The rogues attacked one after the other, as Selene fended them off as best as she could, parrying and deflecting with her two daggers as the eight weapons converged relentlessly. Barkley jumped and landed his jaws on one of the rogues as he attempted to rip the player to shreds, but a second rogue side-stepped and plunged his sword into the back of the poor wolf.
Barkley slumped and fell to the floor with a whine as his body went limp.
Panicking, I rushed as another frost bolt clipped the ground in front of me and nearly tripped me. Ignoring the distractions, I immediately flash stepped thirty feet forward as I rematerialized ten feet away from them.
Out of mana, I threw my axe into the back of one of the rogues as he reactively flinched and retreated. Another rogue attacked Selene with a thrust as she countered and plunged her sword through his chest, only, it left her exposed.
And in a flash, horror struck.
Two swords pierced through Selene's back and out her chest, causing her to lock up and fall to the ground. They went for the finishing blow as I barreled through them, tackling two of them into the dirt, temporarily knocking one out with a blow to the temple, then stabbing the other once, up and under the chin.
Yanking the knife out of the dead rogue and planting it into the dazed one, I finished him quickly as I turned to Selene. Rushing over to her, she had fallen to four-percent remaining health and was bleeding out.
She only had eight seconds left.
Calling out for a healer, yelling for a priest, none responded.
I glanced at Katherine but saw she had spent all of her mana.
She was kneeling on the ground next to Selene, holding her hand as she silently wept. I gently wrapped my arms around Selene in the midst of the battle, elevating her head slightly so she could breathe easier.
She was down to three-percent now.
Six seconds.
I frantically looked around as the NPCs were too far away and too mired in conflict to react. Staring at Kate, her mana was recovering far too slowly, she would be late.
Selene turned her eyes to Kate and struggled to bring a smile to bear as she weakly spoke, "be strong Kate."
Then to me, she said, "take care of my sister."
Gulping down the lump in my throat, I hugged her tightly while Katherine squeezed her hands, with her tears rolling down onto the ground below.
As Selene lay dying in my arms, she asked me with a hoarse whisper that could barely be heard, "you're going to kiss me, right?"
I could only smile and nod, "yeah."
Moving in, she placed her hand on my face, and after the long kiss she lightly slapped me, as she had the first time we kissed, in front of the earl's men. Looking me in the eyes, she brought a light smile to bear as tears filled her eyes, then she closed her eyes for the last time.
She was gone.
The system notification popped up a second later.
Confirming what my eyes had already told me.
What my hands had already conveyed.
She had gone limp, and on this strangely cold day in the North, the warmth of her body was slowly dissipating, away and back into the earth from which it came.
[Your Companion, Selene, has died.]
A few seconds later, Katherine had recovered the requisite mana to use a [Holy Light] and she immediately tried casting it on Selene, but it was to no avail.
You couldn't heal the dead.
Even I knew that.
Sorrow and sadness overwhelmed me for a split-second only to be replaced by rage as a fire blast hit me in the face and melted skin and fat dripped down onto my lap. Turning my head slowly with half my face melting off, I stared at the casters that were slowly being pushed back.
The warriors had mounted a comeback, and with every player that fell, the stamina of my soldiers overwhelmed what few were left.
Then, my eyes caught something familiar.
Milly.
In the back, behind the casters that were now too busy fending off the warriors that had charged into them, she was watching the scene unfold.
She met my eyes, and in that instant I knew what would come next.
Milly, was going to die.
Glancing at Selene once more, I gave her to Kate as I gauged my health, mana, and stamina bars. My health level was critical, at nineteen percent. So too was my mana, at under ten percent. Stamina, well, that was fairly low as well.
It didn't matter, it was enough.
I had a second to live for every half-percent of life, ticking down even now.
I didn't need more than ten.
Eyes clouded, my mind was consumed with anger, with rage… I was burning literally and figuratively with flames still flickering in the wind off my shoulder. I began to walk towards Milly, with no weapons in hand and only enough mana for a single flash step. I was going to end her, here and now.
End her before she could retreat.
Before she could utter a word, of excuse, of apology, or insult, I didn't care what it was, I wanted to hear silence.
Breaking into a run with my eyes locked on her, she stood still like a deer in the headlights. Frozen in shock or fear, I didn't know.
I didn't care.
Realizing her predicament she started to turn, began to run in the opposite direction as her light frame and agility build aided her retreat… but she was too slow. I was faster, far more developed, with all of my time spent grinding, all of the development put into my weak legs that didn't allow me to run in real life.
I was fast in this world.
I was far faster than any of them.
Catching up to her, she was within thirty feet as she glanced back at me once more. At that very moment, I flash stepped and traversed the distance between us almost instantaneously as the bolt of lightning carried my body from my past location to my new destination in the blink of an eye.
Rematerializing out of the lightning like some spectral being, I thrust my good left arm out and grabbed Milly by the throat. She struggled as I lifted her off the ground and began to squeeze. Fumbling for her weapons and trying to speak, I crushed her throat and continued to constrict her breathing.
She was suffocating, right before my eyes.
She deserved it.
She deserved all of it.
It wasn't painful, no… not nearly painful enough.
The game had restrictions for these things… sure, it looked real, but it wasn't.
Milly didn't feel anything except, maybe some restriction on her movements. Her eyes were probably fuzzing up, becoming cloudy and dim as her strength left her. But, the game didn't let you feel any such suffocation.
I learned that, when I wondered if you could drown.
You didn't feel any of that.
Too traumatic, some people said.
Yet my face was burning, my arm hurt, my sides… my chest, my abdomen, all burned and stung when I was stabbed and sliced. That was fine, for those of us in the Ultra-Realism program. And everyone felt some pain from the cuts and stabs, from the impact of magic. Giving her a painless death like this was far too kind.
Maybe, I should have burned her to death.
Dropping the lifeless corpse to the floor, I stared at it in disgust.
My health was low now, around fourteen percent left.
It took me exactly ten seconds.
And then an errant frost bolt impacted me, but I didn't budge.
Turning my head slightly in the direction of the mage that cast it at me, he couldn't see my health and didn't realize that another cast would be the end of me. He was scared, having witnessed everything that had happened, while he shot wave after wave after wave of spells towards me, and towards my brethren throughout the fight.
My family, my NPCs, my… people, he had put them in harm's way.
My entire village was burning down to the ground as I stood and watched the mage turn tail. He wanted to run, to escape, to retreat from my vengeance.
He was going to get away.
And then a golden light engulfed me and brought me back to a comfortable thirty-two percent health, halting the bleed-out and restoring me to partial functionality.