Chapter 24

Saint Limen and Klaren walked a distance in front of the pack. They were traversing through a land of red grass and coral-like purple trees with glowing blue leaves.

The two players quietly spoke to each other.

"I often think about fate." Said the white haired man.

"Fate? I hate the word." Replied Klaren with a slight frown.

"Hate? Why?"

"Fate made me crippled. Fate took everything away from me."

"Everyone here was fucked by fate." Said Limen.

"We wouldn't be wishing to stay in the game otherwise."

"We're just pawns at the end of the day. Vessels of entropy. Fulfillers of the universe's desire for disorder..."

"Entropy?" Klaren asked.

"Well, of course. We destroy order."

"I guess you could say that. But how are we pawns?" Klaren inquired.

"Because we wouldn't be doing this if we weren't unfortunate people."

"Ah..." Uttered Klaren, after a few moments. He had an empty, dead look on his face.

A deep silence ensued. A brutal one. They both walked with their heads down.

Limen continued after a while.

"I wish I could be something more. But I'm just not strong enough mentally, spiritually. Maybe no one is."

"You know, Saint...Submitting to your role as a...vessel of entropy does feel good."

"It definitely does. Breaking the fortunate players who have something outside this game puts a happy smile on my face."

"We're definitely pawns. You saw that right." Klaren added.

"Let's obey fate to the best of our ability. For our own happiness." The white haired player said with a smile.

"...Yeah. You know too much, man."

"Even though I know so much, I'm still no different from Alex over there. We're both pawns. Perhaps we're completely powerless against fate."

Klaren briefly looked at the large, ugly brute with a bald head. He looked like those angry cranky steroid heads you'd see in the gym and wouldn't wanna talk to. He probably was that, before the game.

"He's one of the dumbest people I've seen. How he's still alive is beyond me." The Salvation guild master said with a light laugh

"Fate at work." Limen replied with another smile.

A shooting star flew above the group. A show of happenings beyond their control.

"For there to be light, there must be shadow." Limen said while looking up at the sky.

"Those who thrive and those who suffer." Klaren added.

"I wish that only light existed. Why must there be both light and shadow? I wish we could all be happy and thrive together." Limen said wistfully.

"Perhaps fate is the biggest and greatest enemy of humanity. Not ourselves." Klaren replied.

"It definitely is. I have absolutely nothing against Priam and the like personally. I just want to stay in the game. I like it very much here."

"They're simply seeking their light, just as we had seeked our own."

"Yet we still have to fight."

"...That's fate for you."

The Salvation guild continued its expedition to the Death Pillars, intending to break the Valiants' main boss search expedition group.

***

It was a sunny, clear noon at the headquarters of the Golden Heart guild.

It was more humble than the Valiants', but the guild was almost as powerful.

In a flowery green garden, under a large, ordinary green tree, was a gathering of a dozen people.

They sat at a long rectangular table and were enjoying a feast.

It was neither particularily hot nor was it chilly. Just the perfect middle.

The highest ranking members of the two guilds were here.

David, the vice master and Priam the master, along with three Supreme Knights.

The two leaders sat opposite each other at the center of the table.

The man in front of Priam was the second-ranked player.

His name was Valenti Novo.

"I heard you killed a Transcendent boss monster. How was it like?" Valenti asked. His blue eyes staring into Priam's light brown with a light of curiosity.

"The strongest thing I've ever fought. I lost limbs, but my passive took care of that. There were casualties."

"Yet you didn't sustain as many casualties as in the prism golem raid."

"I had a helper."

"Oh?" Valenti's playful, fierce ocean blue eyes made an expression of their own. He had eyes that carried as much emotional and expressive ability as another person's entire face.

"Lavonte. He got stronger. Much stronger."

"It's in his name, haha." Valenti adjusted his medium length blond hair.

"Rising. According to him. He just appeared out of nowhere on the leaderboard a few months ago. He got right up to us."

"Did his abilities explain why?"

"Certainly. In fact, if I were to be attacked by him unaware, I'd die instantly."

Valenti nodded, not intending to ask for details.

"Wow. But that's probably impossible." The blond man said.

He took a stronger breath through his nose.

"David, how have you been? We haven't seen each other in months."

"Mostly good. I assume Pelina is doing alright?" Replied the vice master of the Valiants. He wasn't as handsome as the two top players here. As if they didn't already have enough good about them. But he had blue eyes which haloed his unremarkable, average face.

"Yeah, she's with Pablo." Valenti pointed down the large garden, towards a pond where a hovering red cat-like monster pet with a comically long tail was idling around next to a large, white and furry monster bending over to drink water. They were distant, but eyes of the Transcendent players were far superior and sharper than normal eyes.

"Another new pet?" David asked with one raised eyebrow.

