BANG

In a single strike, my blade exploded through a solid buckler shield, sending a distinctly familiar avatar skidding to the floor.

“Jesus Christ man! I was just bringing my guild over!”

Flying back a few steps, I eyed up the now crowd of… ten, missing a few… up on this mountain with me, a golden light evident of the support class surrounding them. Each and every one of them staring at me with an uneasy glare, hands on the hilts of their weapons and staves at the ready. Makes sense, after all, how many times have I annihilated this entire group of players now? I mean kinda pointless if none of them have any solid amount of experience, but good effort. Still not sure if he’s allied with anybody else though…

“Meh, you don’t take chances when one death means you lose everything.” I shrug noncommittally, still not sheathing my weapons. “So, you got your friends on the game? I mean, good for them, it’s pretty fire.”

Offering a hand to his guildmate, Onesy explained his actions. “I thought it’d be easier to find you that way. This map is pretty big for only a few hundred players.”

“I like it, skirmishes don’t turn into massive wars. And it takes a moment for anybody who dies to make their way back to where they were killed.”

“Jeeze… did’ja have to hit me that hard?” The guy who I smashed to the floor a moment ago stood up shakily, trying to work out the tension in his arm. “I’ve got my pain settings set to ten percent man, and that shit still stings.”

“Oh, my bad.” I say with some amount of genuinity. Buuuuuuuuut… “If you care about it that much though, just set your settings down dingus.” I wave at him haphazardly as I eye the amount of time I’m still in combat for. Eight seconds. “Well, I think I’ve had my fun down here for now. I got a pretty crazy haul experience wise, so it’s about time for me to head out. I’ll hear you guys out back in the lobby.”

Out of curiosity, an archer in the back asked me; “how much?”

“Mmm, about fourteen thousand?”

“What the hell?” He uttered, flabbergasted. “Who did you kill?”

“Like… five guys?” I shrug as I flick open my menu.

Onesy stared at me wide eyed. “We were only getting like fifty experience a kill at most. Who the heck did you stab?”

“Mmmmm… I dunno, they were randoms. Just a group of somewhat competent players.”

Alert!

HIGH BOUNTY TARGET: ARCANE EYES, CASSLOCK, HAS ARRIVED ON THE FIELD! (#25)

Oh, it would seem a friend got my dm.

“Right! Change of plans!”

“Change of plans?”

“See, I’ve got a friend to meet up with. I’ll be down here for a little bit longer still. You guys have fun though, just don’t get too close to the center.”

“...What’s that supposed to mean?” A swordsman in the guild tilted his head at me.

“Hell d’ya think it means? There’s gonna be carnage, that's what it means. Stay out of the way unless you want to get obliterated.”

“Like, the entire middle?” Onesy asked, but I really couldn’t be bothered to answer anymore.

“Don’t worry about it! Just steer clear of the explosions! Seeya!” And with a wave, I took off running. Fall damage was a thing, but I was pretty well adapted to deal with it.

Soaring into the open air, I sheathed one of my blades and two-handed the other. I don’t really do this tech often, but it’s been officially ruled as NOT bug abuse on the dev forum. So, I’m going to abuse this one to make as flashy an entrance as possible.

[Power stance].

The earth zooms past me as I keep soaring through the air at an unbelievable speed. A lesser man would get motion sick, but I’m no lesser man. I’m, THE GOAT! The wetlands I came from gradually dissipate as I grow closer and closer to the world tree. I can already spot the elemental chaos happening under its trunk, over at the spawn point. A woman to rival my own dramatic flair she is. So I’ve gotta get there before she can completely upstage my entrance two hours ago.

The ground rapidly approaches, and as my grip tightens my grin only gets wider.

Three seconds until impact! I can hear the roaring of combat now, and I simply can’t wait to get in on the action.

Two…

One.

[Cleave]!

My sword flashes against the earth, crashing into and cracking it open. The wide slash gouging out the dirt beneath me, sending splinters through the ground that heal moments later.

Under normal circumstances, I’d shatter my legs and take like half my health instantly from this fall, but not this time, and not ever. Knockback functioned relatively simply in UB. The more damage an attack dealt, the further it would knock back the target. But, this was only really noticeable if an attack didn’t immediately kill, and it already dealt enough damage to count for an achievement.

(For the record, I already 100%ed this game, I just enjoy it. Yes, that includes hitting #1 on the leaderboard. Frankly not all that difficult, just rushed it on early reset, but definitely difficult to hold onto.)

Said achievement being about… one thousand damage in one hit. For the second record, my max health is about five thousand one hundred twenty two, and I’m not exactly a tank. My attack just now, well… it’d probably one shot me if redirected. [Cleave] is warrior’s highest single target damage skill. Dealing your strength multiplied by five at base, and in my case with the skill being level twenty eight, about forty. And [Power Stance] multiplied the damage of your next attack by two, but for me with a level twenty version of it, by ten. So, I hit, REALLY, god damn hard. And that’s not even counting [Combo] stacks if I manage to get that up and running beforehand.

