Vorayx relaxed into his new throne as he watched the other leaders of the first level gather around the forgotten one’s mountain. They would all come to scrape at his heels soon enough. Perhaps he should be thanking this mortal for making him come to this miserable plane. At first, it had been a disgrace to come here to hunt a mortal of all things but being here when the great lord activated the quest that had quickly changed. Now he was in a position of power.
The “lords” of this plane, if you could call them such, were far far beneath him in power. Some were powerful enough to have been able to get the required materials for a conduit but most were not and would be scrambling to make the alliances to get themselves access to the system’s event. Of course, most would be declined since the other lords would not want to risk their chances at abyssal evolution. It was frustrating to no end that he was forced to sit idle and watch the lesser demons enter the event, every one of them, despite their weakness had the chance to devour the mortal and complete the quest. But there was nothing he could do without risking the entire plane, his life, and the quest's reward with it, so he waited.
He couldn’t see the timer since he hadn’t been able to enter the event yet but his scouts reported that there were twenty-four days left on the timer. Vorayx had changed his orders somewhat knowing that even though he had told the kuroxet to bring the mortal to him, they likely wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to complete the quest themselves. Now they were keeping a close eye on the other factions and their movements. Most had sent their most powerful variants that were still weak enough to enter into the event. Meaning there were fewer demons but they were on the high end of what was able to safely exist inside of the event. The lesser planes of the abyss were annoyingly fragile, especially the first. The lesser planes are those that were created from worlds with little to no valid mana present upon their rebirth into the abyssal horizon. This was normally due to the cost of taking the world being more costly than expected or sabotage on the inhabitant's part, leaving only the leftover refuse to be devoured for future growth.
Planes being devoured were incredibly unstable, and remaining on them for more than a few millennia was dangerous but many lesser demons accumulated in the hopes of avoiding the more powerful lords and scions. For the most part, this worked. The lesser planes had a maximum amount of power that could remain present there before they risked collapse and immediate integration with the abyssal horizon. Places that were under the influence of a system event were even more heavily restricted since the system’s presence alone was a danger to any of the abyssal planes.
Some worlds had features that were worth keeping even if they were not efficient for the abyssal horizon's growth, or were at least worth keeping as trophies. The planes these worlds ultimately became were taken aside by powerful dreadlords or other powerful demon lords and protected from consumption.
Vorayx of course benefited from this limit very nicely, he was for now at least the only being above tier one present on this layer of the abyss. If his plans went well it would stay that way. He had two goals for the coming waves. First, he needed the mortal to survive the event at least until the point he could enter the event himself, though that was unlikely due to the strength of his conduit and the system’s presence. Second, he needed to ensure the mortal limited his killing to the weaker of the demon factions so that the power level on this plane didn’t drop low enough for any extra competition to enter. The last thing he needed was another Luximet to contend with.
Vorayx smiled as he sensed the one he was waiting for approach, “Ah, shadow, how goes the hunt?”
The shadow froze before revealing itself, obviously unsure of itself after their last “negotiation”, “Like you don’t know. I am aware of your scouts Lumixet.”
Vorayx didn’t know, the mists of shadow mana were utterly unnavigable for the kuroxet. Vorayx could have done so easily but the pathetic kuroxet had no knowledge of mana at all, and likely wouldn’t until they evolved high enough to use their stupid brains. But the shadow didn’t need to know that, “How many has the mortal killed? Ten or twelve? I would have thought you would have gotten involved by now shadow.”
He couldn’t see the shadow’s expression, hidden by its black cowl but he could tell it was furious, “Fourteen. He is strong. Have you scouts been able to report on his level?”
“Your serpents have failed to even get you that? Pathetic,” Vorayx smirked, he didn’t know either but watching the shadow squirm was entertaining at least. He wondered if he should kill him but for now it wasn’t worth it, perhaps he could be of use, “To have survived the first wave it must be close to level fifty unless it has a higher rarity class of course, still pathetic but it seems to be quite proficient in killing your serpents. But let's get back to the real issue here. Why haven’t you just devoured the mortal and been done with all this?”
“Seeker Daaxuret has plans for the mortal, those are what I wished to discuss with you earlier.”
The shadow likely didn’t care at all for its master's plans, odds are it had come here to negotiate a trade deal. The mortal for an introduction to his master, a deal that Vorayx would likely have accepted. The shadow would have died shortly after the meeting but at least it would not have been by Vorayx’s hand, saving him the ire of Seeker Daaxuret.
