Day six of World Champion Tournament and already the player base of Yggdrasil are exploding into festivities.
Every single town, every city, nation, kingdom, continent and world in all the Nine Realms cheered for the upcoming duels. While the players waited, they watched the various paths, progressions and trials that occured on the first three days.
The videos ranged from various guilds, those who fell for traps, those who crashed, and those who were sabotaged from both outside and from within.
And after several screenings, finally, the last battle field laid before them.
Dreadhaven, a city located at the flat lands of barren terrain right at the mouth of a sleeping volcano.
The center housed a great city of obsidian and stone, housing both a great castle of black polished and gleaming rock and a colosseum easily dwarfing the prize of Rome.
Its outskirts are filled with nothing but endless decay and the lands outside of Dreadhaven, the great city of monsters, has been rendered into a massive war zone.
Towering pillars of light that signified Super Tier Spells dotted the land.
Balls of elements ranging from flames to ice to boulders of different minerals flew everywhere, exploding wherever they may land. Throwing rocks, dirt, and players all around.
In between the ranges of flying spells, clashes of various races and creatures crossed blades with every assortment of weapons that ever existed.
Battles raged on as fights between warriors that endured, crashed through enemy lines and warred against the spellfires of various mages.
Supports or disruptions conjured by curses and blessings of angels and warlocks affected others from lone players to multiple people in an area.
Followed by the flashes of a rouge's fast blades and nimble movements. Showcasing their skills by hunting strays, exploiting weaknesses or setting up traps, theirs or others, as they took out players.
For every player that dies another followed. And while they left no corpse behind, they left behind items. Items that had turned to nothing more than lure and killed more players before anyone had hoped to claim them.
For in clash of monsters, a moment of distraction spelled the end. And death so close to the beginning, meant a foot out at the start of the tournament. A risk many were forced to take, surrender to or bask in the mayhem.
Amidst the clash, a massive group of a hundred Angels came. The arrival of The Seraphim at the outskirts of Dreadhaven turned the battle up a notch spurring more chaos in an already chaotic battle field.
They flew with great speed, ignoring a great number of enemies and falling against it. Half way through the fields, and half of the hundred had already been grounded and killed yet their mightiest persisted. Their cluster of beautiful wings of feather or tendrils of light cut through the players that tried to get in their way.
At the sides stood a heavily damaged Nulgath.
His extremely muscular and hunched fiendish form stood out among his peers. Armed with skull shaped pauldrons, bracers and greaves. Decorated with muscles barely contained within his black armor with three pairs of eyes gleaming brightly. He waived a clawed hand and from behind him, his minions casted various spells flying straight ahead towards the angels.
In a shower of explosions of various elements. The Angels fell one by one, their leader among them. Seeing a crimson robe fall, Nulgath rushed with such ferocity that his footsteps cracked the ground beneath his hooves.
Aranx stood from his fall in his golden armor, clad in crimson robe. As he spun with two pairs of feathered wings cleaving against a row of enemies that tried to jump him. He summoned his golden spear that appeared at his waiting hands with a flash of light and with but a twirl of his weapon, he killed several demons in a single stroke. He then stomped his spear's butt to the ground, making spears of white light erupt from beneath, impaling and trapping every evil aligned beings in the area.
The air around him cracked, as if the darkness itself feared his presence. And he stood there at the ready, with various dissolving corpses and items of incredible grade scattered, an open display of his dominance and power.
*Roooarr!!!*
Aranx' attention snaps towards a giant sword, easily as wide as his own shoulders falling on him. He blocked with his spear. But the sword -The Overfiend- was not so easily defended. Swords, spears, blades and axes with blood red edges, each with their own twisted faces, emerged around Aranx.
He harshly smacked the Overfiend aside and with a burst of divine aura, a golden dome erupted around him. Destroying a handful of the dozen weapons. And with a spin, his wings gleaming like the sharpest blades beneath the light, he parried the remaining weapons to the side.
Chains adorned with demonic markings ruptured from the ground and tried to capture him, but Aranx -as if seeing all around him- took to the air. The chains followed him like homing missiles, but the angel was able to outpace them, and even evade them. When the spell ended, Aranx returned to the ground impaling an unsuspecting demon beneath him with his spear.
Suddenly, a singular chain came out of nowhere and gripped one of his wrist tightly.
The Overfiend then floated and moved in zigzag pattern, stabbing and slashing at the Angel. Aranx performed acrobatic movements, nimbly dodging the sword despite being unable to move too far nor too much.
With a spark of annoyance, Aranx let go of his spear and just like the Overfiend, it moved on its own and clashed against the fiendish sword.
Nulgath then appears in a flash of crimson, fist aimed at Aranx head, but the angel vanished in golden embers, while a golden spear spun towards Nulgath's body.
The Archfiend grunted as the spear buried itself in his arm, and smiled at Aranx who stared straight at him with one wing bleeding with his Overfiend biting deep into its flesh.
And with a menacing smile matched by a glow of Aranx golden visors, weapons of smirking darkness erupted around the Angel while weapons of light flashed around the Archfiend. The skills were explosive, throwing away any nearby players on their backs and asses. And when the smoke was washed away by the wind, they stood straight, staring into each other with both of them sustaining injuries everywhere.
Their true weapons suddenly flew towards their respective owners and the two instantly took poise. Aranx had his spear trained at Nulgath who bore his sword against Aranx. And with no warning, they clashed.
The image focused on the two as angels and fiends, battled in the background. Each one trying to reach the two combatants that exchanged blows as if mortal enemies.
