Eon Covenant was the first opponent to take a match from us besides Annath. I failed a perfect block in the first round, leading to me being crushed to death by their barbarian player. Veyra tried her best to salvage the fight alone, killing their assassin with a clever [Absolute Zero] trap, but she misplaced an [Elemental Barrier], leading to a phoenix arrow one-shotting her.
The margin for error in the matches was becoming next to nothing as our opponents got more and more skilled. Everyone here was good enough to immediately punish me if I made the slightest misplay. Not to mention, we fought as a duo in a three versus three tournament, and that fact was becoming ever so apparent.
Nevertheless, I didn’t fuck up again, and we defeated Eon Covenant in the next two rounds, securing third place and fifty thousand dollars of prize money.
In the winners’ bracket side, Annath unsurprisingly cleared everyone with a clean sweep, knocking Syntrix down to the losers’ bracket. Syntrix and SoulShadow were our next opponents in the losers’ finals, fighting for a chance to rise back for another chance to face Annath in the grand finals.
Veyra and I sat backstage at seven-forty-five PM. The losers’ finals would start in fifteen minutes. She sat silently next to me with her eyes closed, though she clearly wasn’t sleeping. If we won the losers’ finals, we’d be guaranteed second place in the whole tournament. I wouldn’t have dared to flirt with her right now.
Aree sat to her left, opposite to me. We both smiled at each other, amused by just how focused Veyra looked, as if she was in the middle of some grand meditation.
I already felt ready to go. I usually performed the best if I was relaxed. I decided to pull out my phone and just scroll the forums for the remaining time.
It didn’t take long for me to pause at a certain news post. I couldn’t help but mention it out loud. “Hold on,” I said. “The three versus three finals have been moved to the main stage tomorrow?”
“Mm,” Veyra said. “That was announced last night. They also increased the weight that the results will have on the top five hundred leaderboard, since competition was much higher than anticipated.”
I kept studying the post. “The prize pool seems to be the same.”
She sighed. “Yeah, Wind Virtual just expects the miscellaneous stage to be overflowing with Annath involved, I guess. The Guild PvP stage has way more room.”
I smiled. My sister would probably struggle to get front row seats. “I guess we’ll need to lose this one if we want to avoid popularity.”
Her eyes were unfocused as she stared at the floor.
“Everything alright?” I asked.
“Mhm,” she said. “Aiden, I don’t know if the pod will let me log in right now…”
“Oh… How bad is it?”
She sat perfectly still. “I’ve been trying to hold it in…”
Oh shit, I thought. So she hadn't just been focusing?
Veyra took another deep breath and said, “Aree, bathroom. Please.”
“Yes!” her assistant said, and took Veyra out. They disappeared behind the corner, to the bathrooms.
I couldn’t help but feel bad as I waited. Being paralyzed was already troublesome, but a vomiting disorder almost sounded worse to me. If I lost my ability to walk, at least I knew I could always keep playing Wonderwind. Veyra’s condition hindered even that.
Why am I so bad at comforting her… I thought. I was decent at complimenting her—at least I hoped I made her feel good when I talked to her—but I just didn’t know how I could support her with her condition. It hurt to see her dealing with this before our biggest match so far.
Footsteps approached as four people entered backstage. At the front, wearing a dark blue team jacket filled with sponsorship logos, was SoulShadow. A long golden necklace reached to his chest, with rings on eight of his ten fingers. The excessive jewelry wasn’t nearly as pretty as his mythic items in-game, but they did fit his personality, I supposed.
Behind him was his team manager Odomn, a black-haired man with glasses. He was also a personality within Syntrix, known for his loud rants every time his players made mistakes. The two other players were WrightKnight and Blast. Both of them were assassin players, ranked sixth and seventh on the assassin class leaderboard. In real life, they were the polar opposites. Blast was a tall middle-aged European woman with a ponytail, while WrightKnight was a seventeen year old short but nimble-looking boy from America.
Syntrix had signed up with an all assassin roster for whatever reason. Probably as some sort of publicity stunt, since this definitely wasn’t their best roster. Syntrix was massive with over a hundred players in the guild, being one of the three top contenders for the guild war tournament. That was mostly because they had the best support mage player in the game, Renlia, ranked fifth in the global leaderboard and considered to be one of the five gods in the game.
