Armageddon: No More Games

Yu

Prologue

At the turn of the century. The use of MindGear became a very popular. A device that allows the user to inject their consciousness into the virtual universe. Created by Edensoft, the company also introduced Eden, a complete 3D virtual reality universe. An expansive virtual space where people can create their own virtual worlds. Unlike in the real world where space is limited, the virtual space in Eden is unlimited. Many businesses take advantage of this technology to expand and expose their products and services.

Users need to create their own avatar first before they can traverse through the virtual universe, they can customize their avatars anyway they like; gender, height, weight, body mass, eye colors, and other personal settings.

Controllers are things of the past, there is no need to flail around. Walk, run, jump, slide, punch, kick, and even fly are done by using the brain. Users can move around the virtual universe just like in real life. The device interacts and transmits data with the brain through the eyes, connection is not interrupted even if the user blinks many times. Connection can only be interrupted if the device is suddenly turned off by external means or if the user closed their eyes for long periods of time like falling asleep.

Because of this, life has become much easier. Communication, business, commerce, trade, and entertainment especially gaming are done online in a virtual space. Virtual malls, houses, cities, and complete worlds can be created, there is no limit.

One such world is the popular game during that time. Armageddon.

A massive game world set in medieval times where players can become heroes. Their job. To eradicate the source of this world’s great evil, Megiddo. The game's main antagonist and final boss and the cause of the world's chaos. A very evil and powerful demon god whose aim is to destroy the world, rebuild and rule it in his own terms. It views the current world inhabitants worse than insects and need to be purged.

The game boast multitudes of races, classes, sub-jobs, weapons, armor, and etc. Player can raise their character levels up to maximum level of 100. Classes can be ranked up to a higher class or branched out to another.

What sets Armageddon apart from other VROMMORPGs is that players can learn multiple ultimate attacks called Soul Blaze. Each class has its own Soul Blaze, it can either be a special attack that deals massive damage or support skill/spell that gives the user or party buffs like increased attack, defense, heal and etc.

However, Soul Blaze are not limited to classes. Some special weapons or armors has its own Soul Blaze, giving the game more diversity. There are a total of 5 main mega servers around the world. Asia, Oceana, Europe, Middle East, and Americas. A universal server was added later to bring people together around the world to meet and play together during raids, and events.

Unfortunately, all things comes to an end and online games are no exception.

CHAPTER 1

ALL THINGS COMES TO AN END

New Year’s Eve. A few more hours before the year ends and a new one starts. It is one of the holidays observed and celebrated by many people of all ages around the world. People welcomes the upcoming New Year by preparing food, wear new clothes, fill their pockets with change, drinking, and merry making. It is also one of the busiest day of the year.

Many establishments take advantage of this celebration by putting items on sale or giving discounted services. The City of Silencio has been celebrating the ending of the year by inviting the people from all over to the Nyte square in the Nyte district, the busiest district of the city. The city provide numerous entertainment like bands, street performances, contests and many more getting people in a festive mood while waiting for the countdown. Business establishments around the square provide refreshments and food trying to earn a little more.

However, not everyone celebrates the coming of the New Year. One individual like Kit Devlin prefers to stay home and play his VR game. The game he currently plays is coming to an end once the clock strikes twelve. The developers of Armageddon; VRSoft has announced that the game is shutting down after 20 years of service before the midnight of January 01, 2135. Kit as an avid fan has been playing the game since launch and wishes to stay until its final moments.

Beautiful crystalline chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, adorned with dark colored crystals of black, purple, red, and blue radiating eerie and creepy light down the throne room; the room’s only light source. Blood red and black carpet laid out at the center. Skulls and bones decorated both sides of the walls.

And in the middle are two figures engaging in a fierce exchange of skills and spells. One of the figure is a thirty meter tall monster NPC called Megiddo, the game’s final boss. Clad in black armor with red lava streaks running vertically. Carved into the chest armor is a face of a demon with eyes glowing red.

Below it are faulds made from human skulls. Armored leggings and spiked greaves protects the thigh and legs. Above the armor is a steel black helmet covering the whole face with only a horizontal slit for the eyes.

Protruding the helmet are three pairs of horns. Two horns situated on the temples are bent forward, the pair above the temples are bent up-front while the last pair which are located above the nape are also bent forward.

