All across the world, both in and out of the simulation, millions of viewers released gasps of shock and confusion. Amongst them was Hae-won, as she looked down and saw Pyri channeling an invisible spell—multiple. It wasn’t until Pyri’s remaining mana dipped so low that she could no longer maintain the spell infusion she’d added to her Pyroclasm spell that Hae-won could piece it together.

A second ripple of blue magic expanded over the entire upper half of the arena, revealing the pyroclasm that had been kept invisible all this time. It was gigantic, like a large burning sun squished up against the blue dome that encapsulated the playable area of their tournament match.

The moment the invisibility dissipated, the red glow from the ball of flame became so bright it drew the eyes of the black dragon, reapers, and all defenders of Stormtop fighting valiantly under the otherwise darkened skies. Aegis and Seraxus were engulfed in the deep red hue from the flames as well, tinting Seraxus’s confused eyes in crimson light.

“Pyroclasm is an uncapped damage spell. It requires the caster to channel it without moving, with its mana cost getting progressively more expensive the longer it is channeled, alongside its size and damage increasing.” Hae-won thought out loud as she eyed it, no longer able to see Aegis, Seraxus, or Pyri due to the ball of fire. “For it to get that big, Pyri must’ve been channeling it this entire time… but how…?” Hae-won asked with her voice-amplification spell, but she answered herself a few seconds later and cleared her throat to prepare her explanation for the viewers.

“Mimicry. Lina shadow-stole mimicry. It's an odd choice, given the similarities between mimicry and shadow-steal. Due to Aegis’ declaration before the match to his viewers, everyone presumed he’d attempt to attack Seraxus with two Virabhadras, and this misdirection made us all overlook the real reason Lina shadow-stole mimicry. The key difference between the two skills is that mimicry can imitate not just skills, but voices as well.” Hae-won took a deep breath as the VGN caster beside her had his eyes widen.

“No way…” He mumbled in disbelief.

“Lina concealed Pyri and Gambit with a smoke bomb, in which an echo of Rakkan’s stood. What Gambit thought he’d blown up was Rakkan’s echo, and immediately after the arena announcer declared Gambit’s defeat, Lina used her stolen Mimicry to imitate the arena announcer's voice to declare Pyri had also been defeated. At this time, Pyri used her Magelord skill to infuse a cast of Pyroclasm with invisibility, then multicasted invisibility onto herself to conceal herself for the entirety of the match until now.” Hae-won explained.

“Wait, but that means that ball of flame and Pyri have been there this entire time?” The VGN caster asked.

“Yes, if you think about it carefully, Aegis and his entire party made several oddly dangerous maneuvers that put them in vulnerable situations, including Rakkan sacrificing his echoes to take hits that he should have normally been able to dodge. It’s clear now why they did this. They were preventing any attacks from going towards Pyri to keep her safe so that her Pyroclasm channeling was never interrupted, as all it takes to stop Pyroclasm from being channeled is a single attack against the caster.”

“So they’ve been planning this the entire time?” The VGN caster confirmed.

“Looks like it. But even casting Pyroclasm doesn’t get them out of the woods. That ball of flame is very slow-moving, and Pyri’s mana must be at this point next to empty. She can only maintain it. All Seraxus has to do is hit her once, and the spell will cancel.” Hae-won swallowed all the spit in her mouth as Seraxus and Aegis exchanged glares with one another before Seraxus turned his sights onto Pyri.

“You cheap piece of shit,” Seraxus snarled at him, but Aegis didn’t retort with a smirk or comment. He understood just how important the next few seconds were. The gigantic ball of fire slowly shifted down toward them, giving them a gap of barely 30 feet between it and the floor of the arena.

Seraxus burst into a sprint, waving his hands through the air to shoot the sword of hatred towards Pyri.

“Aegis, if I try to cast anything else, this spell will cancel!” Pyri declared as she saw the sword soar towards her.

