Chapter 50: One Minute and Forty-Two Seconds

Abram Gespon had to shout to be overheard as almost every high-ranking guild member from North Bastia all chimed in at once demanding answers and accountability. Sitting in a large, black leather seat on his private jet, he endured the scorn heaped on him by dozens upon dozens of angry voices paired with their equally outraged faces, which all appeared in small boxes that covered the computer screen built into the cabin wall before him. Regrettably, it was onto Abram whom they directed most of their ire. To say that they were “cross” would be an understatement so vast it would almost constitute a lie; his peers were downright fuming, blaming him both for the “leak” and also taking issue with his emergency, subsequent response to it.

Just keep your composure, he told himself. Show no visible signs of distress. Weakness promotes further attack.

Suffice to say, today had not gone as Abram had planned—not by any measure. Originally, he had arranged to visit Senior-Lieutenant Haisel Ragora aboard his top-secret aircraft carrier, the Piercing Thorn. It was only due to their decades-long alliance with the Royal Roses that the People of Virtue had been trusted to know of the existence of such a breathtaking ship, one that, by all accounts, was a veritable recreated relic from humanity’s pre-Galterran past. Abram had been quite interested to see it with his own eyes as well as walk around on it. But then…things kind of changed, hadn’t they?

Gods-damned IMA! he thought bitterly, though he kept his inner turmoil from showing on his expression. That incompetent halfwit, Graeme Braxel. He’ll never be welcome in my city again. Worthless sack of shit!

Faced with a crisis unlike any other in his lifetime, Abram had naturally had to clear his schedule for the foreseeable future. And so now, at this very moment, his jet was speeding along at an altitude of twenty-thousand feet on its way to the Slopes of Dal’Zarrah for an emergency meeting of the United Council of Humanity; most, if not all members of region-controlling guilds with the rank of lieutenant or higher were also heading to Dal’Zarrah. This, as the “situation” continued to develop in the farmlands of Whispery Woods located in southeast North Bastia. Things were so dire that even Haisel had needed to depart the Piercing Thorn so that he could begin his journey northward to what, at least on paper—if not quite in reality—had decades ago been formally declared the capital city of humanity following the beheading of Peter IV.

Ostensibly, the official operating “government” of the human race was the UCH, though few genuinely thought of it in such a way. In actuality, each region was more or less ruled solely by the guild in control of it. There were exceptions, of course, for issues on which a consensus could be reached: such as matters involving currency, the suppression of harmful information, and more recently, the island belonging to Kalana Vayra. For most other matters, however, the UCH was little more than an appropriate forum to yell at one another for a few hours to a few days before walking away with nothing accomplished. That wouldn’t be good enough this time, though; given the gravity of their current situation, the guilds were going to need to pull themselves together and come to an agreement on how to proceed. So far, the only thing they’d managed to agree on was how vehemently pissed off they all were at Abram. Well, all except the Royal Roses, who would not dare publicly attack their greatest ally. Privately, however, he knew they were just as incensed.

“Everyone, please,” Abram said to them, speaking into his headset. “With everyone shouting at once, no one can be heard this way. One at a time. Please.”

The background roar of his jet’s engines and the dodgy internet connection already made it hard enough to address their concerns. The fact that they could not speak one person at a time only added to the growing sense of disarray. There was also a terrible lag, as many of them were also joining the meeting from their own private jets. This was precisely why business was typically conducted once on the UCH legislative premises and not en route to it. Yet this was a disaster of far too serious proportions to wait for everyone to arrive and gather together in a more formal setting a few hours from now. For the time being, this would just have to do.

“This is a catastrophe,” said the voice of High-Lord Kolorn Besh, the guild-leader of the Lords of Justice. From the seat and serving tray visible in his background, he was clearly also calling in from his own personal airliner. Though his guild actually controlled the Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, the man had apparently been off conducting private guild business in Shores of Wrath in South Bastia. Thus, he was doubtless contributing to the overall poor connection. Due to either his internet or Abram’s—it was impossible to know which—there was a lag between when his voice came through the call and when his big, bushy beard moved along with his considerably smaller mouth. “How did the IMA allow this to bleed through?” he demanded. “The transmissions should have been shut down the moment that…that thing appeared!”

“I don’t yet know, High-Lord Besh,” Abram admitted, using the proper title for his guild. Ranking members of the Lords of Justice preferred the titles “Lord” and “Lady,” with the guild-leader himself serving as the “High-Lord.”

“Well, maybe you should find out, then, Sir Gespon the Virtuous. I cannot believe this happened under your watch. I thought you far more capable than to allow this kind of calamity to take place.”

“I assure you,” he replied, “I’m doing everything in my power to correct the situation and—”

“What you’re doing is destroying society,” interrupted Fiona Darkmae, the guild-leader of the Children of Order. “Your actions run contrary to your claims, Abram.”

Despite blatantly refusing to use his title, he offered nothing more scathing in reply than a pleasant, polite smile. Truth be told, it required a great deal of effort for Abram not to go off on this insolent bitch. It was bad enough that a guild of such allegedly high repute would allow a woman to serve as their leader, but a twenty-five-year-old girl, nonetheless? And for her to behave towards him with such utter disrespect, too? To make matters worse, the recently departed Duke Darkmae had a male heir of appropriate age. Though…if rumors were true, he suffered from a profound and severe cognitive illness. Even still, Abram would prefer to listen to the man’s incoherent babbling than suffer this outlandish disparagement. Gods only knew how badly he wished the People of Virtue would declare war on this island-based guild, whose relative isolation was the only possible explanation as to how they had survived for as long as they had.

I would love to capture this harlot and drag her back to my bed, he thought. Teach her some Gods-damned respect!

“My dear Duchess Darkmae,” Abram said, maintaining the polite smile on his lips. “If you could please allow High-Lord Besh and myself to finish our conversation, that would be very-much appreciated.”

