Marcus had developed a theory about his new existence, which he'd formulated somewhere between his hundred-and-fifteenth death (trampled by a herd of modded horses that could teleport) and his hundred-and-twentieth death (discovered that some chickens could spontaneously combust and take you with them). The theory was this: the universe—or the System, or whatever cosmic force was orchestrating this nightmare—had a very specific sense of humor, and that sense of humor could best be described as "sadistic with a side of ironic cruelty."
Case in point: Day seventeen had started with Marcus feeling genuinely confident. He'd survived three consecutive nights without dying. THREE. He'd established a proper base made of obsidian and reinforced with various modded materials. He'd defeated several mini-bosses and had even managed to collect enough resources to start working on some mid-tier modded equipment. He had creative flight, a growing arsenal of donated items, and something resembling actual combat competence.
He should have known better.
He should have recognized that confidence was the universe's signal to absolutely destroy him.
Marcus was exploring a new area—a savanna biome that seemed relatively safe, or at least hadn't immediately tried to kill him—when he saw it. A block. Just sitting there on the ground. A single block that seemed to shimmer with every color simultaneously, cycling through the rainbow like a disco ball having an existential crisis.
LUCKY BLOCK DETECTED
LUCKY BLOCK MOD NOW ACTIVE
WOULD YOU LIKE TO BREAK IT?
WARNING: RESULTS MAY VARY
BY "MAY VARY" I MEAN "COULD LITERALLY BE ANYTHING"
FROM DIAMONDS TO INSTANT DEATH
IT'S CALLED A LUCKY BLOCK IRONICALLY
Marcus stared at the block. He'd seen Lucky Block videos before, back in his previous life (death? pre-death? the terminology was confusing). He knew the concept. Break the block, get a random result. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes absolutely insane.
"How bad could it be?" Marcus asked, which were the famous last words of literally everyone who had ever done anything stupid in the history of forever.
He broke the block.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the block exploded in a shower of particles, and a notification appeared:
LUCKY BLOCK RESULT: SPAWN ENTITY
ENTITY: KING SLIME
CRAZYCRAFT MOD
LEVEL: 250
HEALTH: 75,000
SPECIAL ABILITIES: SUMMON SLIMES, CRUSH ATTACK, BOUNCE
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'VE SPAWNED A BOSS
FROM A LUCKY BLOCK
HOW LUCKY
The ground in front of Marcus began to tremble. Then it began to bulge. Then, with a sound like a giant water balloon being filled to the bursting point, something massive erupted from the earth.
It was a slime. A slime the size of a small building. A slime that wore a golden crown and had eyes that glowed with malevolent intelligence. A slime that immediately locked onto Marcus and began bouncing toward him, each bounce creating small craters in the ground and sending out shockwaves that knocked Marcus off his feet.
"Lucky block!" Marcus screamed, activating his creative flight and launching himself into the air. "LUCKY block! There is nothing lucky about spawning a building-sized slime boss!"
THE BLOCK IS CALLED "LUCKY" NOT "GOOD"
THERE'S A DIFFERENCE
ALSO, IT'S SPAWNING SMALLER SLIMES NOW
THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Indeed, the King Slime was now ejecting smaller slimes from its body—except these "smaller" slimes were still the size of cows and appeared to have their own aggro radius. Marcus counted at least twenty of them, all bouncing toward him with disturbing coordination.
He drew his bow and fired at the King Slime, his flaming arrows sticking into its gelatinous body. The damage was minimal—his bow was good, but not "kill a 75,000 health boss quickly" good. He needed to be smarter about this.
Marcus flew higher, trying to get out of the King Slime's aggro range. This turned out to be a mistake, because the King Slime could apparently jump. Really, really high. It launched itself into the air with such force that Marcus could actually hear the air displacement, and suddenly he was face-to-face with several tons of hostile gelatin.
TACTICAL ANALYSIS: THAT'S A BIG SLIME
SECONDARY ANALYSIS: IT'S ABOUT TO HIT YOU
TERTIARY ANALYSIS: THIS IS GOING TO HURT
The King Slime slammed into Marcus mid-air, and despite his Iron Man armor, despite his rings and enchanted gear, his health bar dropped by half in a single hit. He was sent spinning through the air, his flight controls scrambled, falling toward the ground where the smaller slimes waited.
