Chapter 97: Ziragoth the Awoken Part III

Having never been very good at masking her emotions, Eilea didn’t even bother to try. She frowned bitterly and openly at the image in the glass viewing dome and tried to calm the combined sense of both disbelief and disappointment that took hold of her. She really did not want to see this. In fact, it took a measurable amount of willpower for Eilea to avoid looking away or otherwise deafening her senses to the world. Still, she knew she had a responsibility not to turn her gaze from the spectacle taking place on Galterra—as hopeless and senseless as it may have been. If things had seemed bad to begin with, they were now ten times worse. With a mutual look of disgust that she shared with Francis, she rubbed her chin and shook her head as she struggled to understand how one man could be so stupid.

“He must have no idea what he’s doing,” she said. “None whatsoever. The man is either a damned fool, or it’s like we considered earlier, and he’s acting out of malice.”

“Don’t you have a way of knowing for sure what his reason is?” Francis asked her.

“Well, technically yes, but what would be the point? It would cost me a great deal of effort to peer into his unusually well-guarded mind, and it would do little besides satisfy our curiosity. At this point, knowing his motives won’t actually change anything.” She felt her frown deepen as she tried to wrap her mind around such an unfortunate, baffling turn of events. “Malice was not the sense I got from him when I observed him yesterday in Angelica’s,” she said, her tone slightly lower and contemplative. “That’s what makes all of this such a conundrum to me.”

Francis leaned closer towards the dome and pointed his finger at it. “Just to be clear, you’re talking about the one in the lab coat, right?”

She nodded. “Yes, that one. Doctor Alex Oren: the uniquely gifted young man in the crafted lab coat who earned his Ph.D. in microbiology at the age of just seventeen—and is now a level-61 adventurer in his early twenties.” She tapped on his image in the viewing dome, which the sands had drawn with such clarity it was indistinguishable from a high-definition photograph. Then she slid her finger across the glass to where it settled upon Zach. “Regrettably, his fate is now all but sealed.”

Francis’s body stiffened. “If he’s as intelligent as you say, then it must be malice.”

“I don’t know. Truly, I don’t. Even brilliant humans are capable of profoundly stupid blunders. But sending the boy in right off the bat…that’s really something else.”

“And you’re sure that the man doesn’t know what he’s doing?”

She again nodded her head. “Unless I’m missing something—and I’m not—there’s no way a group of just four people can handle the phase-two form of Ziragoth on their own. At least not while below level 200. Zach is the obvious exception, of course. If he were in the high 70s or low 80s, he might even be able to take on this suicidal task all by himself. But at level 19, he will come up far short.”

Francis stared deeply into the viewing dome; he did not seem entirely convinced. “He must have a reason for doing things this way. Maybe he sees this from an angle we’re missing, Eilea.”

She gave a firm shake of her head. “As bright a young man as this ‘Alex Oren’ may be, I am a Goddess, and no man of mortal standing knows more than I do.”

Francis continued to peer into the dome, skepticism plain on his face. “I don’t know,” he said at only slightly above a whisper. “I still think it’s possible you’re underestimating the soundness of his judgment.”

“I’m not. He may know much, but he does not know more than a God.”

“But you’re not really a God though, are you? None of you are actual Gods. You’ve told me as much yourself.”

“No, Francis,” she corrected. “I told you of my origin, which is decidedly non-divine. But the Great Ones…we are surely Gods as the word is understood, self-made as we are.”

“Nonsense,” he replied. “If having the power you do truly makes you a God, then by that logic, I too am a God.”

“Essentially, you are.”

At this, he waved his hand dismissively. “No, Eilea. I’m just a man.”

“On that, we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

Returning her attention to the glass viewing dome, she watched as a power began to awaken: one greater than that which any of those on Galterra were currently capable of handling. By her estimation, their raid would result in a complete and total wipe within approximately the next five minutes. She would be helpless to do anything more than watch as the champion she’d put her hopes in died before ever accomplishing anything truly significant—throwing away such vast, unrealized potential in the process. And with that, she would once again be back to square one. What a Gods-cursed shame. What a waste of such greatness.

And for this, I have the idiocy of a lab-coat-wearing science teacher to thank.