She scowled. Even pixelated, he could see the way the admittedly attractive, red-haired vixen bared her teeth at him. Then she continued to dress him down using a colorful assortment of vulgar words that Gespon did not take offense to, as it only showed her youth and immaturity and made him look good by comparison as he sat with a calm, neutral expression on his face in a far fancier suit projecting much more confidence and composure than this pathetic excuse for a guild-leader. In truth, he didn’t even listen to anything she was actually saying. As she spoke, he tuned her out and simply imagined which positions he’d take her in if their two guilds ever warred and she ended up his hostage.

Eventually, she seemed contented, and her tirade against him ceased. Abram thanked her for her take on the matter despite having listened to none of it, then said, “There will be a full accounting of the situation once we’ve navigated our way through to the other side of it. I give you my word.”

“There’d better be,” High-Lord Besh said. “Otherwise, we need to have a conversation about whether or not the IMA should continue to be based in Varda’s Lair. This is a catastrophic screw-up!”

Almost every other guild—save for the Royal Roses and his own—voiced their agreement. Well, and the Guild of Gentlemen, of course, but that was because no one from their guild was on the call. Being that they were currently in dire violation of the rules of engagement and had displayed no sign they were willing to alter their current course of action, they were not currently welcome to take their seats in the UCH. Not that anyone from their guild would’ve shown up even if they had been. Those fools were barricading themselves in their city and were not likely to come out until bombs started dropping.

“You guys need to cut the man some slack,” Lieutenant Varsh said. “There was clearly a technical issue. It’s not his Gods-damned fault.”

In the case of Varsh, Abram knew that the vile man was defending him less because of a sense of loyalty among their guilds’ alliance and more because Abram was currently the sole driver behind finding and killing the object of his hatred: the boy, Zachys Calador. Though, in his case, it was not out of any desire to see Varsh avenged but to teach a lesson to Donovan Iseldar, who had gravely disrespected him in his own office. Even still, he allowed Varsh to believe it was due to some twisted comradery, as it made no difference one way or the other and came with the benefits of having an ally that cost him nothing to earn.

“Regardless,” said High-Lord Besh, “that’s no longer even my primary concern. Even if I were to chalk the leak itself up to an unforeseeable technical glitch, the actions you’ve taken, Sir Gespon the Virtuous, have left me stunned and appalled. Not only did you make such a monumentally consequential decision without consulting a single one of us, but you did so in direct opposition to what you knew would be the wishes of our collective body.”

He was referring, of course, to Abram’s split-second decision to approve of media coverage of the unfolding disaster, something that he not only stood by but, in his estimation, should be lavishly rewarded for choosing to proceed with.

“It was the only choice to make,” he said.

“In what universe?” the “Duchess” Fiona Darkmae asked. Dozens of voices spoke up and hurled similarly worded questions his way.

“Please, allow me to reply,” Abram said, holding up his palm to the camera. When they finally fell silent, he continued. “From the moment this thing leaked onto the internet, it was out there no matter what we did. At this point, I had two choices before me. The first choice was to censor this information, which would be almost impossible because a critical mass of people had already seen it at that point, which means it would spread no matter what I did.”

“So you chose to amplify it even further?” High-Lord Besh asked, disbelief plain in his voice.

“Yes, actually.”

“But why?”

Abram sighed. These people just didn’t understand. “The only other option aside from censorship—the second choice—is extreme, radical transparency. Since censorship was no longer an option, I ordered the media to dedicate every last resource they have to covering this with all the urgency they’ve been covering the Kalana Vayra story. Mind you, I had to make this decision only a few moments ago. This all just happened.”

“Once again: I ask why?”

Abram paused just a moment to organize his thoughts before continuing so that he could word things in such a way that these absolute morons could actually understand. “Because, High-Lord Besh,” he explained, “if we were to put in even the slightest, and I do mean the slightest bit of effort towards censoring a story of this magnitude once it’s already moved beyond what’s reasonably containable, it would result in large-scale riots, conspiracy theories, and the one thing we should all be afraid of more than anything else.”

“And what’s that?”

Abram narrowed his eyes. “The question of whether or not something like this has happened before.”

From the way High-Lord Besh’s expression became visibly disturbed, Abram knew he’d succeeded in making his point. Even that bratty woman looked as though she was finally understanding his logic. But just to make sure there remained no ambiguity, he said, “Since the story has broken through, if we come right out of the gate with a level of intense, uncompromising transparency—if we show everything and anything regarding this creature to the public and behave as though we are just as shocked as everyone else over its existence, it will make us look proactive and sincere. The people will turn to us for safety instead of away from us.”

Though he knew his argument was persuasive, even Abram did not expect to sway nearly all of the guild-members on the call in such a short amount of time. There didn’t even seem to be much of a debate over it. They simply nodded along as though silently changing their minds in favor of his view of things.

“That said,” Abram continued, “we should be far more concerned about what this is and how it’s going to be dealt with. This is not our field, obviously. Those adventurer guilds are already coalescing to handle it. I’ve been in contact with the God Slayers Guild, Boss Rush, and several of the others. They said they’re already on it.”

“Tell them to hurry the fuck up,” Corin Blatchett, the third-in-command of the Defenders of Peace said. Then, pointing to something off-screen—likely a TV on his jet—he asked, “And who is that boy running towards it?”

“I have no idea,” High-Lord Besh said.

“Same,” Abram agreed.

Of all people, it was Varsh who seemed to recognize him, as with an angry grunt, he said, “I know who that little shit is.”

Just from the scowl on his face alone, Abram knew right away. He didn’t want to believe it, though. Surely, the universe wasn’t so cruel as to put him in this situation when things were already bad enough. It couldn’t be.

Frowning, he said, “Do not tell me that that is Zachys Calador.”

Varsh scowled. “Oh, that’s him all right. Curse him and his whore mother!”

Chatter immediately broke out among the various, ranking guild-members. Ignoring them, Abram shuttered his video transmission, as he knew he would not be able to maintain the neutral expression on his face. Not after this unfortunate and unbelievable revelation. As far as coincidences went, this was a big one: a really big one. He urgently signaled one of his assistants to come to him. After just two seconds, he decided she was taking too damn long, and so he unbuckled his own seatbelt, shot up out of his seat, and then marched over to her just as she was first standing up.

“Yes, Sir Gespon the Virtuous?”