Marcus managed to stabilize himself about ten blocks from the ground and immediately flew horizontally, away from the slime horde. Behind him, the King Slime landed with an impact that registered on his seismic sensors (apparently the Iron Man helmet had seismic sensors, which was neat), and immediately began bouncing after him.
"Okay," Marcus said, weaving between trees as he flew. "Okay, new strategy. Can't fight it directly. Need to get creative. Need to—"
He flew directly into a spider web.
Not a normal spider web. A massive spider web that stretched between two trees, each strand as thick as rope. Marcus's flight halted immediately, and he found himself stuck, struggling against the sticky strands.
CRAZYCRAFT MOB DETECTED: BIG SPIDER
LEVEL: 180
HEALTH: 45,000
STATUS: ABOUT TO EAT YOU
ALSO THE KING SLIME IS STILL COMING
YOU'RE HAVING A BAD DAY
A spider the size of a car descended from the canopy above, its eight eyes glowing in the shadows. Behind Marcus, he could hear the King Slime approaching, could feel the ground shaking with each bounce.
He was trapped between two bosses, stuck in a spider web, and his armor's weapons systems couldn't target properly through the sticky strands.
"This is fine," Marcus said, his voice slightly hysterical. "This is totally fine. Just another day in modded Minecraft hell."
He managed to draw his sword—the Tinkers' blade that had leveled up significantly over the past few days—and cut through the web. He dropped free just as the spider lunged, its massive mandibles snapping shut on empty air. Marcus flew straight down, passing between the spider's legs, and then pulled up hard, flying toward—
Another Lucky Block.
There was another Lucky Block, just sitting there in a clearing ahead. Marcus's brain, which had apparently decided that logic was optional, thought: "Maybe this one will be better."
He broke it while flying past.
LUCKY BLOCK RESULT: SPAWN ENTITY
ENTITY: MORLOX
CRAZYCRAFT MOD
LEVEL: 200
HEALTH: 60,000
SPECIAL ABILITIES: TUNNELING, POISON BREATH, RAGE MODE
YOU'RE NOW FIGHTING THREE BOSSES
THIS IS WHAT'S CALLED "A PATTERN OF POOR DECISIONS"
The ground exploded as something massive burrowed up from below. It was reptilian, armored, with claws that looked like they could shred stone (and indeed were shredding stone as it emerged). The Morlox roared, saw Marcus, and apparently decided he looked delicious.
Marcus was now being chased by a building-sized slime, a car-sized spider, and a tank-sized reptile. His flight path was becoming increasingly erratic as he tried to avoid their various attacks—bouncing slimes, web shots from the spider, and the Morlox's tunneling attacks that could hit him even in the air when it launched rocks from underground.
"THIS IS NOT LUCKY!" Marcus screamed at the sky, at the System, at the billions of viewers who were probably laughing at him. "THESE BLOCKS ARE NOT LUCKY AT ALL!"
CURRENT VIEWER COUNT: 2.4 BILLION
TRENDING SEARCHES: "MARCUS LUCKY BLOCK FAIL"
HIGHLIGHT REEL VIEWS: 890 MILLION
VIEWER DONATIONS: SPIKING
EVERYONE WANTS TO SEE HOW THIS ENDS
A notification appeared:
NEW DONATION AVAILABLE
FROM: CHAOSTHEORY_EXISTS FROM DIMENSION 99-OMEGA
ITEM: QUANTUM SINGULARITY
DESCRIPTION: ONE-TIME USE. CREATES A BLACK HOLE THAT CONSUMES EVERYTHING NEARBY.
MESSAGE: "USE THIS. TRUST ME. IT'LL BE HILARIOUS."
Marcus didn't have time to question it. He accepted the donation, and a small, impossibly dense sphere appeared in his inventory. He pulled it out, saw the three bosses converging on his position, and threw it behind him.
The effect was immediate and spectacular.
Reality seemed to bend inward toward a single point. The three bosses, which had been closing in on Marcus from different directions, were suddenly pulled toward the sphere. They tumbled through the air—well, the spider and slime tumbled; the Morlox was dragged across the ground—drawn by an irresistible force.
Then they hit the singularity, and there was a flash of light so bright that Marcus's HUD automatically dimmed his vision. When he could see again, the bosses were gone. Just... gone. Consumed by the black hole, which then collapsed in on itself and disappeared.
