Assassinate Wonderwind [Book 1 Completed!]

[Teleporting to Mycelara…]

Vision flickered, and I teleported up three levels, into one of the opening towns of Caverns Of Creation. The expansion was unique in that it had multiple starting points all over the map at different levels. Mycelara was the highest level and directly below Rayshire—essentially the place where all top players wanted to set their spawn points.

For an underground city, Mycelara was too spacious for it to ever exist in a real cave. Buildings of molten bricks surrounded the market square I’d spawned into. The tallest tenements spanned a dozen stories with more to grow. There weren’t spires, but grand cathedrals shone bright with blazing torches. The color of fire tinted just about everything thanks to the choice of illumination.

The absolute chaos of players from opening day had finally calmed, but a crowd still remained. I spotted a few top five hundred players here and there, though most players around me were more like hopeful tourists. High level players, who wouldn’t be frontrunning the expansion, but were instead hoping to clear what crumbs the top players left behind. Most of them would have been better off just starting from a lower level area in my opinion, but people loved chasing the risk and prestige of Wonderwind at its absolute highest level.

Heads turned to me immediately as I spawned in. Whispers spread, and everyone was suddenly aware of who had just arrived to the city.

This is what a good Worlds run does, I guess… I thought with a sigh. Our popularity wasn’t a surprise. Clips from our final match against Annath were included in almost every Worlds 2026 montage or aftermovie. The first place finish had also brought me to rank 97 on the top 500 leaderboard. Veyra was now at rank 143.

Some middle-aged ranger looked like he wanted to approach me, but I activated [Stealth], escaping from attention. Bathing in fame and praise had been fun for a week, but I didn’t want to let the validation of success change my mindset. Dungeons still had to be cleared, and levels had to be gained. Veyra and I had a lot of work to do if we wanted to succeed this year as well.

I only came to the city to access my stash anyway. I picked up Sablethorn and The Immortal, both of which had sadly been nerfed. The Immortal was now only 350% more effective for perfect blocks, and Sablethorn’s defence stealing mechanic now had a hard cap at one thousand defence.

The nerfs were fair enough in my opinion. My build still worked. If anything, I agreed that the nerfs made the game more balanced.

But it still hurt that almost every item we used had been nerfed in one way or another.

Oddly enough, the nerfs didn’t include the Emerald Aurora. The support robe I’d gotten from Ray Dragon Embridge was still overpowered. It essentially created an AoE heal over time effect to multiple allies, while also buffing allies’ resistances more than some epic items. Renlia and Merami, the two best support mages in the game, had both sent me offers of over a million dollars for the robe.

Veyra wanted me to sell it. I probably would. But for now, it would be a great help in passing this bridge problem. I added it in my inventory and teleported back.

[Sending Player Veyra a teleportation request…]

[Veyra has accepted the request.]

[Teleporting To Veyra…]

“Hello again,” I said as I transferred the robe to her once more.

Veyra hesitantly switched it on, and the green faerie particle effects flashed around her body. She looked even more uncomfortable wearing it here than she did in Worlds. A mistake in the wilderness meant losing a gear piece. If the robe dropped, that was a million dollars gone. Still, that was only a one in nine chance, and if we died to monsters, we’d have plenty of time to retrieve it before top players could get here.

“I’ll remind you,” Veyra said, “that if you die in the middle of all those monsters, your gear piece is gone. I don’t see any way we can retrieve anything from there, especially if you lose a dagger.”

“I’m aware,” I said. “And I’m still going. I used to risk rent money daily when I hunted top players last year. Right now, losing an epic or a legendary will barely make a dent.”

“Except, losing a dagger would result in having to respec your build,” Veyra said. “Which is already sub-par.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying our builds are sub-par after we just won Worlds with them,” I said with a smirk.

The smile spread to her, but hers wasn’t as wide. “I still don’t think I’m wrong, though. A random monster in the wilderness takes us multiple minutes to clear right now. If I was playing solo, I wouldn’t have entered from Mycelara. I’m lacking the damage to even cheese dungeons here.”

I looked off at the bridge, and I didn’t spot a single monster below level four hundred. I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t come up with any counter-points.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

While top guilds were steadily leveling up and clearing monsters, I was still on my usual strategy of opening the map. That had paid off last year during the Ray Dragon Event, letting Veyra and I pick which dungeons and quests we wanted to ourselves, while all other guilds were still searching for the same dungeons.

“You’re trying to tell me that even if I open up the map, the dungeons might be too difficult to clear?” I asked.

“This expansion is insane, yes,” Veyra said. “I certainly feel like my build is outdated.”

Our attention drew to the bridge full of level 430 or above monsters again. Back in the portal mage’s crypt, we’d already required multiple minutes to whittle down level 360 monsters. The monsters on level one of the expansion had started off at around that, but the average monster level had risen to four hundred by level two. By level four, killing even one of the sluggish miners required [Eviscerate] to be stacked into the dozens to inflict any damage at all.

Veyra certainly had a point…

“I’ll keep exploring the map until you’re ready to pick a dungeon to clear,” I said. “When would you say you’ll have the time to, uh…” My words trailed off. I didn’t want to pressure her into playing more if she didn’t have time.

