Chapter 249

The balcony Lahn chose was secluded enough for his liking, and at the demon’s request he took a seat overlooking a large part of the academy here on the top city floor - some of which had been rebuilt after Rippenvire’s attack. The gardens had all been regrown too with the help of nature-based mages, but to Lahn’s distress - the small animal sanctuary he’d made in those gardens was no more. Not after the bombardments from the fleet up high had happened.

“It’s quite strange that one of Gluttony’s own came to seek me out.” Lahn stated with a grunt, letting his backside melt into the cushioned chair underneath him that was abnormally comfortable if he had to say so. “Strange that you’d even know about the angel to begin with since you were stuck in whatever void-prison Elysium put you in. Tre’Zix, was it?”

The demon gave a nod, retracting the purple blades along his extensor arms just slightly to avoid cutting into the fabric of the chair. Yellow eyes shifted across to where guards were posted further back at the entrances leading onto the balcony and many others elsewhere, and he snapped his fingers as a translucent sound barrier erected itself around himself and Lahn.

“Gluttony keeps tabs on many things you’d not expect.” Tre’Zix smiled - steepling his fingers and staring across the flower gardens that spanned for miles beyond campus grounds. “Tell me. What do you know of Gluttony?”

Lahn cocked an eyebrow. It wasn’t a question he’d thought the demon would ask, or even care about. “Anything at all?”

“Anything at all.”

Lahn contemplated this, scrunching up his brows and folding his arms while deep in thought. “I know it’s one of the seven original sins, I’d even heard about it before Panu was formed and the integration happened. According to legend it is one of the seven origins of demonkind, and that it’s supposed to be hunger incarnate. It is said that it feeds on the souls of mortal men to grant itself power, and that it is evil beyond measure. That is what I was taught growing up.”

Tre’Zix blinked, then chuckled with a widening smile that put on display all the sharp teeth behind his pincers. The smile looked alien, but it wasn’t a hostile one either. “Ah I see… So even before the integration into Elysium, there must have been angels or demons that contacted your world or dwelt upon it. Otherwise you would not know such things. Let me ask you another question then. Do you think all demons are evil - and that all angels are of good will?”

Tre’Zix turned his yellow eyes upon Lahn’s figure curiously.

Lahn, for his part, flinched just slightly under some unseen pressure. “I… I don’t think so. No.”

“Why?” Tre’Zix asked, cocking his head.

Lahn blinked. “Because Athela, Azmoth, and Fay aren’t evil. They were all incredibly nice to me, especially Fay.”

“The lucky three bound to Gluttony’s Reincarnation?” Tre’Zix laughed loudly, even throwing his head back in sharp, defined cackles. “How amazingly fortunate they are! But this is good to hear. Tell me then, do you think that I am evil? That Gluttony is evil?”

Lahn furrowed his brows. “I don’t know. I would assume… Well I would have assumed that being bound to the Unholy Foundational Pillar, you’d be evil by nature. But I am bound to the Unholy Foundational Pillar… and I’m not. And Fay isn’t. And I know that you can acquire the Unholy Foundational Pillar by doing evil things… but that is just one of many ways to get it. Isn’t it?”

Tre’Zix narrowed his yellow eyes, then slowly nodded. “Yes. There is a very big misconception across the multiverse at large about those who follow the Unholy Foundational Pillar as a means to ascension’s gates. And truthfully, there are stereotypes for a reason - but it isn't absolute. I will be the first to admit that I am no saint, that you truly would consider me what most consider ‘evil’ if you knew me in truth. I have killed for hunger, for pleasure, and for no reason at all time after time after time. Yet I would even go as far to say that Gluttony is more akin to a predator’s spirit, rather than truly evil. He does kill indiscriminately at times, but not because he wants to inflict pain. Rather, Gluttony kills and feeds because it is in his nature to do so. Whether or not that makes him evil is up to one’s opinion. Yet there are shades of morality that we all must decide on for ourselves, as finding oneself is half the journey on the transition into the higher realms of being. Should you ever make it past C-grade, you’ll do well to remember these words.”

There was a pause as Lahn digested the information. Was this reborn archdemon really giving him the secrets of ascension?

