The dragon of Coro?en’s End, the program initiated by the now absent devs to bring about the net world’s slow death, was lazily named The Ender. It deleted as it went, consuming everything, and now it reached the final stand. Its mission was nearly complete after months of tireless destruction.

  The Ender had arrived at Starter. Fitting… but both horribly named.

  It was a monstrous lizard, dwarfing any player foolish enough to stand before it. Its form unstable, shifting, flaking bits of its scales, bits of its data dissipating into the sky as deletion consumed even it. Black fire curled from its maw, and its sickly green eyes scanned for the next thing to erase. Already 99% of Coro?en had been deleted. Its task was nearly finished. It too shall soon be deleted and recieve the peace it has blessed the world with.

  The Ender approached a cliffside, stone and soil crumbling into nothing at just its presence alone. From the fading forest ahead, a single figure appeared: clad in a white and red priestess dress, staff in hand, its cross blazing with radiant light. She raised it high and shouted:

  “Eat me, foul beast!”

  The Ender, recognizing the strange player it had consumed before, it raised its head, jaws wide open to snap her up again, her death would be even swifter then before. Only it was interrupted by another voice, coming from above its head.

  A mage in glowing rainbow robes flew down near its maw, shouting:

  “Instead- chew on this!”

  With a burst of magic, three items were forced into The Ender’s open mouth.

  Strangely, notifications flickered across its system:

  Cooling Nut Puff Internal heat reduced by 80% for six hours.

  Lbs Cake

  Minor Grogginess, Jumping ability reduced duration thirty minutes.

  Bean Brittle Max HP reduced by 90% Duration six hours.

  [Error]… [Error]!!! 90% Health Lost. Activating Rage Mode.

  The dragon’s programmed focus shattered. It saw red through interface warnings, its goal shifted from pure destruction to the slaughter of the players who now threatened it.

  Enraged, The Ender attempted to take flight, instantly it stumbled and crashed, its legs had refused to leave the ground. It stood back up, eyes burning, it loomed tall once more, it may not fly but these puny pests would meet their deaths soon.

  A fighter in polished leather studded armor stood his ground before the beast. Activating Aggro Call, he drew its attention. The dragon inhaled and unleashed a torrent of black flame. But its fire was weakened, it sputtered, failing to harm the fighter at all. The fighter remained unmoved in the minor blaze that surrounded him.

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  The heroes had The Ender pinned against the dissolving cliffside.

  Then, of all things, a catgirl rushed forward and hurled a coin at the beast, it hit and landed on the ground.

  The Ender froze, confused by the coin’s enchantment. A thought went through the dragons mind "a coin, why a coin, does it have a goblin on it?" the coin drew the dragons focus in its confusion. In that moment, the fighter lit his sword and struck, the mage unleashed spell after spell, the cleric fired radiant beams, and even the crafter smashed its foot with a hammer. The Ender screamed, its HP beginning to drop even further warnings were nearly blacking out its vision. Errors compounded as its hitpoints dropped dangerously low, its data was becoming even more unstable.

  Snapping out of its confusion, the dragon roared and charged. Its tail slammed into the fighter, cleric, and crafter, sending them sprawling. It snapped its maw around the mage, crushing, but strangely, the mage did not instantly die. The dragon kept its mouth clenched, ignoring the explosions building inside it.

  The players seemed to recharge, energy returned to them and their wounds mostly disappeared, then the cat hurled another coin. Confused again, "coins?" [ERROR] "COINS?" [ERROR] The Ender hesitated, just as spells detonated from within its jaws, and the players unleashed their onslaught again. Its mouth burst open, bleeding black ashen ichor, the mage tumbling out, barely alive, hit points flagging.

  Still, the dragon fought on. With a mighty roar, it crashed its full mass onto the fighter and mage, the mage fell, sent to respawn. Its claws pinned the cleric and crafter, squeezing tight, quickly their health fell but the priestess was able to focus enough to cast her heal spell barely keeping the remaining three players alive. Soon her mana would run out soon it would all end. The Ender was near death, but so were the players, pressed by the full force of the gigantic dragon upon them, unmoved by their struggle to get free.

  It was a valiant effort, but the mission, the deletion of Coro?en, had been ordered by its creators, the ancient gods known as Devs. And their will would be obeyed. It was inevitable this world would end, it will know peace!

  From above, a voice pierced the chaos:

  “NO RAGERTS!”

  A dagger plunged into The Ender’s skull, wielded by a tiny goblin rogue. The critical stealth strike stacked damage to illogical numbers as error codes stacked upon each other. The strike drained the last of the dragon’s HP. The goblin clung to the hilt, swinging as the beast roared in its final seconds, it felt no pain all it experienced in that last moment was [ERROR] [DELETE]. As it dissolved into nothing, the child landed perfectly, a three point hero landing, his back to the beast as what remained of the dragon collaped to the ground.

  The Ender’s body dissolved into entropy, its own force of deletion devouring it. The fighter, cleric, and crafter slowly regained their feet as their HP ticked back upward, slowly, 5% per minute and not the 50% they were experiencing just moments before. Their enchanted food buffs a tenth of what they were, now that the server’s shutdown program was gone.

  The Ender Defeated! 999,999,999 EXP You have leveled up! Congratulations, you are now Level 62!

  But the celebration soured quickly. Their powerful equipment went limp, penalties stacking for the equipment being under-leveled.

  “Darn it,” Skidmark swore, looking at his UI screen. “Stat points don’t help me skill train…”

  Noobkitty fell to the ground, tears streaming as she laughed in relief, over a month of worry, stress, panic fell from her mind in a single instance. The ridiculous plan had worked. .ex was safe, GYOAT was safe, SisterQuery was safe, even Grizzlebeard was safe. And, finally, it sank in that she was safe too, and that caused her to laugh even more.

  The Apocalypse Burger was just a tasty snack now, the armor she spent months on, useless. From overpowered to a normal player in an instant. She laughed harder, unable to stop the flood of emotions, until she realized the ground beneath her was green.

  She looked up. Before her floated a glowing orb of light.

  “When you’re done,” it said gently, “we need to talk.”

  Noobkitty wiped her eyes, steadied her breath, and stood tall, well, as tall as four and a half feet would let her.

  “Yes,” she said. “We need to talk.”