A single man stepped through the portal.
“I’m surprised you came in person,” I said as I looked at Silas.
“Where is Guinevere?” he asked.
Guinevere stepped out from behind me, Aurora cooing softly in her arms. “I am here, sir.”
“You don’t have to call me sir anymore,” Silas said, his features softening. He looked at me. “I was wrong about you; you weren’t a threat to Guinevere. I heard what you did to Camelot to save her.”
“She was worth everything I had to do,” I said. “Have the Magi come to an agreement?”
“We have,” Silas said. “Errila took some convincing but you are the fourth arch mage. However, in order to convince her, we did have to promise we’d get you to do something for us.”
“And this thing is?” I asked warily.
“The Champions will be entering into an Event today,” Silas said. “The System creates temporary divine realms to host these Events in, but we’ve never been able to interfere with them before. We want you to open up a way into them.”
“How?” I asked. “I have to have seen a place before to open a portal to it,” I pointed out.
Silas held out a rune inscribed compass to me. “We have agents across Talba, some in very high positions and some fighting right alongside Champions. One of these champions is carrying a device that will let you locate them even if they aren’t in this world.”
I took the compass in my hand and held it. There was a sudden tugging on my soul similar to how I had been drawn to seek out all my fallen vassals here in the Void. I wasn’t sure if it would be enough to open a portal to the location, but it would be a start.
“The System won’t like us breaking in,” I mused. “I’m not sure how many people I could get through a portal. Do you have a core strike force in mind?”
“We and twelve other mages will be the priority. I assume you will have allies of your own you wish to bring,” Silas said.
“I’m coming,” Guinevere said.
“No you’re not,” Silas and I said simultaneously.
“I’m not going to leave you alone to fight hundreds of champions,” Guinevere insisted. “You need me Mordred; I fought with you in the last Event and you can’t do this without me.”
I sighed but Guinevere was right. In a one on one fight she could take on almost any champion, and she was an invaluable combatant. I trusted no one else like her to have my back.
“Fine,” I relented. “But you will stay back as much as possible; Aurora needs at least one of her parents.”
“She needs us both,” Guinevere said.
Silas bit back his words as he glared at me and her but nodded. “How soon can you be ready?”
Jeriah, I said telepathically. Get your brothers. Juruk, you and your mount will come with us and bring your riders as well. I can’t promise how many of them will be able to join the battle, though…
I continued to call upon my allies and vassals, choosing the strongest among them. I invited Exar’kun but didn’t invite Vone, as she was pregnant and our relationship was uncertain. She was Exar’s wife but she and I could still be enemies. The Magi began to come through the portal; they were arrayed for war and they didn’t have a uniform per se, but their robes and light garments made it so you would never confuse them with a regular military force.
“Ready?” I asked as I took out Mab and flipped through his pages.
“We are,” Pierce said. “You can open the portal?”
“With the power of the Void,” I said, a slight smile on my lips. “All things are possible.”
I started opening up the portal, chanting words as I drew arcane runes upon the ground. A swirling vortex appeared red light flashing as the System tried to block me, but I crystalized the energy and pulled it apart. It was like trying to move a mountain and I couldn’t hold the portal open for long.
“Jump through!” I grunted through gritted teath. “I don’t know how long I can hold this.”
Everyone started jumping through, pouring through the portal like water off a cliff. I strained and felt hot liquid running down my face, red drops splattering on the ground as I realized my body was crying and sweating blood. I couldn’t feel the pain but I could feel the strain on my body even if I couldn’t feel the pain telling me it would still give out soon.
“Twenty more seconds,” I wheezed out.
The flood of bodies continued through the portal; it was five feet wide in diameter so only one or two people could go through at once. One second ticked by then another as I counted down. Guinevere jumped through at the eighteen second mark and then I stepped through, holding up my hand to stop those trying to follow.
The portal snapped shut and we stood in a thick overgrown jungle.
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Error! Non-Champions have entered the Event (Zone Control) The goal of this Event is to control the most territory possible, there are six groups on the map. Rewards will be granted to Champions every hour based on how much territory they have personally taken and how much their faction holds. You will continue to respawn at your factions safe zone every time you die with a cooldown period of four hours between each death for the next three days until the Events conclusion. You must be alive during the last hour of the Event in order to receive your rewards.
Error: The World Boss Mordred has entered the Event along with four-hundred-and-seven others. All intruders must be slain and will not respawn. Until they are removed, progress for any zone they are in cannot be made.
“A classic PVP battle,” I said, stretching my shoulders as my regeneration repaired the strain to my body.
“PVP?” Silas asked.
“Player versus player,” Guinevere said. “It’s a term from his world; they have games that have elements similar to how the System grants us abilities.”
“I don’t like referring to this as a game,” Errila said tersely. “Did you miss the part where they will respawn and we won’t?”
