Volume 2 Chapter 4: Cancer_Harem Reaper

[box border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=3 width=80% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][col colspan=4 valign=top width=100% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5]Subject: Happy Fun Timez

From: Plaguedone

To: Bunny, Dalthis, Odin, Ceda, Perigrin, Butter, Oosan, Prodeath, Afro, Phailure, Nexic, Kadona, Will, Zoey, Syben, Kadonâ

I’m throwing a party and you’re all invited :) Bring your friends! You have a month and a half to get here, a location marker has been added to your world maps.

PS. The person who sinks the most ships wins 5 million dollars! Better hurry :P[/col][/box]

If Azrael had a fighting style, it would probably be called ‘Overkill’. However, detonating a nuke is a lot easier than surviving the blast from point blank range. There was a fine line between flawless victory and mutual annihilation in most of his plans. Yet, they usually turned out pretty well… to be fair, there was no way he could have predicted what would happen. Ok, that’s a lie, he actually did have many dreams in which everything happened exactly the way it all played out. It’s a shame he couldn’t remember them, or perhaps he could have changed his fate. Well, he was the type of person who always believed that everything happened the way it was meant to.

On the eve of the great and terrible battle, Azrael had a premonition. It was merely a glimpse into a fraction of a memory of a dream, yet it told him what he needed to do. This would be a war that could only be won by the side who wasn’t there. He ordered Osmond to gather all of his forces and retreat back to the Sharp Tooth city, along with the Sariel and her crew. There was a wide river that went from both sides of the 10 mile long beach, all the way back to a mile south of the orc town.

Osmond’s cousin was the leader of the Susanoo Guild and also the CEO of one of Unicorn Corps shell corporations based in Japan. They didn’t want to openly influence Royal Road in such an unpopular way, so they would use shell corporations who had entire guilds working for them to prevent the balance of power from being disturbed so early into the game. To make sure the sale went through without complications, 1500 elven sailors along with 50 relatively powerful mages from the guild arrived at Am Meer a few days before the sale. They were one of the only guilds to even have elven sailors, but that was mainly because everyone in their guild was either an elf, fairy or cute anthropomorphic animal person. They were the largest non-human guild at the time, with over 30 thousand members.

When the armada arrived, the Sariel was nowhere to be found. At least a thousand ships were gathered 10 miles off the coast, all aligned together against a common enemy. However, their enemy was missing, there was a massive fortress made of trees but no battleship. The lookouts could only see a handful of people anywhere on the beach. There was a giant man in a black ant-like suit of armor, sitting next to a gigantic sword while putting the finishing touches on a relatively large ship. On the far eastern part of the beach, an elf with golden skin and a korean woman were kissing… in various different ways. A few feet away from the Antman was a young dark elf girl who was facing away and appeared to be talking to herself.

Even if all the NPCs were ordered to evacuate, Azrael wasn’t about to let all of his hard work go to waste because of a vision that might not even come to pass. The guild Forewarning didn’t exist in Royal Road, but almost every single one of the main raiders had become an important existence in their own ways. Most of them started their own guilds, some of them played solo, a few of them were even considered the scourge of Versailles. However, regardless of their own silly little quarrels, that usually led to massive wars, they all had something in common… Plague. He didn’t talk to them that much anymore, but he was still good friends with all of them, so even if he asked them to help for free, they would have still come. However, they were very competitive people, except for Ceda, so turning it into a competition was actually part of his strategy.

A month and a half is far too little time to travel across the continent using normal means. Some had access to flying mounts or spells, they had it the easiest and didn’t even have to hurry. Others used their reputation with the church of Freya to teleport to Serabourg Castle and traveled through the Plains of Despair, then north past the Dark Elf Fortress, eventually reaching the ocean and traveling east along the beaches for about a hundred miles before getting to the tree fortress. The first to arrive was Pergrin’s guild, who used a portal deep within the Ulta Mountain’s to instantly travel to the Northern Yurokina Mountains, from there it was less than fifty miles which took them a few days before they arrived. He wasn’t building hundreds of cannons and other generic siege weapons by himself, there was just way too much that needed doing before the big event.

