Age: 16 years, 1 month

Asher shivered while he laid in bed. Above his head he could see a large spider, larger than his hand, slowly sliding down from the ceiling towards his face. He tried to lift his hands to block it, but he couldn't. He opened his mouth to call for help, but no sound came. He watched helplessly while the spider landed on his nose, its eight thin legs tickling him, while it slowly crawled around his face, prodding at his open mouth. Moments later, dozens of spiders spilled from his bed, crawling along his flesh while he struggled to defend himself.

He awoke with a start, his eyes wide. He let out a soft gasp. He closed his eyes after a moment and slowly mouthed to himself. 'Just a dream. Just a horrible dream.' He soon fell asleep again, but the night was restless when the nightmare returned again and again.

When morning came, he returned to his headset. As much as he desired to return to LRVR, he had one task to do first. After a quick search he had found a game for him and his parents to play. A simple space simulation game, where the players played the role of passengers on a traveling space ship. Even though it didn't have a lot of flashy abilities and was simple enough for anyone to play, it still had plenty of nice visuals and a lot of the ships and equipment had been based on famous sci-fi series from the past. He called his parents and let them know. He planned the gaming session for the weekend, which still gave him plenty of time to save his friend. After that he was forced to disconnect from the headset in order to have breakfast. Fortunately, his nurse for the day was Amy.

He liked Amy, she seemed to listen to what he said. She even agreed to not log him out of the game until the headset was shut off from the inside, so long as he logged off before three so he could eat something. She didn't even manually shut it down the few times he had been late, just scolding him and telling him to be more careful. She never talked down to him, like Jessica, instead treating him like an adult and even asking his opinion and thoughts when she did things for him.

Asura appeared in a small castle room, sitting on a massive, but simple, white bed. The castle was their guild home, one of thousands of similar ones located in a special area that could be accessed either from the main cities or by special items the leaders had, such as B4hamutt's ring. The castle also allowed the users to teleport to any of the main cities and a few specific locations making it very useful for quick travel and grouping everyone together.

The moment she finished loading in she was bombarded by messages from B4hamutt. They all said the same thing, albeit with different senses of urgency. 'Meet me in the throne room immediately.' She sent him a message before walking out. She passed under a large boar's head, a reward from a dungeon they had cleared earlier in the year. She brushed her fingers along a few tapestries that lined the halls, images of their guild members and past victories. When she came to the end of the hall, she paused for a moment to glance out a window with a smile. She could see out in the lawn where a great wall surrounded them. On the right of the castle was a large lake, even from here she could see fish when they jumped out of the water. Three statues stood in the courtyard, depicting her and the other two class masters, a testament to their achievement.

Her hands danced through the air while she walked down the halls. Her shoes disappeared and she sighed happily when she felt the thick red carpet against her soles. It was so thick and warm, she couldn't feel the cold, hard stone beneath. She took her time walking through the castle, knowing he'd be there waiting for her and she did enjoy annoying him, just a bit, while she took her time with simple pleasures.

By the time she entered the large throne room she had re-equipped her boots and strolled inside. The throne room was mostly bare with a large red carpet, a single golden throne and a plain silver shield dangling over the fancy chair. The room was rarely used aside from as a large open meeting room since, despite being the guild leader, B4hamutt tried to not throw his position around.

“Took your time, didn't you?” the annoyed dragon asked while he paced back and forth in the hall. “I sent a message out to the guild, but no one knows how to contact Scales outside of the game. Seems no one got his online handle. Fortunately, the demon and spider girl cracked and are currently being held in an undisclosed location by a few of our guild members.”

“Undisclosed? Why can't you tell me? I DID help capture them.”

“I'm not telling anyone,” B4hamutt said with a shake of his head. “Listen, we don't have time for this. I have the information, though I'm not sure if we can trust her. It's likely just another trap, so I got as many people together as I could. I even got Suportano to agree to help us. He doesn't like what they tried, either.”

“Suportano? Really? Why did you have to invite him?” she asked with a huff.

“Let it go. Just because he's the only other master angel doesn't mean you have to get that whiny about him. I'm sure he had to work just as hard as you did.”

“I-I'm not whiny! I just... don't think we need him. That's all. I'm all the angel we need,” she said before she tapped her foot impatiently. “Let's just go save them, okay?”

“Fine. Apparently they are hiding out in the Armageddon Temple. Don't know how many there are, but it's definitely going to be a hard fight,” B4hamutt said.

“Of course.” Asura rolled her eyes. “The temple has a lot of max level monsters. It shouldn't be too hard for the demon players, since they could just shadow meld and then sneak through the area and hide. But for us it'll be a lot harder since we'll have to fight our way through and find them. This could be to our advantage though.” The angel chuckled before a small smile formed on her lips.

“Oh? Why?”

