“Yes, yes, of course!” Hazel bounced on the balls of her feet.
She turned to Lila, her eyes wide with hope. “Miss Whitmore, would your guild have me?”
“We’d love to have you,” Lila said with a warm smile.
A moment later, Hazel’s title changed.
[Champion of Crescent City - Hazel, Officer of Crimson Bloom]
“Wow, I’m an officer!” she squealed, gazing up at the new title floating above her head. “Thank you, Miss Whitmore!”
Lila’s eyes, however, shifted to Kael.
He gave her a subtle nod. He knew the gesture—making Hazel an officer right away—was for him. A silent acknowledgment.
He waved a hand forward. “Alright, let’s keep moving.”
“Right,” the others chorused.
Just as before, Hazel took the lead. Suddenly, Kael pointed to a corner of the corridor. “Hazel, step over there for a second.”
“Oh, okay… ahh!”
The moment her foot touched the flagstone, it gave way, dropping her into a pit.
-1200
-1200
Her voice echoed up from the darkness. “Get me out of here! There are spikes at the bottom!”
-1200
-1200
…
After losing 6,000 health, the team finally managed to haul her out. Hazel gasped for breath while Rena patched her up.
Kael pointed a little further down the hall. “Hazel, what’s that on the right wall?”
Hazel rubbed her sore backside and shuffled forward. “Where?”
“Ahhh! Fire! It’s hot, it’s hot!”
…..
“Hazel, I think I saw something moving over there.”
“Waaah, snakes!”
…..
“Why is it so co-o-old?”
…..
Under Kael’s “command,” Hazel proceeded to trigger every single trap in the corridor. Her pained shrieks echoed through the stone passage, a sound so tragic it would make angels weep. Lila and the others winced with sympathy at every cry.
The architect of her suffering, however, remained expressionless, wearing the deadpan look of a QA tester finding bugs the hard way.
After more than ten minutes of this, they finally reached the exit. Hazel let out a massive sigh of relief.
“Mr. Dawnbreaker is the meanest person ever… sob…”
Kael moved to the front and put a finger to his lips. “Shh. Quiet.”
Hazel immediately clapped her hands over her mouth.
Kael led them to the opening. They were peeking out from a hole high up on a wall, with a series of winding staircases leading down to a grand hall below. The chamber was opulently decorated, as dazzling as a royal palace.
In the center of the hall, a dozen players were battling a boss. The entire combat area, a space roughly fifty yards square, was enveloped in a faint purple aura. At the heart of the aura was a large pile of skulls, emitting a soft, ethereal glow.
“Huh? How do they have that skill already?” Kael murmured to himself.
The purple aura was a Warlock ability. Specifically, it was the signature skill of the hidden class, the Soulflayer Warlock. It was called [Domain of Torment].
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
[Domain of Torment]:
Applies ‘Abyssal Blessing’ to all allied units and ‘Abyssal Curse’ to all enemy units within a 50x50 yard area.
Abyssal Blessing: Increases damage dealt by 20% and reduces damage taken by 20%.
Abyssal Curse: Reduces damage dealt by 20% and increases damage taken by 20%.
It was an outrageously powerful area-of-effect spell that cost five full Skill Points to learn—the same tier as Kael’s own [Phantom Barrage].
“What is that purple light?” Lila asked, clearly sensing its significance.
Kael quickly explained the effects of the [Domain of Torment].
“Oh my god,” Lila breathed, taking a sharp inhale. “So against the boss, it’s a 40% damage reduction and a 40% damage increase, all at once.”
Kael nodded. The skill was just that broken.
“Doesn’t that make them practically invincible in a group fight?” Lila asked.
Kael paused, a newfound respect for Lila blooming within him. In a situation like this, her first thought was immediately of its PvP implications.
He pointed to the pile of skulls on the floor. “See that?”
Lila followed his finger and nodded. “Yeah. There’s a Warlock standing next to it.”
“That’s the one,” Kael said.
Lila was sharp. She grasped his meaning instantly. “You’re saying if we kill that Warlock, the whole domain collapses?”
Kael confirmed with a nod. “And he can’t move more than five yards away from that pile of skulls while he’s channeling it.”
Lila nodded curtly, saying no more. As a guild leader, her mind was already processing the information in the context of guild warfare. Now that she knew the weakness, she knew how to counter it.
Kael shook his head slightly, choosing not to elaborate. That Warlock was a member of [Eclipse], a guild from the planet Vesperia.
