Chapter 261: Pre-game Jitters
> “We’re only one hour away from the start of the 29th Gladiator Arena Tournament of the Shattered World Online, hosted every in-game month. It lines up with the 3rd in-game year anniversary of the launch of the Shattered World Online.” A VGN Broadcaster with short brown hair wearing a business suit spoke to his live streaming camera. He had a badge pinned on the breast of his suit jacket with his name, ‘Thomas’, written on it.
He sat in a studio in a puffy yellow chair with large rounded armrests, adjacent to his co-caster. She had long beautiful blonde hair and wore an eye-catching blue dress that sparkled against her form. Her pinned badge named her ‘Jennifer’. Both were leaning forward, exchanging looks with each other and the camera and they spoke.
> “Yes of course, it being only the 29th due to the first three months of the games launch having these tournaments disabled.” Jennifer clarified.
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> “That’s right.” Thomas nodded at her. “But this tournament isn’t just going to be exciting because of the anniversary, no no no.” He shook his head playfully and smiled at the camera. “This tournament will feature some of the most powerful players known within the game world. And not just the ones who specialize in player versus player gameplay.”
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> “Exactly, Thomas. After the 26-time reigning champion Seraxus traveled to Kalmoore and threatened the island as well as his son, Makaroth challenged Seraxus to an official battle within the tournament, giving Seraxus a chance to claim Makaroth’s throne as the number one player. Seraxus accepted the challenge under the conditions that he’d leave Kalmoore unharmed, for the time being.” Jennifer explained excitedly.
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> “Yes, it’s going to be quite the showdown.” Thomas rubbed his hands together. “Makaroth, who revealed his son was the well known Harbinger of Light Aegis, stepped in to protect his son despite his son holding a deep grudge against his father for their past relationship. Truly a difficult step for Makaroth to take, but he’s not going to back down when it comes to protecting Aegis, no matter how spiteful he is towards his father.”
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> “I truly feel for Makaroth, this situation must be hard on him. But, he’s been training his best player versus player guild members for this tournament to take down Seraxus. Synopse, Makaroth’s right hand man, has stepped up and assembled a team of the Sages of Destiny’s greatest combat members. We have footage of them right now, live, as Synopse and his team check-in for the preliminaries.” Jennifer spoke while waving her hands to pull up a livestream feed of Makaroth’s broadcast.
The screen hovered behind the two on a floating, partially transparent screen. On it they could see a large crowd of players gathered in a line outside of a gigantic stone stadium. Some were in the line to get into the stadium, while others were crowding around Makaroth and Synopse’s 5-man team, begging them for autographs and cheering them on. Makaroth was nothing but waves and smiles to his fans, but Synopse and his group kept serious expressions on their faces as they focused on the task at hand.
> “Synopse certainly has what it takes to get through the preliminaries, but taking down Seraxus? I’m not sure.” Thomas spoke in a concerned tone.
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> “It’s hard to be sure.” Jennifer shrugged. “We’ve never seen high level, high geared PvE focused players enter the tournament to try and take him on. At the same time, there’s a reason Seraxus is the 26-time reigning champion of these tournaments. His team of PvPers are extremely skilled with almost perfect coordination. His weapon is the undisputed most powerful item known in all of the Shattered World, allowing him to kill anything it touches in a single hit. And then, finally, the man himself - Seraxus…”
As Jennifer continued to speak, the broadcast on the screen floating behind them switched over from Makaroth’s stream to Seraxus’. He was back in Puagas, heading to the gladiator arena with his companions. There was a stark contrast between his stream and Makaroth’s - there were no other players or NPCs around him and his party. The streets looked desolate around the gladiator arena, with the buildings lining the streets in shambles - some with clear scorch marks and others missing walls. The arena itself was cracked and missing portions of stone walls around the upper sections of it.
Seraxus was joking around with his party, laughing and smiling as they responded to messages appearing in his livestream chat from his audience.
> “He single handedly defined the current Battlemaster Meta that we are all experiencing today, showing everyone just how powerful that fighter intermediate class can be when put in the right hands.” Thomas explained.
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> “That’s right. Because of him you will rarely find a PvP team that doesn’t contain at least one Battlemaster, usually more.”
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> “Still, none can hold a candle to his gameplay with the class. Synopse has got his work cut out for him.” Thomas said to Jennifer, and she nodded back in agreement.
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> “Now as the reigning champion, he has the ability to forgo the preliminary matches and skip right to the finals. But as we all know, Seraxus always waives this right in favor of fighting more people in the preliminaries.” Jennifer explained.
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> “He claims to do it because he just loves to fight as many matches as possible, but many people speculate he opts to fight through the preliminaries to maximize the number of souls he’s able to consume with his Sword of Hatred.” Thomas smirked.
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> “I’m pretty sure that’s the real reason.” Jennifer laughed. “In addition, he also gets to decide which arena the finals will be hosted in. The past 26 tournaments have all been hosted in Puagas for this very reason, giving the island the nickname of ‘The PvP island’.”
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> “I’m curious to see if this time around he’ll decide to move the tournament to another island, given all the attention it's getting?” Thomas asked.
