Chapter 204: The Walls of Kordas

Chapter 204: The Walls of Kordas

Darkshot continued to pursue Quiver through the winding halls of the Kordas Palace. He was unsure of where he was being led, but Quiver walked lackadaisically around while dodging any shot that Darkshot took at him with ease.

Eventually, the pair turned into a wide empty hallway and Darkshot’s frustration got the best of him. The moment he got a clear line of sight on Quiver, he fired a shot that Quiver maneuvered to avoid, but this time Darkshot utilized the large space of this particular hall to redirect the shot repeatedly back at Quiver, who was forced to stop walking away and focus on dodging it.

“Man...” Quiver sighed in annoyance. “Do we really gotta do this? I’m exhausted already.” He said as he turned to face Darkshot. Darkshot didn’t reply, but rather continuously redirected the arrow to swirl around Quiver. Quiver’s eyes were partially closed, slouched shoulders and a stare of disappointment at Darkshot. Still, despite this, he was easily avoiding the constant redirects.

“Why the hell can’t I hit you?” Darkshot finally gave in and asked.

“Don’t feel bad, man. No one can hit me.” Quiver shrugged. “So, can we just skip all this stuff, and you just let me do my business so I can log out and relax for a bit?” Quiver asked.

“Hell no, you’re my enemy. You’re trying to destroy my island.” Darkshot shouted back in frustration.

“Yeah... yeah, I guess... If you look at it like that, we should probably have a fight to sort this out.” Quiver nodded weakly between his sidesteps of Darkshot’s arrow. However, following these words, he turned and started walking away again.

“Oi!” Darkshot yelled as he stomped after him, watching him turn around a corridor leading out of the large hall with sunlight shining into the hall through it. The moment Darkshot lost line of sight, he let his redirected arrow fall to the ground and ran to chase after him.

To Darkshot’s surprise, though, the moment Darkshot passed through the doorway that Quiver had, Quiver was gone - nowhere to be seen. The door led out onto one of the tall palace walls that reached out from the main structure towards the walls that surrounded the palace and its gardens. Darkshot looked down off the side of the wall at the gardens below, across the wall, and towards some of the towers surrounding the walls, but Quiver was nowhere to be seen.

“Aw man, are you kidding me?” Darkshot sighed in frustration. “You’re running away?!” Darkshot yelled as loud as he could, but got no immediate response. It fell silent, save for the shouting in the distance coming from the players and NPCs gathering on the outer walls of Kordas. In the silence, Darkshot found his eyes being drawn to a wave of black mist, barely visible, slowing flowing in the direction of the walls of Kordas. It was an ominous view, watching the abyss approach first hand.

This moment of distraction proved to be incredibly dangerous, though, as suddenly the feint distant shouting was disrupted by the sound of quiet whistling. An arrow, shot from a location Darkshot wasn’t sure of, flew directly at him with incredible speed. Darkshot saw it at the last moment and tried to dodge it, but the moment he moved, the arrow was redirected to follow him and pierced into his right shoulder.

Out of the shot came several dozen vines that penetrated the stonework of the palace wall he stood on, binding Darkshot in place with a pinning shot. Following this, he saw a swarm of arrows flying through the air at him. This time, he saw where they were fired from - a street just outside the palace walls. Quiver had created quite the distance between himself and Darkshot, but knowing Quiver’s location wasn’t going to help him at this time.

Darkshot panicked - unable to move, all of the arrows were likely to hit him from Quiver’s multishot, and kill him. He looked down at the vines binding him in place, and considered trying to cut them to dodge, but he remembered seeing his own opponents do that to him enough times to know that he wouldn’t make it in time.

“Multishot!” Darkshot quickly nocked one of Aegis’ 20 mithral arrows and fired it. It split into 20, matching the 20 arrows flying at him from Quiver. He then focused in, sending one of the multi shot arrows at Quiver while aiming the rest at the arrows flying at him. “Go hide.” Darkshot instructed Darkwing, unsure of whether he’d be able to out maneuver Quiver’s shots.

Like a swarm of bees battling in the air, the two multishots converged on each other. Many of the arrows hit each other without either party putting much effort in changing their trajectories - controlling 20 arrows with redirects at this speed was just impossible for either of them.

Rather, both of them immediately picked out 3 arrows to prioritize and maneuver around the others. Darkshot hoped that by sending one at Quiver, it would break his concentration, but that wasn’t the case as Quiver continued to easily avoid it while controlling three arrows that made it past Darkshot’s multishot

Darkwing flew up away into the sky while Darkshot desperately jerked his body to the side to avoid the three arrows and prevent them from hitting him. To his surprise, as they closed in, they all converged to a point and aimed directly at his head - Quiver was going straight for the kill. The range that Quiver was firing from, and the fact that he was still able to precisely control the arrows from his distance, sent a chill of intimidation down Darkshot’s spine.

In that moment, Darkshot abandoned control of his last arrows in the hopes that with enough focus, he’d be able to dodge the three shots just like Quiver had been doing. He moved his body at the last second to prevent his head from being hit, despite being pinned in place. But the three arrows Quiver had fired immediately redirected and swerved back around at Darkshot from behind, splitting up and coming at him from different directions.

Darkshot had very limited mobility due to the vines, and eventually failed to dodge two of the shots, taking massive damage. Thanks to the new armor from Aegis, he was able to survive, but just barely, and the third arrow was still swerving around him. Darkshot knew, if it landed, he was dead. He drew on all of his martial arts training to keep track of it and continue to avoid it, until finally the pinning shot wore off.

