The Last Experience Point

The sound of four gigantic hooves slamming down against an already torn up street was far louder than a few thuds. To Zach's ears, they were more akin to miniature booms. Yet even still, he remained perfectly motionless and stayed right where he was as the Mare of the Primordial Void made straight for him. For this, Jimmy shot him a look of utter gratitude. Zach wasn't sure why. But he did recall Kalana saying something about the adventurer known as "Emala" fleeing after getting aggro from a dungeon boss last night, which had apparently been what had briefly derailed the entire raid. Zach supposed that was why Jimmy appeared so relieved that Zach knew better than to take off running.

Remaining still and letting the tanks peel aggro is the only way to deal with this, he thought to himself as he watched the aggroed horse come nearer.

As the boss closed in on him, Zach ignored the first signs of fear bubbling up within him and he continued to stand his ground. He didn't even bother to draw his weapon or enter a defensive stance. He simply kept his feet planted right there in the middle of the street while fifteen adventurers rushed by him fast enough to cause a small gust of wind to ruffle his robe.

"Taunting!" Maric cried over the Comm.

Now, the massive T9 boss, which had been galloping straight for Zach, came to an abrupt, unnaturally harsh stop. Swiveling around almost robotically, it turned its body and decided to attack Maric Ultdern instead. With a loud neigh, it attempted to stomp down on him; its hoof was then deflected by the man's large, crescent-shaped shield, though at the cost of a pained-sounding groan from the brawny old adventurer.

"Are you okay, son?" asked a voice beside him. Zach turned his head to see the scarred face of Spider, the second-in-command of the God Slayers Guild, staring back at him.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Zach said. "I didn't take any hits or anything."

"All right. Good." Upon those words, Spider moved in with the other off-tanks, and Zach finally began to step back.

"Okay, everyone, it looks like the tanks got aggro," Jimmy said with an approving nod. "Who's ready to kill this thing?"

The adventurers released a cheer, but it definitely sounded deflated and unenthusiastic. Many of them looked rattled and uncertain, and several were muttering off-Comm that they should de-aggro and rethink attempting this raid today. Put simply, there was a whole lot of reluctance starting to build among the more than one-hundred people participating in this encounter, and in Zach's honest opinion, their hesitance was entirely justified after what all of them had just witnessed happening.

It insta-killed my pet, Zach thought, feeling a nervous chill travel down his back in opposition to the intense heat that was still causing sweat to glide down his forehead and sting his eyes.

Zach had never seen a damage number anywhere near that large, which was really saying something considering he'd once done over a billion damage to a Ziragoth add with Doomsday Slash I. The number had been so large that, even if Zach had been able to see it for a little longer, he still wouldn't know what it was, as he wasn't sure what came after a "quintillion" and the number had been far, far bigger than that. Several orders of magnitude larger, in fact. Jimmy had therefore been correct…and that wasn't really a good thing so far as raid morale was concerned. People were understandably worried. Something about this boss felt different.

Very different.

Zach glanced over to Jimmy, who was standing atop a DEHV truck with his hands over his forehead like a visor. Briefly, Zach met his eyes, and there wasn't even a trace of doubt or uncertainty in them. He looked like he had things well under control. Zach hoped that was the case. Because the boss was a T9 and it could kill them all if the situation got out of hand.

"This thing hits about as hard as Phase 1 Ziragoth," Maric grunted as the equine boss attempted to bite him but was warded off by the man's shield. "Which is very hard!"

"Just hang in there," Jimmy said. "Also, tanks: try to use as few melee attacks as possible. We really, really don't want that thing to get melee immunity before the melee DPS have had a chance to unload on it."

"So what do you want us to do for now?" asked a tank from the GSG who Zach didn't quite recognize.

"Just establish firm aggro and hit it as little as possible. We're gonna start our rotations now." He laughed. "Everybody, lighten up. Stop looking so damn nervous. Guys, take a deep breath and just relax. It's gonna be all right."

Despite his assurances, Zach had the sense that Jimmy's words did little to lessen the trepidation among the adventurers. Once again, Zach couldn't blame them. Unlike the dragon, which had been an existential crisis with the potential to end civilization, this boss was not quite on that level in terms of urgency, and so of course they weren't as motivated as they'd been during a fight for survival like the one against Ziragoth. If one tried to imagine the worst possible outcome of not killing this boss, it would be short- to mid-term economic disruption for the region of Faded Island as they ended up having to build new roads around it.

