The striking force had failed miserably thanks to Anika’s ace up her sleeve and Gust’s foolish attempt at saving his boss. Crown knew he had to play flawlessly to get out of this mess. But there was a problem. Most of Anika’s legendary class was still a mystery.

  The good news was that Revel was slicing and dicing all the enemies' attempts at reaching them. His golden fox wove through the crowd gracefully while the striking force followed close behind, backing its leader.

  Down below, on the beach, there was no longer a large and strong magic barrier to shelter the enemy forces. Starfall’s magic classes were now concentrated on maintaining hundreds of smaller magic barriers, shields, and defensive buffs. All that manual effort had to be made to protect them from the blasts caused by the cannons atop the elevation not far from them.

  “It’s not over, not while I’m here,” Crown said, grasping the hilt of his silver, demonic saber tightly. That weapon was also part of the Dark Lord’s set, and together they shone a dark purple aura that turned the already imposing summoner into the likeness of a raid boss.

  But it would last for just three minutes, so he had to make them count.

  Crown spread his four wings with such force that dozens of black feathers were sent flying. He then dashed forward, retracting his sword hand and advancing at high speed.

  Anika reacted by standing over Smokey and jumping so high that she vanished from Crown's gaze. It didn’t matter to him. When he got in range, he swung his sword aiming for a clean cut on the dragon’s head, but Smokey pulled away in time. The blade struck one of the thin layered plates covering its neck, then hit the next. But Crown pressed on, and by the time the saber hit the fifth plate, it sliced it like paper.

  It was a small cut, but it was enough to anger the dragon. Crown was now behind it, but where was its rider? It was obvious. The summoner reached for the huge grimoire hanging by a chain crossing from his left shoulder to his left flank, and ordered it to open on a page. He then tore a page with his free hand and consumed it.

  A large, ethereal round shield materialized above him in time to block the spear-dive-strike of the dragonrider. Crown’s eyes widened, for the impact was not over. Anika was holding her spear, driving it down like it was a drill. The sheer brute force applied by her ended up shattering the magic ward.

  “It can’t be,” Crown gasped, ready to charge.

  The moment he went to her, a powerful roar pierced his ears, coming from behind and tingling his instincts. He spun a half-turn and conjured a spell from the sword hand.

  His palm shot a burst of dark energy, creating a twisted concave barrier in front of him in time to absorb Smokey’s fire breath for all three seconds. Crown’s lips formed a twisted grin, for his basic, non-grimoire-bound spell was able to neutralize what was supposed to be a big skill.

  Anika was a dragonrider; her dragon should have been stronger than a legendary mount.

  Crown summoned his Flaming Crow, and just as it spawned, he ordered it to fend off the dragon because Anika was closing in from her long leap and dive.

  Her dragon-shaped long spear clashed with his demon-sword. Crown immediately threw his lower wings against her, to pierce her with the sharp tips atop each section, but flames soon engulfed him. It didn’t come from the dragon, it came from her mouth.

  “What the fuck, how’s that even possible?” he thought, in despair.

  Then a screech coming from behind made his heart pound in his chest. The dragon was coming as he was still engaged with her, trading blows after skills after spells. Each of his strikes was as strong as hers, but that would not last any longer, his Demon Lord armor would eventually expire, and she was smiling.

  The Flaming Crow was unable to isolate the dragon. The scaly beast was coming right at him, and somehow, its head and throat were glowing red.

  “Ready to be roasted?” Anika said before disengaging.

  Crown seized her retreat to plummet into a dive, hoping to lose the dragon. His expectations were soon shattered. Its roar pierced his ears once more. He was too fast to change course now.

  Instead of insisting on an escape, he looked up, gazing right at the furiously red eyes of the dragon ready to burst another breath of fire. The summoner then conjured a stronger version of the barrier that saved him from its first breath.

  The dragon’s mouth opened, and from its depths came a dark red flame that grew larger, darker, and thicker as it spread forward. The barrier never met the flames—it shattered by the sheer hotness preceding the fire itself.