Dark dwarves weren’t a new race that was just recently created in the Sharp Tooth tribe, they had been around for thousands of years. However, they lived pretty much the same as other dwarves, under the southern continent’s mountains. They were one of the first playable races but were typically at war with the regular dwarves. A strange partnership between a dark dwarf Gunner Phailure and the dwarf Armorsmith Afro, who were brothers in reality, with Perigrin as the leader they created a guild called HillBro’s Siegecraft. They were a small guild, with less than 300 members, who specialized in the creation and utilization of all types of siege weapons. They also had many gunners, who were basically just rangers that used muskets or similar firearms.

The only person who didn’t actually show up was Nexic, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t involved. He was the shadow ruler of the Brent Kingdom, the actual king was the queen’s only son, William. He was only born a few months ago and yet he already had the body of an adult. All of Will’s bastard children were gathered in Varhales and formed a 5,000 strong army of half-incubi/succubi, who were each very powerful on their own. They could all fly in one way or another and had small horns coming from their foreheads, but they didn’t inherit the uncontrollable ability to make every woman or man who looked at them fall in love or get pregnant. Their whole purpose in life was to find and kill their father Will, it was a basic instinctual need. When Nexic told king William that his father was going to be in Am Meer, he immediately left with his army of brothers and sisters to get there as fast as possible. With the King gone, Nexic was forced to stay in Varhales and deal with any problems that came up in Brent. However, the assassins guild was contracted to kill as many sailors as possible during the battle, for a decent amount of gold per head.

Will had a very awkward race and class that would seem extremely overpowered at first glance. However, even though he initially gained 1 to every stat for each of his children, there was a downside. Each of them had a skill which temporarily gave them up to 100 more of a single stat that was drained from Will until the duration was over. When his children weren’t using that skill, he had over 5,000 of each stat, but if they all used the skill at the same time, he would be weaker than a level 1 rabbit. The main purpose of the racial was probably so that he could create his own army of children to help him fight. However, since he abandoned each of them, it became the complete opposite situation. Even under such obvious danger, Will needed the money to support his children in reality, so he was preparing to cause as much destruction as possible.

After getting blacklisted from too many guilds, Butter finally decided to create his own. He called it “Bunny Hunters” and their whole purpose was to seek and destroy the evil queen of darkness Bunny, along with all her minions. At first he was alone, but every time Bunny’s guild “Sexual Harassment” and their armies conquered a city, the Bunny Hunters would gain a horde of new members. Their numbers had grown to over 7,000 members but most of which were only around level 40-70, they traveled from Ritten to Am Meer with a relatively small fleet of cheap warships.

Azrael’s brother Dalthis was a night elf Archdruid who specialized in AOE healing and shape-shifting. He was the the main healer for an all barbarian guild called “Ripped Raiders” that had many… naive and very attractive men for him to prey on. They didn’t even know if he was male or female but if they were above the age of 18 in reality and had a really attractive manly barbarian avatar, their fate was sealed. Regardless of his less than pure intentions for joining the guild, they couldn’t afford to lose the best healer in the continent… even if it cost them their innocence. Coincidentally they were on a small island off the coast, slightly to the west of Am Meer, so it only took them a short while for all 150 high level members to arrive.

After the successful capture and sale of the Poseidon Guild fleet, Oosan and his fairy pirates had come into a small fortune. However, it was nothing compared to the reward Plaguedone was offering, they quickly began their voyage back to that elven fishing village as soon as the invitation was received. Their fleet was joined by the mermaid siren Zoey, she had unlocked the ability to become a mermaid after freeing a djinn who was trapped in an urn that was buried in the Desert of Tranquility. It was just as bad as it sounds, she had to slither her way across the desert awkwardly, while suffering from a massive debuff that all mermaids receive out of water. They were among the first to arrive, so they spent their time in the newly built taverns in Sharp Tooth City.

Kadona was a high elf priestess, Kadonâ was her ex-husband and a high elf priest, they hated each other. One was a specialist in dealing damage and the other in preventing it, they used to be a pretty good team. However, people change, and they drifted apart for whatever reason… regardless, they both needed money. Not just that, they also were good friends with Plague, so they were willing to help him in any way possible. Kadonâ was exploring the Plains of Despair as a solo player. he enjoyed being along and hunting in silence. Kadona was having fun player killing in Brent along with her sister Prodeath, so it didn’t take long for them to arrive at Am Meer.