Karnen stepped out of my soul in his void armor shell.
“That’s because you’re thinking of this wrong, my dear,” he said. “This is an opportunity, not a problem.”
“Karnen…I…I…” Errila stammered the arrogance of the woman suddenly gone.
“We’ll talk after this is done,” Karnen said, disappearing back into my spirit.
“Karnen is right,” I said. “Champions are powerful, yes and dangerous, but they are also full of rank points and killing them always gives those points and a good chance for abilities to their slayer, even if it isn’t permanent for them. This is our chance to farm them like mobs in a dungeon.”
“What’s your plan then?” Silas asked.
No one could see my dark smile under my helmet. “Slash and burn. Exar, you know what to do.”
---
Lancelot swore when he saw the notification.
“How did he…” he forced himself to calm down. “This is fine, we can respawn and they can’t. We’ve killed Mordred in an Event before and we just have to do it once now.”
He actually smiled at that.
“The idiot just willingly walked into a trap we didn’t even set for him and put all the cards in our hands,” he said.
Mira read the notification but was less sure than Lancelot was. “We don’t have Arthur this time. He stayed back so he could hunt down Modred.”
Hara let out an angry sigh. “Ironic that; he stays behind to hunt Mordred and then Mordred shows up here. But Lancelot is right, we only have to kill him once.”
“I think you’re forgetting that last time he only had two others helping him,” Mira said. “Guinevere and the Hell-Dragon. There are over four-hundred of them now. This isn’t an issue of overwhelming numbers against him.”
“They won’t be champions,” Felrick said dismissevly.
“Neither was Guinevere or the Hell-Dragon, but remember what they did,” Mira said.
“You think his four hundred vassals will all be on the level of skill that Guinevere is?” Lancelot asked doubtfully.
“Not all, but some,” Mira said. “And we would be fools to believe otherwise. The real question I have is Mordred got here. This place isn’t even in the material world.”
“That’s a question one of his vassals might know…” Felrick began.
Screams sounded in the jungle and they all turned. They caught the flapping of black wings in the distance and watched smoke rising up.
“First strike already,” Lancelot said. “He’s not taking his time this go around.”
“Look,” Mira said, pointing.
A dark spire of blackened stone was rising out of the ground.
“Another tower,” Hara said her fingers gripping her weapon tight. “He’s playing the same game again, it seems. It’s time to remind him that the rules have changed.”
---
The ground opened above me as I surged out of the hole I’d created and grabbed the champion by his head and neck. I snapped his neck before I could even register his description and pulled, ripping his head off his vertebrae. Blood fountained out over me and his surprised companions but they didn’t have long to think through the ambush before Guinevere and two of the Magi struck them from behind.
500 rank points gained
Ability Gained! Hurricane Force, Rank: 1; You are the herald of the storm and the winds obey you. Cause wind to stir up in a 1 mile radius blowing in the direction you are facing at a rate of 50mph.
Cost:
30 mana per second
Cast Time:
Channeled Passive
Each rank increases winds effects, speed, and radius. Increases Mind by 1 with each Rank.
I didn’t have the time to try and merge the ability with one of my others and I honestly wasn’t sure what it would go with.
“All right, lets keep it moving,” I said.
Behind me rose the giant tower I’d created, the perfect bait to draw in all the champions to our location. Exar’kun was burning the jungle but it was a purposeful fire to box in the champions. Another group of champions rushed out of the tree line, coughing from the smoke. I dodged an arrow and lifted my hand, gripping the archer with Telekinesis. The champion tried to break free but one of the goblins dropped out a tree over their head, landing on the suspended champion and ripping their throat out with a short blade.
523 rank points gained
Not even every kill from a Champion was going to earn me an ability but I was confident the System would be fair. It might not have invited us here but the System rewarded risk and only one side here was actually risking their lives. By the time this was done I hoped to have gotten half-a-dozen or more abilities to my name.
Guinevere blocked the strike of a rogue who appeared at my back. I rammed Clarent through their neck as it skidded off their leather armor, unable to damage another artifact. The bodies disappeared after death so we couldn’t loot them, but that didn’t mean we didn’t get this world’s equivalent of XP as I gained a ton of new rank points.
498 rank points gained
Ability Gained! Raining Light, Rank: 1; You call upon the might of the heavens to rain down and destroy your enemies. Javelins of light rain down in a 30ft radius centered around you dealing Moderate Holy damage for 15 seconds.
Cost:
43 mana per second
Casting Time:
Instantaneous
Each rank increases damage, effects, duration, and area of effect. Each Rank increases your Power attribute by 1.
The other champions were already dead as my allies and vassals slaughtered them through the smoke.
“What now?” Silas asked me.
I turned to him. “You ever heard of griefing?”