“Put the word out immediately. All contracts are now voided on that boy. If he, somehow, through some means, survives whatever-the-fuck he’s attempting to do, I will not take even the chance his death is traced back to one of the guilds. Not after the media has already started lionizing him.”

How can I have such bad luck? he wondered.

Given the recent developments, if that kid ended up dying by anything other than that monstrous dragon, it would cause a backlash so severe it might result in guild-on-civilian violence to put down the resulting riots. As far as why: the answer was quite simple, as it was literally written on the TV screen built into the back of the seat across from where his assistant had been seated—where she had been watching the news. There, on the chyron at the bottom of the screen, in big, bold letters, Abram saw the following:

(LIVE) BREAKING! APPARENT BOSS SPAWN IN THE DEN OF ZIRAGOTH: MANY FEARED DEAD.

MYSTERIOUS YOUNG MAN SEEN RUSHING TOWARDS THE CREATURE.

*****

Having lived most of his life in Giant’s Fall, Roland had always wanted to visit the glorious, majestic city of Tomb of Fire. It was said to be almost as impressive as Varda’s Lair but at a price-point that was more acceptable for middle-class tourists or even lower-income tourists who’d saved for a while. Thus far, their vacation had been going perfect—at least until this very moment.

They were sitting together at a small table in a very popular sports bar located across the street from the Museum of Human Achievements. Here in the city center, there were so many lights and so many sounds that, even in the middle of a bright, sunny day, the streets were still aglow from the LEDs and projectors attached to many of the sleek, impressively tall buildings, two of which contained actual live flames that reached from the ground level to the 50th floors on both sides of each building. Roland had never seen anything quite like it.

Having decided to take a break from sightseeing and grab a drink with his girl, he’d come to this packed bar with his beautiful soulmate. It had taken them some time to get a table, though, as it was so crowded in here that they’d needed to wait forty minutes just for a place to sit down! Roland wasn’t a big fan of sports, so he’d learned only through overhearing various shouts and cheers that the Tomb of Fire’s very own team was playing against the Faded Island in what looked like Ball-Runner.

But then something had happened.

During an intense play that was so exciting it almost turned Roland into an instant fan of the sport, the news had cut in, causing the man behind the bar counter to frantically change the channel, only to discover that the news was now on every channel. And then they’d seen it. Something that should not have been possible in this world. Something that went against everything they’d learned in school and everything they’d ever been told. There was a video feed of it—or rather, multiple feeds, actually. And the voice of a reporter was talking over the video feed as it played.

“…please let me again remind you that what you are seeing is live, uncensored footage while we await our news team’s arrival on scene. For those of you out there just tuning it, there has been a confirmed boss spawn in the Whispery Woods region. We are being told that the city is, in fact, officially on lockdown. If you or your family live in the Whispery Woods region, you are to immediately return to your homes and lock your doors. This is a region-wide order. If you live in Whispery Woods, you must get indoors NOW! Domanik, what can you tell us?”

“Well, Mallory, we don’t know much at this point. Only moments ago, a large beast appeared and—wait, what…? Okay, folks. Okay. It looks like someone…someone is attacking it. I’m not sure what we’re seeing here.”

“Is that a boy, Domanik?”

“I believe, so Mallory. There appears to be a young man wielding a sword, and some kind of uh…some kind of…like a green object just left his blade. We’re not sure what’s going on just yet. This has only just happened. Again: for those of you just tuning in, we now have confirmation that a boss has, in fact, spawned in the Whispery Woods Region. Residents region-wide have been ordered to immediately return to their homes.”

Roland trembled. “This isn’t possible,” he said. “This can’t…this isn’t supposed to happen…”

“All right, folks, we have a major update for you here. We’ve just received word that this boy is a young member of the Royal Roses by the name of Zachys Calador. It seems the guilds are already taking this threat very seriously, so just stay in your homes and let the professionals do their jobs! The guilds will be addressing the public shortly. Once more: if you live in the Whispery Woods region…”

*****

“WAVE SLASH!” Zach shouted.

It was too late to turn back now, wasn’t it? This, he realized as the green, semi-transparent energy coalesced into a double-edged metal disc that sped off into the distance and towards something so powerful that it was a miracle Zach didn’t piss himself. Based on what Rian had taught him, if this thing was level 70 and T7, then that meant, for all intents and purposes, it was almost as though he’d just launched an attack on a level-245 mob.

Level 245, he thought with a moan. I’m an idiot. I can’t believe I…what in God’s name is wrong with me?

Why had he done this? How could he have actually allowed himself to end up in this kind of situation again? Did he want to die? Was that it? He certainly didn’t think so. In fact, he was pretty sure he wanted to live, so then why?

I promised myself, Gods-be-damned! I don’t want to do this. Truly, I don’t!

What was the point of repeatedly making himself promises only to be break them time and time again? This, Zach pondered fearfully to himself as his Wave Slash sailed across the air and headed directly towards the behemoth-sized monstrosity that had already ended close to a thousand lives and seemed intent on ending a thousand more.

Having only just recently come so close to death during his encounter with Moldark, Zach had promised himself he would never voluntarily put himself in a position like this ever again. He had sworn to take better care of himself and let someone else be the one to step in and risk death for once. Yet, here he was, doing it again. Ah, for fuck’s sake! Why, Zach? Why? Why couldn’t he learn his lesson? He didn’t owe anything to these people, especially not his life. So what was it that compelled him? What was it that moved him with such passion to fling himself at danger just to save the very same townspeople who, in all likelihood, had set him up to die by Anelia’s hand?

Oh well.

Either way, what was done was done, and even if he now had a sudden change of heart, his Wave Slash was already ripping across the world with a shrieking hiss as it set the air itself aflame as though slicing it apart. It was heading directly for the wyvern, who was currently across town a half-mile down a two-lane road that cut through the open-air market and reached all the way to the farms located on the outskirts. At the moment, it seemed to have turned its attention towards razing a school building that, Gods forbid, might actually be occupied with kids attending summer school.

“Zachys!” Anelia called to him. “If you’re distracting it, I’ll begin carrying the injured to the extraction point!”

Without turning around to look at her, he shouted, “Go! Lienne, help her! Rian, keep that phone steady and make sure Mr. Oren sees everything!”

