A warm light swirled around Aegis and his party as they watched the timer reach 0. His body felt light, and the swirling magic surrounding him eventually enveloped him entirely with a blinding, bright flash of white. When the flash subsided, he was no longer in the waiting room but back in the center of the arena.

Beneath his feet was a raised stone platform made of the same stonework as the tiles and pillars. To his left and right, he saw four other platforms, one of which was empty. The other had Pyri, Darkshot, and Lina standing atop them.

Before Aegis’s eyes had even adjusted from the bright flash of light, his ears could hear the audience erupt in a roar of unintelligible cheers. Colorful flashing lights formed around them, shooting up into the skies like fireworks. It wasn’t long before the repeating chant from earlier kicked in.

“Aegis! Aegis! Aegis! Aegis!” The crowds repeated. To his side, Aegis saw Darkshot striking a pose with Darkwing joining in from his right shoulder. Pyri was smiling and waving politely, while Lina was shyly fidgeting with her fingers and looking down at her feet. Aegis took another look at the empty pedestal, sighing at the sight of no Rakkan.

“Congratulations to the winner of the gladiator tournament. The protector of Stormtop and the savior of the shattered world! defender of Arallians, guardian of Kalmoore, and destroyer of hatred!” Hae-won cheered into her voice-amplified staff. Her words caused another eruption of cheers that shook the platform beneath Aegis’ feet.

Aegis looked up in Hae-won’s direction, but before he could meet her gaze, a notification appeared in front of him through his interface.

Congratulations! You’ve placed first in the Gladiator tournament. Please select the reward you would like to receive:

A list of rare magical items, practical and decorative, appeared before Aegis in his interface. He had already decided which reward he wanted, though, and didn’t bother with browsing through the others.

Acquired: Soul Dust [Quality: 90%]

As the Reigning Champion of the Gladiator Arena, you are now eligible to bypass the preliminary matches for the next Gladiator Tournament. You are eligible to select the island on which this tournament will be held. These options are configurable in your settings menu, under the [Player Versus Player]

section.

Aegis waved the notifications away once he’d finished reading them. The moment the transparent interface screen in his peripheral vision was gone, he saw Hae-won’s look of concern. She was eying him intently, making sure he saw the look on her face, to which Aegis curiously glanced around the stands to try and grasp where her expression was coming from.

He spotted Makaroth, surrounded by his cheering guildmates, but he was not cheering. He was looking apologetic to Lilya and speaking with her but was getting ignored. He panned his eyes over to the Vindicators and saw a similar expression on Feng’s face despite the enthusiastic cheers coming from the other Vindicator guild members. Finally, Aegis turned back to Hae-won, to see her shaking her head no. She knew Aegis had seen her do it, but Aegis ignored this and waved her toward him with a hand motion.

She shook her head again, but Aegis just repeated the hand motion more expressly. Hae-won gave one final anxious glance towards the VGN broadcasters huddled nearby, before sighing anxiously to herself and hopping off the raised platform. She walked down to the bottom of the stands, then hopped into the arena several meters below, beyond where the blue barrier had been that was keeping everyone out of the arena for the tournament.

Hae-won calmly walked across the large arena towards Aegis and the others as they stood on their platforms, but she didn’t say anything. The closer she got to Aegis, the quieter the cheering became until it nearly became silent.

She stopped at the base of his platform and looked up at him, holding her voice-amplification staff off to the side so as not to accidentally speak into it.

“I know what you’re going to do. I really don’t think you should.” Hae-won whispered up to him.

“It’s the whole reason I started playing,” Aegis replied. He looked into Hae-won’s eyes for a tense few moments as the two tried to look deep into each other's thoughts. Eventually, though, Hae-won relented by shaking her head and holding her voice amplification staff up towards him.

Aegis took the staff out of her hands and equipped it to benefit from the enchantment. As he did, the audience grew quiet still further, awaiting his words. The flashing lights from the arena that were celebrating the victory died down, and Aegis took a deep breath.

“I don’t know why you’re all cheering,” Aegis spoke coldly, glaring up at the stands. “Everything Seraxus said was true. All of you did everything you could to stop me from participating in this tournament,” He made a wide pointing motion across the stands, going over the Sages of Destiny, Vindicator, and Daehyun’s guild members. “The only reason Seraxus even got here in the first place was because of you.” Aegis ended his finger on Makaroth. “I had to clean up your mess, and you and all of your VGN buddies did everything in your power to stop me. I cleaned it up, but not for you. I did it in spite of you all. We’re not friends,” Aegis declared.