Ceda, was lost inside a system of volcanic tunnels, after completing the quest he became immune to fire… but he was still lost in a maze while wading through lava. When he received the invitation, it included a map marker along with a route guide that showed him the way out. After leaving the tunnels, he emerged from what appeared to be an iron mine. After traveling a few miles north, he reached the meeting place and quickly began to creep on various dark elves, both male and female. Although, since he was genderless it seemed even creepier, he also looked like he was a dryad made of charcoal after repeatedly dying to fire.

Bunny, Odin and Syben make up the undead triumvirate, three equally despised and powerful monsters who leave chaos and destruction in their wake. The Unholy Paladin Queen Bunny, Syben the Lich Witch man… and Odin the Shaman. Mainly because of Butter, the three were at odds with most of Forewarning. Obviously, they would never turn down a chance to prove they were better than everyone else. However, they were the last ones to arrive, since Bunny kept crashing her bone dragons and she had to pick up some ‘potions’ from Nexic.

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It’s strange to think that over a hundred million people play Royal Road and not a single one of them tried to create firearms. The truth is that gunpowder does exist in the continent of Versailles, it’s even used in many ways. Cannons, muskets, and all manner of antique weaponry exist in the game, yet no one ever thought to try creating more modern weapons? Think about why guns were so popular and useful in our reality, it was because they were more powerful, deadly, and efficient than swords or arrows ever were. Yet, in a world where it’s possible to fire an arrow farther than a mile and accurately hit a target that then explodes into a raging inferno, it was just never necessary.

Magical spells, superhuman stats and physical skills could overcome the gap that firearms created in our world. In Royal Road, guns were weak, but that didn’t mean they weren’t useful. Cannons were used all the time during naval and siege warfare instead of high level magic that was still pretty rare. Dwarves were excellent craftsmen and preferred to use muskets, blunderbusses or single shot miniball pistols to the much cheaper and commonplace bows or crossbows. However, with the proper weapon proficiency, you could actually become more accurate with such horribly inaccurate guns.

The real question was not just in the case of guns, but bombs or even more high tech and destructive weapons. Technologies that are still relatively new like lasers, pulse or plasma weaponry, most of which are easily conjured through spells in Royal Road, could potentially be created through alternate means. Why would anyone go through the effort of creating weapons in the game that were only useful in reality? The answer is obvious, because it’s possible, no other reason was necessary.

Prometheus, the city of forbidden knowledge and technology. Hidden deep underneath the ocean, protected by one of the 10 restricted zones, the ruins of Atlantis. It was a place no normal user had ever seen or heard about, but there was a small population of scientists and inventors who worked in Unicorn Corps R&D department that inhabited the isolated little world. They spend all their time creating new technologies or perfecting old ones to either be used in Royal Road or in reality.

Not all races are created equal in such a fantasy world, there were giant monsters but there were also very small creatures. Everyone in Prometheus, including the Goddess who rules their City, Athena, was of a small race of mouse-like humanoids that were literally the size of normal mice. The entire city existed within the basement of a warehouse in the ruins of Atlantis, the main goal of the users who lived there was to create technology that was as small as physically possible. NPCs who lived in the city were all very intelligent and assisted them in their experiments whenever they could.

It was a beautiful place, a very important place at least until the ruins of atlantis began to awaken. Originally, Atlantis was simply an ancient city located on the bottom of the ocean, near mermaid territory. However, a few days ago something strange happened, the city was no longer flooded and all the sea monsters who infested it had disappeared. Athena sent scouts to the outside world for the first time in centuries, and what they discovered was very strange. Apparently, they were not only above water, but moving very quickly to the west. How convenient, since Azrael didn’t go to Atlantis, the whole damn city was coming to him… or so it would seem.

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How much is too much when chumming for sea monsters? A question Azrael asked himself several times before ultimately deciding that it didn’t matter. For the whole month before the fleets arrived, he had thousands of orcs excessively hunting wolves, direwolves and even bears for meat. Then, they would bring it to Am Meer, where the dark elves would use ice magic to freeze it for later use. Around 5 days before the fleet arrived, they had accumulated at least a couple thousand tons of frozen meat to use as bait. It took days for the giant frozen block of meat to thaw, while floating several miles away from the shore. Although, that made it’s effect even more profound, 20 schools of sea monsters from various directions descended upon the delicious meal.