Shooting her guns into what Zach presumed was the air, Anelia began corralling pedestrians on the street towards the west end of town, where in slightly less than a minute and forty-two seconds, a rescue crew would arrive in helicopters to begin extracting the wounded, the elderly, and those with physical disabilities or who lacked a fast-enough means of transportation to safely flee the area. Everyone else, however, needed to get in their DEHVs right now and get the fuck out of here. Yet some were stupid enough to continue to stand by and watch, with many of them streaming this on their phones like it was some kind of sick form of entertainment.

“Get out of here!” Zach yelled at a kid around his age with brown hair who seemed to ignore him. “Are you stupid? Do you want to die? That thing’s going to—”

Zach forgot whatever he’d been about to say as his Wave Slash reached its target. Ziragoth looked to be only a moment from either submerging the school in flame or otherwise crushing it in a physical strike with its wings, tail, or hell, even teeth. Instead, the monster came to an abrupt halt as Zach’s disc slammed into the side of its body at full speed and maximum power, dealing…

…1 damage.

HP

14999999/15000000

Name

(T7) Ziragoth the Awoken

Level

70

I’m so, so fucked, Zach thought.

The dragon spun around immediately, and as though not even deliberately meaning to do so, one of its gigantic, spike-and-scale-covered wings slammed into a three-story house on the other end of town, blasting the entire front side and half the roof of it clean off, spraying debris into the air and street. Zach hoped no one was inside of it at the time. A pain entered his chest at the thought that a family might be trapped beneath that rubble, condemned to die a horrible, slow death of asphyxiation.

“Everyone, move your asses!” Anelia shouted, firing off her guns and herding the people like sheep.

“Sir, forget your house!” Lienne yelled at someone. Zach couldn’t spare the time needed to turn around and see who it was she was speaking to. “Your life is more valuable than your property, sir. So please. Hurry. My friend is putting his own life on the line to help you escape. Huh? Where’s your cat? Hurry, then. Grab her and go!”

Briefly, Anelia entered his peripheral vision, and with a strength that likely far exceeded even his own with Unleashed Phase, she lifted up a support beam from a collapsed home that likely weighed hundreds of pounds then simply tossed it dozens of feet to the side as though it were a paperweight. With her two massive, scale-armor-covered arms, she pulled out a man who seemed to somehow still be alive as though clinging desperately to life. She was like a Gods-damned superhero. She threw the man over one of her shoulders then grabbed another man and threw him over the opposite shoulder. Then, practically wearing the two men like a fur neck wrap, she took off at such a fast run that it likely would’ve made both of them vomit if they hadn’t already been bordering on death and unconsciousness.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I can’t focus on Anelia right now, Zach thought, forcing himself to pry his attention away from her. I just…oh, Gods, I really did it. I just aggroed a fucking dragon!

Now facing in his direction, Ziragoth stared directly at him with his furious, golden, lizard-like eyes—and Zach gasped, as he realized something then. This creature, its eyes…there was something strange about them. Something that had not been in Moldark’s eyes or the eyes of any other mob Zach had come across until this point. There was something almost unique about Ziragoth, something that, on second thought, he did recall seeing once before: from his favorite NPC, Angelica.

Even though he couldn’t prove it, Zach became certain that this creature possessed at least a small degree of real, genuine, but rudimentary intelligence. He wasn’t sure how he knew. He supposed it was as simple as the fact that the look of life in the eyes of a living creature was something that could not be perfectly faked. And while Ziragoth did not contain the level of true sentience comparable to someone like Angelica who, despite not being a biological entity, was nevertheless unquestionably a living, thinking, and self-aware being, Ziragoth regarded Zach in a way that reminded him more of an animal or a beast—but one with the capability to form at least some level of thought, even if only for the purpose of hunting and killing prey. In fact, that was exactly it. Zach became ever more confident in his assessment the longer he made eye contact with the boss. This thing…it was like a living animal. It was not self-aware to the degree of a human, but perhaps something closer to a bear or a lion.

And I angered it, Zach realized, horrified. I literally angered it. It’s actually angry with me.

With an intense glare that Zach was now sure beyond all doubt was personally intended for him, the T7, level-70 wyvern opened its mouth and released a growl so loud it once more caused the entire ground to shake. Not far down the block and to his left, a home that had already been damaged collapsed the rest of the way into rubble as people standing by screamed and ran for their lives as though they’d finally seen enough to realize they were in real danger.

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

With that, the creature flapped its powerful wings, bringing itself airborne. In the process, it knocked over two traffic lights and demolished an entire convenience store. Then, with its eyes still trained on Zach, it began to fly at breakneck speeds in his direction while simultaneously releasing a steady, massive bout of flaming breath that approached him like a tidal wave, only instead of covering the two-way street and everything around it in water, it instead spread an inferno. Several people were caught up in it, and Zach swore loudly as he watched them die, realizing if he’d only acted faster, he could’ve pulled them to him.

“Not that way!” Anelia shouted from somewhere behind him. “Run to the west. Everyone, let’s go!” She clapped her hands angrily at them. Her voice sounded closer the next time she shouted, and soon after, Zach could once again spot her in his peripheral vision scooping up two children in desperate need of aid while Lienne held the hands of two little girls, one on her right side and one on her left.

“Let’s play a game and see who can run over there the fastest, okay?”

“Okay,” they said, fear evident in their tiny voices.

“Come on, let’s go!”

The two of them were doing a great job together. All Zach needed to give them was time. Once again, it all came back to that, didn’t it? Time. What Mr. Oren had referred to as the “emergency evacuation unit” would be here very, very soon. He only needed to distract this beast long enough for them to actually arrive. If he was successful in doing that, he could save the two-thousand-or-so lives that had yet to be extinguished. Sadly, there was nothing he could do for the entire third of the town that had already been massacred.

I’ve got nine minutes and thirty seconds left on Unleashed Phase, he thought to himself. And I only need to survive for a minute and a half.

