Starting from Zero

"There\'s a horde moving to us, let\'s get out of here!" I told the girls down below. "Only a dozen people are outside now. We can take them out."

I jumped back to the floor when Red Moon spoke to me. "What about this door?"

"I don’t think we can take it away. It looks pretty heavy."

"But we can’t leave it here! The Japanese will just use it against us!" Of course Zirai would say that.

"Gimme a moment."

We don’t have time to discuss now so I\'ll just have to try. I transformed into werewolf and walked to the door. My strengthened arms can just barely hold it across.

I gave the door a mighty lift.

I used too much strength...A grunt that sounds like wolf howl escaped my mouth, loud enough to alert the guards. Red Moon is already preparing her spell near the door. She released an explosion and blasted eight people back out, while Zirai quickly knocked the rest of them onto the floor.

I lifted harder. The Door of Truth finally made a cracking noise and slowly left the ground.

"Red Moon! Destroy the gate!"

The Door of Truth is bigger than the entrance so we definitely can’t get out as is.

Red Moon casted a series of magic missiles and created a large opening on the wall. I ran through it with the door on my shoulder.

"Zirai! Get away with Skyfire and take this thing with you."

"What about you?" They both asked.

"You aren’t getting anywhere if I don\'t do something to stall them!"

"But..."

Red Moon didn’t finish her words. She already knew I\'m doing the right thing.

However Zirai is still a rash one. "We can’t leave you here!"

"Just go! I can’t teleport here but Phantom can still make some short-distance blinks. Don’t worry, I can escape on myself."

I cancelled werewolf mode and summoned all companions and servants. Tank is still unavailable so there are 8 companions and 10 Phantom Knights with me.

"See, I\'m not alone. They can’t catch me easily. "

The knights readied their weapons. "In the name of the darkest star, we shall protect you to our last breath! Leave no one standing!"

"Be careful then. Don\'t fight them unless necessary." Red Moon nodded to me.

"Oh come on. I’m not that Wuyuu guy. "

"Let’s go then!" Zirai finally agreed and left the area with Red Moon, and the Door of Truth hanging on Skyfire\'s claws.

As I watch Skyfire leave, a sudden bright flash appeared in the sky and left a light beam behind. Next, a series of magic missiles went up, aiming at Skyfire. The mages can still control these attacks after releasing them. The missiles will stay on the target as long as their casters are still there.

But this is midnight, they won’t aim if they can’t see where Skyfire is, so I quickly found the wizard who used the illumination spell. He’s floating in the sky, riding a...bat monster.

"Lucky! Can you hit him from here?"

"I just need more tries."

He opened his jaw towards our target. A dozen fireballs flew towards the caster with almost no interval. The guy is still staring at Skyfire\'s direction, believing that we all left. He soon faced the result of his carelessness -- eight fireballs shot into his face, leaving his remaining ash dissipating in the wind.

The light beam vanished without its caster to maintain it. Skyfire quickly vanished from everyone\'s sight. Another two light sources were fired into the sky after seven or eight seconds. But Skyfire is already in a safe distance.

Since the girls are safe, I need to consider my own safety now. I already hear the running footsteps of enemies coming close.

Several thousands of Japanese players rushed to the tower area. They didn’t enter it--they split into two and moved around the tower, completely surrounding the structure. The following players did the same and joined the encirclement, until they formed a human wall of 8 rows.

I silently prayed to whatever god would help me, cause I really need it now. Let me see...one, against six thousand. This will take more than a miracle for me the get out alive.

I also saw that ninja leader who entered the Door of Truth with us. Either he\'s the guild master, or a high-ranked player.

The Japan players moved aside to give him a path. The leading man approached the tower with a group of warriors beside him.

"I must say, you\'re a worthy enemy!" He bowed towards the tower. "I\'m afraid I must defeat you right here, right now. I\'m Matsumoto Masayoshi by the way. May I know the name of my opponent, and how he looks like?"

I chuckled. "One of us is going to die today, so I\'ll keep my name to myself. You know, I\'m pretty charming, so I suggest you don’t look at me so you don’t shame yourself."

"You...!"

Matsumoto clenched his teeth in anger, which is a welcomed sight to me. Even if I’m dead I\'ll at least piss you off!

"I gave you the regards like a true warrior but you won’t accept it. So be it! You like to hide like a rat eh? Then we will kill you like a rat!" He yelled. "Cloaking ninjas, get him!"

13 ninjas stepped out and vanished into the air. Invisible ninjas again huh? I didn’t have time to activate my Star Gaze back in the door quest. Now I can prepare.

The detection ability of my ring immediately revealed thirteen figures in my sight. Besides, they won’t realize that I can see them. The ninjas are still walking towards we slowly.

I ordered my team to stay put. A ninja finally reached me. He took out his katana and prepared to slash at my head. I moved sideways, causing the ninja to stumble past where I was. Lucky is already waiting. He caught the unfortunate ninja with a claw and chewed off his head nice and clean.