With sadness and apprehension mixing together in her chest, she braced herself for the unsettling images she knew were soon to form in the viewing dome. Zachys Calador didn’t stand a chance, and just a few moments from now, she would inevitably witness him die—for the second time. The thought made her clench her teeth in frustration. She was unable to do a thing to aid him. For the time being, she could be nothing more than a spectator to his certain demise. And without a doubt, it was going to be a gruesome, unbearable sight to behold.

On second thought, maybe she should consider looking away after all.

******

“Here they come!” shouted the voice of an adventurer in BG4 who Zach did not recognize. “Gods, there’s so many of them!”

Only a moment following the appearance of more than a hundred quickly growing shadows, sizzling sounds not all that dissimilar to eggs being dropped onto a hot stove came from multiple directions each time one of the black orbs of putty-like goop landed somewhere within earshot of Zach. Many caused the grass to turn brown and wither—or otherwise become alight with flame—and the few that touched down on top of larger-sized rocks began to burn a hole through the sandstone as they seemingly cooled. The same could be said of the stone atop the wall in the numerous areas wherever the searingly hot substances landed as though targeted with precise intent.

To make matters even worse, a whole bunch more of them were already forming and wriggling on the giant ball of fire in the sky; they were like blackish seeds on a burning orange. Only, unlike seeds, they were quickly growing in size, and they were rocking back and forth. It wouldn’t be long before they too popped right off the ball of flame and landed down onto the surface, bringing even more adds to deal with and creating an even more perilous situation for them all.

There could end up being almost two hundred of them!

Everywhere Zach looked, he saw men and women stumbling either away or directly towards the convulsing, ooze-like substances as the members of the raid struggled to either rearrange or reorganize themselves in response to what Mr. Oren had said was a greater-than-expected number of adds. The result, unfortunately, was a total breakdown in communication—one that threatened to derail the entire effort. And it all began with a single demand from one of the political guild members.

“We need more support over here!” shouted the panicked voice of an officer from the People of Virtue over the Comm. “BG4, you need to send some more people to the front of the wall. They’re landing all over BG5, and they’re going to turn into those monsters any second now!”

“We can’t!” the voice of Kalana yelled back in reply. “We’ve already pulled too many people off covering BG1 and BG2. We can’t spare anyone else!”

“We could use some more support from BG4 over here as well,” said the clearly rattled voice of one of the Elvish archers standing atop the wall. “BG6 doesn’t have enough tanks up here. BG4, we need you to divert some more resources to protect us.”

“Um, are you not hearing me? I just said—”

“We need more tanks up front!” interrupted a member of the Royal Roses, who was fighting on the frontlines in Division 1’s BG2. “They’re plopping down out of the sky like raindrops. BG3, you’re supposed to be protecting us. What are you fools doing?”

“BG3 can’t be everywhere at once,” a man from the Lords of Justice growled into the Comm. “And we’re about to be surrounded as is. You guys need to cut us some Gods-be-damned slack!”

“Humans, please, stop arguing and listen to me,” another of the Elvish archers said. “The wall should be prioritized over all else. Once we’re clear of adds up here, we can rain down arrows and help the rest of you. You should prioritize protecting BG6 so that we can be the ones to protect you in turn.”

“That sounds more like self-preservation to me than strategy,” a political guild member from BG1 retorted. To Zach’s surprise, the guy found plenty of agreement from the adventurers in his battlegroup.

“He’s right,” a woman from the Explorers Brigade said. “From the start, BG1 and BG2 have essentially been nothing but disposable bait, haven’t we?”

As more and more people joined the fray and began arguing with one another, it became difficult for Zach to stay focused. As things were, he was already struggling to manage his own fear. But now, all these terror-filled voices crying out in desperation and clogging up the Comm line were amplifying his worries and putting him further on edge. A sense of disarray came over the raid, and Zach came close to pulling the device out of his ear as their agitated shouts grew in both volume and number.

Despite all the planning and coordination that had gone into maintaining a stable line of communication, it quickly became impossible to discern one voice from the next. Hundreds of shouts of alarm and confusion from both on and off the Comm made it so that no individual person could be heard clearly for very long. Within seconds, a chaos emerged that threatened to unravel the more than five hundred of them as the myriad of panicked voices drowned out even the sound of Donovan’s booming shouts while both he and Mr. Oren struggled to restore order.

