Devil's Waltz Read online

  Health: 13,500

  Mana: 7,570

  Stamina: 18,900

  Buffs: Shadowstep (Very-high Evasion bonus)

  Bird-man was going to be squished if he didn’t back the fuck down. He wouldn’t last against a single volley from the Drakes alone.

  “Well?! No answer?!” Not Insane cackled. “Pathetic! Step aside, fools! This kid and I have business. The pecking order needs to be settled!”

  Pecking order? Confused air wafted up Rowan’s throat and condensed on the inside of his shield. He wiped it away with a sweeping thought, then asked himself why Not Insane was so… weirdly hostile. Did he really want a dick measuring contest? It could be arranged with few complications. This clearing was an appropriate space for a fight, and one of Gabrielle’s Shield Generators could be used as a barrier. But there was no time to waste—a volley from the Drakes and Pigeons would have to do. “Step aside, everyone. Last chance to back down, Not Insane.”

  Not Insane laughed. Another needle splashed.

  The twins grinned as they backed away into the mist with simultaneous static blinks, and the girls’ guffaws chimed from behind.

  The chatbox beeped.

  Ambiguous Pain: Do you think he noticed the fliers circling over his head?

  Gabby LeMort: NOPE!

  Oh, no wonder. Rowan lowered his wand and said with a lifted chin, “I’d reconsider if I were you.”

  Not Insane scowled. Scars wrinkled hideously beneath a mop of messy brown-black hair. “What is this? The great dark-ice class is scared!” His right hand slashed with more ferocity. Another needle splashed.

  Gabby LeMort: Heh.

  The electric guitar thundered in climax with three grand chords. The over-the-top music suited the insane man.

  “Ahahaha! The kid is scared! No wonder you’ve been pussy-whipped by that bitch!”

  Rowan didn’t let the taunt effect him no matter how much truth it squeezed into his balls. He wasn’t pussy-whipped! And only he was to talk to Gabrielle like that. “So be it,” he spat, and before he pulled his minions’ leashes, a dialog dinged into view next to Not Insane’s sneer.

  Not Insane has challenged you to a duel. Do you accept?

  Bass and drums weaved into the descending guitar chords, building tempo in a sudden change of mood.

  Rowan accepted the duel.

  Chapter 12

  Queen

  Rowan sneered at the puny man with puny daggers, pinned his status bars to the game interface, then called forth a barrage of frost bolts from—

  From Not Insane’s chest, a jet of boiling dark mana struck Rowan through the ribs, piercing his heart. He stumbled backward, but almost no pain bit his nerves, no damage inflicting his character. An empty feeling hollowed out his chest and filled him with mild despair. The undiluted dark mana was effecting even him. Why did this attack bypass my Mana Shield? His heart stuttered in a spike of agony. He stumbled forward, his empty toes chaffing against the steel tips of his boots. He reached to his chest. His numb fingers passed through the liquid-like mana without a single point of damage taken.

  Then a dome of bubbling dark mana began encroaching around Rowan and Not Insane. The faces of his party members, his newfound allies, his few friends, at the left fizzled out of existence. What kind of duel was this? He hadn’t encountered such an elaborate dueling system before. Was this even a dueling system? Answering his unspoken questions, the connection to every minion disappeared one by one, and the music cut.

  And his beautiful Gabrielle shouted through the few gaps in the darkness, “Ya dummy! Why did ya accept?!”

  Oh. A trap.

  “Too late now, you crazy bitch!” Not Insane bellowed.

  Mana-laced adrenaline surged. Rowan’s palm squeezed his wand’s handle. He released a Tainted Ice Blast, but it splashed. Ice disintegrated into mist as the tether flared in recoil against the dark-ice magic.

  You have dealt 0 damage to your target.

  No. He couldn’t be that tanky.

  Gabrielle shouted something. Her voice was but muffles as the dome fully erected. With a pulsating gyration, it collapsed, a shrinking black hole, onto the two darkies. The tether erupted with dark power and engulfed both in a vortex that merged with the dome and drilled an expanding hole into the ground.