“The temple only has one entrance and exit at each floor. We can put up a guard unit. All we have to do then is clear it out and light the place up until they appear. If there are enough of us it shouldn't be too hard clearing the place out either. Even with the spawn rates.”

A grin formed on his lips. “Exactly what I was thinking. We have a fairly large group so far. Way I see it, we divide into three teams. Two can go and clear the area out while one guards the entrance. Each team gets a master to lead them. You up for this?”

“Of course! Lets go!” she said and walked towards the castle exit. “This is going to be awesome. Kicking a bunch of demon butt.”

------

The temple was a massive structure, larger than some mountains, covered in black paint and demonic symbols. It towered over the land, each floor taller than most buildings, yet narrowing into a point near the top. The windows were too small to fit most birds through, and if you listened hard you could just barely hear the sounds of screams and chains.

When the two walked towards the structure, Asura glanced to B4hamutt and chuckled nervously. “According to lore, the temple was used by a sect of the demon's before and during the war as a place to sacrifice their prisoners for rituals. Supposedly it's abandoned and filled with demons that ended up losing their minds during the final battles. Well, that and their experiments.”

The dragon sighed. “I know. It'll be fine though. We should be able to see our teams soon. Are you sure you don't want to fly ahead? I know it must suck having to walk the roads with me.”

“It's fine,” she said before they walked over a hill and the gateway of the temple came within view. She gasped in shock at the sheer number of players who stood outside the wall. There were at least fifty people here. She felt a warm feeling in her stomach at how seriously everyone was taking this. That was, until she saw HIM.

Suportano, a strange, if defining, name. He was wearing master class armor like her, except instead of going a melee aggressive type he chose a more loose fitting robe. The threads seemed to glimmer like silver and it bore an angel wing symbol over the heart. The armor was designed for spells, amplifying their damage and reducing their costs. It was a strange choice, namely because it was harder to clear enemies with because the user had to constantly stay on the move and be wary of any sneak attacks. Besides, it was a lot more fun to run out and mix the magic and physical attacks together. Worst of all, healing was unaffected by the robes boosts. She couldn't imagine why anyone would fight with that.

“Okay everyone!” B4hamutt yelled out when they joined the group. “We all know why we're here, two master class players have been captured for the intent of keeping them out of the quests this year! You're all connected to them, one way or another, so we all have reasons to help them out. We're going to break into three teams, each with a master. Two teams will spread through the temple and light it up while the last team will guard the entrance. The captains will be me, Asura and Suportano. Any questions?”

Almost immediately the groups began to fight, yelling at each other, calling each other names, claiming they should lead because they were part of their own guild or others claiming they could solo this place and didn't need anybody. Even more began to whine that they had to come out here at all, how did they even know if the information was true? In the end they had to form four groups with eight people and one last group that held ten. Suportano led the larger group which stood guard at the entrance while the others slowly walked inside.

Asura couldn’t help feeling like they were trying to organize a herd of angry, hissing cats.

Her group headed right. The temple was made up of dozens of rooms across eight floors, so they slowly made their way through the first room. Each player had a large supply of torches which could be used to brighten the rooms up and remove any shadow melding abilities.

“Okay, everyone be careful and alert,” Asura said, her hand tightly gripping the hilt of her blade. It was no longer a longsword, instead a greatsword strapped to her back. “The biggest dangers here are the monsters. They are all demons and have the shadow meld ability. That means if we're not careful, they can catch us by surprise in an ambush. Stay on your toes.”

At the first room she tossed the torch into the center. The light spread and instantly three demons appeared. Two of them were shaped like giant bipedal armadillos with massive spikes coating their body and thick armor like hides, armordillos. The last demon was a generic green skinned girl in tight leather armor and brandishing a whip. Asura was unsurprised to see its name was Armordillo mistress. The demon snapped her whip once and both the armordillos rolled into balls and sped straight at their group.

“Scatter!” Asura yelled before she charged forward. She stepped to the left so the first one sped by her and when the second one came at her she drew her blade from her back. She gripped it tightly in both hands and swung. The creature's quick movements pressed it harder onto her blade and cleaved it in half in a single motion. She kept her momentum while the creature turned to red sparkles around her and headed straight at the mistress. Her left hand danced through the air until the sword shrunk in her right hand to its longsword form. The mistress swung the whip once, making the angel step to the left before slashing. The whip disappeared in a shower of red sparkles and the owner followed a moment later.

She turned back to see how the rest of the group was faring. The other armordillo was already disappearing in a shower of red sparkles, which was definitely a good sign.

“Wow. You wiped them out in a single strike, how did you do that?” one of her comrades, a leviathan, asked.

“Easy. Armordillo's have high armor values, but not a lot of HP. The mistress was a low HP support monster. My sword tears through creatures like that, and I've fought plenty of creatures with the same mechanics before so I knew where to hit to get a critical strike.” Once again her hands danced along the air as she sheathed the longsword at her side. It increased back to the greatsword length before disappearing and then reappearing on her back.

