Chapter 49: The Day Everything Changed Forever

“Are you sure?” Prila asked, surprised by the sadness, desperation, and even remorse in her own voice as well as the creeping feeling of dread in her belly. “We can’t do anything to help him? Not even a warning?”

Her coworkers at the OMP pretended to be busy attending to various tasks, but she could see the way that they were all sneaking hopeful glances over in her direction; she knew that they, too, did not feel comfortable sitting back and doing nothing. Especially not in a situation as serious as this.

“I’m sorry,” Adamus replied in a whisper from where he stood to the right of her swivel chair. His expression was blank: unreadable. Yet Prila knew he was not nearly as insensitive as he might have appeared. “It can’t be done, my child. Not this time. I cannot condone any more interference. Events must be allowed to run their natural course. We have already interfered once on his behalf, and going forward, fairness must be maintained.”

Fairness?

Prila shook her head as she looked at the data on her screen. “I no longer see how any of this is fair. Not in the times we live in. Surely you must realize that? The world has changed, Adamus.”

The fact that she now felt so comfortable openly challenging him and addressing him by his name was a testament to how seriously he’d meant it when asking her not to fear him, as no matter how forcibly she pushed back on his views, he never so much as raised his voice or showed the slightest hint of anger or disappointment. In fact, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to say that, over the past few days, Prila had come to view Adamus as something of a friend, which was quite extraordinary considering that, until recently, she had believed him to be an actual God! And from the way he specifically chose to engage in these sorts of conversations with her, she was beginning to think he felt the same towards her as well.

She knew he wanted her to speak her mind without holding back, and so with unrestrained defiance in her voice, she said, “He has no idea what’s coming his way. None of them do! Don’t you care what will happen if we do nothing?”

“Of course I care,” he said. “But I can compromise on my values no further.”

Prila couldn’t believe she was so ardently pleading with Adamus to intervene. Clearly, she’d gotten emotionally attached. Something like this hadn’t happened to her in a good long while. After watching Zachys battle Moldark and overcome impossible odds, she found herself unable to stomach the idea of witnessing his demise—not when she’d seen his spirit. Not when she’d seen him fight so hard to survive. A sense of wrongness came over her at the thought of it all being for nothing.

“If he could just be allowed to know…”

“It would be unfair to everyone else,” Adamus whispered. “The system demands we do not intervene. I have already violated my principles once for him. I cannot do it again.”

Prila had sworn to defend, maintain, and uphold the system at all costs. She had believed in it with every fiber of her being. Yet something within her had changed. Up until this point, she had believed it a breach of morality of the highest order to interfere with the principle of fairness. Yet, after seeing Adamus, one of the Great Ones, personally alter quest rewards and the party experience system to give Zachys a fighting chance at survival in the Catacombs of Yorna, Prila had begun to question everything she thought she knew about what was right and wrong. For the first time in decades, she no longer felt desensitized—she no longer felt so numb to the plight of those she viewed through her screen from the safety of their orbital station.

Part of what had originally given her such strength in her convictions had been the belief that Adamus was a literal God, and that, through his Godly wisdom, he had dispensed the correct and true path for Galterra via the system. Now, however, she had come to believe him when he claimed not to be a God after all: just a very, very powerful half-elf. This, naturally, led to a dilemma for Prila, because if the system was not the invention of a God but of a mortal, then how could she be absolutely certain that it was correct and just? What if the system was not a force for good after all?

What if, instead, it was exactly the opposite?

****

As the cherry-haired woman with the skimpy red shorts approached the booth where Zach, Rian, and Lienne sat together in the mostly empty pub, it was impossible not to notice the shaking of the serving tray in her arms. Calmly and slowly, Zach half got up and actually tried to assist her in setting down their drinks, but the woman remained adamant that all was fine and she be allowed to do her job. With a hesitant nod, he once more sat back down and tried to smile as reassuringly as possible, yet he doubted that it would do any good. She was likely going to be terrified of them no matter what he said or did.

“H-here y-you are,” she said, spilling a drop of soda as she placed the glass down in front of Zach. Luckily, it was only a small amount, and most of it was absorbed by the napkin she’d set it upon.

“Thank you,” Lienne said. Shortly after, Zach and Rian also said their thanks.

“You’re most welcome,” the woman breathed, her lips trembling and her eyes constantly flicking towards the pub’s entrance across from them at the other end of the establishment.

Sadly, her fearful reaction seemed all too common in this town. Ever since the three of them had come strutting into the Den of Ziragoth about a half hour ago, every eye from every local had been trained solely on them whenever they passed by. Many of the townspeople would whisper to one another and point, and many others would go white with terror. A few people had even frantically begun typing something into their cellphones upon spotting the three of them. But…honestly? Zach really should’ve expected this kind of reception. In hindsight, it should’ve been pretty obvious that something like this would happen.

With the three of them visibly bearing weapons and wearing equipment, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were not normal, ordinary level 1s like everyone else around here—or in most of the world, for that matter. If Zach had to take a guess, he’d bet that the people of this town suspected them of being members of a political guild who were here to shake them down, abuse them, or to enact some other nefarious sort of plot. It was a shame, too, because Zach was genuinely trying to do everything he could to appear as non-threatening and harmless as possible.

“I promise I’m not here to hurt you,” he told the woman when she’d returned a moment later; her hands jittered as she set down three menus onto the table. “None of us are. Truly.”

“O-of course, s-sir,” she stammered.

Zach sighed. “I know you’re scared, but the thing is that we’re not actually whatever or whoever it is you think we are. Actually, we’re more like part of something that’s—”

His words cut off as a sharp pain erupted in his shin. He turned his head and glared at Rian, who sat next to Lienne across from him on the brown leather seat at their booth towards the back of the old-looking, simple, but pleasant enough pub called “The Singing Rooster.”

Fixing his friend with an angry glare, he waited for the woman to be out of earshot, and then he vented on Rian. “Why’d you kick me in my shin, asshole?” he hissed. “That hurt like hell.”

“Because,” Rian whispered to him while keeping his eyes on the woman, “you’re saying too much.”

“Too much?”

He nodded. “You almost said something about the adventuring guilds. You have to keep things like that a secret.”

“Why?”

“You just do, okay?”

“And I’m supposed to just know I can’t say that?”

“Well…no, but…now you know, I guess.”

His shin still stinging, Zach made an angry laugh. “Oh, okay. Hey, Rian, while we’re at it, why don’t you make me a list of things I’m not allowed to say so I come prepared next time.”

“Yeah, okay,” Rian muttered at him. “Maybe I will…dick.”

“You’re the dick,” Zach grumbled.

“You’re both dicks,” Lienne said, sounding annoyed. “Guys, drop it—enough. Also, Zach, you’re not going to convince these people that we’re harmless no matter how much you try. I think we might as well just accept the fact that they fear us. It doesn’t matter what we say at this point.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Actually, we all need to start carrying around a change of clothing so we can go places without scaring the shit out of people.”

Rian nodded in agreement. The entire front of his face and the visible portion of his white undershirt were drenched in sweat. Zach, too, was feeling grimy and in need of a shower. Though it was much cooler in this pub, it was still a lot warmer than he’d hoped it would be. Though, to be fair, given that they were in Whispery Woods, it wasn’t much of a surprise that whoever owned this place couldn’t afford to set the air conditioning too low. Especially not on a scorching day like today.

At the very least, it was comfortable in here. The booths were large and spacious enough so that Zach did not even have to remove the sword from his back to sit comfortably, and the somewhat darkish atmosphere was a pleasant break from the intensely bright sun. It was also nice to be reminded of ordinary civilization again; to their right near the bar counter were several fairly large televisions playing various sports programs.

Dehydrated from the walk over here, Zach downed several large gulps of his cherry cola, not even bothering to use the straw in the glass. Though refreshing, it didn’t quite scratch the “itch” taste-wise. Ever since Angelica’s, he’d developed a craving for cherry soda, though he was beginning to doubt he’d ever find anything that “hit the spot” in the way Angelica’s take on the beverage could. The same was likely true of the food here, too. Glancing down at the menu, his honest impression was that everything looked decent enough, but man…he could sure go for those barbequed ribs Angelica had made for him yesterday.

“I think Angelica’s has ruined food for me,” Zach said.

