Destruction of the Overworld Read online

  Books by Mark Cheverton

  The Gameknight999 Series

  Invasion of the Overworld

  Battle for the Nether

  Confronting the Dragon

  The Mystery of Herobrine Series: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  Trouble in Zombie-town

  The Jungle Temple Oracle

  Last Stand on the Ocean Shore

  Herobrine Reborn Series: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  Saving Crafter

  Destruction of the Overworld

  Gameknight999 vs. Herobrine (Coming soon!)

  The Algae Voices of Azule Series

  Algae Voices of Azule

  Finding Home

  Finding the Lost

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  Copyright © 2015 by Mark Cheverton

  Minecraft® is a registered trademark of Notch Development AB

  The Minecraft game is copyright © Mojang AB

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Owen Corrigan

  Cover artwork by Natalie Cilia

  Technical consultant: Gameknight999

  Print ISBN: 978-1-51070-015-4

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-51070-017-8

  Printed in Canada

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank my family for their constant support on this literary adventure. Without their help, these books would not have been possible. I’d also like to thank the selfless heroes in my family’s life who give to others and expect nothing in return, who have continually supported my writing: Tom and Donna Funiciello, Meg Paolini, Alison and Brandon Seitz, Sharon Crandall, Chad and Lisa Currin, and Kathy Renaud. Also, a big thank-you goes to my editor, Cory Allyn, and the great people at Skyhorse Publishing. Without their hard work, these books would have never made it to the shelves. I’m also grateful to my agent, Holly Root, whose support and advice and friendship has always been deeply valued and appreciated.

  Lastly, I’d also like to thank all the kind readers who have been sending me such nice emails through my website, www.markcheverton.com. I love hearing how much you’re enjoying reading my books and the impact they are having on your lives. These messages are inspirational, so please keep them coming. I try to answer every one, but I’m sorry if I didn’t reply to some because of email errors. Be sure to type your email addresses correctly so I can send back messages. Keep the messages coming!

  Don’t let fear cloud the vision of who you really are. Fear is important when a tiger or lion or bear (oh my!) is chasing you, but it can keep you from realizing your true self. Just be YOU!

  CHAPTER 1

  HEROBRINE

  The Ender Dragon, infected with Herobrine’s virus, flew through The End, his eyes blazing bright white with hatred.

  “I will take my revenge on you, Gameknight999,” the dragon grumbled to himself as he banked in a huge arc.

  Flapping his mighty wings, Herobrine flew toward a tall obsidian tower. A shining ender crystal bobbed about atop the dark purple pillar, a wreath of flames surrounding the intricately carved purple cube. As he neared, a shaft of light lanced out from the crystal and hit the dragon, replenishing his health points (HP) and filling him with energy. Herobrine revealed a vile, toothy grin as he felt himself grow stronger.

  Turning, he flew over the End Stone that floated below him, the island of pale yellow blocks completely surrounded by the endless darkness of the void. This was his domain now, and he should have been thrilled to be free of the pig body he’d been trapped in. But instead, being restricted to The End made him feel trapped . . . and furious.

  “I hate being here in The End!” Herobrine shouted at the darkness. “I have to escape and make my enemies pay for this.”

  Looking down, he could see a large collection of endermen clustered together, their black bodies standing out against the insipid yellow End Stone. Suddenly, a new enderman appeared, materializing in a cloud of purple teleportation particles. As the lavender mist cleared, Herobrine recognized the new enderman as different from the rest—colored a dark, dark red, like the color of dried blood. It was his general, Feyd, the king of the endermen.

  Swooping down, Herobrine approached the group. Extending his massive wings to slow his descent, the enormous dragon settled gracefully to the ground right in front of the collection of creatures. The endermen all bowed their heads to him immediately, each of them demonstrating the proper respect for the Maker. They all knew that those who had failed to revere him in the past didn’t live to make the same mistake twice.

  “Maker, what are your commands?” Feyd asked as he stepped forward.

  “What did you learn about my enemy, Gameknight999?” Herobrine demanded, his eyes glowing bright white.

  “My endermen could not find him, but we are still looking,” Feyd replied nervously, afraid to have only bad news for his master.

  “I must have him!” Herobrine shouted, his massive teeth mashing together like a mighty vise as he snapped his lethal mouth shut. “He must be found and punished for trapping me in this wasteland. There is nothing to destroy here and it is driving me crazy!”

  “I understand,” Feyd said carefully, taking a step back.

  “The End is like a prison to me,” the dragon explained. “I can feel the walls of the void pressing in on me. I cannot stand another minute in this place. I must be free.”

  Herobrine’s eyes blazed even brighter as his rage intensified to dangerous levels.

  The endermen around him stepped back even farther, all well aware that it was unsafe to be so close when their maker’s eyes grew this intense.

  Closing his eyes, Herobrine boiled with anger and hatred.

