Spiteful Healer

Chapter 278: Failsafe

“There are big names everywhere you look, in every direction.” A VGN News caster shouted with excitement from within his broadcasting studio. He was referring to a wide shot view of the Tarolas Arena grounds, with players and NPCs funneling inside the main entrance. The assortment of races, armor types, and sheathed weapons gave an incredibly colorful display.

As he spoke, the view of the wideshot grew and moved forward, due to creative editing, and slowly overtook him so that his studio was no longer visible, only the shot of the arena. His voice continued to speak over the footage, however.

“Down there, to the left, we see Makaroth and the Sages of Destiny, next to Feng, Daehyun, Mikael, Emparak, Challenger. Then on the other side…” he continued to list off the names of visible streamers in the shot, most of which were not trying to enter the arena but rather gathering with each other in a large huddle off to the side of the swarms of players and NPCs.

“Man…” Andrew took a deep breath as he, Mike and Nicholas were all standing side by side within Nicholas’ office, watching the VGN broadcast. The collective viewership on Tarolas gameplay was also on display, on a small monitor off to the side that had other infographics added to it. 216 million viewers, and rising. “That’s our highest, peak viewership. Higher than launch day.”

“It’s going to keep going up. This tournament has representation from every major region across the world.” Mike added.

“All of them hoping to watch Seraxus get defeated.” Andrew nodded. “But if he kills them all…”

“It’s going to be bad. People are going to start looking up to him, rather than despising him. This is our last chance, Nicholas.” Mike added as he and Andrew turned to face Nicholas, who stood silently staring at the screens in front of them.

“I’m surprised you’re on his side now, Mike.” Nicholas replied with a slight head shake.

“I’m on the side of the gameworld.” Mike shrugged.

“Really? How’s she doing that? She gave that kid a raid boss dragon to ride in on.”

“Yeah. Exactly. I was confused by her actions at first too, but then I looked at it more closely…” Nicholas replied as a slight grin began to creep up on his face.

“What?” Andrew looked confused.

“What’re you on about?” Mike asked curiously.

“She’s responding in kind. Her plan - I see it now. All you have to do is ask yourself the simple question… if Seraxus can escape all unfavorable combat encounters in the open world, then the only way he can now be defeated is by being put in an arena match where only victory or defeat are options. So why in the hell would he repeatedly put himself in the only situation he can lose in?”

“Ego?”

“No.” Nicholas replied while pointing at the broadcast, that now was showing Seraxus’ arrival at the Tarolas arena. He swooped down with his large black wings of hatred, causing all NPCs to begin screaming and fleeing in terror from around him. The players, too, backed away and kept their distance as he strutted forward with a giant smile, escorted by his 4 party members. “It’s the sword. It’s egging him on, convincing him to do it. Samantha, she’s putting him in this vulnerable position, month after month, in the hopes that someone steps in and defeats him.”

“Okay…” Andrew nodded along as he processed this for a moment. “Okay, I'll buy that. But, that still doesn’t explain why she gave him a dragon.”

“It does.” Mike nods. “If Samantha knows that he won’t ever be defeated outside of the arena, then all she can do is make sure people start taking him seriously. The dragon was used to make everyone pay attention.”

“Yeah, that could be it. But, I’ve got another theory on why she did it…” Nicholas added with a rare smile growing on his face.

“Everyone is checked in, ready for their matches?” Makaroth asked in his usual, upbeat and boisterous voice. The gathering of other contenders were all around him, with the exception of Seraxus who was walking alone into the Arena, some distance away.

“You should kill him now, and we will be done with it.” Mikael shouted angrily, changing the mood of the conversation very quickly.

“As much as I agree with you, I don’t think it’ll work out like that. I’ve studied his and his party's gameplay, and they specialize in escaping from unfavorable encounters.” Synopse explained calmly. “We rush him now, and he’ll most likely flee and not enter the tournament at all. We’ll lose our opportunity to stop him, and with his newfound powers there's no telling how much destruction he’ll bring until the next opportunity arises to defeat him.”

