Arcane Kingdom Online: The Fallen City (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 3)

by Jakob Tanner

  “The hallway and stairs are our only option,” said Kari, pointing towards the hall. They frantically looked to me, waiting for me to make the call to retreat, the official decision to escape.

  The golden orb was getting larger, enveloping more and more of the room, shattering the dungeon façade for the empty space and stars lying beneath it. We only had one option left: run. Yet what about Serena? Where had she gone when she fell though the space in the floor? If we left now, was that it? Were we leaving Serena behind forever?

  The thought—that Serena was dead and gone—paralyzed me. I would never see her again. Never spend any more time with her. Never reminisce of a world lost to us ever again. I never thought there was more of my old life and world to lose but Serena had been one last lucky piece of it and now she was gone too.

  “Clay!” yelled Jackson, snapping me out of my funk. He was beside me, gripping my arm and pulling it. “Duck!”

  Jackson dragged me to the ground with him. A huge projectile blast flew overtop of us. I closed my eyes. The trembling stone floor clamored against my kneecaps. A huge crash echoed across the chamber. The hallway—our exit route—was now caved in.

  The room was already half-disintegrated.

  Shade scratched the back of his head. “So, uh, anybody got any other ideas?”

  29

  The destructive golden orb emanated from the spirit warden, getting closer and closer. We were seconds away from death, unsure if we’d even respawn. We ran back towards the rubble blocking the hallway. Any inch gained against the approaching destruction was another second of life added.

  Jackson bent over and picked up a piece of smashed wall and threw it to the side. He then threw more. Shade picked up smaller rocks and frantically tossed them aside as well. Kari helped out too. First she buffed Shade and Jackson’s overall strength. She then lifted up tiny rocks to make it quicker and easier for our musclemen to get at the larger ones.

  “Step away everyone,” I said. “I have an idea.”

  The group was confused but did as I said. I pulled my staff from behind my back and clenched my free hand, drawing upon all the mana floating through the temple, and created the biggest earthquake spell I’d ever cast before.

  The floor rumbled beneath my feet. The caved in hallway of rubble shook and disintegrated into smaller pieces of rock, opening up a small hole in the top. I grinned. My plan was working. I conjured a fireball in my hands and whipped it at the crumbling rubble. I was doing everything in my power to burn, disintegrate, melt, or mold the caved in hallway and create an opening.

  “Clay! Give it all you got,” shouted Jackson. “We’re running out of time.”

  I initiated another earthquake spell, creating a hole big enough to crawl through at the top of the rubble. I turned around to see how much more time we had and came face to face with the shocking truth.

  Time was up.

  The golden orb was about to reach us.

  This was it.

  The wind whistled with the sound of a speeding bullet. Emerging from the ceiling’s now open starry space was a rushing blur. It came into sight as it zoomed towards the spirit warden. It was Serena! She had her sword arced, ready to deliver the most insanely powerful crushing blow ever dealt. The sword landed right into the spirit’s shoulder, disrupting its self-destruct mode. The golden orb flickered away.

  Serena gracefully landed back to the floor, sword in hand. A silver hue surrounded her person, like she was buffed with a special status. She looked up to us, breathing heavily, but smiling a deranged battle-crazed grin. “It’s time you guys finally admit you’d be screwed without me.”

  I rushed towards her and grabbed her in my arms. My chest heaved into hers as I cast healing mist, letting a curative vapor surround our embrace.

  “You’re still alive,” I croaked.

  “What is this?” yelled the spirit warden, interrupting our reunion. The golden ethereal substance the guardian was composed of flickered where Serena’s blade had landed. “You weren’t supposed to come back. No one is supposed to come back.”

  Serena grinned and turned to us. “You guys need to trust me. Jump into the space. It will be okay. Follow me. It’s the only way to defeat the spirit.”

  Serena ran towards a nearby edge where the temple stone floor met the never-ending starry nebula and cannonballed into it.

