Chapter 205: Duel in the Throne Room

Chapter 205: Duel in the Throne Room

“Pyri!” Erikson shouted to her from atop the walls of Rene, while Pyri used her fly spell to patrol the skies above the town, looking off into the distance for any signs of the approaching abyss. Hearing Erikson, she didn’t reply but rather flew towards him and looked him in the eyes. “We’ve got incoming.” He announced once he was sure she could hear him.

“From where, and how many?” Pyri asked. Erikson looked towards his ranger guild member standing next to him, who nodded back at him.

“All of them. Together, from the west.” Erikson replied.

“Shit, they grouped up.” Pyri sighed in frustration.

“Mist is coming with them.” The ranger told Pyri.

“Okay.” Pyri nodded back before turning to look around the walls, until she spotted the elite NPCs standing amongst the troops. “Farlion, Celestian, Ulaipu, form up our soldiers on the western walls, the enemy is coming from there.” Pyri instructed them, and within seconds the NPCs were mobilizing and moving along the walls as per her instructions.

“What are we going to do? We had trouble taking out one of them, and that was with the help of the Black Lions.” Josephine asked as she joined into the conversation, standing atop the wall a few meters from Erikson. Pyri didn’t reply right away, but instead remained floating and pondering, staring up at the sky briefly while deep in thought.

“I’ll hold three of them back, and let one through. You guys focus it down, and once it’s dead, I’ll let the next one through. That will allow you to take them out one by one. Utilize the NPCs to hold back the abysslings and assist in your damage against the juggernauts one at a time.” Pyri explained.

“You’re going to hold three juggernauts back by yourself?” Yuki asked her with wide eyes, now also standing near them.

“I’m gonna try...” Pyri shrugged awkwardly, but her words were followed by the sound of loud stomping. The ground shook violently as several booming steps could be heard approaching the town of Rene from off in the distance. Everyone immediately looked to the west, but couldn’t see the source of the sound.

Pyri slowly levitated higher up into the sky above the town with her fly spell to get a better view, and eventually she saw them. The four large juggernauts were all stomping towards Rene, shoulder to shoulder. At their feet, the black mist moved forward like a wave along with them, swallowing up the western forests as the juggernaut feet crushed the trees with every step. Seeing them, Pyri took a deep nervous breath before casting her cinderbolts and causing them to begin rotating around her body.

“Here they come.” She called down to the players below her on the wall.

“Ah, there you are. My beautiful pawns.” Finley shouted excitedly as he flew towards the Black Lion guild, standing in the defense of the fourth island stone. The large, glowing white stone stood behind them as they fended off hundreds of abysslings swarming towards it. The Black Lions were not struggling with them in terms of being able to kill them en-masse using single strikes from their weapons and spells. But, they certainly looked exhausted due to stamina consumption.

Behind Finley, the Avatar of Jealousy also slowly lowered herself down out of the sky with her pink, bat-like wings. The pair landed amongst the dark mist just a few meters away from the Black Lions, with abysslings continuing to swarm around them and charge at Garrick.

Garrick nervously looked at Finley, then up towards the skies, then back down at Finley.

“You got here first, huh? Where’s the kid?” Garrick asked with an anxious tone.Ñøv€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

“Don’t think he’s going to be making it, unfortunately. He put up a valiant effort, using you pawns just like we did, but, like I said, he never really stood a chance.” Finley shrugged.

“We’ll see about that. We ain't no pawns for no one.” Garrick growled back at him.

“Jealousy?” Finley turned to her expectantly, and she smiled back as black tendrils began to rise up off of her head, and she let out a light hissing noise.

“Shut em, boys!” Garrick shouted to his guildmates. Immediately upon saying this, every member of his guild shut their eyes tight as the black tendrils on Jealousy’s head began to whip around and hiss, aiming in various directions. As a result of them shutting their eyes, though, not a single member of the Black Lion guild became petrified. “Hah, just like they said. The petrification doesn’t work if we don’t look at her.” Garrick declared excitedly.



“Rapidfire.” Rakkan cast his fighter base skill, granting the effect to his echo and allowing it to repeatedly shoot the crossbow without needing to reload.

“Fuck off, you think you’re more skilled than me?!” Joltblade shouted in anger, pulling one of his shurikens back from Rakkan’s main body in order to strike it out at the crossbow wielding echo. But this freed up Rakkan’s spear from being used to deflect that shuriken, and he immediately took advantage of this by throwing his spear across the room at Joltblade.

“Rune:Enlarge.” Rakkan cast, causing his spear to grow gigantic, pushing the nearby shurikens and echoes to the side due to its sheer size.

