The chaos on the ground had grown worse since Van had last checked on everyone. A few more dragons had arrived – three brown ones and a large purple one with long black horns curling out of the side of its head. Van's army was busy roping and fighting against them, but it was absolute chaos. Fredlin was nowhere in sight.
"Hahahaha," the Emperor laughed, shaking with each chuckle. "You really don't get it? There are hundreds of us in the royal court; you think that they won't defend me?"
"I don't have to kill all of them!" Van shouted. "I just have to kill you!"
"How, Van? How do you proport to kill me?" the Emperor replied as he began to fly backwards towards the wall. Van gripped the ropes and pressed his legs against the dragon's back, bracing for impact. The emperor crashed backwards into the wall, smashing Van's body in the process. The wall cracked and cratered as the dragon repeated this maneuver multiple times. Each time Van was hit, he took 100 points of damage. He continued to hold on, though, gritting his teeth as he watched his hit points trickle down to 1,500. This was not what he wanted to see at all.
"Had enough yet?" the Emperor shouted with a chuckle.
Van let go of the rope and kicked his legs off the dragon, swinging himself around to the side, where he would be safe from the slamming. As he swung, he brought his warhammer down against the ribcage of the dragon, but his weapon bounced off due to the stone spell. Even with his amped up powers from the rage, Van just didn't have a chance of killing the dragon while the stone spell was still activated. He kept thwacking his hammer away at the dragon, though, over and over again, and sent a desperate message to Sang for help. Maybe she could find the wizard.
Sang slid underneath the dragon, firing arrows upwards as it stomped over her. The arrows sank into the brown beast's soft underbelly and she could see the beautiful words of Critical Strike Lethal Blow hover above her head. The dragon roared in agony and she barely managed to roll out from underneath of it before it collapsed. The loud crash of the beast sent shockwaves through the ground. As she scrambled up to help the rest of her team, a message rushed to her.
"We've got to change tactics here. The Emperor is staggering his forces to exhaust our team. No one else really matters – he's the main guy in charge. Figure out some way to get people attacking him. And tell Fredlin I need him counter-spelling the Emperor's magic. He's not responding to any of my messages."
Sang glanced at the chaos surrounding her. The dragons were still pouring in, regardless of how many the Iron Dragons were able to kill. Things were rapidly falling apart. Still, if the Emperor was really the only target that mattered, she'd have to figure out some way to rally the crew without getting them killed.
"Sahara!" Sang shouted as she reached into her quiver for some more arrows.
"Yes, ma'am?" Sahara responded in between hacking away at the scales of another brown dragon that was only a few feet away from Sang.
"I need you to run a message to the rest of the team," Sang said. "We're changing up tactics. Stop killing the smaller dragons and focus only on the big red one. Tell them to drink their potions of piercing and start attacking him."
"Why don't you just send a mass message?" Sahara asked.
"I'm delegating that to you, so do it however you want, but just make sure people start moving toward the Emperor," Sang said. "I'm gonna go find Fredlin."
Two torrents of flames from two different directions came crashing down upon Sang then, but her Potion of Fire Immunity merely caused the flames to do 1 damage total to her. She chuckled as she rushed off into the fray, in the hopes of finding Fredlin. Where was he?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Fredlin surveyed the warzone that had been a dining area just a few short minutes before. The Iron Dragons were triumphantly fighting against the dragons, Van was busy trying to handle the Emperor, and just about everyone was focused on figuring out some way to bring the entire game down for good. The fate of the world didn't much matter to him, though – not that he didn't care about others, but when his dear friend had died, he'd lost all capacity to feel anything but anger and a desire for revenge.
And he was close. All of these dragons were supposedly members of Draco, the organization that had killed the only woman he had ever loved. The worst part, Fredlin thought as his hands tightened around his staff, was the fact that he'd never been given the chance to tell her how he felt. Words unsaid were perhaps worse than any insult or unkindness that could be said. Anger welled up in his stomach once again as he watched the battle continue endlessly. He heard muffled shouts for his help in the background, but what did it matter? Until the code was activated, no one was in real danger. No one would die. These wretched Draco wouldn't die.
Fredlin swallowed a little as he looked at the item in his inventory. It was a small, round orb that had the name of ERROR_NOT_FOUND. This was the key to punishing Draco once and for all. Every major member of the Iron Dragons held such a device in their inventory. Sang had created them with the help of Jet. The plan was extremely strict, though: no one was to activate this device until the Emperor was close to dying. But things had changed so rapidly. The dragons were continuing to pour in and the Iron Dragons would never be free to fight against the Emperor alone. He knew that Van was trying to kill the creature, but he would have little luck one his own.
The orb glistened in Fredlin's hand as he stared at the chrome ball. Everyone had an extra as a back-up, but it was Van who was supposed to give the order to activate the device. But things were changing, weren't they? He could hear the bellowing laughter of the Draco fighters in the background, even as a few of them died; after all, there were no consequences for death right now. This whole event was nothing more than an amusing diversion to these jerks.
Fredlin growled a little as he watched a bright yellow dragon slink down to the ground, wounded from several thousand blows. The beast was roaring defiantly and mocking the Iron Dragons for their decision to fight against him. He wouldn't suffer, and he wouldn't be in agony; instead, he would just reappear somewhere else. The yellow monster would probably be laughing to himself the whole way back to the battlefield.
"No…" Fredlin whispered as he wrapped his fingers around the ball. All he needed to do was squeeze the item hard, and it would unleash the code that would turn the entire area lethal. Then that dragon would know true terror, for there would be no coming back.
"There you are!" said a familiar voice behind Fredlin. He froze and slowly turned around to see Sang standing with her hands on her hips. "I've been looking everywhere for you. Van needs you counter-spelling that freaking Emperor ASAP."
"Right, uh, right," Fredlin said. He had dropped his right hand to his side, trying to conceal the sphere from Sang's vision.
"What are you up to?" Sang asked as she glared at him a little. Fredlin didn't particularly mind Sang, but she was a sharp woman. If she was asking him this question, it was because she had already figured it out.
"You know what I'm doing," Fredlin replied as he held his hand up, revealing the orb. "I’m gonna turn this thing on."
"You can't do that!" Sang said, shaking her head furiously. "If you activate it now, it'll freak out the Emperor and he'll bail."
"If I don't, these dragons will overrun us. I doubt they'll be so willing to fight when they know they could die."
"You don't understand," Sang replied, "the Draco are a collective. They don't have a problem dying for the good of the many. Your activation would do nothing but mess it all up."
"Collective? What the hell are you talking about?" Fredlin asked. "These are just a bunch of freaking neckbeards sitting at home and acting like they have real power. Well, I'll show these nerds what's what."