“Four more just landed over here!” someone cried. “BG5 needs more support!”

“BG5 is fine as it is,” a woman replied angrily. “It’s BG6 that’ll be wiped if BG3 or BG4 doesn’t send us more tanks. Ten more just dropped down on my area of the wall.”

“Both of you shut the hell up!” shouted a man from BG2. “Neither of you have any idea what you’re—”

“QUIET ON COMMS!” Donovan roared, at last managing to break through the commotion. The thunder in his voice brought an abrupt—and much needed—end to the bickering, and just like that, all fell quiet. Even those who were mid-sentence closed their mouths and became silent. “Everyone shut your traps or I’ll give you something worse than the dragon to worry about. I’m settling this right now!” Donovan inhaled, and the sound of it was loud enough that it came through over the Comm. “BG3 and BG4,” he continued, “I know you’re already stretched thin. But I want you to send a few more DPS and off-tanks to BG6 anyway. That guy from before was right: if BG6 deals with their own adds quickly enough, they can be freed up to concentrate fire elsewhere.”

“And what about BG5?” a woman asked, her tone heightened with fear. “Are you hanging us out to dry?”

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Donovan said with a grunt. “No one here is having an easy day today, myself included. Now, I don’t wanna hear another word about this. Get ready to kill some adds!”

Zach could not blame anyone for their reaction. After all, every member of the raid knew exactly what these putty-like “substances” would very quickly turn into, and they also knew how dangerous they would be. It seemed Mr. Oren’s predictions had been right; that much, no one could deny. In exactly the places he’d predicted, the adds had landed and were now being reformed from the scalding, inky blobs that had rained down on them into what would very soon become the fast, aggressive, and ruthless level-90 mobs that had almost killed dozens of the GSG yesterday.

Yet, as much of a threat as these “Cursed Defenders of Ziragoth” would pose, they paled in comparison to the dragon itself—the dragon which, for some insane reason, Zach was being ordered to attack head-on right from the start. Compared to Zach, everyone else here had it easy. Gods, the very idea of what he’d been tasked with caused him to become nauseous and lightheaded. The sudden change in plans had come as a gigantic shock to him, one that didn’t feel real just yet. And honestly, how could it? It was so absurd that it defied belief. How the hell could Mr. Oren and Donovan ask this of him? Were they trying to get him killed on purpose? This was such an incredible deviation from the original plan that it made his head spin.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Originally, he was supposed to serve the role of DPS in BG1. Then he’d found out he’d have to perform the role of tank—something he clearly wasn’t suited for—in the event that BG1 and BG2 wiped. That alone had been enough to flood him with uncertainty. But now? Now it was even worse. Now, he was being told to just rush in and tank the dragon right off the bat while BG1 and BG2 were instead diverted to fighting off the swarm of adds, which were continuing to drop down from above even as the first batch of those that’d already fallen were beginning to solidify, change color, and grow tails, arms, claws, and teeth.

Is this really happening? he wondered. Somebody please tell me this is just a big joke.

Incredibly, the fact that he had no real idea of what he was supposed to be doing or why he’d been chosen to do it was actually the least of his problems. Far greater was the question of how he was supposed to “tank” the dragon. At best, he could flop around and dodge a bit before eventually running out of luck and getting murdered. He certainly didn’t have any “taunt” abilities or even a shield to hide behind—well, other than Phase Shield, anyway. But the point remained: he clearly was not suited for this. Tanking obviously wasn’t a role he was meant to play. Especially not at his level. Hell, he doubted it would take anything more than a scratch from Ziragoth to utterly annihilate him. Yet, for some reason, they were not only expecting him to survive this ordeal, but somehow also defeat the fearsome monster with his tiny battlegroup of four members as well. This was crazy. This was lunacy!

How can just four of us kill it by ourselves? It doesn’t make any Gods-damned sense.

Zach glanced up with narrowed eyes at the giant ball of flame in the sky. Only, it wasn’t so much a “ball” anymore and had stretched somewhat to take on more of an egg shape. A blackish, vertical line was beginning to form along the center of the flame, which at first reminded Zach of a cell going through mitosis but quickly resembled more of a fissure as it became better defined. The flames also began to shine less brightly in a gradual way until their color dimmed from a bright orange to something brownish. At some point, they ceased to be flames entirely, seamlessly transitioning from fire to something closer to solid mass. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that the flames died out and revealed something solid that had been hidden behind them.

