by E A Hooper
Lloyd smiled, cast another Void Render, and sliced horizontally, sending the top two halves of Junia’s head flying off her body. He collapsed, crumbling into dust, but Vincent saw Junia doing the same before losing his connection.
Vincent searched across the ever-shrinking hive mind. Most of their guildsmen were down to the last Checkpoint Crystal, and he knew the first angels to die would start respawning soon. Once the enemies started replenishing their forces, any of his teammates outside the safe zone would have little chance of participating in the final battle.
Isaac reconnected Xan, Quinn, and Athena, and thankfully they didn’t meet much resistance on their way to the safe zone. Vincent found River and Ryker had been pinned by a squadron of Watchers. Juniper and a half dozen other guildsmen fought by their side, but it seemed to be a losing battle. Ryker and Juniper used Greater Flattens to hold back attacks, and River took down a few with hit-and-run Negative Blades.
Two dozen Paladins descended on their group, targeting the weakest guildsmen first. Vincent took over a random person and tossed a few Voidfires before a Paladin decapitated the man. One of their Clerics cast Revive on the corpse, but then the angels skewered them both.
Vincent switched control to Juniper, watching as the Watchers raised phantom walls similar to the wings Junia had used. Before the Watchers could finish boxing in the players, Vincent interrupted by casting multiple Voidfires at once. Ryker and River followed his lead, crushing the remaining Watcher between two Greater Flattens.
>Vincent: Ryker and River, hurry and get to the safe zone. The angels are about to start respawning.
>Juniper: Don’t worry, Vince. I’ll make sure they get to you in time.
Vincent shifted his focus from them and tried to find Jim, the last member of their twelve-person team. With Crow-Foot’s abilities, Vincent would’ve expected him to have been one of the first people to the safe zone. However, he couldn’t find him anywhere on the hive mind.
>Vincent: Jim, where are you?
>Jim: West side of the planet. Everyone here is dead, and the Watchers keep making phantom walls I can’t Phaseshift through. When I go high, they hit me all at once. They can’t keep up with me, though, so I might be able to circle around them.
Jeanie looked at the Elder Gods. “Do any of you have forces left to send west? Those Watchers are trying to stop Jim from reaching us.”
“My machine dragon is already homing in on him,” Euclid said. “Bathos, Chloris, would you two mind sending your best representatives to help him?”
“I’ll send Vincent’s old pal Izrid,” Bathos replied.
“My daughter is still fighting out there,” Chloris said. “She might be able to reach him.”
Euclid nodded at them, then turned to Jeanie. “I’ll try to figure out his coordinates, then I’ll let Archie know.”
“Thank you,” Jeanie replied.
Vincent waited, keeping his focus on the hive mind. A few minutes passed, and he noticed Jim as he reappeared in the white void. When Vincent looked through his friend’s eyes, he saw a hundred angels chasing after his friend. Jim injected potions as fast as he could, using every spell at his disposal to avoid attacks and not get boxed in by the Watchers. Vincent saw flashes of white light as fresh angels appeared on the battlefield.
>Vincent: The angels are respawning.
>Jim: Yeah, I can see that. I don’t think I’m going to make it.
>Vincent: I’ll cast Gravity Bubble around you. The speed boost might get you past them.
>Jim: I don’t know about that, but I’ll give it my best shot.
Jim faced the densest group of Watchers and cast Deletion Cannon. With his Quickfire upgrade, he didn’t need to charge it if he spent a large amount of additional mana. He injected ultra-elixirs and cast the spell again, burning through a crowd of Watchers. Vincent took over his right arm to spam Voidfires while forming a Gravity Bubble, then Jim fired off more Deletion Cannons.
The Watchers raised shields to block the Voidfires, although they struggled to stop the Deletion Cannons. Vincent used his Gravity Bubble to send Jim rocketing north, but groups of angels moved into his path. With every angel they cut down a new one teleported to join them. Vincent noticed the rest of the hive mind had died off, meaning all the remaining angels were converging on Jim’s location.
>Jim: Yep, I’m not making it.
