MMORPG: Surviving a Death Game with a Glitched System

Ash looked at the man whose haggard face was mere centimeters from his own. Staring into Cross’s silver eyes while being pelted by his hot breath, he said:

"How long are you going to hold onto me?"

Chuckling, the man who couldn’t have been closer to death muttered:

"I said... for me. Not you... But if I fall, we both fall."

Ash shrugged.

"I’m sure you’re aware, but I’d survive such a fall."

Cross shook his head.

"I know... idiot. But being back down there wouldn’t bode well... for either of us."

Ash reeled his head back and squinted.

"What did you just call me?"

"Quiet... I need to focus."

Ash studied Cross’s pained expression.

"You are seriously twisted in the head. And weren’t you terrified of me the last time we met? Yet now, we’re so close, and you’re completely unperturbed."

"Don’t get me wrong... You scare me shitless... but I don’t have a choice. Besides... that’s the second reason I’m holding you."

’Huh...?’

Ash glanced over his shoulder, only to see Cross’s hand inside his body, near his heart. His arm having slipped through a gap in his armor.

’When the hell did he do that?’

With that much of Cross’s arm inside him, if Ash cast [Focus], Ash would instantly die.

"Mutually assured destruction, huh?"

Ash looked down at Cross, only to see the man blink slowly before beginning to slip forward.

Grunting, Cross shifted the arm embedded inside Ash to the side, lightly striking his armor. The impact halted his fall just long enough for him to regain his balance.

"Correct... now, please, shut up."

’Did he just use my glitch to stop himself from falling...?’

Ash scowled.

"Don’t dare order me."

Cross’s silver eyes drifted up to meet Ash’s amber ones.

"I asked... nicely."

Ash silently considered what he could possibly say in retaliation, then decided, for once, to let it slide.

He didn’t know where Cross was taking them, but it was probably better to get as far away from that mob as possible before antagonizing him enough to send them both plummeting.

’Though... I wonder why there were so many there in the first place.’

Maybe the man clinging to him knew, but Cross hardly seemed in any shape to give the Dragonkin Champion an answer.

Ash’s mind instead drifted to the more pragmatic matter at hand.

’What should I do with him once we land?’

Cross was undoubtedly his enemy. As Demitra’s contractor, Ash was someone Cross needed dead.

This little truce would only last as long as Cross needed him, and with the prince’s crazy healing factor, Ash didn’t see that taking too long.

In fact, Cross might have been deliberately staying airborne until he recovered enough to fight.

’But he doesn’t exactly look to be in "stalling" shape. If anything, he looks like he needs to land as soon as possible.’

Cross was growing paler by the second.

Plus...

’There are some things I wish to ask him.’

Cross hadn’t felt inclined to answer Ash before. But having experienced firsthand the gruesome brutality of what Ash could do, combined with his current weakened state, Ash felt he might be able to coax the answers he wanted out of the prince.

Mainly, he wanted Cross to spill Demitra’s plan, as well as his own.

They’d been flying for a few minutes, too high to see any landmarks through the haze below.

However, Ash’s [Danger Sense] had begun to kick into overdrive once again. A far more powerful presence now drowned out the warning wind wafting from the man clinging to him.

"Are you taking us to the temple? Why?"

Cross swiveled his head.

"Barrier there. It’s safe."

’Certainly doesn’t feel safe...’

Although...

That gave Ash another reason to keep calm and let Cross guide the stone. He was taking Ash exactly where he wanted to go. Thanks to him, Ash had cut both the risk and time of the journey considerably.

"Still, this is only a one-star experience. I don’t like being hugged."

Cross’s eyes narrowed.

"What...?"

"Return to focusing, Uber."

Cross raised an eyebrow in confusion, but eventually did just that.

A few more awkward minutes passed as they drifted slowly through the haze.

Then, the murk ahead began to thin.

At first, Ash could only make out a silhouette — something impossibly vast rising from the haze.

The black stone temple.

It loomed over the seal with such presence that everything around it seemed insignificant. It dwarfed even the Seal Sentry.

There wasn’t anything particularly intricate about its design, but it didn’t need ornamentation to inspire awe. Its sheer enormity was enough. Every slab of black stone looked large enough to form a building of its own, fitted together into a structure so immense that the word "temple" felt inadequate.

No human could have created something like this.

’It has to have been the work of a god... or something akin to one.’

As they drew closer, Ash noted the thousands upon thousands of steps leading to the grand entrance. They stretched across the temple’s entire face in enormous tiers.

’Climbing that would have been a bit annoying...’

Thankfully, he had his one-star Uber.

Ash’s attention soon dropped to the base of the steps, where chaos unfolded.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Seal Scrawlers clamored over one another, all pressing against an invisible wall as they fought to reach the temple steps.

Mixed among them were creatures he’d never seen.

It was far too distant to make out the finer details of their forms, but judging by how easily they shredded the Seal Scrawlers they came into contact with, Ash surmised that they were stronger than the Spire Serpents.

Finally...

Ash’s gaze shifted toward the temple’s flanks, and there he found what he’d been searching for.

The end of the chains.

The four chains connected to the sides of the temple, each colossal length looking like little more than a cord beside the structure. The two fallen ones hung broken from their anchors, their immense lengths having crashed across the lower tiers and pulverized entire sections of the staircase beneath them.

Yet against the temple’s impossible scale, even that devastation resembled little more than minor scratches.

Undeterred, Cross flew closer, eventually bringing them down onto the top step.

The stone beneath them crumbled into nothingness, and Cross immediately collapsed. His arm slipped free of Ash as the prince hit the ground and passed out.

’Uh...’

Ash gave Cross’s side an inquisitive kick.

Not that the kick did anything.

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