“HELL YEAH!” Tommy screamed at the top of his lungs, and wasn’t alone. Every employee at the Fanta-See network erupted with joy. “Shinji? Why aren’t you saying anything? Your boy did it! You came through! I can’t believe this, but you came through. We are currently way on top. We are the best streaming network in the world right now!” Tommy squealed with glee into a voice call with Shinji.

Shinji heard him but didn’t answer immediately. He was in his editing simulation with Aegis’ stream hovering in front of him on transparent screens from multiple angles, but his hands were lax, and his arms were limp, hanging down the sides of his chair.

“You there?” Tommy asked to confirm as the silence continued.

The emotions Shinji was staving off bubbled up. His eyes glistened. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“You aren’t gonna say anything!?”

Shinji let slip an ethereal sigh and wiped his eyes. “That was close.”

“Just close enough, though. Did you hear what he said at the end?”

Shinji rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I heard him say the thing.”

“We’re gonna sell SO much merch!”

Emerill, Makaroth, and Lilya remained in fighting stances, staring down the last of the abysslings that were scurrying out of Stormtop, climbing over the rubble of the destroyed northern gate. They were not the only players still standing, as some PvPers who had managed to avoid the Dark spear had joined the fray to help them, but none of them were standing close enough to hear the heavy breathing from the three.

Emerill was first to break his stance, sheathing his daggers and straightening his back. “I don’t get why you and your boy like being the good guys. It’s way too much work.”

“Feels great though, doesn’t it?” Makaroth asked him in earnest.

“Eh… Not really. I’ll stick with scams and gambling,” Emerill winked deviously, then used his movement speed to run out of sight before Makaroth could retort. Nevertheless, Makaroth had a big dumb smile on his face, which Lilya spotted.

She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows. “What’re you smiling about? We lost. Completely. To the one person who really didn’t want to lose to. You forgot you made a bet with Aegis, right?”

“No, I didn’t forget.” Makaroth shrugged and looked down at his feet.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know. But we’ve still got two more matches to consider our options. The score is only 2-1.” Makaroth sheathed his sword and dismissed his cinderbolts. “Want to head back to the stadium and see how this ends?”

“Duh,” Lilya replied matter-of-factly.

Pyri reappeared in the waiting area as the 5-minute intermission timer began counting down.

The moment she appeared, Rakkan stepped forward to her with a big smile on his face. “You destroyed it. Finally, someone destroyed it.”

Pyri shook her head. “No, we did.” Big smiles were on Lina, Darkshot, and Aegis’ faces as they stood around, unable to contain how pleased they were with themselves.

“She’s right,” Aegis said. “Lina covered up Pyri with Mimicry. Darkshot gave us the window to get a numbers advantage in the match. Rakkan destroyed the weapons and kept Pyri safe, and Pyri laid down the finishing blow.”

“And, you came up with the bizarre, out-of-the-box plan in the first place,” Darkshot commented.

“And fought your ass off,” Rakkan gave Aegis a nod of respect.

“The number of times that you were mere inches from dying in that match was too many. I almost had a heart attack watching,” Lina said with a worried look on her face.

“Yeah, but it worked, right?”

“Does this mean we’re the best PvPers in the world now, right?” Darkshot asked.

“No, not yet. We’re not done here.” Aegis took on a more serious expression towards Rakkan, placing his hand on Rakkan's shoulder. “I made you a promise that I’d help you get Seraxus. We got the sword out of the way, so he’ll be all yours. But before that,” Aegis eyed the others once more briefly, “I gave up the secrets of Mithral to destroy that sword. Whether it was necessary or not, I’m not sure. I think it was, and Jensora woulda have been able to figure out how to work mithral eventually anyway. Regardless, what’s done is done. That means after this tournament, we won’t have any control over who has mithral weapons or armor. We’re not going to be overpowered due to our gear.”

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“Until, of course, we find the next tier of crafting materials before everyone else, right?” Darkshot suggested.

Aegis gave a nod, “But this tournament isn’t over yet. Before I let you at Seraxus, would you mind if we enjoyed our mithral advantage one last time? Because without that sword of hatred to stand against us…” Aegis asked Rakkan, and Rakkan had a big smile growing over his face before Aegis had even finished speaking.

“Let’s do it.”

Several minutes later, the intermission was over, and the doors into the arena opened once more, allowing bright sunlight to shine in through the doorway. Aegis took the lead and marched up out of the waiting area and stepped under the bright, clear sky. It was a stark contrast to the darkness of the skies just minutes earlier, and the light temporarily blinded him and his companions as they stepped out from under the doorway and walked towards the center.

Before his eyes had finished adjusting to see the audience in the stands, he heard them. A roar of cheers erupted from his appearance that far surpassed any cheers that had been heard in the tournament thus far. It was a mix of NPCs and players from all walks of life.

