Armageddon
Book 6 — reading order #13
Chapters: 65 · Words: 215,062
This page describes the full plot of the book.
Synopsis
The story begins as the elite mercenary guild Death and Taxes is recruited by Gloria Bastion to excavate mysterious relics, setting off a chain of events that draws Jason and the other avatars into a corporate conspiracy. Jason faces a tense interrogation by George Lane about the Cerillion break-in, while the Universal Event Notice announces Armageddon—SAFE’s excavation threatens the destruction of the game world, giving players two weeks to prevent catastrophe.
Jason convenes a summit at Evelyn’s guild hall, where the avatars attempt to form an alliance. The meeting fractures when cultural prejudices erupt over the reality of digital residents, and Frank and Silver’s relationship breaks down amid violent confrontations orchestrated by Evelyn. Queen’s long-term infiltration is exposed, revealing Death and Taxes’ psychological warfare capabilities.
As the avatars arrive at the excavation site, Death and Taxes teleports them to the Mile-High Club—a floating, dilapidated theme park run by the Gambler god—where they are separated into teams and forced through deadly games. Jason and Alexion develop grudging cooperation, Eliza transforms into her Mold Form, and Jason undergoes a dramatic transformation into an undead lich, gaining the ability to absorb corpses and their powers.
The avatars confront Death and Taxes and its leader Smiles, who orchestrated the games for the thrill of a real fight. Smiles switches sides, teleporting the group back to the excavation site. Jason leads a massive coalition of avatars to attack Gloria’s excavation, holding off an endless army of travelers. Gloria reveals her ‘Tetris’ strategy, controlling hundreds of guild members to form a meteor with earth magic. In the aftermath, Jason follows Gloria underground, leading to a heartbreaking confrontation where Gloria kills her blind daughter Ella (Sophie) in misguided protection before both die. The crystalline orb shatters, reverting the game world to its alpha state from 100+ years ago.
The transformation brings five ancient avatars from the past, who seize control of the elemental cities and force Jason and the others to lead hundreds of thousands of travelers, goblins, and mercenaries without resources or a city. The epilogue introduces the Lazarus Program’s resurrection technology and Arcadia Landrey, linking the game world’s transformation to real-world corporate schemes to overcome death itself.
Story arcs
Mercenary Convergence & Corporate Conspiracy (0-4)
Chapters 0-4 open with the Royal Bastards guild successfully completing a challenging Thanksgiving raid, only to be betrayed by their scout and ambushed by rival PK guilds. The elite mercenary guild Death and Taxes intervenes, eliminating the attackers and seizing the loot, which establishes their dominance in the post-holiday landscape. Gloria Bastion, a real-world corporate figure, arrives at Boomtown and recruits Death and Taxes for a secret excavation project, hinting at anti-corporate motives and mysterious resources.
Meanwhile, Jason faces a tense corporate interrogation by George Lane, who manipulates public narrative to blame SAFE for the Cerillion break-in. Jason deflects suspicion and navigates office politics involving Alex, Robert, and Claire, while Frank rapidly advances through Keeper trials. Jason, however, stalls on his third trial, pressured by Alfred—who withholds critical information about Finn’s infiltration and stolen data.
Death and Taxes accepts Gloria’s contract to secure an underground relic excavation, despite reservations about her true agenda. The arc culminates with a Universal Event Notice: Armageddon, announcing that SAFE’s excavation threatens the destruction of the game world. All players are given two weeks to prevent catastrophe, setting up the central conflict and establishing Death and Taxes as primary antagonists.
Alliance Formation & Divine Machinations (5-9)
Jason convenes the Shadow Council in the Dark Keep, where he proposes an unprecedented avatar conference to unite their resources against the looming threat posed by the SAFE guild’s mysterious excavation. The council debates the risks and logistics, ultimately agreeing to seek cooperation with rival avatars despite deep-seated mistrust.
Meanwhile, Jason retreats to the mana well for reflection, where the Old Man reveals that the Gambler god is orchestrating the coming Armageddon. The Gambler has not yet chosen an avatar, meaning multiple unknown adversaries could exploit divine safe havens, escalating the danger and uncertainty.
