Ash Valor wasn’t about to sit around waiting for the enemy to make the first move. If the world was ending, he was going to meet it at the highest level possible.
An hour later, flanked by a small wing of Crimson Bats, Ash had put a hundred miles between himself and the city, ascending into the jagged peaks of The Southreach Range. The air here was thinner, the monsters more vicious, and the terrain a tangled nightmare of vertical drops and ancient timber.
"Grinding flying mobs is a pain in the ass," Ash muttered, banking his mount toward a cluster of foothills sixty miles deeper into the range. "I need volume, not a dogfight."
He found his killing field: a series of rolling ridges where the trees were sparse enough to offer a clear line of sight from the air but dense enough to funnel ground troops. As he descended, the system chimed a warning.
[You have entered the territory of The Abyss Werewolves. Caution: These creatures are relentless.]
From his vantage point, the hillsides looked like they were infested with thousands of glowing embers—the bioluminescent, predatory glint of werewolf eyes.
[The Abyss Werewolf: LV300]
[Health: 18,000,000 | Attack: 180,000]
[Traits: Massive bite force. Chance to trigger 'Frenzy,' drastically increasing Attack Speed.]
Ash didn't even blink. "Level 300 trash? They can't even scratch my paint."
It wasn't just his own defense stats that had reached absurd heights; Chitin was equally impenetrable. With Lifesteal Radiant Aegis constantly topping off his vitals, Ash wasn't just a glass cannon—he was a fortress.
"This is the spot."
The moment his boots hit the dirt, the silence of the hills was shattered by a cacophony of howls. From every shadow and crevice, a tide of fur and fang surged toward him. The Lupine were efficient hunters, closing the distance with terrifying speed.
"Chitin, you’re up. Earn your keep."
With a flick of his wrist, he triggered Phantom Summon. Chitin manifested in a burst of dark energy, followed immediately by ten identical Undying Skeletons. Each one hoisted a heavy Fang Shard club, forming a wall of bone and spectral steel.
Eleven summons was a good start, but Ash wanted more. His eyes scanned the pack, locking onto a particularly large werewolf with silver-tipped fur.
"Mindshackle!"
The elite werewolf’s eyes turned a dull, obedient gray. It lunged, not at Ash, but at its own pack members. Within seconds, Ash had five elites under his thumb, creating a chaotic meat shield around him.
Then, he started shooting.
He downed an Epic-Tier Berserker’s Draught, feeling the liquid fire course through his veins. His base attack power skyrocketed toward the four-million mark. He drew the Stormquiver, and the air began to hum with the sound of Tenfold Shot echoing across the valley.
The experience bar crawled upward with satisfying regularity. With the Lifesteal Radiant Aegis aura keeping his mind-controlled thralls healthy, the grind was a well-oiled machine.
"A level every hour?" Ash wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, a predatory grin forming. "At this rate, I’ll hit Level 10 in a single day. This is insane."
He was in the zone. If he could bait that Hexwarden out here, great. If not, he’d just keep grinding until he was a god. This was the final stretch. Once the Worldborn truly descended, the days of "safe" standing-grinds would be over forever.
[EXP +6,398]
[Gold +98]
[Fang Shard +3]
[Ironforge Plate +1]
[Level Up!]
The monotony was a luxury. In the quiet rhythm of draw, aim, and release, Ash found a strange sort of peace. The snarling werewolves weren't monsters anymore—they were just numbers waiting to be subtracted.
"Only thing missing is a Boss," he noted, glancing toward the distant horizon. The local Voidlords were likely gravitating toward the larger Rifts, leaving the hinterlands ripe for the picking.
Four days passed in a blur of slaughter. By the time Ash stopped to catch his breath, he had surged to Level 265. He had spent four days baiting traps, pretending to sleep, and draining his Mana to lure out an Overlord, but nothing bit. The hills were devoid of anything that could actually threaten him.
"Six more hours," Ash decided, checking his supplies. "I’ll hit 270 and head back."
Just as he pulled his bowstring taut for the next volley, a thunderous chime echoed through the very fabric of reality. It wasn't a local alert; it was a Planar Broadcast.
[System Notification: The Azure Prime Plane fusion has reached 99.9%. The New Era begins now!]
[The Plane Battlefield is now open. Registration is mandatory. If quotas are not met, participants will be selected at random.]
[Global Shift Imminent: All personnel in the wild are advised to return to fortified cities immediately. Azure Prime faces a Tier-1 Existential Threat. Weak Citadels should prepare for evacuation.]
