The black silhouettes in masks ran through the destroyed landscape. Burned remnants of trees were everywhere, and the ground was black and littered with craters. The heavy smell of burning was drifting through the air.
The figures ran fast, jumping over the obstacles, looking like black spectres. Their masks glittered under the rays of sunlight radiating from the sun high in the sky.
Suddenly a tree cracked, breaking in half as a demon jumped from behind it, brandishing its long red claws with a metallic lustre.
A valley of colourful projectiles showered its body, tearing it apart with pieces of meat and black blood flying everywhere.
Three large shadows flew above them. They were giant draconic beasts radiating in different elements. Their large bodies moved with incredible speed, flapping their enormous wings.
POV Raiders:
The dragon’s enormous body lay sprawled in the middle of a crater, bright flames surging around it, and thick clouds of smoke covered everything in an impenetrable haze.
More than dozen of glowing red spots moved in the haze, quickly moving towards the dragon lying on the ground.
Suddenly the thick clouds of smoke whirled as the three dracodactyls showed up in the sky, each flap of their large wings causing the smoke to spin. Orange and blue light flashed in the mouths of the beasts, and pulsing elemental orbs launched out, descending towards the red eyes hidden in the smoke.
Three large explosions of magma and electricity shook the land, the shockwave dispersing all of the smoke around them, revealing the dragon’s body to the players.
Their eyes opened wide, seeing the dragon for the first time without the thick layer of dark stone on their body. The smooth and shiny scales littered the whole body, each having a brightly glowing rune engraved on it. Their surface was moving in light waves as if they were made of water. The extensive injuries on the dragon and all of the scratches were closing up.
“Are these runes, and why is the dragon regenerating so ridiculously fast.” Lili looked at the body, visible confused. With her knowledge of lore about dragons, she had never heard of any case where the dragon upgraded their own body with external means.
The punk guy’s eyes listened up as he realised something, “This explains why the dragon wanted to find a runesmith. Ehm, will our next quest be to find a smith to forge armour for the dragon?”
Everyone couldn’t help but be excited imagining the huge, already incredibly tanky dragon wearing heavy metallic armour on top of the stone layer and the scales, turning him into an actual tank. Just the thought of an upgradable faction boss made their hearts beat fast, imagining all of the possible upgrades they could unlock for their faction.
Suddenly maniacal laughter resounded from the back of the last dracodactyl, “Yes, this is it! Let the fire grow stronger! We must make the dragon even stronger!”
The fat dwarf also felt excited, but he still couldn’t help but think that all of them were just ignoring the most obvious thing, “You are all overthinking it… Isn’t it obvious that his dragon is special, likely supposed to have a big role in the future story? It’s obvious that developers will give such dragon some special abilities.”
Loud screeches echoed from the surrounding burning woods, multiple red orbs launching towards the beasts, pulsing in red light and leaving behind distorted red trails. The beasts flapped their wings, making a sharp dive towards the ground, avoiding all of the red orbs.
The punk guy drew his bow, and an arrow of magma materialised in it out of nowhere. He released the bow, and the arrow flew out, turning into an orange-glowing missile.
Suddenly mid-flight, the arrow pulsed, multiplying into twenty of its copies. The rain of magma arrows fell amidst the demons, creating an orange swarm that pierced and pelted their bodies.
Lili pointed her long wooded staff from the beast, leaning down to aim at a demon. Magma started to rotate around her staff, quickly turning into a small swarm of sharp and thin needles of magma levitating around it.
With a swing of her staff, the magmatic hail descended towards the demon’s igniting and stabbing into their bodies. Their loud and painful shrieks echoed through the forest.
Finally, the pyromaniac waved his hand, and a wave of bright orange flames descended in a fan shape, setting multiple demons on fire.
The demons immediately retaliated with even more glowing red orbs blasting through the air forcing the three players to ascend.
POV Hera and Zeus:
The two players ran through the burned forest in the direction of flashes of light and loud bangs.