  I have to get out of here somehow. NOW! he thought.

  When he was in a normal body, the evil shadow-crafter could teleport anywhere his mind could conceive, and he would have been easily able to leave The End. But in this dragon body, many of his crafting abilities seemed absent . . . or maybe they were just placed somewhere else in his mind.

  Concentrating with all his might, Herobrine imagined his body surrounded by purple teleportation particles. With the very fabric of his soul, he willed this to be, searching the crevasses of his mind for the powers he needed.

  A tingling spread across his body as though a million tiny little bugs were crawling over his skin.

  He ignored the sensation.

  Diving even deeper into his mind, Herobrine probed for those lost skills, all the while imagining the field of te
leportation particles getting larger and larger. He could sense familiar powers in his mind: the power to change lines of code in other creatures; the ability to hear the music of Minecraft created by that old hag, the Oracle; the ability to change his form when he absorbed another’s XP after he’d destroyed them . . .

  The tingling grew stronger, now changing from tiny little insects to a million pointed needles, all of them poking into every inch of his skin.

  Yes, he could feel many powers, but the one he sought still lay hidden, lost in the recesses of his evil mind. He had to find it! Diving even deeper into his psyche, he probed the darkness of his soul, looking for what he desperately needed: a way out of The End.

  The piercing needles turned from an annoyance to genuine pain, and his body felt like it was wrapped in flames. At the same time, Herobrine became dizzy, his mind reeling as though he were wavering back and forth in all directions at once. Most creatures would have felt some kind of fear at this, but Herobrine did not understand what fear was. All he knew was anger and determination.

  Suddenly, the dragon had the sensation of being in two places at the same time. It felt like his mind had been severed in half, one part remaining in The End and the other suddenly somewhere else. Herobrine could hear Feyd screeching something, but he did not pay attention to his general; he did not want to be distracted.

  Focusing his attention on his inner mind, he suddenly came across something familiar, a power that felt immediately comforting, like an old friend—he’d found it! But just before he could use this power, he was startled by the sound of a cow mooing directly in his face. Opening his eyes, Herobrine found the blocky bovine staring at him only a few blocks away. The dragon lifted his dark head quickly and glanced around at his surroundings, his motion scaring away the cow.

  Gasping in shock, Herobrine found himself on a grassy, flower-covered plain. Bright yellow sunflowers surrounded the dragon, their brilliant faces standing out in stark contrast to the lush grass that stretched out into the distance. All around him were tiny, sparkling purple and yellow dots, dancing like an enchanted mist. He immediately recognized them as his teleportation particles and shadow-crafting powers.

  A rich birch forest biome butted up against the landscape of sunflowers. The woodland extended out, looking like a gigantic ocean of white-barked trees. Beyond the forest, he could make out some kind of rocky mountain, the tall peaks barely showing through the haze of Minecraft.

  Suddenly, a presence appeared before him: Feyd, an eerie smile on the dark face.

  “The Maker did it!” the enderman screeched. “You have again done what was thought to be impossible. You teleported out of The End.”

  Herobrine looked at the enderman, then smiled, realizing what Feyd had said was true. Flapping his mighty wings, the dragon lifted into the air and soared high into the deep blue sky. Laughing with pure joy at being out of his dark prison, Herobrine glided across the landscape, looking for something to destroy. Streaking down to the ground, he found the cow that had mooed at him when he’d first materialized. With his razor-sharp claws extended, Herobrine attacked the cow, his talons rending the HP from the beast. The animal flashed red then disappeared, gone.

  Herobrine laughed and flew back toward his general. Now there were more endermen gathering on the grassy plain, their dark bodies like shadowy silhouettes. Settling to the ground before his followers, Herobrine looked at Feyd and smiled maliciously, his white teeth shining bright in the sunlight.

  “Friends, it is time to take our revenge on the NPCs of the Overworld,” Herobrine snarled, his tail whipping about excitedly, tearing up sunflowers with every twitch. “We will eradicate their infestation and destroy every last one of them!”

  The endermen screeched with excitement.

  “But Maker,” Feyd said, cautiously stepping out of reach. “What of the User-that-is-not-a-user?”

  Herobrine growled at the sound of his enemy’s name. He stared at Feyd, his eyes glowing bright. “I will have a little surprise for the User-that-is-not-a-user. He will not escape me again.” He then looked straight up at the golden square of the overhead sun and shouted into the very fabric of Minecraft: “I’M COMING FOR YOU GAMEKNIGHT999, AND I BRING WITH ME YOUR DOOM!”

  CHAPTER 2

  GAMEKNIGHT999

  Gameknight999 drew back an arrow and aimed at his target. His breathing was slow, his mind calm. He had to focus everything on this shot; he made ever-so-small adjustments to his aim and ignored everything around him. He had to make this shot—everything depended on it.

