Star Storm was no different from a rain of death and destruction. Many people from Earth often speculated what it would be like if the world got bombarded with atomic bombs.
In fact, many games and various media had been created featuring such a topic, doing their best to satisfy the natural curiosity people had about such an event.
So, what was it like to see the end of the world dropping from above your head?
Well, the players of Umbra, Meiren, and the other four guilds were left shaken and speechless. Thanks to Uno's barrier, they were able to watch this scene resembling the start of Armageddon from a position of relative safety.
The meteors crashed upon the earth, creating horrible shockwaves that destroyed what little vegetation was left, opening craters everywhere within eyesight.
There were no screams or cries. What a joke, the moment the first meteor impacted, most of everything disappeared in that one shot. Each meteor was about the size of a village.
Those who hadn't been directly crushed were destroyed by the resulting shockwave. There was a point where a shockwave would blow you away like in the movies, and then there was also a point where a shockwave would just blow your skin as well as your meat off your bones before you could blink.
In this case, it was the latter.
Even if some survived the first crash, they certainly couldn't be heard. The sound of the planet's surface being dented and forcefully re-designed was so deafening that every member of Umbra was struck with a temporary deafness debuff, regardless of whatever Legendary Class skills they had, even Warm Spring.
And things didn't stop there. The duration of the spell was 10 seconds, so for that time, meteors kept emerging and smashing into their location. The members of Umbra simply watched silently, even as Uno began to shake.
His shield negated 60% of damage and it had 8,000,000 HP. However, the damage these meteors was dealing was not a joke. Even with the majority of it dispersed, Uno felt the 8,000,000 HP would be drained by the 5th second.
Warm Spring saw this and reacted quickly, casting one of her Demi-Angel skills.
｢Light of Hope – Active skill
Effect: Send out a wave of pure benevolent energy that inspires all allies nearby, increasing their damage, defense, and stats by 50%. It also allows all targets to gain 4% of their HP per second.
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: 22 hours.｣
Since the shield itself couldn't be directly healed, Warm Spring used a buff to strengthen it. Thanks to that, Uno's shield managed to regain 4,000,000 HP.
Sublime Notion didn't have any buffs that could assist Uno's skill, even with the Tome of Healing in her hands, so she opted to watch by the side.
Thanks to Warm Spring's intervention, the shield barely held out until Fitter Cleric's skill came to an end. Uno sighed with exhaustion and dispelled the shield, allowing the various players arranged underneath it to see the total devastation caused by the meteors.
The place could no longer be called the Ruined Plains of Deriam and would have to be renamed into the Wasteland of Deriam. The ground was cracked, barren, and hot. Lava even bubbled up in some places, such that the allied players could see remnants of void monsters, as well as some 'lucky' players screaming and crying for help while missing limbs.
Some also lay in the lava, being melted down in the most painful way possible as they tried to crawl away despite the extreme pain.
This left the saved players speechless, and some even vomited. Many had witnessed Rina's slaughter of everyone with Supernova back during the Emergency Quest, but they had all died at once.
At least, Rina had been in control over the skill at the time as it had been cast from her Legendary weapon, so it had only harmed her targets and left the area relatively untouched otherwise.
Boundless was still a game after all.
But Fitter Cleric literally had run a lottery and lucked out with the skill, yet since it was basically the System casting the skill for him, it meant he had no control over it and it would attack allies and enemies alike. Nevertheless, the System still treated him as the caster of the skill, so he himself would not be hurt by it, but…
All the eyes of Umbra's members, as well as the remainder of Meiren, Kamisuo, and the others, fell on the brown-haired man who held a staff as well as a strange cube-like item in both hands.
Their lips twitched when they saw that the one who brought down this armageddon had hidden even deeper in the shield than they, the potential victims had.
Hey boss, that was YOUR skill. Even if anyone would be hurt, you would be exempt. Are you so distrusting of the system that you decided to hide here still?!
However, Fitter was not bothered at all. No, the fellow was gazing into the sky. With his eyes slightly deepened and his mind clearly not in the present, anyone could tell that he was looking to the future, a visionary in the truest sense.
The dissatisfaction of his friends and guildmates was temporary, the feeling of calling down the end of the world was eternal.
Slim Fatty blushed deeply when she saw Fitter like this. In her eyes, he was shining with a dazzling light, the most handsome bloke to exist since the creation of time.
Just as the various core members were about to roll up their sleeves and teach this fellow a lesson for his arrogance, he was once again – luckily? – saved by everyone's attention shifting to a fallen meteor blowing up.
Beneath the resulting debris crawled out the form of Local Lord. The Elemental Berserker could not be described to be in a good shape… at all. He was mostly skeleton at this point, with only small bits of flesh here and there.
However, the speed at which his bones, muscles, and subsequently skin regenerated was unreal. In mere seconds, he was back to normal, like he had never been hurt in the first place.
Luckily, the fellow had enough decency to now show himself n.a.k.e.d, so he quickly equipped a new set of armor as his body regenerated. Otherwise, the world would have had to bear witness to the n.a.k.e.dness of Local Lord.