She would have given us real trouble if she signed up to the three versus three tournament. Renlia was a support mage who I’d need to fight one versus one just for a chance to assassinate her. She frequently sparred and trained with SoulShadow to properly defend against assassins, and she used quick-casting, of course. If Renlia was present, Syntrix could have probably taken a match off of Annath.
SoulShadow didn’t look too happy to have dropped to the losers’ bracket. He was already frowning as he walked past me, pausing next to me. “I won’t mess around this time,” he said. “I watched your matches. You’re good, and you’re not cheating. But you’re not at Dragrath’s level. Let’s duel.”
I shrugged. “Expect to be rolled.”
He snorted, shaking his head as he made his way back to his team.
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I meant what I said. Syntrix’s team of three assassins had gotten this far by overwhelming enemy backlines, moving too fast for anyone except Annath to follow. They’d even killed Neige before his team had time to protect him, giving Syntrix a numbers advantage against Luxueux’s front line.
If they planned on using the same strategy, they didn’t know what they were up against. Veyra was much better than the average back-line.
If Veyra’s game pod let her log in, that was. I’d checked the rules, and it stated that no exceptions would be made to the game pods’ safety features. Players were not allowed to show up to the tournament so sick that their game pods didn’t let them log in.
I found myself tapping my foot five minutes before the match was supposed to start. That five became two, and I bit my lip, constantly glancing toward the bathrooms. I doubted I could win a match three versus one. Luckily, the match would be a best of five. I could lose two rounds while waiting for Veyra, if the worst case happened.
The clock read 5:59 PM when Veyra and Aree returned. Veyra hugged herself with her right hand, face a little pale. She gave me a smile and said, “I think I’m good. Let’s hope for the best.”
“We’ll win,” I said.
“Your set is still bad for this one,” Veyra said. “Sablethorn will be useless against three assassins.”
“Yeah, a straight-up crit dagger would have been better,” I said. “But I think we’re fine. Can you still deal with their two assassins like we planned?”
“If the pod lets me log in, I’ll feel fine in VR,” Veyra said. “I can survive against their rookies. You’ll have ten seconds or so to deal with SoulShadow.”
“Save Astral Defiance for yourself,” I said. “I’ll beat him without.”
“Mm,” Veyra said. “If you can beat SoulShadow one to one in ten seconds, we’ll win.”
I nodded. “I’ll destroy him. He’s trash.”
She snorted. “Funny thing to say about the rank two assassin.”
“You’ll see,” I said.
Time was up, and the walk-ins started. Our turn was first this time. The caster’s voice echoed loudly across the stands as the caster called “Team Soloooo Mageeee!” Cheers from a full audience followed.
Unsurprisingly, SoulShadow was much more popular. Their opening cinematic showed three shadow assassins. SoulShadow ran in with full energy and practiced footwork, and the audience's cheers were twice as loud.
Veyra and I just stood by our game pods, until both teams got into our respective game pods. We loaded in and checked their items. The only notable problem was SoulShadow’s dagger and cloak combo.
Weapon Slot One: Ephine’s Deathwail (Mythic)
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+2400 Attack Force
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+4 Dagger Proficiency
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+250% Critical Strike Damage
Ghost Slice (Active): Ephine’s Deathwail detaches from the physical realm. The blade turns spectral, passing through all objects and completely ignoring defence. Ghost Slice deals 50% reduced spectral damage.
Armor: Cloak Of The Night Spirit (Legendary, Unique)
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+200 Defence
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+2 Dagger Proficiency
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+10% Critical Strike Chance
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+2 to Vital Strike
Night Wind (Active): The spirits of the night manipulate wind. Charging an attack gathers wind. Attacks become ranged, dealing 50-200% damage depending on the amount of wind gathered. Night Wind is 30% more effective at night.
“Looks like he’s rocking the same set as last year,” I said.
Excluding his boots, which I’d stolen and had equipped right now, and that fact must have pissed him off. For now, he’d replaced the boots with a simple stat-stick non-unique legendary pair. It looked like he hadn’t found any special boots for his main set yet.
“So you’re sure you can beat him?” Veyra asked.
