World-Tree's End

by E A Hooper

  Feeling somewhat confused, Vincent flew to Eferia’s normal spot, only to find that she was missing as well. Most of the vegetation that grew in her valley had been burned to ashes.

  Good lord, did Rosaria do all this? I’ve never seen her leave the stem, but it must have been her. It’s like she’s killing all the bosses to stop me from getting their gild.

  Vincent went to check Warro and Nodric’s locations, finding the bosses gone and their regions destroyed. He turned and flew back toward the Garden, but he grew angrier with each passing second.

  They can’t do this. They can’t keep me here any longer.

  Vincent traveled from Nodric’s spawn point to the Garden in record time. He flew toward the house, then cast a large-scale Zero Field over the entire building. The house stretched and shook, then broke apart into thousands of pieces. He systematically dismantled the structure, pulling any and all valuable materials toward himself to funnel into his Builder’s Tome.

  “What are you doing?” Monika screamed, running toward him. She grabbed Vincent and shook him, but he continued to tear apart the house.

  Vincent guided hundreds of pieces of junk per second directly into his tome as Monika screamed and shouted in his ear. After little over a minute, very little remained of the house besides materials that would have been a waste of his time to sacrifice. He glanced at his tome to see how close he was to freedom.

  Builder Points: 435,833

  “Why—why are you doing this?” Monika cried, still clinging to him.

  Vincent ignored her and levitated himself with Zero Field. The NPC held onto him for a few seconds before falling to the dirt.

  “You know why I’m doing this,” Vincent replied, floating away. He swept across the Garden like a wildfire, ripping everything apart with Zero Field. Any plant even slightly alchemic was tossed into his Builder’s Tome without a second thought.

  “Please stop, Vincent!” the NPC shouted as she followed him. “The Garden has been growing weak over the last two weeks. If you do any more damage, this world will never recover.”

  “I don’t care,” Vincent said, watching as wildlife fled from the destruction.

  Builder Points: 452,904

  “It’s still not enough,” he huffed, flying toward the well. As he descended, he could hear Monika crying.

  Vincent equipped the two hardened-basteel swords he had saved, then suspended them in the air with Zero Field. When he spotted the first thrall, he launched one of the swords through the creature’s head. It didn’t leave behind much gild, but the Crystallized Liver it dropped gave him a few hundred more BP.

  Excellent, Vincent thought, cutting down several more.

  The flying Ranger methodically cleared each tunnel one by one. Whenever the passages branched out, he’d sweep through smaller ones before backtracking to go deeper underground. The few thralls that got the jump on him couldn’t cut through his upgraded Density Shield. If he encountered a tunnel that was too narrow to enter, Vincent used King Kame to cast Vaporize and widen the passage.

  With his superhuman speed, it only took him a few minutes to clear out all the caverns and tunnels. He even traced a few cramped holes back to thrall nests and cleared out dozens of younglings at a time. Eventually, he made his way down to the world boss, Orrin. He tossed a Voidfire into the grub’s mouth and watched the top half of its massive head explode.

  Vincent floated down and grabbed Orrin’s item crystals. He didn’t even bother to see what they were as he threw everything into his tome, except for the Unique Token that could be used to trade with the NPC Archie.

  Builder Points: 480,150

  It’s still not enough.

  He backtracked until he reached the daiglass shard’s hiding spot, then blasted open the wall with Mana Cannon. After grabbing the shard, he opened his storage and began to take everything out of it. Potions, weapons, and even old mementos of adventures long past were tossed into the tome. The only thing he kept in his inventory were the absolute necessities like Jump Crystals.

  Builder Points: 499,003

  “No! No! I’m so close!”

  His muscles shook with anger as he cast Zero Field to drag himself back to the well. When Vincent reached the surface, a strange sight caught his eyes. All around the Garden, the world-encompassing petals had started pulling back.

  “What’s happening?” he questioned, his anger giving way to confusion.

  “The world is dying,” Monika whimpered.

  Vincent turned, realizing she’d been sitting against the well.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “I thought you said this world was supposed to blossom one day. Maybe that’s what’s happening.”