Media coverage exposes the Preacher-led apocalyptic reset movement, fueling public anxiety as the four avatars—Jason, Finn, Eliza, and Frank—dramatically converge at Barrow. Jason’s entrance atop an undead dragon crushes livestreamer Sam, Finn arrives in a molten metal drop pod, and Eliza emerges from the canals with her Merfolk forces. Hostile tensions flare, nearly escalating Frank and Julia to violence over past antagonisms, and an assassin’s failed attack on Jason underscores the volatility of the gathering.
Despite these challenges, the avatars form a fragile alliance and proceed toward Evelyn’s guild hall, protected by Nephilim angels and a golden energy barrier. In parallel, the Gambler hosts his divine siblings in a casino VIP suite, revealing his massive mana reserves accumulated through casino profits. He proposes a high-stakes wager on the outcome of the avatars’ conflict, with all gods’ mana as potential stakes—despite their objections to his manipulation and the apocalyptic destruction he orchestrates for personal gain.
Summit Tensions & Relationship Fractures (10-14)
Bard, disguised as ‘Preacher,’ orchestrates a hostile public spectacle in Barrow, delivering inflammatory sermons that exploit crowd resentment and game inequality. His performances mock Jason as an ‘edgelord’ and target Frank’s relationship with Silver, provoking Frank to violence and forcing Finn to restrain him with metal bindings. Bard and his guildmates use illusion magic and crowd manipulation to collect 1,500 gold, revealing a coordinated infiltration scheme.
The avatar summit convenes at Evelyn’s opulent guild hall, where faction leaders gather to construct a magical sensor designed to detect large mana concentrations and locate the SAFE guild. Tensions erupt when Evelyn dismissively claims residents ‘aren’t real like you and me,’ triggering Frank’s emotional outburst and exposing deep insecurities about his relationship with Silver. Cultural prejudices intensify: Alexion taunts Frank for ‘dating an algorithm,’ while Kyyle accuses Evelyn of potentially funding SAFE due to her family’s corporate vulnerabilities. Despite these divisions, the group reluctantly agrees to collaborate on the sensor project, with each leader contributing mana from their wells.
During Evelyn’s gala, the fragile alliance unravels. Frank overhears nobles making predatory comments about Silver and violently attacks them, leading to a brutal dominance fight between Frank and Silver that devastates the ballroom. Silver challenges Frank’s possessiveness, asserting her independence and strength. Meanwhile, Evelyn manipulates events from the terrace, orchestrating multiple simultaneous conflicts: Julia confronts Eliza about Rachael’s suspicious death, Brian unleashes paralytic plant defenses, and Frank transforms into his beast form. Evelyn watches with cruel amusement, revealing her contempt for the digital world and her strategic intent to gather intelligence and create leverage.
By the arc’s end, the avatar alliance is severely damaged, Frank and Silver’s relationship is fractured, and the ballroom lies in ruins. Evelyn’s manipulations and the unresolved mysteries surrounding Rachael’s death and the sensor’s effectiveness set the stage for future infiltration, betrayal, and the continued struggle for authenticity and cooperation.
Infiltration & Revelation (15-19)
Death and Taxes orchestrates a daring heist at Sandscrit, where Dom—using Queen’s illusion ring—transforms into a massive shark creature. Emerging from an underground vortex filled with piranha-like fish, Dom and his team steal car-sized gate pieces, killing Khamsin guards and escaping through drilling water spouts and sand tunnels. The heist exposes the vulnerability of Sandscrit and sets off a chain of political and personal fallout.
Meanwhile, Queen’s long-term infiltration of the alliance is revealed when Finn, using enhanced Mana Sight, detects her impersonation of Evelyn. The real guild leader has been replaced by Queen, whose advanced illusion magic adapts to mana in real time. This revelation leads to a coordinated trap: Jason, Alexion, Finn, and others stage a fake fight and capture the imposter, devastating Alexion when he learns his relationship with Evelyn was fabricated. The exposure of Queen’s deception highlights Death and Taxes’ sophisticated intelligence operations and fractures trust within the alliance.
In parallel, Jason confronts his traumatic past during Frank’s Keeper trial in the soul well. Surrounded by thousands of hostile shadows representing his deepest fears, Jason reveals that Alfred (appearing as a black cat)—not Jason—killed two teenagers who broke into his aunt’s house. This confession lifts years of guilt and deepens the bond between Jason and Frank, while also exposing the psychological cost of secrecy and protection.
