Taking note of the time of the match, Aegis made sure to top off Rakkan's and his health while they continued to fire projectiles at the weapons soaring up above them.

Seraxus resorted to attacking with only the sword of hatred in his hands and his floating crossbow, but with just those, it was easy for Aegis to keep him under control and protect both himself and Rakkan from taking any hits by using his guard ability and manually blocking with his shield in his hands.

The damage being dealt to the durability of Seraxus’ weapons dropped significantly, however, forcing a change in strategy from Aegis and Rakkan — they were running out of time, and the window in which Aegis could heal Seraxus’ damage was shrinking.

Rakkan jumped back with his main body and imprinted an enlargement rune onto his maul, gigantifying it. Seraxus saw the weapon's size and took his focus from Aegis to watch the head of the maul as it swung through the air above them, pulling wind along with it due to its sheer size.

Seraxus quickly spread his weapons out to avoid the swing and prevent any more durability loss on any of his weapons, noting that the longsword, spear, battleaxe, maul, crossbow, and glaive were safe from harm and still intact.

Once the swing from Rakkan’s enlarged maul had finished, Seraxus used the opening provided by Rakkan, jumping back to break out of the surround that Aegis and the echoes had formed around him, leaping backward and using his speed to make some distance.

Aegis, Rakkan, and all three echoes followed in pursuit, targeting not Seraxus but the weapons he had floating above his head. Rakkan used one of his echoes to chuck the void spear into the sky towards the floating weapons, aiming it precisely at the battle axe clustered in the center of the other of Seraxus’ hovering weapons.

“Switch!” Seraxus replaced the sword of hatred with the axe, putting the battleaxe safely in his hands instead, while fanning out the other weapons and pointing the sword of hatred at the incoming voidspear.

“Switch!” Rakkan cast, switching the spear for the gigantified maul in his hands. Suddenly, the tiny spear that the sword of hatred was meeting became the maul’s head, much too big of a target for the other floating weapons to avoid.

The mithral maul head pushed through the force of Seraxus’ floating sword of hatred and crashed into the other floating weapons before they were able to get out of the way, dealing a burst of durability damage as the bless and frostbrand enchantments on the maul erupted.

Seraxus wasn’t taking this sitting down. He lunged forward and switched his spear with the sword of hatred, angrily swinging out at Rakkan and Aegis with a wide arch. Aegis blocked for himself, Rakkan’s main body, and one of Rakkan’s echos. Seraxus saw the guards from Aegis form and turned to the next echo in front of them, rushing at it with a charge strike. Aegis reacted by tossing his shield to the crossbow echo behind him, who used Switch to transfer the shield to the echo under threat from Seraxus.

The moment the echo got the shield to block Seraxus’ strike, Seraxus stopped his charge strike and turned to fire off a piercing darkness toward Aegis. Aegis jumped out of the way at the last moment by digging the tips of his wings of light into the tiled floor of the arena and propelling himself out of its path, but only after he’d done this, he saw that the target was not him, but the crossbow echo standing behind him.

The piercing darkness shot through the crossbow-wielding echo, killing it instantly and transferring the damage to Rakkan, dealing 33% of Rakkan’s health in damage as the echo vanished and dropped the crossbow to the ground. Seraxus wasn’t done. He aimed to take advantage of the echo being gone by rushing at the defenseless Aegis with a charge strike, but the real Rakkan jumped beside Aegis and switched the shield into his hands quickly enough to pass the shield to Aegis so that he could block the attack, erupting darkness and light out from the point of impact.

Seraxus jumped backward from the engagement that happened so fast that the gigantified maul that had been thrown crashed into the arena's wall afterward, pinning one of Seraxus’ iron weapons and destroying it with a cloud explosion of metal.

Aegis, Rakkan, and his two echoes jumped away from Seraxus. Rakkan switched his voidspear with the maul and shrank it back to a normal size, then used the recalling ability of the voidspear to return it to his hands. At this time, Seraxus looked back to see that his glaive had been destroyed, leaving him with six weapons instead of seven.

This didn’t put a smile on Rakkan's or Aegis’ faces, though, as Aegis eyed Rakkan’s remaining mana in his interface and saw it was now too low to resummon a third echo. Something that Rakkan knew as well, based on the expression Aegis saw on his face.

“I can use grand purification now. It’ll give you enough mana back so we can get the 4th echo up,” Aegis suggested.

“No, save it for as long as you can. I’ll manage with just two echoes,” Rakkan reassured Aegis, to which Aegis nodded hesitantly. “He’s only got six weapons now, and they’re all gonna be close to breaking after that hit with the maul.”