Continuing to back away, Zach observed as a group of eleven men and four women occupied most of the space in front of the boss. Although all of them had their shields raised and various weapons drawn, few were actually attacking it, and those who did were lashing out with very light attacks that only did a few-hundred damage. Zach suspected those were "taunting" strikes meant more to draw aggro than to inflict damage.

"I need a rest," Maric said over the Comm, sounding weary and strained.

"I'll grab it," replied Ophelia Graven, the leader of Boss Rush. Her buckler shield was the smallest of the bunch, yet it proved no less capable of absorbing the boss's repeated attempts to either stomp or bite her. She sliced the mare for 826 damage and then a flash of light came from her eyes, likely another form of a taunt. She now had full aggro.

Zach looked over to his right where Jimmy was continuing to stand atop the tall, destroyed truck DEHV while surveying the raid. As though content with the current state of things, he made a self-satisfied-looking nod and spoke up into the Comm.

"Okay," he said, clapping his hands together. "Let's get this shit going. Group 1, get ready to attack. Group 1S, start buffing!"

Turning around slightly, Zach glanced over his shoulder to where group 1 and group 1S were waiting together near the remnants of a bakery that, from what little remained of its signage, Zach suspected had specialized in making wedding cakes. Upon being called, both groups moved as one farther down the street and closer towards the rest of the raid. Most of them were wielding staves, rods, or spell swords, but there were a few maces to be found as well. And from what Jimmy had stated while he'd been organizing the raid, Zach believed that these two groups were responsible for the element of fire.

As they drew nearer, group 1S, comprised of five adventurers and one member of Children of Order, broke away and moved to position themselves so that they stood together in an area that was almost perfectly central to the overall raid formation. From there, every other member of the raid was supposed to be within casting range.

"Start buffing," Jimmy said. "Make sure you get everyone. If anyone is left out, speak up."

All six began to wave or swing around staves or rods. Lienne was actually among them. Come to think of it, the blonde, steeple-hat-wearing girl was something of a hybrid caster when it came to classification. She could buff, heal, yet also had some pretty decent fire-based magic. She wouldn't be using any offensive spells on this raid, however, as Jimmy claimed the boss shifted based on quantity of hits as opposed to damage per hit, and Lienne apparently hadn't made the cut. This didn't mean she'd be able to kick back and take it easy, though.

Not at all.

For the first time during the raid, numerous members began to profusely sweat due to something other than the punishing summer heat. One by one, Lienne and those in group 1S with her began casting buffs, with each of them responsible for casting a buff on around 20 other raid members not including themselves. And though all six cast a different buff, Jimmy had been meticulous in ensuring that each buff was close enough to one another so that everyone on the raid would be equally well protected.

Now, as Lienne swung her spell rod in the air, she briefly looked over towards Zach, and he gave her an empathetic smile as she began to gasp and huff from the exertion of having to buff so many people at once—and quickly, too. Then she turned away, and as she did so, a bright, orange, and candle-like flame hovered in the air just a few inches in front of Zach's midsection. This flame then revolved around and around his body, moving in and out of Zach's peripheral vision as it climbed higher until at last it came to a halt above the top of his head, requiring him to crane his neck to see it. It remained there for about five or six seconds before disappearing. After it vanished, Zach became aware that he had a new active buff on him right next to Will of the Favored.

By the time Zach finished reading the buff's brief, straightforward description, he could see the same candle-like flame spinning around Donovan, then Zephyr, then Kalana, and eventually all the rest of those in the melee DPS group with him. Once the last of them had received the buff, a few healers—and Trelvor—left their group and began running over to Lienne and two other spellcasters who had seemingly collapsed from a combination of exertion debt and the heat. Fortunately, along with some water and a few pats on the back, they were quickly revived and refreshed, though Zach suspected the biggest help came from one of the mages in group 2S, who cast a slow spell on one of them. But it wasn't the effect of the slow that helped, but rather the form it took; in this case, the ability caused a heavy but very brief flurry of white snow to pour down on top of the three exhausted members of 1S.

"Oh, Gods, that feels so, so good," Lienne said over the Comm, practically rolling around in the snow, which piled almost six inches high in a tiny area on the street. Yet already, it was beginning to melt away from the burning sun. "Thank you so much, Lorik."

