MMORPG: The Elementalist

“Look out!”

As the shrieks of warning sounded behind him, the Summoner turned and looked above his head…

It was then that he saw them… As though everything was in slow motion, he saw black and roundish little spiders slide down from the sky…

At first, about five spiders rattled pass him two meters away. Then, to his horror, more and more spiders dropped from the sky… like it was raining spiders!

Explosive Venomspiders!

Realizing what the spiders were, the Summoner’s face turned pale in an instant…

Explosive Venomspiders were quite well-known amongst Summoners. They were especially infamous during the war in Moonrise City—the Deathfiend Spider spawned a huge army of Explosive Venomspiders in the northern part of the city, resulting in numerous deaths. Their self-destruct attacks, which ignored Defense entirely, stroke fear within the players’ minds.

He did not expect Dinosaurcerer to summon a Deathfiend Spider in mid-air! And he certainly did not expect the Deathfiend Spider to rain that many Explosive Venomspiders from above!

What a bizarre sight!

“That’s impossible!”

As he exclaimed in his mind, the Explosive Venomspiders landed on the surfaces of land…

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Explosions erupted consecutively around the Summoner—next to his feet, around his waist, above his head… The suicidal spiders exploded near him on all sides!

It was an omnidirectional explosion! An impact of death!

The poor Summoner, who did not have any defensive magic like the Elementalists, could do nothing but succumb to the endless shower of deaths in shock…

“Growl!!!”

The Silver Moon Werewolf Demon, who was running towards the Summoner to save him, growled bitterly as it got sent back to its extra-dimensional space involuntarily.

The same happened to the Strix as it was gliding in the sky. The one who summoned it was dead, so it had no reason to stay on the Mythical Battlefield any longer.

“Rrreeeeee!!”

The Strix let an ear-piercing shriek before it was pulled back into the rift between dimensions, disappearing completely out of Qin Ruo’s Elemental Perception…

The spectators continue to stare in dead silence as the Explosive Venomspiders rained down from above and exploded around the Summoner’s corpse. The fourth battle of the duel was over.

The Fallen Angels won.

The other spectating Clans that could not stand up against the Executors quickly sneered at Remorseless Warrior and his crew. The Executors wanted to contest to be the sole owners of the entrance to the Buried City but had lost four battles out of twelve. They did not let out any scornful cry or insult—silence was enough of a mockery to the Executors.

If they carried on with the rest of the eight battles, the results could wreck the Executors’ morale.

At the same time, the spectators also clearly felt the horrifying strength of the Winter Demon’s crew…

All four of their combatants in the battles… were winged Champions!

Except for the Winter Demon, whose victory was anticipated, every member on his side was like a huge sturdy metal plate, hitting the head of every Executor member, including Remorseless Warrior.

The Fallen Angels Clan was a formidable foe!

***

It was the fourth time their Radiant Priest had to resurrect someone on their side. Remorseless Warrior was so bummed out; it was understandable for Thor, Tarzan, and Gorfer to not gain victories…

However, this time, Fanatic, his Tier 5 Summoner was defeated by Dinosaurcerer. That was unthinkable.

Many things puzzled him, too many.

Firstly, after his Angelic Wings were compromised and nullified by the Tier 5 AoE Magic Attack, how did he remain airborne and not drop down from the sky?

Then, how did Dinosaurcerer summon the Deathfiend Spider while he was airborne? How did the Deathfiend Spider remain airborne together with Dinosaurcerer? And how did that Deathfiend Spider accurately appear above Fanatic’s head?

He also noticed that, to his surprise, Qin Ruo had disappeared from his group…

Remorseless Warrior felt so confused, defeated and alarmed. He figured that Qin Ruo could have been up to something… Maybe, Qin Ruo had set up some insidious trap… However, based on the timing and Qin Ruo’s reputation, it was not possible for him to scheme against them like that…

While he was tortured by his many doubts, Remorseless Warrior locked his eyes on the “explosive spider rain”, which was still falling from the skies. He wanted to see if Dinosaurcerer was going to reveal how he did it or hide his secret weapon back in the never-ending darkness.

Qin Ruo saw everything through his Elemental Perception and knew Remorseless Warrior could not accept the defeat without understanding why. He smiled and sent a private message to Dinosaurcerer, asking him to come down from the “sky”.

***

Dinosaurcerer, still with his activated Beastform Fusion, descended from the walls of the Ruins and hung upside down in front of the puzzled crowd.

As he got ten meters above ground, he snapped a spider string that was connected to his body and leaped onto the ground flashily. Once he deactivated his fusion, a Gorefiend Spider, which could be found anywhere on Level 2 of the Ruins, crawled in front of everyone.