As the creature flew closer and closer, Zach watched as the fast-approaching inferno drew nearer with each passing fraction of a second. It really did look like a giant wave: one made of pure fire. There would be no dodging or shielding from something like that. He needed to get the hell out of its way. Turning his body to the right, he spotted a lesser populated part of town. He hesitated for just a moment. If he went that way, the people still there might die as a result of it. But if he didn’t, the much larger number of people here would die. He didn’t want either to perish, but was there anywhere else he could take this thing?

As the flames approached close enough to singe the hair on his arms, he realized he sadly did not have enough time to find out. And so, praying to the Gods for luck, he activated Phase Blink just before he was completely submerged in flame. Immediately, the world seemed to warp around him as he traveled at a speed so fast that his eyes could not register or interpret the movement. Then he spun around just as the sonic boom caused several fleeing townsfolk to duck in confusion, likely thinking it was something caused by the dragon.

Now, Zach waited for it to come after him—which for some reason, it didn’t appear to be doing. Glancing to where Ziragoth now hovered a few-dozen feet in the air with its wings flapping but its body otherwise unmoving, the wyvern began exhibiting a startling behavior that reinforced what Zach had come to believe about the boss mob.

Rather than robotically turn in his direction and continue to charge at him, Ziragoth released another, ground-shaking roar and began to furiously dart its head around. It was almost like…no, no, it was! It was searching for him. It didn’t just “automatically” know where he was by virtue of having aggroed it. It actually did not know where Zach had gone. And to his horror, he realized that it was beginning to eye a group of children being led away by Lienne.

Urgently, Zach cupped his hands over his mouth and screamed, “Come get me, you son of a bitch!”

To his total astonishment, the dragon immediately spun its head in his direction. This meant it could actually hear him. The creature, despite being a boss mob that would vanish into nothingness if killed, had the ability to not only understand but also react to sound. Sensing that things were about to get really rough, and given the monster’s gigantic size, Zach knew he needed as much of his vision unobscured as possible, and so he dismissed all of his abilities along with his experience bar, leaving only the duration remaining on Unleashed Phase in the air above and in front of him.

Unleashed Phase Duration

8:59 Remaining

The creature stared at him a moment, just as it had done earlier, but additionally, its eyes also darted back and forth between Zach and another group of stranded children. Worried that it might change its mind, Zach once again did what he could only bring himself to think of as “verbally aggroing the mob.” At the top of his lungs, he continued to taunt it.

“Come and get me! I’m right here!” He widened and extended his arms, including the one in which his hand tightly gripped his sword. “Dragons are a bunch of—”

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

The earth again shook, and once more, the creature took off at an incredible speed, heading in his direction. Thankfully, the rage-filled wyvern did not use its firebreath as it had last time, which spared most of the people whom he’d worried about being caught in the crossfire. In fact, come to think of it, this one section of town where he now stood might just be the only part that’d been completely evacuated, as the dragon had yet to come this way and had left the people here with an unobstructed pathway out of town. This meant that Zach really needed to keep this thing here. Of course, that would introduce a whole separate level of complexity and risk.

I just have to do it for a little bit of time. Just a tiny bit!

“That’s right, get your ass over here!” Zach shouted at it, as its eyes bulged with obvious rage. And Gods, did it obey.

Even with all the strides he’d made towards becoming a less-cowardly, braver person, Zach came unbelievably close to crying like a child as the humongous monster slammed down onto the pavement, landing in the middle of the street just ahead of him with enough force that its feet left several-foot-deep potholes in the ground; the resulting shockwave almost took him off his feet. Staring intently at Zach, the wyvern made yet another ground-shaking roar. Then, without any further warning, it sprang into action and attacked.

With a speed and precision great enough to pose a very imminent risk to his life, Zach inhaled sharply as the dragon spun half around and whipped its barbed tail at him so fast that he almost didn’t have time to react to it. Using every bit of his willpower to keep from losing his cool, Zach overcame his fear and once more activated Phase Blink—only this time, he finally used his ability with a target. In this case, he mentally chose to target Ziragoth the Awoken, which assuming he understood the ability correctly, meant that he would blink behind Ziragoth as opposed to in the direction he was currently facing.

The moment after he activated the ability, his vision darkened, and a light-headed sense of disorientation and nausea came upon him. It wasn’t difficult to understand why. He was now standing directly behind Ziragoth with his body facing the dragon’s back. Even though he could not consciously feel the movement, his body seemed to reel a bit from the aftereffect of having spun around faster than the speed of sound. Nevertheless, Zach shoved the unpleasantness out of his mind. Seconds later, there came a combined sound of two big booms in quick succession: the first being from his Phase Blink and the second being the resulting crash of the wyvern’s tail smashing down into the road with the force of a torpedo, causing a crater that was at least ten-feet deep to form in the street while concrete, dirt, dust, and even a few blades of grass were whipped up into the air, rising higher than some of the houses before pouring back down like some kind of unholy rain.

Sensing an opportunity, Zach bent his knees, raised his sword, and unleashed a desperate series of strikes as he began to whirl his Yorna’s Sword of Courage around him as fast as he could possibly manage. Even knowing fully well that he stood zero chance of actually damaging the creature—given that a maximum-distance Wave Slash had only hit for a single point—Zach continued to assault the dragon anyway, because it wasn’t the damage he was interested in.

I need Courage stacks!

Knowing that every five successful hits with his sword granted him the ability to completely negate a single attack, he prioritized speed to the extent that, had he been fighting a regular mob, he would still barely do any damage. One strike after the next, he whipped his arms up, down, across, then up again, striking four times in a row for 0 damage. During these four strikes, the dragon quickly spun its body back around, and now Ziragoth’s vengeful, wrath-filled face was so close to Zach’s that it became a real challenge not to drop his blade and flee. The dragon was close enough to kiss, and each one of the thing’s eyes were almost the size of Zach’s whole head.

With another roar, Ziragoth lifted its barbed tail and then slammed it with incredible speed and force down upon Zach, who himself was swinging his blue-shining blade at the side of Ziragoth’s enraged, intimidating face. It was an incredibly risky move, but he needed to play for time. Everything he was doing right now was for the sake of time! That was his only objective. And so, with his heart beating heavily in his chest, he sent his sword whirling towards the wyvern as the wyvern’s tail came ever closer to him. One thing was clear: his continued existence became nothing more than a matter of who struck first. And thank the Gods, because it was his sword that bit into a Ziragoth’s scaly face for a massive, whopping, zero damage a mere instant before Ziragoth’s tail smashed him into the pavement and turned him from a human being into a flattened pile of skin and ground-up bones.