“I thought you’d lost all your memories.” Lahn stated.

This got a laugh from Tre’Zix. “Oh no. The vast majority of my power was reduced and it is true that I have pockets and gaps in my knowledge that I once had. But not everything was lost, and we were once some of the greatest of our kind… we had means of preserving small tidbits that even Elysium could not find.”

Tre’Zix winked. “Regardless, I have a point to make amongst all of this talk - and it is this: We demons, and Gluttony, by default, are not evil. Many of us have done evil things, but we treat our friends with kindness just as anyone else would. Even though our cultures may be what the angels often consider barbaric and excessively murderous, you must remember that there are shades of morality that even the worst of us hold close to our souls. It is an unfortunate and direct side effect of Charisma’s battle that has propagated the images of our kind being evil, specifically to mortal races such as humans who were born aligned with positive charisma instead of our negative charisma. In many ways we are destined to seek conflict with those of different charisma affiliations, with only those at the absolute neutral truly being safe from influence.”

He pointed at Lahn’s chest, and the sigil there imprinted into Lahn’s skin, underneath his clothes, began to flare a hot white. “The same concepts can be applied to the angel that resides inside you.”

Tre’Zix stopped pointing, and the sigil on Lahn’s chest began to fade and dim.

The demon shook his head. “It makes me wonder how things would have been if Charisma had never existed in the framework of creation to begin with. If this eternal war between the Commandments and Sins was to never happen. But if I were to guess, it is likely that whoever or whatever created the fabric of existence created us this way intentionally, with polar opposites destined to war against one another until the end of time while we crawled our way to the peaks of power. After all, conflict breeds growth.”

“Didn’t Elysium create this multiverse?”

“Yes, but only in the sense that it stitched together other universes - or cannibalized them. Angels and demons existed long before Elysium did. Elysium is an enigma, creating its own multiverse within a multiverse, but it is just a piece of the greater whole. Even Charisma, though not seen on the outside of Elysium’s Multiverse by status page, was still a very real thing before Elysium came to be. Elysium just gave us a means of physically seeing it by way of status screen, but there were other ways to do so even before it descended.”

Lahn’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “A multiverse within a multiverse? There is more than one?”

“Certainly. Riven’s parents fled from this one into the next, did they not?” Tre’Zix chuckled at the shocked expression Lahn had on display. “Though it is all so vast that no one can truly be certain just how far it all goes. What we do know is that there is a realm beyond the SSS grade, and should you ever reach it, you gain access to it. Should that ever happen and you fight through tribulations even beyond Elysium’s own, you vanish… never to return. At least, none have chosen to do so if they could. But there have been two documented instances in history where demons managed to break through, and one of the ordeals was actually recorded.”

Another pause.

“That’s incredibly interesting.” Lahn said with a thoughtful frown. “What rank were you before all this?”

“Me? I was a peak A-grade, on the verge of S-grade. A being that could destroy entire civilizations! A true monster to be feared!” Tre’Zix laughed again, a gleeful glint to his eye. “It is a realm even many gods do not enter, even despite their vast advantages when compared to other beings of the multiverse.”

“What about Lillith?”

“She was mid SSS grade. That crazy bitch is something else, but I love her - as we all do.”

“And Gluttony?”

Tre’Zix paused. “Intentionally peak SSS grade without ever attempting to transcend. Gluttony and the other sins though… they have compulsions to remain in that state. As if by design. Gluttony once told me that he had the opportunity to try and surpass his limits, but that some kind of limiter would have made it all the harder to do, made him not want to do it even. He didn’t go into much detail after that, other than to say there is another kind of system in the beyond that he once touched upon. Strange to think about. Perhaps this time around, one of us from Gluttony’s ranks will finally make the jump… as long as we aren’t hunted down and killed first. Ancient enemies will no doubt be coming out of meditative seclusion in an attempt to kill us all before we make it back to where we were, long standing grudges to be had when we are at our weakest. Many of us will doubtless die in our climb back to the peak. But the same can be said for all of the other sins, and all of the commandments and their followers that were banished along with us back when the eternal war had gotten out of hand.”

Lahn was about to ask another question when Tre’Zix shut him down with a wave of his hand.