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> “It’s possible.” Jennifer shrugged. “Due to the efforts of several divine guilds, he was previously unable to leave Puagas. But recent events have shown us he’s got methods to do it now, so who knows what’ll happen.”
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> “Speaking of Divine guilds…” Thomas cleared his throat and waved his arms at the screen floating behind them, switching the stream away from Seraxus’ and over to another.
A tall man with short blonde hair wearing heavy silver plate armor could be seen lining up on his own island, preparing to sign up for the preliminary matches himself. He was surrounded by other plate-wearing players, all wielding different weapons. He himself, with [Mikael - Level 150] floating above his head.
The city around him was as lively as Makaroth’s, but not so much attention was being put on him. Instead, the focus was on other big streamers in line alongside him - their names were not visible but they could be heard speaking Spanish. Simultaneously, Mikael spoke German to his 4 companions with serious expressions on their faces.
> “Schadenfreude, not currently members of our VGN, is a guild filled with almost solely divine class players. They’ve devoted themselves to containing Seraxus and have vowed to put a stop to his reign of terror. It’s thanks to them that he hasn’t been able to leave Puagas up until recently.” Thomas explained.
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> “It’s a noble cause, but despite their hundreds of attempts to take him down, they’ve all failed repeatedly. I admire their perseverance. They’re led by Mikael, a crusader class player who worships multiple Shattered World gods, including Zues and Odin.”
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> “They’re regulars in our tournament broadcasts. They consistently make it out of the preliminary rounds, and have fought head to head against Seraxus multiple times, but always get defeated in a clean sweep in the best of 5 series.”
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> You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
>
> “And behind Mikael we can see several of the largest Spanish streamers preparing to sign up for their preliminary matches. Included amongst them is the top 10 streamer, Mateo the Bloodletter - the advanced assassin class.”
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> “Unfortunately, due to our arrangements with the Spanish broadcasting company, we aren’t able to show his matches from his point of view, though.” Thomas apologized.
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> “What we can do, though…” Jennifer smiled and motioned to the screen again as she fidgeted with her wrist implant to change the broadcast once more, “is show you Feng, and his guild the vindicators.” She followed this with a dramatic pause as Feng’s livestream came up on the screen behind her. Feng was surrounded by hundreds of players wearing the matching red Vindicator tabard. He stood out due to the shiny, glowing nature of his powerful enchanted armor and the large sleek katana sheathed on his waist.
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> “Unlike Makaroth, Feng will be participating in the tournament personally, alongside 2 other fully geared, skilled PvP teams.”
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> “That’s right, that means 3 separate teams will be entering the preliminary matches on behalf of the vindicators guild. That all but guarantees we’ll see at least one of them making it to the finals.” Jennifer nodded.
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> “We hope.” Thomas looked at her with a concerned expression. “They’re not the only ones signing up. We’ve gotten reports that there are a record number of teams applying to participate in this tournament. Some just eager to meet their favorite streamers, others hoping to make a name for themselves with so many eyes on the matches.”
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> “Each team who participates in the preliminary rounds will be forced to play 5 random matches against any of the other teams that have registered for the preliminary rounds. If you win a round, you’ll be put up against another team who won their first round, and so on and so fourth, until you’ve played all 5 matches. Who they get matched up against in the preliminaries is completely random.”
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> “In previous tournaments, generally any team that managed to win 4 out of their 5 matches were able to get into the finals. However, given the amount of signups, it seems that only the teams who are able to win all 5 of their preliminary matches will get a chance to see the finals.”
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> “I feel bad for anyone that ends up against Seraxus, then.” Jennifer chuckled, to which Thomas joined in.
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> “Either way, we’ll be keeping track of our biggest combatants and give you live updates for the outcomes of everyone's preliminary matches which will be starting shortly. Be sure to stay tuned, grab your popcorn, and get ready for the biggest showdowns in Shattered World history. We’ll be back right after this commercial break.” Thomas spoke, and following his words, the news broadcast began playing an advertisement for a special Sim suit.
“So, that’s what we’re up against. They’re not even mentioning Aegis.” Tommy sighed as he stood in the middle of the Fanta-See Network studio’s main room, where multiple screens were on the wall in front of him. Some large, some small, and at the base of them were desks with keyboards on which multiple new interns were furiously typing away at work.
Standing beside Tommy was Hae-won in her typical sweatpants and baggy t-shirt attire, and Shinji in his business suit. The three had been watching the broadcast together while simultaneously eating bagels in one hand and sipping tea and coffee from a fast food restaurant’s paper cup in their other hands.
“The other networks are avoiding his name as well, as much as they can. Mostly.” Shinji pointed out as he motioned to several other news broadcasts that were playing on the other monitors with no audio.
“Makaroth must still think he can stop Aegis from participating. Maybe he’s hoping he’ll drop out of the preliminaries?” Tommy suggested.
“Nah,” Hae-won replied, her voice somewhat muffled by the food in her mouth that she was eating. “Prolly somethin’ more sinister.”