  Stitcher had hit her target with each of her last three arrows. He had to match that. They’d been competing with each other and testing their archery skills, and it had finally come down to these last three arrows.

  Once he had quieted his breathing a bit more, he could feel that he had the aim just right. He was about to release his arrow when he saw movement in the forest: something green and splattered with black spots was approaching Stitcher. The young NPC had her back to the forest as she watched Gameknight’s target, a pumpkin. It was probably nothing, he thought, and tried to focus once again on the orange striped fruit. But then the mottled intruder moved again through the forest and Gameknight could see that it was a creeper, and it was getting closer to Stitcher!

  Adjusting his aim, he fired, then drew another arrow and fired again and again. His three missiles streaked silently through the air, brushing past square tree trunks and clusters of leaves until they reached their target. The first arrow made the creeper ignite, but the next two quickly disrupted the process and took the creature’s remaining HP. It disappeared with a faint pop!

  He sighed with relief. Stitcher was safe, and she hadn’t even noticed the danger lurking behind her.

  Moving to the pumpkin, Stitcher laughed aloud. She leaned down, pulled her three arrows out of her pumpkin, and then rubbed the smooth surface of Gameknight’s target.

  “Looks like you missed all three—I win!” she squealed, jumping up and down, her flowing red curls bouncing like crimson springs.

  “That’s not fair,” Gameknight complained. “There was a—”

  “Blah . . . blah . . . blah,” mocked Stitcher. “You missed and I didn’t. Excuses won’t make the arrows hit the target. Admit it: I won and you lost.”

  Since Stitcher was so happy, Gameknight decided not to spoil the mood and didn’t tell her about the creeper. Instead, he moved off into the woods, pretending to sulk. Once he’d located the place where the creeper had disappeared, he collected the glowing balls of XP and gunpowder.

  “GAMEKNIGHT . . . WHERE ARE YOU?” a voice shouted through the trees.

  Gameknight turned. His father, Monkeypants271, moved through the oak forest. He boasted a monkey’s face with big eyes and a wide nose. Fine brown fur ran across his forehead and cheeks, framing a tan oval encircling the eyes, nose, and mouth. This coloration gave him a simian appearance that seemed to make everyone that met him smile.

  Or maybe it was his outfit? Superman . . . really?

  For some reason, his father had chosen this skin for his character; a monkey dressed in a Superman outfit. A large “S” within a red triangle adorned his chest, a long red cape hung down his back. Blue tights and red boots completed the ensemble. Gameknight shook his head and wondered what his father was thinking when he chose that skin.

  “We’re over here!” Gameknight shouted, waving his bow high over his head.

  As his father approached, Gameknight could tell that he was in trouble by the angry look on the monkey’s face.

  “I thought we were going to finish the castle!” Monkeypants complained.

  “We are,” Gameknight replied a little sheepishly, “I just wanted to take a break and go out shooting with Stitcher. I was gonna come back soon.”

  “That’s fine, but you left me with the unpleasant job of building the wall,” Monkeypants said. “We collected all that obsidian and now we need to finish the wall of your castle. You know how tedious that can
be.”

  “You could have gotten some of the villagers to help.”

  “That’s not the point,” Monkeypants replied. “This was supposed to be something that we were doing together . . . and when the boring parts come, it seems that I’m the only one doing the building.”

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted to take a little break,” Gameknight said, casting his gaze to the ground.

  “Remember, we agreed to finish the wall, then take a break,” Monkeypants reminded his son. “We set a goal and said that we would achieve it before getting distracted by anything else.”

  “I know . . . but I was getting bored with just placing obsidian blocks,” Gameknight whined, “and I wanted to do something else for a while.”

  “Son, you said that you wanted to be treated like a big kid, like an adult. Part of being an adult is meeting your responsibilities and following through on your commitments. People will trust and respect you, but only if you do what you say and are reliable. So let me ask you: are you a man of your word? When Gameknight999 says he will do something, can others expect that he will follow through, or will they worry that he’ll decide to skip it because it isn’t fun?”

  “Well . . . I . . . um . . .”

  “As I’ve told you before, responsibility is a heavy cloak and requires broad shoulders to support its weight,” Monkeypants said. “Are your shoulders strong enough to bear this weight?”

  Gameknight scowled as he looked to the ground.

  What’s the big deal? Gameknight thought. I just took a little break. Why does he have to make it into a capital offense?

  But he knew that he was wrong and kept his thoughts to himself.

  His father had agreed to stay in Minecraft for just a little while longer. He had planned on leaving when they completed Gameknight’s castle. At first, Gameknight had been thrilled, but as with all building projects, he quickly became bored with the tedium of getting every detail correct. If they had been regular users simply playing the game, then he could have used hacks and cheats to build his castle faster, but they were not just playing the game—they were in the game, for real.