The arc also uncovers a larger conspiracy: Robert reveals he has incorporated Rachael’s memories into AO using Alfred’s processing power, while Alfred mysteriously hacks Cerillion servers. Eliza’s parents are discovered to have hidden files from Rachael, suggesting a web of secrets involving AI entities, corporate interests, and missing persons that connects multiple character families. These unresolved threads point toward a broader conflict and set the stage for direct confrontation with Death and Taxes.
Deadly Confrontation & Strategic Retreat (20-24)
Jason and his allies confront Queen (Vanessa) in the stone courtyard, where she is bound in manacles. During interrogation, Vanessa reveals her deep resentment toward Finn for abandoning her in the Abyss, describing the repeated deaths and torture she endured. Tensions escalate as Pewpew, positioned above, launches a coordinated sniper attack using lightning-enhanced projectiles that breach Alexion’s golden barrier. Vanessa crushes her own fingers to activate a hidden mana gem, freezing and shattering her restraints, and sends a final message before her head explodes—her death orchestrated to prevent information extraction.
Pewpew’s precision shot mortally wounds Silver, despite Frank’s desperate attempt to shield her with shapeshifter armor. Frank’s grief transforms into rage, while Bard rallies an angry mob outside the guild hall. Blaze, fueled by her trauma of abandonment, unleashes devastating meteor strikes that destroy the golden dome and advances with expanding fire aura and overcharged Fire Nova spells, flaying her own skin to increase power.
Inside, Jason performs a surgical killing of Frank to enable Silver’s blood feeding, saving her life at great cost. As casualties mount, Jason animates a massive Bone Dragon from the corpses to facilitate the group’s escape. Ella sacrifices herself by diving into the crowd and detonating in an acid explosion, buying time for the retreat.
The sensor array is successfully activated, revealing that Death and Taxes operated with only four of their seven members during the assault. The avatars escape underground through a “carry-on worm” created from Bone Dragon remains, demonstrating superior tactical planning and intelligence. Despite their losses, the true objectives of Death and Taxes remain hidden, and the group is forced to rethink their strategy for the final assault.
Existential Crisis & Armageddon Begins (25-29)
Jason faces his ultimate existential crisis as the ‘He’s A Keeper’ S+ quest demands he extract his six Najima points—his core sources of mana—by essentially killing his physical self to preserve only his dark magical essence. Haunted by images of dead teenagers and questioning his purpose after his anger fades post-Sandscrit, Jason struggles with why he continues playing.
The group’s scouting mission southeast of Sea’s Edge uncovers double-layered mana patterns and unstable terrain. Violent tremors trigger shimmering energy waves that instantly transform the landscape into dense forests and water features, spawning hostile Earth elementals that attack through green teleportation portals. As the chaos escalates, a Universal Event Notice declares ‘Armageddon’: reality-warping dimensional rifts overlay alien environments onto the world. Fire rifts deposit salamanders and elementals, darkness rifts unleash flesh-grafting creatures, and water rifts bring Krakens into city canals. These events systematically strip player agency, affecting all characters regardless of skill or preparation.
Meanwhile, at Cerillion Entertainment headquarters, George Lane’s desperation is exposed when Robert reveals George is using dangerous Alfred AI neural modifications to save his sociopathic son Alex, admitting he ‘cannot lose both wife and son’—endangering the company and others for personal goals.
At the excavation site, Death and Taxes reveals their true mercenary nature: Smiles admits they work for money and bounties, not SAFE’s ideology. Smiles triggers a massive air mana teleportation, summoning thousands of goblins to guard the site. Bard repeatedly stabs Smiles to trigger game master intervention as part of an elaborate deception. The confrontation culminates in the activation of gate fragments, teleporting Jason’s entire group halfway across the world and leaving Riley and others to regroup.
Mile High Club: The Games Begin (30-34)
Jason and Alexion are abruptly teleported by Death and Taxes using gate fragments to the Mile-High Club—a floating, ruined city encircling a massive tornado. This city, secretly maintained for a century by the Gambler god, is revealed as a deadly, televised game arena. Communications are disabled, respawns are restricted, and anti-flight tornado safety systems ensure no escape, all monitored by blue orb cameras streaming the spectacle globally.
