The workings of fate were fickle, like grains of sand blowing amongst a desert in which no road was set in stone.
He who searches, and she who waits.
A paradise beyond reach, striving forth for that which was unseen yet told would one day produce a miracle transcending time.
The sight in front of him was one that he hadn't seen in an innumerable number of years, and yet still it was one that left him breathless. A disposition that spoke of no lies or deceit, and a will purer than any ruler or individual.
It was the gentle solemnity and earnestness that had been captured before his eyes on the day of that eventful night.
My Sword is your Sword, and your Sword is Mine.
The sight of the Ideal King.
"By honour and by glory, to arms Knights of the Round!" A shout loud yet not, weak yet strong resounded out. "The enemy stands before you."
An unseen pressure descended on the area, like a snake coiling around its prey, strangling Dillan and the others until they felt as if it was too difficult to breath.
With a single command, the entire disposition of the Knights standing before their King altered. Swords, bows, and shields were held at the ready, the ominous noise of clinking steel sending shivers down one's back as the regal mantles of blue lined with gold created an imposing image akin to a waving flag. The flag of a Kingdom ruled by a King long since forgotten in history yet immortalized in Legend, and the Knights who stood with her through thick and thin.
Peerless Knights.
One of the Lake and Betrayal.
Others of the Sun, and the Sorrow.
And a Shield that encompassed the entirety of the Kingdom, its people, its King, and its remaining Knights.
The Field Bosses of Asgard's Holy Kingdom of Camelot.
"For the King."
It was all that needed to be said, the only motivation required for the Knights to act.
Handsome visages and stern expressions were suddenly overshadowed as ominous helms were donned with the single gesture of the hand. Faces of expressionless steel, horned, sleek, robust, the contrast in appearances was enough to cause Marteo and the others to falter much less Dillan whose senses from the forest were screaming 'Danger' at him.
Even the half-hazard looking Merlin's expression shifted, eyes narrowing into slits as his arms overlapped together, carrying a simple sword in one hand and a black staff in the other. Skirt-Chaser as he may have had been, none in the Round Table had ever questioned his status by the King's side.
Teacher, and Wizard of the Court.
He wasn't sure who acted first, whether it was the launching of an arrow by a man who'd lost his nerve or the provocative action of Mordred, it didn't matter. All that did was that the clashing of the two sides began.
Lancelot was the first to meet the enemy, his strikes heavy yet graceful, Arondight's unfading light cutting a path single-handedly through the enemy's ranks. Swords, arrows, spears, nothing mattered as the enemy's lesser weapons could hardly even damage Lancelot's armour let alone touch him with his sheer skill.
It was an unmatchable might that caused Marteo's expression to stiffen let alone Dillan and the others associated with warrior classes. They couldn't understand it. The kind of level Lancelot was at to go unhindered against a crowd of hundreds.
He was the Unparalleled Knight of the Lake.
A child raised by Lady Vivian, the bearer of the Sacred Sword.
He who was the Greatest of all the Round, and the Field Boss that Players in YGGDRASIL dreaded running into. In fact, YGGDRASIL's official forums speculated that should Lancelot, an NPC, ever participate in Asgard's tournament to determine a new World Champion, then the winner of the event would be difficult to predict using the skills of the warrior classes alone.
Lancelot of Camelot was a nightmare not in terms of overwhelming power, but overall ability and adaptability. In general game mechanics, bosses weren't normally designed to fight like players with their massive pools of health and superior skills, however, the bosses of Camelot and the other expansion packs were an exception in YGGDRASIL. Lancelot was the foremost example.
They fought like players, conserving their skills and awaiting opportunities; worse was when they acted as a party alongside the Raid Boss of Camelot.
Such was the current case with Lancelot taking the lead.
His path was one that was evident, a line of cleanly departed corpses making way for a continuous slaughter.
The hired mercenaries were the first to go, used as canon-fodder while the Ranger and Knight Classes of the profession tried and failed to stop Lancelot's charge. Swords and shields splintered, Arondight's edge unimpeded, forcing the mercenaries to do nothing more but dodge an attack that was too swift to even see.
"…What kind of monster is this?" Dillan muttered while backing away step by step, eyes wide in alarm.
