This wasn’t the sum total of Peace’s efforts. Will could practically feel it in the air. The goddess was blatantly violating plausibility, spending her own reserves to do this—but it didn’t feel like a final effort. Peace was possibly the only deity that Will had had a conversation with without any leverage to exercise, and so he was very much on the back foot here.
Plans upon plans upon plans could still be waiting for him, but he figured he was fine to deal with those later.
For the time being, he just needed to survive this wave.
Will wasn’t actually sure where Peace was getting all these people from. A bunch of them were leaderboarders, yes, but there were far more of them than there were leaderboarders, and most of them had a pre-boost rank of silver. More people must have gotten to silver rank than he’d initially thought.
Progress to Eternal Throne: [512/1000]
That number had steadily racked up over the last couple of days. The Peace sigil-holders had quickly caught onto what was happening and had retreated to some extent, making it significantly harder for Will and co. to annihilate them all in a few major blows, and everyone that didn’t have a mana-draining skill—which was the majority of the party, unfortunately—had been forced to rotate in and out of action to rest up. The Beyond was a major boon on that front, offering them a space to recover mana in what amounted to basically zero time on the outside.
All of that together meant that their pace had slowed after the initial bursts of action, but that wasn’t to say that they were slow. It just meant that instead of annihilating Peace’s entire force day 1, they continued using hit-and-run tactics to isolate and execute groups of them over time. Will’s personal kill count was in the dozens, possibly breaking three digits, and the same went for everyone else.
Peace had found a seemingly unending stream of people to throw at his party, which Will had taken a moment to feel bad about before moving on. He was sure a bunch of these people hadn’t known what they were signing up for, but the fact remained that anytime they were backed into a corner or captured, Peace overrode their minds and piloted their bodies until they died, usually violently.
That seemed to Will like another flagrant breach of plausibility, but he wasn’t actually familiar enough with the divine system of energy to say for sure.
He was sure that Fate had some hand in this. That god, the Crown, and Peace were all confirmed to be against him in some way or another, and Fate was the one who was most obviously a mastermind.
Will needed to figure out the situation with the Crown sometime, not to mention the corrupted sigil just lying around in his inventory, but there were so many more present fires to put out that he had placed a much lower priority on those.
For the time being, he was focused on eliminating the immediate threat of the Peace sigil-holders and steadily advancing towards gold.
Wisteria had hit silver rank during the week and counting they’d been here and was easily the fastest advancing, though that was certainly because she was still low in silver. She was Silver 4 now, and though she still needed Yui and Nynn to coach her on most of what her class was actually capable of doing, the Void Knight was no longer an active hindrance to them.
Caiyeri and Liam were both at Silver 10 alongside Will now. Both of them were extremely effective at landing killshots. On the second day, Caiyeri had found a gold-rank tarot deck in a treasure room that had turned out to be a massive mimic that they’d needed to kill before looting it. Said deck had random effects that had about 50/50 odds to deal devastating damage to an enemy or afflict its user with a terrible effect, making it the perfect cursed treasure for the Gambler elf.
Since her Affinity was still silver rank, she wasn’t able to use it for more than a few moments and she needed time to reset afterwards, but those few moments were all she needed.
Liam, on the other hand, preferred to continue using his rifle. He’d picked up a ton of ammo for the thing, and after an enemy had spent the entire fight dealing with the silver-rank Australian acting as a living bullet, crashing through the battlefield with the force of an unstoppable momentum, they were never prepared for 7.62 NATO to the skull.
Hua had revealed her Currency-aligned Soul attribute to the group alongside one of her skills, Sponsored Spells, which allowed her to dramatically empower herself with money, so Will had handed her a handful of the diamond credits he’d gotten from scamming one of his ostensible sponsors. She had split most of them up into lower denominations, but her threat level was so high with even platinum credits that Will was beginning to think that the Peace sigil-holders were going to start focusing on her instead.
Will hadn’t bothered to check in on the details of how Lily was doing. She was still alive and still somehow more insufferable than Will himself and even Nathan, so he presumed she was advancing, but he didn’t particularly care about her.
Nynn, Yui, Nathan, and Will had all hit bottlenecks—Nynn was at the peak of gold but couldn’t advance for reasons pertaining to the cycle, Yui and Nathan were a high enough level that even killing waves of other gold-rankers wasn’t very productive for their advancement, and Will was at the gold bottleneck.