Zach recognized the mage who'd cast the spell from the dragon raid. His name was Lorik Mazefel, and he was the second-in-command of the adventuring guild, "Lost and Found," which was a guild whose members were known as "treasure hunters." Of all the guilds that existed both political and adventure alike, if Zach had felt free to choose which to join—assuming a hypothetical in which he had to choose one—it would've been Lost and Found.

Farming rare items and finding rare loot was Lost and Found's entire purpose. The guild apparently had a "guild hall" in Angelica's room 9251 that had "public" access set to allowable, meaning anyone could walk in without a keycard or being invited. Inside this room was a museum where some of the rarest loot known to adventurers was available for all to see behind glass display cases.

And they don't ever worry about anyone stealing anything, Zach thought, once again amazed by the "bubble" adventurers lived in, which aside from raids like these, almost totally inoculated them from the concerns, both positive and negative, of broader society.

Zach supposed that, even if someone did steal something, they wouldn't get away with it for long. Though he hadn't visited the guild hall himself, he knew from speaking to other adventurers that some of the items were so rare that no other copies were known to exist. Therefore, if something vanished one day and a random adventurer was wearing or wielding it the next day, it'd be obvious who'd taken it. From there, Donovan would probably personally intervene, and things would get ugly for the would-be thief.

As Lienne picked herself up and again expressed her thanks, Zach watched as Lorik removed his black, magician-like top hat and gave a regal, comedic bow. Somehow, the hat was actually the least theatric part of his ensemble. Zach couldn't help but admire the way that members of Lost and Found, such as Lorik, always strutted around in such high-end, high-level gear, though in the case of Lorik, his equipment held a certain "sleek" sort of elegance that wasn't often seen from adventurer loot. A black-and-red tunic adorned with silver buttons accompanied a magnificent golden cloak around his back that had brush fringes along the hem and edges, and rather than a staff, spell sword, or spell rod, the man wielded a wand that shed rose petals whenever it was waved in the air.

"Hey, Lorik," another adventurer said over the Comm. Zach didn't know or recognize him. He appeared to be a mage of the Explorers Brigade that had been placed in the lightning group. "Throw some snow my way too, you bastard. It's a billion fuckin' degrees out here."

"Only if you agree to be buried to death beneath it," Lorik responded.

The man coughed out a laugh. "It's hot enough I might just take you up on that."

Lorik also laughed, and Donovan chuckled a bit from where he stood next to Zach. Jimmy normally seemed to have no problem with that kind of banter either, but given this raid's importance to him, Zach wasn't surprised he was being more uptight than he usually would be. "Everybody done talking shit?" he asked. No one replied. "Okay then. Lienne, you good?"

"I'm fine," she answered. "I just hit some E-debt there." She was now cuddling up next to Trelvor, soaking wet and actually shivering. Zach doubted that would last. As soon as she dried off, she was going to wish there was more snow to submerge herself into. Already, most of it had melted, a testament to the intense heat.

"Everybody go back to your own groups," Jimmy said. He then waited for the healers and Trelvor to depart before he continued speaking. Very quickly, Lienne and the Elf kissed, and then Jimmy resumed. "Okay, last chance for anybody to speak up if they don't got a fire-resistance buff."

Zach saw faces tightening apprehensively all around him, yet no one said anything. It was clear that the fact Jimmy thought this was even necessary was upsetting to everyone. Earlier, Jimmy had made clear that it wasn't that he believed the boss would use AOE abilities capable of scorching the entire raid once it gained fire-immunity, but only that it might do so, which was why he wanted everyone buffed with fire resistance and he also wanted healers to be on standby to save the vulnerable, including themselves.

"All right, let's kick this off. Group 1, unload everything you got onto the boss, and don't stop casting until you stop doing damage. If the number ain't zero, you keep going, got it? Now let's go!"

There was a brief delay: a pause lasting between five and six seconds. During this time, the only sound other than a few murmurs here or there of spell chanting was the shifting of feet as everyone—including Zach—turned to watch the tanks begin to slowly back away from the T9 mare, which began to pursue them. In this case, it seemed to once again have aggroed onto Maric, who physically maneuvered it so that its side now faced the rest of the raid, exposing it to the mages of group 1 while keeping the tanks out of their line of fire.

And then it began.

A ring of fire appeared about twenty feet above the mare, one that was almost perfectly circular in nature. Then, from within this ring, an absolute slew of individual, elongated streaks of flame began to rain down over the boss, with each flame striking it for around 800 to 1000 damage. At the same time, fast-moving shadows along the street revealed themselves to be bright-red missiles of fire, which sailed across the air and struck the right side of the T9 boss, these hitting for more than a thousand a shot. Then came flames that rose up from the ground itself, as well as more projectiles and chain-links made of fire that wrapped around the boss, dealing fire damage over time. More and more fire-based magic appeared each moment, and before long, the boss was practically buried in flame.