“I can't wait til I get my mastery,” the leviathan said. “I hope mines as powerful as yours.”

“Probably will be. I don't actually know what the leviathans is, I never got around to asking Scales. Been too busy I guess. I'll need to start making more time.” They walked into the next room. Another torch was thrown and once again armordillos and mistresses appeared. Room by room they repeated the process, taking time to clear out each side room as they went. Some of the rooms had additional creatures, but the majority of them went as smoothly as the first, even when she wasn't able to kill the majority of the monsters by herself, most her group knew how to handle themselves and evade attacks. After almost two hours the first three floors of the building were completely cleared and the four teams met up again.

“Well, we're a little over a third of the way done. It gets harder from here though.” B4hamutt said before he looked up the stairs. “Monsters get more powerful and sneakier now. Before we go, does anyone need to leave? I don't want us to lose people midway through.” A few of the players did leave, but the majority of them stayed and the leavers promised to return as soon as they could.

Once on the fourth floor the groups spread again. Fortunately, the remaining five floors would keep getting smaller. Unfortunately, they were much harder than the previous floors. The first room they entered had five demons, these ones each looked like giant praying mantis. The creatures weren't too difficult, two players with shields moved forward to block attacks while the others attacked with spells, arrows, or polearms. The problem came when the first mantis dropped.

The moment the green body hit the floor, the walls on either side of the room exploded out. Humanoid creatures slowly lumbered out from the previously hidden side rooms. The rooms the monsters had been in were covered with pentagrams, vials, blood and a large assortment of torture equipment. The creatures looked like they were once angels, leviathans or holy beasts, except their bodies were twisted and rotting, some even covered in large boils or having had parts of their bodies removed or replaced with weapons. Their eyes were devoid of any emotion and they staggered towards the group, groaning as they went. They weren't fast, but there were at least a dozen of them and the four mantis didn't help the situation any.

“Shield men keep in front!” she yelled before switching her sword back to its longsword form. “Keep attacking them! You two!” She pointed at a dragon and a demon. “Try to keep the left side distracted, I'll take the other!” She charged the creatures. She dove straight between them and they slowly tottered about, turning to face her. She swiped once with her sword, but the swing was shallow and one of them tried to tackle her. Her wings spread out so she could jump up and over the creatures before diving back down to slash at them. She swung low and wide to drive them back, though it did little damage. She was barely managing to keep them focused on her and away from the main group.

Asura held out her hand “Ray burst!” Rather than sending it at the creatures in front of her, she launched it at the mantises. The bursts of light shot through them and finished off another one of the creatures before the group finished off a third. She then landed by the disfigured humanoids and chopped down once, cutting one of their weapons to pieces. She could see the group fighting the last mantis, so she knew she only had to hold out for a little longer.

Asura let out a startled cry when one of the monsters charged her from behind, knocking her forward into the attack range of the others. She shrieked and slashed with her sword, cutting off limbs and making them disappear into sparkles of red, but was quickly finding herself overwhelmed. The creatures grabbed her arms while others cut and slashed at her with their attached weapons making her HP quickly decreased. “Greater h--” She was cut off when some ichor from one of the creatures splashed into her face and mouth. It tasted and smelled like rotten eggs mixed with mud and radioactive sewage. She put both hands together. “Burst!” An explosion shot out from her body and knocked the creatures off her. She then took off into the air, floating above them while she hacked, coughed and scratched at her tongue to try and get the nasty taste off.

She had just about gotten rid of the taste when screams drew her attention back below. With her up in the air, the monsters had charged into the group. The mantis were all dead, but the group's back line was being torn to shreds while the mutated creatures attacked from both sides.

“Healing light!” A ball of light formed in her hands. Asura tossed it straight into the center of the group so the light flowed over them and began to heal the less severe wounds. She charged back into the fray, spitting once more for good measure, and began navigating the menus again as her sword grew back into a great sword.

The fight quickly lost any semblance of organization and turned into an all out brawl, spells and weapons striking left and right in an attempt to kill the monsters before the players died. After a few minutes the monsters were all dead, though three people had been slain. After the resurrections, the group just turned to glare at her while she nervously looked at the ground. “I uhhh, well... ummm... I got ichor sprayed in the middle of casting a spell. Right into my mouth, and errr... I panicked. Sorry. Eh heh heh... I forgot to turn off taste.” She squeaked pathetically before she switched it off. “How long until the death penalties wear off?”

“Ten minutes,” one of the revived said, a fae. Reviving fortunately reduced the penalties from dying, but it still carried the class exp and timed stat penalties, and they had brought spare weapons in the event they broke. Fortunately, they could still accrue exp after they capped a class level, so dying usually wouldn't hurt too bad. Namely it just meant the three who died had to be extra careful so they wouldn't die again and suffer a more severe penalty.