At least he’d figured out the treasure sacrifice challenge. That one had actually been pretty easy, since it was a universal requirement. Nynn, Yui, and Nathan were all already at gold rank, and they’d walked him through the ritual required to sacrifice an item. Individual magic items were significantly less potent than dungeon cores, which were apparently also lootable given a specific ritual that nobody who had stayed on Arcadia or Earth knew. That felt like information that definitely should have been spread more, so Will sent out a few feelers to let people he wasn’t on the worst of terms with to know.
Lu Jie was surprisingly grateful. Apparently, his otherworlder buddy hadn’t learned the ritual.
Ritual aside, they were looting enough useless high-rank loot that Will could either use for Destructive Synthesis or the upgrades, so he was making steady progress on that front.
The superdungeon was proving to be at least city-sized. Will had been steadily creating more Sanctuaries with each passing day, and the network of them now spanned over ten miles with no end to the dungeon in sight. They could tell that they were at least making steady progress into it, but nobody had a proper metric to determine how far from the heart they were.
There were entire ecosystems in here. Past the first labyrinth of infinite staircases and apparently procedurally generated dungeon, there were expanses so vast that it was possible to forget that they were still inside a spatial anomaly. Will’s coalition had chosen a particularly sunny one to hole up in, a replica of an island ecosystem of some kind where the plants were entirely carnivorous.
The frequency of attacks had decreased from both sides as they felt each other out, both of them adapting their strategies. The Peace sigil-holders were beginning to realize that in an ambush, even five gold-rankers couldn’t stand up against the coordinated efforts of each of Will’s hit squads, especially when his hunger phantasm burst from Sen’s eyes and threatened to corrupt them any time they let their guard down.
Will was constantly at work even when he was relaxing back at their de facto “home base.” During their time crawling the superdungeon, his group of ten ran into enough monsters for him to finally assemble the cores necessary to properly summon Sen’s gold-rank form.
Sadly, the familiar seemed to be capped at a thousand eyes, which made sense given the name. Still, the full gold-rank upgrade was powerful—not only could Will cast skills through Sen, the range at which Sen perceived things had increased, and Will could now project his aura as well. That meant that even when an ambush went south and the sigil-holders managed to assemble a group large enough to cast a full Pacify, Will could contest it with his own aura. The mana he spent on that largely ended up refunded to him thanks to Mark for Death, which he was now capable of using at ranges of up to wherever Sen was.
“This is basically becoming a training montage now,” Will said to Caiyeri when the two of them had a free moment.
Elsewhere, Yui’s squad had decided to get some practice in on a single gold-ranker who’d wandered into a nest full of gold-rank wolves. Will watched them with about fifty of Sen’s eyes, projecting his aura to sap every enemy in the area of their vitality and mana. He would activate some more skills if he had to, but it looked like Yui, Wisteria, and Hua had it under control.
Will barely even needed to check in on Nynn and Nathan’s group to tell that they were doing fine as well. They weren’t even against sigil-holders right now—Liam and Lily were just training up against gold-rank monsters.
“That’s one of your shitty… television terms, right?” Caiyeri said, clearly grasping for the right word.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Kinda, yeah,” Will said. “Though it shows up in the written form plenty, too. Books, manga, comics, the like.”
“I could do with a more peaceful kind of violence,” Caiyeri said. “The change of pace has been nice. We’re the aggressors, for once—“
“No, we’re not. They’re literally coming for us.”
“True, but we’re taking the fight to them, striking first, blah blah blah. Bickering over language is dumb. We’re not on the back foot.”
“I do appreciate that,” Will said. “I’m kind of worried that we’re missing something, though. Peace obviously has a reason to be in the superdungeon, and given that her sigil-holders were already here when I showed up…”
“It took you this long to realize that?” Caiyeri jabbed. “Of course she’s up to something. Did you think that the world revolved around you?”
“Lately, it kind of has,” Will pointed out. “Well, the important bits, anyway.”
“It could be anybody here.”
“I bound a demon and confirmed with a bunch of gods that I am literally built different. I am pretty sure that in most manners other than physical, the world does currently revolve around me.”
Caiyeri frowned. “I am forced to concede that point.”
“Anyway, I’m going to undermine my own point by saying that there’s no way that I’m the only objective here. Peace was going to be here whether or not I went, which means there’s something in the superdungeon they want. They must not have it yet, because they’re not acting any differently and they’re no stronger than before, but… man. I don’t want to waste time here. Training is good and all, but they’re not actually hurting anyone besides us here. There are still a bunch of otherworlders out there—and Earth natives, for that matter—who are killing people by the ten thousand.”
“Then go deal with them,” Caiyeri said flatly. “Nobody is making you stay here.”