922

1,521

1,211

2,561

751

3,641

2,455

Numbers, all of them between five-hundred and four-thousand, began to appear above the creature's head, and they were coming in so fast that many would appear and disappear before Zach could see anything more than a glimpse of them. Though each number was small on its own, the boss was being hit so many times by so many different things that it was now losing HP even faster than it had been earlier when Zach's Kralzek's Beast had been tanking it with the various damage shields.

As the fire magic assaulted the boss, it continued to stomp uselessly on Maric and the other tanks, and as it did so, it released one pained-sounding groan-hiss after the next, each coming in back-to-back on the heels of yet another attack. Yet it was being hit so many times by so many different things that it couldn't possibly manage to vocalize fast enough in response, so the result was simply the same groan-hiss being repeated over and over. Eventually, the boss even became totally set ablaze, and this caused it to begin suffering various types of secondary "burn" damage, which in turn meant its HP's rate of decline began speeding up.

"Why don't the rest of us join in, Jimmy?" Kalana asked. "It's starting to get hurt really bad. Maybe if we all gang up on it we can actually kill it, um, before it even does its shifty thingy."

"Too risky, Kal," Jimmy replied. "If this thing gets new attacks and abilities after each shift, we're gonna need time to acclimate to each one or we'll get overwhelmed."

"Oh, right. Good point."

Despite finding no fault with Jimmy's logic, Zach actually still agreed with Kalana. He wanted this thing to just die already, because the things Jimmy had said about it were starting to get to him, and it was becoming unnerving. Thankfully, however, things were going smoother than even Jimmy seemed to expect, because a little earlier, he claimed that, with their current composition, they'd be lucky to sneak in a million damage with each type before having to move on. But right now, based on the boss's current HP, they were already well on their way to exceeding that as every manner and form of fire rained down, shot into, engulfed, or otherwise surrounded the boss.

Maybe this thing doesn't become immune to fire like it does to other stuff, Zach thought hopefully. Please, Gods, just let us burn it down right here and now so I can go home and take a nap.

******

"…so it's the worst possible element they could've started with?" Prila asked sadly, denial in her voice.

"I'm afraid so, beautiful Prila," Adamus replied in a whisper.

The woman had returned to Adamus only a few moments ago. Though she was more than capable of watching the events unfold on her terminal with the others, she had wanted to be in Adamus's company. Thus, he had begun sending that which he saw into her mind, so that she too may see it as well. Earlier, Adamus had explained to Prila that the difference between some, most, or all of the adventurers perishing depended on which attacks they triggered from the Mare of the Primordial Void, which upon reaching immunity from any given element, would gain one—or several—additional attacks that it could then use throughout the remainder of the battle. However, it would also unleash a one-time ability for each immunity it gained.

And in the case of fire, lightning, and dark, it would retaliate with something far too devastating for even a single adventurer to see the light of another day.

"There's…there's really no chance for Zach and the others?" she asked.

Adamus slowly shook his head. Then he closed his eyes and observed as the mare was assaulted by a group of fire mages, who were unleashing a barrage of ruthless attacks into it. "I wish I could tell you otherwise or inspire within you some degree of hope…but this is as it will be. The adventurers are not prepared for what comes next. They will not be able to react in time. They will all die."

Prila began to sob, and Adamus wished he could do more to comfort her. But this was an important lesson she needed to learn: that above all, her loyalty must remain with the system and not those who partook in it. She had grown far too close to Zachys Calador and the others, and she ought not be this emotionally invested in their fate. That was the mistake his wife had made so many times throughout history—and continued to make even now in this very moment.

She was watching as well. Adamus could feel her there. Though she had closed off her mind and refused to allow Adamus to speak to her, he knew that she could sense him there just as he could feel her presence in kind. And right now, the little bit of emotion that bled through was one of confidence and certainty. Once again, his beloved had allowed her feelings to cloud her judgement to the extent that she was wildly off base.