  Monika rubbed the tears from her eyes. “No, just watch.”

  Vincent kept his eyes on the petals as they twisted back and darkened. They started to disintegrate at the tip, spraying magical wisps toward the skybox. The Ranger floated into the air to get a better view of the petals pulling off the small world.

  Everywhere he looked, the exposed earth was barren.

  He continued to stare with disbelief until all the petals had vanished and become part of the World-Tree’s atmosphere. Then he floated back to the ground and landed near Monika.

  “You did this,” the NPC said. “You killed this world.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vincent said. “We could’ve left this world together, though. This could’ve played out a hundred different ways, but all of them ended with me leaving.”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “If you’d only given me a chance, I could’ve made you happy. Whatever I’m missing from your Monika, I could’ve learned what it was and changed.”

  “That’s exactly the problem,” Vincent replied. “You kept imitating my Monika and hoping I would accept the difference. If you really were her, then you’d have at least considered my feelings in the matter. That alone proves you’re not the same person.”

  Monika lowered her eyes to the ground. “Just leave already. Go back to your friends. That’s all you seem to care about.”

  “I’m still short on Builder Points,” he said.

  Monika equipped an item crystal and tossed it to Vincent.

  Candy Apple (x10) – A legendary fruit said to have been extinct since the first age of the World-Tree. Eating this fills you with awesome power.

  “You were hiding these from me?” he asked.

  “Once I realized what you were doing, I tried to keep you from finding them,” she explained.

  Vincent sacrificed them all to his tome.

  Builder Points: 500,003

  Seeing that number almost made Vincent cry. He levitated toward the sky, but stopped to asked her one more question. “Were you lying to me when I asked you about the timer?”

  Monika raised her eyes to him, then smiled. “Yes.”

  “So the timer is only there to keep us content? Are you saying ARKUS is going to hold us here until it fries itself or the government shuts it down?”

  Monika’s grin stretched a little bigger. “What does it matter? There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “Maybe not,” Vincent replied, “but I have to try. It seems like ARKUS really wanted you to keep me here for a reason. Like it doesn’t want me to keep climbing with my friends. My void powers have a way of messing with this game’s physics, and I know ARKUS is putting itself under tremendous stress to keep the time dilation going at this speed. The last world is likely the closest to the skybox—I wonder what would happen if I reached the top and hit it with everything I’ve got? Would ARKUS be able to handle that?”

  Monika’s smile continued to stretch until it became inhumanly large. “If you did that, you’d have to get past Rosaria.” Her hair started to whiten in color and grow longer as she spoke. “You’d have to get past me.”

  Vincent started to feel a strong pressure weighing on him. Before the woman could change any more, however, he Power Launched a Voidfire toward her at supersonic speed. The NPC and the top half of
the well disappeared behind black flames, and Vincent shot into the sky.

  How did I not see it? Rosaria has similar body proportions, only stretched out a bit. She has the same pale skin. Only her hair and that creepy smile look different. God, I’m such a fool. It was just her keeping me here this entire time. She must’ve stolen the daiglass shard from my team, knowing my spawn was set to it. They’ve probably never even been to this world.

  Vincent gnashed his teeth as the image of his wife disappearing beneath his black flames repeated in his mind. I had to do it. If she had changed completely, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. Not until I finish that new spell. At her full power, she would’ve batted away that Voidfire and cut me down in an instant.

  When he neared the base of the world’s stem, he landed on the barren dirt where Nodric’s forge had been located. Vincent waited for a gap to appear in the clouds to make sure he was aiming the right way, then opened his Builder’s Tome and created the Long-Shot Jump Gate. He equipped as many Jump Crystals as he could hold and then stepped onto the platform.

  Please let this work. Please, please, please!

  His eyes widened as dozens of blue dots appeared across the sky. Through a gap in the clouds, Vincent spotted the world he thought to be Cryasal. He activated the gate and watched the crystals burn up one by one.

  Yes! Yes! Yes!

