Tara stared at the inferno in a strange state of hypnosis. It was mesmerizing, its destructive power awe-inspiring. It seemed to draw the mind in, enrapture it with cosmic mystery—
Snap.
Hannibal snapped his fingers in front of her face, and Tara jerked out of her reverie. She blinked several times, staring at him as he relaxed back onto the banister.
“Do not stare. The Flame of Perdition is an indiscriminate hunter. It recognizes neither friend nor foe. All are prey equally,” he said, gazing at the inferno fondly, as if recognizing an old friend.
“The magic has a mind component. It intoxicates like a drug. The effect worsens the longer one stares,” Nephthys explained dryly. She must have seen Hannibal’s face fall, as she quickly amended the explanation. “And it is a living hunter…or whatever.”
Tara resisted the hysteria that threatened her mind. She was watching hundreds, maybe thousands, of monsters beyond a level she ever expected to reach be scoured from the world by flames. Fire monsters—destroyed by flames! Yet here they were, having a relaxed conversation, poking fun at the potent magic.
Yet, no matter how many times she pinched herself, she did not wake from this absurd dream.
Vrump!
Tara jumped back instinctively as Leonidas appeared near the doorway, kneeling with his head down. Had he teleported? How did he appear so quickly? He was just out maintaining the—
Tara looked out to the Crater, but there was no trace of the blue flame, though the land would remember its heat for many years. There was a five-sided glass shape scorched into the ground, the dry volcanic stone fused from the torching it had suffered.
“It is complete, my lady. The others clean up the remnants even as we speak,” Leonidas said, his voice like stones grinding together.
Strangely, Nephthys did not respond, not even glancing in his direction. She stared out at the Crater, her arms crossed before her. Attention in the room gradually shifted to her as everyone realized that she was focused intently on something.
“The commotion seems to have awakened him,” she mused, likely thinking aloud.
“Awakened who, my lady?” Ramose asked, striding up to stand next to her, staring into the Crater.
“Mephelgor,” she replied simply.
The energy in the room changed instantly. Hannibal stood straight, his posture tight, nodding to Ramose, who nodded back. He looked over to Leonidas, who immediately stood, thumping a fist to his chest.
“Lock the guild down. Pull everyone back and activate all defenses. Ramose and I will have to handle him. Do not leave—” Hannibal started, but Ramose’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.
Hannibal looked back to find Ramose staring out at the crater, at Nephthys. She floated over the railing, phasing through some invisible barrier that rippled with her passing. She floated out into the Crater, alone, her arms still crossed before her.
Ramose and Hannibal, once again, traded nods.
“Raise security to its highest level. Get all of our forces inside and remain there. Do not interfere. Do not get in our lady’s way,” Hannibal instructed.
Leonidas thumped his chest and vanished faster than Tara could perceive. Ramose and Hannibal stood side-by-side in front of the railing, both with arms crossed, staring out into the Crater, as if in anticipation.
“What’s going on? Who is Mephelgor?” Tara asked, approaching them.
Just as she asked, Tara noticed a rumble in her soles. It was deep, powerful. It traveled up her legs and rattled her organs, shook her brain in her skull. Colossal fissures burst, ejecting steam out in the Crater. The ground ballooned before bursting, ejecting streams of lava into the air.
“He is one of the most powerful creatures we have ever discovered. Entire armies once gathered to slay him. None succeeded,” Hannibal explained, his eyes sharp, focused intently.
“Why is she going out alone, then? What are we going to do?!” Tara yelled, heat rising in her chest and searing her mind nearly blank.
Ramose glanced at her and, noticing her rising panic, placed a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face the Crater.
“We are going to witness,” he said.
“Witness? Witness what? Her death? Why are you not worried?! Entire armies failed to defeat the thing!” Tara shouted, her hands beginning to tremble.
“I said no army has ever defeated him. I did not say he has never been defeated,” Hannibal clarified calmly, not even glancing in her direction.
Tara looked between the two, her anxiety starting to diffuse from their nonchalance, settling into confusion.
“Did you think my lady’s titles mere ceremony? What we will witness is not a battle, but divine judgement, a god made flesh: the Starfall Queen—nay, Starfall Goddess,” Ramose declared, holding his fist up, his eyes practically glowing.
“Now, witness,” he instructed, turning back to the Crater.
Titanic hands of black stone smashed through the ground, emerging from it like breaching the surface of water. They were hundreds of feet long each, and at least a hundred wide at the forearms. They were rugged and rough, covered in bumps, ridges, and cracks. The cracks glowed from the magma flowing beneath, as if its blood.
The arms smashed down onto the ground, using the leverage to hoist an equally enormous body from the ground. A bulbous torso of the same craggy, molten rock emerged, shaped like a predatory cat, if its entire body was made of craggy muscle.
There was a hole in the creature’s midsection, from which lava flowed freely. The interior of the hole was filled with swirling, deep-red magma. The head. atop broad shoulders. was like a flower, three ‘petals’ opening to reveal rows of red teeth that glowed with an internal light. Its throat was lit, hinting at the magma likely waiting to erupt.