“Huh?” Will had not been expecting that as an answer.
“You’re not beholden to anyone, are you?” she asked, turning towards him. There was no trace of the usual biting levity in her voice. “You’re free, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Yes, you could continue chasing down this dungeon, but we don’t have to. The world won’t end if we leave it. If you’re worried about Peace taking it over, you have nations at your beck and call lining up to work with you, no? You have whoever’s insane enough to go with you.”
Over in a nearby pond, Jessie bubbled its assent, a small geyser exploding from where it had dipped its head underwater.
“That’s true,” Will said. “Still, it feels… wrong. Like I have a responsibility to make sure that nothing goes terribly wrong.”
“Then leave some of your terrifying surveillance familiar here,” Caiyeri suggested. “Or the gest—Jessie, I mean. Leave some of us. I’m sure Nynn wants to investigate what his former employer is doing. You have one of the strongest silver-rank transportation skills I’ve ever heard of. You can practically traverse the world in an instant. Why should you be restricted to one area?”
“Sounds to me like you think I should go,” Will said.
“I think you think you should go,” Caiyeri corrected. “I have no stake in either game. As long as I’m alive and have control of my own life, I’ll be happy.”
“Must be nice,” Will said. “Where would you go if I chose to go hunting outside?”
“With you, of course,” she replied. At Will’s surprise, she grinned. “Don’t start getting any ideas, now. You just happen to be the person with the most interesting life. Besides, someone has to keep you from getting killed.”
“I wasn’t getting any ideas until you told me not to,” Will said. “Now I’m getting ideas.”
Caiyeri laughed. “If you say so. So, what’s the decision?”
“I figure it can’t hurt to give it a shot,” Will said. “You’re right. I’ll let the others know about the plan, then get moving. Natalie seems like she could use help. Well, her entire nation does. Also, Australia is getting shit on, and so is… yeah, basically everywhere, actually. Regina seems to have the eastern seaboard of the US handled, but thanks to the Contractor, the west is basically dark.”
“If you can’t figure out where to go first, why not roll the dice?” Caiyeri suggested.
“With you around? Hell no. You might as well just tell me where you want to go the first time.”
“You’re looking for mass murderers, right?” Caiyeri asked. “You could work your way up the list. Start with the top 10, maybe.”
“Not a terrible idea,” Will said. “Who do we know on the list that we could set aside?”
He opened the leaderboard up, clicking on the first option to expand.
World Leaderboard
1. Cinder Solace. Gold 7 Infernal Plaguespreader. Current sponsors: none.
2. Lance. Gold 7 Hydromancer. Current sponsors: the Lord of Drowned Ghosts.
3. Cross. Gold 6 Necromancer. Current sponsors: the Order of the Living Dead.
4. Yui. Gold 5 Void Reaver. Current sponsors: Dread Executor [REMOVED].
5. Nathan. Gold 4 Orbital Engineer. Current sponsors: none.
6. Pixie. Gold 4 Chronopoisoner. Current sponsors: none.
7. Warr. Gold 4 Warrior. Current sponsors: the Order of the Striker.
8. Draken. Gold 3 Darkstriker. Current sponsors: the Lord of Nightfire.
9. Riddhi. Gold 3 Elementalist. Current sponsors: The Court of Fire and Ice.
10. Fan Laozi. Gold 3 Titan Driver. Current sponsors: none.
[View more? 10/100 currently displayed.]
Your current position is number 32 of 652,682,125.
“Okay, we know 4 and 5 are fine, and 10 is with Lu Jie,” Will said. “Infernal Plaguespreader sounds incredibly evil, but first impressions aren’t always right. Lance—I think Regina said he’s been making problems down south around Florida, but I don’t think I need to chase that down, especially since I’m not actually that good in the water.”
“Hua mentioned Cross,” Caiyeri said. “I’m surprised he’s not dead yet.”
“Gold-rankers can be hard to kill, to be fair,” Will said.
“This coming from you?”
“I think I heard about Pixie and Warr,” Will said. “Not sure, though.”
“Let’s do Cross,” Caiyeri said. “We know that one’s evil, and you’re pretty suited to it.”
“Are you?” Will asked.
“Of course I am,” Caiyeri said, affronted. “Who do you think I am?”
“An elf with problems,” Will said.
“Fair assessment, but not complete.”
“I’m down to do Cross. Jessie?”