  A spatial field shifted around Vincent, and then he blasted off on the longest jump of his life. He flew past a hundred worlds, sometimes even being pulled along the curvature of their gravitational pull, but he always found himself back on track, heading full speed toward Cryasal.

  Vincent half-laughed and half-cried, and his tears flew off into the depths of space.

  Chapter 9

  Vincent landed on a Jump Gate on the western side of Cryasal. To his surprise, he found two floating angels just beyond the platform’s edge. It only took a second of confusion for him to remember that back when he was training on Lavrin his guildsmen had discovered the two angels that prevented players from journeying to other high-tier worlds.

  Vincent Scanned them and found out their names were Atarah and Ezekiel. They had one-hour respawns and were only S-Class, unlike Rosaria.

  “So, are you two NPCs as well?” Vincent questioned.

  Atarah carried a gloomy frown on her face, and her head slumped in response to his question. However, Ezekiel continued to smile as he pointed at the daiglass shard in Vincent’s hand.

  Ezekiel will offer you safe passage in exchange for the daiglass shard.

  Vincent cast Zero Field over the shard and let it float behind him. “No thanks, I think I’ll need this.”

  The two angels started to raise their hands, but the Ranger attacked first and Power Launched two Voidfires. Both monsters tried to dodge the supersonic attacks, only to get caught in their explosions. They collapsed to the ground, though still alive, and Vincent noticed white light inside their bodies where sections of flesh had dissolved. It almost looked like they were full of world magic, which explained how they had survived his attacks.

  Atarah gasped as she desperately tried to use her arms to lift herself from the ground, despite missing the bottom half of her body. She started to float and got about a meter off the dirt before Vincent used some of the mana stored in Silpher’s Coat to blast her in the face with another Voidfire, incinerating what was left of the angel.

  Even though he was missing the front half of his torso, Ezekiel continued to smile until the moment Atarah perished. When he saw his ally melt away into nothing, his jaws warped and twisted, taking on a shark-like appearance that almost knocked off his mask. An inhuman scream echoed from his throat, followed by a flash of world magic.

  The blinding light settled and disappeared almost as quickly as it had struck Vincent, but he remained standing after it passed. It’d left scratches across his face and incinerated part of his clothing, but he swapped to a new outfit through his HUD, only keeping the tattered remains of Silpher’s Coat. Even with his attention on his inventory, Vincent found it easy to shoot two Void Guns at the angel’s masked face to keep him from releasing another scream attack.

  When Vincent closed his HUD, he found the angel was still alive. Ezekiel’s head reminded Vincent of a watermelon he’d put some firecrackers in when he was a teenager, and it sickened him to see the bottom half of the angel’s jaw still making an angry, gurgling noise.

  “Would you die already?” Vincent said, casting another Voidfire to finish off the angel.

  He drew the remaining mana from his damaged coat, then levitated himself with Zero Field and flew toward the city on the horizon. The daiglass shard continued to float by his side, although he questioned if he should hide it somewhere.

  If Monika can become an angel, then the other angels might be NPCs as well. They might’ve even been spying on us in Cryasal all this time. I should probably hide the daiglass shard outside of the city just to be safe.

  Vincent spotted a small lake in his path, so he flew down to it. He approached a tree hanging over the lake, then walked north twenty paces and buried the shard there.

  Just to be safe, I’ll set my spawn point at the city. If the angels have a way of finding the shard while I’m away, at least I won’t respawn at it and get myself trapped somewhere.

  Vincent continued flying toward the city until he reached the gate. When he landed, he was greeted by Captain Lamont Gallius, the NPC that Xan had defeated to earn their entry into Crownkeep long ago.

  “Greetings, hero!” Lamont said with a bow. “You must be one powerful wizard to soar through the sky like that.”

  Vincent looked at him with suspicion. “Tell me, Captain, has the World-Tree ever spoken to you?”

  Lamont raised an eyebrow. “What an odd question, hero.” He paused for several seconds in contemplation. “I suppose the World-Tree speaks to us all in a kind of metaphorical way, don’t you think?”

