Mightymira stood in the streets of Stormtop with abysslings charging at her from the front. She tilted her head forward, lunged at a group of 6 approaching nearest, and took a wide swing of her two-handed maul at them. The head of her weapon smashed into each of the abysslings one by one, killing them and causing their bodies to disintegrate.

As several more abysslings ran up from behind them, bolts and arrows shot over Mightymira’s shoulder from behind, clearing them out. She turned to nod at the gathering of Stormtop guards and lower-level players assisting her as she acted as the vanguard.

Thanks to them, she was given a moment of reprieve and could take in her surroundings. Every visible structure around her that lined the paved streets she stood on was in some state of ruin, flames rising from most. Walls and windows were smashed, with large debris gathered around them from their collapsed upper floors and ceilings. When she looked up to the skies, she saw the firing of magical weapons soaring through the sky, targeting swarms of reapers soaring above and attempting to close in on the large central fortress of Stormtop.

The darkening clouds blackened the sky, and the sounds of screaming and weapons clashing overtook any sounds she could’ve heard in her immediate vicinity. In the distance, the streets ahead of her showed her several low-level civilian NPCs fleeing out of a burning building and a group of abysslings pursuing them.

“On me!” Mightymira shouted to the soldiers and players behind her, and they nodded before following her as she rushed at the abysslings. Within seconds, they had dispatched them and formed a wall around the family of NPCs. She looked back towards the fortress, from which she’d been protecting abysslings from approaching, and saw the formation of Airships floating in the skies above it, then caught a glimpse of her guild leader riding atop the Silver Dragon as it exchanged blows with the black abyssal dragon. She quickly opened up her user interface at this sight.

“Mikael, the NPCs and low-level players of Stormtop have nowhere safe to go. Is there any way we should send them to keep them safe? The fortress?” Mightymira asked.

“No, not the fortress. They’ll all die inside there.” Mikael replied, using his vantage point atop Ysil’mareina to scan the city's state. The only structure remotely large enough and still standing stood out like a sore thumb in the cityscape, as most of the forces of darkness avoided it. “The stadium. Serenity is protecting it. Jensora and Kenji, as well.” Mikael responded.

“Okay, thanks!” Mightymira answered before closing out of her interface. Then, she turned to the guards and players near her. “Evacuate all surviving citizens of Stormtop to the stadium; it’s the only place left where they’ll be safe. Escort and gather all from the ruined structures.”

Makaroth, at the northern gate, watched as the endless swarm of abysslings continued to pour out of the black mist creeping on the crumbled walls and garrisons in front of him. There were so many that it looked more like a fluid than a collection of creatures. Their levels ranged from 30 to 40. He could kill them each in one hit, but his area of effect spells were draining his mana quickly, and he had resorted to forming elongated blades of flame with his cinderbolts and was using them to cleave through the swarms en masse.

Despite this, he was taking repeated attacks. Lilya worked from behind him to defend herself and heal both of them. She cast several auras and buffing spells to keep them both as healthy as possible, but their resources were draining quickly — primarily their stamina. A loud song carried through Stormtop, thanks to Serenity, providing everyone defending the city with a stamina recovery bonus and movement speed. Still, it wasn’t keeping up with his and Lilya’s expenditure.

Then, as if in a cruel mockery, the ground began to shake. The footsteps of a juggernaut stomping up the mountain could be heard a few moments before it could be seen, its gigantic body flailing its blade-arm out of the wave of black mist, and its glowing red eyes locking on to him before it let out a horrendous roar.

“I liked the idea of invasions a lot better when it was happening to an island I wasn’t on,” Makaroth smirked defiantly, speaking to his audience. He took a fighting stance and prepared himself for the next wave of abysslings rushing at him, flowing around the feet of the juggernaut like water as it approached from several dozen meters off.

The swarm of abysslings never reached him, though, as a storm of wires and daggers suddenly appeared between Makaroth and the abysslings.