Typically, when a school of sea monsters is traveling underneath your ship, a few of them tend to attack. Most experienced sailors are capable of fending them off until the school loses interest or the ship escapes to shallow waters. When each of the fleets came closer to their destination, they noticed that the sea monsters were completely ignoring them while traveling underneath their ships for hundreds of miles. It was the main reason why they couldn’t get closer to the shore, there was a war raging between Am Meer and the Armada. Thousands of huge, krakens, sharks, hydras, and various other over-sized, vicious aquatic creatures were tearing each other apart. Six square miles of ocean was dyed red and occasionally a giant tentacle or shark would emerge from the bloody surface, before quickly returning.

There was a massive chain reaction, after the chum was gone, the giant frenzied fish were still hungry. The more they killed each other, more sea monsters came to the buffet. It was like a forest fire, except in the water… and the trees were gigantic mutated fish. Azrael had planned for something similar to this happening, which is why he created his favorite weapon in any strategy game, artillery. He only had time to build one prototype, but it seemed to function properly and had an effective range of 15 miles. It looked similar to a giant cannon and was mounted inside of a giant, sturdy tree that could adjust its height, or change the angle and direction through magic. Azrael grew the tree a mile into the forest, to the south east of Am Meer, it had a platform made of branches and vines so that it could be loaded and fired. The key feature to any artillery is the ammo, which Azrael and Freya created.

Hillbro’s Siegecraft created most of the black powder, pitch and pretty much everything that’s used in typical siege warfare. However, Freya used her newly acquired ingredient supply to create ectoplasm explosive warheads for the shells. They were shaped like huge bullets, rather than balls, and the inside of the cannon was even rifled. It had a reloading mechanism that was similar to a howitzer, but a bit crude and if it weren’t for the tree, it probably wouldn’t have actually worked. The shells were designed to explode in the air and rain down magically enhanced ectoplasm that acts like sulfuric acid and also creates a small cloud of poisonous gas when in contact with ocean water.

With a loud whistle of death, the first round was fired, deep into the enemy fleet and burst directly over a Kalamore Kingdom ship. The ship was a generic man-of-war looking vessel that had a crew of 500 or so NPC sailors and a few hundred user passengers. Everyone on deck was sprayed with a bit of the acid, but that was enough to melt through their bodies and then through the floor. It was a magically enhanced acid and there were no mages onboard who could counteract it. Several small holes opened up in the bottom of the ship and it began flooding, but even more importantly, the poisonous gas that was created had been trapped inside of the ship. Before they could have a chance to drown, the entire crew suffocated and quickly died.

After witnessing how easy 700 people were killed, many of the wiser captains began to realize their arrogance. The Kalamore fleet was enraged and began to charge thoughtlessly towards the beach. It only took a moment, a second at the most for the entire fleet to be obliterated by the rampaging sea monsters that ironically couldn’t be seen. Their hulls ruptured and the ships sank into the murky red depths, as did anyone who tried to swim away. Ten warships, nearly 7,000 NPCs had died and they couldn’t even make it within firing range of Azrael. It might not seem like that many compared to the 989 ships that were still remaining, but it was a pretty solid start.

The second artillery round was fired and managed to explode over another ship, quickly sinking it. However, after they spread out their ships better, it became much more difficult to accurately hit from so far away. When Azrael noticed them spreading out, he whistled twice, signaling them to change the ammo type. He preferred it this way, since he went through all the trouble to create his little experiments. When the shell exploded over an empty space of water, the nearby sailors were relieved, but that quickly changed. A huge swarm of mosquitoes seemed to spawn out of the explosion and started to fly towards the closest ship. Luckily for them, they had a fire mage on-board who could save them… oh wait, it was Ceda.

He shot a torrent of flames towards the mosquitoes and scared them away, in the process he ‘accidentally’ lit the sails on fire. Then he ‘accidentally’ shot a fireball at the captain’s face and disintegrated his head. When the crew realized that he was a traitor, it was already too late, the whole ship was a blazing inferno. Forewarning had already begun their competition, and somehow Ceda received the first point. Unless you count Phailure and the artillery as the first few points, not that it really mattered. The swarm of mosquitoes was moving from ship to ship and quickly devouring everyone on deck, but they wouldn’t go inside the cabins or hulls in large numbers. Azrael used life manipulation to create a variety of the most annoying and disgusting insects out of plants, and managed to make them even more irritating.