Then, with an audible tearing sound that Zach could hear from all the way down at the surface, the black line running vertically down the egg-shaped form began to rip open, and from within, two viciously sharp, spike-covered wings popped out, accompanied by a flapping sound that reminded him of a parachute being deployed. Ziragoth was reforming, and Zach could tell by looks alone that it was going to be bigger, stronger, deadlier, and even angrier than it had been before.

With each passing moment, what had begun as a large fireball in the sky was now becoming a more solid, recognizable, and rapidly changing mass that was beginning to sprout scales and other appendages. After another uncomfortable tearing sound, a tail began to form, and so did the basic outline of a head. A thin, black, and horizontal line running across what Zach took to be its new “head” caused another rip that formed two separate flaps of “skin,” which soon after shifted into something of a mouth. Second by second, Ziragoth was coming closer to reanimating—and Zach would be the one who had to face him.

But why me? Why do I have to be the one to do this?

One thing was clear: the dragon’s minions would become active before the dragon itself would, as the first hundred to fall were nearly finished forming. In fact, what looked like eleven of those that’d landed just in front of the wall now had names over their heads, and simultaneously, all eleven released loud, angry chirps and began to charge at BG5. Even without Ziragoth, the second phase of the fight had now officially begun.

Reacting immediately, numerous tanks sprang into action and peeled off eight of the eleven mobs, but either due to slow reaction speed or for some other logistical reason, three of them managed to break through a gap and make their way past the tanks lining up to fight them. From what Zach could tell, all three of the adds seemed intent on devouring the same target: a lone, horrified-looking mage wearing dark blue robes whose eyes widened in terror as they zipped across the grasslands and made straight for him.

“I need help!” the mage cried, his shaky voice coming through clearly over the Comm. “I’ve got aggro. Three of them!”

Zach watched as he threw out his staff-wielding arm, and from the tip of the wooden, cane-like weapon, he released three greenish beams that each made a thwap as they slapped into the face of the front-most charging “Cursed Defender of Ziragoth” and hit for around 8000 damage each, though it failed to slow down the mob whatsoever. Having somehow slipped past the defensive line of tanks, the three fast-moving creatures continued to make straight for their target. But now, two of the three came to an immediate halt, and “Zzs” began to float above their head as they were put to sleep with what Zach assumed were crowd control spells cast from BG5’s support. The one leading the pack, however, somehow evaded it and thus continued to charge directly at the staff-wielding mage. With a nervous shriek, the man began to backpedal for several steps before tripping over his own feet and landing on his ass, which he then began to slide backwards on.

“Somebody, please, help! I am completely undefended and—”

“I gotcha!” Kalana called out to him over the Comm.

Zach watched as she dashed across the grasslands and moved to intercept the bipedal, lizard-avian hybrid, slicing two others that had just finished forming along the way and causing them to aggro onto her; with blood dripping down their torn, feathery skin from where Kalana had slashed them, they chased after her as she raced towards the undefended mage, whose nearest allies were also spellcasters and were scrambling away as though not wanting to be the next to become targeted in the event he died. From the looks of things, Kalana was determined to not only save the mage, but she seemed like she was planning to engage three of the level-90 mobs in combat all by herself in the process.

“Kal!” Zach cried aloud. “I’m coming to help!” He turned his body to face her then lifted his foot, ready to dash in her direction. But he was stopped by Fylwen, who grabbed his shoulder and held him in place.

“She’ll be fine, young man.”

“But she’s about to take on three of them at once!”

“She’ll be fine,” Fylwen said again. “Believe me: if I thought my daughter was in any danger, I’d be the first one by her side. You need to focus on your own role.”

Zach felt himself becoming tense. His throat suddenly having gone dry, he wet his lips and said, “This has to be some kind of a mistake. We’re all going to die if we try to take on Ziragoth by ourselves.”

“No, we won’t,” Vim said matter-of-factly, his hands gripping his staff. “I think we can actually win.”

Zach laughed out of a sense of derision. “Are you nuts?”

