The boss had 5% HP left, and my heart was pounding.

One more clean rotation and it would be over. Its immunity shield was down, and its health bar was dropping slowly but steadily.

The Iron Tyrant stood in the center of the platform like a moving fortress—a giant mechanical warlord made of black steel and furnace fire, with a glowing molten core exposed in its chest and a hammer the size of a truck dragging across the ground. Every step it took shook the arena.

Our main tank’s HP kept jumping between 20% and 70%. He was getting hammered nonstop, but we had three healers keeping him alive: one from our party and two from the support teams.

The cambion adds were being handled along the outer ring. Fire mages burned them down as soon as they spawned, while the off-tanks kept them from reaching the main group.

Everything was finally working. I could almost taste the victory—and the mount.

Honestly, I did not even care about the gear anymore. The Iron Tyrant had a chance to drop a unique fire-breathing bone dragon mount, and endgame was never really about stats.

It was about looking cooler than everyone else.

“Yo, this is looking good,” someone said in voice chat.

“It’s such a pain to summon this boss.”

“How many weeks has it been since release?”

“You mean months?”

They were not wrong. Each expedition took almost three hours just to reach the final boss room, and the one-week cooldown was not even the worst part. It had taken us months of mapping, testing, wiping, farming materials, and learning mechanics to get this far.

The boss dropped to 4%, then 3%, and voice chat started getting louder.

“Adds spawning left.”

“Team two, deal with it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the support players moving toward the boss. He was supposed to be helping with the adds.

At first, I thought he was going for the last-hit bonus, which was already stupid. The boss still had at least a full minute left, and its heat aura would burn through anyone who got too close without protection.

Then his body flickered.

One second, he was approaching the boss. The next, he appeared behind it, standing beside the lever.

Dimensional Step.

“Wait, what is he doing?”

“Asshole, back up.”

“Do not touch that lever.”

His mic clicked on.

“Haha. Chat, watch this.”

He pulled it.

Of course he pulled the lever.

During the shield phases, we used the lever to pour lava over the boss and melt its immunity. This time, he activated it while the main tank was standing directly beneath the release point.

Now it all made sense.

“INVULNERABILITY BUBBLE!”

“HURRY!”

“We can’t! They’re on cooldown!”

The lava hit the main tank first. His armor glowed red, then collapsed inward like paper. His HP bar vanished before the healers could react.

Tank: DEAD

The Iron Tyrant turned immediately. Without the main tank, there was nobody controlling its aggro.

Its hammer swept through the front line and crushed every melee fighter caught in the arc.

Voice chat exploded.

“WHAT THE HELL?”

“WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?”

“MOVE! MOVE!”

“There’s nowhere to go!”

They were right. The arena was a single platform surrounded by a bottomless pit. The only way to survive the lava was to wait it out inside an invulnerability bubble, and we had already used ours during the previous shield break.

I backed away on instinct even though I knew it would not matter. Lava was spreading across the platform too quickly.

I glanced at the party overlay. Every portrait had been replaced by a skull.

Half the raid had disappeared in seconds. The survivors ran around like headless chickens, searching for space that no longer existed.

The boss’s HP sat at 0.5%.

We were really going to wipe at 0.5% because one idiot streamer wanted a clip.

With the main tank dead, the Iron Tyrant’s aggro snapped to me. It raised its hammer and swung.

I avoided the weapon itself, but the shockwave caught me anyway.

My feet left the platform.

For a second, all I could see was lava, black steel, and the bottomless darkness beneath the arena.

Then I saw him.

The support player stood near the rear of the platform inside a glowing invulnerability bubble, completely untouched by the lava.

Perfectly safe.

He had known exactly what would happen.

Before I could finish the thought, an announcement appeared across my screen.

[SERVER FIRST CLEAR]

[The Iron Tyrant has been defeated.]

[Guild: Hostile]

Then I fell into the darkness below.

DEAD

The world went black.

A second later, VR mode disconnected, and I was back in front of my monitor, staring at the colorless death screen.

Voice chat was still going, although calling it voice chat was generous. Everyone was screaming over everyone else.

I logged out and sat there in silence.

God, I hated MMOs sometimes.