After a few more explosions, there were swarms of cockroaches, mosquitoes, locusts, wasps and flies terrorizing the fleets. However, for the most part they were more of a chaos booster, rather than some secret weapon of mass destruction. It kept the fleet oblivious to the fact that they were under attack by much more vicious insects, obviously that means Oosan and the Fairy Pirates. They had already acquired 7 ships from the Haven fleet and began using them to attack the other ships. It appeared as if Haven was breaking the temporary alliance and using the chaos to attack the Harpan fleet. While that was going on in the center, the whole left flank of the armada was engulfed in green flames.

An army of flying incubi and succubi were chasing Will, there was massive collateral damage to the Aidern Kingdom’s armada. Yet, none of the other fleets could intervene, since they were busy being decimated themselves. The northern fleets were caught between the Bunny Hunters’ and Sexual Harassment’s skirmish. A massive swarm of sea monsters were creating a subtle whirlpool of destruction that was sucking in the southernmost fleets. Obviously Ceda was the first casualty on Forewarning’s side, but it was friendly fire… or acid. While viewing the chaos, Azrael had plenty of time to finally finish his precious boat.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Artistic Value: 2000

Natural Value: 2450

This relatively large, three masted, three decked, exploratory vessel has been grown through a unique combination of elven shipbuilding combined with advanced human and dwarven designs. Created by Azrael the Forgetful, perhaps he couldn’t remember to include a few cannons? This ship was created with far more amenities and luxuries than should be allowed on the open ocean. It is a complete mystery why someone would create a swimming pool within this 44m x 14m huge sailing yacht, perhaps it’s meant as a container for freshly caught fish? There are several, rather large and comfortable crew quarters within the hull that have large beds, many cabinets, closets, safes, chests, display cases, weapon racks, and even small private bathrooms that have working toilets and sinks.

Throughout the ship is working plumbing that flushes excrement outside of the ship, and also pumps clean freshwater through the sinks and showers. There is a desalination plant(It’s an actual plant) within the ship that sucks in salt water, heats it, separates the salt from the water and in the process purifies it, before sending it into a large water tank. There is a large, public bath and shower room that also has a heated jacuzzi, the creator believes that bathhouses are disgusting. However, placing a private shower within each bedroom would be very difficult and they would be far too small for his tastes. Within the bathhouse are many types of soap plants that have various scents and effects. The mess hall is small and closer to an actual dining room, meant for less than 15 people. The galley is small as well, but it still has several mana stoves, mana freezers, mana refrigerators, and various other strange living devices that were created for mysterious purposes.

Depending on the amount of mana pumped into the ship, the various fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries and herbs that grow along the walls of the ship can be produced faster or slower. Based on the ships level, many animals and monsters can spawn on the deck, within the corridors and in certain areas of the hull. Even though there are no cannons or conventional weapons on this ship, it has several defensive and offensive features installed. There is a mana shield that can be overcharged to become nearly unbreakable for a few seconds. Using nature magic, the ship can summon sea monsters, fire vine grappling hooks from the deck, launch vine torpedoes that can pierce the hulls of ships from underwater, and even create powerful storms. This living ship will start at level 1 and grow in power as it gains more experience. It’s maneuverability and speed is surprisingly high, given its relatively large size. However, it has no firepower, but it does have a considerably high amount of mana and health, so it is possible for it to even win against a ship-of-the-line in survivability. Health will regenerate over time but healing magic is effective on the damaged areas. By using wind and water magic, this ship can massively increase it’s speed and maneuverability. This is a fine piece.

Warning: Sigh, fuck it, you’re the only one who’s ever going to read this shit so why do I even bother explaining it? It’s not like you even read the descriptions, plus this ship will probably get obliterated in the near future so I don’t even care anymore!

Health: 60,000

Mana: 90,000

Firepower: 0

Speed: 18 knots

Maneuverability: 9[/col][/box]

Azrael yelled “Get inside!” loudly to the 4 girls who were loitering around and watching the battle. They were pretty shocked at the sudden outburst, but quickly followed his directions, they were all standing on the deck of a ship that was sitting on the beach.

Lorelei yelled “It’s coming! What is that thing!?” in a frightened voice as she looked to the distance towards the northeastern horizon.