“I know!” Aegis shouted back as he dashed after the sword of hatred. Just as it flew past him, he reached out and grabbed at the hilt, stopping it from continuing forward. As he did, though, Seraxus attempted to maneuver around him at a wide angle to rush at Pyri and get close enough to execute a charge-strike on her. Aegis spun around and waved his right hand to project his shield to cut Seraxus off, causing him to ram into the shield projection at full force.

“You’re not the only one low on stamina. How many guards have you got left in you? EH?! YOU’RE NOT BEATIN ME LIKE THIS!” Seraxus roared furiously at Aegis, launching himself off the shield projection sideways to tackle Aegis, knocking Aegis to the ground and causing him to release the sword of hatred. The moment he did, Seraxus flicked the blade forward and caused it to emit a black glow of magical light. “PIERCING DA-” Seraxus attempted to cast the skill verbally, but was interrupted as Aegis slammed his right fist into Seraxus’ jaw as he lay on top of him on the ground.

“I’m beatin’ you however the hell I have to,” Aegis replied. Seraxus looked down at Aegis from above and punched him in the face in retaliation, then attempted to jump back to his feet and take off running after his sword, but Aegis grabbed at Seraxus’s ankle and yanked at it to pull him back to the ground, causing him to face plant. Despite this, the sword continued to soar towards Pyri but stopped after reaching Seraxus’ maximum weapon control range from his Warmaster skill, several dozen feet away from Pyri. Simultaneously, the Pyroclasm moved further, now only 27 feet from the floor of the arena.

“All the people you’ve hurt, do you even realize it? Do you know how much damage you’ve done?!” Aegis shouted at him as he jumped back to his feet before Seraxus could get back up. He lunged towards Seraxus with his claws and shield, attempting to pin him to the ground.

“I don’t care! THEY ALL DESERVED IT. Let me go!” Seraxus shouted angrily as he spun onto his back and kicked his feet up at Aegis to knock him back. Once he had, he jumped back up and darted towards Pyri. Aegis dashed after him but saw he was letting Seraxus gain too much ground as the black sword of hatred got within 60 feet of Pyri. Aegis unequipped his claws of jealousy and whipped them with all his strength at Seraxus' ankles, causing him to stumble ever so slightly.

It was enough to allow Aegis to catch up and grab Seraxus’ shoulder and yank him backward before throwing his arms around his waist and pulling his feet up off the ground to prevent him from being able to keep running forward.

“YOU KILLED FARLION!” Aegis used his grip on Seraxus’s waist to throw him backward onto the ground, but Seraxus caught himself on his knees and tried to stand back up again. Aegis met his rising form with a fist, thrusting it into Seraxus’s head. “YOU STOLE SNOWFLAKE'S SOUL!” Aegis threw another punch at him. Seraxus took the hits as he turned his attention to his sword, spotting that the Pyroclasm had lowered to 24 feet above their heads.

This time, he cast piercing darkness with a wiggle of his fingers rather than words. A black bolt of magical energy shot out from the tip of the sword of hatred, soaring through the sky towards Pyri at an incredible speed, and Aegis was in no position to block it. He ignored it completely, causing the world to hold its breath as the attack connected with Pyri, but a green shell of magical energy absorbed it.

As angrily as a pigeon could, Darkwing glared at Seraxus from atop Pyri’s shoulder as he activated his fae skill to negate the damage of the piercing darkness attack. Hope drained from Seraxus’s eyes as he saw this strike against her fail.

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“You caused Rakkan, your friend, so much pain. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve caused for everyone else. Mikael, Serenity, Puagas, Stormtop,” Aegis shouted these as he wailed on Seraxus, punching him with everything he could and bashing his shield into Seraxus’ chest between these strikes.

“I,” Seraxus got a second wind from pure determination and stopped taking the hits. He dodged one swing, then retaliated against Aegis by punching him back. “DESERVE,” He threw another punch, “TO BE NUMBER ONE!” Seraxus roared with a kick, knocking Aegis off his feet. As he did, he pulled the sword of hatred back towards himself and attempted to pierce it into the top of Aegis’ head as he fell prone onto his back, but Aegis rolled out of the way just in time to let the sword’s blade cut through the floor of the arena where he’d been lying. Aegis jumped back to his feet as the sword reached Seraxus’ hands.

