifty meters back. Her attempts to send their momentum the opposite way slowed them, but it didn’t stop them completely, and she had to cast it two more times before Vincent could finally bring the bubble to a halt.
“That was a bit disorientating, but it worked,” Vincent said, excitedly.
Quinn smirked. “See, I have good ideas from time to time. People act like I’m only good at fighting.”
“Hey, I’m not one of those people. Remember in the early days back when it was just me, you, and Xan? You were the one taking charge in most of our adventures.”
“Yeah, but things were a lot simpler back then, and I knew more about the game than you two. Eventually, I started falling behind. Maybe I just don’t have the drive I used to.”
“I don’t think that’s it. You’ve just become more reliant on other people—but I mean that in a good way. You’re a team player. In the early days, you would’ve left Xan and me in the dust if you thought we were holding you back. Remember those people you kicked out of your villa? Xan almost didn’t make the cut, but we needed a Cleric.”
Quinn chuckled. “Oh yeah, that’s right. I guess I was tough on everyone back then. I know I was hard on myself because I was so frustrated I couldn’t see Ritchie and Gabriel. It was difficult to accept that maybe I couldn’t do it all on my own—that I needed others to help me reach the top. If I had known back then that I’d still be stuck in this game after so much time, I don’t know if I would’ve had the willpower to climb in the first place.”
“I think you would’ve joined us either way. You have an indomitable spirit, Quinn. It’s why we made such a great team, even early on.”
Quinn smiled, then she turned to the green haze that covered the planet. “Alright, don’t get sappy on me. Let’s see if that Void Bomb of yours is the real deal.”
Vincent used his Gravity Bubble to fly off the branch. He figured he should put distance between himself and the stem before launching his attack. Up until that moment, he hadn’t thought about what his back-up plan would be if his strongest spell didn’t work. His heart beat a little faster than normal as he positioned himself above the instance fog.
He flipped through his spell list, eyeing the one that had taken him longer than any other to finish. There’d been a time where it almost seemed impossible—like the game wouldn’t allow the spell to work—but he distinctly remembered the day he’d completed it. It’d taken forever just to reach a point where he didn’t die the moment he cast the incomplete version, and then he spent some years spamming it on a random world that barely had monsters. Now when players stared up at that world they saw one dotted with hundreds of craters, and it looked like a burnt sphere of swiss cheese.
Vincent readied himself and poured most of his mana into the spell.
Void Bomb (Requires Greater Voidfire | Requires Greater Mana Bomb) – Mana Usage: Extreme | The user compacts a hundred layers of negative energy into a large sphere. Once it strikes a target, it quickly expands into a quarter-mile radius before exploding into waves of Voidfire.
The initial sphere was only about three meters in diameter, and Vincent held it over his head momentarily before tossing it down at the planet. It moved about the same speed as Voidfire, which seemed painfully slow at his level of Perception. Even though he’d upgraded most of his spells with Power Launch, he hadn’t been able to start any upgrades on Void Bomb. As far as he could tell, an extreme-cost spell was absolute. The idea of upgrading such a monstrous attack was naïve when he thought back to his attempts.
When the sphere finally hit the instance fog, it stopped and began to grow like an explosion happening at slower-than-normal speed. The expansion also moved as fast as Voidfire, not counting upgrades, so a quick-enough opponent could feasibly outrun it. As far as Vincent could tell, the slow speed and the extreme cost were the only flaws to an otherwise devastating spell. He’d never seen anything survive a direct hit, not even players with Celestial Form.
Before the sphere reached its full size, Vincent saw the instance begin bleeding with rainbow light. It spread across the world, and when the Void Bomb detonated into streaming waves of Voidfire in a thousand directions the entire instance disappeared, revealing Euclid’s world underneath.
“It worked!” Vincent shouted, victoriously. “I didn’t even need to use Heliostorm to boost the size.”
Vincent flew back toward Quinn, using mana from Silpher’s Coat to sustain his Gravity Bubble as he injected potions into his neck.
“Nice job!” Quinn cheered, high fiving him right before he tethered her to his bubble.
They flew to the world and circled around the sky before spotting the machine dragon with Euclid riding on top of it. The huge automaton landed in a field of junk, and Vincent flew down to greet him.
“You did it! You did it!” Euclid shouted, running down a staircase of metal that formed below his feet. “This is amazing! I’ve already informed the other Gods. Some of them were skeptical that your spell would work, but I always believed in you, Vince. Even Lamat and Aefa are showing interest in teaming up.”
“I don’t know,” Vincent replied. “Those two seem a bit too monstrous to reason with.”
“They’re not as smart as Bathos or me, but they do understand their freedom is at stake. I’ve been trying to convince them for a long time, but they didn’t think you’d actually break the instances. If you free them, I truly believe I can get them to assist you.”
Vincent glanced at Quinn. “What do you think?”
“Sure, why not?” she replied with a shrug. “We can free Lamat last. His world hangs pretty far out, so we might be able to fly to the skybox from there.”