[All Guild Grounds: Fortify defenses to maximum capacity.]
Ash’s heart hammered against his ribs. It was happening. Two, maybe three days left until the "game" became the only reality. Azure Prime was already understrength, and now they had to bleed half their forces into a Planar Battlefield? It was a recipe for a massacre.
But the broadcasts weren't finished.
[Global Announcement: Evan Valor and his team have cleared a Level 300 Dungeon, saving a sub-plane from total collapse! Merit Awarded: 3,000,000 War Merit per member. Level +30.]
[Global Buff: All Azure Prime inhabitants receive All Stats +1,000.]
The world seemed to collective gasp.
"What the hell?" Ash stared at his character sheet as his stats bloated. "They skipped Level 290 and went straight for the 300 Dungeon? And three million War Merit? That’s thirty billion gold worth of credit!"
Every human on the planet just gained the equivalent of fifty levels' worth of attribute points in a single second. The excitement was palpable even in the silence of the hills.
[System: Azure Prime Dungeon cap increased to Level 100.]
[System: Survival Milestone Reached. All Azure Prime inhabitants receive Health +30%.]
Ash looked at his health pool. It had surged past three million. "Evan, you beautiful bastard," he whispered. A 30% health boost was a game-changer for the tanks on the front lines.
[System: Azure Prime Global Contribution Power (GCP) has reached the threshold. Azure Prime has been promoted to a Level 1 Plane! Reward: 1 War Merit for all inhabitants.]
One War Merit—ten thousand gold—distributed to every single person. For a high-tier player like Ash, it was pocket change, but for the millions of low-level survivors, it was a lifeline.
[System: Planar Promotion Rewards—All Citadel and Guild Ground revenues increased by 10%.]
[System: Gear System fully unlocked. Gemstone Socketing, Refinement, Grinding, and Dismantling are now active.]
The crafters in the guild chat went absolutely nuclear.
"My Enchanting skill is finally useful! I'm not a hobo anymore!"
"Forgemastering is back on the menu, boys!"
"Where do we get Gemstones? I need gems!"
[System: Ten Relocation Charters have been issued. Ten Prime Citadels will be moved to the vicinity of Peerless City to form a defensive cluster.]
[System: Construction of The Outskirts around Peerless City has begun. Defend and Build missions are now available.]
It was a smart move. Clustering the cities meant pooling resources and manpower. Eleven cities meant hundreds of millions of people living behind a single, massive defensive line.
[System: Repopulation Initiative Active. 10 War Merit awarded for every new birth.]
Ash couldn't help but chuckle. The Tigren and Lupine players were going to be rich—they had litters, not single children. But beneath the humor was a grim reality: Azure Prime was preparing for a long, bloody war of attrition. They needed bodies.
[System: Ten Frontier Quarries have been generated near Peerless City.]
Everything was gravitating toward Peerless City. Ash wondered if Southhaven would get the call to move, but he doubted it. Southhaven was the southernmost tip of the spear, the first line of defense against The Southreach Range. It was too strategically important to move, and with the local Rifts cleared, it was actually one of the safer zones—relatively speaking.
He checked the guild interface and froze. The Skystrider Guild’s Contribution Points had jumped to... 20 billion?
"20 billion? Where the hell did that come from?" Ash muttered. "Is the system glitching?"
He didn't wait to find out. If it was a bug, he was going to exploit it before the devs fixed it. He slammed the 'Upgrade' button.
[Ash Valor has upgraded The Skystrider Guild to Level 9!]
[Member Cap: 800,000 Full Members | 1,600,000 Probationary.]
[Level 9 Guild Buffs: All Stats +500 | Attack/Defense +35% | Health/Mana +20%]
"Solid," Ash breathed.
In Peerless City, Orion saw the notification and let out a bark of laughter. "Kid’s got faster hands than me," he messaged.
Ash pinged him immediately. "Orion, where did those points come from?"
"Caden Marlowe," Orion replied simply. "He’s donating his dungeon spoils. I’ve already told him: I want 80% of his War Merit turned into guild resources. We’re taking the Guild Grounds to Level 6 and putting a hundred Level 6 Defense Towers on every wall."
"Wait, what?" Ash shouted into the chat.
[Orion has upgraded Guild Grounds to Level 5.]
[Orion has upgraded Guild Grounds to Level 6.]
"Orion, you idiot!" Ash messaged. "Why are you blowing resources on the Grounds level? You should have focused on the towers first! How are we going to defend that much territory?"
"If you don't like how I run things," Orion shot back, "you come back here and take the Master's seat. Otherwise, shut up and watch."