THREE BOSSES DEFEATED: KING SLIME, BIG SPIDER, MORLOX
METHOD: QUANTUM PHYSICS
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: SCIENCE!
VIEWER REACTION: EXTREMELY ENTHUSIASTIC
SEVERAL SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITIES ACROSS MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS ARE VERY UPSET ABOUT YOUR CASUAL USE OF A SINGULARITY
THEY WILL GET OVER IT
Marcus floated there for a moment, processing what had just happened. He'd defeated three bosses. With a black hole. That a viewer had donated. This was his life now.
"Thank you, ChaosTheory_Exists," Marcus said breathlessly. "That was... that was something."
He descended to collect the loot the bosses had dropped—which had somehow survived the black hole, because video game logic—and found himself with a significant haul. Gems, rare materials, modded items, and something called a "Crown of the Slime King" that provided bonus health and resistance to knockback.
Marcus was just starting to feel good about himself again when he spotted another Lucky Block. And another. And another. They were everywhere now, dotting the landscape like some kind of rainbow-colored minefield.
LUCKY BLOCK MOD: FULLY ACTIVATED
BLOCKS WILL NOW SPAWN RANDOMLY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
BREAK THEM AT YOUR OWN RISK
SERIOUSLY
SOME OF THEM SPAWN LITERAL APOCALYPSES
GOOD LUCK
"Of course," Marcus muttered. "Of course they spawn randomly now. Why wouldn't they?"
He carefully navigated around the Lucky Blocks, heading back toward his base. He'd had enough excitement for one day. He just wanted to get back to safety, store his loot, maybe work on some upgrades, and—
Something hit him from behind with the force of a freight train.
Marcus went tumbling through the air, his health bar dropping by three-quarters in a single hit. He managed to stabilize and turned to see what had attacked him.
It was the Ant Queen.
The same Ant Queen from days ago. The one he thought he'd escaped.
ANT QUEEN
STATUS: HAS BEEN TRACKING YOU FOR 5 DAYS
MOOD: EXTREMELY ANGRY
GRUDGE LEVEL: MAXIMUM
SHE'S VERY PERSISTENT
ALSO VERY STRONG
YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE
The Ant Queen screeched, and Marcus saw that it had grown. It was bigger than before, its health bar showing 80,000 HP instead of the 50,000 it had started with. Apparently it had been killing things and leveling up while it tracked him.
"You have got to be kidding me," Marcus said, flying away at full speed. "You've been following me this entire time? Five days? That's just—that's commitment to a grudge I have to respect, honestly."
The Ant Queen didn't care about his respect. It launched itself at him again, and this time Marcus was ready, dodging to the side and returning fire with his bow. His arrows stuck into its chitinous armor, but the damage was minimal against its massive health pool.
This was bad. This was really bad. He was low on health, his armor's energy was at 60% from the previous fight, and the Ant Queen was faster and stronger than before. He needed to lose it somehow, needed to—
He saw a Lucky Block directly in his flight path.
Marcus's brain went through a rapid series of calculations. The Lucky Block could spawn something worse than the Ant Queen. It could also spawn something that might help. It could spawn items, environmental effects, maybe even something beneficial.
Or it could spawn another boss and make his situation exponentially worse.
"Screw it," Marcus said, and broke the Lucky Block as he flew past.
LUCKY BLOCK RESULT: SPAWN ENTITY
ENTITY: ISLAND
DESCRIPTION: A LITERAL FLOATING ISLAND
SIZE: LARGE
WEIGHT: SEVERAL TONS
VELOCITY: UPWARD
THIS ONE IS ACTUALLY LUCKY
RELATIVELY SPEAKING
A massive chunk of earth materialized in the air below Marcus and shot upward like a rocket. It caught the Ant Queen mid-leap, slamming into it with tremendous force and carrying it up, up, up into the sky. Marcus watched as the island—complete with trees, grass, and what looked like a small pond—disappeared into the clouds with the Ant Queen still stuck to it.
ANT QUEEN: TEMPORARILY INCAPACITATED
ESTIMATED RETURN TIME: 2-3 DAYS
WHEN IT COMES BACK, IT WILL BE VERY ANGRY
MORE ANGRY THAN NOW
THAT'S PROBABLY NOT GOOD
Marcus didn't care. He'd take two to three days of not being chased by a vengeful arthropod boss. He flew back to his base as quickly as possible, landed, and immediately sealed himself inside.