“You…” Makaroth spotted the name above his savior’s head, which was Emerill.

“Hey!” Emerill turned and awkwardly smiled at Makaroth as his daggerstorm skill worked by itself to kill every single abyssling that dared approach him by slicing them up with the wires spanning between his fingertips and the ten daggers rapidly rotating around him in all directions, magically avoiding tangling with one another or his body. “I know we ripped you off, but no hard feelings, right? You take the big one. I’ll help with the babies.” Emeril quickly darted away from Makaroth after seeing his angry expression, so he didn’t have the chance to reply.

Makaroth took a moment of hesitation before shaking his head in annoyance.

“We’ll deal with him later.” Makaroth sighed.

“Damn right, we will,” Lilya replied before the two rushed forward to meet the approaching Juggernaut head-on.

“HOLD FORMATION!” Feng ordered from atop his largest Vindicator airship, having arranged his ships to ideally form a perimeter around the fortress with the other Stormtop merchant and military vessels, as well as some others that had arrived for the tournament, including the Sages of Destiny ship of which Synopse was aboard.

The formation of airships was ideal for the melee players aboard them, allowing Feng to hop quickly between all of the airships in a misshapen circle around the fortress. He was doing precisely that, with his mithral katana drawn and slicing at any abysslings that made it through the firepower of the ranged fighters and artillery aboard the ships.

After a few jumps between airships, Feng arrived atop the Sages of Destiny ship, where he saw Synopse shooting powerful blasts of astral magic at the reapers, filling the skies above the city.

“Conserve your mana. You are the only defense against the unknown creature. Focus on keeping Ysil’mareina alive. Do not worry. We will handle the reapers.” Feng said to Synopse, gently placing his hand on Synopse's shoulder. Synopse nodded back at Feng and lowered his staff, taking a deep breath and wiping sweat from his forehead. Feng proceeded to the next airship after this exchange, assisting each ship and monitoring their status. Synopse followed Feng with his eyes before turning to look at the Fortress they were defending, seeing that it had already taken significant damage. Several walls had crumbled from attacks that had made it through their defenses, and the glow of the island stone hidden within was already visible in some spots.

“What’s going on?” Serenity asked as she eyed a flood of NPCs entering the stadium led by Mightymira. She continued to play her music with the instruments floating around her but directed her words to Mira as she approached the raised platform.

“It’s the only place left to keep the NPCs safe!” Mira shouted back. Serenity looked at Kenji, who gave her an anxious nod, eying the casters from VGN and Hae-won and the dancers and drummer from Serenity’s band.

“GRAND MASQUERADE!” Kenji shouted with a powerful wave of his staff, causing a blast of illusory magic to explode out from the head of the weapon and ripple outward over the arena. Mightymira and Serenity watched as it warped everyone it touched, making them look like abysslings. Once they’d confirmed what the spell was doing, they both stopped paying attention to it.

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On the opposite side of the stadium, in the audience stands, Jensora was battling with several abysslings and dispatched them easily using a gigantic blacksmithing hammer. He also noted the spell, but something else caught his eye, standing at the edge of the blue dome that surrounded the inner arena where the match between Aegis and Seraxus was still taking place.

“Oi, where the hell’ve you been?” Jensora shouted down to the person, Calikgos, whom he’d spotted.

Calikgos ignored him, pacing at the arena's edge while glaring through the blue wall at Seraxus, Rakkan, and Aegis.

“Calikgos?!” Jensora shouted again, but still got ignored. “Watch out!” He added as he watched three reapers swooping out of the sky towards him. Calikgos still did not react, and the reapers reached him with their large fangs, snapping into his shoulder. Immediately upon touching him, however, the Sages of Destiny cloak on his back flickered with a wave of flames, and the fire spread to the reapers that touched him, incinerating all three and killing them instantly with no need for any action from Calikgos himself.

“What kind of enchantment is that?” Jensora mumbled in disbelief as Kenji’s illusion overtook himself and Calikgos, turning them into nameless abysslings and making them indiscernable from all of the other NPCs flooding into the stadium.

