I drummed my fingers against the desk, watching the chat wildly speculate over who was about to win the coming bout. I may have been early to the duel but since it was such a high profile event, I had assumed he would have as well. After all, it's not everyday you get challenged to one versus one the top ranked solo player in the game.

My heightened anxiety may have also been due to the looming unveiling of my newest masterpiece, but If I was being honest it was mainly my opponent who made me feel so unnerved. My build may be ridiculous but I had enough practice with it that I was confident it would work, provided my enemy didn't pull something out of left field. Which was an understandable fear given that my opponent was a big time streamer with a hundred times my viewers.

Not like I was small, I had a dedicated following, and more than a thousand concurrent viewers at the moment.

Probably scoping me out before they place their bets on who was going to win. I thought to myself. Not like that will help you. Noone’s seen this build before.

I glanced over at the chat, watching as my viewers argued over what I was going to run. The most common assumption was that I was going to play some variant of Thorn Paladin. It wouldn't have been a terrible guess, had they not nerfed the crown of thorns ability straight into the ground.

“Give it up. You aren't going to guess what I got in store,” I told the camera, flashing my audience a smirk.

Immediately the chat lit up with more wild and random guesses. Everything from light magic fighter to multiclassing into barbarian, thief, wizard and rogue all at the same time. I watched for a bit longer before quickly growing bored and flipping over to my opponent's channel which I had open in another tab.

Offline.

I grunted, and began to scroll through his recent clips, curious as to what he was running. Sure enough he was still running daggers rogue, and more interestingly the videos were all titled practice sessions. I of course knew all this already, but reviewing the information at least made me feel like I was doing something productive with my time.

Even though I was really just staring at his avatar and trying to figure out where he got the budget for it. If it was one of those lower quality ones that most vtubers had then I wouldn't be so intrigued, but this was different. This guy was weird. He had a fully three dimensional character that could move in bizarre ways.

Not only that but his background was strange too, with stairs going into the ceiling, upside furniture, with a frankly nauseating amount of pastel colors. The fact that the guy had two different kinds of horns growing on his head, and a long snout with a single tooth poking out was almost less strange compared to everything else. His name was Bedlam, but he liked calling himself the lord of chaos, which was kinda fitting I guess?

It suited his brand anyway.

Compared to him I was just some guy with a medium tier camera and way too much time on his hands. After becoming unable to walk after an accident I had taken up streaming and had become rather infamous for my off the wall builds. Whether it was friendship the gathering and my mono white turbo mill, or my lizardman weaponless fighter in this game, I was the one to throw a wrench into the meta.

Other than my unpredictability I didn't have much going for me to be entirely honest. Sure I had put a lot of hours into junior scrolls online, but that wasn't the only game I played. Unlike Bedlam who only played this, and only dueled people.

Frankly I would have been feeling pretty stressed out if I didn't have an ace up my sleeve.

“Did you see there's a commentary channel running speculation on your match?” I read aloud, catching a bolded text from a donator. “No I have not. Let's check it out.”

Opening up the link I was greeted by two puppets that looked almost like Statler and Waldorf. Except these guys had a more angular design and were swearing like a pair of sailors.

“So how long do you think this one will last?” Asked one of the puppets.

“Just long enough for Bedlam to get fucking bored I’d say,” replied the other.

“I don't know man. This Jack Boy guy might prove a challenge,” stated the first.

“The only difficulty Bedlam will have is if he tries to swallow him whole!”

“You know what they say kids, chew your fucking vegetables.”

I snorted. “Their jokes are about as original as their shtick.”

I quickly closed the tab and went back to the game, watching as the duel pending request continued to sit in the middle of the screen. While I waited, I took a small amount of joy in the fact that chat found my remark funnier than theirs, but ultimately I didn't focus on that. I was about to load up a youtube video or something to help pass the time when I received a torrent of messages.

“He's online!” They all said.

I was about to alt tab and find out for myself when my duel request suddenly went through. A large window asking if I was ready popped up a second later, and I quickly settled back into my seat, left hand over the keyboard. After I was comfortable, and had taken a sip of water, I accepted, ignoring the continued stream of comments that kept rolling in.