Lienne laughed. “Hey, I was just thinking that.”

Rian shrugged. “Nothing ruins food for me.” Zach watched as he glanced down at the menu for five, maybe six seconds before pushing it off to the side as though immediately knowing what he wanted. Then, regarding Zach with a grin, he asked, “So, when’s the girl gonna get here?”

Trying his best to filter out the glower coming from Lienne, he shifted slightly in the booth so that he could reach into his pocket and grab his cell phone. Glancing down at it, he said, “She should be leaving Mr. Oren’s lab in an hour, so I guess it depends on how long it takes for her to get out of the city. It’s still early, so if traffic isn’t too terrible, she’ll be here in two hours, three at the latest.”

Though he spoke the words calmly and casually, his level of excitement rose exponentially at the thought of reuniting with Kal in just a few hours from now. Even Rian seemed to be enthusiastic to meet her, and while Zach had no doubt a good deal of it was genuine, he suspected his friend also had an ulterior motive or two as well. This, he made perfectly clear by the questions he’d asked Zach on the walk over here each time Kalana had come up as a topic of conversation.

“So uh…Zach,” he said.

Here we go again.

“Yeah?”

“You know her really well, right?”

“Yup.”

“So…so I was just wondering and all, if you asked her to like and follow my page, do you think she’d do it?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. Probably. Why do you even care? You told me social media is dumb.”

“It is dumb,” Rian said. Then he lifted his pointer finger and tapped it against his chest. “But there are so, so many hot girls on it. If the Kalana Vayra likes my page, you know what that’ll do for me?”

Zach chuckled. “You didn’t even know who she was until a few days ago, and now you’re saying ‘the’ like it’s some big thing. Why don’t I get a ‘the’, too?”

“When you become as famous as your girlfriend, maybe you will.”

The two shared a laugh as the woman with the skimpy red shorts returned to take their order. Due to her trembling hands, she had to try several times to write it down on her pad. Come to think of it, this was the first time that Zach had ever seen someone write down an order using a pen and paper before. Usually, it was only in the movies where that happened. Though he could rarely afford to eat out, on the times that he had—usually with Kalana—the servers usually punched orders into a tablet or some other electronic device.

“I can’t believe you know how to write that way,” Zach said, fascinated.

“W-what way?” the woman asked.

Zach smiled at her and pointed to her notepad. “With that. A pen.”

She gave him a sidelong look as though he were messing with her. “You’ve…never used a pen before?”

Upon being asked such a ridiculous question, Zach couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his lips. He hoped she didn’t take it as mockery. “No, of course not.”

For the first time, the woman actually seemed to shed just a bit of her fear as, inquisitively, she asked, “They didn’t teach you to use a pen in school?”

“Why would they?” Rian asked, sounding curious. It had been the very same question Zach was about to voice.

“Wait, you either?” the woman said. “Wow, you city people really are different.”

“They taught you to use a pen in school?” Zach asked her.

“Of course. How else would we take notes during class?”

Take notes during class? Zach thought, turning the words over in his head and coming up empty. Does she mean like sending yourself a note so you remember it later?

“If something in one of our textbooks is really important, we just touch it and it gets added to our study list.”

She made a strange sort of expression as though he was the one saying something weird. “That’s crazy.”

He was sincerely amazed at how different life seemed to be for people who lived in these kinds of farmland areas. They were like five centuries behind everyone else. Who the hell used a pen and paper anymore? Like, what year did they think they were in? 6600? It was ridiculous. Under what possible circumstance would anyone ever have to write on paper using ink? It was so outrageous she might as well have said she learned to carve messages into stone with a chisel.

Much like him, Rian also seemed to find this both humorous and bizarre, but Lienne, on the other, had entirely the opposite reaction. “I think it’s great,” she said, her words coming across as eerily passionate. “Human beings should not throw away everything that made us who we are. The Orcs keep pushing their techno-culture onto everyone, and I just think like, you know, humanity is under siege these days.”

Zach opened his mouth to reply, but Rian shook his head urgently. “Don’t get her started,” he said. “She’ll go on for hours about how everyone is shitting on humanity.”

“Ignore my idiot brother,” Lienne said. “He’s anti-human and an Orc sympathizer.”

“Here we go again,” Rian said, rolling his eyes. “Li, just admit you hate the Orcs and be done with it.”

“I do not,” she said angrily. “I think they’re great. I just think that humans…why can’t we just be proud to be human anymore? Is that really so bad? I’m tired of always having to apologize for being human. The other races act like they’ve never done anything wrong.”

Despite warning Zach not to get her started, Rian ended up providing all the fuel Lienne needed to launch into another one of her tirades against whatever issue she was mad about. And Rian was no better, either, because he, as usual, seemed more than happy to spar with her. This, as their server looked on as though perplexed. The woman already feared them like they were dangerous killers or something, but now she probably thought they were idiots, too.

Why do they always have to do this? Zach thought, stifling a moan.

He loved his new friends. He really did. But when they started to pull this shit, it drove him absolutely mad. The first time they’d gotten into one of these arguments, Zach had believed it was a sporadic sort of thing that came up only as a result of the recent news with Kalana. But oh, wow, had he been wrong. All day yesterday in Angelica’s, the two of them were going at it about this issue or that issue. Then, on the walk over here, they’d started it up yet again. It was annoying and tiring and Zach couldn’t stand it. He was glad this place was mostly empty today, because as the two began to raise their voices and shout, he would have walked out of here in shame and embarrassment before being seen with them in public when they got like this.

“—no you won’t answer the question,” Lienne snapped at him. “Why won’t you answer the question, Rian? Why? Why? It’s because you’re scared.”

“Not true at all.”

“Then why won’t you answer?”

“Because I reject the premise of it.”

“No, that’s not why: it’s because you can’t. That’s why.”

“Fine, ask it again.”

“Why do the other races get to act like they’ve never done anything wrong? Why is it only human beings who always, um, you know, get called all these evil names?”

“Well, to be fair,” Rian said, “there are only nine recorded genocides in Galterran history, and humans did eight of them. Well, nine now that we know about the Elves.”

She crossed her arms as though annoyed. “Here we go again with the ‘eight genocides’ myth. If you actually believe that, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“So history’s fake, Li, really?”

“When Orcs are the ones writing the history books? Yah,” she said. “By the way, did you know they used to be like the most brutal, barbaric race on Galterra? No one ever talks about that. Look it up. Orcs used to wear loincloth and kill anything that moved.”

“And that was like, what, a thousand years ago?”

“Okay, and? So they don’t have to get shit for their past but we do?”

“Well…we kind of just found out about the Elf genocide a few days ago, and that seems like it was a pretty recent thing.”

Lienne seemed unmoved. “How come any other race can come here whenever they want, but humans aren’t allowed to leave North or South Bastia?”

“Seriously, Li? Deflecting from the topic?”

“How about you just answer the question? Why does”—she extended her arms widely—“everyone just get to come to the Bastias, but we’re not allowed to go anywhere else?”

Rian rubbed his eyes in an exaggerated gesture of frustration. “I dunno. Maybe it has something to do with Peter IV threatening war with the rest of the world? Or maybe it’s when he declared that anyone who isn’t human is no different from an animal or a pet? What was his catchphrase, again? ‘I believe in human rights for human beings.’ Yeah, maybe that’s why.”

The woman in the skimpy red shorts cleared her throat, causing both Rian and Lienne to turn their heads in her direction. “So,” she said, “you want one order of the house chicken, one soup of the day, and a roast beef sandwich? And another round of cherry cola for all three of you?”

Zach, suddenly feeling embarrassed, nodded his head. “That’s all, thank you.” Once she was out of earshot, he placed his palms on the table, leaned forward, and then with far more vitriol and frustration than he intended, he said, “Guys, enough of your fucking politics!” Though he spoke only slightly above a whisper, there would be no mistaking the anger in his words. “I can’t listen to this again. I’m serious. Just stop it. No one actually likes talking about this. You know that, right? Talk about literally anything else. But around me, please. Just stop it. Literally, I’ll talk about any other thing.”

Randomly grabbing a glass peppercorn grinder off the table, he continued, “Here, let’s talk about this. I’d rather talk about this than have to listen to you two fight about politics.”