During the dragon raid, she had been certain that Zachys Calador and the other adventurers would be slain. Her emotions had kept her from seeing that a reasonable chance—nearly one in three—existed, and thus Adamus was not surprised that the adventurers triumphed. But this time around, Eilea was wrong from the opposite perspective. Judging off nothing but the confidence she was exuding, Adamus thought it fair to conclude that she believed victory against the mare to be a virtual certainty. Yet in this belief, she was more incorrect now than she'd been during the previous raid.

There was no one-in-three chance.

There was no chance at all.

In just seconds from now, a ring would appear, and then every single adventurer—every last one of them—would be obliterated in the blink of an eye such that not even a scrap of their clothing remained. They would be so totally incinerated that their friends and families would have nothing to remember them by save for indiscriminate ashes. Eilea was about to have her heart broken. She was about to scream so loudly that the sound would cause literal blood to leak out of Adamus's ears. And it would all be her own fault for getting emotionally involved—for interfering.

The adventurers fighting the Mare of the Primordial Void were going to die. Of this, Adamus had no doubt. The ring would appear…

And then they would die.

*******

In a single, instantaneous moment, everything changed. Jimmy, still standing atop the burned-out truck DEHV, was the first to notice it. Even lacking any physical change in characteristics, his eyes detected the very clear shift as the damage numbers coming in all turned to zero.

0

0

0

0

"Group 1, stop casting!" he cried aloud. "Tanks, off-tanks, pull off!"

None of his words turned out to be necessary, as everyone was already doing exactly those things. The fire magic cut off immediately outside of a few ongoing attacks that the caster likely could no longer control, such as a fiery portal that sent continuous streaks of flame into the two-story-tall boss. But that too ended after another few seconds, and now, there was a brief moment of quiet.

A sense of worry and even fear seemed to come over the raid, as evident by the way numerous adventurers grabbed the forearms or biceps of their friends and comrades. Several murmured to one another, though they spoke off-Comm and Jimmy couldn't overhear what they were saying. Honestly, they were being a bit overdramatic. Why couldn't they just listen to him? They were going to be fine.

"I think I lost aggro!" Maric announced over the Comm, sounding alarmed. "Jimmy! I think I—"

"Nah, you're good," Jimmy said. "You didn't lose aggro. It's just not attacking anyone right now 'cause it's gonna change."

"Change?"

"Just watch."

And Maric watched all right. So did the entire raid. And the typically brazen, party-loving adventurers reacted in a way that was so unlike them. Rather than chuckles or even "oohs" and "ahhs" at seeing something so cool, there were gasps and a collective recoiling from the whole lot of them as the entire boss abruptly burst into flame, only unlike the fire that had only just been roasting it to death, these flames were even brighter, and the heat of them could be felt even from halfway down the next street where Jimmy was standing.

At the same time, its body became slightly larger and taller, but most significantly, its color changed completely. It had been black with the occasional purplish hew, but now it began to turn a yellowish orange, and it did so in a way that almost made it look as though the black had just been an ink that was washing off, and the yellow-orange had been there all along. The flames began to increase in intensity as well, though mostly they became concentrated near its hooves and tail.

So cool, he thought to himself even as several men and women began to tremble. Let's see what you got in store for us.

Something changed. Something in the world around him. It was barely noticeable at first but Jimmy nevertheless saw it. It was as though a very, very slight mist had begun to fill the air. But it was a ghostly sort of mist, barely visible to the eye, and it held a slight hint of the same yellow-orange that was now surrounding the boss. It was also easier to spot on the street or ground level, though it was definitely in the air as well. While this was happening, a large ring made of a faint yellow light formed directly in front of the boss.

Oh shit! Jimmy thought to himself, his mood changing dramatically. Oh shit!

"Everybody!" Jimmy yelled into the Comm, jumping immediately down from the top of the DEHV truck. The moment he landed, he sprawled forward, moving so carelessly he'd have fallen onto his face if Donovan hadn't reached out and steadied him. "Everybody follow me now!"

"What's going on?" Donovan asked, his voice coming through both over the Comm and also from behind him. "Jimmy, where are you—"

"No fucking questions!" Jimmy screamed. "Get your goddamn asses in that ring right now or you're dead instantly! This is a one-hit insta KO move! Go, go, go! NOW! NOW, MORONS! NOW!"

"Wait, what?" shouted Zach. "Jimmy, did you just say—"

"What's the first rule of raiding, Zach?" Jimmy yelled at him. "I told you this shit in Trials of Nolak! What is it, Zach? Tell me!"

"Oh, uh…I think you said something like 'don't stand in the fire?'"

"Okay, now look down at your feet, dude!"