The next two floors took over an hour each as the group made their way through more mutated creatures and large demons. When the groups met up again three more people had to leave, not to mention the death penalties were starting to have an effect when more people fell to the more difficult and more numerous enemies. “Only two more floors to go everyone,” B4hamutt said in an attempt to keep morale high.

“How do we even know they're here? This is probably just a wild goose chase! We're wasting our time,” one of the fae said in annoyance. “We should just head out and farm somewhere. We aren't even getting anything valuable with so many of us fighting.”

“It's only two more floors people. We're almost done, it would be a waste to come this far and just give up!” Asura said, but she could already see the damage starting to spread. After all, it was just a game and no one wanted to waste hours of their time on something that might not even be helpful in the end. Especially considering the penalties they'd risk. Not to mention the penalties others had taken. As more and more of them fell, the chances of penalties were becoming higher and higher.

“Fine. Everyone!” B4hamutt yelled. “Once we clear this area out, assuming we haven't found them, I will personally pay everyone here ten gold!” That made everyone shut up.

Asura stared at him with wide eyes. “W-what? Ten gold? Can you even afford that much?” she whispered to him.

“Not really, but they don't know that. Besides it's only if it doesn't pay out. Worse comes to worse, I'll just trade one of our captives for Scales and then auction the other one off. That might help some of it.” He looked over the group and yelled out. “Things are going to change around now. The next floor will only need two teams, so we'll split back into my original suggestion.” The crowd quickly voiced their objections. “If you guys want the ten gold each, you'll have to do it this way. Those are my terms.”

The groups soon agreed, though not without constant bickering about team composition. It was hard to get them to agree on who should get which healers and other mundane things she had come to expect when it came to forming a group. This time she headed left and they began clearing the rooms one by one. Things went fine until one of their leviathans were killed by an acid-hurtling monster. Rather than the player's corpse falling or disappearing into red sparkles, the player was turned into a small red jewel.

The person was released from the gemstone quickly, but the damage was done. With his body temporarily trapped, that meant once he was released he had to revive himself at a set point, outside the castle. It also meant he lost all the items he'd acquired and took the full death penalty since he couldn't just be resurrected.

“There's a soul altar near here! How could they, why would they set one of those up?” a dragon yelled out before he turned to head towards the way they came.

“What are you doing? Where are you going?!” Asura yelled to him.

“I'm getting out of here!” he yelled back. “This isn't worth it!”

“What? No! Come back, we need you! It's just one soul altar!” She let out a sigh of relief when he stopped.

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“Are you kidding me? They're just softening us up! With no one able to resurrect here and get back with us, they can just slaughter those who do catch up. Then they'll probably make us miss the quests too, just for messing with them. We don't even know if they're here, it's probably a trap. The soul gems are probably at their guild hall or something.”

“It can't be. A soul gem can't be brought into a guild hall for more than an hour a week or it automatically shatters,” Asura said while she tried to maintain calm. “If anything this proves they're here! They're just trying to scare us off. They'll have the same penalties we're having.”

“Except when they got here they could just resurrect if they died. Listen, I understand wanting to help out your guildies, but I'm not in this any more. I'm getting out of here and anyone who's smart should join me,” the dragon yelled before he ran off. The members of the group looked between each other when more of them ran off, quickly trimming their group down to a little over a dozen.

“Fine!” Asura yelled in anger. “Run off like cowards! We don't need you anyway! Come on,” she snapped at the rest of the group before she started walking towards the next room. Room by room they eliminated the monsters, occasionally a person would fall and reduce their numbers by one, but they pressed on. Eventually they met with the second group by the stairs. They had lost a good deal of members as well.

“Only twelve of us in all. But only one more floor left. I think we've got this settled,” B4hamutt said before they walked up the stairs.

“This never would have happened if you just let me lead,” one of the fae said.

“You? Pfft! You couldn't lead your way out of a paper bag! I should be leading, my guild is one of the top PVP guilds in tournaments, we'd have finished this no problem,” a dragon said with a shake of his head.

“Right, because PVP is anything at all like dungeon clearing. Heck, tournaments are so easy to win, only losers play them. No real tactics, just straight brawls with whoever has the most overpowered class. Like dragon,” a holy beast said with a sneer.

“Oh yeah? If they're so easy to win why don't you try taking me on. Anyone you've fought would have to be a total noob to lose to someone like you. I bet-”

“ENOUGH!” Asura yelled. “We've only got one more floor to go. Can't you all just get along for a little longer?” Almost instantly she regretted it when even more of them branched out, but not before yelling a few profanities at her. She sighed and face palmed. “Don't say it Mutt, I know. Don't boss them around when they're being whiny. Ugh.”