“Newfound powers that you spoonfed to him by allowing him to come here. I warned you not to let him dock at the Skyport.” Mikael turned his anger on Daehyun.

“It wouldn’t have mattered whether we allowed him or not. He rode in on a dragon.” Xaio jumped into the conversation.

“He’s right.” Makaroth nodded at Xaio. “I’ll admit my mistake. I underestimated Seraxus, and thought he could be reasoned with. I see now that he truly is a force of evil that must be stopped, so that is exactly what we will do.” Makaroth moved to the center of the group as all eyes fell on him. “We may not all have the opportunity to face him, and instead will need to face each other. Even though we are all united in our desire to stop him, I urge you to not hold back in fighting each other, as we must only allow the strongest of us to challenge him, so that we do not waste this opportunity.”

“And what happens if we all fail?” Mightymira asked.

“Which we will.” Jeremax scoffed.

“The only weapon able to handle that sword, you made sure you couldn't even attend this tournament.” Mikael added.

“Guys, calm down. I understand you are angry, but throwing tantrums solves nothing.” Feng stepped in on Makaroth’s behalf.

“Exactly.” Makaroth nodded at Feng. “Should we fail, then I will make it my personal mission to hunt him down and prevent him from causing any more destruction.

“Right. Like that’s going to do anything.” Mikael rolled his eyes.

“Do you hear that?” Lilya asked curiously as she turned towards the arena behind them. There was nothing, almost dead silence.

“No?” Calikgos replied curiously, as everyone else went silent and looked where Lilya was looking.

“Didn’t Yumily’s opening performance start already?” Lilya replied to him. “Yet, there’s no music.”

“Fucking hell.” Makaroth sighed in frustration before quickly turning away from the group and rushing in the direction of the arena’s entrance. The group of gladiators followed behind him urgently, pushing past the crowds of players and NPCs of which some were attempting to flee the arena rather than enter.

After making it through the long entry hall, they stepped out into the wide arena with a design nearly identical to that of the arena within Kordas. The oval shaped arena had rows upon rows of seats on all sides, extending upwards and outwards several stories. Many of the seats had already been filled, and all audience members were silently staring at the scene in the center of the arena.

The sandy, tile floored arena held a ring of pillars, and sections of terrain where rocks and small plateaus were placed to give it unique variations of terrain in different sections. The main focus currently, however, was a large wooden stage that’d been constructed at the center, decorated beautifully with magical enchantments and colorful flowers and banners.

On the stage stood Yumily, Kaito and Kenji, along with several other NPCs that belonged to Yumily’s band. There were a mix of dancers who all wore matching uniforms that went nicely with Yumily’s Kimono, and several musicians and backup singers. All of them were silently glaring at Seraxus as he and his companions climbed up onto the stage.

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“Oh, sorry, sorry everyone.” Seraxus called out, drawing all eyes onto himself as he made sure to speak into Yumily’s microphone, - a staff with a voice amplification enchantment on it. “It’s just, we’re such big fans of Yumily. We were hoping you could play us a song.” Seraxus asked her, and his party members chuckled.

“I am obligated by my VGN contract to play your introduction music before each of your matches.” Yumily replied coldly.

“Yeah, yeah….” Seraxus began pacing around her, while Kenji and Kaito had their hands on their weapons and Yumily stood tense.

“Makaroth…” Synopse looked at him anxiously.

“I know.” Makaroth took a deep breath, preparing to draw his blade and jump down into the confrontation.

“Stop.” Calikgos quickly threw his hand out and grabbed Makaroth’s shoulder to stop him. “He’ll only make a fool out of you. You can’t do anything.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?” Mikael shouted as he too prepared to march forward towards the scene. Similarly, Mightymira threw her hand on his shoulder to stop him as well.

“He kills you, and we lose our chance to beat him in the tournament. That’s the best case scenario.” Mightymira spoke with no emotion.

“I’m not in the tournament, so…” Makaroth brushed off Calikgos’ hand.