Zach lowered his eyes—and then yelped. "Oh, fuck! WE'RE STANDING IN THE FIRE! Oh shit, oh shit! Everybody, listen to Jimmy! Get in the ring! Hurry or we're dead! He warned me that this would happen someday!"

As though finally convinced, Zach, along with every single adventurer and political guild member present, all rushed with a clear sense of fear and urgency that went well beyond the panicked response to the disarray last night when taking on Imp Lord Tzumazleth. And that was a good thing because they really, really didn't have much time. Jimmy, arriving first, began making rowing motions with his arms, waving everybody on.

"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! I don't care if you feel like you're getting crushed! Donovan, Zephyr, make sure every single last one of us gets in this ring even if you have to flatten us!"

"Got it!" he shouted back.

In this moment, Jimmy was so glad to have the man on his side. Him and Zephyr. Because they were not only the last to enter, but they were literally throwing people inside who were too slow. If not for those two, Jimmy was sure there would be at least a dozen adventurers who failed to make it as well as at least three members of Children of Order. But thank God, because those two were so incredibly useful when it came to operating under stress. They pulled themselves together in a way Jimmy couldn't imagine anyone else doing—himself included.

Very quickly, Donovan and Zephyr wrangled every last adventurer and then joined the others in the ring, which was now so tight that Jimmy groaned in physical pain as he really was being flattened. He had to imagine that if he was a normal level-1 human he would've been crushed to death; instead, he was merely made uncomfortable as terrified adventurers all huddled together close enough so that everyone could fit.

"Make sure nothing's sticking out!" Jimmy cried. "There can't be even so much as a toe or you'll—"

The rest of what Jimmy had to say was drowned out by an explosion so loud he worried it'd permanently damage his hearing. He had no choice but to close his eyes as the entire world was just erased around him, becoming so consumed by fire that flame became the only visible sight. A heat so terrible it singed the hairs on his arms blanketed him. It felt like an uprising from hell! This only caused the adventurers to cling even more tightly together, though in this case it was likely for want of emotional support than necessity.

And then, just like that, it ended. It was gone. And what was left in its wake was…nothing at all. Everything was now gone. Forget rubble and ruins: there was nothing but perfectly level and flat terrain, which consisted of charred dirt. No buildings, no signs, no roads, not even the husks of DEHVs. It was all just one big, flat, smoke-filled field.

And Jimmy loved it.

"Fuck yeah!" he cried. "Finally. Finally! A real boss! We're fighting a real boss! Be careful, guys. I wouldn't be surprised if, later on, there's gonna be like a bunch of smaller rings and we have to pick which ones we fit in. There'll probably be less time to get inside, too." He pumped his fist in the air. "Finally! We're finally fighting a real boss! Oh, shit. Maric, watch out. It's still aggroed on you. Bro, don't just stand there. Hello?"

"S-sorry," Maric replied as he weakly raised his shield and even lost his grip on it as the Mare of the Primordial Void caused a gigantic sword made of pure fire to appear in the air in front of itself, swinging hard enough that Maric's shield ended up flying backwards and knocking out a healer who'd been hit unaware on the side of her head.

"Ophelia, take over!" Jimmy laughed. "Guys, chill! This is normal, I swear."

******

Adamus blinked. "I don't understand," he said, gripped by such a powerful sense of doubt and disbelief.

He felt out of breath despite not having moved. He felt lost and mystified. Rarely—rarely—was he so wrong. Almost never did he face such all-encompassing confusion. Yet with Prila by his side and the suddenly obnoxious, smug presence of Eilea popping into his mind, Adamus was at a loss to explain to himself or to Prila what the two of them had just witnessed.

Eilea! You have interfered! he shouted at her. You warned them!

Even though she'd cut him off from her mind, he had a feeling she might've "opened the door" so-to-speak after what had just happened, if only so that she could gloat. And that was indeed the case, proving that his abilities of prediction weren't totally malfunctioning.

"I have done no such thing, Adamus," she replied. "You would have known it if I had."

Then how? he demanded. How can they have known? How can they have possibly survived this?

"Because of Jimmy," she said.

And then it finally dawned on Adamus. He finally understood. You…you did not bring him here to gain an unfair advantage with his innate psionic abilities.

"I did not."

You brought him here to do this. To lead raids.

"Now you understand. I never tried to subvert your system. I only wanted to give them a fair chance."