I aimed my crossbow at another unwary ninja and release a bolt, piercing his chest. The other people only see the bolt stuck in the air, with blood coming out from it.

Then I released my dragon cords to pull a third ninja in front of me.

"You\'re not seriously seeing me as a rat are you? If you want to kill me, do it fast!"

I kicked the man away. He crashed into his own people.

"I may lose today but I\'m gonna drag you all to hell together!"

The remaining ninjas looked at each other, and charged at me as one. The Phantom Knights moved in union to block the incoming enemies. They each picked a target, caught them by the neck, and snap. Actually I only heard one "snap" before the ninja all kicked the bucket.

Matsumoto received the message of his dead men and jumped in anger.

"Kill him!! All of you! There\'s only one enemy!"

"Go!" I sent the order to attack for everyone.

A swarm of spells reached me first. Too bad though, I learned not long ago that my Dark Dragon Lord outfit is actually made from black dragon materials, and black dragons are pretty difficult to damage using magical attacks. I\'m not completely invulnerable to magic but the high resistance can already help me endure much damage. The magic wave only did around 3k damage to me. My HP is 5600 now, plus the shared HP from my companions, this is nothing to worry about.

It\'s 11:30 pm...I can summon Tank again if I hold on for another 30 minutes. If I can’t get out I\'ll just ask Tank to blow up the whole place.

The wizards didn’t make a second round of attack. They used their best spells in the first one so they\'re now busy drinking potions. The warriors though, moved in to attack. I activated werewolf mode again. The suddenly growth of my body surprised them a bit. I drew my master sword and charged ahead.

The player running foremost is an axe-wielding warrior, probably a berserker with high attack. I can compete with him as werewolf but that’s not a wise choice. There are too many enemies and I\'ll exhaust myself sooner or later. My first priority is cutting down their number.

I sidestepped his axe and punched his face, bending his armor mask into a strange shape.

I then kicked the stunned berserker away and slashed behind me, killing a ninja in mid-air, brought down my sword and stabbed another warrior rushing me from my rear. I didn’t have time to pull my sword out when another warrior reached me. I punched his stomach while stretching the claw blades, tearing him open. His corpse helped me block another attack from someone further away.

I jumped over the first line of warriors and landed among a group of ninjas staying behind.

"[Blade Storm]!"

Eight flying swords danced inside the crowd, maiming a good number of ninjas with low defense. I quickly turned back to the warriors--it\'s not a good idea having enemies behind you.

I stabbed another charging warrior. He slowly went down while watching his own intestine flowing out. A second warrior chopped my back. His blade was blocked by Aldeina before reaching me.

Ten Phantom Knights moved over and formed up a circle formation around me, with their war lances pointing outside. The highest leveled Japanese player here is only 550, while the knights are level 850. The big gap means the enemies aren’t getting past them easily.

Loong\'er and Phiona have been staying in the air and cast mess chain lightnings and fire walls among their wizard teams. They never had a chance to use their spells on me again.

Rosa is hiding under the ground and ambush unwary enemies as always. I know he’s there when someone suddenly fell flat for no reason, or someone gets thrown into the air.

Night Shade cannot find any chance to prepare his lightning attack so he simply ran around the enemies, knock them over and stomp them to death with his spiked horseshoes. Or he can kick people away, if he finds himself surrounded.

Dart is also working on interrupting their wizards. Every time he sees someone casting a spell, he grazes past the attacker, cancelling the spell, and escapes with his extreme speed.

Aldeina stayed behind me to protect me from any surprise attacks against which I can’t react in time. She’s like a battlemage--she can use some pretty good melee attacks, AND use recovery spells and support spells.

As for Phantom...he only needs to stay inside my mind and give some orders to the other companions when needed.

Lucky is the busiest one among all. He never stopped his fire breathing. Each time he opens his jaw, a dozen players will catch fire. Besides those claws and deadly tail smashes are super effective in crowded places.

Still, most enemies are aiming at me, since they know I\'m the master of all the creatures. Killing me means everyone else will disappear.

Various attacks are coming from all different directions. I kept diving, jumping and crouching but the attacks can always find me faster.

After 20 minutes of struggling my body is full of wounds now. My master sword is nowhere to be found, probably still lodged inside someone\'s belly. The flying swords won’t work since I lost the master one, so I can only use my claws now. I’m actually having a better time like this. The claw blades are easier to control, added with the strength bonus from my werewolf mode, I can kill someone in one swipe most of the time. If I\'m too stressed to attack I simply grab them and toss them away. I stand taller than everyone so throwing people is quite easy.

Their once organized attack already turned into a chaotic street brawl--now they drag, kick, slap, even bite me as long as it can cause me trouble. My bite is definitely more effective now but I never tried it out. I don’t want to create several Japanese werewolves too.

30 minutes passed. My dark body is now completely red with blood.

Matsumoto sneaked behind me when I\'m busy dealing with everyone else. I felt a sharp pain on my abdomen, then I saw a shining blade tip coming out from there. Isn’t Aldeina protecting my back?

