Peerless Ethereal Sword Sovereign

The Wish

"Stand the line! Tankers, do your fucking job and tank him! All offensive magics on its eyes! Blade users, cut those feet out!"

I remember hearing that shout coming from one of the most renown person of the Earth. A mountain of muscles with a handsome face and enough charisma and presence to make all heads turn at his entrance. His name was Ülfor Vans, everyone knew he was from the North but no one knew exactly where as this was his 'stage' name. He had said once that he didn't care if people like his birth country as it did do some pretty nasty things but that it did not matter anymore, not in this new age.

Personally, I believed him to be an agent from his country. Maybe not at first but now, after 30 years of Dungeon Diving, of media coverage, of funds coming from who knew where and of political support from the northern countries he could not not be one. There were a lot of people with that opinion but none of us voiced it as that would only lead to our destruction.

For Ülfor Vans was the GuildMaster of the Northern Wolves, the most mediatized, popular and powerful guild existing on Earth. They did not get this status due to Ülfor's connections but by hard sweet and spilled blood. They had been present since the second Wave of Connections and had therefore survived all the others, conquering Dungeon Floor after Dungeon Floor, battling Monster after Monster.

Finally, after 99 Floor Bosses and countless Sector Bosses, after 99% of the Earth Population had been Connected to the System and after a quarter of it had died in the challenges of the Dungeon, they had arrived to the end. This was the last raid, the last battle against an incredible opponent and I was a part of it.

Once a simple member of the Blood Torn Guild I had been promoted to Captain, General and finally GuildMaster as the members fell one by one. I was probably the weakest, slowest and most vulnerable GuildMaster to have ever existed with my over-weighted frame and limbs that were more grease than muscles. It was a miracle I had survived up to now, a fact everyone was conscious of and which had owned me the titles of 'Fatty' and 'Roach'. If it weren't for the fact that everyone capable of fighting was present for this final stand, I would probably have stayed back, watching in the side lines like I had done in many of the previous Floor Bosses fight.

I guess I wanted to help, to become famous, to have my name written somewhere in the Hall of Heroes, at least somewhere other than the deceased list. In the end that greed cost me my life.

I didn't last one minute. The raid members took their position around the Boss chamber, the Boss appeared, a freaking Nine Headed Golden Hydra, and the battle started when it released ginormous wind blasts from one of its heads.

Everyone but me escaped the attack. I got my stomach sliced and I saw my entrails get out. In shock, I tried to put them back in with my hands but then the pain started to register and I ended up twisting on the floor like a worm, blood pooling underneath me. I could barely register the sound of battle around me, all that I did hear was my own heart became slower and slower every second that passed. In general battle against common foes take from a dozen seconds to a full minute considering the number of Heroes involved, the time to study its pattern and then make a decisive blow; elite foes take up from thirty seconds to two minutes for the same reasons, their patterns are just a bit more complex; Sector Bosses to from three to five minutes due to their special attacks that breaks their pattern and superior defenses while Floor Bosses last up to ten minutes for the same reasons and minions added in the mix.

This fight, the first fight to have ever happened against a Dungeon Boss, took fifteen minutes. There was close to a million Heroes that relayed each other to compensate for the loss in stamina, shared recovery items and buffed and debuffed through spells yet it took ten very painful minutes for them to finish and during all that time no one healed me, no one turned their head and worried for me. No one cared: I was a Roach.

I remember hearing shouts of joy and hurrahs and having the thought that the Boss was defeated. I remember something coming out of the wall, a large crystal shining a blue light and I remember reading a panel saying that it was the [God Wishing Crystalized Will] and that to activate it, blood had to come into contact with its surface. I remember wanting to do something that mattered, wanting to be the one activating the crystal even if that was the last thing I did. So, I flicked my bloody hand towards the crystal with the last of my strength. A drop must have reached it since a new panel opened and told me to make a wish. the other raid members must have been informed of it because they started coming closer. I could feel their mockery, their disgust at me, the Roach, that refused to die and was about to steal their reward for surviving so long.

In a panic, I do not remember what I managed to chock out to the crystal but I do know that the effect of my wish went beyond anything I could have asked for.

I went back.