Seraxus took a violent swing of the sword at Aegis from above, but it was so clearly telegraphed that Aegis had no trouble raising his shield to block it.

“Have you ever stopped to consider the reason you aren’t number one is because you’re just so,” Aegis lunged into the sword with his shield to force Seraxus' arms up, giving him an opening on Seraxus’ stomach to punch his fist into his gut and cause him to stumble backward. “God damned unlikable,” Aegis sneered, and with this, he’d hit a nerve. Seraxus screamed with fury and tackled Aegis once more.

The pyroclasm now dipped below 15 feet, narrowing the space between them and the ball of fire above. Seraxus tried to use this to his advantage, and rather than tackling Aegis to the ground, he attempted to wrap his arms around him and lift him towards the Pyroclasm so that it’d hit him instead, but Aegis saw through his and kicked himself off of Seraxus quickly to break free of his grip. The moment he did, Seraxus swung wide with his sword to try and catch Aegis off-guard, but failed.

It was a misdirection, and Seraxus instead swept for Aegis’ feet to knock him down to the ground. Once he fell, Seraxus used the narrow space between the ground and the Pyroclasm to jump over Aegis and sprint towards Pyri while Aegis recovered. Aegis glanced at his stamina and saw it dangerously low, below 20—if he projected another guard, he’d die.

Instead, Aegis jumped back to his feet and unstrapped his shield, then whipped it like a frisbee, making use of the sharp edges of his 10-pointed star-shaped shield. The shield pierced into the back of Seraxus’ legs, once again causing him to stumble but leaving Aegis completely unarmed. Seraxus saw this and immediately whipped his sword of hatred backward at Aegis, using his Warmaster skills to maneuver it like a bullet toward him. Aegis quickly jumped to the side to avoid it as it just barely missed him, the trail of black mist it was leaving behind brushing up against Aegis’ cheek as it did. Seraxus got back to his feet and eyed the shield on the ground, then Aegis and his sword, and instead turned towards Pyri as the Pyroclasm spell moved to 12 feet.

As Aegis rushed towards his shield to pick it up off the ground, Seraxus wiggled his fingers to control his sword of hatred and cut off Aegis. He was now using the shield as bait to kill Aegis with the black sword, but Aegis knew this and ran at the shield anyway.

He ducked and sidestepped two swings from the hovering black sword of hatred until rolling in to pick up his shield off of the ground and re-equip it, but by this time, Seraxus had gotten too far ahead of him to catch up on foot, and even if he wanted to, the sword of hatred was flailing in front of him to cut him off.

Aegis blocked a strike from the sword with his shield, causing an eruption of light and dark that mixed in with the intense red light of the Pyroclasm above them. Before the flash faded, he reached around to grab the hilt of the sword, doing his best to contain it by yanking on it with all his might, contested against Seraxus’ Warmaster skill. One hand alone wasn’t enough, so Aegis pulled his shield back to grab the hilt with his left hand as well, and with all his strength, he plunged the sword of hatred into the tiled floor of the arena as deeply as he could.

Seraxus looked back and saw this, then looked up and saw the Pyroclasm lowered to 8 feet above his head. He was now in range of Pyri to cast a charge-strike, though, with just enough stamina to use the skill one last time, and a smirk grew across his face.

“Nice try, but not even this cheap ass tactic is good enough to stop me,” Seraxus shouted at them. “CHARGE STRIKE!” He cast the instant he got close enough to use it.

“I told you,” Aegis waved his right hand out one final time in Seraxus’ direction, his shield in his left, “You’re not getting past my shield.” Aegis immediately cast guard, depleting his remaining stamina. The projection of his shield cut off Seraxus’ charge-strike, canceling it 15 feet away from Pyri and leaving him with insufficient stamina to cast it again.

Combatant Aegis has been defeated.