Somehow, Zach had managed to unite the two feuding siblings against him, as they stopped fighting with one another and now turned their fire on him, with Rian claiming he needed to “chill” and Lienne asking why he had to get so defensive.

“Look,” Zach said to them, “I’m sorry if I’m being an ass, okay? But all day yesterday you guys were starting this shit. I just don’t want to hear it anymore. So here, if you have to talk about something”—he again raised the glass peppercorn grinder—“how about you talk about this thing instead. Because I’d rather argue about this than listen to another fight about—”

With a snap a thousand times louder than the pop of a party balloon, the peppercorn grinder exploded. It simply exploded. Shards of glass and pepper sprayed every which way even while Zach was still holding onto it. One moment, it was secured in his hand, and the next, he was closing his fist around nothing but broken glass and flakes of pepper. At the exact same time, there was another loud sound. Two of them, actually. Zach wasn’t sure which of them he heard first: the sound of a crack that was so loud it caused his ears to ring, or the bang as the door leading into the pub slammed open.

His jaw dropping, he stared in bewilderment at the destroyed peppercorn grinder, and then, for a brief few seconds, he made eye contact first with Rian and then with Lienne, who also seemed momentarily stunned as if unsure of what was happening or why. If anything, they were looking at him like he should explain what had just caused that loud snap which had resulted in the glass peppercorn grinder shattering into so many pieces that several even flew halfway across the pub. Also, why was that woman in the red shorts now ducking behind the counter with her hands over her head as though worried the ceiling might fall on her? Why was she shouting, “They’re over here!” while pointing at Zach and his friends?

“What’s…going on?” Lienne asked.

“I don’t know,” Zach said.

Then there was another loud, startling crack, and Zach’s body reflexively ducked down and lurched to the side as a several-inch-wide hole appeared out of nowhere in the back of the leather booth near his right shoulder. Craning his neck to look at it, he saw smoke rising out of it; the area around the hole also now stank of burned leather.

“What’s going on?” Lienne asked. “Why’s there a—”

She screamed as another three tremendous cracks echoed throughout the pub spaced milliseconds apart. Then, one after the next, his glass, followed by Lienne’s glass, and finally Rian’s glass all shattered in sequence, spraying glass and cola all over their bodies and faces as Lienne yelped in pain. There was now a shallow but still troublesome gash under her right cheek. Seemingly confused, Zach watched in a state of total shock as she lifted her hand to her face. Then she pulled it away, and her expression became visibly horrified at the sight of her blood-covered fingers.

“Zachys Calador!” a voice shouted at them; it came from the entrance to the pub. “Which one of you three is Zachys Calador?”

Though it took Zach a bit to snap out of it, he finally understood that someone either had just been or currently was attacking the three of them. More specifically, they’d shot at them. Someone had actually just shot at the three of them. Scanning the pub with his eyes, he quickly identified that the attacker was the individual standing in the frame of the pub’s entrance wearing silver-colored scale armor and a helmet that concealed everything but their eyes, nose, and mouth.

Based on their overly broad shoulders and large, muscular frame, Zach at first thought the shooter to be a man—likely in his fifties based on the wrinkles under his eyes. But as the scale-armor-wearing attacker took several steps farther into the pub, his scale boots clinking against the wooden flooring, Zach thought he detected a certain feminine aspect to the way the man walked and the shape of his hips. Whoever this person was, Zach’s body tensed up in alarm and confusion as he or she again called his name.

“Zachys Calador!”

The ringing having finally died down in his ears, he was able to listen carefully enough to the shooter’s voice to determine that he was dealing with a woman. But who was she? What did she want? Why had she attacked him? Should he say something to her? One thing was clear: whoever this woman happened to be, she clearly did not have good intentions.

As she approached the booth where he sat with Rian and Lienne, he could see the guns that she was wielding in each one of her hands. Upon first glance, they appeared to be pistols of some kind. But the closer she came, the more Zach could make out several distinct features that made them stand out from any pistol he’d ever seen before.

For starters, the barrel of the guns were large, round, and reminded Zach more of a cannon than a firearm. Secondly, the black grips of the weapons seemed to contain an engraving in the image of fire, which actually glowed a bright orange. This could only mean one thing: those weren’t “guns” in the traditional sense.

They’re equipment weapons!

Crossing more than half the distance between the entrance and the booth where the three of them continued to sit in stunned confusion, the woman began to dart her head around between the three of them. Her eyes were cold and ruthless. She reminded Zach of a carnivore searching for prey.

“It’s not the girl, obviously,” the woman said, her eyes shifting first on and then quickly over Lienne. Now, she darted them back and forth between him and Rian. “It’s you,” she said, pointing at Zach. “You are Zachys Calador. Correct?”

Zach swallowed nervously. “Uh, who?” he asked. “My name’s Greg.”

“Yeah,” Rian said, nodding. “He’s Greg.”

“You like to make jokes, huh?” she asked. “Step outside, kid. Now.”

“Outside? Who are you? What do you want?”

“I want you.”

“Me?” Zach asked, pointing to himself.

“Yes. I want you.”

Zach sent a questioning look to Rian, who turned over his palms. Then he once more regarded this strange, bulky woman. “Lady, I’m sorry to break the news to you, but I’m already taken. You’ll just have to find someone else to—whoah, whoah, whoah!”

He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender as she pointed both guns at him, her arms extended in front of her as she continued to close the distance between them with powerful, marching strides. “Out of the booth. Now. All three of you,” she ordered as she stormed her way past the bar counter. She paused for just a brief moment. While still pointing her cannon-like pistols at Zach, she turned her head to her left and said, “Bekka, it’s safer outside. You’re okay now. Go.”

“Thank you, Anelia!” the skimpy-shorts-wearing woman shouted gratefully as she made a mad dash for the exit.

Once more returning her attention to Zach, the woman—Anelia?—said, “I told you three to get out of the booth. Move it!”

More to put himself into a defensive decision than to actually obey this unhinged maniac, Zach slid over and out of the booth at around the same time as Rian and Lienne. The woman who’d been called Anelia approached until she was just a few feet before the three of them, who were now all standing side by side.

“Who are you?” Zach asked her. “Why did you attack me?”

The woman, whose face was still mostly concealed behind her scale helmet, grunted at the question as though it were unimportant. Nevertheless, she answered him. “I’m Anelia Hellcrest. I’m a bounty hunter. You are my target, Zachys Calador.”

“Bounty hunter?” Zach said, repeating the words as though they were foreign to him. It wasn’t that he’d never heard the term before, but it was more that he couldn’t possibly imagine why a bounty hunter would be after—

His eyes opened wider all on their own. “This is about the Varsh thing, isn’t it?” he asked with a gasp.

“Bingo,” Anelia said. “So you do know why I’m here.”

Holding out his palms, Zach shook his head. “Whoah, time out. There’s been a huge misunderstanding here.”

“No, I think not.”

“No, trust me, there is. Mr. Oren said this was being handled. You’re not supposed to be after me anymore.”

“It’s true, ma’am,” Lienne said. “I was there when he said it.”

Her mouth visible through the helm, Anelia made an expression that seemed to imply she found Zach and Lienne to be the two dumbest people she’d ever come across. Tilting her head, she asked, “Who is Mister Oren and why would I care what he has to say? Listen, kid, I waited here a long time for you. But l also don’t have anything personally against you. So I want to do this clean.”

“You’re…going to arrest me?” Zach asked her.

At this, she made a dark chuckle. “No, no. I’m here for your head.”

“What?” Zach asked, even as he raised his hand to grab his blade, which was sheathed in the scabbard on his back. Before he could lift his arm up halfway, he flinched, ducked, and looked around in confusion as the gun in the woman’s right hand briefly flashed a bright light and another loud crack echoed in the pub. Zach actually had to run his hands over and around his body to be sure he hadn’t just been hit.

“We don’t need to make this into a whole conversation,” Anelia said, taking another step forward. Zach, in turn, took one back, and so did Rian and Lienne. Now, there was nothing behind them but a closet and the door to a unisex bathroom. “I’ve got a contract on you. It’s still valid. I always check right before my kill. So there’s no bullshitting your way out of this.”

“I’m only seventeen,” Zach said.