Aranx fought like a swirling storm of gold, cutting down anything that he deems a threat to him. In comparison, Nulgath fought like an explosion. Each strike, lethal, and with every weapon of blood that reaches his hands, he wielded with enough skill, that he could sustain himself against Aranx' mastery of the spear with any of them.
Their weapons then crossed, pushing against each other. Yet seeing an impasse between them, neither one still wanted to back down from the confrontation.
But other players seem to think otherwise. And from the race of their Guildmates, the first to arrive was an angel in silver armor with a blue cape, followed by angel of gold with an oversized tome in his hand.
The two were able to cast a spell dangerous enough for Nulgath, a giant spear of gold, that forced Nulgath to retreat from the exchange. He snarled at the disruption as he went for the two angels while Aranx received a nod from his peers and flew straight to the arena.
The image continued to show Aranx, landing softly just outside a long corridor, casting various protections and drawing a golden kite shield from his inventory.
He was preparing for the path ahead, a long narrow pathway, enough for two people to walk shoulder to shoulder, and easily defensible with long range spells or weapons. A place no one in their right mind wanted to be traped in.
With a deep breath to gather his courage, he hefted his shield and then peered forward, only, his eyes trained on no one but a blue caped armored Undead who was walking without a care towards the arena.
Aranx was suspicious, and rightfully so yet he did not attack. With a simple [Discern Enemy], he sighed seeing the number right above it in bold display- Momonga Lvl- 95.
He walked towards him, fully aware that the other party knew of the other. Yet no one made any abrupt movements, and when the undead turned towards him, revealing a well shaped head as white as the smoothest pearls, with a pair of golden embers in his empty sockets, he nodded and just kept on walking.
Aranx' decided to ignore the player and just head straight to the designated grounds. Not wanting to confront someone who moved as if the very stone around him was a potential enemy.
The image shifted again after Aranx vanished beyond the corridor, following the lvl 95 Overlord as he walked in silence. And in unannounced fashion, a Fiend cloaked with daggers appeared, and drives his blade towards the skull of the Overlord while he smiled.
Only for his expression to vanish beneath a gauntleted hand that gripped his face, his dagger missed by a whole inch and with a heave of strength, smashed the fiend's skull against the wall, burying his head into it. The Undead kept walking and with a lazy grab of the fiend's ankles, he flicked the half buried head from one wall to the other, killing it in the process.... and he did so without missing a step.
The audience quieted, till they exploded in barely hushed discussion. Realizing either Aranx had missed the deadliest player by luck or was was smart enough to not have challenged him on his way.
And just as they remembered, the announcement was made and the first to arrive was....
1st- Aranx of Seraphim
2nd- Momonga of Ainz Ooal Gown
3rd- Nulgath of Tercessuinotlim
4th- Malxas of The Infernal Spire
5th- Ulbert Allain Odle of Ainz Ooal Gown
6th- Artix of Swordhaven
7th-....
8th-...
It is day six, and of the 6 names that were listed, only four remained.
Aranx, Nulgath, Momonga and the one who killed Ulbert, Artix.
With the last of the show's over, a countdown appears showing a five minute prep time. Enough time for everyone to get to the stands or a screen in front of them.
Because on day six, the World Champion is chosen. And it starts, with Momonga vs Artix.
"*phooo~ I am so not ready for this."
"You'll be fine. You've done the hard part already~ You've got this!" Eliza cheers, hoping alleviate his worries.
But seeing as Momonga continued to pace around the waiting room as if not hearing her words, she instead went for the direct approach.
The best part of being A.I. in a virtual world is like having the entire world's secrets laid bare all the while reminding her of her limits.
One such things are the exploits of the game. Like what she had done in their guild base. One such change is the first three floors that was meant to house lower levels of Undead. She had found in the game archives an item, a chalice capable of absorbing Negative Energy, and once filled, will spawn a Death Knight.
While this would have naturally taken a large chunk of the NPC levels, this exploit does none of that. All they needed is one level forty Undead with a passive [Aura of Despair III]. And in a span of one month, they would have thirty level 35 Death Knights. Instead of having spawn the same amount of death Knights for three hundred NPC levels.
Or very recently, how she told Ulbert of the recent patch that had basically crippled Malxas against him.
The Grand Catastrophe vs Realm of Terror. The outcome should have been obvious, all except for the recent change. The upcoming tournament had Devs taking to writing down Lore on specific skills and reprogramming their utilities to suit their needs, and since Grand Catastrophe is a World Disaster Class Skill, it wasn't spared from the rewrite along with Realm of Terror.
The problem with the Realm of Terror is the source. Realm of Terror came from an infamous Dungeon Raid Boss named Diablo. And his Lore was very detailed due to being in fact, a crossover event, with a very old company with a very old and famous game.
One such detail is that Diablo reshapes the world around him to suit his needs... not bring others into a different realm... this single rewrite had Devs fixing the programing which inturn practically screwed Malxas, enabling Grand Catastrophe to overlap within the Realm of Terror.
Hence, Ulbert's courage once Malxas has unknowingly casted all of his Survival Skills, not knowing his Realm Change Skill was useless against Ulbert.
The best part amongst her advantages is how she could constantly monitor Suzuki unlike in IRL. Aside from being able to place herself inside of his Spawned Monsters and utilizing them, there is one feature she was good at using when she was not following him closely within his sword.
Momonga's pacing halted when he found himself standing at the rooftop of a skyscraper, a nearby table with red roses, white cloth and various tasteful dishes.
And not far from them was him and her.
Seeing a familiar memory had turned the nervous undead into a blushing undead, as she showed him the image of him in one knee, holding his hand towards her with the words... will you be mine leaving his lips.
With a bit of purr in her voice, she says. "A deal is a deal... Suzuki-kun. Bring me the world. And I shall make you he happiest man alive."