The arena announcer’s voice was barely audible over the searing, crackling flames of the Pyroclasm as it moved down to 5 feet above the arena floor. Seraxus dropped into a crawling position and scurried towards Pyri. She glared back at him from the edge of the arena, maintaining eye contact as she held her hands above her head to channel the skill.

Seraxus glanced backward and attempted to manipulate his sword of hatred forward, but it was stuck into the ground deep enough that it’d take him a good few seconds to pull it out with his Warmaster skill alone, and he didn’t have those few seconds. Instead, he continued crawling towards Pyri.

“I don’t want to lose like this. Come on! I worked so hard for all of this! YOU CAN’T TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME!” Seraxus desperately shouted at her as he was forced prone to avoid the Pyroclasm from touching him, getting within 20 feet of Pyri.

“It’s painfully apparent that your parents have no intention of disciplining you for your absolutely abhorrent behavior, so I’m taking it upon myself to step in,” Pyri replied in a cold tone.

“YOU STUPI—” His voice was cut off, and the Pyroclasm connected with his orcish form, squishing him between it and the arena floor and dealing an obscenely high amount of fire damage.

Combatant Seraxus has been defeated.

Aegis’ team has won the match. The current score is 2-1, with Seraxus’ team leading. The 5 minute intermission will now begin.

The arena announcer's voice was hardly audible over the deafening cheers that erupted throughout the stadium. Despite their abyssling forms, both NPCs and players roared with relief and joy. Just as the flames of Pyroclasm dissipated and the red hue left, they were replaced by an eruption of darkness.

Black mist exploded from the sword of hatred as it hovered in place, Seraxus’ body disintegrating some distance away from it as it rose out of the ground where Aegis had plunged it in. The red runes on the blade began to dim as the intensity of the black mist grew. It began to swirl violently around the sword like a whirlpool, pulling into itself with just as much force as it had exploded outward.

Pyri and Darkwing, the only two alive still inside the arena, backed away from the erupting mist and watched as the whirlpool shrank. One by one, the red runes on the blade began to pop, exploding with a flash of red light before going lightless. By the time all of the black mist had been pulled back into the blade, every single red rune on the sword was no longer lit.

Once this process was completed, the sword hovered calmly in place briefly as all eyes fell on it. A second later, the darkness exploded outward once more, but this time in a single beam upward, passing through the blue dome around the arena and into the black clouds in the sky above. As the beam hit the clouds, they parted and warped around it, allowing sunlight to reach Stormtop and causing loud cries to echo from the reapers swarming above.

The abysslings throughout the city began to retreat, as did the black mist that was encroaching on it. Makaroth and Emerill watched with great relief as not just the abysslings, but the Juggernauts, were turning and fleeing the city alongside the receding black mist.

The black abyssal dragon let out a violent cry of fear as it turned to soar off alongside the parting clouds and the fleeing reapers. Ysil’mareina saw this and immediately collapsed to the city below, exhausted and breathing heavily.

Small spectral forms followed alongside the black beam that erupted out of the sword. At first, just a few, but soon dozens, then hundreds, and possibly thousands. The spectral forms resembled disembodied spirits, each taking on a different appearance.

It wasn’t clear to everyone what they were until Pyri watched as one of the spirits broke off and swirled towards her, entering her body despite her hesitantly backing away from it. The moment the spirit touched her, the debuff that she’d received from dying to the sword of hatred went away—her ‘soul’ had been returned to her.

Once she realized what had happened, she looked up to see the souls of Serenity, Kenji, and Mightymira all reaching them as well, and all the other souls soaring off into the skies above in all directions.

“It’s finally over…” Serenity sighed with relief as she welcomed her soul back and confirmed her debuff had gone. A big smile grew across her face as she looked around and saw that the hole in the dark clouds above was expanding, and the sunlight spread across Stormtop once more. An ever-increasing cacophony of cheering welcomed it.

“Nah.” Hae-won looked towards the smiling VGN caster beside her, giving him a devious grin. “We’re just getting started.”