Day seventeen. He'd survived day seventeen. Barely. With the help of a black hole and a flying island, but survived nonetheless.
He checked his stats:
DAY 17 COMPLETE
DAYS REMAINING: 83
TOTAL DEATHS: 127
BOSSES DEFEATED: 3 (VIA SINGULARITY)
LUCKY BLOCKS BROKEN: 2
TIMES YOU'VE MADE QUESTIONABLE DECISIONS: UNCOUNTABLE
TIMES A VIEWER DONATION SAVED YOUR LIFE: 8
ANT QUEEN GRUDGE STATUS: MAXIMUM AND GROWING
Marcus collapsed on his bed—which he'd upgraded to a modded version that gave him various buffs when sleeping—and stared at the ceiling. Eighty-three days to go. Eighty-three days of this insanity before he had to face the Ender Dragon. And then, assuming he somehow survived that, two hundred days at an even higher difficulty.
A notification appeared:
NEW DONATION AVAILABLE
Marcus almost ignored it. He was tired—could you be tired when you were basically made of polygons? apparently yes—and he just wanted to rest. But something made him check it. Maybe curiosity. Maybe hope. Maybe the desperate need for anything that might make this nightmare easier.
FROM: THE_WATCHER_BEYOND FROM DIMENSION ∞
ITEM: SWORD OF THE COSMOS
AVARITIA MOD
DESCRIPTION: THE ULTIMATE WEAPON. SETS TARGET HEALTH TO ZERO REGARDLESS OF ARMOR, RESISTANCE, OR INVULNERABILITY. IGNORES CREATIVE MODE. INSTANT KILL ON ANY ENTITY.
MESSAGE: "YOU'VE ENTERTAINED US GREATLY, MARCUS. TAKE THIS. USE IT WELL. YOU'LL NEED IT FOR WHAT'S COMING."
WARNING: ITEM IS ENDGAME TIER
WARNING: UNIVERSE BALANCING PROTOCOLS WILL ACTIVATE
WARNING: YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T ACCEPT THIS
BUT YOU'RE GOING TO ANYWAY, AREN'T YOU?
Marcus stared at the item description. A sword that could kill anything. Literally anything. It ignored all defenses, all protections, all mechanics. It was basically a /kill command in sword form. It could kill players in creative mode. It could probably kill bosses that were supposed to be invincible.
It was absolutely, ridiculously, gamebreakingly overpowered.
"Yes," Marcus said, accepting the donation. "Yes, I'm absolutely going to accept the reality-breaking instant-kill sword. Because at this point, why not?"
The sword appeared in his inventory, and Marcus equipped it. It was massive, easily the size of his entire body, with a blade that seemed to contain entire galaxies within its surface. Stars twinkled in the metal. Nebulae swirled in the edge. It was beautiful and terrifying and completely impractical for actual combat.
He loved it.
SWORD OF THE COSMOS EQUIPPED
DAMAGE: YES
SPECIAL ABILITY: MAKES THINGS STOP LIVING
WARNING: UNIVERSE BALANCING IN PROGRESS...
DIFFICULTY MULTIPLIER INCREASING...
NEW MODS ACTIVATING...
BOSS SPAWN RATES INCREASING...
ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS INCREASING...
YOU'VE RECEIVED AN ENDGAME WEAPON
THE UNIVERSE HAS NOTICED
IT IS NOT PLEASED
Marcus felt the change immediately. Through his base's walls, he could hear new sounds. Roars that were somehow different, more threatening than before. The ground trembled with footsteps that suggested something absolutely massive was walking around outside. The sky, visible through his window, had taken on a faintly red tinge.
"What did I do?" Marcus asked, though he already knew the answer.
YOU BROKE THE BALANCE
ENDGAME ITEMS COME WITH ENDGAME CONSEQUENCES
THE DIFFICULTY HAS BEEN ADJUSTED TO MATCH
CONGRATULATIONS
YOU PLAYED YOURSELF
Marcus went to his window and looked outside. What he saw made his blood run cold.
There were Titans. Multiple Titans. He could count at least five of them walking around in the distance, each one easily a hundred blocks tall. Dragons filled the sky—not just one or two, but dozens of them, flying in formations that suggested coordination and intelligence. The landscape itself seemed more hostile, with new structures appearing that radiated danger—floating fortresses, corrupted biomes, dungeons that looked like they went down forever.