Moreover, he could feel from his Forest Stalker Job-Class that fighting the Knight before him was akin to fighting with the will of a force of nature itself.
The blessings of a Child of the Lake.
By Dillan's side, he could already determine the fact that Elanor dared not even breathe too loudly with the situation as it was. What was occurring right now was an impossibility that she couldn't possibly wrap her head around much less quell the fear in her eyes when she eventually noticed the odd look Merlin was giving her from a distance.
C-Could he see her?
No NO! It was impossible. Although she was using simple tier one and two spells, they were possibly the most advanced types throughout the Roble Kingdom. She refused to believe that she had been found and adamantly slowed her breathing. Keeping still was her greatest defence at the moment as she was invisible. Moving would only create signs of her presence.
Still, not once did Merlin's gaze leave her, making her feel uneasy much more than the fact that Lancelot had already breached the entire line of hired mercenaries.
His sword was one that found its way through any kind of defence or retaliation, piercing through with technique alone. Eventually, a breaking point was reached.
"F-Fuck this shit, who needs money if it can't be spent!"
Almost at the same time, the mercenaries dropped their swords and weapons and began fleeing. Some who were desperate enough even stripped down to their last garments in hopes of lightening themselves further and running faster.
Within moments, the surviving thirty mercenaries fled, leaving only the guards and subjects of Marteo, Elanor, and Dillan behind.
"Cowards!" Marteo growled out, hiding the anxiety he felt under a show of bravado. "Ready the beasts and kill this monster!"
In response, Lancelot didn't utter a word.
He simply stood there. A tower of an individual whose presence was immovable behind a cold helm.
And then there was Gawain.
"Hmm?" Gawain hummed absently, watching the way a flustered Marteo directed his men to produce a type of summoning crystal purchased at high prices.
Gawain didn't care much for such things. From his memories of fighting against Players, summoning crystals weren't of much use against him anyways, but he did understand their rarity amongst warrior-type players.
He nodded his head.
"The Knight of the Lake deserves this much credit for his skills that even I must yield to on different occasions. But ignoring myself and the others, that's too much of a folly don't you think?" His tone dipped lowly, an unfathomable might exuding off of him that forced Marteo and the others to realize that it wasn't just the Knight of the Lake that they were facing, but the might of the other Knights of the Round as well.
Mordred had already attacked without a moment's notice kicking down an enemy with the strength of her physical body alone which she then used to crush the enemy underfoot. The sickening snap of bone and pained wails was silenced by the descent of a sword more dazzling than any silver. Combined with her horned helm and crimson patterned armour, none dared approach her in retaliation.
Tristan, Agravain, and Galahad were more reserved, choosing to remain idle should the situation shift drastically.
Seeing the situation as it was, Dillan snapped out of his stupor.
"Form ranks!" He was quick to command. "Rangers in the back, melee classes to the front! Treat the enemies as High-Level Beasts and do not engage alone!"
Nervous as he was with the situation, Dillan still maintained a proper mentality and knew that if he continued to allow Marteo to lead then their lives would be in danger.
"Marteo," he called out. "What level of Beast did your family capture in those crystals?"
Hesitating for a moment, Marteo knew that Dillan was better at leading than him and reluctantly provided the information with a hint of pride.
"My father didn't tell me the level, but the two beasts contained in the crystals are a Basilisk and a Barghest that my family paid a great deal of effort to obtain by commission from Adventurers."
Dillan's expression immediately brightened. "A Basilisk and a Barghest, why didn't you say so earlier? Both of those monsters have a difficulty rating of eighty-three or higher from the Adventurer's standard. W-We just might have a chance."
Determination swelling from within him, he cut off his connection with his Forest Stalker Class and donned the mantle of a young but experienced commander once more.
"Elanor, how are your magical reserves?" He asked out of priority.
In any battle, magic was game changing. Just the numerous buffs and heals alone were enough to allow regular soldiers and fighters to persist in combat. As such, any Kingdom valued Magic-Casters above all infantry class military. It was vital then that he get a gauge of what Elanor could and couldn't do after expending her magic to buff their men and women earlier.
Unfortunately, he got no response.
"Elanor?" Dillan pressed.