[box border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=3 width=80% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][col colspan=4 valign=top width=100% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5]The World Boss Cancer has appeared! Warning: Killing a world boss may have significant and devastating effects all across the continent of Versailles! Warning: When a world boss has been awakened, it must be destroyed, controlled, or returned to sleep as soon as possible or there may be unforeseen catastrophic consequences![/col][/box]

Freya laughed and said “Ah! That sure is a big one…” in a very calm voice while smiling and looking at a mountain that suddenly appeared in the distance. Azrael sighed as the mountain became larger and started heading towards the battle. Within moments, the true form was revealed as it emerged from the ocean and the tides receded dramatically. They couldn’t measure it accurately, but the creature’s body was at least 3 square miles. It was a gigantic stone crab… which basically looks like a regular crab except a lot harder to eat. It was difficult to see, but there were huge buildings built upon its back, yet it was able to easily lift its heavy body out of the water. It’s first target was the sea monster buffet that was spread out over 7 square miles, from the beach to the naval battlefield.

Azrael laughed and said “I’m really hungry now…” in a disappointed voice as he stood at the steering wheel, preparing for the inevitable.

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Ae-Cha was one of the scientists working on a new micro-fusion energy production system, basically using antimatter to trigger fission, which causes a fusion burn. The way to produce antimatter efficiently in reality was still being worked on, but in Prometheus it was possible to have just about anything fabricated for the purposes of research. However, even in Royal Road, keeping a miniature nuclear explosion contained was still very difficult. Unfortunately, when the city began to start swimming away and everyone began evacuating, Ae-Cha couldn’t leave her lab. If she wasn’t constantly maintaining the mana barrier around the experiment, very bad things would happen.

Unfortunately, her avatar wasn’t nearly powerful enough to maintain the barrier alone, so even if she did stay, the result would have been the same. She turned on the automatic stabilization system, but that was only a temporary measure and wouldn’t last for very long. Ae-Cha was a cute little mouse girl who’s avatar was level 253, but given her size, she had pretty much 0 combat capability. She gained levels from working on experiments and creating various devices, since her class was inventor, just doing her job was good enough to get more powerful.

On the way out of Prometheus, she grabbed a mana powered jet pack and quickly put it on. She started flying at full speed as soon as she was outside, and quickly reached a high enough altitude to view the situation. Her first thought was ‘What the hell is going on?’ as she scanned the huge, chaotic battlefield in front of her. There was a super-massive crab devouring hundreds of giant fish directly underneath her, to the north was a naval battle between thousands of ships and to the south was a giant tree fortress. Along the beach she saw an interesting looking ship that caught her attention, so she decided to investigate it before it was too late.

The problem with being the size of a mouse, is that any sounds will be perceived at a much lower frequency than with human ears. There were 3 humanoid females speaking in voices that sounded too deep to comprehend, however with a glance Ae-Cha immediately recognized the giant ant-man. He was Azrael, without his discovery of mana manipulation and mana crafting, her current project would have been impossible to work on. However, he was also known by several other names, ‘The Writer’, ‘The Elder’, ‘The Masochist’, due to his exploits while exploring the limits of the Royal Road system. Very few people at Unicorn Corp actually know anything about him, but most of them were part of the Prometheus Project. Ae-Cha was actually a fan of his, but she never would have imagined being able to meet him.

Unfortunately, time was up and her project had finally broken through the mana barriers, it was beautiful. The nice thing about Royal Road is that you can fully appreciate the elegance of a nuclear explosion without going blind, at least not permanently. As it turns out, there are many more factors to consider in the game, than reality, but it’s still a catastrophic event. Due to the influence of the mana barriers, when the force was released, it was magnified thousands of times. A micro nuke was turned into a megaton, which is a lot, even against a ridiculously huge crustacean. As the mushroom cloud erupted from its back, the crabs whole body began to cook and turn bright red. It collapsed into the ocean over a few seconds, causing a huge tidal wave that rushed over the naval battle and the beach where she was at the same time.

[box border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=3 width=80% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][col colspan=4 valign=top width=100% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5]The World Boss Cancer has been defeated by “Unidentified Explosion of Unknown Origin” and the continent of Versailles has been greatly affected!

In the distant oceans, several World Bosses have been awakened due to the disturbance!

Sea travel has become much more difficult in many ways!