Fifty players followed behind them, organised and split into multiple squads, each containing ranged players and melee fighters decked in armour.
“Quickly, we need to hurry to get enough contributions!” Zeus, the tall man with blonde hair, shouted from his full lungs, his whole body tense in excitement.
They finally exited from between the blackened trees seeing a large circle without any trees with smoke spreading around. Demon corpses lay everywhere, their dead bodies blackened.
“So powerful, they gained so many bonuses from being in this faction. We need to hurry up to get our slice of the cake!” Zeus raised his two halberds and bent his knees. A moment later, his large body launched forwards, the large halberds in his arms glowing as he flew towards a demon.
POV Vesuvius:
Loud and distorted bangs kept resounding in the dragon’s head that sounded as if the dragon had his head under the water, the head-splitting pain still stabbing inside it. He opened his eyes.
Everything was still blurry and dim. The red and orange flashes were appearing and disappearing all around his vision.
Dark silhouettes were moving all around him, his senses feeling vibrations of the air around him. The headache kept quickly subsiding, and his vision was slowly returning back to normal.
Finally, he felt relieved, noticing that the everpresent red light vanished together with the demon’s domain, assuring him that his plan to get rid of the demon worked.
‘This was all supposed to be a simple affair to take over the barony. How could it all go so wrong that I almost died on two separate occasions?’ he felt that everything in his life went wrong from the moment he killed that one noble in his lair.
‘Would I still be living in peace, slowly hunting and growing stronger if I just could control my temper?’ he finally found another reason why the dragons died out, ‘We dragons are too rageful, easily going on a rampage, creating lots of enemies in the process.’
The dragon’s visions already recovered, seeing his minions fighting against the demons. Their weapons dinged and clashed with the long claws and axes of the demons.
Feeling gloomy, he decided to read through the system log to see what he had gained from all of that trouble.
//
Quest accomplished! You have saved the town!
Rating: A
Reward: Instant Level UP; 500 Gold; New title: [The Saviour Of Azerlisia]
//
//
You gained a title: [The Saviour Of Azerlisia]
Conditions: Save the town of Azerlisia from a town-destroying threat
Effects: +20 to all stats; People of Azerilisia will feel grateful to you
//
The moment that the dragon’s eyes fell upon the effects of the title, his heart started to beat faster in fear, ‘Is the system basing that effects on the existing situation or is it manipulating the emotions of people.’ Just that thought caused the dragon to shiver as he imagined someone having a title affecting his opinion towards them.
Not wanting to think about something so scary, he continued reading through the log.
//
Your title: [Mage], was upgraded to [High Mage]
Conditions: Have at least 275 MAG; have at least 225 INT; have at least one magical ability on level 5; master at least 5 different spells
Effects: +10 –>+30 MAG; +10 –>+30 INT; +1 –> +3 to level of all magical abilities
//
‘Just this one upgrade will make it much stronger.’ knowing that a large amount of his skill would instantly level by two levels, Vesuvius couldn’t help but feel a little excited.
//
Quest accomplished! You have protected your base!
Rating: B
Reward: 10000 XP; 200 Gold; Cosmetic Item: [White Glow]; Your faction level increased by 1
//
//
Quest accomplished! You have survived the encounter with the demon baron!
Rating: S
Reward: Instant Level UP; 1000 Gold; Magic Item: [Regal Helmet of Protection] (SN: This should be mandatory for you)
//
Finally seeing all of the good rewards he gained, a resolve rose up in his heart, ‘No, if I just stayed holed up in my mountains, I would never grow so powerful in this short time. I don’t have time to live leisurely in peace and slowly grow in power. I am in the race, in the race against most of the world. Just from this one event, I gained so many levels and stuff.’
He wanted to immediately take his rewards, but with his pouch left hidden in the hideout and with players all around him, he couldn’t risk someone grabbing his coins.
Vesuvius finally stood up, his legs wobbly as his tall and large body rose, towering above the demons and players around him. A powerful aura exploded from his body, making the air still, and both the demons and the players froze.