So, short to say, my little pointy stick just Tsar Bombed mother nature. For a grand total of, I don’t know, eighty thousand something damage? Of course, you can’t actually destroy the map, but the visual damage that shows up on it is pretty satisfying.

Now, this long winded explanation is all to explain, this; if knockback can’t knock something back, but the game still generates the force, where does that knockback go?

Well, straight to the individual who produced it to begin with. There’s a reason this “tech” isn’t really considered bug abuse. Because the only people who can do it in the first place are leaderboard players and those close to it. And at that point, you kind of deserve every busted ability you can get your hands on with how much you stand to lose from dying. So, what did I do? A fall damage cancel of course!

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The knockback generated from my skill pushed me back far enough to counteract the momentum from falling for… I don’t know how long, a minute straight? Straight from the tallest point of the map to the lowest was a pretty long fall… It pushed me back far enough to counter THAT. So, by a lot.

Touching down on the earth from a few feet up a moment later, I leisurely stroll on ahead as I unsheathed my other sword. Apparently, my little stunt caught a little attention, given the cacophony of combat slowed down for a moment after the earth almost shattered above everyone’s heads.

“Ahem!” I call out as I rap a fist against my chest. “Oh Cassy I’m hoooooome!”

…

Only the occasional chant and clash of blades continued to ring out. Everybody who had their attention on me simply went silent.

What, tough crowd?

“Khm…hmhmhm…”

Ayeeeee, there we go!

“Ahem… Get down here already you dumbass! I’m getting swarmed out here!” My friend called out as another blast of raw magic wiped out another individual.

“Yeah, yeah! You’re a mage idiot, next time you wanna drop in the dead center of the map, maybe tell me! Are you trying to get your character wiped!?”

“Oh come on, nobody else important is on!”

There’s a few cries of disdain as I “make my way” (+52 exp) through the crowd and to my buddies' side, grinning even more wickedly when a notification pops up.

Party invite from: Arcane Eyes, Casslock.

Accept?

Y/N

Yes, obviously.

“‘The Fury’? Yikes Koth, you got a pretty shitty title huh?”

“Hey, speak for yourself! I like it!”

Finally within range of my teammates spell casting, I can’t help but burst out laughing as an extra 272k hp tops off my health bar. [Arcane Barrier] is, so, bullshit.

“Come on! Let’s put on a show!”

The crowds practically quiver when we start unleashing skill after skill upon the collective. Basically? We’re the god meta of the current season. There’s almost nothing you can do to deal with a glass cannon [Arcane Barrier]ed warrior. It’s like, genuinely almost comical how insane this combo is. Even without leaderboard player stats, it’s still insane. Hell I almost got wiped by it once or twice when I got caught out on my own against the combo.

Most definitely going to get nerfed next reset, but hey I’m abusing this for all it’s worth while I can. I don’t even need to worry about defense! I can just rip, and tear, through the entire horde. All I need to do is keep Casslock safe, which, frankly, I barely even need to do that, everybody here is small fry.

And speaking of those small fry, this is the literal perfect scenario for me to build up [Combo] stacks. This skill actually becomes so ridiculous with leaderboard levels of experience, it’s really not even funny. I’ve probably put a third of my total experience into this ability alone, but it’s honestly worth it. The scaling for it is BONKERS.

One hit becomes two hits, and two hundred damage becomes four hundred damage. four hundred damage becomes eight hundred damage, in just three hits. One [Cleave] later, and suddenly the entire world is in flames. Even without power stance, it’s still dealing almost eighty thousand damage with just four stacks of [Combo]. This broken ass skill is just… I don’t even have the words. I just killed four people at the same time with one hit.

It almost feels criminal.

Almost.

[Power Stance]!

—

Alert!

HIGH BOUNTY TARGET: RITHER, HAS ARRIVED ON THE FIELD! (#58)

“Oh my GOD!” I can’t help but call out. That’s just overkill! No leaderboard players are even gonna show up to fight us at this point! Unlike Cass, Rither is an entirely DPS focused mage. But with Cassy’s Arcane Barrier, it doesn’t even matter. He’s definitely the most vulnerable of us three though, so he doesn’t really have the ability to farm on his own time. He’s still ranked anyways, so it doesn’t matter too much.

“Heeeeeey, you’re late to the party, man!”

“You know I was at work dude! How many people are we fighting right now?!”

RIther has joined the party!

“Literally everybody! No ranked players though, go crazy!”

“Yooooo, sounds like free experience!”

The earth rumbles for a moment, and in the next, dozens of players vanish, skewered on [Pikes Of The Land].

+11 exp!

+254 exp!

+55 exp!

+44 exp!

+62 exp!

+333 exp!

+2 exp!

+21 exp!

+36 exp!

+83 exp!

Oh, also, experience share is a pretty solid reason too. If he got full credit for all of his kills while in the party, he’d probably have pulled ahead of us both by now.

Oh well! We’ll just have to make up for it with enough kills to get us ALL titles.