That was how he did it…

Players who frequented the Aricus Underground Ruins would know how Gorefiend Spiders usually appeared in front of their prey—it was exactly like Dinosaurcerer had demonstrated earlier, by sliding upside down from above!

Other than that, Gorefiend Spiders could, of course, stay on the ceilings. Dinosaurcerer had not been airborne. Right after his Angelic Wings were nullified, he immediately webbed himself onto the Ruins’ ceiling. That was how he stayed “airborne” (he acquired his Gorefiend Spider from a Summoning Mana Core, which allowed for a quick summoning, quicker than the Summoning skill; fusing with a Tier 4 monster took only a split second too).

With the first question answered, the second was easy to explain…

Spiders, as mentioned earlier, climbed walls. Thus, even though the Deathfiend Spider was huge in size, it could climb above Fanatic and spawn its “explosive spider rain”.

That was how the fantastic Dinosaurcerer evaded Fanatic’s powerful attacks. By tipping the surrounding geographic to his advantage, he destroyed the latter with ease! Splendid performance! Ç’est magnifique!

“Hey, remember what you promised—a meal for every one of us in the Finance Department.”

Dinosaurcerer swept his Angelic Wings and returned to his comrades with a smile of triumph while he reminded someone about a promise he made.

Qin Ruo nodded.

The victory was absolutely well-earned after all. And he was delighted to see Dinosaurcerer find his confidence and combat style right after ranking up to Tier 5.

Even if there was no support from his Fallen Angels or Bauhinia Clan, the Violet Army Clan would still thrive under Dinosaurcerer’s leadership.

He yielded to his loss in the bet completely willfully.

Shortly after, he disengaged from his Aquamorph and turned to Violet Orchid to discuss who to send next for the fifth battle…

If they won two more battles, it would then be quite clear who the winners were.

The clock was ticking too; they needed to end it quickly!

The two Clan Leaders had the same idea; they both laid their eyes on that Elementalist, who had not offered any suggestion or input since the beginning of the duel.

“Homme Fatale!

“You’re up.”

Homme Fatale raised his head and looked at his sister. Then, without a word, he stepped out of the group and into the arena.

Black Rock and the others were cheered with joy.

“Hahaha!! Badass!!”

“Yeah, it’s a strong move. If I were Remorseless Warrior, I would likely puke blood seeing this… Hahaha…”

After winning four battles, they finally sent an Ace into the hole. Straight up was Homme Fatale in the next round. The Executors were in a checkmate.

“Fatale, give them all you’ve got!”

“Hehehe… yeah, give them all you’ve got. Who’s coming up next? I bet it won’t be Remorseless Warrior. That pr*ck doesn’t have the balls.”

As Black Rock, Subjugator and the gang speculated who would be the next combatant in excitement, one person walked out of the Executors’ lineup to everyone’s surprise…

***

“Leader Qin, can I have a word?”

As everyone watched in disbelief, Remorseless Warrior, the Clan Leader of the Executors walked out and stood in front of Homme Fatale. Then he called out to Qin Ruo loudly.

“Huh?”

Qin Ruo was flabbergasted.

He thought Remorseless Warrior’s target was Homme Fatale. He never thought the former would want to speak to him.

“Leader Remorseless, are you going back on your word?”

Remorseless Warrior revealed a defeated smile and shook his head.

“Don’t worry, Leader Qin.

“We, the Executors, always keep our promise.”

Remorseless Warrior paused for a while, then continued, “We yield! We have lost this duel. So, there’s no need to continue with the rest of the battles anymore…”

That came out unexpectedly. The spectating players all around the Ruins grumbled in disappointment.

“What?!”

“They yielded? Come on! It was about to get interesting too.”

“Dude, don’t you think they’ve humiliated themselves enough? The Executors have no chance to win anymore, so they want to save themselves from total degradation. It’s understandable.”

“Yeah, and the Fallen Angels are so absurdly strong too. There have so many winged Champions… The Executors were so unlucky to ram their heads into this metal plate.”

***

Qin Ruo was not that surprised by the Executors’ yielding to their defeat. A Clan Leader should put the Clan’s honor before his own personal agenda.

Remorseless Warrior’s decision was wise.

“Sure! Let’s stop fighting. As for the Gorefiend Spider Demon’s components, I’ll leave them up to you guys.”

“Of course! You can count on the Executors!”

Remorseless Warrior walked and stood next to Qin Ruo, suddenly asking in an earnest and hushed voice, “Please… would you mind enlightening me on something?”

Qin Ruo nodded. “Sure, ask right away.”

It was just Qin Ruo’s way of treating people—even if Remorseless Warrior was an enemy, as long as he kept his promise, there would be no ill-will kept.