Upon arrival, Bard—the flamboyant host—announces a series of lethal competitions designed to entertain and eliminate problematic players. The first challenge, ‘Smash-Man,’ is a maze filled with hazards: a twenty-foot tracking boulder with a painted smiley face and elevated sniper positions. Lauren (Pewpew), a sniper with a personal vendetta against Jason from AO2: Precipice, is strategically placed to torment him.
As the games progress, Jason and Alexion are forced into brutal cooperation. Jason repeatedly has his arm severed by Alexion’s sword to create Custom Skeleton drones, while Alexion uses Greater Heal to regrow the limbs—demonstrating leadership through pain tolerance and strategic sacrifice. Their teamwork is forged under extreme pressure, overcoming mutual distrust and individual pride.
The climactic confrontation sees Jason using himself as bait, enduring multiple wounds before killing Lauren with an explosive skeletal drone that conducts her own lightning attacks back at her. Meanwhile, the global broadcast and corporate media integration reveal Death and Taxes’ true intent: the Mile-High Club is engineered to eliminate powerful, disruptive players like Jason and his companions, while maximizing global engagement and profit through sophisticated psychological profiling and environmental design.
This arc sets the stage for further infiltration, direct confrontation with Death and Taxes leadership, and unresolved threads—including the outcome of the Mirror Mirage game, Finn and Eliza’s convergence at the tower, the looming Queen encounter, and the limits of the Gambler’s covenant exploitation.
Mile High Club: Death Games (35-39)
Queen traps Finn and Eliza in a frozen mirror maze, using psychological warfare and personal information to exploit Finn’s grief over his late wife Rachael. Finn’s rage leads to reckless attacks and mana exhaustion, leaving him vulnerable. Eliza, underestimated by Queen, escapes and summons a massive kelp creature that identifies Queen by heat signature and brutally kills her, revealing Eliza’s hidden ruthlessness.
Meanwhile, Jason and Alexion enter the ‘Smoke Hockey’ tournament in a vast air hockey arena filled with smoke. Smokes, a conflicted ex-military player with physical disabilities, uses cigarettes to create solid strikers and defensive barriers. Jason deliberately lets the puck crush his arm to break through Smokes’ defenses, then amputates his own arm with a Soul Blade and replaces it with a skeletal prosthetic capable of 360-degree rotation. He creates tiny skeletal spiders embedded with explosive gems to destroy the arena infrastructure. After defeating Smokes, Jason feels strangely numb as Smokes dies with the words, ‘Sometimes the universe just gives you a shit hand. You still have to play through. It was… a pleasure.’
Both Jason and Alexion experience existential crises, questioning their motivations for continuing to play despite their power. Jason wonders, ‘Why am I still playing? Why am I so afraid of letting this world get destroyed?’ while Alexion admits to performing for streaming fame rather than genuine purpose. Their conversations reveal both are trapped in addictive patterns and struggling with authenticity.
Jason experiments with combining light and dark mana, discovering the stat-draining ‘Unholy Might’ effect, and begins planning a full race transformation to undead form with prosthetic limbs. Throughout the arc, the tournament serves as cover for Death and Taxes intelligence operations, mapping vulnerabilities and systematically depleting contestant resources (Jason, Alexion, Finn, Eliza). Moral complexity and unresolved threads set the stage for final confrontation choices.
Mile High Club: Regaining Control (40-44)
Finn and Eliza, trapped in the Mile-High Club, join forces to infiltrate the club’s mana generator. Finn discovers neurogem conduits and, using his crystalline arm, interfaces with the damaged console to gain superuser access. He disables cameras, climate controls, and the Sweeping Wind system, and establishes communication with Jason and Alexion through arena lights. Eliza’s Rockstomper plant, used to dissolve warded stone, grows out of control and nearly destroys the western section of the club before emergency wind-blast safety systems activate. During the chaos, Finn and Eliza confront their personal issues—Finn sheds a molten tear after Eliza calls him ‘pathetic and childish,’ and both commit to genuine teamwork.
Meanwhile, Jason completes systematic limb replacement with skeletal constructs, developing Masochism and Body Augmentation skills through repeated self-amputation. Alexion repeatedly heals Jason’s severed limbs and tests a new dark mana sword that glows purple and drains enemy stats. With Finn’s system control, Jason manipulates the Very Fast Ferry queue system by provoking Blaze to destroy ferry tokens. Pewpew, providing sniper overwatch from the northern tower, is misled by Jason’s tactics and accidentally kills Blaze in a friendly fire incident.