“Hah.” Seraxus laughed at them forcedly, filled with anger more than amusement. “Alright. Ya’ll are havin’ fun. I think it’s about time I use my cooldowns. Don’t normally need to, but I ain't lettin’ you take this away from me.” Seraxus stretched his neck to the side while pulling his five floating weapons back to himself, sword of hatred in hand.

“That’s rich,” Rakkan snarled. “You’re fine takin’ everything away from everyone else, right?”

“I haven’t taken anything from anyone they already didn’t deserve,” Seraxus snapped back at him with genuine anger on his face. Aegis was taken aback, seeing real emotions from Seraxus for the first time since he’d been watching his footage and gameplay throughout the tournament.

“You took everything from me. I didn’t deserve any of that?! My grandpa didn’t deserve to be happy?!” Rakkan roared at him while grinding his hands over the handles of his longsword and spear. He’d armed his last two echoes with the maul and battleaxe while his bladed fist and crossbow remained on the arena's ground.

“Not if you couldn’t protect ‘em. That’s how it should be in these games, right?”

“You can’t even say sorry, not even once!” Rakkan lost control, charging forward towards Seraxus with ferocity.

“‘Cause I ain't sorry!” Seraxus shouted back with equal anger. “I did exactly what I had to! I thought you’d understand that! I thought you were one of us! Essence of War!” Seraxus’ final words were a skill being activated. The moment he shouted hit, a ripple of orange magic began flowing out of him, encapsulating his body and engulfing his remaining five floating weapons.

“Rakkan, stay calm. Don’t let him get under your skin,” Aegis shouted as he rushed up behind him.

“I’m as calm as ever,” Rakkan replied as cooly as he could. However, his face said otherwise. Aegis took a deep breath as he ran, recalling in detail the effects of the skill that Seraxus had just used, as he had read an entry on it in the game’s database in anticipation of its usage.

Essence of War(Advanced) - [Warmaster]

Increase the speed, movement range, and damage of all weapons under your control. Each swing of an empowered weapon will release a wave of energy outward from the weapon as a projectile, dealing damage equal to the weapon's damage during this time.

Speed Increase: (Based on skill level)

Movement Range Increase: (Based on skill level)

Damage Increase: (Based on skill level)

Duration: 60s

Cooldown: 30m

The weapons floating above Seraxus began their assault immediately, swinging at the air and releasing waves of orange energy that shot out in thin arcs, moving at the speed of crossbow bolts. Rakkan and his two echoes began dashing to the left and right to avoid them as they crashed into the tiles around where they’d been standing, narrowly avoiding them as debris and sand exploded up from the impacts behind him.

Aegis, too, rushed forward to meet Seraxus, but was several meters behind and not being targeted. He kept his shield at the ready, though, with his eyes locked onto Seraxus and his sword, which was also glowing orange.

As Rakkan got close, Seraxus took two swings at him with his sword of hatred, releasing orange waves from the sword. Aegis knew that, unlike the other waves coming from the other weapons, these would kill them in one hit if he didn’t block them with his shield.

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He flicked his finger to create a shield projection directly in front of the waves, absorbing both of them and allowing Rakkan to continue his charge.

“Ok, it’s all or nothing now,” Aegis said anxiously before jumping off the ground, flapping his wings to get airborne and soar towards the floating weapons. Seraxus had to briefly take his eyes off the charging Rakkan to look at Aegis and see what he was doing—Aegis was flying toward the floating weapons, with them remaining his primary target.

“Charge strike, charge strike!” Rakkan shouted, targeting Aegis with the strike with both of his echoes so that they shot into the sky and trailed after him, effectively flying alongside Aegis. Seraxus fanned his weapons away from Aegis as he saw this, taking several swings out at them and sending waves of orange energy. Aegis blocked some, others hit, but Aegis ignored the damage thanks to his aura of healing still being partially effective.

Meanwhile, the real Rakkan got over Aegis’ projection and charged right into Seraxus, crashing into his sword of hatred. This charge strike threw Seraxus off, as he wasn’t expecting it. He reacted by slashing out his sword of hatred at Rakkan, seeing that Rakkan had no shield to protect himself, and Aegis was flying too high out of range for him to use guard again.

Instead, Rakkan met the sword of hatred with his longsword, parrying it with perfect timing to take no damage and causing a loud clash of metal to echo out from the collision.

Rakkan and Seraxus’ eyes locked onto one another when the weapons clashed, and their fury seethed out. This momentary distraction gave Aegis and the two airborne echoes time to narrow in on the floating crossbow, striking at it repeatedly with their mithral weapons and claws, destroying it by reducing its durability to 0 and causing it to fall to the ground in crumbling pieces.