“You’re trying to reach the skybox that way?” Euclid questioned. “Rosaria will likely destroy you well before you reach it.”
“Probably, but we need to at least try,” Quinn told the boy. “If attacking the angels head on doesn’t work, we’ll need to have a back-up plan.”
“Just don’t let her capture Vincent,” Euclid warned.
“I’ll have a Lotus Capsule ready,” Vincent replied. “Oh, should I also free Yarmouth?”
The boy shook his head. “No, not him. When there are no players in his instance he becomes inactive. It’s the only time he’s truly at peace.”
“I guess we’ll see you when the war starts. If you need anything from us, tell Archie.”
The boy nodded, and then the two players took off for the next world.
Chapter 29
It only took Vincent and Quinn half a day to free five of the six Elder Gods from their instances. Bathos and Chloris had thanked them upon release, but the two players hadn’t stuck around to see if Aefa and Lamat would be friendly. The world serpent had roared as they flew toward the skybox, but Vincent had thought the Elder God’s call sounded almost happy.
Traveling to the edge of the game proved every bit as difficult as Vincent had expected. Even with Quinn’s Warp Jumps propelling his Gravity Bubble, they found it a challenge to break free of the World-Tree’s gravity. It seemed weak at fir
st, but it continued to drain their speed over time.
Although they couldn’t naturally regain mana off-world, they had brought tons of potions with them. However, the farther away from the World-Tree they traveled, the more mana Vincent needed to keep his Gravity Bubble stable. He could feel a heavy pressure coming from the skybox that tried to push him away. After several days of rocketing through space, it started to feel as though they were swimming through water.
During the daytime, the skybox’s light felt warm, and he could see an infinite, clear-blue space. He knew it wasn’t truly infinite, but even with his Perception, Vincent struggled to tell where the skybox began and the space around the World-Tree ended. Isaac had given him some idea of the proportions, but actually trying to reach the skybox in person made him understand the grand size and scope of the World-Tree.
When he looked behind him he could see glimpses of the World-Tree in its entirety, but it was surrounded by clouds. During those brief moments when the clouds parted enough to see large sections of the tree—when he could see thousands of worlds at once—he found it breathtaking. He could still remember his very first day on the World-Tree when he looked up at it in wonder—seeing it from that new angle gave him the same feeling of awe.
He and his teammate watched the World-Tree together as they flew through space, barely saying a word for several hours. Then the skybox’s pressure grew stronger, and the feeling of moving through water became more like traversing a pond of sludge. Even Quinn’s Warp Jumps only helped them regain their speed for a few seconds before they slowed again. The tether between them grew so weak it took Vincent as much effort to maintain it as it did his bubble.
“You’ll have to cut me loose,” Quinn told him. “My Warp Jumps aren’t working out here. You’d maintain better speed without me.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, but I didn’t want to say it,” Vincent told her. “Thanks for the help, though. At least we know now that you can help me get to this point a lot faster.”
Quinn nodded, then cut the tether herself with a Breaker attack. The invisible forces emanating from the skybox shoved her in the other direction, and she waved at Vincent before detonating herself with a Lotus Capsule. Even the explosion left behind was snuffed out unusually fast under the immense pressure.
Vincent turned back to the skybox. It was daytime then, and the sunlight on his face had a strange intensity to it. He almost thought if he disabled his Density Shield that his skin would be burned to a crisp. Background frequencies bombarded his body, but he noticed different kinds were entangled with one another. Light and fire and air almost seemed to be one and the same. He tried to cast a basic flame spell, and the fire danced with different colors, creating a cyclone of lights and air pressure before disappearing from his grasp.
The game physics are crazy out here. They say the World-Tree grows out of the skybox and sends world magic from it to the worlds. It’s like I’m moving toward this game’s version of the Big Bang. It’s just a cosmological mess that’s in constant flux. The only two forces that make any damn sense this far out are world magic and negative energy.
Vincent realized when he squinted he could see energy moving past him like solar winds. The endless sky-blue illusion that he’d been rocketing toward started to shimmer and ripple as though he were gazing into a star. He started to see past the illusion that people viewed from the worlds below. The more he stared into it, the more he wondered if the entire World-Tree was inside of a virtual star.
Vincent could feel the weight of the skybox pushing on his body and restricting his breathing. Sweat beaded his forehead, and the eerie silence of the skybox overwhelmed him. He could hear his own heart beating, his blood pumping through his veins, and the sounds of his own body echoing in his eardrums. The frequencies were so strong they practically burned his skin.
Despite all that, he couldn’t tell how close he was to the skybox. It could’ve been meters or a hundred miles, and he wouldn’t have known. The skybox felt all-encompassing, and the World-Tree seemed so far away. When he checked his game clock, he realized that at least a day had passed since Quinn had detonated herself. He swore to himself that it had only been minutes, but it was so hard to tell out there with all those forces pushing and buzzing in his head.
Vincent found himself slowing to a stop—or rather, he couldn’t feel any more momentum. He worried that if he tried to get any closer to the skybox he might pass out.
How close am I? he wondered.