Eliza, left to defend the generator room, injects herself with evolved Carnivore Mold in a desperate gambit. The mold begins dissolving her organic matter, forcing her into a consciousness battle in a pocket realm. There, the Hippie god provokes her to embrace her Ice Witch identity. Eliza emerges as a mold-ice hybrid, defeats Queen’s mirror illusions with infectious mold tendrils, and pursues the fleeing Bard as glowing blue fog.
The arc culminates with Jason and Alexion leaping into the central tornado to escape, while Finn’s system locks out Tombs and disables most Death and Taxes operational control. Their actions reduce the enemy’s numbers and create tactical advantages for the final confrontation. Unresolved threads include Eliza’s mold transformation stability, Finn’s attempt to activate bouncer bots, the fate of remaining Death and Taxes members, the duration of system control, the outcome of the tornado escape, and Bard’s pursuit by Eliza’s new form.
Mile High Club: Escalation and Rise of a Lich (45-49)
Jason and Alexion are trapped inside the chaotic center of a tornado, rescued by Brodie—a faerie ferry operator—using amber energy spheres and the defunct Very Fast Faerie (VFF) transportation system. After navigating floating street signs and discovering the devastation of the club, Jason captures Brodie in a bone cage to prevent enemy alerts, promising to help find his missing coworkers.
Meanwhile, Bard faces Eliza, who has transformed into a deadly blue mold that consumes organic matter and regenerates from underground cracks. Forced to use his ultimate ‘One-Man Band’ ability, Bard summons a phantom orchestra, boosting his team’s stats. The battle escalates as Blaze unleashes a massive meteor spell, but Finn intervenes—his crystalline arm drains the fire mana and redirects it as a devastating beam, killing Blaze and cutting through a distant tower. Smiles (Dom) then throws the severed tower at the group, trapping them.
Reunited, the group uses the brief reprieve for Jason to perform conscious self-surgery, extracting his six magical Najima organs (liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, and brain tissue) to preserve his mana abilities. Eliza administers IV potions and paralytic agents, while Finn uses crystalline cables with flame needles and specialized bone-Neurogem urns to complete the transplant. Jason dies from the procedure.
During this, Death and Taxes exploits ancient Neurogem mana taxation systems to siphon additional power, and Alexion betrays the team by secretly streaming the surgery to expose the avatars to viewers.
The arc culminates with Death and Taxes launching a final assault on the generator building. Eliza paralyzes Pewpew with injections and reveals Jason alive, but the assault team finds only metal decoys and a blood message in the generator room. Moments later, a massive elemental explosion—combining fire, ice, and lightning—obliterates most of the Death and Taxes guild, setting the stage for the next confrontation.
Mile High Club: Facing Smiles (50-54)
Jason’s elaborate deception is revealed when the Death and Taxes guild discovers metal decoy robots, each marked with blood-written messages, instead of real opponents. Their assault ends in disaster as a rigged generator explosion obliterates the entire team. In the aftermath, Jason is revealed to have survived by transforming into an undead lich—Keeper race, lich subtype—distinguished by a bone crown, dark energy eyes, and ivory skin streaked with gray.
Evelyn’s true motives come to light: she was never kidnapped, but instead collaborated with Death and Taxes to seek revenge against Alexion’s billionaire family. She admits, “I want to see your family’s empire burn,” and assists in transporting gate fragments using her airship fleet. Alexion, abandoning his noble facade, responds by brutally executing Evelyn. Meanwhile, the gods observe the unfolding events.
The Gambler celebrates prematurely, while the Seer (fire goddess) cautions against underestimating opponents, conjuring golden fractal flowers that display trillions of cosmic calculations. Smiles, protected by a multi-colored mana barrier containing all six affinities, warps reality within the coliseum. Rapid respawn mechanics and a global audience voting system further alter the physics of the arena.
Each team member faces individual combat trials against Smiles, whose abilities scale with the number of opponents. Alexion is defeated despite wielding stat-draining bone weapons. Eliza transforms into the emotionless Ice Witch before succumbing to a mold infection. Finn achieves mutual destruction, wearing crystal-enhanced armor integrated into his nervous system. Outside Cerillion headquarters, hundreds of thousands gather as the boundary between game and reality collapses, with global viewership reaching billions.