  With zero hesitation, Jackson ran and dove into the starry expanse. Kari followed suit. Shade shook his head and approached the edge, turning to me. “Ever since we got a bloody airship mate we’ve been jumping off cliffs, edges, ships, cities. It’s bloody pathological at this point.”

  I smiled and sprinted to the edge, waving goodbye to the spirit warden as I leapt into the unknown.

  A coldness enveloped my body, then a weightlessness. Stars surrounded me. I was pretty sure I was falling but my stomach no longer lurched like it was. My hair didn’t fly up. Air didn’t rush around me and fill my ears. It felt like I was floating, but I wasn’t.

  I lifted my hands to my face and saw they were glowing with the same silvery hue surrounding Serena when she crash landed back into the boss battle. A notice appeared on my HUD.

  Spirit Armor (Buff): You’ve been granted spirit armor. Your body is temporarily embedded with ethereal coating, rendering your weapons and attacks capable of inflicting damage on spirits. (Duration: 3 minutes).

  “Pretty sweet buff, huh?”

  Below me, the rest of my party was all floating downward through the starry sky. Serena was at the bottom of the pack, looking up to us with a smile.

  “Defeating this boss requires you to fall through here,” said Serena. “The space is a red herring. The real destruction is the spirit warden’s blade when it creates the opening, but this space itself is actually key to defeating him.”

  “Woo! Spirit armor,” chanted Shade.

  “The counter hasn’t even started yet either,” observed Kari.

  “Nope,” said Serena. “It doesn’t count down until we land back into the temple chamber.”

  “Very nice,” said Jackson.

  Great. We were now prepared to truly duke it out with the spirit warden. Only one question remained.

  “How long does this endless floating last?” I said.

  “We have another thirty seconds,” said Serena. “This space is like a loop, bringing us back to the temple floor. What’s left of it anyways.”

  “We need a plan for when we land,” I said. “I say we use the momentum of the fall to land the most amount of sheer DPS we can. Serena you deal another crushing blow. Jackson land with your strongest punch. Shade come at them with mug shot. Kari use whatever your best offensive spell is.”

  “What are you gonna do?” asked Serena. “It must be tough with all those options.”

  “Not at all,” I grinned. “I know exactly which spell I want.”

  The temple floor came into view. The spirit warden stood there, idly waiting. Even as we had gained new advantages, he remained still and stoic. Apathetic. He was focused solely on his duty.

  I let my hands come close together. My fingers almost touched, a frosty coolness flowing through them. First a bright blue hilt of ice emerged between my hands, then the long gnarled pointed blade.

  I smiled down to Serena. “It looks like I’ll be dealing my own version of crushing blow.”

  “Gets one magic sword and suddenly thinks he’s the tank.” She grinned at me and turned to Jackson. “The delusions of a glass canon, am-I-right?”

  Jackson shook his head with a knowing smirk. He flipped around so he was falling forward with his outstretched arm and fist like Superman.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  His body took on more than a silvery hue. Translucent red flames of energy coursed across his person in jagged lines. His fist crashed into the spirit’s chin. The boss’ neck twisted to the side, taking a chunk of HP off its health bar.

  Shade landed next, digging his daggers into the spirit warden’s chest, trigg
ering mugshot. Another chunk of HP fell off. Shade continued to lay a dent into the boss, throwing in stab after stab. He back flipped away right as Serena landed with her crushing blow. The boss was now below 50% HP. The spirit armor made our moves much more effective against the boss than we’d been before.

  The floor rushed towards me and I kept the spirit in my sights. I gripped the hilt of my conjured ice blade with both hands. I landed—blade first—on top of the spirit’s head.

  +Critical Hit!

  The boss lifted its glowing arms and knocked me back to the floor, swatting me away like a mere fly. I crashed onto the floor of the chamber, or what was left of it anyway. A sharp pain stretched across my back from the poor landing. I quickly returned to the fray of battle. The boss’ HP was whittling away.

