Endless Fantasy Online

by Devin Auspland

  Luke ran at the ogre, using his increased speed to dodge a swing of its club. The club crashed and sent cobblestone rubble into the air. Luke jumped on the club and ran up the ogre's arm. The ogre panicked and swung his other arm at the advancing threat. Luke pushed off the arm, propelled himself toward the ogre’s stomach and launched a combo of attacks. His claws could just barely break through the ogre’s tough skin, thanks only to his enhanced stats.

  The ogre swung his club down at Luke. Since Luke was falling through the air, he wasn’t able to dodge the club and it made contact with a sickening crunch. Luke crashed into the nearby city wall and, as he made contact, the wall gave way, throwing Luke out of the city. Rolling to his feet, Luke held his side as he cast nature's regrowth. Aided by his buff, his ribs healed and the large bruise was steadily decreasing in size.

  The ogre looked concerned when Luke came running through the hole in the wall. Luke threw another combo of attacks at the ogre and he was gaining ground, forcing the monster back. Not giving up his advantage, Luke pressed the attack with combo after combo.

  In the middle of throwing several punches, he felt a sharp pain and could barely stand. He was panting and his body felt sluggish. Looking up, he noticed a red icon of a sickly man in his status bar and the empowerment buff was gone. He was out of time.

  The ogre was covering his face with his hands and moving backward. Once he noticed the attacks had stopped, the ogre uncovered his eyes and grinned at the sickly visage of Luke below him. He raised his club, and it came crashing down with alarming speed.

  Before the club impacted Luke, Ringo jumped in and took the blow. She let out a loud cry of pain as she went flying across the battlefield. Luke saw her health bar reach zero and her status bar grayed out, signifying her death.

  Filled with rage, Luke clenched his fists. “I swore to her I wouldn’t let her die, you bastard!” The ogre chuckled at the tears flowing freely down Luke’s face. “I will kill you! I will end you! I don’t care if it's the last thing I do but you will die!”

  Class skill unlocked! Tamer’s Vengeance. Watching your animal companion die after swearing to keep her alive has filled you with the vengeance and power of beast tamers past. This skill is auto-triggered when either the beast tamer or animal companion is killed in battle within view of the other. You are filled with the power of the beast tamers before you and can concentrate that power into a single attack. Effect: Buff your next melee or ranged attack, adding 5x its normal damage. Note: If the attack does not instantly follow the triggering of this effect, this buff will last until the beast tamer and animal companion are reunited or five minutes, whichever happens first.

  A picture of Ringo with a broken heart surrounding it appeared in Luke’s status bar, but he paid it no attention. Luke charged headfirst at the ogre before it could recover. He pulled back a fist and a glowing green light emanated from it as he screamed in anger.

  Luke slammed his fist as hard as he could into the ogre’s gut, sending out his claws as he made contact. Green light shot through his claws and out the back of the ogre. The ogre pulled its head back and released a roar of pain and anger as Luke fell to the ground, collapsing from a mixture of exhaustion and overexertion.

  The ogre gripped its stomach with its free hand and its face contorted in anger. It tightened its grip on the club and pulled back to deliver the final blow. The club came down swiftly and crashed on top of Luke, the sheer force causing a cloud of dust to raise off the ruined cobblestone.

  Something was off with the ogre’s attack. Glancing down, the ogre noticed that his club was several feet off the ground. The dust began to clear, and the ogre saw an unharmed man lying on the ground and a bandaged figure stopping the club from making contact.

  “Rose would kill me if I let you die.” Ursa’s hand began to glow with energy and she punched the club.

  Her punch was strong enough to send the club soaring back at the ogre. The club crashed into the ogre, knocking it on its rear. Ursa leapt at the ogre and delivered a quick combo of three punches, each punch making a cracking sound on contact. Ursa pulled away, ready to fight, but the ogre had had enough. It fell back and its eyes rolled into its head. It was dead.

