Chapter 17: The Bulwark of Eternity

  Elijah held his arm out, letting the two perched bats take to the sky. They’d only hinder him if he tried to make a quick getaway. The two men may have had him boxed in, but he wasn’t out of options. He wasn’t particularly sure what those options were at this moment, but he had to believe there was something he could do.

  At least he wasn’t carrying the guild’s entire net worth with him anymore.

  “You know, you’re a very tricky man to track down. If it weren’t for your unique class, I’m not sure we would have even recognized you coming out of the realtor hall,” Tom sneered, slowly moving closer to Elijah. He got the sense that the Flesh Reaver was uncertain about him and his abilities, and he could use that to his advantage.

  “The boss wants to know exactly how you and your little gremlin got into our base,” the mana mage snarled from behind him. Getting closer and continuing to box Elijah in. Elijah could see them both through his scout bats; they hadn’t drawn their sickles yet. Which could either be a good sign or a bad sign.

  “If I tell you, do you plan on letting me go?”

  Tom’s laugh was like a fork scraping against a chalkboard. “And why would we do something like that? We figured you’d want to see the rest of our base, especially the prison cells.” He held out his hand, showing that he was holding a length of rope. Elijah wasn’t sure exactly what their plan for him was if they captured him, but he had no intention of finding out.

  In a game of straight numbers, Elijah was at a disadvantage. Tom was sixty levels ahead of him, which meant at least one-hundred and eighty allocated stat points. Bob, the Mana Mage, had him by even more levels. He only hoped that this man had made the mistake with his stats that Rose had told him was so prevalent with caster classes.

  “Guess your boss won’t be so happy today, especially with my friends heading to take him out right now.” It was a complete and total lie, but it caught both of the Reapers off guard just enough that he could put his desperate plan into action.

  He took one more good look at his surroundings through the eyes of his bats, then cut the link and turned on the balls of his feet. He rushed straight at Bob. The man reacted with startled surprise and held his arms out. The game’s safe zone did its thing and caused him to stutter and reset to a neutral position as Elijah leaped up. He landed one foot on the mage’s shoulder, which, thankfully; the game didn’t register as an attack, and used the man to hop further up, grabbing hold of the balcony of a window.

  From below, he heard Bob and Tom shouting at each other before directing their shouts at him. He pulled himself up onto the balcony, not turning back to look at his would-be attackers. He jumped again, grabbing hold of the next balcony.

  “Give me your scythe, you useless mana bank.” He heard the Flesh Reaver scream at the Mana Mage. Elijah risked a downward glance as he pulled himself up another level. The Reaver was using the scythe to scale the wall at blinding speed. The Master ranked weapons digging into the brickwork like soft butter.

  Elijah couldn’t feel the edges of the Mana Siphon yet, but knew it had to be close. If he could get out of range, he could teleport away or use his spells to help him get away. He continued climbing up and up the tall building with the Flesh Reaver hot on his trail, shouting how he was going to flay Elijah alive.

  The insane stamina of higher levels allowed the maniac to catch up even as Elijah slowed down from the exertion. With every jump upwards, Tom closed the gap. His saving grace came in the form of a black furry creature, one of his scouts. It dive-bombed out of the air and slammed into the man headfirst.

  Elijah didn’t know why the game hadn’t considered that an attack. Perhaps it was luck, or that Elijah hadn’t explicitly ordered the creature to do so. Whatever the reason, it gave Elijah just enough time to reach the rooftop unmolested.

  He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he could escape soon. The edge of the Mana Siphon spell was drawing nearer. Elijah took off running towards it as he felt the connection to one of his scouts snap. He felt bad for the little bat, wishing he’d at least named the little guy. The next time he summoned the bats, he would correct that, but he wouldn’t waste the summon’s sacrifice by being distracted now. His legs pumped and his breathing grew ragged, pushing through the exhaustion and toward freedom.

  Tom crossed over the threshold of the rooftop behind him, still shouting his threats. The sound of a dying blender echoed across the sky, and Elijah didn’t need to look back to know that Tom had activated his Dervish ability.

  Elijah forced his body to run faster as the sound grew closer. Exhaustion was building up, but despite that, he still couldn’t feel the edge of the siphon. He had to hope that the safe zone would protect him against the Flesh Reaver’s signature ability. Turning to face the man, drawing his Player Bane Dagger, just in case he’d somehow crossed outside of the safety of the safe zone.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  If this hadn’t been a game world, Elijah was fairly certain that he would have peed himself in fright as he stared down the gullet of the whirlwind of blades heading right towards him. He braced himself, but couldn’t help flinching and closing his eyes as the Dervish neared. He felt his connection to both of his bat scouts tugging at his perception. They’d spotted something new, but he didn’t have time to check with them.