Adamus shook his head. Never mind the fact that this in and of itself was still a form of cheating—albeit far less serious—it still made no sense to him. But how can he know? How can he possibly know these things?

"Because for all your so-called 'historical knowledge,' you've never bothered to focus on anything but the big picture. You may know the date and times of every major event in human history, but you don't know the small details that only I know, having visited the ancient times. You do not know, for example, what baseball is, or how much it cost to ride the Manhattan subway. But I do."

And what does this have to do with anything?

"Very simply this: in the times that James Green lived, all the fundamental knowledge that we drew upon when building the system was once accessible to the general public in the form of widely distributed entertainment. Humans in the 21st century used this knowledge for games: toys for their entertainment. And Jimmy was among the top humans in the world at several of these games."

Adamus was stunned: so much so that he could not even begin to form a reply. Could Eilea be telling the truth? That the earliest origins of the system—a system that Adamus had created from Elvish lore—had once been nothing more than a game played for enjoyment? He had heard such rumors before but had dismissed them. Such a thing would likely have been known by other Great Ones as well, but none had ever raised that point with Adamus, probably viewing such a detail as unimportant.

When setting out to design the system, Adamus had researched everything he could about the origins of the Elvish. The true origins, of course. For among all such secrets he held, there was none more painful or heartbreaking than the fact that the Elvish, like all the races on Galterra, had originated not on a fictional planet called Elvadin as was widely believed, but in a laboratory where gifted humans blessed with supernatural abilities had been experimented on and used as genetic test subjects.

The shameful and hurtful truth that made up the Elvish past was one that Adamus and all the other Great Ones had sought to conceal, and over time, as Galterrans began to rediscover things like science and technology, Adamus had covertly seeded alternative explanations for why things such as crossbreeding were possible, as the mere fact that he himself existed—a half Elf—was proof of, at the very least, shared genetic ancestry. Adamus had therefore concocted multiple explanations, several of which involved epigenetics, but it was a secret that was very difficult to keep concealed as technology advanced.

For this reason, once the World Eater spawned and wiped out the Galterrans, Adamus would need to make certain changes to Archian Prime to ensure that scientific advancement was slower and more contained. Truly, the biggest issues with the system came as a result of industrialization: cities, electricity, industry, and modern comforts. That aside, the truth of Elvish, Gnomish, and even Galterran "human" ancestry was the one bit of knowledge that could never be allowed to come to light, as it mattered both for reasons of dignity and for secrecy involving the creation of the system itself.

Out of a sense of longing to be something more than a science project, Adamus had wanted to make the Elvish a core part of his system. And so he had drawn upon as much lore regarding their kind as he could, but also for his personal understanding, for he wished to understand why it was that the humans had decided to make a previously "fictional race" a real, living, and breathing population.

In so doing, he had discovered an inextricable link between the Elvish and a form of "combat system" tied to another system called the "RPG." Though the "G" stood for "game," he did not realize the theory behind it meant game in the sense of "fun" and "entertainment," but more so as "contest." Regardless, in nearly half of the fictional contexts that arose and in which the Elvish were mentioned, there was some underlying system: one of rules, power, and danger. And this led to him deviating his research from Elves and instead into these specific concepts. And that had been the proposal he'd brought before the Great Ones when they'd collectively decided to remake the world after bringing about its near-total destruction.

But what Adamus had not realized was that this particular lore had been so commonly known among the ordinary common folk of the past. He had always imagined it to be highly niche or very specific knowledge. Apparently, this was not the case, as he was only discovering here and now while he watched James Green react with instantaneous familiarity to something that should have killed him and all those with him.

Adamus returned his attention to Galterra, and now he studied the situation with an even greater zeal. It seemed that, at some point in the past few moments, an argument had started. Adamus tried to understand what it was they were discussing, but it had become enormously difficult to focus, as it had been a very long time since anyone, let alone someone like Eilea, had thrown him so totally off his game and had left him feeling confused and unaware.

This was not going as he'd expected.

******

"We have to de-aggro it!" insisted Kalana. "Jimmy, stop being stubborn! We're not ready for this. Umm, if there's more stuff like that, then you're gonna get people killed!"

"Just time out for a second, Kal," Zach said. "Let me try talking to him." He paused for just a moment. "Jimmy, are you saying that, even if, theoretically, one of us had been like, I don't know, level a million, we still would have died just now if we didn't go in that circle? That even if we had a million points into every stat, we still would've died?"

