Terra—Temple of Valor
One week before the battle of Terra
It had been several days since players began reappearing at the Temple of Valor.
Since Cronos I was a war zone, players partaking in the battle were forced to respawn in the temple, rather than back on the planet, so that the battle wouldn't simply continue forever.
Unfortunately, the temple had been destroyed during Azerof's initial attack against Terra, and the game hadn't assigned a new respawn zone.
Millions of players had already reappeared at the Valor Temple from the battle by this point. However, this huge multitude was nothing compared to what happened next.
A beam of brilliant white light illuminated the night sky of Terra, spearing into the heavens, as the six million victims of Apophis's ultimate attack all respawned at once!
Confusion reigned among most of the players who had just respawned. From their perspectives, they had simply seen a brilliant white flash, then reappeared here.
The local chat was suddenly filled with bewildered complaints.
"Dafuq?"
"What am I doing here?"
"Whhhhaaat!!!?"
"What the hell? I was in the middle of a fight… I died for no reason!"
"Did the game crash?"
"Horus! GIVE ME BACK MY LEVEL RIGHT NOW!"
"#BugFixPls"
But for the players from Lord Of War, Hyrule and Renovatio Imperii, the situation was quite clear. They knew exactly what had happened, though they had a hard time accepting it.
How could one attack from one player do so much damage?
The SuperGuild elite squads were made up of all veteran players who had made their professional debuts in World of Warcraft II. Considering that it had been developed by ABC Games, just like Horus, these elite players had been led to assume certain things about how Horus worked.
In WoW II, incredible care was taken to ensure a delicate balance between different player classes and customization options. It had been a fantastic sandbox world where anyone with enough skill could win on a level playing field.
It was quickly becoming obvious that Horus was nothing like that.
How was it fair that even the best player in the world could win against three players who were the same level as him?!
But that was apparently possible in Horus! There was absolutely no game balance. A player with enough Energy could crush another player of the same level who had less Energy and less rare loot. Apophis had just proved that he was luckier than all of them, that was all!
Apophis's black sun attack, which had wiped out a whole continent, had also buried trauma deep within all the direct victims of his attack.
Their humiliation was absolute. Before this moment, they had been living gods, stars in both the real and virtual world, but were now only pawns on a board where Apophis made all the rules.
Ceasar was among those who had respawned in the ruins, and his mind was reeling. He'd trained relentlessly for six months to be able to beat Apophis, not to mention taking the best Warrior Skills that his guild had looted, only to be crushed in a single attack.
It was almost too hard for him to bear.
Ceasar left the ruins of the Temple of Valor, ignoring all the players who were arguing and panicking around him, and wandered the abandoned streets of Terra for a while.
Eventually, he found a little, isolated grocery store and sat down on a crate to think about his life.
Back in WoW II, Ceasar had risen to power as one of the 7 Gods. In those days, years ago, he'd even been considered the best player for a long time.
This utter defeat was brutal.
But as he was thinking about all this, he received a notification that a topic on the game forum had gained sudden popularity. He pulled it up to observe it.
The post shared a live video feed from a Spartan guild member who was filming the fight between Lucifer and Apophis.
Ceasar stared at the fight in disbelief. Even besides Apophis, it was clear that the gap between Ceasar and Lucifer was wider than it had ever been.
How could anyone else ever match the level of power these two players were showing off? It was truly impossible.
Ceasar got up and left the grocery store. He saw two players, a Hunter and an Engineer, who had probably also just respawned after dying on Cronos I.
He stood in front of them and pointed his hammer at the Hunter. "You two! Attack me!"
The two players glanced at each other. They both knew this was a terrible idea. One of them said, "Okay, let me just set up a duel—"
Ceasar used his Skill ~Blast~!
A powerful shock wave came out of his hammer and struck the Hunter in the chest, propelling him ten meters backwards!
~Blast~ was a utility Skill used to take aggro or push players away, so it dealt no damage to the Hunter. However, that player got up off the ground with wide eyes, bewildered as to why Ceasar had attacked him like that.
"Either you attack me," Ceasar growled, "Or I spam kill you back to LvL 1."
Though they had no idea what was going on, the players realized they had no choice but to attack outside of a duel… meaning they would lose a level and an item if they lost.
When they lost.
The Hunter summoned his combat pet, a mutant lizard dripping with green matter. The Engineer activated a mechanical combat suit with a machine gun integrated into his arm.
Then both players rushed him.
