Huff.

I let out a deep breath and widened my eyes.

“Attack!” I shouted. We all broke into a sprint towards Kulz. Like a synchronized wolf pack, we all separated ourselves into our proper striking positions. Treyhax and Swipe positioned themselves on the left and right flanks, ready to pounce on Kulz and take out any monsters that might show up. Zak and I were on a straight collision course with Kulz, ready to take him on face to face.

Kulz raised his staff and waved it in the air. Seconds later, four zombies began crawling out of the ground. Again, they were the same Forsaken Villager monsters we’ve been seeing throughout this entire village, except they were equipped with weapons and armour. Strangely, all of their equipment was completely unique; none of them shared the same equipment which was a trend more than common among the same type of monster.

There was something else that stood out to me too. One of them was a female, or at least used to be. I analyzed the female zombie and I stopped dead in my tracks after seeing her face.

Is that? No… it can’t be.

“What’s wrong Kath?” asked Zak, interrupting my train of thought. “You look confused.” The rest of the party stopped as well and looked over at me.

“That… that one girl zombie. I know her.”

“You know her? That’s impossible man, she’s a monster!” Zak responded.

“Back when we were making our way through the village houses, I saw a photograph of a girl in one of the houses. As soon as I saw it I knew that girl looked familiar, but after seeing this zombie version of her I know for sure who it is.”

“Well who is she?” Treyhax interrupted.

“Her name was Marielle. She used to belong to a very small guild called ‘The Iron Dawn’ that I did a dungeon with. I kept up with their guild master a little bit after that to exchange any important game information we may have discovered, but one day he suddenly dropped off the radar. I didn’t know Marielle much, but that’s definitely her.”

“That’s insane!” Zak said. “There’s no way that could be her!”

“Before their leader suddenly disappeared, he told me about how he and the rest of his guild took up residence in a small village outside of Primum. I never really bothered to ask him about the location or setting of the village. When he disappeared I just assumed he died in a dungeon, but maybe it’s possible that he–”

“That he and the entire village, regardless of being a player or an NPC, were turned into zombies.” Treyhax interrupted.

“Captain, are you sure?” Swipe asked. “Is there even a way for that to be possible?”

“I’m not sure what is or isn’t possible in this world, but if that girl truly is who Kathrall thinks she is then that must mean something.”

“I have no doubt it’s her. The armour she’s wearing and her sword are the same as when I last saw her.”

“Swipe, this is something we’ll have to report to Tryston, and only to Tryston. If the public finds out about that their friends/loved ones could possibly be turning into zombie monsters it could cause a lot of problems.”

“Tryston? Who the hell is that guy?” Zak asked.

“Tryston is our guild master, the leader and strongest member of the Aincrad Vanguard.”

“Well then… Maybe he is someone worth reporting this to.”

“Let’s just get back to focusing on the now,” I interrupted. “Regardless of whether or not these monsters could have been players, they will kill us. We can’t hold back.”

“Whatever you say, but make sure you’re ready to kick some ass!” Zak said, breaking into a sprint towards Kulz.

“Zak, what are you–”

“For a hot head, he’s got the right idea.” Treyhax said, smirking.  “Let’s go Swipe.”

Swipe gave a nod to his captain and the two of them broke out towards the newly spawned monsters.

“Kathrall, we’ve got these guys, you take care of the big one,” Treyhax yelled.

I nodded my head to him and sprinted to catch up to Zak.

“When you see an opening, take it. You got it, Zak?”

“Don’t worry, I’m ready.”

My heartbeat grew louder and louder with every step I took towards Kulz, like a drum beating in an empty cavern. The beat shook my entire body; adrenaline was completely taking over.

When we got within an approximate 15 metre range of Kulz he prepared his attack.

Kulz lifted his left hand in there air and after muttering a several words of a different language, a purple flame erupted in his hand.

“Here it comes, Zak!”

Zak and I braced ourselves for the oncoming attack. Kulz began to twist and turn his body, throwing the ball of flame at us like a pitcher throwing a baseball.