Again no response.
Marteo turned around in confusion, meeting Dillan's eyes and frowning. However, there was nothing that they could do.
The enemy was approaching.
Unexpectedly, Lancelot returned to where Arturia and the others stood. Tristan and the others were the same, though unwillingly on Mordred's part as she grumbled in complaint.
Initially, Shirou had summoned the entirety of the Round Table out of precaution, but after watching how things played out, the anger within him on Arturia's behalf gradually faded. The weapons he was moments away from tracing disappeared from his mind as a result.
After all, the enemies were simply too weak.
Mordred's display of crushing the enemy underfoot in the first place probably wasn't intentional. In fact, due to his heightened hearing, he hadn't missed the tiny yelp that escaped Mordred's lips when the enemy had instantly crumbled from her initial kick and she lost her balance.
He could already picture her face flushed red at the moment from embarrassment for even though the enemy had not heard her outburst, Arturia and the others certainly did.
"B-Bastards, I'll kill'em all, I swear it," Mordred muttered lowly, the heat rushing to her cheeks causing them to redden even further within her helm just as much as the mortification of it all.
He didn't pay much attention to Mordred's words as she was simply venting while kicking a tree, unable to meet the gazes of her fellow comrades who smiled at her expense.
Instead, what he was paying attention to was the way Marteo and Dillan had ordered all of the magic classes on their side to fuel energy into two summoning crystals. Each crystal had around fifty to sixty people supplying their power, causing the crystal to emit trails of smoke.
Rather than interrupting what they were doing, he chose to remain where he was in order to get a better understanding of what the humans in the New World were capable of. Besides, he stared up at the sky, at the scalding heat of the mid-morning sun, there shouldn't be any problems.
"They're sending only one person?" Dillan spoke in confusion just as the Basilisk and Barghest were summoned.
The two beasts stood several heads taller than an average human and were bound by magical chains that were the work of the Adventurers that had captured them. The Basilisk's eyes were covered by thick swaths of cloth to prevent the use of their petrification skill on the handlers and the rest of its snake-like body struggled against its bindings. It was the same for the Barghest, a black wolf-like beast with protruding canines from its maw dripping with saliva after a number of days starved. Its eyes were currently narrowed into slits that quickly widened.
Barghests not only possessed the means to utilize innate magical abilities, but they were also a highly intelligent form of magical beast.
It howled in agitation, biting violently at the chains which bound its body. For it felt only death would come if it didn't struggle.
The scent of ash and cinder slowly wafted into its nose, an intangible heat causing sweat to form on the Barghest's face as its struggle intensified.
It wasn't a human that was in front of it.
It was the Sun itself.
Ripples of unseen magical power caused its hairs to stand on end while the Basilisk continued to remain none the wiser, growling and thrashing.
"Oh? You can sense it?" A calm voice spoke out, causing the Barghest to freeze before letting out submissive low whines.
Marteo and Dillan were dumfounded, the former yelling hysterically for the release of the Basilisk.
"Even now you do not understand?"
The power of the Sun, all encompassing and all seeing. A strength that denoted a power unbound, greater than that of even the deepest sea and sky. Something that not even the foremost Knights of the Round could ever compete with and that all Players in YGGDRASIL had to understand.
A single phrase.
A single question whose impact determined the lives of all enemies and invaders wishing to cross the boundary of the Holy Gates of Camelot guarded by only one man alone. One NPC whose unique skill made him nearly nigh invincible.
"I ask of you," a harsh tone, filled with unbridled confidence bordering on arrogance and pride. "Do you not know what time of day it is?"
The sun shone brightly amidst the clouds, the lustrous rays of light piercing through the forest canopy and basking Gawain in their grandeur just as the Basilisk was released, charging towards him.
Sharp eyes narrowed, a blade erupting forth with scorching flames that smoldered the very earth, bubbles forming in the mud and gravel from the heat alone. The very world seemed to burn.
None on Dillan's side dared to breath as the Basilisk drew closer to what was akin to an illusory Demon of Flame.
And in the moment, as the world reached its twilight and all was encompassed within a blinding brilliance, a single statement resounded to the confusion of all ignorant.
"It's High-Noon."
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