The zombies, led by the Lord, spread throughout the city, running after every player in sight. Deciding to ease the burden he put on the backs of these players, Kaizen equipped the 'Ring of Gold', an epic item he received when he killed the Necromantic Witch.
'I think it's time to use that to get the top of the slaughter rankings.' He thought.
As soon as Kaizen equipped the ring, he received a notification.
[The effect of the 'Golden Ring' was activated].
Around the entire area that made up the domain of the Royal City, there was a dome to prevent players who were not at the event from entering. When Kaizen placed the 'Ring of Gold' on his left ring finger, black flames began to engulf the entire dome, turning day into night throughout the Royal City, and at the same time, the glowing golden ring darkened until it adopted the same hue as a coal ore . .
Thanks to this, in every alley of the Royal City, a being made entirely of shadows appeared.
These beings wore no clothes and had no faces, but their silhouette was the same as that of the bearer of the 'Golden Ring': a strong man with a large back and a vile smile.
The Lord, staring at Kaizen, realized that something different was happening. This feeling was not only with his surroundings, because that was not of interest to him, but also in his body.
"...!!"
His gut was telling him that something unacceptable wrong was consuming him inside and making him weaker.
The reason for this feeling, which plagued the Lord, was because the 'Ring of Gold' had an activation condition that took away half the power of the strongest creature present and also half the power of the wearer of the item to feed the shadows. As such, both the Guardian of the Gates of Nielfheim, Sigurd, and Kaizen were only at half their attributes.
Receiving a 50% debuff was also a hard blow for Kaizen, because he now had the equivalent strength of a normal level 25 player. However, seeing the astonished comments in the chat of his live broadcast was what kept him excited.
[SerialHealerr: What happened! He just used this one item and everything went so dark.
LelehS2: Man, I can't believe it!
Shangraf: It's like they covered the whole city with a fucking blanket!
Afghost2: This must be some kind of bug or event thing, there is no way to believe it.
flopzeta: Don't be idiots! This 'Golden Ring' is a high level consumable item that can be obtained by killing a Necromantic Witch's Boss in a hidden quest, but... the chance to get it is less than 1%.
v0rsted: Stop texting in chat! It's polluting!
Styngel: This must be a hacker, bro...]
While tens of thousands were discussing what might be going on, the players inside the event area already had to deal with the Lord's zombies.
"They're coming! Fall back!" Dathan shouted.
Araxie, with her large shield, was trying to defend her allies and contain the advances of the zombies, which seemed to be much more voracious and faster than those the Necromantic Witch summoned in the first horde. Their hunger and the violent way they screamed was frightening, even considering that this was only a game.
All the players were so focused on surviving, that few realized that the time marker for the beginning of the third and final horde came to an end.
This time, an earthquake was not the indicator for the beginning of the last horde, because its causer was already dead. What started the third horde was the appearance of several portals all over the city, which spewed black sludge, quickly filling the streets with this terrible smelling liquid with a gooey texture. From the slime, hooded people emerged, and so did abyssal creatures.
The third horde was the final shot of The Eye of Hermodr and should destroy everything, or so they aimed.
However, the shadows evoked by the 'Golden Ring' were also hundreds and had only one order: kill all the invading monsters.
To make matters better, the shadows had a huge terrain advantage at the beginning of the third horde, because the slime created gigantic shadows and so the shadows were able to move through every corner of the city without any problems.
Some of the shadows sneaked up on their enemies to attack them from behind, while others attacked head on, because no matter how much damage they took, as long as the black flames were enveloping the city, thus preventing sunlight, no shadow could be destroyed.
The Royal City was in complete chaos, as if in fact a great war was going on, and this was not an exaggeration. In this war there were three sides: the players, the cult of the Eye of Hermodr, and the Lord's horde of zombies. Watching all this happening was like watching a preview of the end of the world.
When Bleeding Lily finally managed to catch up with Dathan and the other members of the Crimson Soldiers' Guild, she was panting and covered in rotting zombie flesh. However, she didn't take even a minute to be relieved and went to help them because they were surrounded in a building and zombies were climbing all over the place to reach them on the rooftops.
The Blood Lily transmuted her sword to become a bow and shot five arrows at an impressive speed. All the arrows hit their targets.
Hearing the soft buzzing of these arrows, appeased the hearts of the members of the Bloody Lily guild, who quickly looked at the construction across the street.
Worried, the first thing Bloody Lily asked was:
"Are you guys okay?"
"Yes! We are fine! Thank you, commander!"
"Where is Kaizen?"
Dathan pointed in the direction from which some brief tremors were coming. "Apparently, he's trying to deal with the enemy on his own!"
'I knew he would try something like that...' Bleeding Lily thought and wondered if she should go and help him. However, her priority was not to help another player, but to take care of her team members. "Let's back off further! We can still take the City Market for ourselves so we can get some reward!" She ordered.
"But, commander... what about Kaizen?" Orkoi inquired.
"He is not a child. He's sure to survive all this, so the priority is us." The Bloody Lily said, containing her overwhelming urge to run in the direction of the tremors.
...
Edited by: DrHitsuji
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