Game’s Dogma

​​​​​​​She opened her eyes gently and pointed her short staff at the ravons in the air.

‘Falling Skies!’

A 10-metre-wide fireball broke through the clouds and slammed down upon the battlefield, making ravons whimper and shriek as flames decimated them.

A similarly intense battle was going on at the west gate.

Up against the charge of countless monsters, a person ran ahead while another person followed tightly behind. Along with a red flash, the person in the rear vanished out of sight.

The other person, a brawny man who held a double-handed greatsword, laughed arrogantly and shouted, ‘Come at me! Let this old man send you all home!’ His body gradually gave off a blood-red glow and his pupils turned crimson. Alone, he charged into the sea of monsters.

The greatsword was like a mincer in his hands. Every time he swung his weapon, limbs and heads became mush and splattered all over the place.

‘RAAAA!’ The man roared, his eyes now completely crimson. His blade was also shrouded in a red aura as he started twisting his body and transformed into a bloody tornado that tore through anything that entered its path.

Thud.

Thud.

A dull sound repeated itself over and over again at the rear of the army of monsters, yet the monsters were seemingly oblivious to it. Every time the sound could be heard, a monoeye fell.

A shadow flickered into existence and embedded its dagger into an monoeye, then faded out again together with a puff of mist. Finally, after falling his twelfth prey, a somewhat stronger monoeye managed to let out a whimper before dying, drawing the attention of other monsters.

The man made a cunning snicker and was clearly unfazed despite being caught alone among tens of thousands of enemies. He muttered, ‘They know I’m here?’ He casually plucked out two white spheres from his waist then chuckled, ‘Pardon me then.’

The two spheres broke upon impact and created a clump of dense smoke on the spot. Along with the smoke, the man vanished out of existence once again.

Forced Invisibility!

Meanwhile on the other end of the battlefield, the brawny was swinging his greatsword left and right, but even he found it a bit difficult to defeat over 10,000 monsters all on his own.

Just when fatigue was starting to kick in, a woman in the rear lifted her man-sized long staff pointed it above her head, and a holy golden aura landed on the brawny man. His eyes gave off his usual sharp and fierce look as he started massacring the enemy again.

Another lady, much like her counterpart at the east gate, simply couldn’t bear it and started chanting. Gusts of dark smoke tumbled near the earth around her.

‘Shadow Tentacles!’ she yelled in a cold voice. Dozens of tentacles shot out from the ground and entangled massive groups of monsters.

Drako Yau finally came to a realisation.

With how tough the fourth wave was, the fifth wave would have been beyond their capabilities if the difficulty had increased proportionally. In fact, the fourth wave was already tougher than usual with Phantasma Violet barging in. Thankfully, the players also had the monster known as Drako Yau and the Castellan’s reinforcements on their side, so they somehow managed to make it past the wave.

As for the fifth wave… ‘It’s a show.’

‘A show?’

Noticing that Zephyrwolf sounded slightly confused, Drako Yau calmly explained, ‘Right, a show performed by NPCs. To be precise, it’s a show to let us catch a glimpse of what the game’s future holds. Did you forget the lore behind this story event?’

‘Class progression’, Hades answered placidly, unlike a certain brainless person.

Drako Yau nodded. ‘If I’m not wrong, these eight people represent the future paths of all players.’ But he didn’t finish the final part of his sentence: apart from hidden classes.

Zephyrwolf found it somewhat unbelievable as he looked at the eight jaunty masters who came and went like the wind even when up against an army which was well over 10,000 times their own numbers.

‘Are we gonna become like them too?’

Hades immediately sneered and butted in, not letting the chance of mocking Zephyrwolf slip, ‘Don’t be naive. Like he said, this is just a show to hype us up. We simply don’t know what level those NPCs are. Maybe they’re Level 60, or maybe even 70, who knows? With their levels, this much is easier than a piece of cake for them.’

The brutal scene of a brawny man decimating kids with one kick after another popped up in Zephyrwolf’s head…

Drako Yau nodded and said, ‘That’s right, I’m quite sure it’s just as Hades just said. Have a good look at other players.’

Everyone stared intensely into their screens, especially when their future classes were being displayed.

‘This is a preview of what our future looks like. That is to say, players will become a lot stronger after class progression becomes available, making skills and technique even more crucial. Our current battles will look like child’s play when we look back in the future.’

Deep down, Drako Yau felt rather worried. His hidden class was a trash class which didn’t even have a single active skill! It was manageable for now because their levels were still low and the four major classes didn’t have a lot of skills either, with each having around five or six active skills.

However, things would be vastly different after class progression. The diversification of skills meant there would only be more and more skills available in the future, and that spelt doom for his class which relied on basic attacks. His expectations were low—he only prayed that his class would become ‘normal’ after class progression. Looking at his skill tree, he couldn’t even feel mad anymore, let alone hoping that his class would become overpowered all of a sudden.

Blown away by the eight masters whose true strength couldn’t be discerned, the army of monsters suffered severe casualties and deaths. Tens of thousands of monsters were barred from entering the city by just eight humans.

‘Raa! Ra!’ Several monster commanders roared while signalling their troops to retreat. The monsters ran away with their tails between their legs and soon disappeared beyond the horizon.

At that moment, every player could hear a voice in their heads.

‘Successfully defended Yoda. All players will receive a +20 buff to all attributes for one week. Obtained title: City Defender. Taxes will be exempted for one week.’

‘New NPCs available at the resurrection altar: Weaponmaster Instructor, Berserker Instructor, Priest Instructor, Paladin Instructor, Assassin Instructor, Ranger Instructor, Tormentor Instructor, and Elementalist Instructor. When players reach Level 20, they can receive a class progression quest from the respective instructors of the class of their choice.

‘New NPC available at the resurrection altar: Quartermaster. Players can exchange Merit for items with the Quartermaster.’

An announcement was also made visible in the global channel: ‘The city of Yoda is the first to successfully defeat the besieging monsters. Rewards have been issued.’

The walls of Yoda now gave off a bright gleam to indicate their prestige, and the number ‘1’ was written in a massive golden font on all four city walls.