The Behemoth was a level 40 world boss.

  [Behemoth]: An ancient and ferocious beast, said to have been slain by Apollo himself at the Gates of Tartarus.

  To find a scroll related to Apollo's own hidden realm was something Kael had never expected. He examined the teleport scroll closely.

  [Hidden Realm Scroll: Land of the Behemoth]: The former domain of the Behemoth, where it kept a vast population of lesser creatures as livestock.

  This meant the realm didn't contain the Behemoth itself, but at most a lingering shade or its descendants. Kael estimated the monsters inside would be around level 30. Still, knowing the brutal difficulty of hidden realms, he decided to shelve it for now.

  I'll wait until I'm at least level 25, he decided, placing the scroll into his inventory.

  When he looked up, more and more Serpent's Coil members were pouring down the stairs, and they had begun to launch a coordinated counter-attack against his clones.

  "Charge! Get the son of a bitch!"

  "Spread out, spread out!"

  "Boss, we have him surrounded! DPS can move in!"

  "Whoa, how is he firing three arrows at once?!"

  "Fuck, my feet are rooted!"

  …

  A wall of tanks swarmed the clones. Their positioning was meticulous; each player was staggered, with no one standing within ten yards behind them, completely neutralizing the clones' Pierce passive. Fortunately, the clones also inherited Galeharrow's ability, and the two Splintering Arrows from each shot still inflicted considerable damage.

  System: You have killed the player [Seashell]. Your Infamy Score has increased by 1.

  System: You have killed the player [TurtleShield]. Your Infamy Score has increased by 1.

  …

  A stream of kill notifications scrolled by. In moments, another sixty players had fallen.

  But it wasn't enough. The tanks finally closed the distance, their eyes bloodshot with rage. Shields in one hand, they swung hammers, swords, and maces at the clones with the other.

  "Kill him!"

  "Take down the squishy archer!"

  …

  The damage numbers that appeared, however, were less than inspiring.

  -410

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  -215

  …

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The tanks stared as the health bars of the two Dawnbreakers barely budged.

  "Holy crap, how much HP does this guy have?!"

  "Are we sure he's a squishy?!"

  Kael's clones had over 7,000 health each. It would take these shield-bearers ages to whittle them down. But then, a fireball arced through the darkness from the staircase.

  BOOM!

  -2047

  The DPS had arrived. A relentless barrage of ranged attacks followed.

  -1835

  -1594

  …

  In less than two seconds, both of Kael's clones collapsed into particles of light.

  "YEAH!"

  The Serpent's Coil members rushed to where the clones had fallen, cheering wildly.

  "We finally got him!"

  "Fucking hell, that was rough. We lost over a hundred guys!"

  "Boss, Dawnbreaker is down!"

  "Boss, you can come out now, stop hiding!"

  …

  Caleb Mordant, who had been cowering by the entrance, cleared his throat and strode forward with an air of authority. "Ahem. I wasn't hiding. I was securing the exit to make sure he couldn't escape."

  "The boss is brilliant!" someone shouted.

  "Right," Caleb said. "Did he drop any loot?"

  "Boss, nothing dropped. There isn't even a corpse."

  "What? No corpse?" Caleb froze, a terrible premonition washing over him.

  Suddenly, a series of whistling sounds echoed from the cavern ceiling.

  "Huh? What's that noise?"

  Caleb snapped his head up just in time to see a dense volley of arrows rain down from the darkness, landing right in the middle of their celebration.

  "HOLY SHIT! WHERE DID THOSE ARROWS COME FROM?!"

  "Aaargh!"

  In a single second, another hundred players were annihilated on the spot. Caleb had brought a thousand men, thinking taking down Kael would be a walk in the park. He'd now lost almost a third of his force, and their morale was shattered.

  "FUCK, HE'S STILL ALIVE! SPREAD OUT!"

  "Flares! Flare Arrows! Light up the area ahead!" Caleb commanded, once again taking cover at the entrance.

  A series of bright projectiles shot into the darkness, illuminating half the massive cavern. What they saw made their hearts sink. Standing in the distance were two more Dawnbreakers.

  "Damn it, how is he still here?!"

  "Didn't we just kill both of them?"

  "Wait, these have to be clones too! We need to find the real one!"

  Someone had finally figured it out. But in the sprawling, jet-black cavern, Kael could be hiding anywhere.

  While they wrestled with this problem, Kael's clones were not about to give them a chance to think. They immediately began firing. A 55-yard attack range wasn't impossibly far; a full sprint could cover it in five or six seconds. But those five or six seconds were enough for the clones to loose seven or eight volleys. Factoring in the Splintering Arrows, it would cost another dozen lives just to get into melee range.

  And what was the point of getting close? They still didn't know where the real Kael was.

  Caleb realized this as well and quickly issued a new command. "Half of you engage the clones! The other half, go find his main body and drag him out!"

  A force of three hundred players, torches held high, split off and began to circle around the clones, heading deeper into the cavern. Since both Kael and Orion had innate night vision, the light from the guild's own torches did nothing to reveal their positions.

  Suddenly, a lone Diviner appeared before the hunting party. With a flick of his wrists, a storm of paper sigils flew toward them.

  -1028

  -853

  …

  Every single player was hit.

  "Shit, it's that Diviner who hangs around with Dawnbreaker! I bet he's the one making the clones!"

  "Kill him!"

  They unleashed everything they had on the Diviner.

  -1920

  -832

  …

  A flurry of damage numbers erupted over his head. But he didn't fall. A sliver of his health bar remained.

  "What the hell? How is he still alive?!" they shouted in disbelief.

  The "Diviner" in their midst simply looked at them and raised a middle finger, a contemptuous sneer on his face.

  That was the final straw. The already tilted players in Serpent's Coil completely lost their minds.

  "Fuck this guy! I'm gonna kill him myself!"

  "Cut him down!"

  A mob of melee players charged the nearly dead Diviner.

  "Die!"

  "Why won't he fall?!"

  "Priest! Dispel! We need a fucking dispel!"

  …

  After a chaotic three-second dogpile, the Diviner finally collapsed. The players let out a collective sigh of relief and spat on the corpse.

  "Tch! Fucking trash!"

  "What's this? A scarecrow?"

  Suddenly, the body on the ground began to shimmer and change shape. A moment later, all that was left was a straw effigy.

  "What the hell?!"

  "It's a trap!"

  The hot-headed players instantly realized their mistake. They looked up, and sure enough, another rain of arrows was already falling from the sky.

  "FUCK!"