  “We’re almost there you guys,” I said, gripping tightly around my ice blade. “Let’s finish this.”

  I electric blinked right in front of him and stabbed my ice blade—drenched in the silver hue of the spirit armor—right into the spirit’s stomach. I twisted the blade and then wrenched it back out.

  The warden fell onto his knees. The last bit of his HP ticked away.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said.

  “Well, we figured out your trick mate,” said Shade.

  “Sorry not sorry,” said Serena smiling.

  “No, you misunderstand me,” said the spirit warden. His legs were beginning to disintegrate and fade away into pixelized dust. “No one was supposed to come here. We’d sealed it away. For your own protection. This device will only cause more destruction.”

  As the spirit warden’s whole chest and neck disintegrated, he said his final words: “You have been warned.”

  30

  After the spirit warden flickered into dust, the room returned to normal. The original floorboards reappeared and the starry sky beneath disappeared from view. Even the collapsed hallway was repaired following the spirit’s defeat.

  I turned my thoughts to the matter at hand: completing the mission. The Ultriga Weapon sat where it had been when we first entered: held up on the stone lectern.

  Battle weary, I approached the device and reached for it.

  “Wait,” yelled Serena. “Check it for traps.”

  I nodded and stepped aside for Shade to do an inspection of the lectern and device. The thief squinted and looked all over the lectern, his tail wagging the whole time. He rubbed his forehead when he was done. “Look at that. No traps.”

  “Thanks Shade,” I said, returning to my position in front of the device.

  I reached out with my arms and picked it up.

  My HUD showered me in notifications.

  You have successfully completed the quest: The Ultriga Weapon and the Lost City of Ariellum.

  You have traveled the treacherous journey to the fallen city of Ariellum and have acquired the Ultriga Weapon.

  +25,000 EXP!

  Congratulations you have leveled up! (Level 21)

  You gain +4 HP

  You gain +1 MP

  You have (3) unused attribute points that can be applied to any of your five base stats.

  You have (6) unused class skill points that can be applied to your class skill tree to unlock new moves or level up existing ones.

  My HP replenished. Everyone in the party sighed with relief as they experienced their own level ups.

  I placed the Ultriga Weapon down after picking it up. It was much heavier than it looked. It wouldn’t dematerialize into my inventory either. It would require more than one of us to carry. I motioned to the others to come help me. How deadly was this thing? It didn’t look like the kind of powerful device that required being sealed away and guarded by a spirit samurai. It had the shape of an airship laser turret.

  I checked the device’s stats.

  Ultriga Weapon

  Relic Weapon

  ATKP: ? - ?

  “How do you even use it,” asked Serena.

  “I dunno,” said Jackson, peering over.

  “Theobold back at Land’s Shield will know what to do with it.”

  “Ah, Land’s Shield—how I have forgotten it,” mused Shade. “Will we ever get back there and sit in the pub and drink the day away again?”

  “You never did that,” said Kari.

  “I did before I met you ridiculous lot. Always heading off from one adventure to the next. Let’s take a break for once. Would that be so bad? Like, right now, why don’t we sit down for a picnic? A little glass of wine, perhaps? Or—“

  Shade was cut off by the trembling rumble of the floor at our feet. The Lirana raised his finger. “I do not like the sounds of that. Let’s get the bloody hell out of here and back to the ship.”

  The ceiling above us was cracking. Bits of rock and debris fell down from above.

  Jackson, Serena and I lifted up the Ultriga Weapon and lumbered it through the crumbling temple, rushing through the hallway by which we came and back up the stairs.

  The cool air of the bottom world was refreshing after all the time in the dark dampness of the temple. Yet the earthquake-like rumble hadn’t gone away. The whole hill platform we were on, shook and vibrated. The shaking ground went further out too: the dilapidated homes of the city crumbled, broken columns collapsed into walls, crushing them further into ruin.

  “Uh oh,” said Serena, nodding to the desert beyond Ariellum.

