Chapter 48: Three Monsters, One Beastlord

"Okay, hold on did that thing just summon sixteen Bonecaster Mages in one cast?"

"All level twenty, all elite-tier. That’s not a summon, that’s an invasion."

"I thought his first companion was already breaking the event. Turns out the second one’s worse."

"Somebody find out what breed that thing even is."

"Sixteen elite casters raining spellfire down at once who’s supposed to out-damage that?"

"I’m calling it now. MVP’s decided.

Everyone else is just here for the consolation prize."

"Forget recruiting him, I’ll just volunteer to carry his loads."

"Hey, partner up with me you kill, I’ll loot, we split the glory fifty-fifty. Deal?"

The noise kept climbing behind him, but Kael had already moved past caring about any of it.

He raised a hand, and Wraithlord and its crimson twin answered together, riding their skeletal chargers straight off the battlement without breaking stride.

The instant hooves touched ground, both spears came up, leveled at opposite ends of the horde, and twin voices called out the same word.

Phantom Charge!

Behind each Wraithlord, gathered undead energy surged and folded inward, condensing into a full cavalry unit spectral riders in tarnished gold armor, mounts wreathed in the same cold light as their masters, thundering forward with a killing intent heavy enough to feel from the wall.

Wherever that charge landed, Hollowfang Hounds simply stopped existing cut down in whole ranks, health bars snapping to zero before the animation even finished.

Up on the battlement, the noise that had been building all fight finally cracked into something closer to disbelief.

"His second pet does that? One skill and it wipes a company?"

"That’s gotta be a Platinum-tier companion. Has to be."

"This isn’t even fair anymore."

By then the sixteen Bonecaster Mages had reached the wall’s edge, staves raised, chanting necromantic fire down into the horde in overlapping volleys.

Kael added his own longbow to the mix, drawing and loosing from the high ground in a steady, unhurried rhythm, and somewhere in the middle of all that carnage, he opened one more gate.

Thunder Roc barely a week contracted, still only level one dropped in small enough to perch on a shoulder.

Kael routed half of every kill’s experience straight into it.

With three companions tearing the horde apart at once, the experience flowing back was obscene.

Thunder Roc’s level climbed like something had lit a fuse under it golden light flaring around its small frame in pulse after pulse, each flash marking another level gone.

Ten levels in under a minute. Its body kept pace, stretching from barely a foot long to a two-meter wingspan in the same handful of seconds, feathers crackling with hair-fine threads of blue lightning as it lifted off Kael’s shoulder and climbed into the open air above the wall.

It wasn’t doing much damage yet the bolts it flung down into the horde barely registered against monsters this far above its level but even at level ten, something in the way it held itself in the air already looked like it belonged at the top of a food chain nothing here could challenge yet.

Three companions. One event. Kael’s event-point counter had stopped climbing and started sprinting, numbers ticking over so fast the panel could barely keep the animation smooth.

Hollowfang Hounds dropped by the dozen below him, folding over like wheat under a scythe none of them could see coming.

Somewhere past the hundredth spot, his name broke into the visible top hundred on the floating rankings screen and kept going, climbing past name after name, shouldering aside players who’d been grinding this event since the horn sounded.

Several kilometers down the wall, at an entirely different stretch of battlement, Alexis Kane had her own fight going.

Melee class or not, her gear made the jump off the wall an easy call.

The moment her boots hit ground, a skill lit through her whole body a molten aura blooming outward, every stat on her sheet spiking hard enough to feel in her own hands.

Her blade came alive with it, a crimson edge trailing off the tip in a burning arc every time she swung, splash damage licking out to catch anything standing too close to her actual target.

Cinderblade Arc.

Hollowfang Hounds clawed at her armor and did real damage doing it this wasn’t a fight she was winning on defense but a small army of healers up on the wall kept her topped off round after round, and the lifesteal woven into her gear did the rest.

Her health bar never dipped below seventy percent the entire fight. A handful of high-tier mages had gone one step further, cracking entire packs down to a sliver of health without finishing them off, leaving every last kill and every point that came with it sitting there for her to collect.

It was, by any reasonable measure, a dominant performance. Her rank climbed into the top three and held there.

She swept her blade in one final wide arc, a crescent of burning light tearing through a cluster of weakened hounds and detonating in a burst of white experience motes.

The surge hit her like a wave, and a moment later gold light wrapped her whole body.

Level 19.

Flush with that, she looked up at the massive rankings panel hanging over the battlefield, hunting for exactly how far behind she’d left a certain someone.

Instead she watched his name climb past her own in real time and shove it down a slot.

Something in her expression came apart completely.

"Elle!" she snapped into the guild channel. "What is going on?! Is he cheating?!"

"He’s got a Beastlord and two melee pets," she said, half a beat later. "How is he outscoring me?!"

"Lex, I told you already you weren’t going to beat him." Elle’s voice came back tired, like she’d been waiting for this exact meltdown. "One of those melee pets has a summon skill attached."

"Sixteen Bonecaster Mages, Lex. All at once. All elite. Standing on the wall throwing spellfire nonstop. Nobody’s out-damaging that."

"Wait." Alexis’s blade stopped mid-swing. "You said one pet. You’re telling me one of his pets is doing that?"

Sixteen.

"There’s a stream running on the forum front page right now. Go look for yourself."

"Fine!"

She kept fighting one-handed while pulling up the forum with the other, and the front page didn’t make her hunt for it the stream sat pinned right at the top, title blazing across the banner in impossible-to-miss letters.

[LIVE] The Server’s #1 Beastlord Three Monsters, One Impossible Run

Alexis clicked in without a second thought.

Her lips parted, and whatever she’d been about to say died somewhere on the way out.