And in the sky, barely visible against the darkening clouds, was something new. Something he'd never seen before. A health bar. A massive health bar that stretched across his entire field of vision.
WORLD BOSS DETECTED: WITHERZILLA
ORESPAWN MOD
LEVEL: 5000
HEALTH: 5,000,000
STATUS: AWAKENED DUE TO COSMIC IMBALANCE
THREAT LEVEL: APOCALYPTIC
ETA TO YOUR LOCATION: 3 DAYS
GOOD LUCK
YOU'RE GOING TO NEED IT
SERIOUSLY THIS TIME
Marcus watched as the thing moved in the distance. It was similar to a Wither, but scaled up to absolutely absurd proportions. Each of its three heads was the size of a building. Its body was made of obsidian and bone and what looked like concentrated nightmare. Where it walked, the landscape died, turning gray and lifeless.
"Three days," Marcus said quietly. "I have three days before that thing reaches my base."
CORRECT
YOU HAVE THE SWORD THAT CAN KILL ANYTHING
BUT YOU HAVE TO GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO USE IT
AND WITHERZILLA HAS RANGED ATTACKS
LOTS OF RANGED ATTACKS
EXPLOSIVE RANGED ATTACKS
THIS IS WHAT'S CALLED "IRONIC CONSEQUENCES"
Marcus looked at the Sword of the Cosmos in his hands, then back at the approaching world boss, then at the Titans and dragons that now populated his world in much greater numbers.
He started laughing.
It wasn't a sane laugh. It was the laugh of someone who had died over a hundred times, been chased by a grudge-holding insect queen, spawned multiple bosses from Lucky Blocks, and had just accepted a weapon so powerful that the universe itself had retaliated by making everything worse.
"Okay," he said, still laughing. "Okay, universe. You want to play it like that? Fine. I have an instant-kill sword. Let's see how that works out."
VIEWER COUNT: 3.8 BILLION
TRENDING IN 500+ DIMENSIONS
BETTING POOLS ACTIVATED
ODDS OF YOU SURVIVING THE NEXT 3 DAYS: 1000 TO 1 AGAINST
ODDS OF YOU KILLING WITHERZILLA: 10,000 TO 1 AGAINST
ODDS OF THIS BEING ENTERTAINING: 1 TO 1
DEFINITELY GUARANTEED
Marcus equipped all his best gear. Iron Man armor, check. Ring of creative flight, check. Various defensive rings and amulets from donations, check. Draconic Bow, check. And now, the Sword of the Cosmos, the most overpowered weapon in modded Minecraft history.
He had three days before Witherzilla arrived. Three days to prepare, to gather resources, to figure out how to get close enough to a five-million-health boss to hit it with a sword. Three days to somehow survive in a world that had just increased its difficulty to "absurd."
Day eighteen began at dawn.
Marcus stepped out of his base and immediately had to dodge a meteor that crashed down where he'd been standing a second earlier.
NEW ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD: RANDOM METEORS
THEY'RE EVERYWHERE NOW
WATCH THE SKY
ALWAYS
A dragon flew overhead, saw him, and dive-bombed his position. Marcus activated his flight and rose to meet it, the Sword of the Cosmos in his hand. The dragon opened its mouth to breathe fire.
Marcus swung his sword.
The blade passed through the dragon's neck, and the massive creature simply... stopped. Its health went from full to zero in an instant. Its body began to dissolve into drops—scales, bones, a dragon heart—and Marcus caught them as they fell.
DRAGON SLAIN: ANCIENT FIRE DRAGON
METHOD: INSTANT DEATH
TIME: 0.5 SECONDS
THAT SWORD IS REALLY SOMETHING
VIEWER REACTION: SHOCKED
SEVERAL BETTING POOLS JUST PAID OUT
YOUR ODDS HAVE IMPROVED TO 100 TO 1
STILL NOT GOOD, BUT BETTER
Marcus looked at the sword in his hand, then at the loot from the dragon. This... this could work. The sword was overpowered, yes, but it had a critical weakness: it was a melee weapon. He had to get close to use it. Against the dragons, that was dangerous but doable. Against Titans, it would be harder. Against Witherzilla?
He'd cross that bridge when he came to it.
For now, he had work to do.