He jumped backwards through the doorway, back into the palace hall, but the arrow continued to pursue him much to his surprise. He ran through the hall, maneuvering around pillars and statues, far out of Quiver’s line of sight, and yet, the arrow was still pursuing him with perfect accuracy.

“What the hell!?” Darkshot shouted angrily. “How is he seeing all of this shit?!” Darkshot began glancing around for signs of Quiver’s bird, but saw none. He felt ridiculous, dueling an arrow, but the arrow was relentless, and if it hit him, he’d die. Darkshot spotted a suit of armor decorating the palace hall as he ran through it, wielding a shield and sword, and quickly yanked the shield off of the armor, then swung it out at the arrow to knock it from the sky. Still, the arrow maneuvered to avoid the shield and swerved around it at Darkshot’s head, forcing him to duck.

“Fuck me, this is terrifying.” Keldan mumbled under his breath, standing a few meters away from Viella with Vriflow, Swiftstar, Rocknight and many other players around him.

“Easy there, your profanity filter is still off.” Swiftstar warned him, while Rocknight audibly swallowed his saliva, leaving his mouth dry.

“Relax, we’ll protect you.” Caleb, the elite NPC from the leadership intermediate quest, spoke as he put his hand on Keldan’s shoulder, smirking as he stepped forward to the front line of troops on the walls. Beside him, the other elite leadership quest NPCs stepped forward as well, spinning their spears around in their hands eagerly.

“LOAD!” Another voice shouted, causing Vriflow to turn to look back behind her into the city. There, many variations of catapults had been constructed and were being manned by hundreds of crafting class players.

Many players looked excited, others eager to win the mithral weapons, and others terrified. The black mist gave off no emotions, though. It continued to flow forward over the farm fields towards the city walls with a purpose.

“Steady!” Viella shouted to the nearby troops. From the front of the black mist, the tiny legs of swarming abysslings became visible as it closed in on the city. They were scurrying along with it, like a wave of flowing water. The moment the first few players spotted the abysslings, one crafting player on the wall ran from the front of the wall to the back.

“They’re in range!” He shouted down to the catapult players.

“FIRE!” A leader of the architecture guild ordered. In an instant, all catapults launched their projectiles. Giant boulders and other heavy materials flew out of them, over the heads of the soldiers and players on the walls.

Some projectiles ignited into flames once fired, sending off waves of heat to those below them as they flew overhead. Others exploded with lightning bolts, or various other enchantments - none of the projectiles were fired as standard catapult ammunition.

Keldan and his viewership of 2500 now all watched as the siege weaponry munitions crashed into the farm fields surrounding Kordas, breaking through the encroaching black mist and exploding their enchantments outward in a radius around the impact point.

As the flame projectiles slammed into the ground and erupted within the mist, it cleared out a large section of the black mist nearby momentarily. Thanks to that, everyone on the wall was able to clearly see just how many abysslings were swarming towards them, hiding in the mist. The answer was a staggeringly high amount.

“RELOAD!” The architecture guild leader commanded immediately. “FIRE AT WILL!” he followed up with, seeing that some players were reloading much faster than others. It wasn’t long before a second barrage of siege weaponry was fired.

“GRAND TEMPEST!” Jael shouted, as suddenly his entire body began to emit yellow sparks, and he began to levitate up off the wall. Simultaneously, dark gray clouds began to form in the sky above him and grow outward rapidly, giving off sparks of lightning as they did.

“Steady!” Viella commanded as she watched Jael do this, and briefly glanced back to see the catapults. The Dark Elves remained unwavering, waiting for their order to fire their arrows. Swiftstar got caught up in their momentum and nocked an arrow alongside them, as did several other ranger class players standing on the walls. Keldan, on the other hand, was awestruck by the powerful spell Jael the Archmage was casting.

Within a few moments, the gray clouds had grown outwards over the black mist, and large bolts of lightning began shooting down from the clouds at the incoming swarms of abysslings, frying them to a crisp as each bolt hit the ground and exploded in a large radius around its impact point.

“Glad he’s on our side.” Vriflow commented, getting a nod back from Keldan. Following this, the group went back to staring at the swarm. Despite the efforts of Jael, and the catapults, the dark mist continued to close in on the city. It wasn’t long before they could not only see the abysslings, but could hear their screeching cries.

“LOOSE!” Viella shouted, finally prompting the volley that Swiftstar was eager to join in on. A black wave of arrows was released from the bows of the Dark Elves, and the Kordas guards armed with crossbows joined in, as did the Ranger players present on the wall. Many players utilized their multishot skills to increase the amount of arrows fired further still, so that for a brief moment, the entire sky was blackened by the arrows.

Moments later, they showered down on the front waves of abysslings, killing thousands of them, but yet, the darkness kept coming, as did the swarms.

“Nock, and hold. Reapers!” Viella shouted, pointing upwards towards the sky. Off in the distance, a wave of black wings could be seen flying towards them far above the dark mist.

“Oh man, I forgot about that. They have flying monsters too.” Swiftstar groaned as he pulled another arrow out of his quiver.

“Fear no darkness. Their numbers may seem endless, but they will flee when the light triumphs. It is our duty to protect these walls until then.” Jael shouted out to the troops on the walls.

“Translation: Survive until Aegis kills the Avatar of Jealousy.” Vriflow mumbled nervously to her companions nearby, while fastening her shield to her arm and preparing to defend the walls.