“Tough. Like I said, this is work, not fun. So here’s what we’re going to do. First, you’re going to come with me outside of this nice pub so we don’t damage it any further. If I end up staining the place everywhere with your blood, it might hurt the business and put some really nice people out of work. Do you want that to happen?”

“He obviously doesn’t,” Rian answered for him. “So here’s a thought: just leave.”

“Secondly,” Anelia continued, seemingly ignoring Rian. “I’m much higher level than you are, kid. What are you? Ten? Twenty at the most? You have no chance of making it out of this alive. But listen, all right? See, we don’t have to make this into a drawn-out, painful affair. I’m not sadistic. This is work for me. That’s all it is. So, here’s what we can do. You”—she pointed to him—“follow me alone out of this pub, and I’ll make it so quick you won’t even feel it. Gods strike me down if I speak a lie. You won’t even feel it. That way, we don’t have to wreck this nice lady’s business. And the best part of it, kid? Your two friends get to live.”

As Zach listened to what she had to say, the thing that stood out most in his mind was not the very real, very serious gravity of the situation. It should have been, of course. But for some reason, it wasn’t. No, what stood front and center in Zach’s head was a self-awareness of how strange it was that he felt no desire to beg or flee. Zach, for whatever reason, was far less terrified than he should’ve been. Even with everything going on, he almost wanted to mentally congratulate himself on thus far keeping his shit together. The old Zach would never have been able to do that. In fact, forget the old Zach: not even two or three Zachs ago would be keeping it this cool—where each Zach was equal to like one near-death experience.

It actually struck him as kind of wild just how not afraid he was. Alarmed? Sure. Anxious and worried? Obviously. But afraid? For some reason, he just wasn’t feeling it. Recent developments in his life had somehow dampened his ability to become so easily frightened. Zach supposed a person could only “almost die” so many times before terror lost some of its impact. And if so, then clearly Rian and Lienne had not yet hit that point, as the two of them were visibly shaken. Lienne was grabbing his shoulder so tightly that if he had been level 1, it would have broken his skin, and Rian had now gone completely quiet—though from his posture, Zach knew he could rely on him to act if it came to a fight. Lienne, too. Neither of them would back down if it came to that. Zach was positive.

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To Anelia, he asked, “Do you really think you can kill me and get away with it?”

“Kid, this isn’t a debate,” she said. “Let’s go. If I absolutely have to, I will shoot you through the throat and let you gurgle to death on your own blood. You won’t like that. Time to go. Now.”

Zach stood his ground. “Killing me is the same as killing yourself,” he said to her. She pointed her guns at him, her fingers hovering over the triggers, and now Zach did feel some degree of fear. Still, he held himself together. “You don’t even know anything about me, do you? This is suicide if you go through with it.”

“How so? You think I haven’t killed people with powerful friends before?”

“Not as powerful as mine.”

“Really, now?”

Zach nodded. “This is going to sound crazy, but I’ll swear it to every known God.” He lifted his chin defiantly at her. “Mark my words: If you hurt me or my friends, my cat will find out and fuck you up so badly you’ll beg to die.”

“You’re insane,” Anelia said. “What a shame. It’s really, really distasteful to kill the mentally ill.”

“He’s actually telling the truth, ma’am,” Lienne said.

Anelia chuckled, and it was a sound that came across as sincerely humored. “His cat will come after me? You actually expect me to believe that?”

“Actually, yes,” Lienne replied. “I know how it sounds, but he actually does have a talking, magical cat.”

Anelia again laughed, though this time, she did somewhat angle her head sideways as though considering Lienne’s words. “You know what? When I was tracking him down, some store clerk did actually say that you had a talking cat. I thought they were just crazy in the head, but now…”

“Because he really does,” Lienne said. “And he’s super-duper powerful.”

“Even if you’re telling the truth, he’s still just a cat, though.”

“Yeah, but Fluffles isn’t just any ordinary—”

“Fluffles?” she asked with a chuckle. Anelia rubbed her left pistol against her forehead. “Kids, come on. I’m a patient woman when I have to be. But I’m starting to think it’s better if I just end you right now to save myself the headache.”

“Wait, please,” Lienne said, stepping forward with her arms held wide, her staff still on her back. “Zach really does have some very powerful friends who will come after you if you attack us. It’s not just his cat. It really would be suicide. No amount of money can be worth your life, right?”

“Even if I believe you,” she said with a shrug. “I’m still not worried.”

“You would be if you knew who his girlfriend is.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. His girlfriend,” Lienne explained, her voice cracking so slightly that Zach doubted anyone but he and Rian would notice it, “is Kalana Vayra.”

Anelia cocked an eyebrow. “The Elvish Princess? You’re full of it.”

“She’s not,” Rian said. “We can prove it if we have to.”

“It’s true,” Zach said. “And Kal’s probably like level six thousand now or Gods only know what level. There’s a chance Fluffles might let you off the hook, but if you kill me, Kal will hunt you down from now until the end of time.”

“I doubt that very much. I also don’t believe anything you’re saying.”

“I can prove it.”

“How?”

“Rian, you need to close your eyes.”

“What? How come?”’

“Because I need to show her a…a sensitive picture.”

“Okay, well I wanna see it too, then.”

“You can’t see it!” Zach shouted at him.

“But Li can?”

“It’s different.”

“For the record, I don’t actually want to see it,” Lienne said.

“Fine, you can close your eyes too. Both of you should. One second, let me just grab my phone and—”

“Enough!” Anelia snapped. “I don’t care who you know or who you’ll send after me. You can’t bargain your way out of this. I already made a deal with my contractor. My reputation is at stake.” She pointed her guns at him. “You have five seconds to decide: do I kill you in here or do I kill you outside. Same result, different level of pain.”

His level of fear rising just a pinch more, Zach continued to hold himself together as he stealthily kicked Rian in his shin to catch his attention. Rian glared at him, clearly not understanding his intentions. But Zach hoped it would soon become clear to him as he said, “Fine, I’ll go with you. But there’s just one thing you need to know.”

“No there’s not. Let’s go. If I see you’re not following me, I shoot your friends. Got it?”

Rather than reply with a yes or no, Zach said, “I fought Moldark the Unbanished.”

“Who?” she asked. She must have been very confident in her own strength, because she actually turned her back to him as she began to leave. But now, as he mentioned the name “Moldark,” she looked over her shoulder at him.

Fixing Rian with a hard, intense, but very brief stare, he said, “Moldark was a really tough boss. It was amazing what the three of us had to do to finish him off.” Rian’s eyebrows rose with apparent understanding, and he gave a slight bow of his chin. Zach did not dare nod in return as Anelia was now watching him closely.

“What in the name of the Gods are you on about?”

“Basically,” Zach said to her, “you really startled me with that gun before. It was really, really loud. I bet I can make an even louder bang than that, though. You’d better cover your ears.”

She pointed her gun at him again, and her lips twisted into a full-on scowl. “That’s it. I’ve had enough of this. You’ve got until the count of three to start moving or you die the painful way.”

Of course it comes down to this, he thought to himself with a sigh. So much for talking my way out of trouble.

“One,” she counted.

Zach remained right where he was. He kept his body loose and his hands by his sides. Shifting his eyes first to his left and then to his right, he sent a wordless signal to Lienne and Rian that he prayed they would understand. To their credit, they seemed to interpret his message perfectly, as they began to spread apart, moving a bit more to opposite sides of the pub, but too slowly and cautiously for Anelia to notice while her attention was fully on him.

“Two,” she continued.

Zach closed his eyes a moment. That guy, Spider, had said not to fight a person like they were a mob, but in this case, Zach really had no choice. He had no data on his opponent, but he was willing to bet that, given her age and her confidence, she was far, far higher level than he was. He could think of only one way of besting her that wouldn’t require a twenty-million-gold Purple Rejuvenation Stone.

“Three!”

Anelia meant business. She truly intended to kill him: that much was no longer in doubt as she pulled the trigger with the gun pointed directly at his throat. In the same instant, he activated Unleashed Phase followed immediately after by Phase Blink. This time, it was more than clear which bang came first. Blasting forward with such unimaginable speed that he could not even feel or comprehend the motion, he actually reached the pub’s entrance before Anelia’s gun managed to fire. Oh, and it was her bang that came first, though not by much.