Marcus spent the next several hours in a killing spree that would have been impressive if it wasn't also absolutely necessary for survival. With the Sword of the Cosmos, every mob became a one-hit kill. Crazycraft bosses? Dead in one swing. Lycanites mini-bosses? Instant death. Even the Titans, massive as they were, fell to his blade when he could get close enough to hit their legs.
BOSSES DEFEATED: 47
MINI-BOSSES DEFEATED: 139
REGULAR MOBS DEFEATED: STOPPED COUNTING
LEVEL UPS: 23
YOU'RE ON A RAMPAGE
VIEWER COUNT: 5.2 BILLION
YOU'RE THE MOST WATCHED CONTENT IN RECORDED HISTORY
ACROSS ALL DIMENSIONS
CONGRATULATIONS
But the universe wasn't done with him yet.
As day eighteen turned to night, Marcus noticed something wrong. The sky wasn't just dark—it was wrong-dark. The stars were moving in patterns that hurt to look at. The moon had multiplied, and now there were three moons in the sky, each one a different color.
BLOOD MOON EVENT ACTIVATED
LUNAR EVENT ACTIVATED
SUPER MOON EVENT ACTIVATED
ALL THREE SIMULTANEOUSLY
THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'VE BROKEN MINECRAFT
SPAWN RATES: MAXIMUM
MOB DIFFICULTY: MAXIMUM
ENVIRONMENTAL CHAOS: YES
The ground around Marcus's base erupted as mobs spawned in unprecedented numbers. Not just normal mobs—everything. Crazycraft bosses materialized in groups. Lycanites nightmares poured from rifts in the air. Orespawn entities appeared in swarms. The sky filled with flying mobs, so many that they briefly blocked out the triple moons.
And in the distance, getting closer, Marcus could see Witherzilla. It had sped up. The world boss was approaching faster than predicted, drawn by the chaos, by the concentration of power.
WITHERZILLA ETA: 1 DAY
REVISION: 18 HOURS
REVISION: 12 HOURS
IT'S ACCELERATING
THIS IS BAD
Marcus stood on top of his base, the Sword of the Cosmos in hand, and watched the army of nightmares approaching from all directions. He did some quick math. Even with an instant-kill sword, he couldn't fight that many mobs at once. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. And more spawning every second.
He needed a plan. A really good plan. A—
The Ant Queen burst out of the ground directly beneath his base.
ANT QUEEN HAS RETURNED
STATUS: EXTREMELY ANGRY
HEALTH: 100,000 (GAINED LEVELS WHILE AWAY)
MOOD: VENDETTA
SHE REALLY, REALLY DOESN'T LIKE YOU
"Oh, come on!" Marcus shouted as his base collapsed around him. "I sent you into space! Can't you take a hint?"
The Ant Queen screeched, and Marcus saw that it had brought friends. Smaller ant queens, dozens of them, each one a boss in its own right. They swarmed up from underground, their mandibles clicking in unison.
Marcus activated his flight, rose above the collapsing base, and brandished his sword. The Cosmos blade glowed with inner light, stars swirling faster in its surface.
"Alright," he said, watching mobs approach from every direction, the Ant Queen and her swarm below him, Witherzilla visible on the horizon. "Alright, let's do this."
He dove.
The Sword of the Cosmos sang as it cut through reality. Each swing ended a life instantly. Dragon, dead. Titan, dead. Ant Queen, dead—though she screeched in disbelief as her health went to zero, probably wondering how the small flying thing had killed her after all her careful planning. Her swarm, dead dead dead, falling to his blade like wheat before a scythe.
Marcus fought like a man possessed. He flew and dove and swung his sword in wide arcs, each motion ending another boss, another mini-boss, another elite mob. The Sword of the Cosmos didn't care about health pools or armor or resistances. Everything died in one hit.
RAMPAGE MULTIPLIER: X50
BOSSES DEFEATED: 234
YOU'RE LITERALLY UNSTOPPABLE
UNTIL YOU RUN OUT OF STAMINA
OR MAKE A MISTAKE
OR WITHERZILLA ARRIVES
WHICHEVER COMES FIRST
But even with an instant-kill weapon, Marcus was one person. One person against an endless horde. For every mob he killed, two more spawned. The triple moon event was sustaining maximum spawn rates, and the increased difficulty from his sword's presence meant every mob was stronger, faster, more aggressive.