“History lessons can wait. For now, I need to speak to the angel that so proudly announced himself as Denaskus, Arbiter of the Celestial Prax, when killing that baby blood sucker at The Blood Moon Requiem’s compound. Would you mind bringing him out for me?” Tre’Zix grinned. “I promise to play nice. I just want to make a few things very clear to him should we permit him to stay. After that I’ve been instructed to speak to King Arthur Brix about our plans for world domination. Then I am to go power-level with my demonic brethren, before we take a mercenary guild contract to help fight Negrada’s war. It’s a lot to do and has been a long time since I’ve let loose in the hells, so let’s get this over with. I have a blood bath to attend to and an ascension into E-grade to acquire.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

***

Gragle the gnome, Nora and Azmoth were led through town behind the guards of Mesini’s Outpost #84 without much fanfare. There were certainly wary or even scared looks shot Azmoth’s way as they walked, but they were for the most part still rushing around trying to form barricades and set up defensive lines all around the stone wall perimeter. Health, mana, stamina, and divinity potions were all being passed around - and long-lasting miracle or spell buffs were being applied even hours before the monster wave hit in order to give the casters enough time for their cooldowns to reset over and over again.

The architecture here varied, and most of the people here wore various leather and fur gear or plain fabric; either being human or gnome in origin with a mix tilting in favor of humans by 2 to 1. Nora could tell just by looking at the place that whatever this planet ‘Mesini’ was, or at least the area this outpost had been in, it’d likely been a barren rocky wasteland without much plant life. There was wood present, and even a few very scrappy-looking gray trees, but not much. The houses and buildings were a mix-and-mash of metal plating, clay patchwork, stone walls and even tar. She wouldn’t go as far as to say it was dirty, but the most colorful aspects of the town were orange and yellow paintings found on some of the walls. Otherwise it was very brown and very gray wherever she looked.

Eventually after a few twists and turns, Nora and Azmoth were led into a moderately sized two-story building, the largest one around, and told to wait below while two of the guards jostled up the stairway with bounding steps.

There was a small commotion up at the top, three scantily clad human women covering themselves up with various blankets clambered down the stairs and rushed out the door with embarrassed flushing to their faces, and a gnome about two and a half feet tall was quick to jump down each of the stairs one by one moments later.

He landed in a cloud of green dust when his hands smashed two green vials of sparkly powder into the floor, theatrically so, and waved his small hands around as if it was supposed to be impressive. He had a pointy wizard’s hat on, or the equivalent of one anyways, and had a tobacco pipe in his mouth that he continued to puff on while the green cloud of powder around him dissipated. “Welcome to Outpost #84! I am Warden Zuk of this fine town, wizard extraordinaire! You may prostrate yourselves now!”

Nora gave the incredibly short man a flat look, then shot a glance at the guards who each shamefully glanced away when her eyes met theirs. Azmoth just scratched the back of his metallic, spiked head with a single claw - but didn’t move otherwise as he towered over not only the gnome; but all the human men as well.

“Warden Zuk.” The captain of the guards sighed with a shake of his head. “Take it from one drinking buddy to another, but this is not the time to be playing silly games. We have a monster wave induced by Elysium itself on its way in about 6 hours from now and we could very well all die if we don’t figure out what exactly is going on, or if there are any rules and obligations towards this event that we need to know.”

Warden Zuk snorted, lowering his hands and taking the smoking pipe out of his mouth to put it into a spatial sack on his side. “Fine, fine. You there - Gragle, as a fellow gnome would you say that these people are upstanding citizens to be - or should we be wary of them?”

Gragle, for his part, had been trying to escape on the outskirts of the room with the warden’s flamboyant entrance. His scarred features scrunched up in irritation and he swore under his breath before sighing and walking back into the room with a defeated glower. “I have no idea.”

“Well that’s not very helpful! Were you not taking them on a tour of the town just now!?” The warden raised an eyebrow and tipped his gray wizard’s hat to one side.

Gragle put both small hands to either side of his head, began rubbing his temple, and groaned. “It was more than I would have liked to do.”