  “Since you’re unconscious, I can say this. You made me proud as a beast tamer, kid.” Ursa pulled a healing potion from her pouch and force-fed it to Luke.

  He was slow to respond, but he began to open his eyes. By the time he could get his eyes fully opened, Ursa was gone, and he was none the wiser. He sat up with a grunt and saw the dead ogre in front of him. It had multiple stab wounds from his claws and three mysterious deep indents on its body.

  Looking around the city, Luke saw a surprising lack of enemy forces. There were still ogres but only a handful of mages were still with them. There was a clear absence of orcs and goblins. He sadly noted the large number of dead guards and travelers.

  He pulled himself to his feet and slowly walked toward Ringo’s lifeless body, casting nature’s regrowth on himself. With the major weakening debuff on, his health was a fraction of what it normally was, but the cooling energy took some of his exhaustion away.

  He sat next to Ringo and pulled her into his lap as he cried. “I failed you again.” He wiped Ringo’s face. “I know I promised I wouldn’t let you die, but I wasn’t able to keep that promise and I don’t know if I can keep it moving forward. We’re gonna face some tough enemies in this world but I promise,” he stopped to chuckle. “I know my promises probably aren’t worth much at this point, but I promise things will be different. We’ll train together and become unstoppable! We will be the strongest in this world!” Luke was stroking Ringo’s fur as he began casting resurrect companion.

  Unable to cast, you do not meet the mana requirements for this spell.

  Luke was failing Ringo yet again, unable to bring her back. He wouldn’t have the required mana until his debuff was gone in twenty-four hours. He got up and pulled her under a tree in the city’s courtyard. Looking around, he spotted what he was looking for. He got up and walked toward a group of dead travelers.

  He whispered his apologizes as he pulled a cloak off a dead rogue traveler and walked back to Ringo. He covered Ringo with the cloak before he kissed his hand and laid it on her for a moment. “I’ve got to go now, girl. I have to see if I can help, even if I can barely stand.” He muttered the last few words under his breath and began heading for the castle wall.

  After an exhausting amount of effort, he made it to the top of the ramparts. Looking outward he saw that the travelers and guards were gaining ground. Even the enemy mages and ogres inside the city were dropping like flies. The city’s mages and guards could focus all their effort on the enemies after the travelers pushed the main enemy force outside the city. Luke smiled, they were winning!

  The city and surrounding area started getting dark again. All the light was being pulled to the center of the battlefield. Looking for the source, Luke spotted the robed man who originally appeared with Iron. The man had his robe off and was wearing nothing but cloth pants. He was pulling something off of Iron’s corpse and pushing it into his exposed chest.

  Focusing his sight, he knew exactly what the man was doing. He was shoving all the remaining dark crystals against his body and absorbing their power. There had to be a dozen or so crystals left after the handful that Iron used and the man seemed hellbent on using all of them. The man’s entire body was turning black and seemed to be absorbing all the surrounding light as his power continued to grow.

  Letting out a loud roar that echoed across the battlefield, the man began to grow in size and morph. His muscles grew larger, his skin turned black as it began to resemble cracked stone. Large curling horns grew from his head and a large pair of wings sprouted from his back. His wings had bones running through them and were covered with a thin black membrane.

  The man, or more accurately, demon, stretched his massive wings out and began flapping them. His wings had a wide, fifty or sixty foot wingspan and they ki
cked up dust and stone as he flapped them. He quickly gained altitude and was now hovering thirty or forty feet in the air.

  Opening his mouth, he pulled a vortex of shadows in and formed a massive ball of shadow energy. The energy ball grew to twenty feet in diameter before he took aim at the city and released it.

  The ball flew quickly towards the city’s castle. Several mages shot at it with their respective energies in an attempt to knock it off course or destroy it, but their attempts were futile. The shadow ball hit the castle with a deafening boom. All light vanished from the world for a moment, being consumed by the shadow ball’s explosion.