A pair of arm long clawed gauntlets are the preferred weapon of the monster. Each gauntlet has four blades, one for each knuckle; in addition, a curved blade is attached on its posterior. On its back are a pair of flame wings with the shape of dragon heads and can attack on their own.

The other is small 190 cm tall warrior. Wearing a black armor but, not as menacing as Megiddo’s. Streams of gold outline that are supposedly muscles on the upper armor.

Pair of winged pauldrons covers the shoulders. Pointed finger arm gauntlets with three claws on the other end of the gauntlet serving as elbow protection. On the waist are faulds made from dark red dragon scales. Plate Leggings with knee cops and wing decoration on the calves covers the lower half of the body. A wing like mask covers the whole face on top of the helmet with a ponytail at the back.

However, this is not a proper armor. This is a customized costume created by Kit. In Armageddon, costumes can be customized or created from scratch using materials obtained in-game or cash shop.

NOBODY; Kit Devlin’s avatar, fought swiftly and cautiously around the big towering monster. However, no matter how many skills and spells he used, the monster seems unfazed by the attacks. Its HP is around 75% full. Kit has been going at it for the past 45 minutes and his efforts seems to be going nowhere.

Fireball Barrage EX.

C’mon, eat more damage, damn monster. Kit shouted while firing multiple fireballs.

Dealt total 70,154 fire damage to Megiddo.

Class Switch: Kage

Swift Wind

Using a hit and run tactic, evading, jumping, dashing around, and attacking are the best way to deal with the monster. Or so he thought. Kit has viewed a dozen or so videos in a video sharing platform StreamTube before, players soloing Megiddo and winning. However, those videos made it look easy. He even used the same strategies as those who defeated Megiddo, but he is not getting the same results.

I need a better strategy than this. Kit thought to himself.

While trying to come up with a better solution, he was hit with a back hand punch by the monster. He flew across the throne room and rolled on the floor a few times before coming to a complete stop.

Received 179,301 critical melee damage from Megiddo.

Kit quickly got up and popped an HP potion.

Restored 209,790 HP from HP potion EX.

HP: 250,000/250,000 MP: 63,320/150,000

Kit let out a sigh of relief after reading the Battle System Report on the lower left chat box.

Getting distracted is not gonna help me either. That last attack took more than half of my HP.

Kit focused himself anticipating Megiddo’s next attack. Following up with its earlier attack. The twin flaming dragon wings on the back of Megiddo opened their mouth and spit out a large flame AOE attack.

SHIT!

Kawarimi

The flames swallowed Kit but after the flame and smoke cleared, only a burnt log remained on the floor then crumbled into ashes.

Special Ninja Technique: Cross Slash Explosion EX

Appearing a few meters above Megiddo. Kit unleashes a powerful ninja attack. Slashing from multiple directions leaving a trail of light: above, below, right, left, diagonal, front, and back. The attack ended with explosions from the light trails.

Dealt total 90,459 critical melee damage to Megiddo.

Skill useable in 297 seconds.

Tsk, if I can only use my strongest skills consecutively. complained Kit while checking the cool down of his other skills.

With just a loud roar, Megiddo dispersed the smoke around it. The gleam of the monster’s eyes grew larger and brighter followed with red electricity sparkling on the horns.

Wait! What?! This is too early. It should not use its Soul Blaze this early. It’s HP is still 74% full. Kit panicked while checking the monster’s life bar.

According to the players who faced Megiddo. The monster usually use its Soul Blaze when its HP is below 40%. He has not heard from anyone that the monster using its Soul Blaze above 50% HP.

Did the developers ninja update Megiddo’s settings?  I did not see anything of the sort from the recent and previous patch notes. wondered Kit."

Megiddo spread its arms, palms facing up as if welcoming something. A beam of red light shone down enveloping Megiddo. The horns grew larger as more electricity sparkled around its body and ran wild.

Guh! No choice. It’s do or die then

Ring of Kronos: Time Delay

Time slowed down while Kit still moved in real time.

Class Switch: Grand Knight

Sword of Archangel Michael: Soul Blaze Activate!

Kit used both hands and grab something in front of him. A sword hilt appeared from his hands and started to form a sword. A beautiful three foot pure white sword with wings as hand guards, each wing has a span of eight inches. Bright white light shone down on Kit, then he cast various buffs on himself.