That’s five! Zach shouted in his mind.

Having hit the beast five times, he had now gathered five stacks of Courage. And with that, he was able to activate Yorna’s Courage. Immediately, an orange, bubble-shaped, and highly transparent barrier made of light popped into existence and completely encased him inside—though it vanished almost as soon as it had appeared as the dragon’s tail crashed directly into it, hitting the barrier instead of Zach. The result was a brief, but brilliant flash of orange light as the barrier broke, followed by the wyvern’s massive barbed tail actually bouncing off of it as though it’d been parried.

This only seemed to anger the creature even more, as it again brought its tail around. Now, Zach had no choice but to once more rely on Phase Blink, targeting the wyvern. In a repeat of just a few moments earlier, Zach, for the second time, found himself staring at the back of the gigantic monster as both the sonic boom and the loud crack of its tail slamming into the street both hit his ears at the same time. Only, something was slightly different now, wasn’t it? Something wasn’t right. Had…had he shrunk? Or had the dragon just grown massively taller? No, wait. It was neither of the two. Zach had forgotten that Ziragoth had smashed a ten-foot crater into the pavement with its tail—which he was now inside.

Son of a bitch!

The creature turned around to face him yet again, and with its golden, lizard-like eyes filling with a tremendous fury, it opened its mouth. Zach cried in terror as a massive inferno of firebreath raced down towards the crater as though to bathe him in it and burn him alive. With adrenaline coursing through his veins, his reflexes kicked in, and without even having to think about it, Zach bent his knees, gritted his teeth, and with every last possible bit of strength he could command, he launched himself up into the air—then let out a nervous yelp has he blasted off in a way he hadn’t actually known he was capable of.

As his body rocketed upwards, he realized that this was the first time he’d ever actually attempted to jump with all of his strength, and to both his surprise and relief, he’d propelled himself upwards so fast that, in a matter of mere moments, he found himself at least a dozen feet above even the few three-story homes that accompanied the majority two-story homes lining both sides of the street. Now, he was looking down upon the dragon, which was breathing so much fire into the crater that in a bizarre sort of way it resembled a gigantic swimming pool in the middle of a community road filled with flames instead of water.

Unfortunately, Zach’s upward leap did not put him out of the way of danger for very long. With an angry cry, the dragon halted its firebreath, flapped its wings, and took off at an absurd speed in his direction. It was a potent reminder to Zach that, despite having saved himself from one method of instant death, he was now likely about to face another, because fundamentally, he was a wingless human being in the middle of the air, and he was going up against a fire-breathing wyvern that was likely even more powerful in an aerial faceoff than it was on the ground.

Even before Zach had reached the apex of his jump and began to slowly reverse his motion into the beginning of his descent, the wyvern had already crossed three-quarters of the distance to where his airborne body helplessly awaited. He could do nothing but watch on in horror as it ripped across the sky towards him, its mouth opened widely and its tremendously long forked tongue extended and flapping greedily as it beat against the wind.

As things stood, Zach was about to fall directly into the creature’s open mouth, at which point he would be devoured and killed in a single, painful bite. This wasn’t good. This was really, really not good! What in the name of the Gods was he supposed to do now? He grimaced at the sight of the thing flying towards his body on its way to devour him whole. Closer and closer, its open, drooling mouth approached, its teeth so sharp and so eerily shiny that they reflected the light of the powerful, North Bastian sunshine.

The world started to darken as its surprisingly large mouth filled his view. With a start, he realized he was now already partially inside the thing. It was also scorching hot. If the heatwave wasn’t enough, it was so intensely scorching now that it caused Zach to feel genuine pain. Lacking any better idea of what to do, Zach activated Phase Blink even as the sight of razor sharp teeth closing in on him caused him to brace himself. Though he managed to just slip away, he’d be lying if he said it hadn’t been way, way too close that time. Just too fucking close.

Zach survived so narrowly that he actually shouted out in terror as a thankfully not-acidic glob of disgusting saliva landed on top of his head and drenched him as the creature snapped its mouth shut, submerging him in darkness. But then the darkness, along with the inside of Ziragoth’s mouth, simply vanished: all of it did. The mouth, the teeth—everything, including the dark went away in a fraction of a second, and he was gone.

Now, Zach fell a dozen-or-so feet until he landed in a smooth crouch on top of the roof of a neighboring house all the way down the block. As he touched down, he slapped his right palm onto the roof to steady his landing while extending his sword-carrying arm away from his body to prevent accidentally cutting himself. Had this not been such a dire situation, he might have felt bad for the hole he just put in the roof of the house, as his hand pierced straight through it.

As long as they live, Zach thought to himself. They can rebuild.

Returning to his feet, Zach almost forgot about the sonic boom, which for some reason was far, far louder this time around than any he’d made until this point; it managed to cause every window of at least ten different houses to all shatter all at once. Exhaling, he wiped a glob of sweat and dragon saliva off his forehead, shook his legs and his arms to keep them loose, and decided to take a second to catch his breath. Then, he turned around and—holy shit it was already on him again!

He flinched as he saw the aggressive, monstrous wyvern hovering in the air just twenty feet or so in front of him, and with a vicious-sounding roar, it opened its mouth, and as soon as Zach saw the thing’s face open up, he readied himself, knowing it was time to evade yet another round of deathly firebreath. Only…this time, it turned out to be something else: something far, far worse.

Rather than lash out at him with a relatively slower-moving but all-encompassing inferno, Zach became startled as, from somewhere deep inside the creature’s throat, an eruption caused the darkness of the dragon’s mouth to light up with a bright flash similar to the muzzle of one of Anelia’s guns. Almost in the same instant as the flash, Ziragoth’s head twitched back and the sound of a thunderous boom erupted from his mouth with the same intense volume as that caused by using Phase Blink.

Oh…shit.