When his pupils had finally sized themselves correctly, he could see a mixture of Vindicator tabards, Sages of Destiny, Schaudenfreude, and countless others. All those who had started off as his enemies, including Feng and his PvP team, were now celebrating with their fists in the air.

Aegis didn't acknowledge the cheers, trying to act cool. Darkshot, however, missed the memo and was eating it up by waving and bowing to everyone. Pyri threw out a few waves as well, but Rakkan and Lina made sure to follow Aegis’ lead.

By the time they’d made it to the blue barrier that kept them from Seraxus for the final minute, the random shouting cheers had changed into a chant. It started quietly but grew louder over time.

“Aegis! Aegis! Aegis! Aegis! Aegis!” The entire stadium went along with it, and it quickly caught on to those watching through the livestreams as well. The viewers in his chat, and the chats of the other streamers present continued to chant it. The Nighthunters, back in Rene, chanted, and the players of Kalmoore joined in from Kordas to Orm to Rene.

Eventually, even Makaroth and Lilya reluctantly joined in due to the enthusiasm of Synopse standing next to them and egging them on until they did. The VGN casters, Serenity, Kenji, and the dancers and drummers as well.

There were only 7 people in the entire stadium who were not chanting. Zuon, Seraxus, Sylvia, Gambit, and Hajax were glaring at Aegis through the blue transparent wall, no sword of hatred in sight, but instead a basic, well-made iron longsword in its place in Seraxus’ hands.

The other two that were not cheering were Jensora and Calikgos. Jensora made use of the abyssling disguise to mix in with the other players and NPCs as they had re-entered the stadium during the intermission, so that Calikgos didn’t notice him watching. Kenji had now dropped the disguise to give everyone their original appearances back, but Jensora was able to remain unnoticed, partly thanks to him turning his livestream off.

Calikgos was glaring through the blue dome around the arena, pacing around it while tapping his sheathed daggers impatiently. He had no emotions on his face, but Jensora couldn’t shake off his odd behaviour. He became so focused on keeping an eye on Calikgos that he even lost track of the match timer, and before he knew it, the entire stadium was counting down in unison the last 5 seconds before the match started.

“You think I’m impressed, you won with those cheap ass tactics?” Seraxus shouted out angrily across the arena the moment the blue walls disappeared.

“It doesn’t matter how we win, it only matters that we won, right?” Aegis replied coldly as he strutted across the arena to meet him.

“I’m still the best. You know it. They know it. Everyone knows it,” Seraxus spoke towards the cheering, jovial crowds with anger, but his voice was barely audible.

“I told you. I don’t care. You still haven’t learned to take any responsibility for anything you did, so it’s time for us to give you a taste of your own medicine.” Aegis paused to flick his fingers and activate his Avatar of Eirene spell, causing the white holy wings to erupt out of his back. Following it, he activated Aura of Beauty and Aura of Healing, then enchanted his companions' weapons with Bless.

Zuon and Hajax answered with their own buffs, while Aegis and everyone else rushed straight at Seraxus. Pyri, Rakkan, Lina, Darkshot, and Aegis converged on him without any regard for their own safety.

Seraxus charged right into them head-on. His party members unleashed offensive and defensive spells to support them as best he could, but the difference in their gear was now insurmountable.

For having been in possession of the Sword of Hatred for such a long time, it had given Seraxus some bad habits that Aegis and his party took full advantage of. Within 15 seconds, despite Hajax’s best efforts to stop them, the arena voice made its first announcement.

Combatant Seraxus has been defeated.

Her announcement was followed by an eruption of deafening cheers from the audience in the stadium, and that, paired with the loss of their leader, left the rest of Seraxus’ group completely demoralized and easy targets for Aegis and his party to take out.

Combatant

Sylvia has been defeated.

Combatant Hajax has been defeated.

Combatant Zuon has been defeated.

Combatant Gambit has been defeated.

The entire match had reached its conclusion in under 2 minutes, after which Aegis and his party were teleported back into the waiting area for the final intermission of the tournament.

Pyri stretched out her arms. “God damn that felt good!”

“I’m gonna miss being the only ones with these overpowered weapons,” Darkshot said.

“Don’t worry. It’s like you said, we just gotta go and find the next tier of equipment, right?” Aegis shrugged.

Darkshot raised an eyebrow at Aegis. “Where exactly are we going to find that? You don’t even know something like that exists.”

“Eh, we don’t gotta worry about that yet,” Aegis replied, causing the others to laugh alongside him. “We’ve got one last thing to do, and it’s what we really came here for, right?” Aegis turned to Rakkan, who had a sudden anxious expression on his face. “You sure you’re up for this?”

“Yeah,” Rakkan took a sharp breath. “Yeah, I’m ready. We took away his sword, he’s got no network, and we beat him down with mithral. Now I’m gonna finally make him listen, and apologize.” Rakkan clenched his fists.