“Oooh man, that’s so much worse than what I thought you’d say,” Hae-won mumbled quietly to herself in disbelief, shaking her head at her own feet. Lina, Pyri, and Darkshot all got serious, looking nervously at Aegis as they saw he wasn’t done yet.

“I even gave you the secrets of Mithral to your top VGN crafter so that you could put up a fight. You still messed up.” Aegis eyed Feng, who glared back at him. “In the end, I had to do it myself. And look who is standing in the number one spot.” Aegis turned to Makaroth and locked eyes with him.

“You remember the deal, don’t you?” Aegis asked him, so that everyone in the stadium turned their attention to Makaroth.

“Man, he’s laying it on thick.” Synopse chuckled awkwardly while nudging him. Makaroth responded to the nudge by huffing and shaking his head while looking down at his feet.

“So how about it?” Aegis’ voice carried thanks to the voice-amplification. “It’s time to delete.”

Makaroth took a deep breath as he eyed his character's enchanted greaves. As the entire world turned its eyes onto him, he stretched out his hands, drawing out his weapon and swinging it aimlessly in the air for a moment.

“Here…” One of the VGN broadcasters ran over to him from the raised platform, handing them their voice-amplification staff. Makaroth took it awkwardly, staring at it intently for a moment before taking it from him and equipping it.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"I put a lot of work into this character. You've all followed me on my journey from the start. I feel like we've earned this equipment together. This sword, this armor, my skills, all of it. We've liberated an entire island together, defeated countless bosses, and grinded endlessly together to get this far. But," Makaroth paused to look up at the stadium of his guildmates and fans, and finally, his eyes landed on Aegis down in the arena below. "I can't ignore the fact that I've also made many mistakes. Seraxus and Aegis are both right. I put a lot of players at risk through my selfish actions, and ultimately, I still lost our bet." Makaroth smiled at Aegis, catching him completely off-guard.

"If I'd just played the game with you and Pyri from the beginning, I would've been by your side when you saved Arallia, Kalmoore, and Stormtop, instead of standing against you. And I'll always regret that." He spoke with sincerity. "I will be retiring my character Makaroth and dropping my contract with VGN. I'll be starting over from level one alongside my friend Synopse, and I don't currently have any plans to livestream it." Makaroth's sentence hadn't even finished before the booing and angry jeers started. Some were directed at Makaroth, but most were directed at Aegis.

Countless, loud, vocal shouts from the Sages of Destiny members conveyed the sentiment that a son shouldn't make his father do something like this, but Aegis ignored them. Aegis continued to stare silently up at Makaroth with his arms crossed, waiting for confirmation and still looking angry. Makaroth saw this and sighed. The only sense of relief he got was when he turned to Pyri standing beside him and saw her smiling at him with a look of approval and sympathy.

"Goodbye, everyone. I'll never forget what you all have done for me. Please continue to enjoy the Shattered World online, just as I will be doing from the shadows." Makaroth gave one final smile and wave to the crowd before logging out for the last time, and Synopse quickly followed.

The crowd's booing, shouting, and jeering quickly got louder and more aggressive.

"You did it." Lina cheered at Aegis, and he looked to see her smiling at him. A slight grin of satisfaction grew on Aegis' face as the realization of his victory was slowly seaping in, but he couldn't absorb it too much just yet.

“The rest of these VGN guys don't seem too happy with us, though...” Darkshot anxiously mumbled. At that moment, Aegis saw a flash of light appear on the empty platform. Rakkan’s body took shape as he finished logging in.

“You’re back?” Lina smiled at him awkwardly.

“Yeah.” Rakkan nodded.

“You’re alright?” Aegis asked him after lowering the staff.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Rakkan replied.

“You sure?” Aegis asked.

“Yeah. You looked like you’re gonna need my help.”

“Probably,” Darkshot responded with an awkward chuckle. As they spoke, Aegis turned to Pyri to see how she was reacting to the situation. He was expecting to be scolded by her, but instead, she looked back at him with a calm smile.

“We should go while we still can.” Hae-won anxiously turned and glanced around the stands at the angry mob.

“She’s right.” Pyri nodded. She took the lead by turning to face the enormous main doors used to exit the arena, directly opposite the raised platform that the Sages of Destiny and Vindicator guilds flanked.

Aegis, Hae-won, Darkshot, Lina, and Rakkan all turned to follow her. The group of six walked out of the arena, shoulder to shoulder. With each step they took towards the exit, the noise from the audience got louder. It started as whispers and murmurs and slowly grew into angry shouts and taunts. By the time they’d arrived at the exit doors, Hae-won turned back to shut them hastily to cut off the full-blown yelling. In the time it took her to shut the large wooden doors, the others continued to walk ahead calmly without saying a word.

