Chapter 56: I Am — Ba·Manoloth·Kon

xX_ShadowBlade_Xx and Sylvana, hauling the undead-warrior kobold and Arthur's corpse, quickly made it back to the stronghold the players had carved out in the Spider Nest.

Inside the stronghold, a dozen-odd players were munching on in-game spider-meat dishes while resting up and chatting.

At the sight of the two of them rushing in all frantic — especially Arthur with an arrow in his face — the whole crowd burst out laughing.

"Quit your laughing! That kobold mob died and got RIGHT back up, and then skeletons started spawning all around it — some skeleton thing nobody's ever seen. Gotta be a boss. Call for backup, NOW — I'm heading to the forums to post!"

The surrounding players' howling laughter had flushed Sylvana red in the face. She blurted all that out in one breath, then flopped flat on the ground — clearly logging off to go make that forum post.

The moment everyone heard there was a new never-before-seen monster, they scrambled up clamoring to go see, and xX_ShadowBlade_Xx led the players toward the cave where they'd spotted all the skeleton mobs.

That cave was already packed wall-to-wall with skeletons — and more kept trickling in, the count climbing.

The Spider Nest had always been full of old bones of every description, piled up over long years — and this past month, the players themselves had contributed a fair heap. All of it Professor Bacon had now pressed into service as an undead army, stationed in this very cave.

One look at this formation and — yeah, nobody had ever seen this before. That forest of white bones looked flat-out scary, and this was one-hundred-percent-real rendering. They were used to subterranean spiders by now, but suddenly seeing this many bones massed together, green light burning in every socket, with only a dozen-odd of them? Hearts were doing little flips.

Nervous, sure — but nobody wanted to run. The game had finally cooked up something this weird; one look and you KNEW there was something behind it. Maybe a hidden story arc. A hidden quest.

Creepy, absolutely — but hey, they had a dozen-plus buddies along for the ride. Besides, it's a game. Scared of what?!

A few skeleton soldiers on the outermost ring seemed to notice the players. Jaws stretching wide, bones clacking and crackling against bones, they came charging.

"Damn! Scared the life outta me!"

"So this really IS a horror MMO, huh?"

"Move it, move it — somebody get up there and tank!"

The players had never traded blows with skeleton soldiers; on the spot they dissolved into a squabbling mob — one guy even toppled straight over onto his back, apparently so scared he just logged off on the spot.

The skeleton soldiers that came over totaled five, and they weren't even really armed — wielding their own ribs, or rocks off the ground, as weapons as they charged. One was a dire wolf skeleton, sharp fangs still locked in its jaws; those beast-type skeletons were actually a bit more threatening than the humanoid ones.

But the players were, after all, fully kitted — armor, shields, weapons. Even while shrieking their heads off at the skeletons' look, they had a dozen-odd bodies for courage versus five skeleton soldiers on the other side.

The players surged forward as one and went straight to chop-town on the skeleton soldiers.

The commotion soon drew the other skeletons' attention, and more and more of them came hobbling over.

One look at how this was trending, and the players called it, fleeing together.

Meanwhile, on the forums, a thread by CBT1 tester 【Sylvana】 — 【Undead Monsters Have Appeared in the Spider Nest! CBT1 Testers Get In Here NOW!】 — was blowing up in real time.

The chain reaction: every player still grinding coins and doing chores in the Eternal Kingdom mobilized en masse once again — except the ones offline, and one life-skills player rooted in the flowerbed.

This page carries an unauthorized copy of the chapter, taken from where the author publishes and where readers support them.

The players marched out in one grand wave, leaving exactly four "NPCs" behind in the dungeon.

Moros the newbie trainer finally had a window to wander over to the smithy for a visit and a chat — after all, the only reasonably sane brains in the whole dungeon were his, blacksmith Goldmane's, and newly-arrived carpenter Ironmane's.

Hell, even that good-for-nothing little pixie — the one who spent all day lying in her bed spitting at the players who came by to harass her — was more normal than those goblins.

Two dark iron dwarves and one gnome, squeezing a break out of their busy schedules, sat in the smithy — a cup of bloodfern nectar and a serving of spider-leg mousse dirt cake apiece — gazing off in the direction the goblins had so dramatically stormed off in. Everyone breathed one relaxed sigh:

Just another peaceful day in the Eternal Kingdom.

Carnage! Endless carnage!

Nearly every player was boxed in by one or two skeleton soldiers, with more and more of them pouring out all around.

By the time the quest-grinding, coin-farming players from the Eternal Kingdom reached the Spider Nest, the dozen-odd players at the Nest stronghold had already been flushed out by the skeletons — and every other player elsewhere in the Nest had been driven out too.

