Why isn’t this guy dying, its health bar is definitely empty, but no matter what we do it, it won’t effing die! This was crazy, and frankly, I couldn’t believe I was able to do all this, was I being affected by the job ability, ‘Aura of Courage’? Eff it, think about that later!

I ‘Superman’ leapt for the cavern wall, just managing to wiggle my body around and land with my feet. Staring across at the creature, I put everything I had in and exploded off the rockface and went careening sword first for the obsidian humanoid’s massive head. Its eyes caught me, but not quick enough, my sword and me collided into the creature’s neck with a thundering crash, as if a thousand earthen pots smashed at the same time. Then, everything was spinning, the world, me, and all my stomach contents, before there was a loud crash, and the wind was knocked completely out of me.

Got… to… stop… doing… that… I lifted myself of the cavern floor, whilst my regenerative job abilities restored my health bar. The God of the Elements had taken a knee, and grasped its neck, lava flowing from its wound.

Ace: “Yes, it’s working, good job Mark. Everyone go for the neck!”

One, by one, we jumped and hacked at the creature’s neck, replacing weapons as we needed. “Mighty Strike!” Rubella, one of Jonas’ colleagues shouted out. Their character glowed with a warm golden light, before they brought down their oversized Warhammer on the creature’s head. ‘BHOOOM!’ the whole cavern shook, before another smaller aftershock resounded, it’s head hitting the cavern floor.

“Is it dead?” Asura, a cat girl ninja asked.

Elemental, God of the Elements, has been slain,

You have gained 24,587 EXP.

“Yeah, hah, I think, hah, it’s dead…” I said between breaths. The fight was so intense and real, I hadn’t been keeping stock of the party bar, six out of twenty of us had been zeroed out, one of them was… “Oh shit, Jonas!” Quickly, I highlighted his status bar, and followed the brighter dot on my mini map.

I tread slowly over to Jonas’ avatar ‘Ace’, it had its head pulverised into a mess of red biological confetti. Damn, it’s ok, it has to be, I mean it’s just his avatar. It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream! I kept telling myself. What was I doing pretending I could survive in this world? I was just a nerd who skipped school just so I could play games with my friends. I even secretly hoped to get a girlfriend, but without a clue of how to go about it. No! This is an effing game, we’ll fight and win and find a way to logout, or I bet if you die, you can just logout, yes that’s got to be it, it’s just gotta be.

A wave of energy hit us, sending shivers down my spine. We all looked over at the hovering teardrop kraken thing, it only had two streamer limbs left.

“They’ve been aiming for the arms,” Aurasplash said.

“Where is its head? Or heart for that matter?” I mumbled.

Gigawatts, a dark wolfman Assassin, stepped up, his eyes glowing red as he studied the monster, “Its weak stop is in the centre of its body, a core, if we destroy that… I think it will die.”

“Umm, how the hell did you figure that out?” I asked. “Perceive Weakness, it’s one of my traits,” he said rubbing his eyes. “Okay, that’s good news, but how do we even achieve that?” the words met with silence.

“I might have an idea, but it’s completely insane, and it might not work…” I smiled awkwardly, “Is anyone else here a Paladin, we’re going to need two?” I asked.

“No, you got Ibanez killed,” Aurasplash said gritting his teeth. Shiit, there goes that plan… wait a second, that guy.

Over on the other half of the cavern space where the Ice god hovered, were the last handful of players hacking and slashing randomly at the creature, the shiny white armoured human stood centre stage, deflecting the deathly streamers with his shield.

“I can make this work…” I said rubbing my thinking chin.

  

“Oiii! Paladin dude!” I screamed with my tiny voice.

“Here, let me try,” said Osmolarity, our temporary party’s half-giant, “AAAY! TINY TIN MAN!” The Paladin look over to us, his shield clanged against another streamer, he turned at a hooded bowman, “I need some time! Kite it!”

I wonder what level this guy is?

Midgar. Paladin 92. Vanquisher of the Seven Hells.

Vanquisher of the Seven Hells? That’s like one of the hardest Paladin solo quests…

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He walked over to us, chest puffed out, his step heavy and swung his longsword and shield with force, “don’t think I didn’t see you all, hiding in the shadows, while the rest of us fought and died!” he pushed the huge Osmolarity, knocking him to the ground.

“Hey-hey-hey!" I stood in his way. "We’re not really fighters in real life, we’re just ordinary people, you can’t expect us to just suddenly take up arms and fight massive freakin Kaijus! Ok?!” I yammered at him, "and, anyway, we are helping, it just took a little bit to find the courage, 'Aura of Courage' helps," I smiled.

“Yeah, after we all tore its health down! You’re all like rats feeding off our dying bodies!”

I just threw my hand up in his face, or at least tried to, “Shut up for a second. Look we’re sorry, we should have come out sooner, but we’re here now, and I may know how to kill that thing.”

“Really?” he spat.

“We’re going to need your two-hour ability…” I replied with a smirk.

His helmet disappeared from his head, “Alright, I’m listening.”

“Firstly, we’re going to need to weaken, or rather, crack it open at opposing junctures,” I said, looking in my mind’s eye.

“Where?” a couple of characters questioned.