“Well, if you don't need me to say it then I won't remind you that you should know better. Like all those times we formed random groups and you would snap and yell at people because they started bad mouthing the healer or the damage dealers or-”

“I get it, I get it, just let it go before I snap you,” she snapped at him before realizing the irony of doing so. “Let's just get this last floor done. Only a couple more rooms and who knows? We might not even have to deal with the final boss.”

The interior stairs ended at the front of the building, and from the vantage point they could see through the narrow windows out into the world below. The lands were just as damaged as the angel lands, with wrecked buildings and abandoned charred siege weapons. The only plant life that could be seen was the spider forest, and it was so far away it was nearly out of sight. It sent shivers down her spine. They held their torches high and examined the room, but the room was empty aside from the windows and exits.

“Well, from here it's completely linear,” Asura said before they walked towards the doors. “One room filled with monstrosities, one room filled with the psychos who created monstrosities, and then the treasure room with its guardian. I swear if that girl lied about this I'm NEVER letting her out of the gem. We'll just keep passing it off to guild members until she quits the game,” she said with bitterness in her voice.

“Relax Asura. Don't lose focus now that the finish line is in sight,” B4hamutt said before he shoved the door open. Inside was filled with 'dead' creatures, ones that had once been angels, leviathans and holy beasts. Most were either piled on top of each other in stacks, or strapped down to metal racks lining the floor. Their bodies had been horribly mutilated and melded with weapons and other items to make them brutal killing machines. Asura would have been more impressed if she hadn't seen so many creatures like them already. She hoped none of them sprayed her again.

Weapons were readied while they walked to the center of the room and, right on cue, the creatures began to grunt and move while the doors slammed shut and locked them in. “Okay everyone! Get ready!” B4hamutt yelled when the creatures charged. Weapons and spells flew through the air when the group slowly fought back the hordes. They were slow, but numerous, crashing against them like a tidal wave. The group fought back their best and managed to keep the damage minimal. By the end of the fight only two of their group was gone, turned to small little gem stones. “What happened?” B4hamutt asked with annoyance after they shattered the gems.

“They got separated from the main group and attacked from all sides. Nothing we could do,” an angel said. “I tried to heal them, but they died too fast. Sorry.”

“Not your fault. Come on. Everyone, light this room up then heal up, only two more rooms to go,” B4hamutt said before he drew out another torch and began throwing them around the room while others joined him. Before long the room had been lit up and the altar was nowhere in sight. “Two more rooms everyone. That's all,” he said before the door was opened once more.

Inside the new room was a massive arcane circle that covered the entire floor from end to end. The demons within, as opposed to the ones they'd met so far, looked like player demons. For a moment Asura even thought they were the demons the group was after, but these demons all had generic names hovering over their heads. 'Demon scientist', 'Demon academic', 'Demon janitor' and it went on. They were built on a variety of different forms, from the normal humans with red skin, to ones with massive horns and tails, to some with spider like heads and even one that seemed to be oozing out green slime from its pores. It wasn't a pretty sight.

After a moment the demons turned to face them. “Intruders!” one of them yelled, “Unleash the juggernauts!” Three large cages, each a little taller than three average sized humans, stood near the back of the wall. One by one their doors lifted up and the creatures within slowly lumbered out.

As opposed to the mutant creatures before, these ones looked almost like their original forms, different from the player versions. An angel, a holy beast and a leviathan. The leviathan was the size of a small house with thick blue scales covering its body and a large extended mouth like a crocodiles. It walked on all fours and slowly opened its mouth to reveal long powerful teeth that looked like they could crush a carriage in one bite. It had a massive tail that stretched out across the floor. Even though it was the shortest of the creatures, it was still twice as tall any of the players.

The holy beast looked like a normal wolf, albeit larger than an elephant, with fur that glimmered like diamonds and an undercoat of gold. Of all of them it was easily the tallest, its head brushing against the cage's roof. It slowly let out a growl and revealed powerful canines that looked like they could grab a rhino and devour it. Bones and all.

The last was the angel. He looked almost human, albeit far taller than one, as he was only a few feet shorter than the holy beast. He was wearing white robes and had massive white wings across his back. He radiated light, his entire body so bright it almost hurt to look at.

However, all the creatures had one thing in common. Red lines were etched across their bodies connecting red gemstones that were surrounded in a dark fog.

Asura let out a soft whistle. It wasn't very often you got to see how the races looked like before the war together, and most were saved for special dungeons like this. Granted, she always felt a bit disappointed when it came to the angel or fae versions. Every other race had multiple types of creatures they looked like, demons had bugs or the many demonic forms, dragons had dozens of different reptiles, holy beasts had lots of animals and leviathans could range from crocodiles to long thin dragons. Fae just looked humanoid with different wings and angels only got the humanoid with the same wings and lots of glow. Then again, as an angel she got to fly, so maybe it wasn't so bad.