Nora watched the small man glance up at her, and then at Azmoth, amusement edging itself into the back of her mind. She could tell that he was considering talking about Riven and the others, as well as their open talk back in the pub, but she wasn’t concerned. Each of these guards were easily below level 50, and she’d be able to kill all of them by herself even without Azmoth’s help should the time come.

That of course was opposite of what she wanted to do, given the quest she had was to save the town from this monster wave. She wouldn’t necessarily lose Event Points if only a few of these people died, but she did know that Riven would. Though they were technically still competitors for Chalgathi’s inheritance even if they were both non-cultists, Riven had still helped her up those pyramid steps and had likely saved her life. She would not undermine his attempts here.

[Nora’s Quest #1 of The Altars of Despair and Hope: Tag along with any other Non-Cultist to defend their town for the upcoming monster waves. Your job is to successfully assassinate the enemy leader, as well as any enemy cultists that may appear with the monster wave. +30 Event Points for assassinating the enemy leader. Extra Event Points (+3 total) for any enemy cultist slane.]

[Tagged Quest: Riven’s Quest #1 of The Altars of Despair and Hope: Other F-grade participants have been either voluntarily or involuntarily dragged into this event from across the multiverse. Unlike the chosen of this trial, they do not respawn 24 hours after death. You have been given the task of defending one of these populations. Your first quest is to travel to the marked quest location and save as many people as you can. Each person that dies counts towards a -1 Event Point. Successfully defending the town from the monster wave will result in +30 Event Points.

>>> Time until monster wave: 6 hours, 29 minutes.]

“That’s a funny feathered hat you’ve got there lass.” The gnome warden stated with a finger pointing up to her green-and-black headdress sticking out from the green-and-black Chalgathi Cowl, labeling her as a non-cultist. “What’s a non-cultist?”

“You really don’t know?” Nora asked curiously, folding her arms. “What exactly were you all told when you got here?”

“Not much. That we were supposed to fight a monster wave and survive, and that we’d be provided more details if we did.”

“Huh. I can see why you asked me to come here then.” She looked around, then spotted another nearby room full of pastries set up on a kitchen display - and a large smile spread across her face. “Of course I’ll have to get going soon to scout out the area, but I can give you a rundown of what’s going on if you treat me to that food over there. How’s that for a deal?”

“Agreed.” Azmoth nodded, surprising many of the people there who hadn’t heard the deep, demonic voice of the brutalisk up until now.

“Your hellish ape can talk!?” the gnome wizard gawked - only for the captain of the guard to nearly choke at the unintentional insult while quickly ushering both Azmoth and Nora into the kitchen.

“We’ll provide you with whatever food we have…” The guard captain glared over his shoulder at the warden. “Please forgive our resident idiot in charge, he means well - he’s just thoroughly stupid.”

***

Grakzee’s gills flared while water magic cycled through them to moisturize his insides. The silver cowl with blue trimmings with the sigil of a kraken stitched into its top was irritating to wear, but every time he’d tried taking it off the damn thing would appear back on his head again seconds later. This hadn’t been the case earlier when he’d only been in the presence of other cultists at the Altar of Despair, but the notification of ‘While in the Presence of Non-Cultists, you must retain your Chubin Cowl at all times’ was now plaguing him.

[Chubin Cowl (Cultist): This is a soulbound item only you can wear for the remainder of this event, it gives you no stats or bonuses, but it marks you as a Chubin Cultist to friend and enemy alike.]

At least this would act as a kind of radar to detect nearby enemies, but he didn’t know what the radius on this effect was or how many of them there were. As for his side, he’d already met with the other five cultists who’d been assigned to this mission. Two of them were Chubin-affiliated naga cultists like himself, blue-green scales adorning their reptilian bodies with the lower halves of serpents and the upper halves of humanoid lizards. The other three were all Nekra cultists - two being dark elf females that hid whatever equipment they had underneath thick black robes; while the third was a male chaos dwarf barbarian. He was an axe-wielder that was littered in Chaos-derived sigils all over his body. This species of dwarf was a rarity to see even from dwarf standards, and their sigils were supposed to actually be present at birth rather than created or tattooed, with the story being that once upon a time many millennia ago - one of their ancestors made a pact with some kind of demonic god to acquire such power for his people.