"Transcendent." A blond woman sitting nearby added to the conversation.

"You have a wonderful ability Angela." Priam said with a smile.

"Thanks." She replied.

Priam wondered if her face was redder than usual.

"It doesn't look Transcendent." Said David.

"You don't want to know what it's capable of. If Angela wasn't present, we'd have plenty of casualties when we encountered it."

"How's Mika?" Valenti asked the king of all players.

"Her? I don't really know."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I don't hang with her much. She stays at the headquarters and usually reads books."

"Well I probably would do that too if I wasn't...y'know...playing this."

If he wasn't behaving like a player, is what he meant.

They are oddly similar.

Both are handsome, tall and striking.

They're both swordsmen. Leaders. Carriers of hope. Everyone looks up to them. As saviors.

Valenti is the player that killed the second floor main boss monster.

People talked, laughed and even cried all around the table.

"That meat was amazing. Thank you." Priam said while wiping his mouth with a napkin.

Valenti nodded with a friendly smile.

Though it looked more like a malicious one. Likely because of his fierce, positively tilted eyebrows and vertically narrow eyes.

"What do you think of that first floor player?" David said, looking at the blond hunk.

"Hah, he's a weird one. I wonder if he can reach the heights that befit a member of our guilds. Do you think he can, Priam?"

"I have a feeling. Yes."

"Really?"

"I have this weird feeling. You could call it a hunch. But I also think that it's very possible. Think of the rewards you've received when you killed the Puppeteer."

"Hmm. It's still too unlikely. Why was he even on the first floor for so long?"

"We'll have to ask him when he gets here."

"You really believe it, huh? Well, you've always believed." Valenti looked at Priam with admiration.

"It's like he grabs fate and steers it." David added.

"You've always believed in yourself, in your friends, in us. All of us." A pretty girl with shoulder length black hair said to the Valiant leader. She sat next to Valenti. Remaining silent for most of the meeting.

"Alright, alright Laura. Your boyfriend's pretty cool too." Valenti said with a smile.

Laughter spread around.

Priam made an awkward, closed mouth smile. But it was sincere and happy.

He really does believe. He always did.

And so much that he believed became reality.

"Valenti, can you come with me for a minute?" Priam asked.

"Of course."

The two of them got up from the humble wooden table.

Valenti followed the man that carried the hopes of all of humanity in this death game. Perhaps his too.

Priam walked towards the edge of the cliff that hosted the Golden Heart headquarters and overlooked a colossal valley that was even more intimidating than the Valles Marineris and made the Grand Canyon look like God's paradise. It went down and down thousands of meters below and hundreds of kilometres in the distance.

Mini-biomes hosting deadly plants and monsters waged war down there. There was a rainbow forest, gigantic spiral plants hundreds of meters tall, large red and purple spheres of unknown material that were nests of Transcendent flying monsters floating above a massive orange lake that hosted a monstrosity living symbiotically with the nests, consuming their waste and guarding them.

Priam could see it leaping from the water at the speed of sound, ripping limbs from one of the colossal plants that dared to attempt touching a nest with its whip-like black arms that weren't supposed to cut through a dozen meter thick pillar of a limb belonging to a stationary Transcendent plant.

At this point it wasn't even a plant, but an abomination.

There more sights down there that Priam didn't even want to try to register.

There was a stream, a river of darkness that cut through the ridicilously deep valley.

That stream of darkness was a actually a hole in the earth itself. An opening.

This whole valley is an area being explored and investigated by the Golden Heart.

"You'd think the main boss was here."

"We definitely did. Still do."

"We found a big clue for the main boss."

"What?" Valenti said in a slightly raised voice, surprised.

"It's pointing us towards the Death Pillars."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I don't want us to compete. I want your help to defeat this."

"Huh. Why's that?" Valenti was genuinely puzzled.

Priam's eyes were somewhag wet. It looked like he was holding back tears.

"I don't want to lose more people."

Valenti looked down at the ground.

"I'm sorry about your friend. But you know that's impossible." The blond player said solemnly.

"Yes, but we can minimize it. Francisco is already on board." Priam replied, looking ahead in the valley.

"He joined you?"

"No, that weirdo belongs to no one but himself. He'll help, that's all."

Both of them had a moment of silence.

"...Alright. You want me to send back up for your search group?"

"Why not? Send however much you want."

"Is ten fine?"

"Plenty, thanks, brother."

Valenti nodded.

The two went back to the table, which was now cleaned of food and had various glass drinks on it.

"Priam and I have decided to collaborate on a mission."

Sounds of agreement and exciteness were heard from the players gathered.

The gathering continued in a cheerful atmosphere, without signs on Priam's face that he was feeling vulnerable a few moments ago.