Ronnie ran out onto the avenue and went to the square, not moving far from the walls of the houses. The paranoid inner self became more active than ever. The wind stopped howling. The timeless moment has arrived. All the players have gone somewhere. The sniper activated the "detection" skill and noticed how a doppelganger jumped from the roof of the house, right above his head, at the speed of a cannon shot, missed and destroyed the paved road a few centimeters from Ronnie, plunging two hands into it, that morphed into two spears. Then the monster turned around and kicked him to the side, turned his hands into two large hammers, and jumped forward three meters, but this attack was not crowned with success. Ronnie jumped back, standing first on his hands, then on his feet, crouched down, took off his rifle, and without aiming, fired. The Doppelganger tried to jump to the side, but the bullet, flying faster than sound, pierced through the shoulder, leaving a huge hole behind it, and disappeared into the sky like a fading star.

It’s like it’s my twin.

They both froze. To their right, in a small chapel, the dull ringing of a bell was heard every five seconds, and from the inside, male and female voices sang sad choral songs to the sounds of the organ. Players of the initial levels looked out through a small crack in the curtains of their rooms and continued to watch the battle with bated breaths. The Doppelganger's shoulder began to regenerate. The wound healed, but not completely. Ronnie noticed shortness of breath, shabby appearance. The enemy has been fighting for days. There was a murderous lust in the eyes of the devilish creature. His breath exuded the eerie stench of hundreds of thousands of rotting corpses. Like a hungry super-predator born in the bloody womb of the mother War.

Ronnie focused, with a deft movement of his right hand pulled out of his backpack a small flask filled with green liquid, and drank it. There were only six cartridges left in Barrett’s magazine, there were more in the pistol, but it was unlikely to be effective. The Doppelganger bared a double row of fangs on the upper and lower jaws and dashed forward. The ground was buckling under its feet, the law of conservation of mass was working. He jumped and disappeared, vanished into thin air. Ronnie used the "Furious Rhythm", felt the muscles in his body tense up, overcoming all human limits. It was the first time Ronnie had to fight at such close range. The Doppelganger, as expected, appeared in front of his copy and tried to tear him apart with its steel claws. The sniper grinned angrily and blocked the blow with the barrel of the weapon, then he bent over and, in a round-turn, hit the double with the butt on the head. The monster screamed, lost its balance for a second. That was enough time for Ronnie to fire a 12-gauge bullet straight into the Doppelganger's head at a speed of 853 m/s. It blew in all directions. Blood gushing out like a geyser from its neck. The dead body fell on the road. Ronnie lowered his rifle, took out a scanner from his pocket, and was about to insert it into the enemy's heart, when its head grew back in two seconds, and it immediately changed its appearance to Nika, then to Bynahal, and finally to the sand-emperor from the Nepril desert. The sniper was taken aback, and the enemy jumped up and disappeared. Ronnie felt like he was on pins and needles, looked around, and decided to run. The action of the "Furious Rhythm" ended in a minute.

The temple singing was left behind, as was the sound of the bell, which seemed to accompany the souls of the dead to rest with a magical ringing. On the square, Ronnie heard a woman's cry from behind him: "Stop!" He froze and turned his head and saw five people with nicknames: WildDron (1st place in the military rating), Xenonna (3rd place in the military rating), Denzie (4th place in the military rating), Fremaho (5th place in the military rating), Umka (7th place in the military rating). All were members of a small guild of ten people called "666" in second place in the "Dominance" ranking.

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WildDron laughed and spoke with a heavy Russian accent:

"Are you a player?"

"No, a hallucination."

"According to the photos, the monster looks just like him," said Xenonna – a girl in her forties with long red hair, honey-colored eyes, pale white skin, and wearing urban-type military camouflage "Flora".

"You're right, my dear! But players differ from monsters in that we can see their alias, level, and parameters. In front of us is the famous Ronnie - the guy who overtook our Umka a couple of days ago."

WildDron looked like a huge Santa Claus: a long white beard, clear eyes, the color of pine needles, a huge inhuman height and a belly so round that it can be compared to a perfect ball. The difference between him and the magical inhabitant of Finland was in his clothes: his body was covered with heavy metal armor of fine workmanship, his left hand held a huge two-meter shield with the guild coat of arms, behind which a howitzer could hide, and in his right hand shone a two-handed sword Zweihänder with a double guard. Ronnie analyzed his parameters: strength 25 - fifth modification.

"So the monster took the guise of a real player?" asked Denzie – the only black in the legendary constant party, dressed in urban camouflage, turquoise eyes, and a clean-shaven head.

"Judging by what we've seen, it may well be. Most likely it's a doppelganger," WildDron replied. "The game is full of surprises."

Ronnie analyzed the stats of each of them in a short time and his eyes widened in surprise. Everyone in the const-party, except the shooters, had a pumped-up magic parameter. True... full of surprises. He looked at WildDron and noticed how the leader's gaze changed, he swung his shield and let it go forward like a boomerang. A rectangular piece of metal cut the air with sharp edges and flew at the speed of a cannon shot. A heavy metallic crash sounded above Ronnie's head, the shield bounced to the side and magically returned into the hands of its owner. A Doppelganger in human form appeared ten yards away from Ronnie. All in black. On its head is a metal sakkat covering the face with a shadow. On the back was a cloak with spikes sticking out of it. The uncovered hands of the dead-black color clutched a long magic pole. The palms glowed with yellow fire. A barely noticeable hurricane was circling its body.

"Now he doesn't look like a player," said Umka.

Ronnie gritted his teeth and remembered where he had already met such an aura.

"You're too close," he said in a muffled voice and pointed the seventy-three-centimeter barrel of the Barrett parallel to the ground, the index finger of his right hand touched the trigger with a pad, the monster caught the moment and jumped to the side in advance and disappeared. Two seconds later, the area was engulfed in smog. An old trick, Ronnie thought, ready to deflect the blow with the body of the weapon again. At the same moment, he saw an enemy pole in front of him, enveloped in a lava-like dark red magical aura. Ronnie froze as if rooted to the spot, not taking his eyes off the tip rushing straight into his throat. At the moment of his supposed death, WildDron appeared from behind him and took a terrible attack, which managed to bend his shield.

"Stay behind me, boy," he said. "We'll deal with it."