Vincent pointed his finger and cast Void Gun. He watched it travel for a hundred meters before fizzling out.
Please, please say I’m close enough.
Vincent raised his hands, readying a Void Bomb, but then he saw a flicker of light heading toward him from the skybox. A small figure in the distance had appeared from an invisible divide in space, creating a shimmer, and thrown the light at him.
She stepped out of the skybox, he realized, casting Void Bomb anyways. My attack should be able to reach it.
The black sphere hurtled toward the figure in the distance, but her light moved much faster and intercepted it. Vincent recognized Rosaria’s Lance of Longing, and he watched the flash of white light as it exploded against his ever-expanding Void Bomb. The blackest black and the whitest white he’d ever seen battled against each other, pushing outward farther and faster. Although the white light grew to a much larger size, it couldn’t eat away his void attack, only stop it from reaching the skybox.
Vincent equipped Heliostorm, pulled all the mana stored within Silpher’s Coat, and cast Void Bomb again before the two explosions settled. Rosaria must’ve had the same idea, however, because his second bomb met with another Lance of Longing.
Vincent quickly injected potions, but his body felt so heavy—so weak. The tidal waves of pressure and frequencies were pushing him backward, and he didn’t have the strength to fight it. His Gravity Bubble evaporated, but once his mana refilled he tried for a third Void Bomb, throwing it far to the left as his hammer melted down to the handle.
Rosaria reappeared at a new spot along the skybox. She struck his attack with another Lance of Longing to stop his spell from reaching the skybox. As Vincent injected his last remaining potions, he saw the six-winged angel split through the expanding black and white bubbles, moving at incredible speed toward him.
Vincent put away his Fast Injector and then cast a fourth Void Bomb. He could see the energy that moved like solar winds draw toward Rosaria so that she could unleash another Lance of Longing as a counterattack.
With his body weak and mind numb, Vincent plummeted back toward the World-Tree. At that speed it would’ve taken him weeks to reach it, but he knew it wouldn’t matter. Rosaria circled around the explosions and raced toward him. With the last of his strength, Vincent equipped a Lotus Capsule and moved it to his mouth.
“Wait!” the angel shouted. The sound of her cry echoed past him, reverberating his bones. She reached out for him, trying to grab the capsule, but he already had it in his teeth.
Vincent clamped down on the capsule just as she grabbed him.
You’ve died. Respawning at Edgelight…
The city appeared around Vincent, and he saw a ton of messages on his HUD. It looked like he hadn’t been able to receive messages that close to the skybox, because some were dated before Quinn had died. The two of them had flown off unexpectedly, and he saw from his messages and guild announcements that Jim had asked everyone to finish up the last of their training and preparation, since he had something special planned for the last few months. The last guild update explained that Jim and Jeanie were starting a party on the first level of the undercity and that they wanted everyone to enjoy their last few months before the war.
Vincent noticed the streets were empty, so he assumed everyone was at the party. He cast Gravity Bubble and flew for the nearest shaft and then down to the next level. The undercity’s lights had been dimmed and changed to flash a variety of colors, and the guild had cleared o
ut the monsters down there. Vincent could hear music coming from all over, and he saw a crowd down below on what looked like a dance floor.
Everyone in the guild had gathered there to dance, drink, and enjoy themselves, even people Vincent hadn’t seen in ages. They had brought out kegs of enchanted alcohol Jim had developed that let players with a high Vitality get drunk, and four walls of those barrels had been built around the dance floor. It looked like there was enough alcohol there to keep the guild partying for a few weeks. Vincent grabbed a mug and poured himself a drink before joining the crowd.
“Vince, you made it!” Jim said, his arm hooked around Jeanie. They were both dressed in the finest outfits Vincent had ever seen on the World-Tree. “I wasn’t planning to throw the party until closer to the timer, but I was a bit worried you’d crash the game when I heard you were flying to the skybox.”
“That was just a test,” Vincent replied. “Rosaria stopped me, but I got closer than expected. If we defeat her, I’ll definitely be able to reach it.”
“Good to hear,” Jim said. “We can worry about that in a few months, though. I wanted to throw one last legendary party before the end of the game. Hopefully everyone will remember this better than the war.” He took Jeanie’s hand and led her onto the floor, and they danced like they were the only two people on the World-Tree.
For the next few weeks Vincent went from group to group, talking, dancing, and playing drinking games with people. Everyone seemed to forget about the upcoming war or their worries about being trapped in the game.
Xan, Athena, and Lloyd drunkenly sang karaoke for several days. Ryker set up a card table, and people gambled shots of hard liquor for fun, at least until Fynn developed a card counting system and Gwendolyn made him drink half a barrel for cheating. Zhang got tipsier than Vincent had ever seen him and danced like a maniac while a crowd cheered him on. Antonio and Keanu won a week-long beer pong championship, narrowly beating May and River. Devon somehow talked Ezra into a drinking competition, and the two of them passed out halfway through the party, then woke up a few days later just to do it all over again. Quinton played bartender for the first week, but when he got blackout drunk his younger sister took over.