"For the fifth time, yes," Jimmy said, becoming annoyed. "That's what one-hit insta-kill means, Zach."

"Okay, well then Kal is right. We need to disengage and have a long talk about raids and bosses and stuff before we attempt to kill this."

Jimmy searched the crowd for Zach just so he could glare at the kid, but then he quickly averted his gaze in fear as Zach glared right back at him, reminding Jimmy that, for all his prowess in leading raids, if he pissed off Zachys Calador, Zach could beat the soul out of him—or do worse. He was definitely someone Jimmy knew not to cross. Though he considered Zach a friend and even trusted the kid, he couldn't just pretend that Zach wasn't also this world's equivalent of an elite PVP'er with a massive PK count.

"All right, look," Jimmy said, trying his best to be calm and diplomatic. "We've already made great progress, so why put all of that to waste, man? I know what I'm doing. Ya'll just got to trust me."

"It's not that we don't trust ya, kid," Donovan replied. "It's just there's too much shit we've never seen before, and the idea of 'insta-killing' an entire damn raid at once is new to us. I'm starting to think Zach and Kalana are right and we should de-aggro and rethink this."

Ultimately, Jimmy knew that Donovan and Zephyr would have the final say regardless of anything he himself said or did in protest. They were—and would likely always be—the definitive leaders of the adventuring community. That was why it was those two in particular he had to convince.

For the moment, the Mare of the Primordial Void was in a more-or-less "stable" state. It had now picked up three new fire-based attacks, but the buff Lienne had given the raid was protecting the tanks caught in the midst of it, and the boss didn't seem to be capable of targeting anyone other than whoever currently had aggro—at least with its current ability set, but that could actually change. So, yeah, for the time being, they were in something of a holding pattern. Ice was supposed to be up next, but Jimmy had yet to give the order.

Even if I do give the order, they're not gonna follow it without Donovan and Zephyr giving the okay.

Jimmy became frustrated. He couldn't believe they wanted to quit. They were all acting like bitches. He couldn't let them quit. Not when Jimmy was sure he could deal with this boss—and teach them some important raiding fundamentals in the process.

"I'm gonna be real with you all," he said over the Comm. "Three quarters of even the hardest raids can be survived just by following rule number 1: don't stand in the fire. Now, I'll admit, after FF14 came out, they made that a lot harder to do. In older simulations, all you had to do not to die was literally just not be one-hundred percent retarded, and even that was something a lot of blockheads couldn't—"

"J-Jimmy!" Kalana, Lienne, Trelvor, Seiley, and about fifty other people hissed at him as though enraged.

"Please, let me finish," Jimmy said. "Before you start denying what I'm—"

"That's not what they're upset about," Lord Oren said, his tone also containing a fair bit of anger. "It's that awful word you just used."

"Wait, even here that's still offensive?"

This question only made things worse. "So it was offensive back on Earth, too, and you still said it anyway!" Kalana yelled. "That's not okay, Jimmy! That's bad!"

"Okay, okay, let's not go too far," Zach chimed in. "He obviously made a mistake."

Jimmy rubbed his eyes, unable to believe he had to deal with this right now. "Guys, look, it was my bad, okay? I'll never use the R-word again, all right? It's a gamer—uh, a simulation-word. I screwed up."

"R-word?" both Zach and Kalana asked at once. "Huh?"

Jimmy's mouth fell open in surprise and confusion. "Wait, what word is it that you guys are all mad about?"

Kalana pointed at him. "You used the B-word! That's a racist slur against Orcs!"

"Blockhead?" Jimmy asked, flabbergasted.

This caused almost all hundred of them to groan and shout and protest in equal measure. Even Ophelia, who had just sustained a flaming sword followed by a fiery hoof stomp, grunted more over the word than the pain from the shock of having to absorb both attacks.

"Don't say it a second time!" Kalana yelled as though it physically hurt her. "Bad!"

"I can't believe how much Jimmy hates the Orcs," Rian added, waggling his finger. "From where in his heart does Jimmy have all this hate? Let go of your hatred, Jimmy. We must end hate."

"Rian, shut up," Lienne growled at him. "And stop playing dumb. You know what you're doing."

"I'm not doing shit, Li. I'm taking a stand against Jimmy's evil, racist hate. We must all work together to stop Jimmy's hate."

She rolled her eyes. "Rian, quit it."

Jimmy sighed. And then he frowned as it really occurred to him that people were calling him a racist. The fuck kind of backwards world was this?