The tyrant then started walking towards the poor catgirl.

  "Mei, run," Li Wei screamed. An Mei finally managed to rouse herself from her panicked state and began running away from the Tyrant.

  Li Wei started hurling spells at Li Yue to protect his wife; it did have the desired effect. Li Yue decided to finish Li Wei off first before dealing with the now useless catgirl.

  While Li Yue came closer and closer to Li Wei, dodging his spells, she saw something strange in the distance. Mei Lin, who was still alive, was not coming over to attack the Tyrant. Instead, she was kneeling down on the ground. Li Yue stopped for a second to take in the strange sight. Even Li Wei halted his spell barrage to take a look. As both of them watched, Mei Lin took her katana in both hands and then slowly but steadily pierced her own heart with it.

  "What's she doing?!" Li Yue asked. "Is she killing herself?!"

  As Mei Lin fell dead from the wound, something miraculous happened. A bright light engulfed An Jing's corpse, and vitality returned to its form. Then the barbarian opened her eyes and stood up, good as new. Gone was the shield. An Jing was now carrying the massive greatsword that she had used at the battle of Iridium Gates.

  "What the hell is going on? What is this?" Li Yue barked in surprise. "Oh, don't tell me? Is this?"

  "Yeah. Till death do us part," An Jing replied, her smirk palpable even through the voice chat.

  Li Wei had never herd of it. "What's that?" he asked.

  "If two characters are bonded, one can sacrifice their life to resurrect the other," Li Yue explained. "Doesn't matter. It's not going to be enough to save any of you. You already lost Mei Lin. I'll kill you again, and for good this time."

  An Jing immediately fell on Li Yue, swinging her greatsword with extraordinary skill. The ferocity of the attacks surprised even Li Yue until she got used to the rhythm and started parrying and countering. The two women were evenly matched in their sword skills. When An Jing would threaten an overhead blow, Li Yue would sidestep and get ready to attack the barbarian's flank. And when Li Yue feinted and thrust her dagger at An Jing, only for the attack to come from the side, An Jing would be ready to block the attack with her massive sword. The fight carried on in this manner: attack and counterattack, feint and counterfeit. Every move was answered with an equally skilled and devastating one, and every lost hit point was accounted for with the blood of the enemy. The battle was so fierce and devastating that Li Yue's health reduced to nearly 15 percent, and An Jing was down to 60 percent.

  While the fight between the barbarian and the rogue went on, Li Wei was continuing to chip away at his sister's health with spells, and An Mei had finally managed to make her way back and started healing An Jing. This caused quite a problem for Li Yue. She was rapidly losing health due to An Jing, while her enemy was being healed.

  Li Yue disengaged from the fight and once again went after An Mei, who promptly ran away as she was instructed. But Li Yue did not get far, as An Jing quickly caught up with her and started dealing devastating blow after devastating blow. An angry Li Yue escaped the fight once again, this time to target Li Wei. She dodged Li Wei's spells and closed the distance, only for Li Wei to run away, just like his wife. An Jing was again right at Li Yue's heals. In order to be rid of An Jing for at least a few moments, the Tyrant resummoned her two massive skeletons. They blocked An Jing's path, and the barbarian made quick work of them, but that delay of a few seconds was enough for Li Yue to teleport right next to Li Wei. She touched him and placed a stun curse on him. Li Wei fell on the ground like a statue. Then the Tyrant proceeded to thrust her dagger into his head multiple times, reducing his hit points to zero.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  By then An Jing had approached the pair and started wailing on Li Yue once again. As the two women fought, neither of them at first paid attention to what was happening right next to them.

  Li Yue was the first to notice the orange glow from Li Wei's body.

  "Jingjing, run," Li Wei said with his dying breath.

  The orange glow blazed into a ball of fire, which quickly gave rise to a massive explosion centered on the mage's body.

  An Jing was already running. There was no way she could escape the blast radius, but she could at least get far enough to avoid the full force of the explosion. While An Jing was running, Li Yue jumped forward using the barbarian's body as a launching pad and quickly shot two crossbow bolts into An Jing, knocking her back into the danger zone. Then Li Yue quickly teleported away.

