Tribute to 666Nightking

Everyone finds some people in this game that are worth spending time with and fighting for. 666Nightking was, without a doubt, one of those people. He was someone who was always there when we needed him and asked for nothing in return. 

My journey with him started in January 2023, when a small group of players that I belonged to found refuge within the AoT alliance, where 666Nightking was one of the leading officers. My curiosity got the best of me when I joined this alliance, and I was looking around the battle logs to see what kind of lineups and troops my new team members played with. Some of them had impressive accounts, but very few could stand on the same level as 666Nightking and the lineup he was using. A female synergy for bows with Leila, Salma, Daenerys, Cercei and (as his name might suggest) a fully awakened Nightking, which was the best you could get back then, combined with a level 50 blue dragon. I was starstruck because I had never played with people with such big accounts, and I was ready to learn how to play with them.

From there I started walking a new path with a different playstyle, since we could play against bigger players and compete in higher leagues in events. During the first season of AC that I played with them, I slowly grew towards being and advisor of the council, especially for strategy in events. 666Nightking was not only the top player of the alliance, but also the organisator of events. He got in that position because at the time, nobody else stood up to do it, so he took on that responsibility. That was just the kind of person he was. Not only did he have the biggest account in the alliance, he also had the biggest heart. With a clear view on everything and not a big ego in his way of improving, he was one of a kind. As the key player in almost all events like alliance conquest, siege of Winterfell, champion city siege (CCS) and even Lost realm, he could move mountains to be online to help us claim victory or have a graceful defeat. Especially in CCS, he was our key player in obtaining battle tokens, bravery tokens and battle diamonds. In the beginning, we trained bows just for him, but he switched to infantry later with an impressive lineup containing Nightking (with his 4-star weapon), Sinara, Rhea, Daeron and Vorian. With him leading our team, we could take on big accounts like STRAW BERRY, skylinEEE, Ledogi and BEELZEBUTH69.

At the time that arena of honour started, he was on my team. I'll always remember that we played at reset time and my whole team was in voice chat. 666Nightking always muted himself at that time, in fear of waking up his wife. We always had a laugh with that at the start if the event, but the kind-hearted man that he was, he could laugh with it himself (not at loud, though). With ups and downs, he could lead us to victory by occupying the city of glory and not having anyone on the map that get him out. As the game progresses, alliances gained and lost people and AoT merged with other alliances until we were stable in I4I. And after all, it's important that you play with the people you enjoy playing with. The name of the alliance or the name of the account is not always important.

In the middle of February 2025, there is a period that I don't like to remember. It was a regular Wednesday when we planned to play lost realm in I4I. 666Nightking was out tank for this event and always did impressive damage, leading us to higher and higher levels in endless mode. That day he showed online, but did not show up in voice chat, which was far from his habit. Most of us were worried, but we tried not to fear the worst scenario. Some days passed while his account remained online, but he was still unresponsive in-game and on Discord. Once his account showed as offline, we all thought it was wrong, but we had no way to communicate to his home to find out if something happened. Towards the end of February, we finally got an (unpleasant) answer to our questions. His wife and daughter knew he loved playing this game and that he had many of friends here. After some digging, his daughter found the account details to one of his alts on a USB drive and contacted our alliance management in the hope to find the people he loved to play with. When we mentioned his real name, Tom, she knew she found the right people. She brought us the unfortunate news that our friend, 666Nightking, was not among the living. After starting up the game, he took a nap before Lost realm and never woke up. Some may say that it's a good and peaceful way to go, but I think I can speak for all of my teammates that it was too early for him to leave this world. 

While trying a way to cope with this loss, we sought a way to keep him alive in this game. We changed the alliance name to 666Nightking, the alliance tag to 6NK and a big part of the players followed me into adding "666" before our names in-game. Most of us did this for a month in his honor, and some still have it as a part of their name. In the past year, we have merged with MBL and one of our conditions was to keep the 6NK tag.

In his honor, I will change my name again in February and march with "666" in front of it and I will ask my team members who knew him if they will follow me into honoring him, showing that he will not be forgotten.

Rest in peace 666Nightking.

Rest in peace Tom.