“Maybe a little, but not about this,” Vim said. “I actually think I see what that science teacher had in mind when he put this battlegroup together. Clever, if so.” He shifted his eyes to Fylwen. “I take it you were already filled in, Your Majesty?”

She nodded. “Pete and I were both present last night when he came up with this wildly inventive idea. Not a moment after the vampire told us about your ability, the teacher thought up a creative solution on the spot. Honestly, I was quite impressed. Never, would I have thought up something of the sort.”

Vim stroked his chin as though it itched, then said, “I’m not thrilled that my strongest ability was outed, but…I guess I also don’t care all that much, either. Adventurer types are the ones who care most about preserving adventuring secrets.” He made a strange sigh; from the sound of it, Zach had the impression that the short, sharp-tongued guild-leader was not only lacking in fear, but was entirely disinterested in the events taking place around him. “So,” he continued, “I take it I’m meant to combo my ZOE with Sir Brayspark’s Blessing of the Angels?”

Zach had absolutely no idea what the three were talking about or what any of that meant, but whatever the case, it caused Peter to become visibly disturbed. “You…you know of that ability?”

Vim made a grin, then shrugged. “I guess so.”

Peter closed his eyes a moment then reopened them soon after, and now, they were filled with determination. “Though I do find it distasteful to collaborate with an enemy of my people, I suppose the situation is grave enough to warrant it. To that end, yes, I believe the intention is for us to make use of the rather uniquely powerful interaction between our two abilities—and also the queen’s.”

“The queen’s?”

“Gift of Nature’s Embrace,” Fylwen said. “You’ll see in just a moment.” She moved her mouth as though she had more to say, but then without warning, she snapped it shut. Then she flicked her eyes to her right and drew her shortsword. Zach turned his head to see what she was staring at, and he now realized that about twenty of the Cursed Defenders of Ziragoth had landed ahead of him at some point without him even being aware of it—and they were all mostly formed, too.

He watched as their claws and teeth took shape, black stripes formed on their tails, and their round, yellow eyes appeared on their face. At the same time, the sound of fighting finally began to pick up in the distance, initiated at first by an asynchronous chorus of angry chirps that were joined instantly afterward by grunts and groans from the more than five-hundred raid members who were now rushing into battle.

The fighting was everywhere and intense, and it looked like a true, genuine war between the avian-lizard hybrids and the raid members. Farthest from the wall, BG1 and BG2 were handling dozens of the mobs roughly around the area where Ziragoth had collapsed after its first phase. Londril, the massive Elvish tank who had held the dragon’s aggro, was currently fending off about seven of the level-90 monstrosities all on his own, while Maric, now healed, guarded against another four. Most of the other tanks took on between one and three, while the DPS and off-tanks got to work dishing out damage. Unlike the incident yesterday afternoon, it looked like, at least as far as Division 1 was concerned, both the tanks and the damage output needed to survive the boss spawn were in place.

Behind them, at the midpoint between the wall and Division 1, whatever members of BG4 were not currently mixed in with BG5 and BG6 were fending off a smaller, but still significant number of adds, with Donovan, Eldora, and Mr. Oren fighting side by side. They too seemed to be doing all right. BG5, on the other hand, was not faring quite as well. Comprised primarily of medium-ranged DPS, their limited number of tanks were struggling to hold aggro against a large number of the cursed defenders. Even with Kalana there to aid them, it was looking dicey. But it was still better than the situation up on the wall.

Despite having been given even more reinforcements, a natural consequence of the narrow pathways that ran between the towers, combined with the overall lack of maneuverability, meant that disorganization was bound to occur. The dragon had sent a very significant number of its adds all along the wall, and now, all the Elvish archers had swapped their bows for longswords while trying their best to find an angle at which to attack the creatures, as tanks tried to squeeze their way around and between people to grab aggro. A loud mixture of chirps and cries of pain rang out in the early-morning summer day as tanks struggled to get in place. During this process, Zach witnessed two of them clumsily fall off the wall entirely, though he doubted they were injured due to their constitution.

“What do we do?” Zach asked, glancing around frantically. He squeezed his blade tightly as names popped up above the heads of the twenty mobs before them. “Everyone else is already handling too much to come and pull these adds off us.”