“Which makes it worse for you. He’ll destroy your image and make a fool out of you.” Calikgos explained. These words caused Makaroth to hesitate, turning to look back at Synopse who stared knowingly into his eyes. He then turned to look at Calikgos and Lilya, seeing their worried expressions.

“Relax. Yumily is able to handle this herself. Don’t underestimate her.” Feng tried to reassure them. “There are only 15 minutes remaining before the first match starts. She just has to play along with him for a bit, and she’ll be fine.”

“15 Minutes is a long time.” Synopse replied anxiously.

Yumily, from atop the stage, glanced from Seraxus pacing around her, to the audience in the stands on all sides. She saw the look of fear on the faces of the audience members, then spotted the gathering of gladiators who’d just entered the arena. Briefly, she had a glimmer of hope fill her upon seeing them, but quickly saw that they were not moving. They were not going to enter the arena to help her - they didn’t want to risk dying before their matches.

As this sunk in, she took a deep breath to calm her nerves and turned to glare at Seraxus.

“I was hoping you could write a more personal song for us, though. You know, you do that sometimes, right?”

“Yeah, you wrote that beautiful song for Kalmoore and Arallia, didn’t you?” Zuon joined in.

“That is because I had them in my heart. I feel nothing for you, you disgust me.” Yumily replied, which prompted Kaito to begin drawing his katana, but Yumily quickly held out her hand to signal him to stop.

“Hah, I wouldn’t bother, Samurai. We already know how that ends.” Seraxus smirked at the aggressive gesture by him. “Look, ok, I get it. I killed you, and my sword ate your soul. Now you’ve got a debuff. It sucks.” Seraxus continued to pace around her. “So why not a song of hatred, then?”

“Hah, yeah. Like one of those heavy metal songs. That'd be pretty cool.” Hajax nodded along.

“Exactly, that’d be perfect. You could do something like that for us, right?” Seraxus asked.

“I refuse to make any music for you.” Yumily replied firmly, maintaining eye contact with him.

“Oh really? Then, I’ll just have to cut this performance short.” Seraxus said, suddenly drawing out his black sword of hatred and swinging it down at Yumily with incredible speed - so fast that neither Kaito or Kenji could react. He did not follow through, however, and stopped the blade mere millimeters from Yumily’s neck. Simultaneously, though, Yumily did not flinch in the slightest - she didn’t even blink and instead continued to glare at him.

“Tch. She’s pretty cool.” Seraxus sighed as he pulled his sword back.

“You will lose your contract if you kill me. You were warned after doing it the first time. I am not someone you can harm without consequences. I am not afraid of you.” Yumily declared.

“Yeah…. Yeah….” Seraxus side as he started walking away from her. “Your NPC’s, on the other hand,” He added with a sudden quick spinning motion, swinging his sword out towards one of her dancers. This time, Kaito was quick enough to react by pushing the dancer out of the way, but he instead took the strike and was killed, being forced out of the gameworld.

“Makaroth.” Synopse urged him, and Makaroth remained frozen with indecision, watching from a distance as Kaito’s body dissipated and was forced to log out of the gameworld.

“Don’t.” Calikgos urged him.

The dancer who’d been pushed out of the way was helped back to her feet by the other 4 dancers present. They then began cowering away from Seraxus as he started slowly pacing towards them.

“Okay, wait! Fine. Stop!” Yumily shouted at him, causing him to stop walking forward, turn, and grin at her.

“Good choice, I heard these elite NPCs are hard to wrangle up.” Seraxus replied mockingly, while crossing his arms and wait expectantly.

“Nice, this is gonna be sick.” Gambit added excitedly.

“I hope she mentions me in her song.” Sylvie added as they all moved to stand beside Seraxus, and watched Yumily intently.

“Ahem…” Yumily began speaking into her voice-amplified staff, addressing the silent crowds around the stadium that were watching the scene unfold. “I will be playing a special request song, for the evil people that have attacked this land.” Yumily struggled to get the words out.

“Anaxar? Can you start off with the beat from our song Collapse?” Yumily turned and smiled at her drummer. Kenji looked at her and saw the tears welling up in her eyes, then turned with his staff drawn to face Seraxus and his party, but Yumily quickly stepped forward and pulled his staff down.