He was winning battles but losing the war.
A Titan's fist caught him mid-flight, sending him spinning. His health dropped by half despite his armor. He recovered, killed the Titan with a swing of his sword, but three more were approaching. Dragons filled the sky, so many that they briefly blocked out the triple moons. Crazycraft bosses swarmed across the ground like ants.
Marcus was tiring. Could you tire when you were made of polygons? Apparently yes, because his movements were getting slower, his reactions delayed. He took more hits. His health bar yo-yoed between full and critical as he ate food to heal and took damage faster than he could recover.
This wasn't sustainable. He couldn't keep this up. He needed—
The horizon exploded.
Witherzilla had arrived.
The world boss was even more terrifying up close. Each of its three heads was easily thirty blocks tall. Its body was a hundred blocks long. Where it walked, the ground cracked and died. Its eyes—all six of them—glowed with purple fire. And its health bar, stretching across Marcus's entire field of vision, showed all five million hit points in their terrible glory.
WITHERZILLA
LEVEL: 5000
HEALTH: 5,000,000/5,000,000
STATUS: AGGRESSIVE
TARGET: YOU
SPECIAL ABILITIES: WITHER EFFECT, EXPLOSIVE SKULLS, SUMMON WITHERS, LIFE DRAIN, REGENERATION, IMMUNITY TO MOST DAMAGE TYPES
WEAKNESS: NONE
EXCEPT APPARENTLY INSTANT-KILL SWORDS
GOOD LUCK WITH THAT
Witherzilla's three heads all turned to look at Marcus simultaneously. Then they all opened their mouths and fired.
Explosive wither skulls filled the air, hundreds of them, each one tracking toward Marcus's position. He flew, dodging desperately, but there were too many. One caught him, and the explosion combined with the wither effect dropped his health to critical levels in an instant.
Marcus ate a god apple—one of his donated items—and felt his health surge back to full with temporary absorption hearts. He had seconds before the next volley. He needed to close the distance, needed to get close enough to use his sword.
He flew directly at Witherzilla, the Sword of the Cosmos held before him like a lance. Wither skulls exploded around him. His health dropped. He ate another god apple. His absorption hearts shattered. He kept flying.
Fifty blocks away. The mob swarm was between him and the world boss. He cut through them with his sword, each swing clearing a path. Forty blocks. Witherzilla fired again, a concentrated barrage from all three heads. Marcus dodged, was clipped by one skull, his armor sparking and failing. Thirty blocks.
Twenty blocks.
Ten blocks.
Witherzilla's center head lunged forward, mandibles opening to consume him. Marcus flew under it, came up beside the massive body, and swung his sword.
The Sword of the Cosmos bit into Witherzilla's obsidian hide.
Nothing happened.
Marcus's heart stopped. No, no no no—
ERROR: TARGET TOO LARGE
SWORD OF THE COSMOS REQUIRES MULTIPLE HITS ON ENTITIES OVER 1,000,000 HEALTH
EACH HIT REMOVES 1,000,000 HEALTH
FIVE HITS REQUIRED
YOU'VE DISCOVERED THE SWORD'S LIMITATION
SURPRISE
Witherzilla's health bar dropped by one-fifth. Still massive. Still impossibly huge. And now the world boss knew Marcus was a threat. All three heads turned toward him. Marcus saw wither energy building in all three mouths simultaneously.
He flew, pulling away as fast as his ring would allow. The triple blast hit where he'd been, creating an explosion that vaporized everything in a fifty-block radius. The shockwave caught Marcus and sent him tumbling through the air.
He needed four more hits. Four more times getting close to something that could kill him in one shot if he made a mistake.
"Okay," Marcus said, watching Witherzilla turn to face him fully. "Okay, so it's not quite as overpowered as I thought. That's... that's fair, actually. Would've been too easy otherwise."
VIEWER COUNT: 7.1 BILLION
INTERDIMENSIONAL BETTING POOLS: CHAOS
NOBODY EXPECTED YOU TO ACTUALLY DAMAGE IT
ODDS IMPROVING TO 50 TO 1
STILL NOT GOOD, BUT BETTER THAN BEFORE
Marcus took a deep breath he didn't need, gripped his sword tighter, and prepared for round two.
Day eighteen wasn't over yet.
And he had a world boss to kill.
One impossible hit at a time.