Ring of Gemini: Double Damage

Ring of Herakles: Increase Strength

Mana Blast potion EX

Monstrous Strength potion EX

Rage potion EX

Overload potion EX

Elemental Boost potion EX

Berserk Potion EX

Knight’s Discipline EX

Steel Concentration EX

Mana Rage EX

Knight’s Valor EX

Pierce EX

Knight’s Pride EX

Mana Potion EX

Mana Convert EX

King of Soul potion EX

These are all the best potions and instant cast skills I have. I hope these are enough. thought Kit.

Shining bright like the sun, the sword’s blade become light itself and illuminated the dark throne room. Kit held the sword above his head ready to strike. He then switched his attention to Megiddo who also finished casting its Soul Blaze. The pillars of light shining on them shrunk in then disappeared. Time restored and moving back in real time.

Roaring with all its might, Megiddo’s horns let out a beam as large as the monster enveloped in red electricity.

Soul Blaze Release: Divine Fury

The winged hand guards of the sword turned up unlocking the full power of the sword. Kit swing the sword downward releasing a bright white beam three times larger than the wielder. The two beams crashed at each other with intense force that the entire room whited out.

Did I fail? Kit looking around the all-white space.

Lost and confused, he searched around looking for any clue of what happened. A few seconds later, the pure white back ground started to fade and reveal the throne room in full illuminated view. Megiddo is nowhere to be found.

CONGRATULATIONS! MEGIDDO HAS BEEN DEFEATED!

YES! YES! YES! I’VE DONE IT!!! Kit jumped and dance around celebrating his victory. Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Who’s the boss now?

Please choose a reward.

Kit stared at the 5 framed weapons in front of him. Dagger, Short Sword, Long Sword, Staff and Orbs that are beautifully designed floats in a row waiting to be selected. After picking the one he wanted, the weapon selection screen disappeared. Sparkling dust sprinkled down from above followed by the sword descending and spinning slowly displaying all of its glory. Kit grabbed and examined the beautiful sword.

The Sword of Megiddo is 55 long black wide sword, blade length of 35 while the width is 4. Attached on either side of the blade’s fuller are eight four-sided gems, four on each side. The gems has the colors of the basic and extra elements: Red for Fire, Blue for Water, Green for Wind, Brown for Earth, Purple for Lightning, White for Holy, Black for Evil, and Gray with star like dots for Cosmo. One side houses the basic elements while the other the extra elements. It has a molded cross guard, hilt and pommel, which are created from gold. The cross guard has the head of a dragon on either side with the face of Megiddo in the middle adorned with two small rubies to serve as eyes. A crisscross pattern that looks like dragon scales ran down the hilt which is 10 long. Lastly, the pommel is capped with gold and embedded diamond.

This is one beautiful sword said Kit admiring and swinging the sword around. What about its stats?

A new window popped out in front of him displaying the statistics of the sword.

Sword of Megiddo [Two-handed] [NOBODY]

Weapon level: 100

Attack Power: 800 – 1000

Critical: 500

Critical rate: 40%

Block: 100

All Elements: +200

Requirements:

Level: 70

Strength: 100

Race: All

Class: Knight

Mechanic:

Gladiator

Berserker

Paladin

-30 mana per use. [Except Soul Blaze]

Soul Blaze: Armageddon

Damage: 3000%

Attack type: Beam

Range: Infinite

Inflict: Curse, Burn, Confusion, Bleeding, Defense down, Attack down, Debuff Resist down, Skill seal, Soul Blaze seal, Death [50% chance]

Cast time: 10 seconds

Remove all targets’ non-permanent buff before damage.

Blocks Resurrection skill/spell/item up to EX rank.

Conditions:

Untradeable

Unbreakable

Not skinnable

Not upgradeable

Not sellable

Not mailable

WOW! This sword’s pretty OP. No wonder we can only do this solo quest once and is banned in tourneys.

In Armageddon. The final story boss Megiddo can be fought two ways. First is with a party, you can challenge Megiddo as many times as you want until you defeat Megiddo, you can still challenge him again by joining another party who still have yet to defeat the boss. Players obtain various EX rank drop loots which includes the armor and accessories of Megiddo.