All users and ships who have been in the presence of Cancer that managed to survive the explosion have been cursed, they will be targeted by powerful sea monsters and experience negative weather conditions![/col][/box]

They should have been burned by the heat, even from such a great distance, but the ship was surrounded by a powerful mana shield. It also seemed to block out the radiation and protected them from taking damage from the tidal wave. After a few seconds of being underwater within a pocket of air, the ship quickly rose to the surface. The power of mana was amazing, it was both a creative and destructive force, somewhere between matter and energy. Able to fabricate and obliterate just about anything, but it wasn’t endless or omnipotent. Azrael and the ship were both quickly running out of mana and the only way to survive was to use powerful water/wind magic. Even though she couldn’t understand what they were saying, Ae-Cha could slightly hear their voices over the loud white noise.

Freya yelled “Ah! Now I remember where I saw that city before! The one that just blew up, it was on the back of the giant creature! That was Atlantis!” in a voice that could barely be heard over the deep roaring that was barely passing through the mana shield.

Azrael began laughing in a voice that could cut through the white noise and yelled “Of course it was! How the fuck are we supposed to find that damn tree now?!” as he steered the ship towards the west. It had only been a few minutes since the explosion, but he was already down to 25% of the ships mana. His own mana supply was completely consumed and he was halfway through his refill, he had a massive migraine but there was no choice other than pumping even more power into increasing their speed. Before anything else, they had to escape to a distance where they wouldn’t be incinerated with the shield down.

Lorelei yelled “What was that pretty light?! Was this all part of your plan Azrael?!” in a worried voice as she looked up at him from the middle deck.

So-Ra screamed “Holy fucking shit! Was that a giant crab shaped nuclear bomb?! When and how the hell did you prepare something like that?!” in a surprised voice, it took her a while to join into the conversation since she was mildly distracted.

Azrael yelled “Ok, so here's the thing… if you guys don’t pump every ounce of your mana into this ship, then we’re all about to die!” in an anxious voice. Of course, even with everyone combined, they ran out in a few seconds and Azrael still had about 5% left. That’s when he began to use Mana Conversion in reverse, it was something he always theorized was possible, but never actually got around to testing. First he began to transform his health into mana, then stamina, it was even possible to temporarily convert stats like strength into mana. He basically had to lower everything but intellect and wisdom down to 10% of what it normally was before they were finally able to escape the huge area of boiling water, searing winds and radioactive fog. They were all relieved and everyone but Azrael was ecstatic, he let his guard down.

[box border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=3 width=80% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][col colspan=4 valign=top width=100% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5]Emergency Teleportation (Lvl. 1 0%): A variation on a mages teleportation spell that makes use of an excessively large amount of mana to almost instantly travel thousands of miles… randomly. Since it’s destination isn’t predetermined, no sane person would ever use such a spell, unless the situation was extremely dire. By first creating an incredibly powerful mana shield and then charging it with an absurdly large amount of mana, everything within the bubble is teleported.

Warning: This is an extremely dangerous spell! If the shield falls apart before the teleportation is completed, everything inside will be obliterated and lost within the void! It is possible for a void to be left in the wake of the teleportation that could cause severe damage to its surroundings! It is also possible for there to be a massive mana explosion at the end of the teleportation![/col][/box]

[box border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=3 width=80% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][col colspan=4 valign=top width=100% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5]You have used Emergency Teleportation! The Hanael and its crew have been teleported to “Unable to determine current location at this time”![/col][/box]

Everyone on-board the ship saw the message about being teleported and carefully looked at their surroundings. There was nothing but open ocean in every direction, the waves were relatively peaceful and there weren’t even any seagulls in the air. There was absolutely no way to tell where the hell they were and since it was the middle of the day, it was probably not that far away. Azrael sighed as he looked up at the sky and saw three small moons forming a triangle with a bright sun in between them. Freya laughed and said “Neat! I’ve never seen that before.” in a mildly surprised voice.

Azrael yelled “For fucks sake!” as he realized where he was, a memory of a dream he could barely remember… ‘Asgard, home of the Æsir.’ it was just supposed to be a little bit of back-story of where a handful of the Gods came from. An entire planet devoted to the powerful and ancient humanoids that came to the continent of Versailles and created one of the main races, humans.

‘Going by that logic, does that mean there was an entire planet devoted to each fucking race? How the hell did they plan everything in so much detail? Damn it, I'm only level 100! If this place is designed as some kind of endgame content… shit!’