The creatures slowly walked towards them. Their bodies moved in rapid and jagged motions, moving one leg at a time in a way that seemed as if their bones and muscles were moving independently of each other. She glanced at their faces and let out a soft, annoyed sigh. Their eyes were closed and they lacked any real sign of control. They were corpses. Flesh golems. “Everyone, careful! Focus fire on the demons! Those are flesh golems, even if we cut them up or damage them, they'll just stitch themselves back up! It'll be far faster just to kill their masters!”

The group charged forward, weaving around the slower golems. Fortunately, they were as slow as the experiments, so getting around them was easy. The problem came when they had to fight the other demons. Every time someone moved to strike the demons, they would position themselves to attack together while the golems came up behind and either forced the players to run, or get pincered. In their favor, the fae were able to consistently attack with their bows, but there were only two of them and she could see her group was quickly getting worn down, even with healing.

“Any ideas?” B4hamutt asked before he ran under the holy beast and cut across its belly with his axe. As they expected, the wound began to close.

“I have one, but it's dangerous!” she yelled before she charged forward to slash across one of the scientists, shattering his weapon and lopping of a hand. She continued slashing as fast as she could. “Guiding blade!” The blade seemed to come alive on its own, cutting through the demon lightning fast. Before she could lay the death blow, she was struck in the back by a sword. She let out a cry before taking to the air, though the giant attacking angel took off after her. “This is not part of the plan!” she shrieked before she brought her sword up to parry the angel's. She let out a shocked whine when the enemy angel's blade didn't shatter. In fact, the blow nearly knocked her sword out of her hands. “Oh, this is not fair!” She parried the attacks as best she could, but steadily found herself pushed back by the more powerful creature. Finally, a powerful blow knocked her back into the wall, eliciting a gasp of pain from her. The golem's blade hammered at her own, over and over while she struggled to keep her sword between her and the dangerous creature.

Asura let out another cry of pain when her sword was knocked aside and the golem's blade stabbed into her side. Fortunately, her armor reduced the force of the blow so her HP only went down a little bit, but the golem pulled the sword back to begin swinging again. She parried the blows as best she could with her right hand as her left hand brought up the menus. After a few seconds her wings disappeared, and she plummeted to the ground. She took a bit of damage, but was quickly able to begin recovery with a quick healing spell. She glanced up and was happy to see the golem was still confused as it couldn't understand how she disappeared so fast.

With the moments relief she charged forward at the demons and she made her sword grow to a great sword again. She brought her sword down on the nearest one. “Spiral blade!” Asura spun through them in a powerful spin. Three of them fell to the attack, her strike the final blow. With those ones dealt with only two remained. “Distractions! We need to distract the golems while- EEK!” She brought up the great sword when the angel golem came at her again. “I got this one! AHHH!” Asura once again brought her sword down to longsword size while she parried the blows. The monster was brutal as it cut at her again and again, each blow making her sword vibrate and make her hand ache.

Off to the side she could see B4hamutt dealing with the leviathan. Well, running while the leviathan tried to gobble him up, but it was a distraction. She let out a shriek when the golem struck her sword one more time, hitting so hard she was flung backwards. Right into one of the cages that had housed the things.

“Oh crap,” she said softly when she was backed against the wall. The cages had looked so much bigger when the monster didn't take up the entire exit by itself. The golem showed no mercy when it struck at her again and again. She used her greater heal spell over and over, but before long the thing finally knocked the sword from her grasp and her MP was almost gone. She dove so the blade shot overhead and grabbed her sword, stabbing straight up into the golem's stomach.

For a moment the golem stopped and she let out a sigh of relief. “I won! I did it! I killed a flesh golem! I am! Awesome!” She cheered. Then the air was driven out of her when the golem's leg shot down on her back. “NO! Stop! Get off!” she screamed when more blows came down. She closed her eyes as the pain shot through her back. It took her a few seconds to realize that one, she wasn't dead and two, the attacks had stopped. She slowly looked behind her and realized the golem had fallen on her back. Her comrades had killed the demons. She tried to pull herself out from under the creature, but soon realized something horrible. She was stuck. Completely. The creature was too heavy for her to move. “Get! Off!” She thrashed about in vain rage before letting out an annoyed sigh. She brought up the menu one more time and sent a message to B4hamutt.

Within a few minutes he was standing over her and being as annoying as possible. Poking her forehead, a smirk on his lips. “Stop it!”

The dragon smiled. “Nope.”

“Knock it off!”

“Not happening.” He poked her nose.

“I will break you!”

“Well maybe I'll just leave you under there all day then.”

“Get me out of here or I swear I will make you pay!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

“Fine fine, just need to take a few screen shots. I bet I could post these on our website. Asura's new weight training, timber, carrying dead weight, you know the caption makes the picture.”

“I am going to murder you. So many times,” she said with a low growl. “Mark my words, I WILL get you back for this.”