Megiddo has the highest HP and attack power even amongst event raid bosses. Only the event raid boss Archangel Michael is comparable which has the highest defense power. Second is to challenge the boss solo and can only be done once regardless of result. The reason being that the boss is guaranteed to award the most powerful weapon in the game. A weapon that rivals the weapon dropped by the raid boss Archangel Michael which is considered the rarest of the rarest.

Quest Complete

Return to NPC King Joseph?

Yes       No

I guess I have nothing more to do here.

Pressing the Yes button, Kit disappeared and reappeared inside a beautiful bright throne room full of people clapping, cheering, and celebrating his victory. He was personally greeted by the NPC King Joseph who just got up from the throne and walked towards him shaking his hand.

A magnificent victory, Sir NOBODY! You have saved the Kingdom of Selena… No, the whole world from the evil demon, Megiddo. For that, in behalf of kingdom and of the whole world. THANK YOU VERY MUCH! the king bowed followed by the people around.

As promised, here is your reward for defeating Megiddo.

Quest rewards:

100,000,000 Bit

100 HP Potion EX

100 Mana Potion EX

10 Elixir Potion EX

10 Vaccine EX

10 Antidote EX

10 King of Soul EX

Che… story quest rewards are so damn cheap. LOL! But, the real reward is this… said Kit looking at the sword he acquired for defeating the final boss.

Your great achievement has added you to the great history of this world. continued NPC King Joseph while pointing to the floating leaderboard screen above them. The leaderboard showed the number of players who defeated Megiddo in solo mode. The screen scrolls down then coming to a full stop revealing the NOBODY name in neon green. He is placed 23rd in the leaderboard.

Wow! I was expecting more people than this.

Quest Rewards received

Return to Town?

Yes      No

Kit looked at the time on his upper right corner of screen. 11:51:43 P.M., 8 minutes until the server shuts down.

Oh right, I turned off the notification earlier while fighting Megiddo. There should be numerous notification of the server shutting down.

Kit tapped on the bell icon beside the chat box and then it was filled with yellow notifications in bold letters.

SERVERS WILL SHUT DOWN AT THE MIDNIGHT OF JANUARY 1, 2135. PLEASE LOG OUT BEFORE MIDNIGHT! THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR PLAYING AND SUPPORTING ARMAGEDDON! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

They’ve been sending this notification every 5 minutes. Wonder how are the other players doing?

Kit returned to the kingdom’s square and started walking around. There were no players around town, only NPCS going about their ways. He entered the marketplace but it wasn’t as busy as before where it was filled with players buying and selling items.

Show area population

Area pop: 0

Guess I’m the only one in town. Kit dropped his shoulders as he sighed.

Show Asian population

Asian Region pop: 37

"Only 37 players in the Asian server? That’s far less than expected."

Show EU population

EU Region pop: 109

Show ME population

ME region pop: 51

Show Oceana population

Oceana region pop: 38

"Show Americas population"

Americas region pop: 142

Show Central population

Central population: 86

From fifty million players down to less than 500. How the mighty have fallen? shrugged Kit shaking his head and raising both arms in the air.

11:57 P.M. Kit checked the time again.

It’s almost time. Too bad I can’t test my new sword.

Teleport EX

Kit appeared on the edge of a cliff looking over the ocean with the kingdom’s city behind him. His avatar’s ponytail and faulds floats smoothly against the wind. The setting sun is already half way down on the horizon.

Good bye, Armageddon. It has been fun. saying his final goodbye to the game he has played for twenty years. Kit looked on at the setting sun.

11:59:56 P.M.

11:59:57 P.M.

11:59:58 P.M.

11:59:59 P.M.

Armageddon Servers shutting down. Thank you for playing. Happy New Year!

As the sun sets in Armageddon, the MindGear screen fade to black. At the same time loud explosions can be heard outside of the house. The New Year celebrations has started.

Happy New Year… I guess I’ll go watch some fireworks before going to sleep.

But, before Kit can remove his MindGear, the screen comes alive. Streams of green computer code filled his vision. Kit stared at the stream of codes running across the screen unable to move as if being hypnotized.

CHAPTER 2

NEW YEAR, NEW BEGINNING

January 1, 2135. New Year’s Day. A start of a new beginning. The start of a new chapter in life. Making new friends, new relationship, new job, new business, new everything. The city