What followed was a brutal, sprawling war between the players' huddled ranks and the skeleton army!

The players fought bravely — and were quickly routed.

Not that they couldn't win. Numerous as the skeleton soldiers were, most had no armor or weapons — even when they reached the players, the best they could do was pound fist-bones on chests. And the fanged beast skeletons weren't even closing in; they were spectating from the edge.

The real reason the players folded: they just didn't feel like fighting.

Think about it — fighting these skeletons meant taking on real risk. Get swarmed by that many of them and you couldn't even run. A full set of gear, wasted just like that.

And above all, intel was zero — grinding mobs out here blind meant no rep, no money, no loot per kill. Now, if each kill paid out rep and dropped coins? Players would happily farm skeleton mobs here every single day!

The players disengaged fast, turned tail and ran — and the skeletons couldn't keep pace anyway.

The skeleton soldiers didn't give chase either; once the players had all bolted, they just drifted around the Spider Nest's entrance on patrol.

The players regrouped and did a headcount: aside from a few guys bruised black and blue by skeleton tiny-fist poundings, zero casualties.

"So what's the situation here?"

"Is it bugged?"

"New map dropping?"

"Did somebody trigger a story event?"

The players buzzed with theories — and until the situation was clear, nobody was itching for another round with the bone boys.

Right then, a chill wind blew out of the cave — whoooo, whoooo, like someone blowing a whistle — and black mana began condensing from every direction toward the Spider Nest's entrance.

Where would players have EVER seen effects like these? Eyes went wide at the bizarre spectacle blooming before them.

"Damn, these VFX are straight-up badass!"

"Hollywood-blockbuster-tier VFX. The devs are badass."

"Somebody definitely triggered a story arc, right? Sylvana, did you guys find something good?"

"Can you ALL shut up and let me watch the cutscene?"

The players chattered nonstop as the black mana drew together into the shape of a cloaked man, black mist steaming off his whole body. The cloak wrapped him head to toe, and his face was impossible to make out — all you could see were two green lights, like will-o'-the-wisps, glowing out from inside the black hood.

"Lowly, insignificant mortals — you DARE to challenge a demon of the Abyss!"

The voice sounded exactly like a demon of the Abyss should: deep, muffled, rasping — like something shouting from inside a sealed box.

With the cloaked figure making his entrance in an atmosphere that screamed "I AM A BOSS" from every direction, the players once again erupted into ear-splitting chatter:

"Damn—!!! Is this the first boss with actual LINES?! It's going THIS edgy?!"

"Big deal, big deal — after toppling the terrifying Kramo, looks like I get to save the world again."

"LMAO, you dummies — I TOLD you you'd stumbled onto something that'd trigger story."

"The boss-entrance VFX are too good. Only shame is the surrounding scenery didn't get the same polish."

"A whole army of skeleton soldiers — is that the undead Scourge?"

"How do we fight it? HOW? What's the strat on this boss?"

"Strip your gear first. Send in a sacrifice wave, scout the abilities, then decide."

"I'm about to log off, guys — don't rush the boss. Wait for me, okay?"

"Relax — Kramo took us DAYS last time, and this boss looks even more cracked than Kramo. Who knows if we can even kill it? Might just be a story boss they're flashing at us."

"Damn, solid point. This boss does look a few tiers fancier."

Right there in front of "Ba·Manoloth·Kon," the players went into full chat-frenzy mode — some started stripping off their armor. And their pants.

"Ba·Manoloth·Kon" seemed to freeze up at the scene — until a small stone bounced off his cloak. He turned toward the throw and saw Sharlock, invisibility spell active, flickering half-transparent at the edge of view, mouthing at him:

"Move it! MOVE IT!"

That snapped "Ba·Manoloth·Kon" back on script. He continued in the same voice:

"I am — Ba·Manoloth·Kon! I have come to destroy your world, ants that you are! You are — beneath mention!"

Following that little speech, Sharlock cooperatively laid a faint dominating aura over the players from the sidelines, locking them in place — the sensation was exactly like a cutscene's "movement locked" state.

A mass of black mana began gathering over "Ba·Manoloth·Kon"'s hand, then compressed into a beam of black light that went screaming toward the players.

The players hadn't even processed it before the black beam was in their faces — and then a towering figure appeared among them out of nowhere, huge black demon wings flaring wide, a barrier of mana blanketing every player. The black beam slammed into the magic barrier, birthing dazzling light effects and a crackling "bzzt-bzzt-bzzt" sound design.

Sharlock's hand shot high, his silhouette magnificent in the glow, face set with resolve. He bellowed to the players:

"Get behind me! Citizens of the Eternal Kingdom! I will shield you!"