With that done, a character selection screen popped up, asking which of my creations I was bringing into the fight. I scrolled down and hovered my cursor over Bedlam’s End, a necromancer outfitted with the heaviest armor in the game. Thick black plates, and a heavy helm obscured the tiefling’s racial features, though the long dark tail still stuck out the back.

It was a sight that drew confusion and excitement in equal measure from chat. Speculation ran rampant, though most were simply baffled and thought I was trolling. They werent wrong, but I very much planned on winning this duel.

A second later and two swords clashed across my screen, signalling that the fight was about to start, a timer appearing not long after. Counting down from thirty, I had more than enough time to size up the diminutive creature that stood across form me in the arena. Despite just how tiny they were, I instantly recognized it from Bedlam’s last stream.

Angel the Shin Stabber. Bedlam’s magnum opus and the character which temporarily broke the game after it managed to do quintuple digit damage in a single attack. It’s miniature bunny ears stuck out of its deep hood while its equally small paws gripped two itty bitty daggers.

The race was a bit of a joke, but due to the size adjustment it received, made the perfect starting point for anyone who wanted to build a glass cannon. The increased chance to dodge it had, was offset by an abysmal AC made even worse by Bedlam choosing to forgo armor entirely. Focusing completely on dodge chance, the tiny rabbit had yet to be hit even a single time during its illustrious career.

The devs were supposedly dealing with this dodge ‘bug’ but frankly the internet loved Bedlam so much that I doubted they would do anything about him.

After this they won't need to. I thought to myself.

I cracked my knuckles, and hovered my fingers over the keys, ready to move the second I was allowed to. With mere moments away I wondered what was going through Bedlam’s head. He was elusive, didn't have any social media and was never not in character so getting a straight answer was likely impossible.

Even still, I couldn't help but wonder why he had challenged me of all people.

FIGHT!

I knew I had maybe two seconds before Angel closed the distance, giving me exactly enough time to use two spells. The first of which was absolute barrier, followed closely by heaven’s guidance that in tandem with one another made me immune to all damage. Sure it also meant my speed was set to zero, reduced my dodge chance to nothing, and made me unable to cast offensive spells but I didn't care.

Angel blurred across the screen, appearing before my character right as I became invulnerable. Left with nothing to do, the character did a little dance emote and then blew a raspberry. I didn't care about the childish taunting however and just continued to run through my spell list like I practiced.

Body of Effulgent Beryl. Levitation. Bless of magic caster. Infinity wall. Magic ward, holy. Life essence. Greater full potential. Freedom. False data, life. See through. Paranormal Intuition. Greater resistance. Mantle of chaos. Indomitability. Sensor boost. Greater luck. Magic boost. Draconic power. Greater hardening. Heavenly aura. Absorption. Penetrate up. Greater magic shield. Mana essence.

Were all cast one after another, in addition to several more I forgot the name of.

Each one buffed another stat or resistance, effectively raising my defence to the point that nothing could do damage to me. The tradeoff was that the chance of my offensive spells failing to actually proc was one hundred percent, meaning I couldn't attack. Which was fine, because I wasn't planning any ‘real’ spells whatsoever.

I was going to leave that up to the aura of pain granted to me by my legendary amulet and the only offensive spell in the game which had a hundred percent success chance. This effect even ignored the spell failure chance given by my ultra rare armor and buffs. What grand spell was I basing my entire build around? Well that was simple.

Triple maximize summon lesser undead.

In response to the spell, two skeletons hopped out of the ground and began to attack Angel to no apparent effect. This development seemed to confuse Bedlam as he made his character scratch his head and look around. I didn't blame him for being confused, these undead were worthless in the grand scheme of things.

Their attack was the lowest in the game, as were the rest of their stats for that matter. Not only that but they also didn't have any other abilities other than pack mentality which was given to all low level swarm mobs. This ability raised the skeletons accuracy based on how many other skeletons there were within a hundred feet but was largely irrelevant in the game.