>Vincent: You’ll make it!
Vincent injected a few potions, then channeled back-to-back Greater Voidfires through Jim. He had the Gravity Bubble carry his friend in the path of his own attacks as angels flew out of the way to avoid them. Paladins threw a hundred spears of world magic at Jim, but most of them glanced off him because of his Alcubierre Shield. The angel swarm circled around the path of Voidfires and created a tunnel around him.
Euclid’s automata dragon flew from below, rising to Jim’s left side. The angels bombarded it with attacks, but it stayed beside him even as it was torn to pieces, protecting him for a few more seconds. To Jim’s right, Izrid rose on a wave of green fire with the Moss Queen riding his shoulders. Their combination of fire and world magic knocked back the volley of enemy spells momentarily before a hundred combined attacks consumed them.
Vincent flew from the safe zone, multi-tasking as he controlled Jim and himself. He readied a Void Bomb and launched it southward when Jim approached, only letting the bomb begin its expansion just after his friend flew past it. The swarm of angels scattered to avoid the massive attack, and Jim continued to the safe zone, smoldering from all the spells he had withstood.
Vincent caught Jim before he crashed into the ground, then brought him into the safe zone for their Clerics to heal him.
“Everyone made it,” Fynn noted, looking over the party.
“Plus one extra,” Juniper said, including herself. “I can’t enter Rosaria’s domain since your team is full, but I’ll be rooting for you from here.”
“You won’t be cheering for long,” Bathos said. “Once the bulk of the angels respawn they’ll overpower our domain. To be honest, I don’t plan to stick around even that long.”
Juniper pouted. “I guess I’ll self-destruct once you guys enter the Ark Halo. This game better crash in the two weeks I’m gone.”
“We’ll try our best,” Vincent said, refilling his mana with the Fast Injector.
The team used any potions they had to boost their stats, then cast all of their buff spells. All twelve players stood at the divide between the safe zone and the limestone ground below the Ark Halo. Vincent could feel the powerful, invisible force surrounding the final battlefield. When he looked at the sky, he saw the Ark Halo shimmering, and he realized it was made of indestructible daisteel just like Ezra’s sword. When he approached the divide, a prompt appeared even as a force held him back.
Is your team ready to challenge the final boss? You won’t be able to use Checkpoint Crystals in this area. (Yes/No)
Vincent smiled. “ARKUS, you know we’re more than ready.”
Chapter 32
Once Vincent and his teammates crossed the divide into the final battleground, they walked across the limestone-like material toward a tall pillar in the northernmost part of the planet. Vincent could feel the pressure of Rosaria’s power emanating from that direction, but she didn’t attack them just yet. When he Scanned the material below his feet, he found it made of 900-rated featherstone.
Vincent remembered Euclid telling him the region below the Ark Halo was like a flat-top pillar that went all the way to the core of the planet. The Ark Halo would regenerate the stone if it was damaged, meaning he could go all out with Void Bombs without completely destroying their battleground.
When the team neared the smaller pillar they saw Rosaria sitting on top, a wicked smile stretched across her face. “Vincent, my love,” she called. “I hope you’ve come to beg for mercy.”
“You know why we’re here,” he replied, “and you know we’re going to win.”
“Not likely,” she said, her smil
e growing inhumanly wide. “Did you think this game was actually beatable? It’s been rigged from the very start, my dear.”
Rosaria disappeared from the pillar, and a Lance of Longing stabbed through Vincent’s back and out his chest. By the time his team turned, Rosaria had already teleported away. Xan reacted quickly and started to heal his injury, but then Rosaria appeared beside her.
Ezra intercepted the angel, turning away the Lance of Longing with his daisteel sword before it could cut down Xan. He took a swipe at Rosaria, but she had already appeared back atop the pillar.
Athena and Zhang hurled Greater Voidfires, but the angel swatted away the black flames like they were nothing, and then threw her Lance of Longing. All the Wardens on their team raised forcefields together—and Ezra reactively sent out Puppet Strings—but the explosion stretched out in a mile-wide radius, shattering their defenses and sending the team sprawling in various directions.