In his past life, [Eclipse] had become one of the top ten guilds in the entire galaxy, and that Warlock was the cornerstone of their success. The man had a massive arsenal of obnoxious, hard-to-counter abilities and an equal number of escape skills.
Kill him first to break the formation? It’s not that easy.
Kael was just curious why they hadn't used this skill in his previous timeline. Maybe they were holding it as a trump card to steal the boss kill and got ambushed before they had the chance, he mused.
Before he could solve the puzzle, Hazel gasped. “Look! The boss just killed two people!”
Kael’s eyes snapped to the fight below. The boss, Van Tassel, flashed his daggers, and an archer and a mage dropped dead in an instant.
[Van Tassel (Rogue)]: Level 20
HP: 525,893 / 1,000,000
Physical Attack: 2025
Physical Defense: 1650
Magic Defense: 1850
Attack Speed: 0.6 seconds
Movement Speed: 11
Dodge: 30%
On the surface, his attack power wasn't extraordinarily high, on par with Mecha-Hakkar. But a Rogue’s true strength came from the burst damage unleashed by spending combo points.
For example, after landing five consecutive hits on a single target, Van Tassel could use [Cold Blood], increasing the damage of his next attack by 200%. At three combo points, he could trigger [Bleed], causing the target to lose 1,000 health per second for three seconds.
He even had a fifteen-point finisher: [Death].
It was exactly what it sounded like. Once triggered, the target died instantly. It didn't matter how much health or defense you had. It was an absolute, unavoidable execution.
Because of this, fighting Van Tassel required meticulous threat management. If a tank accumulated ten combo points, a second tank had to taunt the boss immediately. This created a massive headache: the tanks couldn't go all-out on threat generation, which meant a damage dealer could easily pull aggro.
That was precisely what had just happened. The mage and the archer had out-threated the tank, and Van Tassel had instantly teleported to them and killed them in seconds.
“You Earthlings are pathetic!” shouted a swordsman, his voice echoing in the hall. It was Eclipse_Raven, the guild leader of Vesperia’s [Eclipse]. “You can’t even manage simple threat. You got my men killed!”
The dead mage had belonged to his guild.
“Bullshit!” A priest from another guild retorted. “It was your mage who went too hard and pulled aggro, getting our archer killed in the process, and you have the nerve to blame us?” This was Silverwind, the leader of [Silverwood].
“Earthlings are all cowards, unable to face your own mistakes,” Eclipse_Raven sneered. “If your tank had held aggro properly, there would have been no aggro loss.”
“That’s absolute bullshit!” roared a hulking warrior wielding a massive greatsword. “Did you not see our tank had ten stacks? Your off-tank was supposed to taunt then!” This was Draevan, the leader of [Titan Guard].
“He couldn’t,” Eclipse_Raven argued defensively. “Your archer had already pulled threat by then.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Even the normally gentle Silverwind was cursing now.
“Enough! All of you!” a deep, commanding voice cut through the argument. He was Dreadclaw, leader of the [Apocalypse] guild. “Focus on the boss. Is arguing going to solve anything?”
Dreadclaw was a legendary player, a dominant force in countless games for years. He was the one who had brokered this fragile alliance between the four guilds. At his word, the others fell silent.
Watching from above, a small smile played on Kael’s lips. [Apocalypse], [Eclipse], [Titan Guard], and [Silverwood]—all destined to become top-50 powerhouse guilds. There was no way they could cooperate seamlessly.
The recent OT was almost certainly caused by the Eclipse off-tank deliberately holding back his threat generation to sabotage the others. Eclipse_Raven just hadn't expected to lose one of his own in the process.
Kael could see it, and he knew the other guild leaders on the floor could see it too. As the boss’s health continued to drop, the players grew more conservative, each one holding back, terrified of being screwed over by their supposed allies.
“Hey, Silverwind, where are the heals? My tank is about to drop!” Draevan yelled.
“My skills are on cooldown!” Silverwind shouted back. “Damn it, Dreadclaw, has your healer cast a single spell in the last minute?”
“He has to manage his mana!” Dreadclaw retorted. “Hey, Raven! Are you afraid your sword might break? Why don’t you try swinging it?”
“My hand is cramping,” Eclipse_Raven said flatly. “I need a second to rest.”
…
Watching the cascade of excuses and blame-shifting below, Kael almost burst out laughing. Each guild was acting in its own selfish interest. Perfect coordination was impossible. No wonder they all wiped in my past life. They deserved it.
“Look out!”
A collective shout rose from below as the battle took a sudden, dramatic turn.