“Get behind me!” I shouted.

Zak quickly jumped behind me, just before the flame came into contact with us. I raised my shield and braced myself for the attack. I don’t think I will ever forget the heat I felt blocking that spell.

The fireball exploded upon impact and continued to push forward. The purple flames blasted to the sides of my shield and continued moving forwards, like water passing a boulder in a river.

I peeked over my shield to see Kulz preparing to launch the same spell. It appeared he could continue to send the fireballs out consecutively. 

I stood there taking the hits, explosion after explostion. I could see my HP bar slowly decreasing, but not by enough to cause immediate alarm.

I looked through the flames to see Treyhax and Swipe battling the monsters, both of them taking on a duo. Though outnumbered, they seemed to be having a much easier time than we were.

 “Zak, get ready to launch a counter attack on my mark. We have to close the gap ASAP.”

“I’m ready and I know what you mean, we’re like sitting ducks if we can’t get in melee range.”

I waited for the blast to settle down and weaken. When I noticed a significant decrease in the force of the flames, I called to Zak.

“NOW!”

I planted my feet hard into the ground, pushing my shield and shoulder forward as hard as I could, treading through the purple flames. Step by step we got closer to Kulz, but the barrage of flames didn’t end.

“Okay Kath, we’re close enough to begin an attack.”

“Alright, let’s do this.”

With all my strength I thrusted my shield upwards, pushing the fireball into the air. Without even having to give a command Zak flew by me to launch his attack on Kulz.

“Try to keep up, buddy!” he yelled without looking back.

I let out a smile. He really is a hot head, isn’t he?

I followed Zak as he sprinted towards Kulz, raising his axe for an attack. As we closed in on him he didn’t have much of a reaction, which surprised me. Why isn’t he retreating? You’d expect a magic user to want to great distance right?

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“Zak, be careful!”  I yelled to him. “He might have something planned, don’t do anything reckless.”

“I think he’s just scared senseless of what’s about to hit him!” Zak replied. Immediately after, Zak’s axe lit up in a bright green colour. He crouched slightly, putting his weight on his right leg and vaulted himself towards Kulz. Zak flew through the air towards Kulz, preparing to swing his axe. Kulz still sat there motionlessly as Zak closed in on him.

“!” shouted Zak, activating his axe skill. He swung his axe sideways towards Kulz right side.

CLANG!

Zak’s axe collided with Kulz’s right arm, but froze on impact. I took a closer look at the area of impact and I could see a bright reflection beaming from where Kulz was hit. Is that… invisible armour?

“Zak, get out of there!” I shouted.

Zak quickly turned to jump away, but Kulz was already waving his hand in the air, casting a spell.

“Zak behind you!”

Another purple flame sparked to life in Kulz’s hand and like before he prepared to launch it, only this time at point blank range.

Zak turned around to see the witchdoctor throwing the ball of fire at him and out of pure instinct swung his axe upwards. The blade sliced vertically through the fireball, sending two pieces of it scattering past Zak.

Kulz let out a grunt and jumped backwards, creating a gap between him and Zak. Zak sat there looking confused as to why he wasn’t dead, but quickly snapped back to reality and jumped back to my side.

SMASH!

I looked over my shoulder to see Treyhax and Swipe coming towards us through a cloud of pixels. Their HP bars were scratched a little, but nothing for us to worry about.

“What the hell just happened?” said Zak, frustrated.

“What are you talking about?” said Treyhax.

“I know for a fact I just landed my axe skill on that boney bastard, but nothing happened. My axe literally stopped on impact!”

“Calm down Zak, that attack gave us a lot of intel.” I interrupted.

“What kind of intel?” asked Treyhax.

“I believe that he has an invisible coating of armour, it’s probably another spell of his.”

“Invisible armour? You gotta be kidding me.” said Zak.

“Well, I don’t think it’ll be that much of a problem, I already have a plan that I think will work quite well.”