  When it reached Crown, the lifespan of his Demonic Armor expired, and his health plummeted below 60%.

  “How can one skill be so powerful?” he thought, putting those flames together with that meteor dive of hers. “They can’t be this strong alone, they must meet some strict criteria to reach such a high damage multiplier.”

  It all came to him. The first dragon breath was weak to the point of being absorbed by his average magic shield. Then it was followed by Anika’s own fire breath. Both of those skills landed fully on him. Even if the first was blocked, the system could have still counted that as a direct hit.

  Only then did Anika’s dragon glow furiously red.

  His saber and armor faded, but he still smiled, for he had found the first clue of what could be the main mechanic of that legendary class. A common demonic pair of wings sprouted from his upper back after he consumed the last page containing that invocation.

  Crown’s breath turned heavy and hectic as the ground drew closer. He spread his wings, but did not flap them. The wind was so strong and swooshing so loud in his ears that it would be impossible to take flight.

  Instead, he put all his strength in an effort to slow the fall, and only when the air stopped overwhelming his hearing that he dared to flap those demon wings. It worked, Crown glided an upside-down arch, passing through closer and closer to the bright, warm sands of an empty area of the beach.

  Stolen story; please report.

  He was two meters short of hitting the ground. But then all that flapping began to do its job, taking him further and further away from the beach.

  Daring a quick look, Crown caught just in time the view of Anika throwing a sort of cable forward. When she was about to hit the ground at the same distance as he almost did, the cable drew an arch in the air and landed right on one of the many hooks attached to the dragonrider’s saddle.

  In one motion, Anika shot towards her companion in an almost straight line, then passed right under it, pendulumed herself upward, landing on top of him like a talented gymnast, and finally sitting on the saddle like all of that was part of her daily routine.

  “The pretty girl sure has practiced this shit a lot!” Crown pondered as the chase returned to normal, and soon his pursuers were closing the gap. Meanwhile, the Flaming Crow began to pick up the pace and increase its speed by using the draft left by the dragon.

  Crown opened the grimoire as his mind raced after a solution. There were eleven golden pages left to use, but they were his trump cards, each was capable of turning the tide of a battle.

  The problem was that all his planning had gone to shit. That strike was supposed to be quick, a hit and run to thin their number. The huge sea-monster and his other summons would sink their boats and damage their magic wards and siege weapons.

  But he was stuck there now, as was his striking force, all of them were supposed to retreat a long time ago.

  “Should’ve stayed inside those damn walls,” he thought aloud, with his trump card already on his hand, ready to be consumed. He planned to use that when the real battle should have begun at the gates. But that was a feverish dream now.

  “Time to wake the real Leviathan.”

  However, it wouldn’t be as strong as it could be. The Leviathan’s Herald was incinerated with Anika’s meteoric fall, taking with him the Leviathan’s Wrath counter that would empower his strongest summon.

  The page burned, but its energy soon faded, for a Winged Lion rammed him. It came quietly from below and quickly pulled back so the black dragon could bite him, and a dragonrider could raise her spear, point its dragon-shaped tip at him, and ask, “Any last words?”

  “Congratulations. But I know how to beat you next time.”

  ***

  Chris left the immersion pod and was received by his fellow companions. They were in the Main Diving Room of the Red Crow’s Headquarters in S?o Paulo. He let out a long, sad, utterly disappointed (even in himself) breath.

  “That surely was a disaster,” he said, looking in the eye of every one of the thirteen members there.

  “It was the new guy’s fault,” Reginaldo said, the player behind Revel’s avatar.

  “Where is he?”

  “In the cafeteria, I think.”

  “Well, I kinda know the answer, but here goes nothing: do we have a chance of holding up those fortresses?”

  No one said a word, but silence in itself was an answer to his question.

  “Then tell the survivors to learn everything they can before Anika and her lackeys storm the gates.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Despite this shitty finale, good job everyone, you all did good today,” Cris said and hurried towards the exit. The door opened itself as soon as he got close. He left the room, stopped in the corridor and looked both ways. For a second, he wasn’t sure which way would lead him towards the cafeteria.