  Rowan recognized the spiral pattern at once.A portal of dark mana gobbled him up, leading to a spawnpoint wherever Not Insane wanted, and there wasn’t a thing Rowan could do. The top was sealed, so down they tumbled, spinning and spinning at the ends of the tether, unable to damage each other no matter how many blasts Rowan threw. They were invulnerable.

  He thought out a message to the party, and a reply beeped into the bottom.

  Message delivery failed.

  Shit!

  “What have you done?!” Rowan shouted through raging wind.

  “Ahahahahah! You can’t be serious, kid! You think I’m going to explain my skills like a dumbass?” Not Insane presented his middle finger and continued on cackling.

  Rowan couldn’t discern if he was playing it up or genuinely that eccentric. It was looking more and more like the latter.

  But he made a crucial slip-up. He’d said this was one of his skills—likely an ultimate skill. Logic told Rowan that it also had a deception element, like Zaine’s Deception, and masked the true nature of this skill as an innocent duel request. Except… there was no dueling system in Aeon Chronicles Online! It was an open-world game with open-world PvP. No one mentioned dueling in the forum’s PvP section.

  New hate seethed in Rowan, for this stunt might cost him and Gabrielle everything. “Damn you bird-man!”

  Not Insane didn’t look his way, his face barely lit in the portal’s luminance. Shades of black and gray, the innards of an undulating tornado heaved left and right in the oily magic of pure darkness not infused with any other element. It was clear what kind of psyche this man had. His cackles descended into high-pitched giggles that animated his lean body with shaky instability. Lightning flashed from the portal’s end, illuminating those gnarled, twisted scars for an instant. Red and bulging, the unfocused eyes of true insanity stared over Rowan’s shoulder. A tremble ran down his side.

  Lightning flashed again through the rumbling clouds as the portal spat out the tied duo, Rowan reacting first with a Rime Blink to the right. Not Insane did not pursue for whatever demented reason. Fine—it allowed for valuable plenty of time to assess the surroundings while the tether thinned by the second. Somehow Rowan knew the invulnerability would wear off once it vanished, logical as well.

  They stood on a hill of a wasteland island roughly two or three miles in diameter floating in a sea of nothingness. Dead trees and scabrous rock formations dotted the barren dusty ground along with stone ruins of some sort. A dried, cracked riverbed zigzagged from one end to the other, a muddy lake at the center. At the bottom of a cliff by an inlet formation, eddies of dark mana swirled in the pitch void. Rowan knew falling off was instant death. This was a pocket dimension meant for dueling; and there was no ambient dark mana in the air fit for summoning his icy Undead. Shit.

  Not Insane finally looked at him with a hint of lucidity, smiling. “It’s just you… and me. No stinkin’ Undead!”

  A giant ribcage laid half-sunken three or four hundred meters behind Not Insane caught Rowan’s eye. Mere seconds of mana remained on the tether. He had to make his move now! He blinked straight for the dinosaur skeleton.

  Reeling, Not Insane’s bloodshot eyes momentarily widened in surprise. “Don’t you dare, kid!” He cried two words in the dark language. A massive raven of oily dark mana burst into the air. It soared in front of Rowan, ebony turbulence whirling around it.

  Rowan held his breath and kept on running and blinking, limbs and magic pushed to the limit. That skeleton was all that mattered.

  The tether broke with an echoing crack. A whiplash sailed up his neck, mana feedback. It dealt no damage; Dracos were immune.

  Not Insane’s shouts were but a whis
per at this distance. “I don’t want to fucking see any bone Frankensteins.” Another raven soared overhead. They both vomited those needle-like Death Bolts. Weak.

  But bone Frankensteins? He knows I can craft Undead?

  “This is a one on one, you coward.”

  There was no time to retort, only time to sidestep the rain of death and gun for the bony promised land. Each needle splashed with little damage dealt but added up to thousands per second when Rowan lost balance on uneven dirt and tanked the rain full-on. He coughed dust, hauling his ass back up, watching Rime Blink’s two-second cooldown timer hit zero at the bottom of his eyes. Seconds felt like minutes in these win-or-lose situations.

