Mara was going to kill Arturus. In-game, of course, over and over for this. Though she was considering the idea of throttling him outside of the game should the opportunity present itself.

  They’d spent countless hours playing Lordship of Sorcery together, and while he always acted like a spooky freak who did creepy shit for the sake of being creepy, she never thought of him as evil. She never would have believed he was the leader of the reapers if she hadn’t just experienced his ‘Soul Artillery’ attack firsthand from the receiving end.

  She genuinely liked the man, even though her attitude sometimes appeared abrasive and no-nonsense while they were fighting together. She had always seen him for what he truly was—a man playing a character to tell a good story for his stream. Same as everyone else who made a living doing what they did.

  But this was taking things too far.

  She’d come into this fight thinking that, at worst, the Reaper leader was some hopped up Legendary-tier player, not a peer adversary. Her best gear was still at home, just on the off-chance she died.

  That off-chance was looking more like a good probability. She felt the Mana Siphon snap off. She adjusted her stance to take the weight of a large section of wall that was resting on her shield, caught and stopped from crushing her. More rubble cascaded down onto the section of wall driving her feet deeper into the ground. But she held firm.

  Her eyes washed over the players beneath the fallen building. If she failed now, the debris would crush all of them. There was no telling where they would respawn if, as she assumed was the case, the blast destroyed the Temple of Fate. Eastgate if they were lucky, but Raystown was the second closest city. If they respawned there, they’d be right back in the hands of Arturus.

  She would not fall.

  Mana welled up in her veins, searing hot as she overcharged her spell. It exploded from the face of her shield, decimating the wall and rubble above and sending the chunks out in a geyser that crashed into the ruins that had been northern Nethy. Arturus’ siphon and her own spell had left her reserves drained.

  “Go quickly to the southern gates, then head west. Make it to my Bastion, there will be a place for you there,” she told them as she pulled her helm off and equipped another. It didn’t provide the raw resistance that the other one did, but the trade-off was that it had a high-level mana regeneration enchantment. She couldn’t match Arturus for raw spell power, but she just had to delay him while others got to safety.

  As the players under her charge began fleeing, mana crackled through the fallen stones of the city. They lifted as she channeled ‘Earthen Fortress’. It was another mana-intensive spell, but the protection it provided was worth the cost.

  The stones surrounded her, flying in lazy circles just feet from her body like a bubble. She raised her eyes to meet the form of Arturus.

  “You’ve gone too far, Arturus. This ends now,” she called to him. With a stomp of her feet, she launched herself into the air after him, spear at the ready. Icy winds swirled around him, the ice clashing against her stone like a physical force-field. They pushed against each other. She could see that cocky grin on his face, and she had to force herself not to smile back. She lunged forward, spear first, and caught the man in the stomach. Ice coalesced on the haft as the wind tried to rip the weapon from her grip. She had to kill the man, even if she also died in the process. Killing him wouldn’t delay him for long, but at least it would give her and the others time to get a plan in place in order to stop him longer term.

  “Are we having fun yet, Mara?” Arturus cackled through the pain. He gripped her ice-covered spear and tried to pull it away from himself; she pushed again against the air itself, watching her minimal mana supply drain further. The spear hardly moved as he anticipated her attempt, flying backwards as she flew forward.

  He opened his mouth wide. Mara expected another taunt; instead, a snake made of flame burst from his lips. It crossed the distance between them in a fraction of a second, through both of their bubble shields and wrapped itself around Mara’s throat. The heat singed her hair and burned her skin as it coiled tighter. The physical pain of the attack was nothing compared to the emotional pain. She knew this attack, and had defended Arturus against it personally against a Greater Hellspawn boss in the Celestial realm. She’d wondered what he had drifted from it that day, but he’d always been cagey about it. Had he planned to use it against her someday?

  She focused on the feeling of the mana pulsing in her core. It was a strange feeling, one that players normally didn’t notice, but she had. She had felt the way she could control it within her first days of playing. She could control and quiet that pulse. Practicing that every day had unlocked her very first spell-type ability: ‘Dispel’.

  She’d always been careful not to use it too close to Arturus or any of her party members, not wanting to mess up their magic. Now she was using it specifically for that purpose.

  She activated it now by calming the internal storm of mana within her. The fire snake around her neck dissipated into a puff of black smoke. The stones around her immediately dropped, no longer under the sway of her magical defense, and the ice, which she hadn’t realized was a magical effect in this case. Even the glow from their armor snapped outward like shattered glass and disappeared. Arturus’ eyes went wide in surprise.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Connected by her spear, they both dropped. They slammed onto the ground together. Even though she’d been expecting it, she lost hold of her spear as they bounced away from each other.