Aegis and Rakkan’s staredown with Seraxus lasted only a few seconds before Rakkan began to fan out himself and two of his echoes to flank Seraxus, leaving only his crossbow-wielding echo to stand next to Aegis.

However, Seraxus was not open to this positioning and wisely began to back off to avoid being surrounded. Micro-gestures were the only form of action over the next few seconds. Seraxus kept his eyes on Rakkan’s echoes and carefully waited for one to be moved out of position so he could single it out for free damage on Rakkan. Rakkan was mindful of this as he attempted to surround Seraxus and his floating weapons, jerking any of his echoes back a few steps anytime it looked like it was being made vulnerable to an assault from Seraxus and his floating weapons.

Despite these positioning movements looking incredibly minor, tension rose with every step that Seraxus, Rakkan, and Aegis made toward each other; they all worried about the next move and calculated it as carefully and cautiously as possible. All of this was being explained and narrated to viewers across the world by Hae-won, who was much more excited about these movements than her VGN casting counterpart. The only interruption to her casting was when she complained that she now looked like an abyssling due to Kenji’s illusion spell and wasn’t wearing her favorite V-neck red dress, but she got over this quickly.

After 30 seconds of tense, careful movements, Seraxus smirked at the pair.

“You guys comin’ or what?” He asked. Aegis bent his knees and lunged forward with his shield in front, and Rakkan did the same with his body and echoes. The proper dance began as the sword of hatred clashed violently with Aegis’ shield and released an explosion of light and shadow upon impact.

Seraxus’ weapons came at Aegis from all sides, and Aegis met with his wings and bladed fist as best as he could. Rakkan used the time of the engagement to make a wide circle around Seraxus and surround him with his body and two echoes, while the third fired bolts from over Aegis’ shoulder at Seraxus, which he was able to avoid, the bolts soaring past Seraxus’ dark green orcish ears just barely missing them.

Seraxus broke off his engagement with Aegis quickly when he spotted Rakkan’s movements, attempting to get away and avoid being surrounded. Aegis had saved his shield projections for precisely this.

Seraxus jumped backward, and Aegis projected his shield behind him so that Seraxus’s back crashed into the transparent shield of light. Rakkan and his echoes narrowed in, so Seraxus looked to one echo and cast a silent charge strike, rushing towards it. Aegis could follow his eye movements and determine where he’d be charging before the skill would cast, so that Aegis could pre-emptively create a shield projection and block the charge strike.

Seraxus grabbed onto the top of the projection to launch himself over it, then aimed at the echo again, but this time, right before the cast of charge-strike could go through, Rakkan snapped his fingers and eliminated the echo so that Seraxus had nothing to target. Seraxus reacted by frantically turning to Rakkan’s actual body and charging at it. Aegis was already dashing in that direction by this time, predicting that Seraxus would target the real Rakkan after seeing that Rakkan could eliminate his echoes as targets of charge-strike pre-emptively.

This made Seraxus’ charge predictable, and the moment he arrived at Rakkan’s real body, Aegis had already given his shield to the crossbow echo to switch into Rakkan’s hands and block a strike from Seraxus’ sword of hatred. Rakkan then re-summoned his echo behind Seraxus to surround him, the other echo coming from one side and Aegis from another.

By the time Seraxus’ feet touched the ground, and the light from the sword of hatred’s impact on the shield had dissipated, Seraxus was surrounded on four sides by the echoes and Aegis.

“You’re just giving me more targets to hit!” Seraxus grinned as he bent his knees and held his sword of hatred outward at his side. Then, with a spinning motion, he swung his sword of hatred in a spiral outward at Aegis and the three Rakkans. Rakkan saw it coming, and rather than the echoes and Aegis jumping away to avoid the swing, they decided to hold their formation. Rakkan used Switch to move the shield to the first echo targeted by the spinning attack of Seraxus. The moment the shield blocked it, he switched again to the next echo, then carried the shield along with the spin into Aegis’ hands, who blocked for himself and projected two guards in front of Rakkan and the next echo before handing the shield back to an echo to use Switch again.