  He expected either that the sound would cease entirely, or he’d get ripped to pieces. The ground beneath his feet shifted and rumbled, and a new sound added itself to the mix. Elijah couldn’t quite place it other than it sounded as if the blender was being turned back on itself, a strange echo added to the cacophony.

  He opened his eyes and saw a massive shield stretching from one end of the rooftop to the other. Not a construct, not some kind of light shield, but an actual metallic steel shield. And behind the shield stood someone he never expected to see in person.

  [Player]

  Name: Mara

  Class: Bulwark of Eternity | Level: 100+

  Before him stood the fourth ever player to ascend to the Celestial tier of the game. One of the only two women who had managed the feat. Her armor shone with the bright red light, which left no question of its strength.

  As the sound on the other side subsided, the shield shrank down in a blinding flash of light to become a long thin buckler on her right arm, while in her left hand she held a spear that emanated the same crimson light.

  The light emanating from her white armor gave it almost a pink hue, which Elijah found entirely too fascinating as he quickly realized he was staring at her rump instead of focusing on the psychotic would-be assailant on the other side of her.

  Tom snarled at her. “Who do you think you are? You can’t just drop in on our little playdate uninvited.” He held up both the scythes he was carrying and sliced them through the air. Mara simply shook her head at him before turning her back to him and offering a hand to help Elijah to his feet. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen over when she’d appeared.

  “Are you okay?” She asked him in a voice significantly more feminine than he expected from the towering Amazonian frame. He couldn’t believe that within a week of starting this game he’d met one of the elusive Celestial tier players.

  He nodded as he took her arm and allowed himself to be lifted to his feet. Her strength stat had to be immense as lifting him barely seemed to take as much effort as it took to lift a bowl. “You’re lucky I arrived when I did. The roof up here isn’t a safe area. These dime store horror actors probably planned on you trying to escape up here.”

  “Don’t treat me like I’m not even here!” Tom roared, swinging his sickles towards Mara. Without her even needing to show a reaction, a glittering shield of blue mana sprung up between her and the Flesh Reaver. It seemed to fizzle and pop for a second as it caught his sickles, holding them in place. Far off down below, Elijah heard Bob scream out in pain for a moment before a minor explosion silenced him, followed by the sound of gore splattering the ground. He felt the Mana Siphon effect snap off, and suddenly Tom didn’t look so sure of himself.

  “What are you doing here in Raystown, Bulwark? Don’t you have your own cities to save?” Tom asked, no longer as cocky as he had been before her arrival.

  She patted the dust and dirt off of Elijah’s arm before turning to face the man who had tried to attack her. “Cleaning up a mess. Arturus has been saying he’s going to get rid of your gang for weeks. I finally decided I would lend my aid. Really, it’s quite a bother, but it’s nice to get some easy experience points from time to time as well.” Her spear shifted in her hand.

  Tom spat onto the tiles of the rooftop. “You think you’re untouchable just because you’ve got a shiny class?”

  She smirked and looked back to wink at Elijah. “Oh no, Tom. I’m untouchable to you, because I’m just that much better at this game than you are.”

  She turned to face him again, and power radiated from her spear. “Are you ready to see just how much more damage a good tank can do than a lousy DPS player?”

  The power that radiated off of her wasn’t just mana; it was a physical manifestation of the strength of someone on the opposite side of the bell curve from Elijah. He felt it, Tom felt it, everyone in the city could probably feel it.

  “You’re gonna pay for this, just you wait, you dirty sl—,” his words stopped off as Mara finally acted.

  With a casual slice of her spear that didn’t even contact him, Tom flew backwards through the air. Elijah watched as the man’s health bar appeared, then zeroed out in less than a second. He disappeared in a flash of blue particles, leaving behind his high-level loot that continued flying.

  Mara sighed heavily, sliding her spear into a holder on her back. “I tried to hold back, but now I have to go find that loot before scavengers get to it.”

  “Be a dear and go collect up that Mana Mage’s loot? I’m pretty sure the feedback from me channeling too much mana into him popped him like an overripe tick.” She stepped to the edge of the rooftop before stopping and turning back to smile at Elijah. A casual glance filled him with a warmth he couldn’t explain. “Oh, by the way, Alastor says ‘hello’ Elijah.” She took off at a run, and in a flash was gone. Elijah’s legs buckled out from underneath him as she left, too stunned by the interaction to focus on staying upright.

  It had taken less than a minute to take out two of the strongest players that Elijah had run into in his short time in the game. If the gulf between his power and theirs was a lake, then the gulf between him and Mara was more like the Pacific Ocean.

  He knew now more than ever that he wanted a taste of that power for himself. He wanted to know what it felt like to be so untouchable. And thinking about it, he wanted to know how she knew Alastor.