“Well, either way, if he’s gonna make a splash in this VGN controlled world, he’s gonna need a good hype-man.” Tommy turned to her.
“Hype-woman.” She corrected him with a look. “Don’t worry, he’s got the best of the best. If he gets through the prelims, I’ll go there in person and make sure they can’t ignore him.” A devious grin grew on her face.
“Great.” Tommy nodded approvingly at her. “You, just keep doing what you are doing.” He said while turning to Shinji. “The amount of poaching officers I’ve been getting for your editing skills is getting ridiculous.”
“Ah, well…” Shinji smiled and awkwardly scratched his head.
“What’s Aegis doing now?” Tommy asked as he began fidgeting with his wrist implant to answer his own question. A second later, Aegis’ livestream was pulled up on the main monitor where Hae-won’s substitute, Alicia, could be seen casting in front of his footage. Aegis was standing with his companions in line in front of the Odin Arena within Kordas. There was a line of players surrounding him on either side, filled with high and low levels alike. They were not crowding around Aegis, but instead clearing a path for him and his party to approach the arena.
“Looks like Kalmoore’s showing him some serious respect.” Tommy commented.
“They oughta, he put ‘em on the map.” Hae-won shrugged. “I’m done eating’, lunch break is over.” She said while shoving the rest of her bagel in her mouth.
“Me too.”
“Good. Get to work. Let’s show these VGN bastards who they’re messing with.” Tommy cheered at his co-workers enthusiastically as they both headed back to their offices to climb into their Simboxes. “That goes for all of us.” Tommy shouted to the other interns in the room. “This is our big chance to show the world who the Fanta-See network really is. Let’s not waste it.”
“Yes sir!” The workers replied in near unison.
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Aegis was taken aback by the scene unfolding before him. He walked in front of Pyri, Rakkan, Darkshot and Lina towards the gladiator arena, glancing at the rows of bowing players that flanked the streets on either side. It’d been like this since the moment they had stepped out of the portal to Kordas and arrived on the altar within the city's walls.
[Aegis - Level 155] stood above his head. He and the others had managed to get three more levels after grinding the Manticore’s the entire day, gaining a small boost in all of their skill levels.
It wasn’t until Aegis got near the stadium that he spotted someone standing in his path - Quinn had her hands on her hip and a big smile on her face as he approached.
“What’s with all this?” Aegis asked her as he motioned the players around him.
“Everyone’s here to cheer you on and show you respect. You’re the champion of Kalmoore. It’s thanks to you that this island survived and become so prosperous.” She motioned to the city around them in a general manner. “If you do well in this tournament, you’ll bring even more fame and attention to yourself, and in-turn, us.”
“Thank you, Aegis, sir.” A young human player, level 30, suddenly spoke up from the bowing crowd. “My business in the real world hasn’t been doing well, but my shop in Kordas has been making enough money for my family to survive ever since you’ve been streaming. If you hadn’t…” The man choked up with tears. Several others began to speak up around them giving similar sentiments, overwhelming Aegis for a moment as he heard their stories. It wasn’t until he looked at his companions and saw their expressions that he snapped back to reality, though.
Pyri, Darkshot and Lina all had looks that expressed their wonder and joy at all the good they had done for the people of Kalmoore. Rakkan, on the other hand, had an anxious look on his face - his eyes were locked onto the arena waiting ahead of them.
“I’m glad we’ve been able to help everyone, but I want to make it clear.” Aegis spoke loudly, clearing his throat as everyone else quickly quieted down to listen to him. “We’re not entering this tournament to gain fame, wealth, or anything like that. We’ve got one goal, and one goal only.” Aegis paused to lock eyes with Rakkan. “We’re putting a stop to Seraxus.” Aegis spoke with determination. Rakkan gave him a nod back after a brief pause.
“Well, whatever happens just know that this island and all of the people on it have your back.” Quinn smiled. “Now, before I can let you check in… I’ve got something to give you. If you two wouldn’t mind doing the honors?” Quinn said while looking beyond the rows of people lining the streets. From behind them, Aegis and the others watched as two familiar faces emerged.
“It wasn’t easy, I’ll tell yeh that much.” Tullan said with an exhausted look on his face, bags under his eyes.
“We made sure it was as strong as it possibly could be, though. And suit your needs, like you requested.” Yuki said while walking beside Tullan, looking equally exhausted. Despite this, they both looked eager as they approached Aegis from the crowds, moving to stand beside Quinn.
“You’ve finished it?” Aegis asked excitedly, as the others' eyes opened wide.
“Aye, that we did. A mithral shield infused with the essence of indestructible light.”
“Woven with powerful dragon scales, voidsilk, and hydra leather.”
“Fully enchanted with Trexon’s most powerful enchantments, as well.” Quinn commented with a nod.
“A shield that can stand up to the sword of hatred. The most powerful defensive tool in the entirety of the Shattered World Online.” Tullan said excitedly as he made a gesture to Yuki, and she began to fidget with her interface, preparing to pull it out of her interface.
The eyes of everyone nearby locked onto Yuki, waiting eagerly for the shield to be revealed.