  A gust of wind spiraled out in the sea of black sand. The ash drifted across the landscape, revealing a fossilized set of bones. The spiraling wind then did a funny thing. It lifted the bones off the ground. The wind wasn’t spiraling furiously in one direction, it was moving each bone individually, reconstructing the fallen fossilized beast. Four sets of feet were created then accompanying legs. Soon the rib cage came together. The wind acted like cartilage, gluing the femurs and others bones together. Next the bones floated beyond the back of the monster, creating a large set of wings. Last but not least was the head, a giant jawed dragon’s head with hollow empty eyes of shadow glowing a purple light.

  “I guess walking out of here with the Ultriga Weapon wasn’t going to be so easy after all,” said Shade.

  A prompt appeared in my HUD.

  New Quest Alert: Escape Ariellum!

  A bone dragon has been summoned to protect the Ultriga Weapon from leaving Ariellum. Get back to your ship and exit the bottom world.

  Quest Type: Unique

  Quest Difficulty: Hard

  Time Limit: 3.5 hours (or before the bone dragon finds and kills you)

  Reward: 10,000 EXP

  Accept: Yes/No ?

  “Run!” I yelled, accepting the quest and dashing down the outer steps of the acropolis, heading back the way we came. The footsteps and heavy breaths of the others echoed behind me. They were drowned out by the ferocious roar of the bone dragon.

  We hurried down the steps of the acropolis. Thankfully, there were no fallen soldiers waiting for our return. We focused on running the hell away from the giant bone dragon chasing behind us. Its flapping wings created a gale of wind against my back. Its roar made my whole body tremble.

  Jackson and I were holding the front of the Ultriga Weapon while Serena and Shade held the backside of it. Kari covered us from behind, keeping tabs on the bone dragon.

  “Ugh, why is this thing so heavy?” groaned Shade.

  “It can literally destroy the entire Illyrian continent,” said Serena, red in the face from lifting her end of the relic weapon. “Of course a device that powerful is going to be ridiculously heavy!”

  “It’s gaining on us guys,” said Kari.

  “We’re not going to be able to outrun this thing while carrying this,” said Jackson.

  “Alright then,” I said. “Let’s drop it and face this thing head on.”

  We placed the Ultriga Weapon down and turned around to fight the bone dragon. The giant deathly creature roared and swooped down towards us. Its open jaw filled with purple arcane flames.

  “Get back!�
� I yelled.

  We all dove down the stairs as the dragon unleashed a wave of purple flames across the steps of the acropolis.

  We managed to dodge the attack, but the flames surrounded the Ultriga Weapon. Smoke wafted across the steps. We waited to see if the relic item we’d fought so hard to acquire was still intact. When the smoke cleared, the Ultriga Weapon sat right where we had left it, good as new.

  Of course. The ancient device was too powerful to be destroyed by normal means.

  “I don’t see how we can beat this thing,” said Serena. “How will we even get in range so we can attack it?”

  “Don’t be so pessimistic,” I said. “Watch.”

  I ran and jumped in the air, creating a pool of mana at my feet. I jumped again and again after that. I ignored how high I was suspended in the air and focused on the bone dragon swirling in the sky nearby. It saw me coming towards it and zoomed straight at me.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  I jumped again and stretched out my arm towards the dragon. My palm opened wide and I let forth a sparkling chain whip of lightning. It wrapped itself around the bone dragon’s right leg.

  It squirmed at the new paralysis of the lightning cage, pulsing and throbbing into its bone leg.

  I held onto the chain of lightning and let myself fall back to the ground, dragging the bone dragon by the leg. The ground approached and I created another pool of mana at the bottom of my feet to cushion my final landing.

  I was on the ground for a second when the dragon yanked its tail and brought me back afloat.

  Jackson ran across the platform and tackled me in the air, using his muscle and weight to pin me and the lightning chain down. The heavy-set Rorn was like an anchor.

  “Give it all you got,” yelled Jackson. “This is our opportunity to really weaken it.”