“Yeah yeah, sure you will. Here,” he said before he pushed the body and together they managed to get her out.

“How's the room? They find the demons?” she asked before she dusted herself off and checked to make sure her sword had returned.

“They are setting up the torches now, but nothing yet. We lost a few more and only have about five left, excluding us.”

“Wonderful.” She walked out and confirmed what he said. “Only the treasure room remains. Guess we'll have to be careful if we don't want to get overwhelmed by the guardian.”

“Screw the guardian. I say we just kill the bastards, break the altar and get out. Should be easy enough,” B4hamutt said before he walked to the last door. The group pushed it open to reveal the final room.

Inside were piles of silver, copper and jeweled pieces of armor. Rooms like this were commonly known as 'noob traps' because those who hadn't seen them before would run in and grab the loot immediately. They'd then be quickly slaughtered by the summoned guardian before the rest of the party could do anything, thereby losing all the treasure and equipment they had looted since they started if the party couldn't revive them. Fortunately, they knew better than to trigger it. Unfortunately, a single altar with a big red gem stood in the center of the pile.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Asura grumbled when she held her torch aloft. “Okay everyone, spread out and light the area up! Don't touch the money!”

They formed two teams, one with three and one with four, and began to circle around the treasure from opposite ends while spreading the torches. Suddenly, from out of the darkness three demons leaped out, one with a glaive and two with naginatas. Asura quickly drew her own sword and sliced through one of the naginatas while the other struck her in the chest, dealing damage and forcing her back. The glaive wielder went straight at B4hamutt, but he quickly sidestepped and grabbed the shaft, tugging the person in and punching him in the stomach. “We found them!” he yelled before they threw their torches down and revealed more of the demons.

“We know!” a yell came from the other side of the room. They had at least eight demons here, and they had no idea how many attacking the other side. Fortunately, they had two masters. B4hamutt swung into action and she followed suit, her blade slicing through their weapons as the dragon's axe exploded around them. Within a few seconds, the demons were backing away, many having to draw their back up weapons and try to poke from a distance, while being careful to avoid strikes from either of their blades.

The third man in their group, a fae, just stood there and watched with mild annoyance. He tried shooting arrows, but with the two in the midst of the enemies it was near impossible to get a clear target. After a few moments of just watching them fight he drew his bow back and started randomly shooting in their direction. Most of the arrows were knocked away or bounced off his allies, but a few managed to hit their enemies. Then one of them hit a demon and made him stumble over. Straight into the pile of money. The ensuing roar made everyone freeze and turn towards the center of the room.

It was a massive chimera, crafted by combining others into a single monster. It had the main body of a leviathan with scales that covered all of it, but the head. A head of a lion holy beast with metal coated teeth. On its back it had six pairs of wings, some which were angel and some which were fae. Instead of the leviathan's tail, it had a massive scorpion stinger, likely taken from a large demon like the ones they had fought before. Red stones coated its body with the same red lines connecting them. A flesh golem combined with one of those experiments. Without a controller. “Oh, this is going to suck,” Asura said with a groan.

The creature turned its back to them and charged straight at the nearest players, which fortunately seemed to be the other group. Asura backed away when she heard screams coming from the other fighters. “Damn it! We need to destroy the altar! Otherwise-- ah!” She blocked a stab with her wrist guard before she pulled away farther. Despite the summoning, it seemed the demon players didn't care. “B4hamutt! You hold them off, I'll get the altar!” She took off without waiting for his response, diving at the altar.

She stopped short when a fae appeared in front of her, using his fae-step ability. She nimbly moved to the left when the fae's sword tried to cleave through her. She brought her own sword down on it, cutting the fae's blade in half, before swiping at the man. He jumped back and grabbed a handful of coins. He tossed them at her face, so she merely sidestepped so they flew by. A moment later her back was carved into when two demon girls appeared behind her wielding their pole arms. She turned to strike them, but they disappeared back into the shadows. A moment later an arrow hit her in the back. “Damn it!” Asura slammed a hand down into the ground. “Flame field!”

Pillars of flame formed around her and spun a few times before shooting out into a flaming wave. The two demons reappeared when the flames connected and she quickly charged at them, slashing once and destroying the nearest one's weapon. She then jumped into the air before another arrow shot past her, striking one of the girls as well.

“Hit her, not me!” the demon shouted moments before Asura landed on her. She drove both feet into the demon's shoulders and brought her to the ground, pinning the enemy. Asura rose her sword high and then stabbed down into the girls chest three times before she disappeared into a small red gem. Two more arrows struck her in the back, the second one exploding into powerful gusts of wind that sent her hurtling upwards. She struggled to regain control when the winds tossed her about, finally stabilizing moments before the second demon lunged up and drove the glaive into her stomach, sending her hurtling down to the ground like a comet.