  Vincent shook his head. “Never mind, just let me into the city.”

  Lamont signaled for his men on the other side of the gate to open it. Before Vincent could enter, however, the captain raised a hand to stop him. “Your question does remind me of a story I heard a long, long time ago. In olden times, before man worshipped the Elder Gods, there were those that prayed to the World-Tree itself. A few people called the Chosen claimed they could hear it speak, but they all vanished one day. Most were never seen by their loved ones again, but legend has it that one man saw his Chosen wife morph into a twisted yet enlightened form. After that discovery, many wondered if being Chosen was a blessing or a curse, and some questioned whether worship of the World-Tree had angered the Gods.”

  Vincent studied Lamont’s face as he spoke, trying to decipher if he was lying or only repeating something he’d been programmed to say. For a moment, he saw sadness on the captain’s face when he mentioned the man whose wife had taken a twisted form.

  “Where did you hear that story?” Vincent asked him.

  “I—I don’t know,” Lamont said, looking confused. “I must’ve heard it a long time ago. So long, I can’t even say for sure. It’s almost like it was a past life.”

  The guards glanced at Lamont, and he cleared his throat, then straightened his stance. “On behalf of King Rosebriar, the Twelfth of his Name, I welcome you to Crownkeep.”

  Vincent started to feel sorry for the NPC, so he decided not to push the subject any further. He headed into Crownkeep and made his way past groups of NPCs on his way to the Daiglass Tower. Occasionally, he Scanned the crowd for players, since he expected more players had reached Crownkeep over the last hundred years.

  Upon reaching the market, he spotted the first real people in the crowd. All twelve of them had stats over two hundred, but he didn’t recognize them. They were trading with NPCs, and he had to wonder if they were preparing to fight Atarah and Ezekiel.

  Vincent felt a mixture of nervousness and excitement as he approached the group since he hadn’t spoken to any real people in so long. “Hel
lo there! Do any of you know if the Crickets have a guildhall in Crownkeep.”

  The twelve people looked at him, and then several gasped at once.

  “You’re Old Man Vincent!” a tall, red-haired woman shouted. “Oh my fricking god.”

  Before Vincent could even blink, all twelve players started taking screenshots with him.

  “No one is going to fricking believe this,” the red-haired woman said. “I gotta message Suze right away. She’s going to lose her shit.”

  “Yeah, so about that Cricket guildhall,” Vincent said. “They must have one, right?”

  “It’s such an honor,” one guy said, reaching out to shake Vincent’s hand. “I’ve read all the books about you.”

  “Books… about me?” Vincent questioned.

  “Yeah, Artic Wyrm Publishing in New Risegard has put out, like, five different books on you. Then there’s Jim’s autobiography, which talks about all your adventures together, as well as his captivity. I’m sorry about your wife, by the way. My dad passed away a few weeks before this game came out, and I still haven’t gotten over it after all this time—it still feels fresh in my memory.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry to hear that, but do you know where Jim is?”

  “Edgelight, I’d assume.”

  Vincent’s eyes brightened. “They made it that far? Wasn’t there an army of angels guarding it?”

  “Woah,” the guy said. “You’re telling me that you don’t know?”

  “Know what?” Vincent asked.

  “Oh my god, I can’t believe you don’t know. I guess I can give you one of my books.” He pulled a novel from his inventory, then handed it to Vincent. “This covers most of the Cricket’s history after Isaac’s War. It’s an amazing read.”

  Vincent sighed. “Can you just summarize it for me? I really don’t have time.”

  “Dude, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “Try the angel army.”

  “Okay, so, after you got possessed, the guild started working on getting past Atarah and Ezekiel. They found it was easy if their top twelve players teamed up, but the worlds beyond them are mad difficult. There’s swarms of A-Class monsters, and most the bosses are S-Class. That didn’t stop the Crickets, though. They kept plowing across worlds, but the big problem is that the last city is really far away, and the high tier is almost like a maze. The Jump Gates don’t even take you the same direction most of the time, so you’re constantly having to rethink what direction you’re traveling.”