  Both women were caught in the explosion. Li Yue once again caught only the edge of it, but An Jing, who was pushed inside by the crossbow bolts, suffered the full brunt of the attack. Even then, the barbarian was not dead. Her health was at 10 percent, but her regeneration was slowly increasing her hit points. Combined with An Mei's healing, An Jing could still win this fight. An Mei immediately ran to her sister to start healing her, but Li Yue was quicker. She struck An Jing with one more crossbow bolt, then teleported close to the barbarian and used her necromantic beam. An Jing dodged the spell, only to fall prey to The Tyrant's poisoned blade. Li Yue struck her nemesis multiple times with the blade, ending An Jing's life for the third time.

  With that, only Li Yue and An Mei were left on the battlefield. Li Yue's health was at 5 percent. An Jing, Li Wei, and the explosion had done a lot of damage, but she was still alive, and all her enemies were dead. Now all that was left was her sweet sister-in-law.

  "Mei, run," Li Wei yelled.

  "Jie, run away, don't fight her," An Jing screamed.

  Li Na and Li Jing added their voices to the chorus. "Meimei, run away. She will kill you."

  Li Yue slowly walked towards her sister-in-law. "Meimei, for what it's worth, I am sorry. I'll be honest, I will feel the worst about killing you. But ultimately, you did come here with everyone else who was trying to kill me. So, you have to die."

  An Mei, whimpering, took a couple of steps back. She did not try to run, as running was of no use. Li Yue could be next to her in seconds and kill her before An Mei tried to do anything.

  Now standing right in front of An Mei, looking down at the cute catgirl, Li Yue said, "Don't worry, Meimei, I'll make it quick."

  An Mei slowly lifted up her healing staff as if to defend herself.

  Li Yue chuckled.

  Then An Mei did the only thing she knew how to do. She pressed the button for her biggest heal spell and healed Li Yue.

  Li Wei, who was sitting beside An Mei in their home, looked at her in shock. Li Fen and Li Hua looked at each other in confusion. Li Na and Li Jing screamed in horror. An Jing cried out in joy.

  Convulsions rocked the Tyrant's body, and light started coming out of her undead eyes. Her health bar showed 0, and The Pixel Tyrant, who had terrorized the servers for three entire days, exploded in a shower of light and bones.

  "What happened?" Li Fen asked Li Hua.

  Li Hua, who was equally confused, shrugged her shoulders.

  Li Jing and Li Na asked the same question.

  "Healing hurts the undead," An Jing said in the voice chat. "Mei-jie just healed the Tyrant, and her being undead, it was as devastating to her as a fire spell."

  "So we won?" Li Jing asked.

  "Yes, Jie, we won," An Jing said, "and I got my revenge."

  Li Jing started screaming with joy, and An Jing soon joined her.

  Back at the office, Li Fen and Li Hua gave each other a high-five for a job mostly well done and went back to work to make up for lost time.

  An Mei was awfully silent. Because back home, Li Wei was kissing her repeatedly for her pivotal role in defeating The Pixel Tyrant.

  Once everyone was done celebrating in their own way, An Mei resurrected the members of the group as per An Jing's instructions.

  Once she was back to life, An Jing took back all the items that Li Yue had stolen from her and also managed to snag some of the choice weapons and armors from Li Yue's collection.

  While everyone was celebrating, they heard a disembodied voice. "Hey guys, can you resurrect me?" Li Yue was hanging around after defeat rather than resurrecting at a spawn point.

  "Xiao-Yue? You are still playing? Get to work, girl," Li Jing scolded her.

  "I will, Jie. How about we finish the Queen and the Duke boss fights together? I won't try to kill you guys, I promise."

  "And you will stop hunting other players?" asked Li Na.

  "Yeah, yeah. My kill streak is gone anyway. Let's just finish the boss fights, and I'll go back to coding. And I haven't seen Momo in three days. I miss him."

  "All right. Let's finish the boss fights then," Li Na said.

  The party of seven then headed towards the final portion of the Black Lands, ready to face the Queen of Veiled Tears and the Duke of Endless Sorrows.