  Luke blinked rapidly to clear his eyes as light flooded the world again. When he regained his vision, his eyes went wide. The castle was in ruins. The shadow ball caused an explosion big enough to wipe it from existence. The only remnants were some castle towers which were engulfed in black flames.

  “Ha ha ha.” The demon’s deep and booming voice filled the battlefield. “We told you we had true power. All of you deserve to die for refusing us! We are the Crimson Shadow and you are all dead.” A large shadow ball started forming in front of the demon's mouth and crackles of black lightning sparked between his two large horns. He let out a loud cackle as the shadow ball reached its full size.

  As he started to release his attack, a torrent of orange and red flames hit him dead center and sent him sailing across the battlefield. His shadow ball began to shrink and fade from existence without the demon channeling it.

  “You will pay for that!” The demon stood and began looking for whoever dared to attack him.

  A bright light was coming from the ruined castle. It was so bright that it looked like the sun had risen early. The figure in the distance started rising into the air and growing in size until it was just as large, if not larger, than the demon.

  It was a giant bird, made entirely of flames. When the light died down a little it became clear. It was a Phoenix!

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Rise of the Phoenix

  The phoenix took flight in a straight path toward the recovering demon. In anticipation of the phoenix reaching him, the demon grew jet-black nails as long as Luke’s entire body from his fingers. The demon bent over, ready to jump forward and strike, but the phoenix changed trajectory and flew straight up into the air.

  The phoenix climbed another hundred feet before slowing its rapidly flapping wings and hovering in the sky. Its flames were so bright that it made the night look like midday. The phoenix opened its mouth and its eyes began to emit white light as a woman’s voice came out.

  The voice was regal and firm as it spoke. “My name is Queen Samantha, and I have stood by watching long enough. You are threatening my people and I will not stand for it!” The phoenix’s light grew in intensity as the queen got angry. “Let this be a lesson to you and to all who dare threaten us. You will find nothing but defeat and death when you threaten the Phoenix Kingdom!”

  The phoenix’s eyes stopped glowing and it let out an ear shattering bird caw. It began to flap its wings faster and faster but it didn’t move. Instead, it rained down a symphony of fireballs into the enemy forces. Their mages acted quickly and threw up magical barriers but the barriers shattered after a few attacks landed. The attack devastated the enemy’s army. The phoenix wiped out a third or more of the enemy force in a single moment.

  Luke was cheering alongside the other travelers and guards when he spotted Captain Holtz nearby. Green blood covered the captain and he had a worried look on his face.

  “Captain!” Luke’s voice was hoarse, desperately needing some water. The captain didn’t register his voice, so Luke walked over and grabbed the man’s shoulder. “Captain?” Captain Holtz turned to him and Luke instantly noticed tears streaming down the normally stoic face.

  “This is bad son, this is really bad.” The captain could barely get the words out. He was a train wreck, as if he had just lost someone close. “She has to stop, she can’t wield this power, it's too dangerous.”

  A large black bastard sword, the length of a building, crashed into the chest of the phoenix and the bird screamed in pain. The scream caused Luke and the captain to refocus on the fight that was vastly out of their league, the fight that would determine the war’s victor.

  The demon was grinning as the phoenix came crashing down. The bird landed among allies and enemies, but its flames only seemed to affect the monsters. Travelers and guards caught in the flames seemed to be unaffected and began running away. The flames instantly set the monsters aflame as the intensely hot fire stole their lives from them.

  The demon leaped toward the struggling bird with its black bastard sword in hand. It landed on top of the phoenix and plunged the blade into its wing. It grabbed the blade in both hands and began to twist the dark metal. Deep red flames began to pour from the wound as the phoenix cried out in pain.

  “Die you dumb bird!” The demon pulled its blade free and attempted to plunge it in again.

  Being freed from the blade, the phoenix released a shock wave of fire. The fire tore into the demon and several chunks of dark energy fell from him. The demon took a few steps backward and screamed. Black energy began to refill the holes and missing chunks of flesh, making him whole again. The phoenix was on its feet and quickly healed itself as flames filled the holes in its body.The two giants stared each other down, each hesitating and not wanting to make the first move. “Screw this,” muttered the demon before it charged forward.