The dripping lizard violently snapped at Ceasar, who promptly slammed the pet's head into the stone ground with a single blow.
The Hunter and Engineer, meanwhile, desperately fired their guns, pelting Ceasar with bullets.
The power difference between them was far too great for their attacks to matter. Ceasar glared at them in contempt as his HP slowly drained…
…Down to 95% of its maximum.
His bare skin became red where the bullets hit, as though he had been burned or slapped hard, but not a single one pierced into his flesh.
The lizard had survived Ceasar's attack, though it was completely stunned. Ceasar ignored it and used his ~Light Push~ Skill against the helpless Hunter, exploding his head like a watermelon. The pet despawned once its master died.
Despite the ineffectiveness of his machine gun arm, the Engineer used his unique Epic Skill, ~Ten Tactical~. Many guided missiles emerged from his armor's pauldrons and spiraled at high speed towards Ceasar!
However, he simply activated his ~Void~ Skill, which allowed him to teleport to any location within three hundred meters.
The ten missiles hit the ground where Ceasar had been standing, creating a huge explosion that shook the street!
Then the Engineer turned around just quickly enough to see the head of Ceasar's hammer swinging towards his face.
His helmet exploded upon impact, tearing off part of the poor Engineer's head. A few seconds later, a white beam of light disintegrated his body, killing him.
Ceasar smiled, satisfied that his fight was successful…
But then he noticed something that made him furious.
The Hunter had used a few DPS Skills just before dying, and the blast radius of the Engineer's missiles had just touched Ceasar before he could fully teleport away. All in all, Ceasar had lost 17% of his maximum HP to two pathetic, random players.
This was unacceptable.
Ceasar realized that, somewhere along the way to this point in his life, he'd lost the edge he'd once had.
His stats were simply too "normal." That is, he was too close to the level of everyone else, while Apophis and Lucifer had transcended this level long ago.
Sure, Ceasar had taken the "Exiled Human" evolution, which gave him much better stats than many other players, and his level of 30 was significantly greater than most other players.
But this came nowhere near close to the players he had only yesterday considered his rivals. They clearly possessed some vital secret which Ceasar did not.
It was hard to accept that he was now a second-class player at best, but this filled Ceasar with determination to go even further.
No matter what.
He joined his personal squad, which had died with him on Cronos I. They had all regrouped and were loyally waiting for him near the huge ruins of the Temple of Valor.
He saw Tibere, a Sniper who was a senior officer in Renovatio Imperii.
"What are our losses?" asked Ceasar.
Tibere said, "According to what we've learned, we've lost more than 30,000 players, including the entire elite squadron and all the Renovatio Imperii forces on the northern continent."
Ceasar could hardly believe his ears. "The entire continent?"
Tibere nodded. "Yes. The power of Apophis's attack was even more impressive than expected. He killed every player on the northern continent. I have my doubts as to the full truth of that claim, but apparently Hyrule and Lord Of War are reporting the same."
Ceasar pondered this for a moment. "Somehow, he got a Runic Skill. That's the only explanation.
Tibere replied, "How's that possible? Even Legendary Skills are already extremely difficult to get. We're run hundreds of dungeons in the last six months, and you're the only one who has one."
Ceasar ignored the talk of rarity and chances. Even a one in a billion chance was still a possibility. "Did you contact Augustus?" he asked.
Tibere replied, "No. The Guild Leader isn't answering any messages. The game simply says that Augustus is unreachable every time."
Ceasar said, "The communication relays were probably damaged during the attack..."
Tibere frowned. "Attack? What attack?"
Ceasar gestured impatiently at their destroyed surroundings.
"Look around you! The city's in ruins. The war has clearly spread here as well."
Tibere looked even more confused. "How could the Orc Empire launch an attack so far into the Federation?!"
Ceasar said, "I don't know. But we don't need to worry about that right now. First, we must find a safe place for us and our players."
But no sooner had he said that than the fighting started.
Imperial soldiers appeared and began relentlessly firing upon the players near the temple! Meanwhile, even more gunshots could be heard in the distance.
Ceasar shouted, "Retreat! Get out, or you'll be spam killed!"
The Renovatio Imperii players took off running after him, while the squad of "Eternal Hunters" pelted the crowd of panicked players with merciless machine gun fire.
Finally, Ceasar's players found a kind of subway station underground, where they took shelter.
As the bombardment continued on the surface, the Renovatio Imperii players prepared to fight against the Imperial forces trying to destroy all Eternals.