The creature roared, and Tara covered her ears; the sound was so loud, it felt like it was going to knock her off her feet.
Was this a battle she could even survive witnessing?
————————————————————
Mephelgor bellowed, sending flaming bits of molten rock from its maw, which cratered the ground where they landed. It surveyed its surroundings, spinning around before noticing a small figure slowly and casually approaching.
“I would advise that you go back to sleep,” it said, somehow its voice so tiny, yet reverberating around the space.
Mephelgor roared once again, swinging a great mitt faster than most could perceive. The figure vanished, but was not thrown aside by the paw. It appeared before Mephelgor’s face, staring into its molten red eyes, each larger than its entire body.
“Final warning,” it said.
Slam!
Mephelgor clapped its hands together, thinking to crush the bug into paste. Yet when it opened them, the bug was not there.
It turned, feeling a colossal gathering of mana. The bug was there, surrounded by a swirling whirlpool, riding atop it. Mephelgor made to roar once more, but before it could get any sound out, the water leapt into its mouth, drowning its internal heat, snuffing it.
Mephelgor recoiled, steam billowing from its cooled body. It worked to stir the fire within it and stoke it back to temperature.
Shink!
One of its arms dropped from its body, smashing the ground and shattering like glass. The bug was there, a gargantuan blade of ice extending from its hand.
Mephelgor roared.
————————————————————
Cool its body. It will become brittle. Remove its arms, one at a time.
Nephthys’s mind was clear, no thoughts but the pattern of Mephelgor’s boss fight running through her head. He was a world boss that spawned at a preset time, though in-game lore said that he awoke ‘during periods of peak volcanic activity’. He was meant to be a raid boss, yet none had defeated him.
None save Nephthys.
Slap from the remaining hand: not threatening.
Mephelgor’s titanic paw slapped her, but it passed straight through her body, as if it were not there. Nephthys phased back into reality and blinked to his other arm, slicing it off at the joint as well. He roared once again, and she backed off to await her moment.
This phase was not threatening so long as one could tolerate the heat. Many raiding parties made it past without much trouble. It was the next bit that was tricky.
Mephelgor sucked in air through its flower-like mouth, preparing to launch a magma breath that would cover the entire area in molten debris. This was the moment she was waiting for.
Mana concentrated in her closed palm, and a symphony of music filled her mind. Denser, denser, and denser, the mana built until the air around her hand began to vibrate. She thrust forward, and the tiniest spike of ice shot from it like a bullet, piercing into Mephelgor’s central magma core.
It did not seem to notice, extending its head forward to exhale wrath and flame. Before the magma could exit its mouth, spires of ice erupted from its body, spearing out from bottom to top. A massive spike shot out of its mouth, water vapor exiting like smoke from its extinguished internal fire.
It keeled over, slamming into the ground face-first. It lay unmoving, though no player would believe a world boss ended so easily.
Nephthys flew far into the air as mana twisted and warped, gathering around Mephelgor, concentrating in a small spot in the center of its chest. Flames began to burn, starting from inside its body. These flames were not like its magma. They were black. They seemed to absorb light rather than emit it.
The titanic body burst, the black flames consuming it whole. After mere seconds of immolation, only a small figure, scarcely taller than Nephthys herself, remained. It was vaguely humanoid, though its too-long arms and legs made it gangly, and the way it hunched, like a patient in a hospital, was unsettling.
It had a sunken chest, with structures like ribs visible beneath too-pale skin. Sharp ears speared straight up past the crown of its bald head, which was humanoid from the crown to the nose. Its eyes were beady white spots that glowed.
Below the nose were two flaps reminiscent of the flower petals of its larger form. They drooped from its chin, swaying with any slight movement, still lined with sharp teeth that were black as night. A tail with sharp black spines swayed behind it, and the curved claws on its thin fingers dripped with black fire.
It looked up at Nephthys, and in an instant, it was before her, swinging those vicious claws.
Dodge. Do not parry. Do not touch.
She leaned back slightly, the claws rending the air before her. She sliced with her ice blade, splitting Mephelgor in half vertically before blinking back, taking distance from it.
The pieces did not even have time to split before the split resealed, black flame stitching it and forming into flesh. This was the phase that no players made it past. The Flame of Annihilation, as Nephthys had dubbed it.
Mephelgor was functionally indestructible in this form, and as far as her testing revealed, he had no time limit—there was no waiting him out. The black flames would annihilate anything they touched, not just killing, but erasing. They removed matter from existence. There was no defending against them.
Barriers formed around Nephthys as purple lightning crackled in her hands, which were raised, as if to conduct the music in her head. Though there was no defending from the flames, there were several spells that were useful.
The ice blade fell toward the Crater floor, a whip of lightning taking its place. She cracked the whip, striking Mephelgor mid-charge. It recoiled from the strike, shaking its head. It then vanished, appearing behind her.
Nova incoming. Do not react. Barrier one will activate.
Rather than attempting another swipe, black flames erupted from Mephelgor, surrounding him and radiating out in a sphere. They impacted Nephthys’s barrier, erasing it instantly. However, its erasure activated it, though Nephthys’s cast was an inversion of the regular spell.
