1 A Tragic End (1/2)
The year 2150, in Manhattan, a royal suite at a skyscraper hotel.
The dim honey-colored light gently illuminating the room, and the low pitched faint orchestra emitted by the sound baffles positioned all around the apartment, created an image of harmony and relaxation. However, the person residing showed no sign of such. The gloomy atmosphere around him was thick enough to scare away even ghosts.
”Ahh, I'm such an idiot!” After a long moment of silence, the 28-year-old man exclaimed after a long sigh.
His name was Mark, also known as ”God Speed Shesmu”, one of the most popular players of the game Ashes of God, the most played VRMMORPG of the last 10 years. But today, Shesmu had lost all his hopes of staying relevant.
A new update to Ashes of God has been released, one that he, many pro players and team organizations actively tried to stop from getting out of the Beta servers to no avail.
PVP competitiveness was no more, and with it, Shesmu's relevance to the scene.
He was devastated, and even more disgusted by this turn of events. The slow shift of interest from PVP to PVE has destroyed the competitive teams of Ashes of God.
Looking at the cup of 2051 LeBourgeouis wine in his hand, his red reflection looked back at him before it got distorted and showed an incredible image to Mark. As if he was dragged across time, he began experiencing events of the past from bird's view.
”Black Moon! Black Moon! Black Moon!”
”Shes…! Shes…! Shes…!”
The crowd was cheering loudly, fervor engulfing their eyes as the final of Ashes of Gods League Championship of 2145 was coming to a close.
The battlefield was painted red by the blood of the players battling for glory. And in the middle of the battleground, two teams, one glowing red, the other blue, were orchestrating a symphony of death. Flashes of light from the swordsmen made the scene look as if it came out a painting, while the destructive might of the mages throwing one spell after the other gave the arena a ghostly atmosphere.
From the caster's desk, two voices were explaining what was happening on the battlefield at times, screaming the surviving teams' exploits to all listeners around the world through their microphones at others.
Caster 1: ”Blue team is advancing through the bushes, their teammates keeping the red team busy using the dense forest terrain to their advantage to buy time. Shesmu and Seth are keeping their enemies at bay, buying time for their teammates to secure the True Sight Buff.”
Caster 2: ”Indeed, Black Moon is using their numerical advantage to secure the World Serpent buff. They left their two aces to keep the enemy team from coming close to the monster and contest it. They show absolute confidence, after all, they know that with Shesmu and Seth's slipperiness, they can easily stop the enemy team from advancing without being in any danger.”
”Some might be confused on why doesn't Red Cross just ignore Shesmu and Seth and try to steal the true sight buff. However, look at the positioning of these two. With their Flash Dash and Instant Teleportation, if Red Cross ever dared to ignore them and go for the steal, Black Moon will just turn, bombard them using Omega's Area of Damage spells while Shesmu and Seth can cut their only escape route using terrain magic.”
”Indeed, with the respawn time being so long this late in the game and the absence of any other buff in the map, it's hard for any team to come back from the loss of three members. Black Moon knows that fully and capitalize on their numerical advantage to get the true sight buff.
And, for anyone new to the game and doesn't know about the true sight buff and why it's so important. Basically, the buff gives all of your skills a slight homing effect. One can easily see how strong the buff is-”
”The World Serpent is getting low, just 10k hp left for it before it goes down. But what am I seeing? Red Crescent is preparing a Flash Beam attack. His teammates just placed a silencing array. Shesmu can't do anything to stop him, Seth can't do anything to stop him. Crescent is going for the steal, will he get it?”
Caster 1 and 2: ”He gets it!”
”Comeback! Comeback!”
”Red Cross! Red Cross!”
”Red Crescent for the win!”
The crowd went wild as Red Crescent got the steal from Black Moon, a game that was at first Black Moon's to lose now became anybody's guess.
However, as the crowd cheered and howled, a shadowy figure flashed then appeared before the four Red Cross players.
”Red Cross just gained the true sight buff, but Shesmu immediately Flash Dashed in, not leaving time even for his teammates to react. He uses Final Slash taking out half of Crescent's hp, side steps then blinks away using the 0.1 seconds of invincibility to dodge Red Cross' attacks, baiting out their skills! He jumps right back in using bloodlust jump and uses Ki Burst three times in a row, canceling their animation perfectly. He turns around, leaving his back to Blank predicting his use of howling growl, dodging the damage lowering active. Shesmu insta-kills him with a sword energy projection, showing him who is the boss. Shesmu, what was that!”