  [Level Up]

  Skill: Dispel has reached level 100!

  ~~~

  [Mastery Accomplished!]

  Skill: Dispel has reached Celestial-tier.

  Dispel can now drain all mana within a ten-meter range for thirty seconds.

  Cooldown reset.

  At any other time, her oldest spell finally ranking up to Celestial would have been a reason to celebrate. It would be a joyous occasion that she would have messaged all the remaining members of the six Celestials to celebrate and gloat. Instead, leveling it up by using it against her friend filled her with sadness.

  She stumbled to her feet. Arturus’ health bar popped up in her vision as he finally stumbled into view. Her spear was still stuck in his stomach.

  [Player]

  Name: Arturus

  Class: Necro Drifter | Level: 100+

  HP: 252 / 385

  ~~~

  [Player]

  Name: Mara

  Class: Bulwark of Eternity | Level: 100+

  HP: 198 / 500

  She had to end this. He was better suited for DPS and had no interest in learning if he could outclass her ability to tank the damage. She rushed at him, her every footfall echoing loudly in the ruins of what had once been the city she had called home all those years ago.

  Dust choked the air and made breathing difficult. She was fifty meters away from him when he started firing. Balls of necrotic energy formed in his hands and shot forth. She caught several on her shield, but even more landed against her skin and armor.

  Where they landed against metal, they caused it to rust as if thousands of years had passed, and where they landed against flesh, she felt her skin wither and die before falling away. She tossed the useless scrap of metal that had been her shield aside, but she didn’t let the pain screaming through her body stop her. Pain channeled through her body in a primal roar of rage. With less than fifty health remaining in her pool, she crossed the final distance to get him within ten meters and slammed down on her newly upgraded ‘Dispel’. Mana Drain hit them both as he turned to flee from her. He stumbled from the effect of the debuff, letting Mara catch him.

  She landed atop him, pounding him with her fists. She swung as if her hands were hammers into his face and head, tears welling up in her eyes from the frustration. His health bar plummeted, but not fast enough. Time was running out on the ‘Dispel’.

  Ten seconds left.

  Slam, another twenty-five health points.

  Eight seconds.

  Slam. Fourteen this time.

  Five seconds.

  He was down to just seventy health.

  Slam-slam.

  Her timer elapsed, and he grinned up at her. “Be seeing you soon, Mara.”

  A glowing white orb burst forth from his chest, dropping his health to zero as it emerged. She was point blank to the spell and had no time to react. It exploded.

  [DEATH]

  You have died!

  Time to respawn: 120 seconds.

  Mara had time to think while waiting in the purgatory that was the death screen. She didn’t have to worry about where she would respawn, as the protector and founder of a city she always spawned in Mara’s Bastion. That gave her time to brood over Arturus’ betrayal.

  His last act hadn’t just been to take her out. The spell he used was one she recognized; he’d stolen it from a world boss. She hadn’t even known he’d been logged in during that event. She shuddered at the memory of that day, the sheer destructive force of that boss. There hadn’t always been a large bay to the east of Eastgate and Nethy. There had once been vast fields full of dungeons and monsters and tiny settlements. The boss had unleashed the same white orb from its chest, and although at the time she didn’t know what it did, she knew it couldn’t be good. She’d tasked a group of lower levels, Master- and Legendary-tier adventurers to stop it before it could fully charge.

  They’d failed, and Eastgate had become a harbor city.

  She could only imagine the destruction that Arturus had just inflicted. Even if it wasn’t as powerful as the original monster’s version, it was surely enough that the area now had a new inland sea.

  As she spawned back in her palatial bedroom, she covered her eyes. The light was too bright and made her want to puke. It was rare she had to deal with the effects of Death Sickness anymore, but with the added aftereffects of Mana Drain she just wanted to curl into a ball and sleep.

  But she was the Bulwark. She had a job to do to get her city ready for whatever Arturus was planning, and a duty to warn her peers of the traitor in their midst.

  Mara > We are betrayed. Arturus has revealed himself to be the leader of the Reaper threat.

  Several seconds passed; with each moment, she expected Arturus to chime in. Either to deny everything or to gloat—instead, the first replies came from the newest and eldest members of the Celestials.

  Kole > I’ll stand with you, Mara. Whatever you need.

  Annika > Kyle is in one of his crafting fugues and has his chats turned off, but I’ll let him know.

  Mara wasn’t sure if it was more heartwarming that her peers trusted her enough to believe her with zero proof, or more concerning that Arturus was a disturbing enough individual that they could believe it.

  She waited a few more moments, hoping that the ‘Starbreaker’ Daven would respond, but it was impossibly rare that he had his chat active. He preferred to play solo even after reaching Celestial. So much so that even though the other five congregated on the Western Continent, Daven preferred to spend the vast majority of his time far away on the Southeastern continent.

  She shook her head, getting out of her bed even as her body complained. She had work to do after all. Her blood ran cold when Arturus finally appeared in the chat.

  Arturus > Oh, the stories we shall tell, my friends.