After all, a single fireball would clean them out in an instant.

Their expendability was the point though and I watched as Angel destroyed the summoned monsters in a single swipe of his blade. After dispatching the undead, Angel turned to my character and launched his first real attack. The flurry of light attacks did nothing to me, as did the dozen or so heavy autos that followed a second later.

I quickly ignored the increasingly dramatic animations playing out on my screen and instead focused on my enemies stats. Sure enough his dodge chance had dropped to ninety eight percent, leaving my skeletons an about ten thousand and one chance of hitting him. It was a small change, but it was enough to serve as the first nail in what would become Angel’s coffin.

To explain how I had even reduced the dodge chance at all would take all night but the short version was this. The ability to raise one’s dodge past one hundred percent was only added in the second year of this game’s life. Meaning that old spells and special magic items didn't remove a percent of the dodge, but rather set it to a percent, such as, aura of pain.

From there, herd mentality slowly grew stronger until it eventually overpowered his dodge buffs, or at least that was the plan. This would take an absolutely massive number of skeletons, you might be pointing out and yes it would. Which was why I had burnt the rest of my daily spells to increase the power level of summon lesser undead.

Because you see, now the spell’s effects would last indefinitely, and would also grow stronger every thirty seconds. Given long enough Angel would be fighting so many skeletons that even their frankly ludicrous dodge chance would be meaningless. I just had to survive long enough for that to happen and this game was in the bag.

He wasn't about to go out quietly though, as Bedlam cycled through every last spell and ability their character had. While this happened I continually refreshed all my protection spells, cycling through them in an incredibly specific order. Effectively keeping every single spell active at all times, leaving no chance for my enemy’s attacks to get through.

As I watched Angel’s every attack get nullified, I noticed the number of skeletons were slowly increasing. A minute later and his character was completely surrounded, a fact Bedlam realized as well, cutting down the creatures in a single well timed ability. It didn't matter though, for as time passed, Bedlam made little progress, his every attempt to pierce my armor rendered useless.

At the ten minute mark I was growing incredibly confident due to all my continued success. The spawn rate of my skeletons was now so high that my opponent had to constantly split his attention between attacking me and fending them off. I calculated that I had five minutes left before I would be able to overwhelm him, but I didn't relax, not yet anyway.

For despite running out of combinations of spells and abilities, Bedlam also had a number of single use items. Scrolls, spells, wands, potions, and cash shop items which he quickly used one after another. Trying every combination he could no doubt imagine. None of which was able to do so much as a single point of damage to my rather shallow pool of hit points.

As time passed and the fifteen minute mark began to approach, I couldn't help but grin excitedly. He had tried it all, comboing every last item, ability and spell his character could muster. Nothing worked, and nothing put a dent on my ironclad defences.

The chat, which I hadn't been paying attention to at the beginning, had started to turn on the supposed lord of chaos. Gone were the jokes and memes about me having lost my marbles. Now they were desperately trying to figure out how I had managed to create the perfect set of spells and equipment that when combined made one invincible. Their guesses were fairly close, though they had yet to figure out what rings I was wearing or how I was able to figure out the dodge reduction interaction.

I didn't care about them, or the surprisingly high number of viewers and donations I was receiving. Well okay, maybe I cared about that last one, but that didn't change why I was here. Which was to prove a point, and in my mind I had already won.

For Angel was now completely focused on solely killing skeletons, ignoring me completely. It was obvious that time was running out for him and there seemed to be little hope of a comeback. It didn't take long before Bedlam seemed to understand this as well, halting his attack and making his character salute me.

He was then immediately killed by the swarming skeletal horde, his healthpoints going from a hundred to zero in a single second. With his character now playing its death animation I had come out victorious.

I almost didn't believe I had won, yet no sooner had I thought that then I saw Congratulations! Pop up on my screen.

You have defeated Bedlam and his character Angel The Shin Stabber in single combat.

I had to read it a second time before the words really clicked and I realized that it had indeed actually happened.

