Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

"Eleventh?!" Unconformed, Kaizen asked. "Who the hell is first?"

"The Bloody Lily with the video of the moment she killed The Perpetual Fire." The blond played the first video in the ranking that didn't have the redhead's name on it, just a brief summary of the move.

The video begins with a scene of Bleeding Lily taking her sword from its sheath and then leaping several feet upward. Her face is blurred, but it is possible to recognize her red hair and armor.

The camera view follows her jump and shows her sword transfiguring into a red bow with a string that seemed to be made of light. Suddenly, a black arrow appears in her right hand. The Blood Lily positions the arrow on the bowstring and shoots it with such force that the object disappears for a few moments from the camera's eyes. Finally, the arrow pierces the skull of a man with purple skin and bat wings who was carrying a girl in mid-air.

"Ow! She's pretty good." Kaizen admitted after the video was over. "She hit the moving target while also being in a soaring motion. A normal person would never hit an arrow like that."

"There's no doubt about it. Her aim is practically perfect." The boy stated.

"By the way, what is your name, young man?" Kaizen inquired, though he could see that kind of information with the <Analyzer Eye>.

"You may call me Foelmar." The blond man said, sympathetically.

For some reason, Foelmar didn't feel like he was in danger around Kaizen, despite all the rumors going around about this player, and he couldn't say why he felt that way. Maybe this was happening because Kaizen was also being nice, or because the Psyker was not arrogant, as was to be expected from someone so strong. In fact, it also seemed that even Kaizen didn't know everything that was in the game, which would easily explain the fact that he didn't know how to access the highlight videos of the event. In fact, this generated curiosity in Foelmar.

"Sorry if I'm being rude, but is this the first event you've attended?" Foelmar inquired to Kaizen, who was standing next to the armchair he was sitting in.

"Definitely yes. It was quite a scare for me when this all started so suddenly." Kaizen confessed smoothly. "Unlike me, you guys seem much more prepared for it."

"Hehe! It's just that we already knew this would happen. You see, there are certain missions that give many indications that it might happen in the future, even on larger scales like this."

"So it was you who caused this?" inquired Kaizen seriously.

"No, of course not. That kind of scale of event can only be caused by a History Mission. It's what we call the Butterfly Effect. Any action taken during a History Mission can, and possibly will, reverberate until it causes something in the future. The job of analysts like me is to try to predict what might happen and keep an eye on what is happening in the world. You see, all the NPCs in this game have a life of their own and it's through them that I find out most things."

"Of that I know, but how did you find out that this event would happen then?"

Foelmar looked around and made sure no one was listening to their conversation. "I will tell you, but you promise not to tell anyone I told you, right?"

Kaizen raised his right palm and uttered:

"I swear."

"A few months ago, some players thought they had found a passage to a new dungeon, but when they entered the depths of these abandoned ruins, they discovered that the place was not so abandoned."

"There were monsters?"

"Worse than that, humans. They were gathered in red hoods and cloaks, wearing white masks that above the hole for each right eye were runes. These humans were muttering a chant, a ritual or something, but it turned out that it was some kind of initiation into some kind of strange cult called The Eye of Hermodr."

"How does that connect to what happened in the city today?"

"This cult I mentioned believes that the God Hermodr will be responsible for warning the gods of Asgard of what is happening in Midgard, which today is pretty much dominated by monsters and wild lands. And they are partly right about that, after all Hermodr is known as the messenger of the gods, however, he is also known as the one who carries the souls of the dead to the underworld."

"In other words, he could be a messenger of much more peaceful times or of even darker times." Kaizen concluded.

"Yes, and as the worshippers of The Eye of Hermodr believe in the first theory, their leader has gathered all kinds of crazy people to get enough power to try to attain the three items they believe are the items needed to free Hermodr from the endless embrace of the Goddess Hel. Basically, it doesn't matter to him the means if the end is the one he was aiming for."

"Three items? What are these items?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows. However, rumor has it that one of these items is in this city and that explains the attack hordes. The first horde was to test our powers, the second will weaken us and the third will be to obliterate us. That's a basic tactic."

Kaizen gave Foelmar's left shoulder two weak slaps and said:

"If what you say is true, then I have to prepare. We'll talk later."

Although Kaizen started the conversation with no pretensions of getting very crucial information, luckily Foelmar had a loose tongue and loved to expose the information he got, so Kaizen got a lot more than he expected.

He then moved a little away from everyone on the second floor and found a corner where he could fiddle with his interface without fear of having someone watching him.

He slid an index finger down in the air and opened the system interface.

'Ah! So that's the option that was here all along?' He thought when he saw that there was now an option to check the ranking of the featured videos and popularity.

Kaizen was tempted to look at the videos of the other players' moves, but soon scolded himself.

'No, that's not what I opened the system for. Finally, the time has come to unlock another skill!']

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

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