Seraxus saw this and jumped back from Rakkan to get enough space so that he had a moment to focus on manipulating his remaining four floating weapons, but Rakkan pursued with voidspear and longsword in hand. Seraxus’ anger was showing, and he got reckless in his attacks on Rakkan, but that didn’t stop each swing from being incredibly deadly.

The sword of hatred clashed with Rakkan’s longsword, and even though Rakkan could execute another perfect parry, the swing released an orange wave of magical energy that Rakkan was forced to dodge. Meanwhile, the charge strike from his echoes had reached Aegis, and they both grabbed onto Aegis’ wings to stay in the air with him as Aegis flapped the wings desperately, pursuing the last remaining weapons.

Seraxus kept this in his peripheral vision, manipulating the weapons and firing more waves of orange energy out at Aegis as he pursued them, forcing Aegis to take some hits as he failed to block a few due to his being mid-air.

Aegis had his eyes on the battleaxe, but Seraxus was being careful to keep the spear, longsword, axe, and maul in such a formation that the maul and longsword were protecting the other two. Seraxus was desperate not to lose the weapon with the spell-eater enchantment, and Aegis was desperate to destroy it.

“YOU’RE NOT TAKING THIS AWAY FROM ME!” Seraxus roared in furious rage as the match timer reached 9 minutes and 30 seconds. “I EARNED THIS!” He continued with the retaliatory strikes, upping the pressure on Rakkan’s real body with his sword of hatred to the point that Aegis saw Rakkan being pushed back and almost getting hit.

“Take the shield!” Aegis passed the shield to one of the echoes hanging off his wings. Rakkan used Switch to replace the voidspear with the shield so that the echo was holding the spear, and his real body was now wielding a longsword and the shield of light. The swap was made just in time for Rakkan to lift the shield and block a flurry of swings from the sword of hatred, waves of orange magic included.

Despite hitting into the shield, though, Seraxus didn’t stop swinging. He put his incredibly high strength stat into the swings, overpowering Rakkan and forcing Rakkan into sliding backward along the tiled floor as the blows kept coming. Simultaneously, while swinging, Seraxus turned his attention to the floating four weapons and manipulated them with more precision than before, spreading them out so that they could strike at Aegis and the echoes from all sides as Aegis flapped his wings in the sky above the arena.

Then, to Aegis’ surprise, he shot the four weapons towards them like bullets, soaring through the sky with a trail of orange magic behind them.

“EVERY SINGLE GAME WE PLAY. EVERY SINGLE ONE, WE WERE ALWAYS THE BEST!” Seraxus shouted as Aegis eyed the weapons in anticipation of what Seraxus planned with them. This fighting style was entirely unknown to Aegis, as Seraxus had never been forced into using this skill before. Just as the four weapons were about to converge on Aegis and the two echoes, Seraxus used Switch to replace the maul with his sword of hatred, aiming the sword at Rakkan's maul-wielding echo on Aegis's back specifically. Rakkan switched the shield into that echo's hand to block the strike, but it was a diversion, as all three other weapons pierced through the axe-wielding echo to deal empowered, fatal damage. The echo dissipated and transferred the dealt damage back to Rakkan’s health, but Rakkan used the time that the maul was in Seraxus’s hands now instead of the sword of hatred. Rakkan swung at the iron maul with his mithral longsword and the voidspear that had been swapped back into his hands.

The frostbrand and bless enchantments did their jobs. The maul shattered and fell to the ground in pieces from its durability reaching zero, leaving Seraxus with no way to switch a weapon back into his hands.

Though completely defenseless, Seraxus rushed at Rakkan with his fists. The increased armor and lifesteal he had from still technically having the sword of hatred equipped were high enough that he could grab the blade of Rakkan’s longsword barehanded with his left hand, then the shaft of the spear with his other, and with both weapons locked up, Seraxus pulled Rakkan in and smashed his forehead into Rakkan’s nose, dealing severe bludgeoning damage and knocking Rakkan backward. He then flicked his fingers around to manipulate the four remaining weapons, all soaring around Aegis and swirling back around to make another strike on him.

The last echo on Aegis’s shoulder passed the shield of light back to Aegis, the maul in his other hand, while the dead echo dropped Rakkan’s mithral axe to the ground several meters below them.

