Chapter 42: The Thunder Roc

The announcement chimed three times across the server before finally falling silent, then locked itself to the top of every player’s interface, impossible to dismiss or ignore.

The forums caught fire instantly.

"First server-wide event, and it’s already live?

This game does NOT slow down."

"Damn it, my manager pulled me into a meeting for ten minutes and I dropped out of eligibility range. Are you serious right now."

"Skill issue. Should’ve logged faster."

"THIS is our moment, people. The Skybreakers ride out TODAY. Silvermoon Fortress, let’s move!"

"Anyone got a read on the ranking rewards? Please tell me it’s more than just Reputation."

"Doesn’t matter what it is, this is the first real content drop since launch.

I’m going regardless, ranking rewards or not."

Kael sat comfortably in the palace, passing the time in easy conversation with Elara, when the notification hit.

His posture snapped straight, eyes sharpening with sudden interest.

Elara, unable to hear the announcement herself, caught the shift in him immediately.

"My lord? Something wrong?"

"Nothing important." He waved it off, already turning the possibilities over in his head.

The doors to the hall swung open before he could say more. A palace guard strode in, dropping to one knee before Elara with practiced formality.

"Your Highness. The impostor’s cover has broken at high watch bastion she’s triggered a summoning circle that’s apparently been seeded there for months.

She’s attempting to tear open the Hellgate itself and loose an army of the undead on the fortress."

"Fortunately, we caught it in time. His Majesty has already dispatched reinforcements, and I’ve been sent to escort you back to your quarters until the situation is fully contained."

"What?"

Elara’s brow furrowed hard, worry breaking through her composure.

At the same moment, a chime sounded directly in Kael’s ear.

"Main Quest Progress: The Long Frost Stage Unlocked: Defend the Fortress. Travel to Silvermoon Fortress and help repel the undead assault. Final ranking determines reward tier."

Another quest layer, right on schedule.

Kael’s eyes lit with quiet satisfaction. Every other player heading to that fortress today was showing up for the event alone, chasing whatever ranking rewards the system handed out.

He was walking in with a private objective stacked on top of it double the payout for the exact same fight.

The guard turned and waved forward two more soldiers, who carried in the promised five million gold and a formal token marking Kael’s new appointment as Captain of the Princess’s Guard.

Kael accepted both without ceremony, and the group escorted Elara back to her private quarters.

Waiting outside her chambers stood his new command one hundred and one soldiers, every profession represented, every single one of them a high-level NPC sitting at level 40 or above.

His new second-in-command, Sir Gareth Thorne, held the rank of Grandmaster at level 50 a genuinely dangerous fighter by any server’s standard.

The title itself was mostly ceremonial for now, but a standing force like this wasn’t the kind of resource worth ignoring a hundred and one trained fighters, on call, answering to him whenever the need actually arose.

Kael made the rounds, exchanged the necessary formalities, and had the whole appointment wrapped inside twenty minutes, already turning his attention toward the clock ticking down outside the palace walls.

Less than an hour remained before the Hellgate broke open.Elara, still recovering, had no business anywhere near a battlefield like the one waiting at Silvermoon.

Kael said his goodbyes and left the palace alone, but instead of heading straight for the teleportation circle, he detoured to a quiet clearing just outside Frostwatch’s walls.

There was one more piece of business to finish first.

He drew the Ancient Sealed Egg from storage, weighing it in his palm, feeling a faint warmth pulse against his skin like something inside was already awake and waiting.

Gold had been the obstacle before breaking the Assassin’s contract without it would’ve left him unable to pull a fresh companion into reality if anything went wrong. That risk no longer applied. Five million gold changed the entire calculation.

He summoned the Voidblade Assassin one last time and severed the bond cleanly, nodding to the Wraithlord and Behemoth to see it off properly. Then he turned his full attention to the egg.

It started shaking almost immediately, violent enough that he nearly dropped it. Energy surged from somewhere deep inside the shell, arcing out in visible threads of lightning that crackled through the air around his hand, static prickling up his arm and raising the hair on the back of his neck.

The shell split, then shattered completely, fragments dissolving into motes of light before they even hit the ground.

Something small and blue tumbled free a fledgling eagle, barely a foot long, feathers crackling faintly with static every time its wings twitched. Even at this size, the air around it hummed with restrained, dangerous potential.

"Ancient Sealed Egg hatched. Legendary companion acquired: Thunder Roc."

[THUNDER ROC]

Bloodline Tier: Legendary

Constitution ★★★★★★★★★★

Strength ★★★★★★★★★★

Agility ★★★★★★★★★★★

Spirit ★★★★★★★★★★★

Skills: Lightning Claw (B), Storm Lance (B), Thunder Strike (A), Stormborn Fury (A), Thunderfall Reckoning (S)

A rare descendant of the ancient Thunder Rocs sky-born, storm-blooded, and utterly without equal in the air.

Kael’s grin spread slow and satisfied.

A flying companion with a full kit built around lightning damage exactly the gap in his roster he’d been meaning to fill.

Both the Behemoth and the Wraithlord excelled at melee dominance, but neither of them cleared trash efficiently at scale.

He’d wanted a proper ranged damage dealer for a while now, and this thing delivered exactly that, wrapped in a body tanky enough to survive actual frontline pressure offense and defense in one package, arriving at the exact moment he needed it most.

Perfect timing for an event that pays out by kill count. He let the Wraithlord and Behemoth finish seeing the Assassin off properly, then swept up whatever gear and coin the moment had left behind without bothering to inspect any of it, tucking it straight into storage.

From there, he moved fast back through Frostwatch’s gates, straight to the teleportation circle at the East Gate.

The plaza was already a crush of bodies by the time he arrived, players packed shoulder to shoulder, all fighting for a spot on the platform bound for Silvermoon.

Kael forced his way through the crowd, wedged onto the circle just as it cycled, and vanished in a burst of light.

When the world reassembled around him, he was standing in an entirely new stretch of map, dust and smoke already thick enough in the air to taste.

He looked up.

A massive steel fortress rose against the horizon ahead, walls bristling with siege engines, banners snapping hard in a wind that smelled faintly of ash and something worse underneath it a smell that promised the fight had already started somewhere just out of sight.