Reactive Barrier normally repelled attackers, blasting them back when they struck it. Nephthys had changed the parameters during its cast, something she was unable to do in Prelude, and reversed its function.
The barrier’s activation threw Nephthys through the air, sending her flying rather than an enemy. The inverted cast had worked. Magic was incredible.
The corners of Nephthys’s mouth twitched.
This is fun.
————————————————————
Tara watched, eyes wide, as booms and cracks rang out from the sky, the battle too fast for her to keep track of. It was overwhelming enough when it was a gigantic volcano monster. Now, it was…something else. Something far worse, yet Nephthys seemed to be fighting toe-to-toe with it.
With a whoosh, the top of a craggy hill vanished, engulfed by black flames. A Crack, and the creature was slammed into the ground by whips of lightning, cratering the hole where the hill used to be. The hole suddenly erupted into purple flames that swirled into a whirlpool, a tornado of purple fire that scoured whatever remained of the hill.
Flash. Boom!
Nephthys was, once again, thrown through the air, the creature’s strike somehow missing her yet sending her flying.
Was this even a magic battle? It looked more like a slugfest. Though the fists in this case were flaming claws and whips of lightning.
Nephthys cracked her whips, the sound nearly deafening, even all the way over here, and the monster went flying. The monster sent a stream of black flames, and Nephthys inexplicably went flying again, somehow launched away from them before they struck her.
The choked red clouds swirled above, as if a storm was gathering. Suddenly, they broke, splitting apart to reveal a moon that was far too large and far too cold. It seemed to gaze down on the world with derision, holding only contempt for the maggots that writhed in the dirt below.
Glancing to her side, she saw both Ramose and Hannibal enraptured, their eyes wide and fanatical, as if they were witnessing a miracle. Ramose even had tears running down his face.
This battle, this reaction, this situation—it was too much. The reality of Nemesis hit Tara in a way it never had before.
These people are all insane!
————————————————————
Nephthys smiled. She had not had such fun since she fought Mephelgor in Prelude the first time. She had lost, of course. He seemed an undefeatable foe. Many players were angered by his fight, condemning the devs for making it so absurd that it was not even fun.
Why introduce an enemy that starts as a raid battle and morphs into one-on-one fights, where a single hit insta-kills? Players called the mechanics obtuse rather than challenging or fun.
But there was a trick to it.
As long as Mephelgor had his flames, he was indestructible. His flames did not diminish save by use, meaning one could not simply dodge and wait for them to run out. His flames diminished only by erasing.
The trick was to extinguish all his flames at once. He would not be able to regenerate, and the fight would end. This was easier said than done, obviously. He was a world boss. His stats were insane. One had to chip away at his flames until they were manageable.
Nephthys suspected her nearly unlimited mana pool would make short work of them in one go, but the experience had been fantastic for testing her magic, and the fight was fun in a genuine way that she had almost forgotten since arriving in this world. Testing oneself against a strong opponent was its own reward.
It was time to end it, though, so she had called on her Celestial magic. Stellar knowledge swirled in her mind, infinite possibilities at her fingertips, waiting to be unlocked. The moon shone from above, and the air around her began to vanish, a vacuum taking hold of her surroundings.
There were so many powers she wanted to test. She could feel them within her grasp. She could feel their concepts, hear their music. It was beautiful. This one was Supernova. It must be incredible! This other one was called Quasar. That would surely obliterate Mephelgor entirely, leaving nothing behind—
This is not a game.
The thought struck her mind like a mallet against a gong.
What am I doing?
She looked at Mephelgor, wrapped in her two lightning whips, containing him as he struggled to erase them faster than she could rebuild them with her limitless mana. He was a caged beast, and she was torturing him for fun.
Her smile faded.
This is not me.
However, he had to go. He was far too dangerous, and the fact that this world was real only underscored it. Though humanoid, he was mindless, essentially a golem. She had tried to use the glitch and acquire him for Nemesis, as she had with Hannibal, but Mephelgor was fundamentally incompatible with that system, as he lacked a mind.
A mindless golem that can erase matter from existence could not be left to roam freely.
Vrump!
She was in front of him, and he stared at her with his tiny white eyes.
“Sleep now,” she said.
Nephthys touched a finger to his chest, and a Celestial spell activated.
Absolute Zero.
Ice covered his body, crystallizing and firming his skin, turning him rigid like a statue.
“Moᚦᛖᚱᛚᚨᚾᛞ ᚲᚨlls,” came a noise, almost like a radio transmission, directly into Nephthys’s mind.
She shook her head, as if to dislodge the echo. It sounded like a garbled radio transmission, but that could not be correct. A garbled transmission suggests words, suggests intelligence.
That could not be.
Mephelgor fell, plummeting from the sky like a comet, leaving an icy trail behind him. He hit the ground and shattered into a million pieces, which sank into the ground as if it were water. Mephelgor returned to the earth, to where he belonged, where his flame would build again, cradled by the magma far below.
Mephelgor was defeated.
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