[Orion has upgraded 100 Defense Towers to Level 6!]
[Orion has upgraded the Ramparts to Level 5!]
Ash stared at the log, stunned. Level 6 towers could threaten a Level 300 boss. The amount of gold and materials required for that was astronomical.
"Okay," Ash typed, humbled. "I yield. Where did he get the money?"
"Read the logs, Ash. Look at Caden's level."
Ash opened his friends list.
[Caden Marlowe: LV331]
"Holy shit," Ash whispered. Caden had hit the Level 300 dungeon and come out a monster. The loot from a Level 300 clear was enough to fund a small nation.
"Ash," Orion messaged, "I don't need you to be a philanthropist like Caden. Just pay back your damn debt to the guild treasury."
"I'm paying! Can I just use my 10% guild dividend to offset it?"
"Nice try. Separate accounts. You'll be paying that off until the heat death of the universe at this rate."
Ash sighed. "Orion, what's the secret to managing a guild this big?"
"Bookkeeping," Orion replied instantly. "It’s all about the ledger. You make sure every cent is tracked and every member feels equally screwed. If everyone’s poor, nobody complains."
Ash made a mental note to never let Vera Laine hear that.
The Guild Grounds had expanded so much they were now pushing forty miles into the Southreach Range. It was a massive city in its own right now, encompassing a fifth of the area Deepcroft once held. It was a beacon of humanity in the dark, even if it only had a hundred top-tier towers to protect it.
Ash spent the next eight hours grinding the final stretch.
[Level Up! You have reached Level 270.]
[Rewards: All Stats +100 | Attack Range +20m | Attack +27,000 | Attack Speed +0.2]
[Ash Valor: LV270]
[Attack: 2.16 Million | Health: 3.6 Million]
[Defense: 293,000 | Range: 1,455m | Attack Speed: 14.8]
He dismissed his mind-controlled werewolves with a pang of regret—and a flurry of arrows. Elite kills were too valuable to leave alive.
"Vera," Ash messaged as he began the trek back. "Assemble a 2,000-man raid. We’re hitting the Level 17 Dungeons. Don't build the strat around me. Just do your normal thing, and I’ll provide the heavy fire."
He needed the guild to be self-sufficient, but he also knew that clearing a Level 17 Dungeon granted a permanent +70 to All Stats. He was going to power-level the entire core membership.
As he flew back on a hijacked winged mob, Ash checked the leaderboards.
"Level 270. Ranked 12th in the guild... and 9,000th in the world."
The scale of the power creep was staggering. A month ago, Level 200 was a myth. Now, the top ten thousand were all pushing 300.
He spent the next day as a one-man wrecking crew. He didn't even use conventional tactics. He’d walk into a Level 17 Dungeon, Mindshackle one boss, and force it to beat the other nine bosses to death. The 2,000-man team basically just followed him around picking up loot.
[Dungeon Cleared: Level 17. All Stats +70. War Merit +7.]
[Dungeon Cleared: Level 18. All Stats +70. War Merit +7.]
By the end of the day, he’d run over a dozen Level 19 Dungeons, pushing a massive wave of guild members over the Level 200 threshold.
Finally, as the sun began to set on the final day of the old world, Ash stood on the ramparts of the Level 6 Guild Grounds. The air felt charged, humming with a static energy that signaled the end of the countdown.
Then, the sky began to scroll with red text. The final kill feed of the pre-integration era.
[Planar Announcement: Evan Valor has slain 20,000 Worldborn! A decisive victory for Azure Prime!]
[Planar Announcement: Dusk Whitmore has slain the Abyssal Wolf King!]
[Planar Announcement: Caden Marlowe has slain the Undead Wyvern!]
[Planar Announcement: Caden Marlowe has slain the Dreadlords!]
[Planar Announcement: Kael Winters has slain the Abyssal Warlords!]
The guild chat erupted. The heavy hitters had gone on a pre-emptive scorched-earth campaign. They hadn't just waited for the trap; they’d jumped into it and torn the trappers apart. Evan, Caden, and the others were systematically pruning the Overlords before they could even finish spawning.
"Twenty thousand Worldborn in two moves," Ash whispered, a chill running down his spine. "The gap between us is still a goddamn ocean."
But it was enough. The victory bought them time. It bought them a chance.
[The Azure Prime Plane is now fully integrated.]
[The Convergence Clock has begun.]
[10...]
[9...]
[8...]
Ash gripped his bow, his eyes fixed on the horizon where the world was beginning to rewrite itself. "Bring it on."