“The very top and very bottom of the creature,” I specified, “basically, we have to crack it like an egg. Lindart, you’ll go at it from the top, because you’re the only one with ‘Mighty Strike’ left, and I’ll support you because I have defence job abilities, the rest of you will hack and slash the arse of the creature,” I elaborated.

“I don’t see how this accomplishes anything? And what would even be my role?” Midgar asked scratching his head.

“This is the crazy part…” I started, hand clasped with index fingers outstretched pointing up, my thinking plan pose…

  

A man with a huge hammer over his shoulder and I looked down from atop the cradle of the Time God, clangs, bashes, and cracking came from below.

Slyphet: “Ok the bottom is cracked open!”

ZoohMyGod: “Great, everyone, abilities up!”

Luke1981 used [Long-Range],

Midgar has gained [Long-Range],

Midgar used [Cover],

Lindart is protected by [Cover],

ZoohMyGod used [Magiwall],

ZoohMyGod is protected by [Magiwall],

Lindart is protected by [Magiwall]

…

The Ice God’s humongous body glowed bright blue and silvery.

Midgar: “It’s using it’s gravity spell! Someone stun it!”

ZoohMyGod: “Osmolarity!”

Osmolarity: “Yeooh!”

A tiny speck from below made a far-off booming sound and a little dust ring exploded out from the speck, it was seconds before we could make him out, the huge half-giant, flying upwards. Osmolarity used the momentum to swing his oversized battleaxe from behind and brought it down sharply at the Time God’s upper torso, “Axe Smash!”, he roared. A million diamond shards broke off and sparkled in the air, and the glow subsided.

Lindart: “That was a close one.”

ZoohMyGod: “Concentrate Lindart, it’s time to crack the top of the egg open!”

Lindart: “Don’t you worry your furry little face.”

Midgar: “Alright, I’m activating ‘Invincible’!”

“Mighty Strike!” Lindart shouted out, and his arms began to steam and his axe glowed red. He swung his axe like it was made of plastic, smashing the Time God in middle of the cradle, caving it in, and a super shockwave burst out. My heart stopped for a second, the shockwave hit, my face rippled like a Gatling gun and I was blown off the top of the creature, “shiiiiiit!”.

My fur fluttered in the air, as the whole giant Time God came into view. Its last two long thin streamer blades were swiping the main party below.

ZoohMyGod: “Lindart!!! You don’t have aggro! Go nuts!”

“Decimation!” he roared with a thunderous smash.

Midgar: “What’s going on up there? I’ve only got 16 seconds left!”

“Heaven Splitter!” Lindart screamed, and a bright white wall of light cut forward and across the Time God’s head, sending fissures in all directions.

The world came up from behind me, and I blacked out for a second. Huh what happened?! Oww!

Slowly, I got up nursing my head, though everything that hurt quickly regenerated. Over on my left, I noticed something glowing hot red. Heavenly Greatsword of Destiny Splitting, somehow, I was reunited with my sword by some weird twist of fate.

Midgar: “5 seconds!!!”

“No-no-no-no-no!” I Superman bounded back for the head of the Time God, the tentacle blades shifted their position and whipped from below to the top. A bright white glowing knight at the creature’s distal apex, shot up and into the Time God, like a weird personal colonoscopy inspection.

Midgar: “Its working!!!”

The armour on my back cackled in the wind, the glowing white knight appeared at the boss’s cradle, before the protective light faded from him.

He made it there just before the two tentacle blades rained down on him and Lindart, but something was wrong. An ice blade went straight for his head, he used a two-handed grip on his sword and deflected a sheet, but the other caught him on the arm and cut through his armour like pudding, and blood coloured the frosty blue creature’s cap. Without the Paladin’s shield the two of them were sliced to pieces, and I was headed right for it.

ZoohMyGod: “Guys draw its aggro!!!”

“Ignis Barrier” a protective orb of fire enveloped me, and the long sheet like ice limbs shot at me. I pointed my sword forth, gripping it tightly, well this was fun… Everything went dark, the wind ripples in my cheeks slowed, and when I opened my eyes I was still above the Ice God.

Osmolarity: “Whatever you plan to do, do it quick!”

‘Aura of Courage’ has worn off,

You are no longer under the effects of ‘Aura of Courage’.

“Oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god!!!” falling flat to the Time God’s cradle, “I-I, c-can’t do t-this…” the words mumbled out of my mouth.

Come on stupid, it’s just a game, get your arse up and finish this!

“E-everybody is dead, I’m dead, I’m going to fall to my death!” my teeth chattered together like a tap-dancer.

Ninian: “Help! Help! It’s killing us!”

Arm over arm, one pathetic crawl at a time.

The hole from head to arse Midgar made, was easily double my width.

Pinching my cheeks wasn’t helping. “I can’t do this, I can’t, what if a fall through and miss the core, what if…”

My inner monologue was right, I had to do something, anything…

The hairs on my neck stood up and I felt the familiar breeze of the blade sheets blow by, it was all I could do to glance back, they had shot high into the abysmal dark ceiling and turned to relieve me of my fear and shame.

Closing my eyes, I shuffled away, knowing that would do little good.