MMORPG : Rise of the Interstellar God

170  Red Reunion

Apophis entered the room, feeling like a hero entering an arena.

After all, the chamber was quite arena-like. Rather than being a simple office, as it had appeared on the outside, it seemed that a large portion of the mall had actually been dedicated to a conference hall. Hundreds of players were inside, talking among themselves, who seemed to represent the different guilds leading the war plan.

These people were scattered all around the room on metal chairs, all facing a round table in the center, where the core members of the Defense Council were sitting and muttering to each other. Lucifer stood between the table and the rest of the players, giving a long and erratic philosophical speech. The listeners seemed to be so bored they could hardly avoid yawning.

But then everyone at the table saw Apophis, and they all stopped talking. It was half a second before Lucifer realized something in the room's atmosphere had changed and he also noticed Apophis's approach. His voice halted.

With their bored hypnosis broken, the rest of the players on their chairs blinked rapidly and looked around, trying to figure out what was happening.

Apophis raised his voice so that everyone in the room could hear him. "Greetings, dear friends! I see you've been waiting for me before you take action. Don't worry: Daddy's home!"

Nobody answered.

A few female players tried to repress their laughter, and the sound of their hidden snickering filled the air for a few moments. Zelda was not among these players. Instead, her visceral hatred for Apophis made her grind her teeth with rage that Apophis had come into this place!

Though Lotus only showed an impassive expression, she was embarrassed by this entrance. It made Eclipse look like a badly run guild and lessened her own reputation by extension.

And, of course, Lucifer was very annoyed that Apophis had burst in and distracted everyone from his speech! He snapped back to Apophis, "If you wish to speak, Apophis, you must ask permission from your master and guild representative!"

Apophis waved his hand in defiance, as though brushing away a buzzing fly. "I guess this council is too busy talking instead of acting. In the space of one day, I've already fought three times. Meanwhile, the rest of you have just been talking for hours."

Mario stood up, clearly trying to keep his patience. "We're listening to you, Apophis. If you have any ideas for action, please propose them."

Apophis was surprised. He'd expected a lot more angry arguments and insults. "Action," he said, "that's all we need to do! Anything other than sitting around. For example, we have to attack the Imperial weapons warehouse where the Vk5 assault mechas are stored! The longer we wait, the more time there is for the Imperials to activate them and slaughter us all over the planet!"

Ceasar, who was also in the room, laughed loudly at this. "I'd expect nothing less from you, Apophis! You want to attack precisely where the enemy offers you the greatest challenge!"

After a moment, Ceasar's grin vanished. "However, my subordinates have already reported that the Imperial Army is in the process of making these war machines operational. They already have over a dozen operational Vk5s guarding the place day and night! Even if we managed to gather a million players whom we could trust to follow strict orders—which already seems very optimistic to me—

we'd never manage to defeat ten Vk5s at the same time!"

Lotus was growing more embarrassed with every improvised word out of Apophis's mouth. Despite her own strategic thinking, she quickly realized that she needed to support him so that Eclipse wouldn't appear to be a humiliating guild full of bickering children.

"Apophis is right!" Lotus said, interrupting Ceasar's next words. "We must attack this warehouse. The objective is not to conquer the planet, but rather to allow a diversion while our fleet breaks the blockade and evacuates our players!"

Before anyone could respond, the room was rocked by explosions that shook the walls—and then a stronger blast violently shattered everything made of glass in the room!.

One of the outer sentry players soon entered the room. "Several waves of ground support bombers are overhead! We must evacuate!"

Apophis laughed bitterly at this. "No doubt this was the result of your brilliant idea to gather thousands of players in close proximity."

The global chat feed started to fill with alarming messages.

"imperium troops in the north of sector 98 near the temple of valor! arrhhhh whats going on"

"What the hell is this!? Enemy in sector 78!"

"I just saw the guild group 'Tyrant' get destroyed!"

"Imperial troops are about to launch a ground offensive southwest of sector 22 of the temple!"

"Run away quickly! He's coming to finish the job!" And inside the mall, the walls kept shaking.

Lotus stood up, remaining much calmer than most of the surrounding players. "Well, we now have two choices. Either we keep arguing and everyone reverts to Level 1 by the end of the day, or I take total leadership and save us from this mess! It's all up to you!"