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“What does your master plan to do with the mortal?” Vorayx asked, even though it was probably the same as every other demon in the abyss but something about the way the shadow said it made him wonder.
The shadow began to speak but froze and shook its head before lowering its cowl, to reveal a black cross engraved onto its frigidly human-like pale face, “I cannot divulge my master’s plans, but he will reward you well if you assist us in securing the mortal.”
Vorayx wasn’t surprised to see that the shadow had been sealed. Many of the more paranoid demon lords liked to seal their scions to prevent any leaks of their plans. The great lord did not bother with such trivial things since any betrayal was met by instant death. Either way Seeker Daaxuret didn’t matter since he would never be getting the mortal, but the shadow’s need for support would be tremendously useful in the short term, it may even allow him to get hold of the mortal earlier than he had first expected. Vorayx acted as if he was thinking very carefully for several moments, letting the shadow stand there in silence, while he stroked the new addition to his throne, a glass sphere filled with a cascade of non-abyssal mana. He channeled a small amount of abyssal mana into the orb and watched the lights shudder in pain before he answered the shadow.
“Fine, I will assist your master, but you will be following my commands until we are able to extract the mortal from the event zone.”
The shadow seemed far too happy at his acceptance, the mortal must have truly disturbed him. Vorayx channeled some more abyssal mana into the orb again before standing and staring down at the shadow, “If we are to capture the mortal, our best opportunity is while it remains inside your territory. So again, why haven’t you simply grabbed the mortal and dragged it back through the conduit yourself? You shouldn’t even need my assistance if he truly is only level fifty.”
“Ah yes, you have not entered the event so you couldn’t know,” the shadow said, raising its cowl again to cover its face, “All the conduit anchors have received a restriction to prevent us from ending the trial without killing the mortal. Only after two of the four conduit anchors are dead can we leave a small radius around the conduit. We can travel back and forth freely but we can't search for the mortal ourselves and even then we can’t just drag him out. He has to die.”
Vorayx cursed to himself, the kuroxet he had made the be the anchor of his conduit had failed to mention that additional restriction, he would have called it back and added it to his new throne if it didn’t mean losing access to the event altogether. He could always use the seeker shadow’s conduit if it became necessary but it was a wasteful thought. But he had made his decision on whether to wipe out kuroxet before leaving the plane.
“Annoying, but manageable. Leave your serpents as they are, the longer the mortal remains in your domain the easier it will be to ensure he doesn’t get killed by one of the other factions. Once the others are dead we can strike, “ Vorayx sat back down on his throne and looked across the gathering horde of demons, “Go now and gather what information you can on the newly arriving factions and where their loyalties lie. I will see to the mortal.”
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Wave: 2
Time: 24 days, 22 hours, 27 minutes, 32 seconds
After struggling to find the first dark serpent after forging Slayer’s Intent Kal quickly started coming across them more often. He wasn’t sure what exactly had taken them away for a time but he kept an eye out for anything strange as he continued his hunting of the dark serpents.
With Slayer’sIntent staying active over the last two days had been easy enough. As long as he did damage in the right way or otherwise enraged the serpents remaining topped up on wrath was actually pretty easy so he happily activated Wrathful Regeneration whenever he needed to get his health back to a more appropriate level. It was still only an emergency to use his regeneration skill in combat since it was stupidly expensive but whenever the fight was over he would dump all of his wrath into the skill and just enrage the next serpent.
He had gotten into a pretty solid rhythm and the steady supply of dark serpents kept coming so he wasn’t planning on doing anything different until he was confident he could take on the seeker shadow. Kal wondered if the seeker shadow had started looking for him yet, thinking it should have noticed his mass snake killing by now but he had seen no sign of it.
Kal opened up his log and looked over the latest notifications.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 44] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 46] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 47] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
Level up!
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 45] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 44] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 47] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 43] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
Level up!
His leveling had slowed dramatically after reaching level thirty. Even killing things over ten levels above him was not as fast as mass murdering the garghound variants who were closer or below his level before his class evolution was faster, but he supposed level had to slow down pretty fast otherwise he would have heard of people way over a hundred back home. Either way, a level a day wasn’t bad but he hoped he could speed things up over the next few days. Kal split his free points between agility and intellect again like always before continuing his hunt. He needed to hurry, his eyes were growing heavy.