  The phoenix flapped its wings and shot several large fireballs toward him. The demon acted quickly, slicing the fireballs and deflecting them with its blade, all the while advancing.

  Captain Holtz jumped over the ramparts and was running toward the fight. Luke called out to him but the captain ignored him and sped up. He was muttering something that Luke couldn’t hear and the captain was soon emitting a white and purple aura as his speed increased. He was moving fast enough that Luke was having trouble following him with his eyes, partly because of his weakened state.

  He heard a rattle and looked down. There was a medium-sized potion bottle rattling around where the captain was standing. Inspecting it closely he saw trace amounts of a purple liquid bubbling inside. “Oh no… Captain, what have you done?”

  The demon tossed his sword into the air and caught it in the same motion. He was now holding it like a spear and tossed it at the phoenix. He shot a shadow ball from his open hand. The explosion caused the sword to propel forward.

  The phoenix stopped flapping its wings and instead sent a torrent of flames out of its mouth in an attempt to stop the blade from reaching it. The flames began slowing the blade, but the flames obscured the demon from view.

  When the torrent of flames stopped, the sword fell harmlessly to the ground, but it revealed the demon channeling a shadow ball larger than the previous ones. The attack was growing so large that the demon appeared to be pouring every ounce of its strength into the attack. The energy that made up its body was being drained as the attack grew in size.

  As the phoenix opened its mouth to release more fire the demon resumed its attack. As soon as the shadow ball released from his hands, he flew into the sky. The phoenix released another torrent of fire but it only slowed the shadow ball and did not destroy it. The attack got closer and closer as the phoenix’s flames began to eat into it.

  Descending quickly from the cloud cover, the demon landed and slashed his recovered blade across the bird’s back. The flames momentarily subsided as the shadow ball picked up speed and collided with the phoenix’s body. A ring of fire surrounded the bird as it created an invisible heat shield at the last possible moment.

  “Why won’t you die!” The demon lifted its blade in both hands and sent energy coursing up the hilt, transforming the sword into a large two-handed axe.

  As the axe finished forming, a white and purple streak of energy flew past the demon's arms and landed on the adjacent ground. Captain Holtz held his blade up in defiance and the demon's arms s
lid off his body at the elbow, landing on the ground with a heavy thud.

  “Who the hell are you?” the demon barked in anger. Black tentacles of energy shot from the demon’s stubs and connected with its lost appendages. The tentacles pulled up his lost arms and reconnected them. After a moment of healing, one couldn’t tell where the captain had cut them off.

  “Let the gods of light and fire empower me, so I may strike this foe down. Holy Fire!” The captain’s rapier ignited in white flames. “Let me protect the city I’ve sworn to protect, the people I care about and the Kingdom I love!” The flames began to spread past the tip of his blade and extended outward, increasing his blade’s effective range significantly.

  The demon laughed and raised a palm. Smaller shadow balls began shooting out of it at a rapid pace. Captain Holtz jumped from side to side, dodging the attacks and occasionally deflecting or slicing through one with his rapier.

  “You are an annoying bug.” The demon leaped at him to crush him under his massive foot but the captain stood his ground and thrust his blade upward, releasing a white energy blast that tore the demon's foot apart.

  Struggling to balance on one foot, the demon fell forward onto the ground. The captain was on him instantly, delivering blow after blow with his rapier. Every blow exploded with white flames shortly after being made. The flames ate away at the demon, creating large gaps in its body as the dark energy struggled to reform its demon-like body.

  A sweeping punch hit the captain, and the punch sent him ricocheting across the ground like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake. The demon lifted itself into a plank position as its arms and its leg reformed, in an attempt to be able to stand. Dark flames filled the missing chunks of the demon’s body and soon the demon was once again whole.

  “Impressive for an NPC but how long can you keep that up? Me, on the other hand, I have an endless source of dark power.”