Spinning around as fast as he was able, he managed to just see a bit of the muzzle flash from her cannon-like pistol as she fired at nothing, her gun making what, under normal circumstances, would be described as a hideously loud crack as her bullet tore through the bathroom door and left a fist-sized hole in the wood. Of course, volume was relative. Thus, once again: under normal circumstances, the echoing report of her fiery gun might be considered one of the loudest sounds Zach had ever heard. This, however, was most decidedly not a normal circumstance.

Zach managed to spin three quarters of the way around when, a fraction of a second after the crack of her gunfire, the sonic boom decided to show up and put her gun to shame. Having turned his body as fast as he could possibly manage while under the effects of Unleased Phase, he managed to briefly see the ripple in the air where he’d only just been standing—the result of his body breaking the sound barrier.

“Boom,” he said in unison with the thunderous, calamitous detonation of pure, chaotic sound that caused Anelia’s entire body to flinch while simultaneously blowing out every single window in the pub, covering the floor in multiple showers of glass. Even with their hands preemptively covering their ears, Rian and Lienne still shouted out. But Rian was quick to recover.

“Now!” Zach yelled at him. Or at least he hoped he’d yelled at him. There was no way of knowing, as nothing could be louder than the bang he’d just caused, which would have no doubt been heard all throughout the Den of Ziragoth.

Whether he heard Zach or not, Rian and Lienne clearly knew what they had to do, for which Zach was proud. Removing his shield and axe, Rian threw the latter at Anelia, who appeared to be struggling to recover from what, to her, must surely have been a completely unexpected and disorienting experience. At the same time, Lienne took her staff off her back and sent a Flamestrike Anelia’s way, the darkly lit pub briefly shining blue as her missile-shaped bolt of flame streaked above seven sets of booths and four round tables on its path towards her.

Even with the sudden disorientation, Anelia managed to somehow react to both threats at once. Zach watched as the woman dashed backwards, then shook her head as though pulling herself together before throwing both her arms forward, spaced widely apart. Two flashes were followed by two more cracks of gunfire, though both were not the same. Zach had no way of knowing for certain, but it appeared as though she’d activated some kind of ability in her right gun, as the color of the muzzle flash was green instead of white.

With her left gun, she shot Rian’s axe off course, the impact resulting in several sparks. Rather than return to his hand, the axe ended up biting into the wall not far below the ceiling on the far side of the pub. With her right pistol, a ball of green, round energy collided with Lienne’s Flamestrike, and then both disappeared into nothingness. And with that, she had neutralized both of their attacks. Zach did not care, however, as Rian and Lienne had clearly intended them to be nothing more than distractions anyway.

Apparently, even with all her obvious talent and skill, the combination of Rian’s Axe Throw and Lienne’s Flamestrike was enough to leave her vulnerable for just enough time so that Rian, who had been charging forward at her, was able to successfully strike at her with the only ability that actually mattered in this situation.

Get her!

His shield aglow with a dark red energy, Rian shouted out a vulgar insult and then bashed her in the side of the face with it. All at once, the red energy dissipated, and instead, what looked like a thousand tendrils of blue electricity raced from the center of the shield into Anelia’s body, where they then began fanning out and spreading everywhere from her earlobes down to her toes, paralyzing her.

“She’s stunned!” Rian cried. “Zach, now!”

“Wave Slash!” Zach cried out, slashing his sword through the air. With his Phase Level sitting at zero, the five fewer points into each stat did, in fact, result in a slightly slower-to-form green metallic, double-edged disc. But it was still more than fast enough to get the job done. Of the six seconds for which Rian’s stun was supposed to last, Zach would only need two. With his back to the door, he watched as it burned through the air, literally, as it sped towards its target. He sheathed his blade immediately after, sensing this would end quickly.

“Fucking kids!” Anelia shrieked, struggling. It looked as though she were bound with an invisible wire as her body fought against whatever had paralyzed it.

Then, somehow, through a means Zach could neither understand nor explain, she managed to break out of it. With a loud scream that sounded like a cross between fury and the agony of intense muscle strain, she managed to rip her arms free from where they’d been pinned by her sides with a mysterious, audible snap. Then, the blue, electric-like tendrils of electricity racing all over her body were simply fired off of her, changing midair into what looked like triangular-shaped glass shards that scattered in every direction before vanishing into thin air.

Now, following another, war-like shout, she threw herself to the side a moment before Wave Slash found its mark, causing her entire right shoulder guard to break off along with a chunk of her flesh. She came into a roll, threw herself back up to her feet with the exposed, bloody skin of her right shoulder-blade continuing to drip blood onto the floor, and then she pointed her guns at Zach and fired—or at least she seemed about to. Suddenly, her eyes enlarged with apparent fear.

“Oh, Gods!” she shouted, turning around and fleeing in the direction of the bathroom. She bumped into the already damaged door so hard that she managed to rip it clean off its hinges as she blasted herself through it. Then, halfway inside the bathroom, she came to an abrupt halt, spun herself around three times as though completely at random, and proceeded to make a wild dash towards the bar counter.

Rian must have used Bully on her! This is my chance!

Now that he was under the effects of Unleashed Phase, Zach inhaled sharply as an overwhelming sense of strength and well-being flooded into him. His hands and feet were releasing a constant puff of impossibly black smoke, and his skin had begun to give off a very slight glow. But most importantly, in every conceivable way, he felt faster, more powerful, and able to react to things with far greater speed and accuracy. His vision had also been altered, too. With Unleashed Phase active, the way that he saw the world had become enhanced. Now, information that required complex body motions could be conjured forward—and organized—with just a single thought.

Unleashed Phase Duration

13:22 Remaining

Wave Slash

1:15

Boundless

0:10

Phase Blink

0:20

Phase Shield (READY) (25 seconds)

0:45

Phase Rescue

0:35/2:15 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Slash

1:10/6:10 (if used with ??)

As Anelia darted aimlessly around the pub like a headless chicken, Zach grinned, reached over his shoulder, and gripped the pommel of his brand new sword, inside of which was a gemstone that shined with an ethereal blue light; with a satisfying, audible shing, he drew his blade from his scabbard. Wielding the larger, sharper, and weightier blade with both hands, he charged forward after Anelia, who seemed poised to run face-first into the wall on Zach’s left, directly beneath the spot where Rian’s axe had become lodged into.

Still a ways behind her, he needed to reach the point of intersection before she did or risk losing what might ultimately be his only opportunity to strike. And so, bending his knees, he launched himself upwards and forward through the air, flinging himself across the pub like a catapult while raising his arms high above his head, the tip of his sword also casting a small blue light about the dimly lit pub.

As he began to fall, he realized he’d timed his jump perfectly. Assuming she did not make any other random changes in trajectory, the woman would run directly into his path at the exact moment that he struck. Distantly, he prayed to the Gods that he did not kill her. He did not want to be a killer. But this was purely self-defense, and he could tell that this woman, this “bounty hunter” was far too powerful to hold back even slightly. He needed to use all of his strength against her. With a grunt of exertion, he swung his blade downwards with all his might on top of her in the exact moment that she crossed his path.

“No you don’t!” she shouted at him.

As though through sheer willpower alone, she somehow broke free of Rian’s “fear.” His sword mere inches from her face, she extended her arms wide, and then she fired both of her guns—but not at him, for some reason. She almost seemed to be pointing to each side of herself. Her intentions soon became clear as, rather than produce bullets, the guns formed a bubble-shaped, green, and wavy light that encompassed her entire body. Rather than slicing into Anelia, Zach’s blade instead struck the barrier she’d erected, and with a stunning flash of light, it exploded upon impact.

Before Zach could even understand what had just happened to him, he found himself flying backwards through the air. A moment later, he crashed down with a painful crack on top of one of the tables, which completely snapped into two separate pieces and caused the booth itself to knock over onto its side.

“Now you’ve made me angry,” Anelia said. “This just became personal. I’m pissed!”

Scrambling back to his feet, Zach shouted in alarm as Anelia’s pistols began to flash repeatedly. Now, the pub erupted into a chorus of loud, ceaseless gunfire, which Zach had no real way of defending himself against, as unlike arrows, bullets moved far too fast for him to stand even a chance of evading. Luckily, he didn’t have to. Rian ran to his side and covered them both with his shield—or at least he did for a time.