Zach felt his eyes widen all on their own in stunned incredulity as a gigantic, boulder-sized ball of flame soared through the air heading straight for him. It was so gigantic and so massive it could’ve passed for a comet had it not been so bright and had he not seen where it’d come from. Much like his Wave Slash, it caused a shrill hiss as it tore through the air as it made its way directly towards him.

Filling with alarm and a sense of panicked urgency, he hurriedly activated Phase Blink and got himself the hell out of there. A moment later, he found himself transported to the roof of a home seven houses down on the opposite end of the block, whereupon he turned on his heels just fast enough to see the ripple in the air from his blazing-fast movement. He also managed to spin himself around in time to see the gigantic fireball’s collision with the home. As the ear-piercing, brain-rattling, earth-shaking combination of noise and heat came upon the world in front of him, Zach was not sure which boom belonged to him and which one came from Ziragoth. All he knew was that he would never be able to forget the way his ears physically ached at the resulting explosion.

The fireball collided with the home, and the entire two-story house simply exploded with such an intense fury that Zach almost fell off the roof as a resulting shockwave pushed him back and came very close to sweeping him off his feet. Then, mere seconds later, he was forced to temporarily sheathe his blade and raise his arms to guard his face as a hurricane of wooden planks, bricks, plaster, rocks, sand, and the lid of a toilet seat flew into him at what looked—and felt—like over a hundred miles per hour. At the same time, an intense heat along with an overwhelming acrid smell of smoke made it difficult for him to breathe. But it was what he spotted next that caused his jaw to fall in sheer horror. Rising up from the incinerated home and reaching almost up to the sky was an entire cloud of pure smoke in the shape of a mushroom. The level of destruction was beyond belief.

Shaking his head, he pursed his lips and forced himself not to become blinded by awe or fear. There was no time to consider anything other than his current task, which was staying alive long enough for help to arrive. He still had more than enough duration remaining on his Unleashed Phase to continue this elaborate, destructive dance with his dragon partner—at least until people arrived to help.

Unleashed Phase Duration

6:58 Remaining

By his best estimation, he only needed to last another fifty or so seconds. Just fifty damned seconds and he could let someone else take over. Surely he could do that, right? He’d survived five minutes against his cat, and Fluffles was way more aggressive than this fucking—

“Shit!”

As another boulder-sized ball of flame closed in on him, he blinked over to another rooftop. Then another after that. This thing was not going to make it easy for him, was it?

****

“I…I cannot believe what I am seeing, folks,” the news reporter said. “I wish I had more commentary to offer, but…but I’m just as stunned as you likely are watching this from home. I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life.”

Pack Dolan and over five-hundred fellow summer-school students sat on the floor of the gymnasium and watched the news report on a TV affixed to the wall in the basement of his high-school—the very same high school where the kid now being featured prominently on the news had actually attended until only a little while ago. Everyone here knew who he was. It was Gods-damned Zach Calador! Or at least, it was someone who looked exactly like him. It was just really difficult to believe it was really him on the screen. Too difficult, in fact. Like, for one, Pack couldn’t ever recall Zach exuding some kind of pitch-black smoke. He’d remember something like that. He also didn’t remember Zach’s skin glowing either. Also, since when would Zach willingly risk his life for anyone other than Kalana?

But they’d said it was him, Pack thought. So it has to be.

Even now, the kid’s name was continuing to slide along the fast-moving chyron on the bottom of the screen as the absolute maniac continued to fight that gigantic dragon all on his own without any help from anyone. Many of the kids were shouting out as though they were watching him fight in the hallway here at school.

“Get him, Zach,” someone said, raising their fist into the air. “Get that bastard!”

“Holy shit!” Ganks shouted, pointing. “How’s he doing that?”

Ganks’ girlfriend, Synn, shook her head. “I don’t know anything anymore. First, Kal turns out to be some kind of Elvish princess, and now Zach is a Gods-damned dragon slayer? I’m ready to check out.”

The kid was literally dashing from rooftop to rooftop as the dragon sent out one fireball after the next, obliterating each home mere seconds after he would land on it. Slowly but surely, the entire section of the community was lighting up in flames, and worse, it was beginning to spread to other parts of the town. Now, there were a great many homes that were on fire that hadn’t even been directly involved in the battle.

At certain points, the video became difficult to watch as, despite this taking place in broad daylight, there were constant flashes of light so intensely bright that the cameras on the cell phones filming all of this simply went white. The sound of it all was unlike anything Pack had ever before heard, either; it was just a constant mess of explosions and loud, echoing booms as Zach-fucking-Calador, from science class, led a literal fire wyvern on a wild chase through a small community in a typically sleepy town in the farmlands.

Even more strangely, because the video was on a second or two delay, they actually heard the booms from all the way over here in the city before they saw and heard them on the screen. Some of them were so loud they’d caused Pack—and the others—to flinch, so he could only imagine how deafening they must be for anyone within earshot.

“Behind you!” a girl shouted at the TV. “Zach, behind you!”

Pack watched as his one-time-nemesis-turned-dragon-wrangler appeared to be unaware that the beast was swooping down on him as though to grab him with his razor-sharp feet. But then he disappeared and reappeared on top of one of the few homes remaining in the neighborhood, which was almost completely on fire and generating so much smoke that it could actually now be seen from outside of the rear window in the school’s basement gymnasium all the way over here in the city.

A moment after Zach reappeared on another roof of one of the last homes still intact, the dragon flew into—and through—the one where he’d only just been standing, and the result was like watching a mean adult kick over a child’s sandcastle on the beach. The entire house was dismantled so quickly it almost didn’t seem real.

“Just a reminder, folks, if you’re in the Whispery Woods region, you are now in a maximum-alert-level lockdown. No one is permitted to be outside of their homes at this time. Back to you, Mallory.”

Suddenly, the view changed, becoming much clearer. They were now looking down upon Zach, and it only occurred to Pack just then that the news media had somehow managed to get their own news helicopters onto the scene before the evacuation helicopters had even arrived yet, which was really pathetic and amazing all at the same time. It sort of spoke volumes about the priorities people had.

“I want to go home,” one of the girls said to the men in white peacekeeper uniforms guarding the exits. “Please let us out. Please!”

