Desolate World

<Don't worry. We understand. Ladies and gentlemen, let's start the party!> Ace could hear Sampson's voice. 

As the other members of the party had been forbidden to say anything on the party channel, he couldn't hear any replies from them. However, Ace could imagine they were excited at their location.

Ace couldn't help but smile.

"Let's crush them!" Ace then shouted.

""Yes, Sir!!!"" Then loud voices were heard from the others who were going down towards the battlefield.

***

Papazila: When will the battle start? I can't wait anymore.

Zzzz01: @Papazila It's a war, okay. they can not dash carelessly to the enemies. They must wait for the command.

Broccoli_lord: I want to see Aiden-can. She is so sexy when she throws her dice. 

Xaxer: @Broccoli_lord yup, we want our goddess of luck. I want to see the skeleton being played by her.

$uny: @Broccoli_lord @Xaxer perverts are detected.

Reading the comments, she couldn't help but smile. That day Emily was not the same as a week ago Emily. She was no longer a streamer with around 15,000 subscribers. She was a star. Something that she had always dreamed of. 

Her subscribers had reached 2,305,912. A number that always made her head dizzy when seeing it. And her viewers when she was online had never been below 100,000.

These days, other than streaming the battle with the skeletons, she often talked with other race guardians about how their worlds. There were many shocking revelations.

The elves, dwarves, goblins, and gnomes inhabited the same world but different planets. However, they told her that their world was in critical condition after an interplanetary war occurred 300 years before. A biological weapon had infected all people and caused their lifespan to decline tremendously. As a comparison, before the war, elves' lifespan was 250 to 300 years. But after the war, it decreased sharply to 40 to 50 years.

Not only elves, the other races also faced similar situations. However, the decrease was not too sharp like elves'. As time went on, their lifespan became lesser and lesser. If they couldn't solve it, they would face extinction.

As a temporary solution, the government developed a capsule that would slow down their metabolism to a minimum a hundred years ago. Everyone got one. While the scientists struggled to find the solution, everyone would live in a virtual world. 

Just a few years ago a VRMMORPG 'Desolate World' was launched. Since then, this game had become a second life for them.

As she and her viewers thought that the elves', dwarves', and goblins' fates were pitiful, and they were grateful humanity's situation was not as bad as theirs. They must change their minds after hearing the shadows' story.

It was Ruby who told them. It was a story of a civilization that had reached its peak. They called themselves Nodes. They were similar to humans. Their civilization had existed in a galaxy for 30,000 years. At their peak, Interplanetary journeys were as common as taking buses, and they had hundreds of colonies on dozens of planets.

One day, their population reached 1,000,000,000,000. After that, a weird phenomenon occurred. On each of their planets, many insects mysteriously died. They couldn't find a definite reason why so many insects died at the same time on all the planets that were inhabited by them. Every attempt was made by them to save the population of the insects, but to no avail. One by one of them were extinct. 

The extinction of many kinds of insects made many birds that ate insects also extinct. After that the fish, and then the reptiles.

Their extinction only occurred in less than 40 years, something that couldn't be rationalized by them that had very advanced knowledge.

Although mass extinction had occurred, it didn't affect the well-being of the Nodes. As they had been consuming synthetic food for a millennium. 

After that, many plants also died one by one. Then the herbivores and after that the carnivorous mammals. They had done many things to prevent the domino effect, but nothing could prevent it.

At that time, rumors about the end of the world began to be discussed among the Nodes. Although in the beginning, it was merely a topic that was talked about at mealtime. The worsening environment's condition that they faced made many Nodes petitioned their governments to take more actions. Because they instinctively knew that if the pattern of extinction wasn't stopped, it would be their turn soon.

Then, the government undertook numerous actions to stop the extinction chains to continue but to no avail.

Years by years passed, All governments tried everything, even wars that had never stopped in Nodes' history finally stopped. It was an irony but it was something to be glad about.

For the survival of the race, they didn't have any choice but to work together. But it was also not enough. That year, the last dog died. The best companions of Nodes for thousands of years had extinct just like that. Many hearts were broken at that time.

Then the governments introduced the capsules two years ago. By playing the games, society at least had a place to vent their emotions. At least they didn't have to be drowned in despair. At least they had new goals to achieve, before the inevitable came.

At least that was the belief of the common people.

After the tales of the different worlds were known, the reactions of the viewers and the netizens were varied. Many said that was fake testimonies, but many more thought that they were real. After all, there were many stories of the players that met other players from different races. Although most of them were not peaceful stories.

As the newcomers, the human players, or many called themselves human guardians usually lost the fight when they encountered other races' guardians. Some tried to talk with them, but most of them didn't want to listen. 

As Emily was spacing out, she got a notification that there was a post in the guild channel. It was from Ace, her guild master.

<Everyone, it's the time for phase two of our plan. 

Brother, you can start leading everyone to launch the full offensive to the skeletons.

Kill them all!> Ace's voice was heard.

As ordinary guild members were forbidden to answer in the command section in the guild channel, they could only express their emotions directly.

"Finally, It was like forever," An human guardian not far from Emily said.

Emily knew it was time for her to work. She then started to turn the camera to catch the excited moment of the guardians around her.

Then Sampson said in the guild channel, <Don't worry. We understand. Ladies and gentlemen, let's start the party!>

All people then expressed their excitement directly.

"Kill them all!"

"Guild points, I'm coming!"

"They are mine!"

***

While playing her guitar, she examined the battlefield. There were two groups of skeletons that were fighting. At a glance, it was difficult for the guardians to distinguish them. However, every friendly skeleton had a yellow cloth that was tied to its neck. 

Well, they could also distinguish them by looking at their names color. If they were red, they were hostile, if they were green, they were friendly. But who could distinguish them at chaotic war? 

Then Cloud, Emily's new 'contact' from the government suggested making the friendly skeletons wear an easy to recognized mark, then Sampson suggested yellow cloth. Ace agreed. After that, the guild sent many pieces of short yellow cloth to the battlefield with the new batch of guild combat members.

At the moment, the friendly skeletons were overwhelmed by the hostile skeletons. It was obvious, after all, 3500 skeletons were far from enough to face 10,000 skeletons. If not because of the help of Geo's pets' and the two dragons' bombardment and the ten elite skeletons' leadership, they would collapse after a few moments of confrontation.

However, their quantity made the hostile skeletons were at an advantage position. Although without any command from elite skeletons, they could suppress the friendly skeletons. 

However, an organized army although at a disadvantage, would not be able to be beaten in a short period. Although the friendly skeletons were pushed from time to time, they could maintain their formation. 

With a rough calculation, Emily found that the number of casualties at the hostile skeletons' side was bigger, almost two times the casualties at the friendly skeletons' side. It made her calm down. At least, they had a chance to change the tide of the war.

Doom, the lich that stood beside Geo who was sitting on the metallic spider with Cloud then raised his hand. He then shouted, "Make a way for the guardians!"

Then, the friendly skeletons split their formation. The guild members then moved forward to fill the gap that was created.

Although most of them were close combat fighters. With the helped of the healers, they hoped to be able to harvest some skeletons before died. After all, no one of them planned to survive the battle. 

It was no joke. Because if for some reason, they survived till the end of the war, they must choose between two options, suicide or walked back to Laketown. It was around 300 km from their place. A journey that would be impossible for them to take at their levels.

After all, Geo's pets and Aprilia's turtle were impossible to bring so many guardians at the same time. They had to bring the elites back to the town. 

As their choice was obvious. They wanted to level up one or two times before they died. 

***