Though the shield was somehow strong enough to endure the bullets, they caused indentations to form in the metal, and after just six or seven shots, the entire thing flew out of Rian’s hands, bouncing hard enough on the wall behind them that it then traveled forward, landing not far from Anelia, who kicked it off to the side. Now, the two of them were both exposed.

“You die first,” Anelia said. Since she wasn’t looking at Zach, Zach assumed she was talking about Rian.

“Wait!” he called to her, putting his body in front of Rian’s. “Don’t do it. Please.”

“Don’t bother begging her,” Rian said. He pounded on his chest with his fist. “Come get me then!”

“Gladly.”

Swearing loudly, Zach activated Phase Shield the moment her guns resumed firing. Now, between the flash from her guns and the massive light cast by the gigantic golden shield that materialized in the air before the two of them, the pub, however briefly, appeared to be as well lit as a field under the noon sun. Firing into the shield one bullet after the next, Zach felt a minor prickling sensation on his skin that was likely the result of the portion of “damage” his shield was able to let through—basically, nothing. The real problem, however, was that the shield lasted for only 1.2 seconds, which meant as soon as it fell, Zach and Rian would be just as equally vulnerable as they’d been only a moment ago. And there was nothing Lienne could do to help, either, as it only just occurred to Zach that she’d been launching Flamestrikes at the woman this entire time to no avail.

As the golden light faded and the shield disappeared, Zach darted his eyes around for some idea of what to do. The best—and only—idea he could come up with was to use Phase Blink to instantly take himself behind the bar counter, and from there, trying his best to turn around in time to use Phase Rescue in the hope of pulling Rian to him before any of the woman’s bullets struck him.

It doesn’t get me anywhere, he thought, but it’ll keep us breathing while I think of something better.

With his plan in mind, he studied Anelia’s body movements and waited for her to pull the trigger. He was ready to activate Phase Blink the moment she made her move. And so he waited—and then he continued to wait. And then he waited some more. After nearly a minute of nothing happening, he realized that she seemed to be pausing to reassess her situation, which made no logical sense. The shield only lasted 1.2 seconds, so now that it was down, he wouldn’t be able to use it for another 25 seconds, so why wasn’t she finishing them both off? That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? So why wasn’t she?

Oh, of course! Duh! Zach thought, doing his absolute best not to let his emotions show on his face. She doesn’t know that. She has no idea how my abilities work. For all she knows, the shield is still up just not visible. A lot of things work that way.

Testing his theory, he walked boldly towards her. Right now, he was completely undefended, but he forced a cocky grin onto his lips and even lowered his blade down to his side in a one-handed grip. He could see now that there was sweat on the visible portions of her face through her scale helmet, and that she was breathing heavily.

Fighting mobs is not like fighting people, Zach thought, finally realizing the lesson that had been imparted upon him by Spider.

Unlike a mob, which would continue to attack without giving even the slightest shit whether or not its attacks were successful, a human being would become discouraged if he or she came to the conclusion their attacks would not work and they’d only be exerting themselves for no gain.

“Go ahead, shoot me,” Zach said, rapping on his chest confidently. “Try some more. Go on. Free shots.”

She raised her guns at him and scowled. Had it not been for what sounded eerily like a bang followed by a human scream coming from somewhere outside, she would have seen right through his bluff. Thankfully, he’d turned his head to look in the direction of the noise before chiding himself for turning away from his opponent. Once again, he met her eyes.

“They lied to me,” Anelia said with a growl, which intrigued and perplexed Zach.

“Who did?” he asked.

“They said you were under level 20. That’s impossible. Those abilities…what are they?”

“None of your business,” Rian said, speaking for him.

Anelia glared at him, but then quickly put her attention back on Zach. “I have a revised offer for you,” she said. As she regarded him, a grimace came upon her face as her eyes lowered down to his hands and then his feet. The purely black smoke must have been causing her a degree of uncertainty.

“What is it?” Zach asked.

“Tell your friends to stay out of our fight, and I give you my word I won’t kill them. If you want to fight for your life, so be it. But tell them to stay out of it.”

“And you won’t take revenge on them for what’s already happened?”

“I give you my word. Tell them to butt out, and I will never look at them again.”

“Done,” Zach said, knowing that they couldn’t possibly help him here anyway. Rian’s crowd control was really useful, sure, but he’d lost his shield, and she’d be able to shoot him easily before he went anywhere near it. Lienne, on the other hand, had amazing heals, but if Zach started getting hit by someone as strong as Anelia, he doubted they would matter. In truth, he had no idea how he was going to get out of this. Yet, even still, he was shockingly lacking in fear.

“Lienne, Rian,” he called to them. “Don’t get involved.”

“Are you crazy?” Rian asked. “I’m not letting you—”

“Don’t!” Zach snapped at him. “I’ll be okay. I promise.” More shouting voices came from somewhere outside as Zach spoke, but he tuned them out. “Rian!”

“Fine,” he said, appearing to be convinced.

“I understand,” Lienne whispered sadly as a blood-curdling scream caused Zach to once more look towards the pub’s entrance. Even Anelia glanced in its direction. But then both once more locked eyes.

Despite what he’d said, Zach felt a pang of guilt, as he had totally lied to his friends. In all likelihood, he probably would not be fine. But since it wasn’t Rian and Lienne whom this woman wanted, there was no need to have them potentially killed for no reason. Of course, Zach wasn’t ready to just lie down and die, either. At the very least, he thought he might be able to wear her out a bit if he blinked around the room or directly behind her and scored some hits in wherever he could. Clearly, though, she was not willing to give him the time to strategize, as she raised her guns and said, “Let’s continue this.”

Gritting his teeth, Zach once more gripped his blade with both hands, and he entered a fighting stance as more screaming voices—this time what sounded like dozens—all echoed at once from somewhere outside.

Zach craned his neck, once more looking off to his side. “Before we fight to death,” he said, “can you at least tell me if you hear that too? Or am I just going crazy?”

A totally unexpected softness came upon the visible portion of Anelia’s face. “I…I hear it too. It sounds like quite a few people are screaming.”

“Do you have anything to do with that?” Zach asked her. “I was just assuming it’s something you did.”

“Why would you assume that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe you brought friends or something and they’re attacking people in the town. How should I know?”

Zach was taken aback as Anelia made a hearty, deep chuckle. “I thought it might be your doing, actually.”

“Wait, mine?”

“Yes. I thought maybe it was some of those friends you were telling me about coming to save you.”

“Well, I have no idea what—”

“Please, no!” screamed a woman’s voice so loudly that it interrupted him. Then she screamed some more, and it was unlike anything Zach had ever before heard. It was a sound of pain so intense and filled with such unrelenting misery that it actually elicited more of an emotional response within Zach than he had felt so far during his entire run-in with this bounty hunter. At no point in his life could Zach recall ever hearing a scream of such agony.

“My baby! No, please! Gods, please. Please, no!”

“The fuck is going on out there?” he asked, becoming unsettled.

Anelia actually lowered her guns. “I don’t know. But it’s making me nervous.”

It was a stunning admission from the bounty hunter, Zach realized. Admitting fear in front of the prey she was here to kill? In truth, he couldn’t blame her. Because over the next ten seconds, even more screaming voices were added to the chorus. But it was only when the sound of children began to cry out that Zach urgently turned to Anelia and said, “Please, can we postpone this? Something is seriously wrong out there.”

Without even replying, she made a slow, hesitant nod and placed her guns back into her holsters. This, as Rian retrieved his axe and shield, and Lienne came to stand by his side. “Zach, what’s happening?” she asked. “Why are so many people—?”

And then it happened. From somewhere outside the pub came a sound that Zach would never forget for so long as he lived. It was a sound so horrible, so utterly, disgustingly wicked in all manner of ways that it threatened to shatter every last ounce of courage Zach had built up recently and leave him as nothing more than a crumpled-up, enfeebled mess.