“We can’t do that,” one of the peacekeepers said. “Everyone is to stay right where they are.” Then the man’s expression softened somewhat, and so did his tone of voice. Speaking a bit more kindly, he said, “Don’t worry. You’re all going to be fine.”

“If that’s the case, then why are we being forced to stay here?” Pack asked. “You’re saying it won’t come here, then…why?”

The man tensed up as though the question had caught him off guard. “All right, well…we don’t know it won’t come here. But there’s no reason to believe it will.”

This, clearly, did not have the reassuring effect the peacekeeper had obviously intended, because it only made even more students nervous. Hell, even Pack started to take this seriously now as a touch of fear entered into his belly.

“It’s not gonna come here, is it?” another girl asked as her friend hugged her. “My mom and my dog are home by themselves.”

“Nah, we’ll be fine. Zach’s got this one,” Ganks said. Then he shrugged. “I mean, I hope.”

Pack returned his attention to the TV, which had now exclusively switched to their own camera feed, eschewing the video from bystanders due to the news choppers that had arrived with far superior equipment. Listening in, Pack struggled to come to grips with the fact that they were saying Zach’s name yet again on TV. The world was starting to move too fast for him. Really, it was hard enough as things were to wrap his mind around the fact that Kalana, the chick who’d beat his ass in the middle of the hall, was now the most famous person on the planet, but now Zach, too? Already, he could see his name trending on social media as more and more people inquired about who, exactly, he was, and whether or not he was single.

“…and can you just confirm earlier reporting for the people who might only first be tuning in, Domanik?” Mallory asked.

“Absolutely, Mallory,” he said. “Officials with the Royal Roses have in fact confirmed that the boy’s name”—he paused a moment as the sound of a boom followed by an explosion made it impossible for him to be overheard—“is Zachys Calador, a high school student from the Whispery Woods who officials tell us was recruited into the ranks of the Royal Roses. As I’m sure you know, Mallory, they’re the only guild that has ever allowed the recruiting of individuals not connected to one of the core guild bloodlines.”

“And what can you tell us about this young man, Dom?”

“Well, Mallory, not much is known right now. I spoke briefly with Abram Gespon of the People of Virtue. He told us that Zachys Calador is a very brave young man who happened to be in the area with a bounty hunter by the name of Anelia Hellcrest in order to help tamp down on the rising crime in Whispery Woods that has been becoming more rampant since the guild of Gentlemen abdicated their responsibility to the region.”

“And what did you learn that we can share with our concerned viewers at home who may be watching this and thinking to themselves: how do I know a boss won’t spawn in my own neighborhood?”

“Excellent question, Mallory. Excellent question. Well, in my brief conversation with Sir Gespon the Virtuous, who I might add, will be sharing all of this information shortly when he addresses the public a half hour from now, he wanted me to reassure everyone that what we’re witnessing is a horrible, horrible tragedy and unlikely to ever happen again. He explained to me that given how many boss spawns used to exist on Galterra, it was always possible that there might have been one or maybe two somewhere on the planet that his forbearers missed and did not destroy. He also asked me to inform the public that everything possible is being done to keep North Bastians safe.”

“And do we know if this wyvern poses a risk to any other communities?”

“Unfortunately, we here at N-B-O-N haven’t been able to uncover any information regarding that just yet, and Abram Gespon—the Virtuous—has as of yet refused to comment, however we’ve been assured that, in the interest of earning the trust of the public, the media will be permitted to actively monitor the dragon at a safe distance from now until the moment it is inevitably slain.”

“Thanks, Domanik. Once again, for any viewers just tuning in, a fire wyvern boss has spawned in the farmlands of Whispery Woods, and officials are urging all residents to…”

******

“Now do you see?” Prila asked, her voice impassioned as she pointed to the corpses littered all across the previously quiet, peaceful town of Den of Ziragoth. “Don’t you get it, Adamus? We aren’t living in the world of a thousand years ago. These people…they do not understand your system. They do not know why their friends and family are dying in the streets.”

Adamus did not reply as he stared stone-faced at the computer screen on her desk. Prila was sure that the sights before his eyes disturbed him, yet since he was refusing to say a word to her, she had no idea what he thought about any of this. Finally, however, after nearly five minutes of silence, he spoke. And while his words came out in his usual, typical whisper, there was a very real, very genuine note of pain that came across.

“That my creation has butchered this many people, I…I am beside myself with agony, my child.”

“So then you see it too, yes?” she asked, becoming hopeful. “We need to make changes. If not to the system, then to Galterra. We need to begin warning people. We need to start—”

“No,” he said, interrupting her.

“No?” she asked in disbelief.

He inhaled slowly and closed his eyes. “The system must remain as it is. It must be preserved and protected.”

“But…but what about everything you just saw? Everything you’re continuing to see?”

“And what about the things you do not, child?”

Frowning, Prila asked, “Such as what?”

He pointed to the screen, where Zachys Calador was hopping around in what could only be called a one-on-one duel with a literal T7 fire wyvern. “Did you see the way that boy and the woman ended their conflict and began working together the moment that beast appeared?”

“Yes, so?”

“That, my child, is why the system exists.”

“But that’s two lives against a thousand or more dead ones.”

“If you look at the smaller picture, yes. But we must look at the bigger picture. If anything, watching this has doubled my convictions. The system is correct and true. We must continue to fight for it.”

Prila looked away from him, as she didn’t want him to see the growing doubt she knew must reside in her eyes. Demoralized, she was less certain now than at any point in her life that she was doing the right thing. That dragon had been the creation of the Great Ones, sure, but the OMP had known it would spawn, where it would spawn, and what would happen when it spawned, and they’d done nothing to alert the innocent people whose guts and body parts had now painted an entire section of the town red. For years, she would have chalked something like this up to the workings of a mysterious God. But now…now she felt like she was complicit in the wholesale slaughter of innocent people.

And she really, really didn’t like that.

With sadness bringing her closer and closer to the breaking point, she continued to watch as Zachys Calador attempted to survive for another forty seconds against a monster powerful enough to terminate his life with its tongue, let alone the rest of its body.