“Well let’s hear it, buddy!”

“The plan in its core concept is quite simply; we break the armour. One thing I noticed about the armour was that when Zak made impact with it, the tension of the armour increased to the point of it becoming visible. The plan will be for Treyhax, Zak, and I to simultaneously attack different parts of his armour to make it break.”

“What does that leave me to do? Nothing?” asked Swipe.

“I was just about to explain that part. Treyhax and Swipe, you might not have noticed it but those fireballs that Kulz launches at us are relatively weak and easy to break. Your job Swipe, as the fastest member of this group, is to intercept any of those fireballs and slice them in half. Treyhax should be fast enough to dodge them and I can occasionally block them, but not often. Zak’s weapon is too heavy for him to protect himself every time, so essentially you’ll be his body guard.”

“Got it.”

“What are the attack points?” asked Treyhax.

“I’ll take the right flank, Zak will take the middle, and you’ll take the left flank. I’ll use , Zak you’ll use , and Trey you’ll use . The combination of our skills should be enough to crack through his armour. After his armour is broken, it’s your job to come in and launch the next attack Swipe. If at any point anything goes wrong, we pull out. Everyone got the plan?”

They all looked at me with strong faces and nodded in agreement.

“Alright guys, be careful.”

We turned to face Kulz once more and he was preparing to launch another barrage of fireballs.

“He can repeatedly shoot them, so stay on your toes Swipe.”

“You’ve seen me before, Kath. I’m always one step ahead.” Swipe let out a little smirk. It seemed like he was actually enjoying being with people for once.

“Alright chumps, let’s do this!” shouted Zak, charging forward. “You better make sure none of those fireballs hit me, Swipe-y!”

Swipe's smirk quickly disappeared; it seems I spoke too soon. “If you call me that again I might make sure they hit you on purpose.”

“Bahaha, you never get old.” Zak laughed.

One by one, Kulz began firing the flames at us. As expected, Trey was able to dodge them no problem, but since he and I were at the witchdoctor's sides we weren’t his main focus. A storm of fireballs came crashing towards Swipe and Zak like rain.

“Swipe, you r– ” said Zak, interrupted by the blur of Swipe’s lightning fast agility.

Swipe dashed from his position behind Zak and took the lead, closely analyzing the sky for which flames he would extinguish first. In the blink of an eye he darted into the air, unsheathing his blade and raising it for an attack. He came up to the first fireball and with ease sliced through it, dissipating the flame to mere sparks.

Again and again Swipe would single out the fireballs targeting Zak. The fluent motion of him jumping through the air and his deadly precision to perfectly disable the attacks was truly awe-inspiring and captivating to watch.

We finally began closing in on Kulz. With Zak charging him straight on and with Treyhax and I flanking his sides he had nowhere to run.

“Close in on him now!” I shouted to Treyhax. Him and I both sprinted towards Kulz, I glanced over to see Zak getting in position to strike.

With sweat beading down my forehead and the weight of my armour beginning to wear me out, I put all my hopes into this attack.

“Attack!”

“!” shouted Treyhax, as he activated his skill. He charged at maximum speed towards Kulz and drove his cyan glowing glaive straight into him. Just like Zak’s attack, there was a massive impact, but no signs of movement or struggle from Kulz besides the visible shining of the invisible armour.

Now was the time to strike, before his layer of armour could regenerate the damage it had taken.

“!” I shouted. I swung my mace into the other side of the witchdoctor and the backlash of force from his armour felt like it was going to snap my forearm in two.

I glanced down and analyzed the area I hit. Like before, it created signs of tension, but this time it coursed further through his body and connected with the area Treyhax affected.

“Hit him now, Zak!”

I looked over to see a big smile on Zak’s face as he came soaring into Kulz.

“Let’s see if you can pull that same BS again!” Zak said. He pulled his axe high above his head as it began glowing green. “!”

Kulz looked up at Zak as his attack came flying through, without even a flinch.