“Indeed,” Peter Brayspark said. “We’ll have to deal with them ourselves.”

Zach gasped. “There’s twenty of them and four of us.”

“A few more than four, actually.”

“Huh?”

The leader of the Guild of Gentlemen did not reply. Instead, he tapped his palm one time against his chest, and then the red gemstone in the necklace he wore began to glow. An instant later, nine consecutive bolts of lighting struck the terrain in a semicircle around him, each one punctuated by a booming crack of thunder, and now, surrounding the self-proclaimed “king” of humanity were nine level-150 Valkyries.

Each of them had the wings of an angel, and each of them wielded a different weapon, such as a mace, or a broadsword, or a pair of daggers. One even had a silver, shining spear. “Valkyries!” Peter Brayspark shouted. “At the ready!”

“YES, SIR!” they replied cheerfully in singsong, effeminate voices.

Zach sighed. “Ah, what the hell.” He reached his hand, palm flat, above his head and called upon Bank and Storage, grabbing an item he’d stowed away last night. It appeared in the palm of his hand immediately, and then he dismissed the box that only he could see in front of him. Now, in his hand was a card, which he summoned. Appearing by his side was the fancily adorned boss of Yorna floor B10, Moldark the Unbanished.

“Go!” Zach called at Moldark, mentally commanding him to attack. Moldark drew his blade, the sound of sliding steel at his side echoing throughout the grasslands, and then he took off at a run towards one of the Cursed Defenders of Ziragoth, which were only moments from aggroing the four of them. Somehow, Moldark got to them first. The creature turned around to face the white-armored dungeon boss, and it chirped loudly.

Moldark raised his blade high above his head and slashed downwards, crashing it over the creature’s scalp and dealing…well…3 points of damage. The mob retaliated immediately with a very fast swipe of its razor-sharp claws, dealing 215,917. And then Moldark died, vanishing into a puff of smoke that quickly disappeared.

Vim cocked his eyebrow at Zach. “A genius-level play, Zach. Well done.”

He laughed nervously, somewhat embarrassed. “Right. I forgot he’s way too low level to use here.”

Zach tried not to stress over the fact that he’d just wasted—and by extension destroyed—his one and only card. He could always get more Moldarks. It wouldn’t even be difficult. There were more important things to worry about right now—such as how in the hell he was supposed to survive the incoming stampede of Cursed Defenders of Ziragoth, which were all blasting across the terrain and heading straight for him.

“Valkyries!” Peter shouted. “Stand by to—”

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

Fate, in a display of its typical cruelty, chose that exact moment to have Ziragoth return to the world. Even with the rush of bipedal, sharp-toothed carnivorous monsters racing towards him, Zach could not stop himself from glancing upwards and taking in the sight of the newly reborn, far stronger Ziragoth, which he was supposed to take on with just three others to support him. And Gods…he had no idea how he didn’t wet himself.

HP

25,000,000/25,000,000

Name

(T10) Ziragoth the Awoken

Level

70

“There it is!” Donovan said, his voice coming across as strained. Grunts of exertion and the banging of shields came through the Comm loudly enough to cause a degree of ear pain. “Kiddo, you know what you have to do. Go get it. BG5, hang tight. We’re working on relieving some more pressure!”

“Now’s the time,” Fylwen said to him. She was standing right by his side. “Activate Unleashed Phase. And please, without any of your usual preamble this time around.”

Zach nodded fearfully. “Yeah, I get it.”

Swallowing nervously, he activated Phase Reset, increasing his Phase Level to 3 and taking his ability off cooldown. Then, without any hesitation, delay, or second thoughts, he called upon Unleashed Phase. A moment before the explosion of power hit him, he felt the tug of fear as he took in the sheer size of Ziragoth in the sky above him. The dragon was flying stationary almost as though it were surveilling the battlefield. It was now twice the size it had been before, and with its wings extended, it partially blocked out the sun. A jolt of pure terror traveled straight down Zach’s spine as he watched it turn its head downward as though staring specifically at him. Briefly, the two locked eyes—and Zach nearly buckled under the horror of its gaze. But that fear became inverted as he felt a magnificent rush of power from within so great that he worried for a moment he’d become lost to it.

It was time that they met again.