Unfortunately Grakzee was the only one of the group of 6 that had a stealth-based class, so he’d been put at the forefront of the scouting mission while the other five were delegated to other things. They chose to either sit and wait, chose to speak to the monster swarm leader on tactics until it was unchained by the system event, or they were applying buffs to some of the stronger monsters in anticipation of the fight to come.

He just wished that this was more swamp, or ocean, rather than the thick forest he found himself in. He wasn’t used to being on dry land, and his ‘Waterspear Ambusher’ class wasn’t as good when out of the water as it was while swimming.

And why was the system delegating 6 of the 21 cultists to a single quest anyways? Unlike all of the other cultists who had their own individual quests, the six of them had been assigned a ‘group quest’ for ‘enhanced difficulty’. The prize had also been escalated when compared to others he’d talked to or those who’d compared quest logs with him, and he didn’t know whether or not he’d been given a gift by the system - or whether this was a cursed quest destined to fail.

[Grakzee’s Quest #1 of The Altars of Despair and Hope: Other F-grade participants have been either voluntarily or involuntarily dragged into this event from across the multiverse. Unlike the chosen of this trial, they do not respawn 24 hours after death. You have been given the task of attacking one of these populations. Your first quest is to travel to the marked quest location and kill as many people as you can. Each person that dies counts towards a +1 Event Point. Successfully destroying the town alongside the monster wave will result in +30 Event Points. This quest is at an enhanced difficulty, killing either of the two Non-Cultists present here, only while during the active quest, will reward you with an additional +280 Event Points per kill.

>>> Time until monster wave: 6 hours, 19 minutes.]

His eyes narrowed on the +280 quest points. Killing these non-cultists would result in far more points than the actual quest itself gave. That was quite a lot, when compared to any of the other quests the other cultists got, but it didn’t take a lot of thought to cycle through possible options for why that would be.

It was just a guess, but as he slithered through the underbrush with both short water-made spears in either hand, Grakzee could only hope that he was wrong about his theory. Why six would be pitted against two, and why the system would grant such a large boon for success.

Because though the cultists had the numbers, and all of them were in the S rankings and Paragon rankings on the Panu power ladder, there was one that stood out above all the rest.

Grakzee could only hope that he wouldn’t have to fight that monstrous warlock ranked at the very top, because from what he’d seen of Riven Thane so far on the world forums - he was a walking catastrophe waiting to happen. The pureblooded vampire was also a known Chalgathi chosen after he’d wiped out an entire city with the proclamation to massacre the Chalgathi cultists who’d wronged him. There was at least a chance that Grakzee was about to pit himself against the most powerful man Panu had to offer by Elysium’s rating standards, and if so - Grakzee would need to devise a scheme of some kind that would give him an advantage. He did have the skeleton of a plan so far, but he just hoped he’d not have to try and use it - because even with his schemes, the odds would not be in his favor.

[Chubin, The Apocalypse Beasts World Quest, Panu, sub-event has been INITIATED: The Altars of Despair and Hope.

A temporary pocket world for this event has been created. The Chosen finalists of Chalgathi, the Plague Dragon, Chubin, the glass Kraken, and Neckra, the Skeletal Devourer - Have all been sent to this pocket world to compete.

Locations of Chubin’s Altars have been marked for you. You will be required to visit all 4 Chubin altar sites and activate each of the shrines, as well as acquire 10,000 event points before being allowed to leave this event. Doing so will also give you knowledge of the location of Chubin’s Sea-bottom Lair, where Chalgathi’s incubation chamber has been hidden.

There are 21 registered Cultists.

* 7 Chalgathi Cultists, 6 Chubin Cultists, and 8 Nekra Cultists

There are 9 registered Non-Cultists entering this event.

* 3 Chalgathi Non-Cultists, 4 Chubin Non-Cultists, and 2 Nekra Non-Cultists

You have arrived at the Altar of Despair, and are now registered as a Culist. Killing other Cultists will result in a decrease in your Event Points. Each participant will have their own set of unique quests that allow them to gain points and level up, only quests will allow level ups and XP gains during this event. Other rules will be reviewed again and in more detail after your first quest is completed.]