Seraxus completed two full rotations, and Aegis and Rakkan perfectly juggled the shield while maintaining their formation around Seraxus, preventing it from breaking and preventing a single attack from the sword from getting through to them. The result was a series of rapid blasts of light due to the impacts of the sword and shield.

Seraxus used this time to maneuver his other weapons around the backs of Aegis and Rakkan. The moment the spinning had finished, he used Switch to replace his sword of hatred with his spear, which sat floating behind the most vulnerable echo. Then, he thrust the blade through the air at the echo. The echo sidestepped it, while all other iron weapons of Seraxus began to assault the pair, and they worked to attack and deflect their strikes.

Hae-won’s mouth moved a mile a minute as she tried to keep up with the amount of action taking place between the three, the VGN caster unable to keep up whatsoever and opting to remain completely silent, instead jaw-dropping in awe of the action unfolding in front of him.

Seraxus felt he had the upper hand at first—despite being surrounded, he had Aegis and Rakkan only fighting defensively and working to parry his attacks and keep track of his sword of hatred. But as this went on for a minute, he began to spot strange behaviors in Aegis and Rakkan that set him off—moments of reprieve given to Aegis and Rakkan were not being used to attack him. They were not even trying to kill Seraxus.

“Aite,” Seraxus glanced around more intensely. “Ya’ll recognize my armor and lifesteal is too high, so you ain't even gonna bother tryin’ to kill me before the 10 minute mark. So why the hell are ya’ll so desperately holding this formation? Watcha playin at Renault? What’d you ‘n yer boy cook up?!” Seraxus asked, but got no response from either of them.

Seraxus didn’t expect a response, though. He was voicing his thoughts out loud for his own sake.

“Y'all know that Virabhadra ain't gonna work, so that ain't it… right?” He asked while making a strange formational change with his floating weapons, and Rakkan pursued the weapons with his mithral ones. That, unfortunately, was enough of a mistake for Seraxus to notice.

Seraxus looked in disbelief as he pieced it together. “Aint no way. Seriously?”

“What, what is it?” The VGN caster asked Hae-won desperately after hearing Seraxus’ realization. Hae-won, too, was confused at what Aegis and Rakkan were doing for a moment, and it took her a bit longer to piece it together. It wasn’t until Seraxus defensively lifted all his weapons into the sky away from Aegis and Rakkan, save for the sword of hatred in his hands, that Hae-won figured it out.

Rakkan and Aegis, rather than targeting Seraxus, fired bolts and smites at the weapons in the air.

“Aegis and Rakkan are taking full advantage of the durability differences between Mithral and Iron. They are not trying to kill Seraxus. They’re trying to break his weapons. If they can destroy the axe with the spell eater enchantment, Seraxus will not be able to use it to block a Virabhadra! The rules of a tournament state that you cannot use consumables or items from your inventory, only those you have equipped when the match starts. In true Aegis fashion, he’s taking full advantage of the rules and using them to his advantage. This puts Seraxus’ weapons in danger!”

“Seriously?” The VGN broadcaster asked, eyes wide with disbelief.

“Seraxus must be extremely careful with how he uses his weapons. There’s no telling how much durability damage Rakkan and Aegis have already done to those weapons before Seraxus noticed their plan. Some of those iron weapons may already be at risk of breaking. The warmaster is being forced into only using one weapon; this is a HUGE swing for the match!” Hae-won exploded with excitement.

“That’s the cheapest strategy I’ve ever heard of!” Seraxus shouted angrily at Aegis and Rakkan.

“Yeah, well, many variables to consider regarding a PvP match. Not my fault you didn’t consider durability,” Aegis shrugged, Rakkan grinned ear to ear, and the time of the match counted up to 9 minutes.