I turned around only to see the confident grin of Matsumoto. Aldeina already died without me realizing it. God...she should\'ve at least warned me about it. Guess she didn’t have a chance.

Matsumoto tried to pull out his katana and finish me off. I tightened the muscles on my abdomen and moved, causing him to lose grip. Then I pulled the weapon out myself and broke it in half.

I turned to face the man while slamming another of his guard away with my elbow.

"You\'re coming with me!!"

Before I can go grab him, Lucky made a crash landing in front my eyes. When the dust cleared I only see the flattened Matsumoto’s body.

"Sorry, sorry! Accident."

Lucky left those words and returned to his slaughter.

The death of Matsumoto gave me a brief moment to look around and spot my master sword. I quickly took it back, when the other flying swords sensed my call and gathered up on me.

"[Blade Wheel]!"

The flying swords floated around me, with their tips pointing outward. They began to spin around. I walked into the enemies with the spinning swords running like weed cutter. Those didn’t get away in time became headless.

When I\'m still having fun cutting heads, Phantom alerted: "The knights can’t hold any longer!"

Aldeina was our only healer. Without her, the enemies managed to cut down their HP little by little. I quickly de-summoned the knights. If they die they’re gone for good.

Enemy force swarmed up on me harder the instant I recalled the knights. Dart died soon--his agility can’t help him survive forever.

Next, Phiona was knocked out of the air by a group of ice spells. She had a brief moment after revival to kill all the attacking wizards, but a new group of casters quickly finished her off.

Without Phiona’s support, Loong\'er was soon killed by the focus fire of enemy archers.

A group of ninjas managed to trap Rosa using their "Doton" skills. Rosa unleashed a big move before he dies, trapping a large number of ninjas under the dirt. The other players tried digging them out but they only found corpses.

Lucky and Night Shade were the last ones to go down, which means I\'m on myself now.

My blade wheel stopped as I almost emptied my MP. The remaining portion can still maintain my werewolf mode for a while.

"Tank!"

It\'s 0:30 in the morning. I can summon Tank as my last resort.

"Crystal Cannon Shot!!"

I shouted that out to scare off the enemies. I see Matsumoto returning to the battlefield. He saw me using this attack back in the Door of Truth, which means he will run away if I bluff. What he doesn’t know is the terrible restriction of the skill. Tank needs 20 seconds to prepare it, and any damage during the process will interrupt him. There’s no way he can get the skill out with so many people around. I shouted aloud merely to surprise the enemies.

"Get back!!!"

As expected, he ordered his men to back off. The shot on the lava island burned a hundred people plus a deep impression on him.

All the Japan players around me ran away faster than they came. I\'m now standing in an open space filled with the corpses of over 3,000 players and various enemy companions. Every time I attack I use big moves to ensure they stay dead, so most of the corpses would miss an arm or leg. Only the ones killed by the Phantom Knights seem intact. Actually they all look the same--with one giant hole on their stomach, pierced by the deadly lances. The worsted ones are those killed by Lucky. They were either burned to crisps, or chewed into meat lumps.

I never noticed how many players I killed until now. Crap. This is gonna leave another bad mark on my name.

Not worrying about that now. Since the enemies are scared off, I turned around planning to jump to the top of the tower. The werewolf body would make it an easy task. It\'s harder to hit me if I jump. I’ll become a practice target if I use my wing blades to fly under the nose of all the wizards and archers.

However, things didn’t go as planned. A sudden dragging force slowed me down. Instead of leaping onto one of the medium beams on the tower, I crashed into the wall and landed inside it.

I rubbed my head and shook myself out of the dizziness. There\'s a broken arm still hanging on my foot. So this is what dragged me.

Angered, I walked back out of the cracked wall from where I came in and looked around to see which bastard didn’t run away with everyone else.

But what I see is...not someone, but a LOT of people, well no, monsters, or...zombies? The corpses...they stood up!

Or only those that CAN stand up. Some of them are missing both legs, or all four limbs. Those either crawl on the ground, or just twitch in place like a fish swept ashore.

When I left the tower the corpses began to move towards me, including the headless ones. It means someone\'s controlling them. They\'re summoned zombies.

Necromancers? No. Necromancers usually use skeletons. Even if they summon corpses they can only find them in graveyards or certain spots. I never heard of any necromancer calling up player corpses as zombies. Besides, summoned zombies are usually complete bodies using their own senses to detect enemies. Now I\'m looking at a lot of disgusting body parts worming over the place. Who the fuk can do this?? A hidden necromancer-like class maybe?

I saw Matsumoto standing far away, and someone wearing...clothes with eight diagrams printed on it. He looks like a Taoist but, different. Taoists often dress themselves like well-learned sages. Even young people sometimes wear a long beard as cosplay decoration. Whatever they wear, they shouldn’t look so...sullen. This man looks like a corpse himself! I’m sure he smells like one too.

Razor once told me about a special class in Japan who can manipulate the dead. So this must be it.