SHATTER!

All that could be heard was the sound of glass shattering and then a shockwave that sent the three of us flying backwards.

I shook my head, trying to recollect myself. Everything looked funny and a loud ringing sat deep within my ears. What the hell just happened?

Before I could figure anything out I heard a loud shout that shook me out of my confusion.

“!”

Is Swipe fighting Kulz?

I finally collected myself and looked up to see Swipe using his sword skill, directly landing his attack on Kulz’s chest, but it was actually working this time.

Swipe pushed the witchdoctor back. He appeared to be stunned at the fact we managed to hurt him. His first health bar dropped by 50% which wasn’t very surprising considering he was hardly wearing clothes, let alone armour.

“Are you guys going to sit down while I solo this boss or what?” said Swipe.

“Keep your pants on,” replied Zak. “We’re the only reason you were able to scratch him.”

“Quit the bickering you two, I think something big is about to happen,” Treyhax interrupted.

We all looked over to Kulz to see what Treyhax was talking about.  His skull mask was cracked and through the empty eye sockets his eyes began to glow a bright red colour. He slowly raised his arms up into the air, waved his staff around, and began chanting another spell.

“Ex infimo inferno furore damnaret omnes mortui!”

The ground below us began to shake and tremors could be felt throughout the entire building. The flooring began to crack open and more ads were summoned, but these ones were different.

Giant and hulking, these zombies resembled that of the one we fought outside of the building, except this time we were faced with 4 of them.

The four of us stood there paralyzed.

“Four of these things!?” said Zak, breaking the silence. “I almost died when we took on one of these bastards.”

“Calm down,” I interrupted. “let’s fall back for now and think of a battle plan.”

“No can do, Kath,” said Treyhax. “When those doors shut behind us, it confirmed that this battle was going to end with a casualty.”

“Then what the hell do we do? Sit here and die?” asked Zak.

“Freaking out isn’t going to help, that’s for sure. Keep your cool,” said Swipe.

“Don’t tell me how to react; we’re trapped here against these roid zombies!”

“You two can bicker at each other all you want later, but right now focus on the battle.”

Kulz pointed his staff at us and let out a vicious roar, signalling the zombies to attack. They charged at us with such ferocity that it shook the ground we stood on.

We stood there demoralized, hopeless, and lost, seemingly waiting for the inevitable. Were we really going to die here? Now?

I began looking around to see if there was anywhere we could run. To the right and left were just walls and behind us was… light? I took a closer look and could see that the door was beginning to crack open, similar to how we entered it.

“Guys, fall back to the door, NOW!” I shouted. “The door is opening.”

They all looked confused as to what was going on and finally realized there was a beacon of hope laying right behind us.

“Don’t just stand there, make a break for it!” commanded Treyhax.

We all turned around and sprinted our fastest for the doors as the beacon of light grew larger and brighter, but then a silhouette of a man appeared. Whoever it was, they were in the process of saving our lives. Just as we thought we were about to escape the silhouette entered the building which in turn made the doors behind him shut.

“What the hell are you doing?” shouted Zak. “Leave the damn doors open so we can get out of here!”

The figure ignored Zak and proceeded to enter the building. Inch by inch we could see our freedom fading away until the large room returned to nothing but darkness.  Infuriated, Zak approached the person with malicious intent.

In front of the entrance doors stood a man I didn’t know, but he looked oddly familiar. He was at least six feet tall and had long curly black hair. He was suited up in heavy black armour and wielded a sword and shield. He looked like he could take twice the beating that I could.

“Just who the hell do you think yo-”

“SIR!” shouted Treyhax and Swipe from behind us, standing and giving a salute.

“At ease,” replied the mystery person. “you two found yourself in quite the predicament, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, you came just in time,” said Treyhax. “With your help we can definitely take these guys out.”

“I’m sorry, but who are you?” I asked.

“Pardon my manners,” replied the man. “I’m Tryston, the leader of Aincrad Vanguard.”