Beltimus Online: The 49 Kill Challenge

Sweat dripped down Mikel's face as his concentration levels reached a peak he had never imagined.

At this point, he couldn't even feel his fingers as they tapped aggressively on multiple buttons on the keyboard and the gaming mouse.

The sounds from the game blared into his ears from the wireless headset that was already low on battery and was heating up. He had been playing for almost six hours with the headset at the highest volume and yet it hadn't turned off.

Although it was a surprising occurrence, Mikel took it as a sign that the universe wanted him to complete this game.

Beltimus online.

The top RPG game in the world.

It had been released about twelve years ago and after two years of fixing bugs and tweaking different parameters as more people joined the game and pointed out changes that could be made, the game blew up and became number one.

It was a very simple game. All one needed to do was create a character and aid the kingdom of Beltimus in reclaiming Earth which had been mostly conquered by a powerful necromancer.

The undead monarch.

His powerful army had razed down most of the world. Beltimus being the last human stronghold had fought hard against them and slowly grew from a mid-sized fort to a self-sustaining kingdom.

Players would participate in events that would help Beltimus claim more land under its rule and train more soldiers.

The game blew up because of its interactive gameplay, amazingly intelligent NPCs, its real-life likeness, high graphics, and the surprise final reward promised to whoever would kill the necromancer.

In summary, it was worth the hype and more.

Mikel joined the game about five years ago. It intrigued him and soon enough he got addicted.

As a multiple-time mixed martial arts state champion, he had a lot of money on hand which he spent to get high-quality gear at the game's marketplace.

Years of playing slowly got him into the top hundred players in the game. It was at that point that he got invited to join one of the top guilds; the kings of kings.

A bold name, yet well deserved.

KOK was the number one guild in the game at the time and he was invited to be a floor member because one of the top members saw potential in him.

During a large event, Mikel was lucky enough to land the finishing blow to the event's final boss and got full legendary armor!

The guild tried to get it off him, but the armor was soul bound. It was his and only his.

With this newfound power, it was only a matter of time until he became one of the core members of KOK, and a top 50 player as well.

He also went ahead to win multiple tournaments organized by the company that developed the game, to receive trophies and huge cash prizes.

Everything was going as well as it could possibly be.

Then one day, his guild scouts found the castle of the Necromancer! The final boss!

After much discussion, Mikel suggested taking on the task to perform reconnaissance in the castle. He was going to get as deep as possible so that his guild would know what they were getting into when they performed a raid on the castle.

His suggestion didn't sit well with the others because they thought that he wasn't taking this whole thing too seriously.

How could one man enter the most dangerous place in the whole game?

He would die once he set his sights on it!

There was much debate, but in the end, Mikel's suggestion was agreed on for two reasons.

Firstly, it was better to send as few people as possible to not attract the attention of other top guilds. In fact, if regular players were to find out that they knew about the necromancer's castle, then they would come under a lot of heat.

The developers might even decide to move the castle just to set them back.

Secondly, Mikel was the best person to do it because of the skill attached to his legendary armor.

After making sure he was well-equipped and in his best form, Mikel set out for the castle. And as expected, the moment he set sights on it, he was overrun by hundreds of high-ranking soldiers of the Necromancer's horde.

Luckily, he made it into the castle and that was when the true fight began.

He had been playing for hours and had reached countless near-death experiences until he finally found the necromancer.

For over an hour, Mikel fought just to destroy the shield protecting the necromancer from taking any damage. In just that process, Mikel could have died thirty-seven times!

Thankfully, his armor's skill saved his life every single time. When activated, it would restore his life completely and would keep doing that every time he took damage while also converting ten percent of damage points taken to attack points!

This skill lasted for fifteen seconds and had forty-five minutes cool down.

While it may seem like the skill was overpowered, he needed to time its activation correctly to make the most of it.

If he activated it when his enemy was simply dishing out basic attacks, then he was doing nothing more than wasting it.

To the best of his ability, Mikel controlled his character to dodge and attack. Although his job was just to perform recon, Mikel felt like he was playing better than he had ever played in his life.

Maybe, just maybe...

He kept playing. Attacking when he could, and retreating when he couldn't.

With only ten health points left and zero health potions remaining, it was beginning to seem like it was all over. The necromancer was about to perform one of his AOE attacks that gave the highest damage.

"Fuck," Mikel muttered as he realized there was nothing he could do.

Suddenly, at the last second, he heard a notification sound. He looked to the bottom right of his screen and saw that his armor's skill was no longer greyed out!

Without a second thought, he clicked on it and his health went back to full. At this moment, the necromancer's attack launched and took off most of his health and five percent of it was left!

The next second, his health went back to full. He immediately performed a chain of attacks that rapidly reduced the necromancer's health due to his increased damage.

Mindlessly performing every combo he knew until suddenly, his screen went dark.

He took his hands off the keyboard and mouse and his eyes darted around in confusion. Then his screen lit up again but his character was in a random forest area and not in the necromancer's castle.

Mikel was so confused.

Had he died? But that shouldn't be possible. His skill was still active so his health should return immediately after it left.

In his state of confusion, Mikel's eyes spotted a red dot above the in-game mail icon. This indicated that he had a new message.

He clicked on a button on his keyboard that opened his in-game mail, and then he clicked on the new message.

As he read the first few lines, he felt like his head was about to explode. He immediately kicked back and his chair rolled away from his desk with him on it.

"Congratulations. You've defeated the undead monarch..."

That was it. Those words were all he needed to hear, or see.

It was the proof he needed to make him realize that he, who was not even among the top ten players, had finished the game.

He was now truly the greatest of them all.

For the next thirty minutes, Mikel remained there looking at the monitor screen from a distance. It was a surreal moment. One that he had only thought of as a dream.

Mikel released a sigh and rolled the chair closer to his desk. There was still more to the message he had received and now he felt he had calmed down enough to read the rest of it.

Written in bold fonts: "Congratulations. You've defeated the undead monarch. You've earned the title of 'savior of the world' and won the greatest final reward. Click on the link below to continue..."

What followed was an abnormally long web link that took more than twenty lines. Not thinking too much about it, Mikel clicked on it.

His computer's web browser opened and instead of opening the link, it began to glitch. Coming up and disappearing randomly.

Mikel got scared that his system was about to crash. He clicked on multiple buttons to try and get it to respond but instead, more applications just opened and glitched as well.

Seeing no other option, he rushed to turn it off by pulling the plug. But just as he reached for it, he noticed that something was wrong.

He looked up and saw that half his left hand was inside the monitor screen!

"What the fuck?!" Mikel exclaimed in horror. He began to feel a suction force dragging more of him into the screen.

Noticing this, he immediately pulled the plug and the system turned off. He tried to get his arm out but it was stuck in his monitor screen.

"Oh God, how exactly do I explain this?" Mikel said as he picked up his phone to call an emergency hotline. Just as it rang, he heard his system booting up.

That shouldn't be possible since he could still see the power plug on the ground.

He watched with widened eyes as his screen turned on and he was sucked into it amidst his screams.

His phone fell to the ground and it was still ringing. After the third ring, a voice sounded.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"Hello?"

"Hello?"