I raised my arms above my head and yelled incoherently for a full minute before finally running out of steam. I had done it. I had bested the best, and had accomplished the impossible. This time I observed the chat closely, curious as to what my opponent was saying about me. In seconds I was pulling up his stream only to be surprised to see he was offline again.

“He yelled something about revenge and then went offline,” chat explained.

Sure enough a minute later and the clip of that very moment was uploaded to youtube and was sent to me. I was a little surprised at this, but I just figured that he was staying in character even after losing. Not one to take an internet tough guy seriously, I decided to forget all about it, and keep playing.

It was a little bit of a tonal shift to go from a much anticipated duel to watching me as I do my dailies but it had to be done. While I worked through the usual list of tasks I answered some questions, and generally talked about my build. The cat was out of the bag after all, and I thought I might as well revel in victory for a little longer.

That was until my monitor suddenly turned off and the sound cut out. After checking that my whole computer hadn't turned off, I clicked the power button on the screen. It took a second but when the picture returned there was an image of a mostly black screen with the words ‘Start New Game?’ in the middle. A little confused, I decided to hit enter, though a part of me said to alt tab and close the program before getting any further.

The same character selection screen I usually saw when starting a new build popped up, only without a race selection option. A little confused, I decided I’d use the same build I did to defeat Bedlam, which meant reducing my speed and attack to zero. This was a little dangerous, but it allowed me to dump all my points into defence and intelligence, giving me a massive mana pool in the process.

Scrolling through the classes available to me, I noticed there were more than usual. Not only that but many of the specialization paths were much larger and also selectable at level one. There were also several options not present in the base game, like beast master and alchemist.

“Huh, necromancer is selectable at level one as well. Usually it's a prestige class of wizard,” I muttered aloud.

Glancing to the side I quickly realized that chat was frozen, not only that but I couldn't move my cursor off my first monitor. Mentally filling that information away for now I decided to complete my character, after that I’d fix whatever was wrong with my internet. With nothing left but the name I decided to change it up and go for something intimidating.

Xathrid, The Blackblooded.

Very intimidating.

I made a note to use the same name for a dungeons and dragons character I was going to make for this weekend’s game. With that done I moused over where the sex option was only to find that it too was gone.

Not like it mattered mind you. There were no bonuses or penalties based on what your character had between their legs. Still, its absence combined with the fact that the race option was gone made me wonder if this was some kind of randomized version.

I could already imagine some dev chuckling at my confusion and I figured that this was some sort of reward. After all, more than a few of the people working on the game had said they would do something when Bedlam’s winning streak was finally broken. I hadn't thought that it would be to offer some sort of new game plus but hey, I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

I wouldn't know until I got into the game for sure though, so I kept on scrolling down until I reached the accept character option. I wasn't sure why, but I hesitated before clicking on it. I considered alt tabbing again, but my curiosity got the better of me and I continued on.

The second after my finger had descended my head began to feel heavy. Within moments a fog settled over my vision, and I could barely stay upright in my seat. The chat returned, as did the camera, allowing everyone to watch as I sunk the chair before slipping out of frame.

Tumbling onto the floor I lay there, unable to even fill my lungs with oxygen.The last thing I saw before passing out was the screen getting filled with the letter F.

Call an ambulance you morons. I thought bitterly before my vision darkened completely and I heard a familiar voice.

“Enjoy the new game, you big winner,” Bedlam whispered.

Fuck you, you fucking fuck. I thought, before blacking out.

When I awoke I was a little startled to feel nothing at all, or at least nothing initially anyway. When sensation did return I noticed that I had way more arms and legs then the last time I checked. I also didn't have a head, or seemingly any kind of sensory organs whatsoever.

Sure I could feel my body but I couldn't move an inch, leaving me baffled, and more than a little frightened. That was until I felt a breeze caress my naked body, then I realized something incredibly strange. I didn't have arms or legs at all, rather I had roots and branches covered with partially withered leaves.

Great. Either I’m having the most vivid hallucination of my life, or I died and got reincarnated not as something cool but as a fucking tree of all things. I thought to myself. I had a two four of my favorite beer in the fridge too.

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