“If I lose, I’ll retire,” I said.
“Please don’t.”
“Well, I guess I can’t retire if you’re still playing.”
She gave me a look.
I chuckled. “I’m ready. I can beat their two rookies alone even if you get killed. I just need ten seconds or so to deal with SoulShadow.”
“You think I’ll die to those two?” Veyra asked.
“No,” I said, amused. “If you survive, it’ll be an easy match. I’m just saying I can also carry this if you fail.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll kill them before you can kill SoulShadow.”
We quickly discussed the other directions this battle could go, in case SoulShadow declined to duel against me and if all of them went for Veyra instead. I was fairly confident he wanted a rematch against me, one to one, though.
We readied up, and the countdown began.
The arena opened up.
As expected, his two allies split up, hovering near Veyra, leaving me unattended, while SoulShadow’s eyes stayed firmly on me. He wanted a duel, and he would stop me from protecting Veyra.
I [Shadow Dashed] straight to him, only for SoulShadow to use his own dash backward. With distance between us, he activated both [Ghost Slice] and [Night Wind]. He wound a heavy blow, gathering wind, then slashed sideways directly at my waist. My dash was on cooldown, and the spectral attack couldn’t be blocked.
I’ve been getting used to blocking now, haven’t I? I thought. I used to dodge this kind of stuff.
Now I had to, and the muscle memory came right back. I jumped over the horizontal slash, which was followed by a vertical slice. I jumped to the side, dodging like I always did before I’d owned The Immortal. SoulShadow’s rhythm got easier and easier to follow as I dodged while running.
I reached him, slashing at melee range. He gritted his teeth and blocked with his remaining dagger, then counter-attacked with [Ghost Slash].
At melee range, I already knew how to block the dagger despite its spectral element. I moved The Immortal to the solid hilt of his blade. The surface area was smaller, but with some focus, I landed the perfect block.
I slashed, and I found myself setting the rhythm. SoulShadow blocked, keeping up with me. Even if I’d beaten him last time, he was still the former number one assassin.
He kept tossing in [Ghost Slashes] with every opportunity he had. I kept blocking them, and he didn’t seem to figure out how I was doing that.
He was accustomed to his weapon being unblockable. He’d used this dagger for years now, and it showed in his fighting style. He literally didn’t know how to deal with me, now that his dagger was suddenly being blocked. Even worse, he could only block with one of his daggers.
In a straight-up fight, I was faster. More precise. Stronger.
He kept up with my rhythm for a good ten exchanges of our daggers—longer than any other assassin I’d fought—until I landed the first hit, then another, stacking evisceration and dealing 12% damage with each slash.
He gritted his teeth and cast [Isolation Shroud] and [Shadow Dash], escaping. I tracked his movement, then cast my dash in the same direction.
You won’t escape!
We both came out of the shadows next to each other. I slashed, hitting a third stack of evisceration. Three was probably enough to kill an assassin. I activated the skill and aimed for a fatal crit in his brain.
He could not keep up. I saw it from his face. He just barely read my attack, but not fast enough to block.
In a panic, he cast [Block].
Our daggers collided as the lucky system-assisted [Block] was quite literally better than him. His eyes were wide behind the dagger.
But his blocking hand was now occupied. He threw [Ghost Slash] for a counter-attack.
I took it head-on and slashed my left hand past his block, to the side of his head for a critical strike. We traded hits as he pierced my gut, and my stacks of evisceration blew open.
Slash.
My health bar fell to 54%. SoulShadow’s dropped to 0%. He collapsed, disintegrating.
And that’s why you’re no longer a part of the five gods.
A system notification came.
[You Have Won Round One]
[Team Solo Mage 1 - 0 Team Syntrix]
I glanced behind myself to see Veyra’s smug grin. She stood proudly next to two disintegrating corpses.
“Holy shit,” I said. “You got them?”
“And you’re telling me I need to focus on survival?” she asked, amused.
Wow, I thought, genuinely impressed. I needed to be faster next round. By being too slow, I’d missed my chance to watch Veyra dominate two assassins.
I was teleported to the loading screen, and promptly back to the arena from there.
Syntrix spent their full five minutes discussing with each other before round two started.
20 chapters ahead on !