Hae-won frustratedly rushed after them with a grumbling sigh.

“You realize I’m just level 10, right?” Hae-won asked them, but got no response. “You just pissed off every single member of VGN. You better not be planning to leave me behind on this island.” She got further annoyed.

“Just stay close.”

“Right…” Hae-won rolled her eyes at herself as none of them saw her do it. The group walked through the damaged hallways of the stadium’s interior, the sounds of the audience no longer reaching their ears. Instead, they could hear their feet clacking off the paved stone floor and echoing off the chipped stone walls around them.

Back inside the arena, Calikgos motioned Feng towards him as he stood next to Liyla in the stands, and thanks to his speed of movement, Feng complied by rushing over in an instant.

"What is it?" Feng asked Calikgos.

"Crush them. Don't let them off this island." Calikgos instructed them both.

"But Makaroth said we shouldn't piss him off..."

"I don't care what Makaroth said. He's not here anymore. That kid just insulted all of us, and our viewers want retribution for the loss of their beloved Makaroth. In their eyes, he's the bad guy. So, crush him." Calikgos ordered. Feng and Lilya briefly exchanged looks before Feng had a devious grin growing on his face.

"If you say so," Feng shrugged, opening the interface to his guild chat and beginning to send a message.

Despite the situation, Aegis and his companions remained calm and collected, save for Hae-won. They continued to walk in silence through the hallway towards the stadium's exit, and the silence continued to get on Hae-won's nerves, leading her to clear her throat awkwardly.

“I figured you’d do something like this, so I had Serenity go ahead of us to her Airship. If we can make it to the docks, we should be able to get off this island safely. We should be able to make it to the Skyport docks, right?” Hae-won asked them.

“Get on her Airship as soon as possible and log out,” Aegis replied.

“Right. Good idea.” She nodded back hastily as sunlight from the stadium's exit came into view and shone into the structure. The frame of the exit and the door had been destroyed and trampled into smithereens due to the abyssal invasion. This allowed Aegis and the others to see what awaited them outside the stadium.

It was a sea of red. Aegis couldn’t count how many there were, but it was enough that he couldn’t see past them. High-level Vindicator players, all donning the red tabard of the Vindicators. They were above level 100, with some at level 150 or higher.

They hadn’t drawn their weapons yet, but they glared down the tunnel at Aegis and his companions as they approached—no murmurs, no whispers, just the continued sound of Aegis’ party’s footsteps.

When they reached the exit, the threshold was blocked by the Lanuskians, but a few of them moved to the side just enough to allow Aegis and the others to continue walking forward.

With Aegis in the lead, he kept a stoic expression. He was well aware of how dangerous it was to walk into this mass of opposing players with confidence, but the anger toward Makaroth drove him forward. He didn’t so much as hesitate for a second. Rakkan and Pyri had no trouble following Aegis’ lead, but Lina, Darkshot, and Hae-won were letting their emotions show. Lina looked cautious, Darkshot looked nervous, and Hae-won had a look of fear on her face.

The Vindicators continued to part and allowed them to pass a good few dozen meters out of the stadium until a familiar face held his ground in front of Aegis. [Xiao Bai Mao - Level 161], the leader of the Vindicator party that Pyri had defeated during the last round of the preliminaries, was staring at them with a big smile.

“You have got some massive balls talking like that about Feng in the middle of a VGN island.” Xiao Bai Mao said while crossing his arms. “But you overplayed your hand. You may be good, but you are still just a small group of players. Kalmoore is a small island. Winning in structured, 5v5 matches is one thing. But out here, we, the Vindicators, rule.” He finished his sentence by motioning to his guildmates, who were surrounding Aegis and the others on all sides.

“Would you mind moving? You’re blocking our way.” Aegis replied.

Xiao Bai Mao shook his head and sucked his teeth. “Heh.”

“Hooo boy,” Hae-won whispered anxiously under her breath.

“What was it you said to Seraxus?” Xiao turned to Pyri. “It seems your parents will not discipline you for your rude, disrespectful behavior. So we will take it upon ourselves to do it for them.” Xiao grinned at her in a taunting manner, then drew his weapon. As he did, the sound of hundreds of weapons being unsheathed rang out from all the players surrounding them. Enchantments were being cast, and auras were activated.

“Hey, Mom, you’re not holding anything back anymore, right?” Aegis turned to look at her standing beside him. She slightly tilted her head towards him and gave him a knowing look. She drew out her staff, Rakkan formed his echoes, Lina unsheathed her daggers, and Darkshot nocked an arrow.

“Then,” Aegis turned to grin back at Xiao on Pyri’s behalf. “Let’s see who disciplines whom.”