“Shit.” Joltblade frantically dashed out of the way desperately, but his reckless movement allowed Rakkan’s nearby echo to land a hit with the bladed fist and battle axe.

The spear crashed into the wall behind where Joltblade had been standing, exploding a pulse of void energy out of its tip upon impact which blasted a hole in the throne room wall and sent chunks of stone and debris flying in all directions. A second later, the spear shrunk back down and returned to Rakkan’s hand while Rakkan maneuvered his crossbow echo away from the shuriken pursuing it, continued to block and dodge the two shurikens chasing his main body by utilizing his longsword, and was able to use the maul wielding echo to handle the last two shurikens off to the side.

As Joltblade stood back up, Rakkan sent his echo with the bladed fist and battle axe to continue putting pressure on Joltblade’s main body.

“It’s incredibly one sided! The Rune knight is keeping the battlemaster completely on the defensive!” Zekor squealed with excitement from the corner of the room, drawing attention to himself.

“I’ll show you something one sided, shitty leeching broadcaster!” Joltblade reacted with anger towards Zekor, sending a shuriken away from Rakkan’s maul echo towards the low level Lizardfolk player. Seeing this, though, Rakkan broke his axe-wielding echo away from Joltblade’s main body and sent it towards Zekor, using it to deflect the shuriken away from him and protect the broadcaster.

“Hah? The livestream hating Renault is protecting a broadcaster?” Joltblade asked with a look of confused disbelief.

“Yeah.” Rakkan replied with a smirk. “Because I know he’s watching. I want him to know that he’s next.” Joltblade reacted to Rakkan’s words by bursting out laughing.

“You...” He managed to get out between his laughs as his shurikens continued to clash with Rakkan and his echoes in the room around them. “You really think you can handle Seraxus? You’re talking about Seraxus, right? Buddy, you can’t even handle ME!” Joltblade shouted as a blast of electrical energy exploded out from his mithral sword, creating streams of lightning that extended out from the sword towards his five shurikens spread out around the room.

The shurikens then began rapidly rotating, cutting through the stone walls nearby like buzzsaws as they released sparks of electrical energy. They then began to spin around the room with Joltblade as their center, forming an electrical tornado of beams formed between themselves and Joltblade.

They easily cut up the walls and floor of the room, causing destruction in their wake and sending chunks of debris flying. The loud buzzing sound of electricity overtook all other sounds. Despite this chaotic mess of electrical energy floating through the room, though, Rakkan pulled his echoes back and was easily manipulating his echoes to duck under, or jump over the electrical streams.

“I’ve already seen this trick.” Rakkan replied coldly, as he suddenly dashed forward along with all three of his echoes, surrounding Joltblade while simultaneously carefully positioning them to avoid the streams of electrical energy coming off of his body. “Relying on overpowered weapons won’t be enough to beat me.” Rakkan said as he struck out all of his mithral weapons out at Joltblade. Joltblade was able to deflect two strikes, but it wasn’t enough - Aegis had crafted him strong Mithral weapons with bless enchants. The damage took Joltblade’s health to 0, despite his armor, and his body began to disintegrate.

The beams of electrical energy disappeared first, then the shurikens, then Joltblade’s body as he looked back at Rakkan with an expression of anger and frustration in his last moments in the game world. It took a moment for the light inside the room to dim back down, and Rakkan’s pupils to adjust, with the light of the electrical beams now gone. There were now several holes in the roof of the throne room where beams of sunlight were piercing through, due to the chaotic damage caused by Joltblade’s shurikens.

With no words, Rakkan turned towards Zekor who remained cowering in the corner, small pieces of stone and debris settling on his shoulders and head. Rakkan then held out his longsword in Zekor’s direction, pointing the tip of the blade out at him while glaring.

“The...” Zekor stuttered in disbelief, rubbing his eyes to clear them of dust and debris. “The Rune Knight is victorious. And, it looks like he’s issuing a challenge right now. Incredible showing!” Zekor mumbled anxiously as Rakkan remained glaring at him.

Seraxus remained seated within the empty gladiator arena in his own livestream, millions of viewers watching him. He was viewing the fight between the two players through Zekor’s broadcast using his livestream viewer, with Hajax seated beside him.

As Rakkan pointed his longsword at the camera of the broadcast, glaring, Hajax looked nervously at Seraxus to watch his face. Seraxus was gritting his teeth in annoyance, glancing between Rakkan in his livestream viewer, and his livestream chat log where his audience was begging him to have a showdown with Rakkan.

“Actin’ real tough for a guy who ran away to Kalmoore.” Seraxus grumbled. “Ya’ll wanna see me kick that clowns ass again?” Seraxus asked his chat, and they responded with thousands of cheers. “Aight. Looks like we goin Rune Knight Huntin’.”