  “Pathetic!” A third raven took to the skies.

  Rowan smirked and tossed two pathetic bone marshmallows in Not Insane’s direction.

  Firing needles of his own, Not Insane howled with laughter. “Little bone pellets! Are you kidding me!”

  What an arrogant fool. With his own mana pool as a source, Rowan chanted a quick Construct Minion, the Ice Gargoyle design selected. Frigid magic raced down his right-arm artery into his wand. The marshmallows detonated with blackish ice. Mist flooded the barrens. His mana bar, along with his shield, drained to 10%. Gargoyles sprang forth, wings and claws flailing.

  Not Insane cursed in the dark language, then spun a half-turn, a practiced kata-style parry and sidestep. Elongated claws clashed against mana-imbued blades. The dark-side Dexterity class was a sight to behold.

  Rowan turned and continued blinking—no time to watch or micro.

  The ravens chased and brought his shield down to 7%, screeching loud enough that pain gnawed his eardrums. Bloody birds.

  Rowan took a chance and fed mana into his wand, pointing. He stood his ground and took aim. Needle rain brought his shield down to 3% as a series of Tainted Ice Blasts detonated in the air. All three ravens dispersed, oil vaporizing into smoky wisps.

  Wow. Too easy. They looked beefier than that.

  Rowan flung more blasts over his shoulder between blinks. A delicious, pained scream croaked from behind. Not Insane’s health bar was down to half, but one Gargoyle’s mind-link vanished, and the other was heavily injured, seconds away from dispersing, their ice bodies too squishy.

  Not Insane bellowed something in dark language. A skill.

  Rowan consumed the minion, his wand flicked. No incantation. His mana bar blipped back up to 21% from 6% and regenerated at an impressive rate. Hmmm. Consume Minion is actually pretty good! Flinging ice blasts, he stabbed his free fingers into his pouch and retrieved the flask Gabrielle had gifted hours earlier. A tangy blueberry syrup coated his tongue. Delicious. 44% mana already.

  Not Insane was howling choice words from behind. Rowan could feel his dark magic broil in the air.

  Too late. The giant skeleton, over ten meters high and forty long, was already in range for crafting, and Not Insane was so, so furious. Good. A fool he was for bringing a Necromancer to a place with a skeleton sticking out of the ground. Though it could be that his dueling skill had no control over the destination. Or this was the only destination. Either way, he was an idiot.

  Rowan’s heart pounded a steady beat against his trusty amulet. He smiled brightly for the asshole, impeded him with a few quick blasts, switched to a bone-based design, and shattered the unraisable skeleton into jagged chunks with a well-placed wide-area blast. Two more smashed the chunks into thumb-sized shards. It’d be a weaker body, but the shards could be used as jigsaw pieces, and the mana cost for a bone design was negligible.

  “This ends now.” Necromantic power layered Rowan’s voice.

  The two-word invocation for Construct Minion was uttered. Time seemed to slow. The frozen shards vibrated. Strengthening magic saturated and reinforced the calcium. In a maelstrom of bone and ice, a blur of white and blue, a Bone Drake pieced together wing to wing, head to tail, a lot of shards left over. An avalanche of billowed across the barrens, down the dry river into the lake.

  “A dragon?! What the fuck!” Not Insane’s sprint doubled in speed between blinks. He nearly slipped on the tainted ice.

  Still too late. It was already over.

  Lightning flashed in the far distance. Booms followed a second later as the Drake roared in completion. Mist spewed from its parted jaws and ribcage; it took flight with grace Rowan didn’t know a body of bone and ice could take off with. Beautiful just like his Gabrielle. Or maybe it was the moment of things, for Not Insane was in for a lot of sub-zero joy.

  Bird-man and his flimsy ravens weren’t even close when the Bone Drake hurled a wide spray of high-power Tainted Frost Bolts. The ravens disintegrated in an instant, and many bolts clipped his leg and side. He switched to a defensive stance, blinked madly in twists of dark mana, and didn’t get a single chance to pull another raven from his sleeve. It seemed that he was also limited in the number of skills available in his arsenal. Only Gabrielle sported a library of hundreds.