Azrael was contemplating the possibilities while the others were just dumbfoundedly staring at the moons, the only other person who understood the situation was Ae-Cha. The tiny little mouse who was quickly scribbling down her theories and some equations down onto a notebook she always carried around. Freya yelled “Oh yea! Now I remember this place! Isn’t this Asgard? That’s weird… why do I remember this place? I definitely don’t remember remembering this place before!” in a confused and irritated voice as she looked at Azrael with a puzzled expression.

[box border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=3 width=80% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][col colspan=4 valign=top width=100% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5]Osmond: Holy Shit!

Azrael: Did the village and the ship survive?

Osmond: Miraculously! The southern part of town is slightly flooded but that was just from the rivers swelling… what the fuck happened?

Azrael: Big battle, sea monster buffet, giant world boss crab monster… nuclear explosion, tidal wave, now I'm on a different planet?

Osmond: How? What? Why? How? Huh?!

Azrael: Kinda cliche… but it was a teleportation accident? I didn’t even know that there were other planets you could visit in Royal Road?

Osmond: There aren’t… there are a few places that aren’t part of the Continent of Versaille, but they aren’t that big. Are you sure you’re on a different planet?

Azrael: Well, whatever… are the customers satisfied with the purchase?

Osmond: They’re still sitting in the river, kind trapped for the moment… but probably?

Azrael: Meh, I meant the ‘real’ purchase… you think they would pay that much money for just a ship? The board has been reset, that’s what they really wanted.

Osmond: True, but don’t you feel kinda bad? I mean, you had to kill almost a million NPCs in the process… not to mention, most of Forewarning died as well.

Azrael: Lol, death isn’t permanent in Royal Road… even for the NPCs.[/col][/box]

To avoid an obscene amount of taxes Azrael had Unicorn pay him 70% of the price in shares of the company. In the end he only received about 150 million, but that was plenty for what he needed to do for the moment. He gave half of it to his parents to use as they wished, the other half he had plans for. There were plenty of things in reality to spend money on, it wasn’t very popular in Korea, but in America it was commonplace to receive cybernetic enhancements. For the most part it was like cosmetic surgery and the augmentations were relatively small. However, the technology existed for much more dangerous and worthwhile operations or implants.

He bought some land and had construction begin on his new ‘house’, his parents bought a place in Florida. There was no need to rush, his old reality only existed so that he could enjoy his time in Royal Road. Michael did have certain plans for the future, that were much larger than could be accomplished at the time. Even 75 million dollars wasn't nearly enough for what he needed to do, but that’s a completely different story. It would still be quite a few years before his visions of the future would become reality. This is the story of Azrael, a character in Royal Road that never became famous, yet without his intervention the game would have never become what it is now.

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Within an enormous great hall, which is basically a castle, that was built atop a large mountain, surrounded by many miles of beautiful forests, there was a man sitting on a lonely throne. His physical features were weathered with age, he was missing an eye, had a large beard and held onto a fancy looking spear with his right hand. The castle was empty, it even appeared to be in ruin for millennia, only he remained, waiting. A black crow fluttered in through the window, it’s body was covered in scars and one of its legs was even missing, but it managed to gently land on the old man’s left shoulder. The crow whispered into his ear “The Envoy has arrived.” and the depressed face of the old man completely changed.

He began laughing hysterically, like a mad man and finally yelled “Let the trials begin!” as he stood up and the crow quickly flew out the window. The beautiful blue skies turned black with storm clouds, and thousands of shining angelic women with large white dove-like wings, covered in steel plate armor and wielding various weapons began descending from the heavens. The injured crow was soaring through the sky as it suddenly transformed into a giant black dragon and roared so loud that it could be heard over the thunder. The empty, ruined castle began rebuilding itself, fallen pieces of stone would float up into the ceiling and chunks of white marble would flow back into the walls. Within moments, the ruins looked incredibly majestic and as good as new, then the empty hall began to fill with people. There were hundreds of thousands of skeletons within the castle that quickly regenerated into their previous forms. Everything but the old man seemed to return back to a time before the battle that must have caused such devastation.

In the throne room, there were many very attractive and powerful beings that appeared to be human, or at least pretty damn close. A handsome blond haired man holding a small golden hammer in his right hand yelled “Father! How many times must you force us to repeat this battle?! No matter how many times we face those demons it always ends the same way… we come back weaker and their numbers only grow!” in an angry voice.

The old man smiled and said “This will be the last Ragnarok… hopefully our reinforcements will arrive in time.” in an excited yet decrepit voice.

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Volume 2 Chapter 4: Cancer

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