Chapter 94: The Price on His Head

It took only seconds.

The Colossus crushed the frontline. The Wraithlord’s charge tore through what remained.

Lyra picked off targets one arrow at a time, and Thunder Roc wiped out whole groups under chains of golden lightning, each strike leaving a ring of scorched earth and empty armor.

The wasteland rang with the crack of thunder and the dull crunch of steel folding like paper.

Two thousand players had come to bury one man. Now they were the ones being buried.

Cries for help filled the air. Players begged their officers for orders. Others ran and found their escape routes already cut off. A few screamed for their mothers as the next attack came down.

Ironclad was coming apart.

Across Ascension’s streaming platforms, the chat boxes exploded.

>"WHAT THE HELL?!"

> "He actually took on two thousand players!"

> "Is Unrivaled even human?!"

> "Those companions are basically four raid bosses!"

> "Did you see what Thunder Roc just did? An entire section, gone!"

>"Where do I get a companion like that? Asking for a friend."

> "He’s cheating. Those stats can’t be legitimate!"

> "The system announced his achievements. You think the system helps people cheat?"

> "Send ten thousand and they’d all die the same way!"

>I don’t understand any of this, but I’m deeply moved.

Minutes earlier, this same crowd had argued over whether Kael had finally overestimated himself. Now nobody asked if he was strong. They only wondered how far above everyone else he had climbed.

In the Scarred Waste, Damian Sterling stood among his officers and watched his guild fall apart.

The neat formations were breaking. Players died faster than the healers could answer, and every team that tried to regroup was hit before it could finish forming up.

Somewhere to his left, a healer sat down in the dirt and simply stopped casting. Sterling’s knuckles had gone white around his weapon. The color drained from his face.

He had been sure two thousand would be enough. Even with superior attributes and gear, there had to be a limit to what one man could do against an entire guild.

But Kael barely needed to fight. His companions did it all, and Sterling had no answer for any of them.

"We can’t keep this up!" an officer snapped, jaw clenched. "At this rate the whole guild is gone!"

Another turned toward the distant figure circling high above on Thunder Roc’s back.

"Then we stop fighting the companions and kill their master."

Heads turned.

"He’s a Beastlord," the man pressed. "Everything he has comes from them. If Kael dies, this ends."

Nobody argued. It was a desperate gamble, but their ranks were collapsing and nothing else was left.

The officers traded a look and split away from Sterling. They threaded through the chaos, using panicking guildmates as cover, eyes fixed on the circling eagle. They wouldn’t get many chances.

Thunder Roc folded its wings and began another dive.

They moved.

Two Mages raised their staffs together and flung control spells at the descending bird, magic converging around its wings in a shimmer of distortion.

Three Archers drew in perfect unison and loosed heavy arrows charged with stunning force, each from a different angle, leaving the eagle almost no room to dodge.

The first spell caught a wing. The second hit before it could recover. The three arrows slammed into its body, and their combined weight broke its grip on the air.

The golden lightning flickered. Its wings seized mid-beat.For the first time since the battle began, Thunder Roc lost the sky.

Its huge body pitched forward, feathers beating helplessly against nothing. Kael’s grip tightened. Beneath him, the eagle screamed, not in pain but in fury.

Wind roared past his ears as the ground rushed up, a sea of upturned faces and raised weapons.

It crashed into the packed formation like a collapsing tower. The impact rattled Kael’s teeth. The ground shook, dust rolled outward in a choking wave, and the battlefield vanished behind it.

On the streams, the chat froze for one heartbeat. Then it screamed.

> "THUNDER ROC IS DOWN?!"

> "KAEL!"

> "Somebody tell me he’s still alive!"

Silence held over the wasteland a moment longer. Then a roar went up from Ironclad.

They had done it. They had pulled one of Kael’s companions out of the air, and for the first time that day, they had drawn blood.

Sterling stared at the fallen eagle. The fear he had been choking on burst into wild, desperate excitement, and his face twisted into a grin.

"Now! Charge him!"

He thrust his arm toward the crash site.

"Everyone, focus fire! He’s on the ground! Don’t give him time to recover!"

His gaze swept the ranks, and he raised his voice higher still.

"A hundred thousand dollars to whoever kills Unrivaled!"The bounty tore through the guild like fire through dry grass.

Players who had been retreating stopped dead. Archers swung toward the crash site. Mages gathered energy in their staffs.

Even the wounded dragged themselves upright, eyes bright with sudden greed.

A hundred thousand dollars was more than most of them earned in a year. For that, a man could forget his fear.

Thousands surged toward the dust cloud, shoving past one another, trampling their own fallen.

A Warrior knocked a teammate aside to get ahead. Two Archers abandoned their posts and sprinted, bows still half-drawn.

On the streams, the chat shifted in an instant.

>"A hundred thousand?! Is he serious?"

> "That’s a real-money bounty. They’ll swarm him. Somebody do something!

Out on the field, the Colossus turned its massive head toward the crash and took a heavy step, the ground trembling beneath it.

Lyra drew an arrow and found her line of sight swallowed by a wall of bodies.

The Wraithlord wheeled around, undead knights falling in behind it, but the horde was closer and the dust was thick.

Every second they spent cutting through the crowd was a second the crowd spent closing in.

Inside the cloud, a single shape stirred, slow and unhurried.

Sterling’s pulse hammered. Thousands of bodies, one target. No Beastlord could survive that. Not even this one.

Kael Mercer was within reach.And Sterling meant to make sure they didn’t waste it.