It was a sound that was so vicious, so terrifying, and so haunting that, in the exact instant it reached his ears, Zach knew that any conflict that he’d had with Anelia was now over and would likely never be taken up ever again. Whatever she’d been here for—that was over now. Of course it was. Bounty hunters. Targets. These words were meaningless. Upon hearing this sound, Zach was overtaken by an innate, primal reminder that Anelia, like him, was only just a person. They were all just people. And there were bigger threats in the world than each other. Somehow, intrinsically, Zach knew that this was going to turn out to be one of the worst moments of his life.

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

It was a roar of some kind. It was a cry so deep, powerful, and furious that the entire pub began to violently shake as though in the throes of a magnitude-9 earthquake. The pub shook so violently that Zach almost fell off his feet, and it was Anelia, of all people, who reached out and grabbed his arm to steady him. With her fingers on his bicep, he could feel her trembling.

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The roof began to leak dust and plaster. Abruptly, the power went out, and every light fixture in the pub fell off the ceiling and crashed with a crack onto the wooden floor. At the same time, nearly every bottle of alcohol fell out of its display case, creating a cascading sound of smashing bottles followed by the overpowering smell of liquor. Yet Zach simply ignored it, because it was nothing compared to the horrific, inexplicable roar of something so completely consumed by rage, hate, and a lust for murder.

“What in the name of the Gods!” Anelia shouted. She once more drew her guns, causing Zach to flinch. But she wasn’t even looking at him, was she? No, she was marching over to the pub’s entrance, which Zach recalled led out to the market. Kicking open the door, she peered outside—and then the brutish, tough-as-nails bounty hunter screamed in horror and dropped both of her guns as though by accident before literally falling to her knees.

“No!” she cried. “No, no, no! Why here? Why now? My fucking luck!”

She began to slide backwards on her ass. And even lacking any idea of what Anelia could have possibly seen, her reaction to it—whatever it was— nearly caused Zach to break as well. Because right now, the fearless, strong bounty hunter who had come to claim his head was shaking with her lips quivering and her shoulders twitching. She almost looked as though she were convulsing: as though the fear within her was attacking her on some kind of physical level. The look in her eyes—the look of total, utter dread from someone as strong as Anelia was nearly enough to cause Zach to join her on the floor.

Rian and Lienne also seemed to have been stricken with the same kind of terror, as their faces now looked as though someone had drained them of all the blood in their bodies. Even still, they crept slowly towards the entrance and glanced outside. Immediately, Lienne screamed, and Rian covered his mouth, and then both ran—not walked, ran—back inside the pub. Lienne now had tears in her eyes, and Rian looked as though he was not far off.

“What happened?” Zach asked. Grabbing Rian’s shoulders, he shouted, “What happened? Tell me, Gods-dammit!”

Rian’s only reply was to shake his head, and now tears in fact did run down his face. Bracing himself, Zach decided to see with his own two eyes what had so thoroughly broken Anelia and his two friends. Making his way to the pub’s front entrance in four quick, powerful strides, with black smoke still rising up into the air off his hands and feet, Zach peered outside—and then felt all the fear he thought he’d learned to shed come rushing back into him in an avalanche. In this moment, he knew total despair.

Blood.

There was blood everywhere.

There was so much of it.

More blood than he’d ever seen. More blood than he could ever have conceived of. The streets were stained in it. There was so much that, in places, it was running down into drains.

It was everywhere. There was so much of it.

Oh, Gods, no!

There were body parts. Some belonging to children. Severed hands, feet, toes, and heads. Burned corpses. The streets were covered in gore. It wasn’t just the quantity of blood, either. But the darkness of it, too. The blood was so, so dark in color. A little girl’s lifeless body was just in front of the pub. An entire portion of her skull had been ripped open, spilling out brain matter onto the pavement. Next to her was a woman—her mother? Her spine had been torn out of her body. She must have been the one he’d heard scream. In front of her was an old man who had been cut into two pieces. His top half seemed to still be alive, as he was crawling desperately along the ground, leaving a bloodied streak behind him like a slug with red ooze.

And then there was a roar. Another of those cursed, twisted cries of rage and death. And that was when Zach saw it. The creature. Something so horrible he struggled to believe it could even be real. It was dark brown, and its body was so massive that it fully took up the entire portion of the two-way street that it was standing on. The pavement beneath its sharp, black-toenailed feet was cracked and shattered. And this beast…this entity from the deepest, darkest layer of hell…it was tall, too. Just about as tall as the two-story homes that dotted the town center, several of which now lay in ruins. It had ferocious, golden, lizard-like eyes, and its body was covered in spikes so sharp they looked as though they could pierce the heart of a God. These spikes also ran down along its massive, barbed tail. Yet, its teeth were somehow even sharper than its spikes, and as it opened its mouth, Zach screamed in horror as a young boy attempted to flee its forked tongue, which was so long it was able to wrap around his body despite being nearly a dozen feet away.

“It’s a Wyvern,” Zach whimpered. “A…f-fucking Wyvern…”

Above the head of this enormous, heinous, monster, whose wings were so wide and massive they spanned almost half a city block, was something that made Zach struggle for all he was worth not to weep. Even amid a terror so strong it paralyzed him, he somehow managed to cognitively assess the situation, and in doing so, he took note of what this…this thing was. It had a name. A name that, in hindsight, should have been obvious.

HP

15000000/15000000

Name

(T7) Ziragoth the Awoken

Level

70

This is why you fight, Mr. Oren, Zach thought, and now he did begin to weep. This is why you exist.

It took everything he had inside of him not to drop his blade. Not to turn around and flee. To leave his friends behind and abandon them. He could do it, too. He had enough time. He could Phase Blink—and then keep on Phase Blinking until he was far enough away that the creature would never find him. He didn’t, however. He wasn’t even sure why he didn’t or how he had the strength to continue on—to not turn tail and flee in terror. Yet something deep within himself stirred at the sight of the small boy who kicked and screamed as the Wyvern pulled him closer and closer to its mouth, where it would inevitably crunch into his flesh and snap him into two pieces.

No, no it won’t! Zach screamed in his head.

Without another thought, he activated Phase Rescue an instant before the Wyvern chomped down and ripped into the child’s flesh. Moments before death, the boy disappeared inside of a blue orb of light, and the moment he then reappeared, Zach looked him in the eyes and said, “Get out of here. Now!”

Without even looking to see if the child obeyed, Zach took several steps out into the hot summer humidity. He watched as, with another deafening, earth-shaking roar, the creature flew into the air and then released a ball of fire so massive it stung his eyes worse than staring at the sun. Then came the sounds of even more screams as people were torched alive. It was a massacre: a slaughter.

Now, everyone was out on the streets, either staring on in horror or running for their lives. Incredibly, some were even taking out their phones as though to record or stream this. They weren’t brave, however. No. Zach, having felt the intense, crippling fright that came with being brave—he understood the difference. These people were just stupid.

“Get out of here!” he shouted at them. “What are you fucking morons doing? Run! And don’t stop running!”

Rather than flee, they turned their cameras on him, and with a disgusted grunt, he ignored them. There were so many human body parts in the street that it was virtually impossible to avoid stepping on some. At least eight-hundred people if not more had already died by his estimation. Though it was impossible to tell. They were in so many different pieces. Now beginning to weep, Zach continued to walk farther into the street.

Why was he doing this?

No more heroics. You promised yourself. You said you would live no matter what. You promised to put yourself first. So stop it. You don’t have to do this. You owe them nothing!

“I’m such a fucking idiot,” he whimpered, tears gliding down his cheeks. He didn’t want to do this. But who was going to protect all these people? There were children dying in front of him. He had no choice. But first, he needed to make a critically important phone call. Removing his phone, he dialed a number, and then he began to scream at the person on the other end of the line.

****

Alex Oren had just been about to walk out of his office-lab hybrid with Kalana when his phone rang in his pocket. He thought of ignoring it, as he was having an incredibly fascinating conversation with the Elvish girl about some of the mobs she’d encountered on her island, many that Alex himself did not know existed.

“Oh, it’s Zach,” he said.

Kalana’s face brightened the moment he spoke the boy’s name. This was good. No matter what his guild-mates said, for Kalana to love a human with such intensity, it did not signal to him that she was as dangerous as they feared. He was a good judge of character. He was sure of it.