Vincent tapped into the new hive mind as he climbed to his feet. Through Zhang’s eyes, he saw Rosaria create another lance and dive toward the Ice Knight with supersonic speed. Vincent’s reaction time let him raise Zhang’s defenses quick enough to block with a blade of black ice. Rosaria’s weapon shattered his instantly, but it gave Vincent a brief moment to cast Void Bomb at point-blank range.
Zhang smirked just before the spell exploded and engulfed him and Rosaria.
The rest of the team scattered, most barely getting away from the quarter-mile range of the Void Bomb. The Wardens raised Flattens to defend themselves against the flames that spread from the initial blasts. Athena lost an arm to the black fire, and Fynn’s legs burned off while he tried to jump away—although Ezra was quick to heal him. When Vincent checked over his teammates, he found that no one but Zhang had died in the attack.
Vincent kept his focus on the fading explosion as his team hurried to regroup, but he couldn’t sense Rosaria’s fearsome pressure.
“Holy shit!” River shouted, hurrying to Vincent. “Did you just one-shot her?”
Vincent saw the flickering light coming from the diminishing flames; River must’ve seen it out of the corner of her eye as well, because she turned to it. Before it reached them, she cast Black Wave, her most powerful spell. It created a tidal wave of crushing negative energy that could kill a dozen angels at once if it hit them directly. Rosaria’s lance struck the wave, and the blast ballooned away from River and Vincent.
A second Lance of Longing cut through the explosion and the dissolving tidal wave of energies, hitting River in the shoulder. The explosion incinerated her despite her upgraded Osiris Shield, which Jeanie had originally developed by combining the Gravity Shield with her old Blitz Shield. While the Osiris Shield outperformed the old Gravity Shield, and even boosted attacks by absorbing damage to convert to negative energy, Vincent considered it a step down from the Density and Alcubierre Shields in terms of defense.
The blast sent Vincent hurtling from its epicenter. His Density Shield kept him from sustaining serious damage, but he had to swap his outfit. When he stood to his feet, his sharp eyes caught sight of Rosaria in the distance.
Cracks of rainbow light had spread across the angel’s entire body, and her wings were completely torn to pieces. Even her mask had fallen away, revealing Monika’s eyes and small nose. Before she could move, several of Ezra’s world magic creations charged her and exploded, and then the astral blades of Xan’s Seventh Heaven flew into the blasts to find her.
The dust, white lights, and astral blades all flew away from the angel with a wave of her hand. Rosaria raised her other hand, and Vincent felt the frequencies in the region fluctuate wildly, reminding him of the space near the skybox. Ezra approached, trying to make more world magic creatures, but his spells backfired and he disappeared in a massive wave of white light.
Rosaria smirked, turning to Vincent. “Try your spell again.”
Vincent ignored her and instead Scanned the white static in the air.
Chaos Region (Final Boss Only) – Mana Usage: None | The angel that controls the Ark Halo may temporarily give up their power to destabilize magic in that region. High-cost spells will backfire under this effect, and magical items such as potions will become corrosive.
>Vincent: Nobody drink any potions!
Vincent’s own voice echoed back into his head, louder and louder until it became an ear-piercing screech. When he tried to connect to the Puppet Strings, he found they’d already shattered under Chaos Region’s effect.
Rosaria covered the fifty-meter distance between them in the blink of an eye and slashed her hand at Vincent. Her fingertips had melted down to the bone, revealing rainbow-charged edges that cut through his Density Shield. He dove backward, attempting to use Zero Field to give him a boost, but the negative energy sparked and slammed him into the ground.
Rosaria leapt onto Vincent, ripping his heart from his chest with some effort.
A flash of light restored Vincent, and it took him a second to realize Xan had used the once-a-day Full Restore of her Divine Healer’s Pendant. Jeanie and Ryker equipped hardened-basteel spears and drove Rosaria away from Vincent, and then Fynn used one of his hand cannons to blast flesh off her cheek.
“My weapons still work,” Fynn told his teammates. He took another shot, but Rosaria sidestepped it.