  “Damn. I’m too old for a 31 year old,” Cris wondered aloud, soon realizing he should go left. So left he went, making his way toward the cafeteria as key moments of that embarrassment of a siege flashed in his mind.

  “Cris!” cried a female voice, but he woke up too late from his daydreams. A hundred pages flew from the girl's hands, spreading evenly across the floor. It was like each page was alive and capable of deciding to make those two lives harder by coordinating themselves to fan out over the floor.

  Two middle managers stopped in time to avoid a stomp mark on a few of those sheets of paper.

  “Sorry, my fault." Cris took the blame and began to help the girl pick up the pages.

  “If this was a movie,” she said. “This would be the moment that one of us—or both—would fall in love with the other.”

  She was probably the only one in that entire building that would crack a joke like that at him.

  “Have you seen Gust, Júlia?”

  “Yep, he’s at the cafeteria, or was five or ten minutes ago.”

  They finished picking up the pages. Cris handed her his half, apologized, and went to meet Dante’s supposed heir.

  The cafeteria was half-full. A quick glance at the old-school watch hanging on the wall hinted that most of them were there on their afternoon break. Cris’s walk between tables was punctuated by a plethora of greetings.

  After crossing a few tables, someone finally asked, “Did we get the islands?”

  Most of them in the cafeteria probably already knew the fate of Dante’s former headquarters. Hell, a girl from the Academy Program was holding a tablet tuned in Starfall’s official livestream showing their advances in the Storm Islands.

  Anika’s proud face soon took over the display. That gorgeous fucking smile stirred hatred in Cris’s heart, making him quietly grunt. But he was their leader, their role model, and for some, their idol.

  Cristiano turned to the one who asked, and faced him with his tired, dark-circled eyes. “Unfortunately, no. We did our best, it was a long and arduous fight, but we lost. ”

  That was one of their mid-tier players, as were most of those sitting at those tables. They sure were occupied with other important tasks like holding their other dominions, but the Storm Islands Operation was a big deal to the whole organization.

  They had to be on par if they were seriously considering rising through the Red Crow’s coveted ranks. Or maybe he was just overthinking it. In the end, Cris knew that he, Daniel, and Júlia were on another level, maybe Anika now too. They were the ones who sacrificed their lives the most in that virtual world.

  He took a deep breath, let his frustrations go, and looked for Gust’s player. It took just a moment to find him sitting alone at one of the farthest tables, close to the window walls.

  “You okay?” Cris asked, pulling up a chair to sit in front of Gustavo.

  “I’m so sorry, man. I screwed up again. I should’ve stayed inside the walls.” He said that without moving his eyes away from his interlaced fingers on the table.

  “That you did, and maybe you should’ve, but Anika also surprised us.”

  “You guys were so good to me. I know I’m not performing well. You guys are gonna let me go soon, right?” Only then did Gustavo’s gaze turn to his captain.

  “That’s not decided yet,” said Cris. “But your guess was spot on: your performance has been letting us down lately. We’ll give you one more chance to prove yourself worthy of wearing this shirt.”

  “Thanks. That means you guys are gonna replace me with Júlia or another player for worlds, right?”

  “Júlia still needs to evolve her new avatar. She can’t just buy a brand new, max-level account, or we would get in serious trouble. The thing is, the odds are not in your favor. We did announce our Worlds roster with you in it, but we still signed our second team as subs. We still have a few weeks until it begins. Maybe, till then, something will click in your head and you’ll become a god overnight.”

  “I sure need some divine intervention.”

  “I have a better idea.” Cris stroked his chin as something clicked in his mind. “I’ll make Júlia be your personal training coach. Who’s better to train Dante’s heir than Dante’s number one partner?"

  “That would be awesome, but will she be ok with that?”

  “She’s with us now. We paid a small fortune for her to be here. Besides, her talents are being wasted right now as an instructor for our Academy Program.”

  | (You can read ahead on my server)