She then opened her player menu and created an in-game contract which would bind all who signed it to treat her as their leader. She invited everyone in the room to sign.

The players in the room looked at each other for a few awkward moments… and then accepted.

After all, everyone was aware of the Imperial strategy on Terra. Since Azerof knew that Eternals dropped in power whenever they died, the Empire hoped to effectively force all the players to start their characters all over again from Level 1.

Without any other plan, it was clearly necessary to put aside their differences and face their enemy together.

Then another player from Renovatio Imperii entered the room and shouted, "Airborne troops have entered the building from above! We've lost several players on secondary sentry duty!"

Apophis thought, Airborne troops among the old Federation troops? It can only be...

Suddenly a plasma shot blasted through the room's wall and hit one of the Toxic guild lieutenants who had accompanied Mario! The player stared in shock as his body disintegrated around the wound… before he died in a burst of light.

Ceasar leaped to his feet and shouted, "Everyone in combat positions!"

But it was too late. Several more plasma shots punctured the concrete walls like wet cardboard and disintegrated one player after another.

Most of the players present couldn't even defend themselves very well. They were only guild executives, players who had strictly administrative roles in their guilds. The only players with real combat power were the 7 Gods, who had been sent to boost the morale of everyone else.

It was real carnage. The Coalition representatives died without any possibility to retaliate, panicking and screaming the whole time. Shot after shot crossed the room, wiping out the representatives who attended the meeting.

Zeus, the Sniper who was the star player of the Spartans, returned fire with his laser rifle. He did a better job than most of the other Snipers who tried to follow suit in the room, but it was useless. He simply couldn't see the enemy, since he lacked any Skill or technology that would let him see through walls.

Apophis and Lotus themselves were the targets of concentrated plasma fire, but Apophis reacted quickly with ~Susanoo~ to protect them both.

It was impossible to protect anyone else, though. Among the hundreds of representatives who had attended the meeting, only ten or so managed to escape the carnage.

Apophis shouted, "We have to get out of here and eliminate the shooters!" He equipped the Sword of Regnier from his inventory and leaped to the wall, smashing it to pieces.

The attackers came into view through the cloud of concrete dust: several dozen soldiers in wearing head-to-toe bionic armor.

Apophis quickly analyzed the Imperial soldiers.

╔══════════════╕

╟─╼NPC

║ ╰╼[Name]: Special Forces of the Imperium

║ ╰╼[LvL]: 40

║ ╰╼[Biology]: Space Human

╚══════════════╛

It was just as he'd assumed. These were the former Special Forces of the Federation, but it seemed that they'd switched their allegiance very quickly! These soldiers were completely different from the cannon fodder of the regular army troops. These men were trained to be the living weapons of the Federation, to face any threat without flinching—including the threat of Ascensionists who were much more powerful than themselves.

Fortunately, Apophis was accompanied by the best players of Horus. Anything else might have been not enough!

The few surviving players formed a circle around Lotus, who was now the official leader of the Coalition.

Apophis used a Skill to ignite black flame on his huge, two-handed sword. Ceasar used one of his Warrior class's self-buffing Skills. Lucifer used his light-control Skill to dematerialize his body. Zeus began dual-wielding sniper rifles. Zelda used a Skill that made her shield triple in size before a dragon head appeared on it.

Mario equipped his boxing gloves and activated a reinforcement Skill that made a purple aura cover him and dark energy surge out of the gloves. Arthas cut his hand, and the blood that dripped to the floor grew into a huge undead creature who was two meters tall.

Lastly, Joker joined Lotus in the middle of the formation and clapped his hands together, summoning a shield that encompassed the group.

Lotus glanced around. "Where are the other representatives? Is this really all we have left?"

Joker replied, "They're all dead. Only the nine of us left!"

With all the dust cleared, it became clear that the full number of Special Forces soldiers was about a hundred, organized so that they could freely fire past each other at their targets.

They opened fire once more.

The shots crashed against the massive blue force field that Joker had created with his Engineer Skill, sending a wave of cracking sound waves through the room as the energy was neutralized!

The shield held for only a few seconds against the incredible firepower of the imperial special forces...

Then collapsed.