“No, stop. It’s pointless.” Yumily urged him. “Please, Anaxar.” She turned to the drummer again. He sat behind his drumset on the back of the stage, drumsets in hand, staring back at Yumily before glancing towards Seraxus.

“No.” Anaxar, the elite NPC replied. “I won’t play music for this demon.”

“Please, he’ll kill you. We respawn, but you do not.” Yumily urged him.

“I don’t care. We’d rather die then allow him to bring you shame.” Anaxar answered her firmly, while dropping his drumsticks. Following this, the dancers who were showing fear on their faces all moved to stand shoulder to shoulder and glared at Seraxus.

“Us too. We won’t preform for him. Don’t let him boss you around for us.”

“That can be arranged.” Seraxus grinned as he started marching forward towards the dancers with his sword out.

“No. PLEASE! Stop this! They aren’t serious!” Yumily shouted at him in desperation.

“They look pretty serious.” Hajax shrugged.

“Pesky lil’ AI’s thinkin’ they’re hot shit.” Gambit shook his head disapprovingly at them.

“SOMEONE?! DO SOMETHING PLEASE?!” Yumily shouted out into her microphone, looking in the direction of the gladiators, including Makaroth. Makaroth reached his breaking point with this, and was preparing to dash across the arena to intervene, but the distance was too great - the black sword of hatred swung down on the nearest of Yumily’s NPC dancers.

However, it was blocked.

A deafening clash of metal erupted from the stage, as a blinding flash of pure white light erupted from one side of the clash, and pitch black abyssal mist erupted from the Sword of Hatred.

So powerful was the clash that both black mist overtook one side of the arena, and bright white light took over the other side, piercing up into the sky and becoming visible from at least a kilometer away. The clouds cleared in the sky above as the light began to fade, as did the black mist from Seraxus’ sword.

It was from there, revealed underneath the light, that a 10-pointed, star shaped shield had blocked Seraxus’ sword of hatred.

Behind the shield, a grinning Aegis stood. Darkshot stood beside him with an arrow knocked, pointed at Seraxus' head. On his other side, Rakkan stood with his echoes all armed, blades pointed at Seraxus. Pyri, on the other hand, was behind Aegis and ushering the dancers away from danger, towards Yumily who was standing off to the side.

“No fucking way.” Makaroth stopped his forward charge, jaw dropped as he saw Aegis standing on Yumily’s stage with all of his companions but Lina.

“How the fuck did he get here?” Calikgos asked in disbelief.

“Hoooooo?” Seraxus looked on in disbelief as Sylvie drew out her weapon, as did Zuon, Gambit, and Hajax.

“The bitch.” Sylvie hissed in Pyri’s direction.

“Ay yo, Renault,” Hajax commented mockingly.

“Aegis…” Yumily whimpered, tears flowing down her cheeks from joy at seeing him.

“Nice job, savin’ the useless bard. She ain't gonna help you with nothin’. You wasted your flashy entrance.” Seraxus replied mockingly, without moving his sword from Aegis shield as he eyed the weapons of Aegis’ companions pointed at him. Very quickly, though, Seraxus’ party did the same thing and pointed their weapons at Aegis’ group.

“Useless?” Aegis turned his head curiously. “Oh, right. I forgot. Since you lost Renault, you don’t get how things work in this game, right? You just brute force through everything with that sword.”

“So? The lore in this game is shit. It ain't gonna save you.” Seraxus replied mockingly.

“Oh I disagree. And also…” Aegis suddenly forced his shield into Seraxus' sword to knock it away and lunged at him, unarmed. Seraxus was taken aback and attempted to jump backward to avoid Aegis, but Aegis quickly projected a shield behind Seraxus to stop his backward jump, allowing Aegis to tackle him.

At least - that’s what Aegis looked like he was trying to do initially, until the action had been completed and ended with Aegis’ arms thrown around Seraxus, holding him tightly in a hug.