She hit the ground hard before the demon pointed a finger at her. “Drain!” A black beam of darkness shot out from the enemies finger and enveloped the angel. Her HP fell slowly as her body began to feel numb and unresponsive. She rolled to the right before the demon girl thrust the glaive blade down, narrowly avoiding the blow.

“Restoration!” Asura put a hand to her chest. The black energy disappeared from her body and her HP quickly went up, though she was still only about half full. The demon had melded with the shadows again while the fae had fae-stepped onto a pile of coins and began shooting more arrows at her.

She growled and charged straight at him, even though the arrows jammed into her chest. That was the best way to deal with a fae, after all. Their fae-step allowed them to teleport away quickly, but only for short distances and shooting the bow was a slow and difficult task for most. Even though her HP was plummeting, she made her way to him after a few seconds and jumped to the top of the pile, using her wings to enhance her jump, and cleaved his bow in two.

Asura was unable to stop her momentum and slammed straight into the man, sending both of them barreling down the edge of the little hill of money. She landed hard on her stomach and groaned before looking around. She saw the archer a few feet from her, laying on his back. She jumped up and grabbed her sword from the ground before charging straight at him. He brought his sword out before she got to him, but she easily cut it in two and slashed through him over and over. She only stopped when a massive scaled claw stomped the ground in front of her. She slowly looked up into the gaping, growling, slightly drooling maw of the chimera. Asura let out a soft squeak and ran. She heard the archer's final scream and then felt the ground rumble while the creature pursued her.

The creature was quickly gaining when she finally caught sight of the pillar. She charged forward, her sword lifted high as she prepared to chop it in half. The angel was brought short when a massive claw slammed down across her back, bringing her crashing to her stomach. She struggled to reach the pillar, chopping with her sword, but it was just a few inches out of reach. “Damn it! Get off!” Asura snapped before she swung her sword at the creatures leg, but was unable to get enough leverage or position it to do more than little shallow cuts across the scaled leg.

She twisted as best she could and stared up at the monster while it opened its mouth. “No no no!” she screamed before its head lunged straight at her. She closed her eyes and her hand thrust out. “Rapture!” she yelled before the spell erupted. She didn't feel the sudden pain of its jaws closing around her, so she slowly opened her eyes. She had grabbed the creatures lip when it had dove at her, just barely managing to get her spell off into it. But she'd done it. She got the creature. The others must have weakened it enough.

The creature's mouth snapped forward a moment later and clamped around her, eliminating the rest of her HP. It only hurt for a second, then she was inside a dark void surrounded by clear red walls. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?” She tried bringing up the menu options to send B4hamutt a message, but all she got was 'Error'. She froze when she realized what happened. She was inside a soul gem. She ran at the wall and began kicking and screaming. “Let me out! LET ME OUT!” She even tried cutting it with her sword, but it couldn't even nick the walls. “S-stop! Let me out of here!” She kept attacking the walls until she fell to her knees in exhaustion, gasping. There was still a way out. All she had to do was wait until it timed out. If no one took the gem then it would automatically break. Even faster if one of her friends grabbed it and broke it.

She began to calm down until she heard a girl's voice. “Hello, can you hear me?”

“Yes. Who is this?” she asked warily.

“Hee hee. You're the angel, aren't you? I can't believe my luck! I'm going to get such a large gold reward for this.”

“W-what? Hey! Let me out! Just you wait, the others are going to beat you and then--”

“No, they aren't. We've already won, you guys are all captured and added to our collection. I'm guessing you're the angel they wanted so bad, aren't you? Judging by your sword at least you--” She was cut off when Asura started screaming.

“LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT!” she screamed while redoubling her attacks on the wall. “We have your boss, if you don't release me you'll never get her out!”

“Eh. Don't care. Well, do a little, but we can just trade one of you for her. Maybe it'll be you. Either way, it's easy. Just sit back and relax, it'll all be done soon. Go play another game for a while.”

Asura froze while her eyes twitched. She'd done so much, worked so hard for this. She had trained for all of last year so she could participate. Not just leveling, but learning how to fight properly as a dragon. She was going to lose her chance, just like that? It wasn't fair. She screamed with fury and swung her sword over and over against the wall, letting all her frustration and rage out against it even while her arms throbbed.

She froze as warning messages suddenly flashed in front of her. Pain shot through her left arm before her entire body went limp. 'Emergency shutdown' flashed in front of her in large glowing red letters before she reappeared in her hospital room. A loud angry beeping could be heard from Asher's health monitors and the door burst open before a few nurses and doctors charged in. The pain in his arm was much worse now. He tried to focus on the medical staff when they injected something into his arm and were saying something to him, but he couldn't make it out. The headset was torn off his head and tossed aside before they started to wheel something into the room. Before he could make out what it was, whatever they injected into his arm kicked in and the world went dark one more time.