“Hello?” Alex said. He put the phone on speaker. “Zach, you’re on speaker. I’m actually here with Kalana. I was just about to drive her over to come see you.” He laughed. “You must be so happy to—”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN TO ME RIGHT NOW!” Zach screamed with such an intensity that teachers all the way across the hall turned to look.

Kalana frowned, then shot a confused look at Alex, who merely shook his head. “Zach, what has gotten into you? That’s no way to—”

“T7! PLEASE HELP US. IT’S A FUCKING T7!”

“What did you just say,” Alex said into the phone, feeling all the blood drain from his face.

Surely, he must have misheard. This was just the boy up to his usual antics, no? Perhaps he saw something he did not understand or…or Alex had misheard him. Either way, whatever Zach had said, it sounded so much like “T7” that Alex became positively jolted, his heart beginning to pound against his chest.

“Zach, my man, please calm down. Please calmly repeat what you just said.” He moved his finger to take the phone off speaker, but Kalana snatched his wrist midair with enough strength to trap it in place, and if not for the word it almost sounded like Zach had just spoken, he imagined he’d be quite terrified of the look in her eyes.

“What’s going on?” Kalana asked, fear plain in her voice.

As Zach’s voice blared over the speaker phone, Alex was reminded how, no matter how many times he went through this, nothing ever truly prepared him for the words he next heard Zach speak. They were words he’d heard on far, far, far too many occasions, though he never would have expected to hear them from Zach of all people. Regardless, no matter the speaker and no matter how much time went by, this just never became easier.

“A BOSS JUST FUCKING SPAWNED OUT OF NOWHERE!” Zach screamed. “IT’S KILLING EVERYONE. EVERYONE’S DYING! DO SOMETHING! MR. OREN, PLEASE!”

Kalana gasped, then squeezed his wrist so tightly that he could not prevent himself from hissing in pain. An instant later, Kalana released him, then bowed her head in apology. Seconds after that, she stared directly into his eyes with a look of desperation that Alex understood well. “I know,” he told her. “Just be calm.”

To Zach, he said, “I’ve never encountered a T7 before. Are you sure it’s a—”

If not for the wall immediately to his left, Alex would’ve collapsed to his knees as Zach turned on his video and he saw with his own eyes what could only be described as a nightmare made real. Very quickly, though, he regained his composure.

“Kalana!” he shouted to her.

She immediately snapped to attention. “What is it? What can I do? Please, tell me!”

“Dial #518 immediately into your phone. When Donovan answers, repeat exactly these words: Level-3 Apocalyptic Event in Progress. T7.”

She nodded and seemed to do as Alex bid her. In the meantime, to Zach, he said, “You need to run immediately. If that thing touches you, even with its weakest attack, you will die ten times over.” Even as Alex spoke to him, he messaged the emergency extraction unit—the EEU—using the highest-available alert code. “Zach, I can get a team of helicopters to your position in a minute and forty-two seconds. Until then, I need you to hide, Zach!”

“I can’t,” his voice whimpered. Then, all at once, the sadness in it seemed to fade, and it was replaced by an almost reluctant determination. “Rian, hold this phone and make sure Mr. Oren sees everything so he knows how to fight this thing later.”

“What in the name of the Gods are you planning to do?” a boy Alex recalled meeting—Rian—asked him. It was the question Alex himself had been about to ask.

“I’m going to aggro it.”

“Oh no you’re not!” Kalana said, running over to Alex’s desk and shouting into the phone at him. “Nah-uh! Don’t you dare, Zach! I swear I’ll never forgive you if you go and get yourself killed!”

“I love you, Kalana. I’m sorry I never told you that until it was too late to matter. I love you so fucking much. Rian, hold it steady. Make sure they see everything.”

“Zach!” Alex shouted. “What do you think you’re doing? Under no circumstance are you to aggro the T7 Fire Wyvern. This is not a joke. You are not to engage the boss. You will die!”

“I’m going to distract it,” he replied. “For one minute and forty-two seconds.”

Both he, Kalana, and that boy Rian all shouted for Zach to stop. What did he think he was doing? Alex rarely felt so unhinged and distraught. This was suicide. This was guaranteed death! He shouted for Zach to reconsider, but by that point, he was already watching the boy charge at it. Had he already been attacked? His body appeared to be smoking. A sinking feeling of trepidation entered the pit of his stomach.

“Zach!” Kalana cried, her voice a mixture of pain and rage.

“Kalana, I know this is a terrible situation, but you have to—”

“Take me there right now!” she shouted at him, scowling. “I’ll kill it. I’ll rip it apart if I gotta!”

“No matter what happens next,” he whispered sadly, “I promise you you’ll get your chance.”

Alex spent the next several moments sending an alert to the alliance just in case Donovan hadn’t done so. As it turned out, Donovan had. And in mere moments, he had already called for a war council and had established a rescue operation. He, Alixa, Kesten, and Spider coincidentally happened to be in Tomb of Fire at the time, which housed the closest possible EEU base, which meant the best of the best were on their way to save Zach.

A T7, Alex thought to himself. An actual T7…

In all the time Alex had been an adventurer, the highest boss he’d ever personally faced was a T5. He planned one day soon to fight the T9 Leviathan here in the Whispery Woods, but that was a Leviathan-type, which were known for exploitable weaknesses that could significantly decrease risk and increase success. This…this on the other hand was a dragon. Gods help them all.

*****

“If you let that boy die, I’m ripping your balls off and shoving them down your throat!” Donovan roared at the helicopter pilot. “Fly faster, you son of a bitch!”

Donovan swore. Then he swore again. A T7 Fire Wyvern. A fucking T7 Fire Wyvern! This was bound to happen sooner or later. It was always going to come down to this one way or another. How could it not? They’d been lucky for so long. That had to run out sometime. Every boss had a spawn timer, and every spawn timer eventually popped. Looked like that day was today. But Gods, did it have to be a fucking Fire Wyvern?

“Is Zach really engaging it solo?” Alixa asked, her eyes wide with terror.

“Yes,” Donovan said, to which she covered her mouth and shook her head.

“Why? Why would he do that?”

“Because it’s what any of us would do.”

As they soared across the landscape at blazing speeds, Donovan looked around at the interception team he’d put together in under a minute—basically, any adventurer who happened to be within shouting distance when he got the call.

“Remember, folks, your only job is to distract it until we can evacuate as many people as possible. I will tank it. Alixa, spam Amnesia on the fucker until your heart falls out of your chest. I don’t give a shit if you go into E-debt. You do not let that thing get on the healer.”

“When are we going for the takedown, boss?” Kesten asked.

Donovan looked over to where he sat in the seat adjacent to him. All five of them were communicating through headsets. “Probably in two or three days when we have another hundred-fifty people with us.”

“Please tell me this isn’t a roamer.”

Donovan shrugged. “We know less than nothing so far. But my gut instinct? It is. And if so, once it’s done in the Den of Ziragoth, it’s gonna start moving towards the next closest and most densely populated area.”

“Which is?” Kesten asked apprehensively.

It was Alixa who answered his question. With a gasp, she said, “Shadowfall Coast: a city of four-million people.”

Donovan sighed. “It’s finally happening, boys and girls. No sense crying about it now.” To the pilot, he repeated his earlier threat. “This thing moves faster or I chop off your balls! Let’s go, let’s go!”

Nine other helicopters buzzed along in formation with Donovan’s. He prayed to the Gods for aid. That Zachys Calador…that crazy son of a bitch. Even as they soared along through the skies to his position, they were all watching it unfold from behind the screens of their phones: all except Spider, who refused to look. Seemed like he’d taken a liking to Zach. It was okay, though. Donovan wasn’t about to let him die. Not today. No damned way.

Please live, kiddo.

*****

“MOM!” Adra cried. “Hurry! You have to see this! You won’t believe it! Mom, please!”

Kala paused her exercise video as the sound of her daughter’s alarmed voice caused her to drop her ten-pound weights and run across her small apartment to see what could possibly have caused her to shout that way. Her motherly instincts taking over, she raced into her girl’s room to make sure she was all right.

Panting, she said, “You almost scared me to death. Why would you scream like that, Adra?”

“Because of that!” her daughter said, pointing at the television.

“Because of a monster movie?” she asked her daughter, exasperated.

“It’s not a movie, mom! It’s the news!”

Adra blinked. “It’s what?”