“Starting tomorrow, I can play at least six to eight hours a day,” Veyra said.

My eyebrows rose, and my face lit up.

“We’ll struggle to keep up with top players,” Veyra said. “I know Zenith Protocol has members online pretty much twenty-four-seven. I wouldn’t expect to frontrun the event with the resources we have.”

“We paid for the expansion, Veyra,” I said. “Might as well experience it to the fullest. Now, let me show you a fun bug I found.”

The mention of a bug switched her eyes from critical to curious. To our left, a Shell Crab sat atop one of the orange crystals, sucking its contents from the tip. The crab was more like a slow-moving beetle that glowed like a firefly. Its face was like a cute mole’s, and it had a metallic, steel-colored shell protecting it. I picked it up.

“You’re showing me a literal bug?” Veyra asked.

“No, don’t get too attached to him,” I said, and summoned Sablethorn. With the crab in my left hand, I tapped my dagger against its shell. Sablethorn’s blade blinked, and I stole defence from the crab. I tapped the shell until I’d stolen everything the crab had, after which I tucked the little guy into an inside-pocket of my cloak, having gathered around six hundred defence. I picked up another Shell Crab, repeating the same thing, until Sablethorn was fully stacked. A grey aura enveloped my body from all the defence I’d just stolen.

Veyra slowly shook her head, amused. “How has that not been patched…”

“I guess this is what happens when a game has thousands of unique items,” I said, grinning. “The shell crabs should work for the Emerald Aurora as well, right?”

Veyra tested it out and showered one of the crabs with little pebbles of free-handed ice magic. An individual pebble did next to no damage, but the game registered the impact as Veyra hitting a target with an offensive spell. Spirit Of Dawnsong, one of Veyra’s rings, converted all ticks of damage to healing effects, which in turn procced [Emerald Aurora]. With each pebble that Veyra hit the crab with, a spirit-like speck of green light flew to me, fluttering around my body. She stacked that until ten spirits fluttered around me.

“Ready?” Veyra asked.

“Yep, let’s go,” I said.

Veyra cast a portal as far off into the bridge as her spell’s range allowed. She then activated [Emerald Aurora], turning the blessings into elemental resistances with a heal over time effect. That, combined with all the defence I stole from the crabs, turned me into the tankiest assassin in the whole game.

I jumped into the portal, and found myself on the rough obsidian bridge, surrounded by hundreds of horned demons.

The red greataxe of a demonic minotaur already crashed down on my head. I dodged and ran past, using my feet to cross as much distance as I could. That was a few dozen feet, until a horde of Great Imps blocked my path.

I [Shadow Dashed] through, immediately at full force to cross as much distance as I could. I imagined myself in the most violent rollercoaster ever created, G-forces throwing me forward with violence. The method helped me cross over double the distance that the skill usually allowed with system casting.

I nearly fell over from the sheer speed as the dash ended, and I was welcomed by more armed demons. The staff of a spellcaster demon glowed red, and a fireball shot at me from just a few feet away. I dove and rolled to the side.

I got up, only for a greatsword to crash down at my side.

I blocked with The Immortal just in time, but the blow from a level 458 monster knocked me back regardless. I landed with one foot at the very edge of the bridge, the other already over the edge. I lost balance and fell, driving my dagger to the edge to hang from it.

An archer was the first to shoot at me. I swung at the arrow with Sablethorn, managing to block a lethal hit, but the knockback was too much for my loose grip on the bridge. I fell freely into the abyss.

Luckily, [Shadow Dash] came back, thanks to the boots I got from SoulShadow that reduced dash cooldowns. I dashed up and forward, continuing.

I overshot the height, finding myself directly above the bridge. A Dread Necromancer (Level 463) prepared a spell below, staff glowing green. I quickly recalled my daggers from the abyss and held them for a block, but that was about all I could do to protect myself.

The discharge of necromantic energy hit my daggers head-on. Some damage was blocked, but most of the spell landed directly on my cloak like a powerful surge of boiling water.

[Oblique Transcendence - Blood Desperation Active Conditions Met]

[Straight Attacks Are 100% More Effective When Under 40% Health]

My health fell to 21% from one hit. The spell’s knockback sent me even further in the air, and in the direction I was hoping to travel. I flew at uncontrollable speeds, with less than a third of the bridge still to cross.

My landing was headed straight to a shield with a horned demon’s face embedded onto it, imps with axes ready to impale me. I waited until the last second before casting [Shadow Dash].

The final dash crossed the bridge, taking me a little bit over, onto a cobblestone path.

I was free.

Light amounts of greenery surrounded the path. Or rather, faded yellow grass stubbornly tried to grow. The cavern expanded greatly with purple mist coating the high ceiling. Butterflies flew within, feeding off of ceiling crystals.

I didn’t have time to admire with imps still rushing at me from the bridge. I stood my ground and blocked a few attacks, until [Shadow Dash] came off of cooldown again. I dashed behind the nearest tree, hiding in the shadows.

Monster avoidance had been nerfed, but it was still strong enough to help me, in my dark cloak, to hide in the shadows. The imps glanced around for a short while before deeming that I’d magically disappeared.

I tossed a teleportation stone on the ground, having officially crossed the bridge. I now had a whole new area to explore.

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