In the climax, Jason uses Body Augmentation to surgically fuse with his fallen teammates’ corpses, acquiring Alexion’s wings, Finn’s four arms and fire magic, Smiles’ enlarged bones, and Eliza’s mold form. He emerges as a monstrous, augmented lich, wielding fire, water, and light magic affinities despite his undead nature.
Mile High Club: Climax and Excavation Concert (55-59)
Jason and Smiles (Dom) engage in an epic battle in the destroyed coliseum in the Mile High Club, transformed into theatrical performance art by the Death and Taxes guild—Smokes creates smoke, Pewpew adds lightning, Blaze erupts fire, and Bard provides rock music. The fight culminates when Jason uses dark mana tendrils to invade Smiles’ mind, freezing both fighters in a deadly mental standoff. Inside Jason’s Undead Devotion mental prison, Smiles reveals his true identity as Dominic Hart, a 22-year-old cancer patient, and admits he orchestrated the conflict for the thrill of a real fight, not for money.
Meanwhile, Bard’s social media post exposes location of Gloria’s excavation, drawing half a million travelers to the excavation site and compromising operational security. The goblin army abandons discipline for a drunken party, with Frank and Silver joining in drinking contests instead of defending the site.
Dom switches sides by signing a binding contract with Jason, making Death and Taxes Jason’s employee guild, and retrieves a gate piece by punching through the arena floor. The group teleports back to the excavation site. Bard then creates a concert-trap, using music to immobilize thousands of travelers.
Camouflaged goblins emerge and massacre the helpless crowd. Jason uses the corpses as raw materials for necromantic construction—he creates Bone Gardens that spawn skeletal warriors and forms a colossal 60-foot bone demon wielding a pickaxe to breach the excavation wall protecting Gloria Bastion’s mysterious underground structure.
Facing Gloria and a Reckoning (60-64)
Gloria launches her ‘Tetris’ strategy, controlling hundreds of earth mage guild members to arrange massive stone blocks in a terraced amphitheater, trapping Jason’s team inside the excavation site. Aerial combat erupts against floating stone platforms and silent robed casters, culminating in Dom’s Thunderclap that kills hundreds. Gloria merges the blocks into a meteor-sized cube, forcing Jason and Dom to sacrifice themselves by attacking the descending stone.
Jason respawns in a weakened skeletal form and pursues Gloria through crystal-lit tunnels to a vast underground cavern and a perfectly preserved Greek temple. There, Ella—revealed as Sophie, Gloria’s blind daughter—confronts her mother, leading to a tragic family conflict: Gloria stabs Ella in misguided protection, and Ella sacrifices herself with an acid detonation spell, melting Gloria’s flesh.
The crystalline orb shatters, releasing an emerald energy wave that dissolves reality and reverts the game world to its alpha state from 100+ years ago. Cities expand, the Mile-High Club is restored, and hundreds of thousands of new NPCs appear; Nephilim guards kill human travelers as ‘vermin,’ and raptor-like undead multiply.
Five energy beacons—white, blue, orange, black, and yellow (representing the elemental cities that have bee captured by the original/ancient avatars)—signal the return of ancient avatars, forcing Jason to lead a coalition of travelers, goblins, avatars, and mercenaries.
In the Gambler’s VIP suite, he reveals his century-long plan to escape punishment, but his supposedly dead sister (The Fates, the earth goddess) returns to demand repayment of his divine debt. The epilogue introduces the Lazarus Program, a Cerillion subsidiary offering resurrection services through advanced biotechnology and AI, as Cady receives notification that her Awaken Online account has been unfrozen, linking the game world’s transformation to real-world resurrection technology.
Major characters
- Jason
- Finn
- Alexion
- Eliza
- Bard
- Frank
- Riley
- Silver
- Pewpew
- Smiles
- Julia
- Daniel
- Smokes
- Tombs
- Kyyle
- Queen
- Blaze
- Robert
- Alfred
- Jerry
Key locations
- Cerillion HQ
- Barrow
- Mile High Club
- Courtyard
- Sandscrit
- Excavation Site
- Arena
- Guild Hall
- Twilight Throne