Vincent equipped Song of the End, and his team readied their Fynntech weaponry. They fired on Rosaria, but she dodged left and right so fast that Vincent thought she was still teleporting until he looked closer. Athena and Jim charged her from the right side with swords, while Devon and Quinn approached her left. Rosaria moved lightning fast, only taking a single hit from Devon as she tore off the young man’s arm.
The angel ripped out Athena’s throat and turned to toss her away from her teammates so no one would have time to heal her, but the young woman reacted quickly enough to cast Greater Voidfire. The spell backfired and engulfed them both in black flames. Although it killed Athena, the attack also left a few new cracks on Rosaria’s body.
The team fired their Fynntech weapons again, burning dozens of holes through the angel’s body, and Vincent even shot out one of her eyes before she responded with an ear-piercing scream that shook the region. All the guns exploded in their owners’ hands, and the players with weaker shields lost fingers in the blasts.
Rosaria used that brief opening to approach Ryker, moving too fast for their eyes to follow. Her hand darted forward, striking through his chest to grab his heart. Ryker seemed to realize he was already dead, so he cast his strongest spell, Hellish Entombment, knowing it would backfire and kill himself. Walls of negative energy slammed against him and Rosaria, crushing them together.
When the attack faded, only dust remained of Ryker, but the angel remained standing. Vincent saw his opportunity, equipped Silent Edge, and rushed forward, driving the blade through Rosaria’s heart.
“My love,” Rosaria whimpered.
For a moment there, she truly sounded like Monika—so much so that Vincent’s body felt weak, and he loosened his grip on the sword. Then Rosaria wrapped her fingers around his throat and crushed his windpipe.
Vincent saw three different blades go through the angel at once, and she dropped him to the ground. Xan tried to heal him, but her first spell backfired, burning her hands. Luckily, Warro’s Necklace kept Vincent alive long enough for Xan to use basic healing spells to fix his throat. He gasped for air and climbed back to his feet.
Rosaria looked more like a zombie than an angel by that point, and there were patches of skin barely clinging to her glowing skeleton. Silent Edge still remained in her chest. None of that seemed to slow the angel as she clawed at them. Before Vincent could jump back into the fray, Rosaria snatched Fynn off the ground and used her brutal strength to tear him in half at the waist.
The Wolf Lord equipped two belts covered in the Fynntech capacitors used in his weapons. While the capacitors were designed so they wouldn’t release their full power if damaged, he had made a spell to detonate
them if needed. Before the angel could toss his two halves aside, Fynn cast his short-ranged spell and the capacitors exploded, sending out waves of negative energy that dissolved his body in an instant.
Rosaria’s remaining flesh sloughed off her bones. Even her face had disintegrated, leaving empty eye sockets that couldn’t see the players. The skeletal angel snarled, blindly swiping at noises as the remaining players formed a circle around her.
“How is she not dead yet?” Quinn wondered aloud.
Vincent remembered he hadn’t been able to True Scan her in the past because of the immense world magic she possessed, but due to her diminished state he decided to try again.
Rosaria the Brutal (Final Boss) – Monster Class: S+ | Ageless | Sex: Female | Respawn Time: ??? | Personality: Cruel
Will Points: 732/3,000
“She has Will Points,” Vincent told them. “I should’ve figured. She started with three thousand, but she’s down to seven hundred. I’m sure most of that was Void Bomb.”
“And we’ve already lost half our team,” Devon said, his severed limb still dripping blood. “If we’re not careful, we might actually lose this fight.”
Rosaria dove toward Devon’s voice, but he leapt away in time.
“All of you get back!” Ezra called, his voice sounding harsher than usual.
Vincent turned, spotting Ezra as he approached. His backfiring spells from earlier had torn bits of flesh from his body, and the side of his neck had a chunk missing where the Fast Injector had previously been attached. Vincent assumed the corrosive potions had dissolved part of his flesh before he’d torn off the device, but it had clearly tainted his blood. His skin looked blue, and the Ranger could see swollen black veins running across his body.