“EVERY SINGLE TIME, SOMEONE ELSE TOOK OUR SPOTLIGHT!” Seraxus continued in a rage, watching Rakkan stumble back and regain his footing. The moment he had, Rakkan rose his weapons up into a fighting stance to defend himself, but the moment he did, Seraxus jumped at him with a charge strike to get a burst of moment, his feet forward into a dropkick that got through Rakkan’s weapons, pressing the soles of both Seraxus’ leather boots squarely into Rakkan’s chest and hitting him with such force that he was knocked into the air backward by a meter before stumbling, catching himself from falling over wholly by planting his knee down onto the ground.

Seraxus, however, had elegantly landed from the strike back on his feet and rushed at Rakkan with his fists pulled back, preparing to swing at him. Rakkan lifted the longsword to block the fist, Seraxus’ leather gauntlets pounding into the mithral, but it didn’t even phase him. He followed up with another swing from his other fist, which Rakkan blocked with his spear, leaving him open for another kick from Seraxus that hit Rakkan in his chest again, knocking him backward once more.

Seraxus did all this while trapping Aegis in a swirl of orange energy waves from the four weapons. Aegis watched them begin to spiral around him from all sides, and they started releasing energy waves at him from all directions. Aegis had to keep his eyes locked onto the sword of hatred and make sure he spun his shield around to block the waves coming from that sword specifically, but Seraxus kept using Switch to change its position with the other weapons, making it incredibly difficult to keep track of which of the orange magical waves were deadly, and which were not—once fired, they all looked the same.

“REACT STREAMERS, PVE STREAMERS, WANNABES, NETWORKS, AND CLOWNS. ALL OF THEM-THEY TOOK THE FOCUS OFF OF US EVERY TIME! BUT NOT THIS TIME!” Seraxus roared as he continued his assault on both of them. “THIS TIME, FINALLY, I’M GETTING THE ATTENTION FOR US THAT WE DESERVE! THAT I DESERVE!” He added triumphantly, as his bombardment of attacks had resulted in the third and final echo dying from the regular orange waves that Aegis was letting through due to his focus on the orange waves from the sword of hatred.

Rakkan jumped away from Seraxus to get some distance between them, seeing his battleaxe fall out of the sky and the flashes of orange light swirling around the desperate Aegis, who barely managed to block the waves from the sword of hatred.

Rakkan then took a deep breath, jumped into the air, and executed a charge strike towards Aegis, soaring towards him through the sky.

Seraxus followed suit, causing them to charge into the sky towards the glowing light of Aegis’ wings together. Rakkan had used Aegis as a target, but Seraxus had used Rakkan.

Rakkan made it through the four swirling weapons, passing by one as he did and slashing out at it with his longsword and spear. He hit it three times in the second. He was near it and managed to reduce its durability to 0. The longsword he’d struck shattered and fell to the ground in pieces.

Then, Seraxus went through the swirling weapons, moving around Aegis, and motioned the closest one to his hands—his battleaxe.

Aegis, forced to guard a wave from the sword of hatred on the opposite side of him from where Rakkan had charged into him, tried to spin around as he saw Seraxus following closely behind Rakkan with an axe in hand, as he knew what was coming. Still, he couldn’t outpace the speed of Seraxus’ charge strike and swing his shield over Rakkan in time. Instead, he was forced to use his second shield projection, placing it between the charging Seraxus and Rakkan. The moment Seraxus crashed into the projection, he switched the axe in his hand for the sword of hatred and thrust it overtop the shield projection and downward towards Rakkan’s head on the other side.

“Finish this asshole,” Rakkan mumbled to Aegis as the sword of hatred pierced into him.

Combatant Rakkan has been defeated.

As Rakkan’s body disintegrated, Aegis flicked his wings to push himself away from Seraxus, and Seraxus let it happen. He dropped to the ground, the sword of hatred in hand, and his last two remaining floating weapons hovering behind him—the spear and the battleaxe.

Aegis, a few meters away, landed on the ground as well, seconds after Rakkan’s mithral longsword and voidspear clanged their metal onto the tiled floor of the arena.

The sky above was now dark as night, thanks to a mix of reapers and black mist.

“I will be the number one streamer. I will show everyone I am the best. I will own the Shattered World Online, and you, VGN, Renault, or anyone else can’t stop me,” Seraxus taunted, pointing his sword of hatred’s tip toward Aegis.

Aegis did not reply; instead, he used the time to fasten the straps of his shield to his left arm, now that he had no one left to pass it to.

“Grand purification,” Aegis cast, causing a swirl of white light to overtake him and restore him to full health a second before the notification arrived.

“10 Minutes have passed since combat has begun. All sources of healing received by players will now be reduced by 100%.”