Not a very worthy sight.
Still, the members of the various guilds were greatly impressed by this. After all, they hardly knew Local Lord and were still unaware of how vile he truly was at this point in time, so his rapid regeneration made his questionable placement among the group solidify.
Still, he couldn't show off for too long. A purplish miasma billowed in a small radius around a certain meteor, and it suddenly disappeared. At the spot where the meteor previously existed stood Essence Stalker, the blade-edge of his halberd cracking into a void monster's skull.
The void monster had clearly suffered no damage from the meteor shower, just like Essence himself, and had continued their battle even in this end of the world scenario.
Now, Essence declared his victory as he pulled his halberd out of the monster's head and flourished it. He turned around to look at the entire group of Umbra and its affiliates who were gazing at him speechlessly, and he scratched the back of his head.
Well, what did they expect? He was a Dragon Knight/Void Dragon. To try and trap him anywhere was futile, since space would answer his beck and call. He had done something similar to what those fleeing Rank 3 Void Devourers had done, although his version had been much more refined and versatile, allowing him to even take away his prey.
This wasn't a system skill, but one stemming from his Serpent God Inheritance. His affiliation was an Aurora Serpent major, which was a God Serpent of the lesser array, and one that had not been noted down in mythology.
In fact, this was the first time it had appeared since the time Lucifer was on earth. After he had released the avatar of this species, it had usually kept to itself and roamed the galaxy outside the planet.
Did you really expect a space dragon to hang out on Earth???
During his 6 months in the Ancestral Dragon City, Essence had been forced to improve faster than he could be tortured by the horrors leftover there, and coupled with his talent, he had grown fast enough to conquer many challenges.
Even teleporting into this battlefield had been a feat of his own power, although there was a limit to how much he could use that. Whatever the case, Essence Stalker sprouted black wings and flew over to the players of Umbra.
As for the Dark Angel Inheritance, there was no fancy variation there. Everyone with that bloodline basically had the same thing, just to different specialties and degrees of power. Using the angelic wings allowed Essence to obtain rough flight capabilities, although his speed and maneuverability were not even close to Draco's.
All things were equal though. Because of that, his consumption of bloodline energy was also far lower, meaning he could maintain it for far longer than Draco.
Essence landed near Fitter and gave his buddy a sidelong glance. "Wow, you sure are helpful, aren't you? Not only did you kill every other player and monster, you almost vanquished your own allies! Wow, teammate of the year right here folks!"
Fitter simply scoffed and passed a hand through his hair. "It's not like I have a choice. What luck bestows upon me is what I get. I too want to have normal, unremarkable luck like you, but I was just born different I guess."
Essence Stalker's face became black as he cricked his neck menacingly. "It seems like you are the kind of son who needs a lot of discipline in order to behave properly before his daddy."
Fitter snickered and held his staff in a fighter's position. "If you were truly my father, I would have offed myself in the w.o.m.b."
Just as the two best buds were about to pummel each other to pieces, a scene which had happened so often in the past 6 months during their isolation that it had become their daily bread, Eva appeared from beneath the ground.
"Enough playing around! Now that Fitter has cleared out all the distractions and burdens, the true battle will begin." She stated bluntly, pointing in front of the group.
The various members turned to have a look, and true to Eva's statement, the Rank 3 void monsters who had hidden in pocket spaces emerged one by one while fearfully checking the sky to see if everything was alright.
Seeing as they had survived such a scary looking calamity, they smiled and hugged each other. It was quite a touching sight, but the 15 billion HP bar above their heads kept exerting great pressure on all the members present.
Even Eva and the Rank 3 beauties were feeling suffocated. If it had been a normal Rank 3 foe, Umbra alone could easily beat the fellow to a pulp, especially with the help of such a great lineup.
But 15 billion HP with at least, 80% physical and magical damage resistance… scary. Since they had Aether-Imbued items, they could probably reduce that number to 40%, about half.
It was quite foolish to think that Aether-Imbuing a weapon allowed a player or NPC able to fight void monsters of all Ranks, negating everything that made these monsters fearsome.
That benefit only manifested when a player and the void monster were at the same Rank or the void monster was below the player. As was usual with games, a higher Rank enemy either negated or reduced buffs from attacking players that targeted the monster in question specifically.
Not to mention, the highest damage any of them had done while fighting the Rank 2 enemies had been between 14-20 million. Assuming one could even replicate whatever OP skill that granted the 20 million by ignoring the void monster's resistance, the Rank and level suppression, and even its own defenses, one would still need to hit it 750 times.
That's right, you needed to spam an attack worth 20 million damage 750 times to kill just ONE of these TEN fellows. Not only that, you had to survive their clearly buffed and OP attacks while dealing consistent damage.
Considering all of this, one could see why Eva felt that this upcoming battle would be a shitfest of epic proportions. It didn't matter how OP they were, what Divine or Legendary Classes they had, or what bloodline this or that person possessed.
Against 15 billion HP, they would fight like dogs grabbing the last bone, and they would have to do it 10 times.
How exciting!