  Rowan joined in on the fun with an unending chain of ice blasts. No concentration bogged down his mind; such was the advantage of a ranged DPS class. No skill rotation had to be memorized either, for he only had only one skill to play with. He merely sipped a teaspoon from his flask after every five blasts. Gabrielle’s Draughts restored in percentages, not absolute values, which made her concoctions far more potent and valuable than regular potions. Wisely, she hadn’t sold any to the ruddy light-side players.

  The asshole danced on his toes and twisted away whenever his version of Blink came off cooldown. Twice, he tried to close the gap on Rowan, but the combined assault of bolts and blasts was more than enough to keep him at bay. That health bar was only down to 37%, impressively. And really, he was quite skilled with that evasion class, but he was tiring. His moves grew sluggish, slow enough for Rowan’s less-dexterous eyes to see without a blur.

  Those stamina and mana bars were dangerously low. Not Insane had not a chance to drink from a potion. He stupidly spent every free moment on either trying to close the gap… or duel the dragon when he couldn’t fly! Though the Drake had no Mana Shield due to its tiny mana reserves, the bone body allowed it half a million health points with high armor and resistances, and it would’ve been higher if it weren’t made of jigsaw bone. Those needle bolts dealt the Drake less than slivers of damage. The best Not Insane managed was a chain lasso around its neck that broke after three seconds.

  It was apparent why the other darkies treated Not Insane with disdain and comedy. He was both weak and incompetent, and above all he over-indulged in his own eccentricity. If he’d taken the duel seriously from the get-go, he might’ve had a real chance of victory against a level 146 tier six boss… who had poor gear and few skills…

  Yet Not Insane was a level 216 dark class player.

  What a farce.

  Rowan almost felt pity and even considered calling off the Drake for a fairer fight. Maybe he should. It’d be good one-on-one practice.

  “Ahhhhhhhhh!” Bird-man slid across the icy ground, coughing blood and bleeding from a forest of wounds. The crimson trail he smeared was pure art.

  His set of leather armor was torn and ruined in many places; it’d be reduced to indestructible broken gear that would need repairing if it was legendary rarity or higher. But it didn’t look like it was, judging from the aesthetics and his stats. Mythical at best. It’d be destroyed.

  Boredom nested in Rowan’s gut. He sighed, mana pooling into his feet—an interesting sensation. He called off the Bone Drake with a wave. It obeyed in an instant, shut its jaws with a snap, and remained bobbing up and down in the air, wings flapping.

  Rowan approached with a lazy blink. “Concede. It’s over. I have better things to do.” This really hadn’t been much of a duel.

  Bird-man rose to his palms and knees. He grinned at Rowan with broken, bloody teeth, a crooked nose, and a ruined eye. Truly pathetic. He coughed, then slowly garbled a chain of words in the dark language.

  Darkness encroached from all directions,
zero damage dealt. Rowan rolled his eyes, for he’d seen this kind of power countless times in other games. This was a standard assassin skill, and he knew all its standard counter-moves. Within two heartbeats, the inky magic robbed him of sound and sight. Smell too. But he could still feel. His boots scrunched against frozen dirt, and chilly wind blew against his neck.

  I’ll humor him. Rowan stayed unmoving, hands behind his back, and only reinforced his Mana Shield. What could an injured assassin expended of stamina do? Nothing.

  Finally, his mana bar dipped by a third. Then a tenth. And a few more percentage points as the darkness receded.

  A web of cracks marred the glassy sphere dark-ice shield. Not Insane was collapsed onto Rowan’s shield, and a decaying, frostbit palm pressed against the ice while the other hand held onto a dagger discharging grayish-onyx flames. The curved tip pierced by an inch. Ice crumbled into black dust, corrupted, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Not Insane crumpled onto the ground as the last of his stamina and mana bars depleted. His flaming dagger winked out, his health bar a tiny sliver. Even at death’s door, he was laughing with glee: “Eh he ha ha he he ah ha ha.”