The sheer absurdity of asking an enormous man-eating kaiju whether or not it was okay with assassinating one of the most powerful people on the planet should probably have bothered Will, but he had passed his maximum bullshit threshold some time ago. This was his life now, and he was… well, he wasn’t okay with it, not exactly, but it still felt right somehow. The world had changed, and Will had with it.
The gestalt responded with an empathic nod, kicking up more water.
“Alright. I’ll let the others know, then get some shit in order,” Will said. “Haven’t been to Australia before, so I can’t portal us directly there, but I can probably borrow a plane from Regina if she doesn’t mind me crashing another few million dollars of American military material.”
“You do that, then,” Caiyeri said. “I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”
Figuring out logistics was a bit of a pain, but it went smoother than expected. Regina wasn’t willing to lend him any more planes unless he planned to take Lance out for her, which Will said he’d think about in the future. Hua managed to get in contact with the higher-ups in her country, though, and they were willing to spare a Pilot or two to get Will and anyone else over. It would probably just be Will and maybe Caiyeri, though, since Jessie was a bit impossible to transport with any plane.
Caiyeri said that she still had a couple more things to finish up in the superdungeon, so Will left her to it and hopped over to Geneva. The city was still mostly intact, the first global summit having been completed during his absence. Nothing of immediate relevance to him had been discussed since he’d left, so he didn’t care much more about it, but it was nice to see that in the wake of his departure, all-out war hadn’t actually broken out.
“I hope this doesn’t take too long,” Will said to himself.
#
“You can come out now,” Caiyeri said, looking to the air.
Will hadn’t seen the effect even though he was looking for it, but that was fine. Caiyeri had been somewhat aware of the sigil skills awaiting her race at higher levels, which meant that when her template counterpart had started talking shit to her, she was fairly confident about what Caiyeri Zero would do.
The Safe Harbor sigil skill, available only to the gold-rank favored of the elves—and even then, not many—was one of the ways the nation of the Abyss had stayed intact despite its relatively disparate composition. It was also, as far as Caiyeri was aware, part of the reason why they were so keen on cloning programs.
Other elves replicated through more traditional methods—sexual relations, forming a baby, et cetera—but not the Abyss.
Safe Harbor worked on certain designated targets, allowing an elf to step into a safe harbor, as the name suggested, and exit near a friendly if they were close enough. One loophole they had discovered over time was that elves sharing the same genetic data were bunched into the same group as those already designated targets, which meant cloning would vastly expand the ability of the abyss elves to be cockroaches.
A rift in space opened, exposing a serene, flourishing wonderland that Caiyeri had never been permitted to enter. Pink flower petals drifted out of it alongside a soft breeze, and shimmering lights resolved themselves into the figure of two gold-rank elves—
The pink immediately became marred with crimson as Jessie exploded from the water, having sensed the elven magic thanks to its own affinity, deepened by the dozens upon dozens of elves it had consumed and integrated into itself, and bit Azure Zero in half.
Caiyeri Zero, sensing this, stepped aside and let the gold-rank corpse fall to the ground, gracefully avoiding the blood splatter.
“It’s been a while,” she said, blurring out of the way of the gestalt’s follow-up attack.
“Back, Jessie,” Caiyeri Seven said. “It has been. Are you here to talk, or are you here to fight?”
“We can talk.” The original’s aura flared, proving the lie.
“I thought as much.”
Caiyeri Seven drew her revolver and fired.
#
“Azathoth,” Nynn said. “You still have not properly explained why you chose to be here.”
“You should be focusing on the fight, no?” Will’s familiar asked, indicating the battleground of a meadow beneath them.
“Nathan has enough open space to lock this down,” Nynn said. “He can manage. Liam and Lily are there too.”
“You have faith in your allies,” Aza said. “How has the mortal experience been treating you?”
“Terribly,” Nynn said drily. “But you know that already. Your true body has been observing this cycle closely.”
“This is not untrue,” Aza said. “You know why I am here. The corruption wielder is too abnormal not to follow. This kind of candidate has not survived this long in… oh, I don’t know how many cycles now.”
“That does not explain why you chose to do more than just watch,” Nynn replied. “I understand there is no risk, but… why?”
“Why?” Aza’s eyes twinkled. “You’re a mortal yourself now, Nynn. Shouldn’t you know why?”
Halfway across the planet, William Li-Brown entered combat with a necromancer with a kill count of over fifty thousand and a power level a full rank higher than him.
“I see,” Nynn said flatly. “Are you joking?”
“Nope,” Aza replied. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had this much fun.”
The fragment of a Dread Executor vanished, leaving Nynn alone.
He sighed.
“Just kill me now.”