Five days ago, the Devil Kings had left the Grand Dungeon. Alistair knew this had to be the case because the Grand Dungeon was not like the Holy Ravine. While he couldn’t access the Soulnet and System Store, he could see his subregions and the general picture of what was happening back on Earth.
It wasn’t pretty.
In the five days in which he had been stuck grinding the Grand Dungeon, the Devil Kings grew their freehold to 36.7% of the world. Still a decent amount away from the majority they needed for an automatic victory, but extremely troubling nonetheless.
The turn of events made Alistair question his decision. This was clearly their first real attack, done with all their power. All the little games that they had played with people’s lives, had led up to this.
Was he wrong to enter the Grand Dungeon? Should he have waited for Oracle’s attack to wear off?
No, he thought. He shouldn’t doubt himself now. He would have been forfeiting the rewards of the Grand Dungeon for the chance that he would get back to Earth sooner. Right now, any power he could rummage up was essential.
It did put him on a clock, however. While he wanted to be coy with his resources to save them for the outside, if he didn’t use at least an appreciable percentage of his full power, there wouldn’t be an outside to save when he returned.
But what was this final sector?
The only information he got was a small window from the system.
> Final Sector: Cosmic Blood
Promising, Alistair thought to himself. If it involves blood, I’m no slouch.
Unlike the exciting start to the other sectors, Alistair found himself in a dark corridor. He could barely make out a light at the end.
On either side, there were blobs. That the best description Alistair had for them. As tall as a human, their blue skin glowed and shifted under a gelatinous mass. Strange creatures moved underneath the surface of the jelly membrane, including where their heads would be. In place of a brain, they had a dark red mass of tentacles.
The blobs were shaped like tall spiders, with a mass above eight metallic legs that clanked softly against the dark floor of the corridor.
“Hshshsshshshs,” the blob to his right hissed in an incomprehensible tongue. While the hisses came at a high pitch, there was a harmonic overtone that vibrated Alistair ever so gently, so deep that it was almost inaudible.
“Hello?” Alistair asked, hoping that the translation services of the Pathfinder AI would kick in after a few seconds. “My name is Alistair. What’s going on here?”
“Hshhhhssshss,” the blob to his left said. Their mouths seemed to be on the underside of the blobs mass, giving their speech an eerie ring.
“Sorry, I don’t understand.” Alistair put his hands up, which the blobs promptly grabbed with slimy tentacles they formed from their bodies. “Do you recognize these things?” Alistair asked Dev’rox mentally.
“No,” the imp responded. “The multiverse is vast and I can’t consider myself informed on all the variety of creatures on the Physical Plane. Perhaps they’re not even real. This is the Grand Dungeon of the Pathfinder AI, after all.”
Alistair decided it was best to go along with the blobs. It was possible the correct move was to fight them, but he wasn’t liking his chances. They outputted almost no aura, making him suspicious. He wasn’t about to risk going for an [Eyes of Truth], either. With his various ways of detecting danger sensing no immediate threat, he walked towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
As he got closer to the light, he began to hear more of the hissing and bass hums that the blobs made. They grew louder and louder the further he got, until it would have been unbearable for any normal human. Alistair’s reinforced body could take it, but his eardrums weren’t appreciative.
The blobs hurried him up to the edge of the tunnel. The light source he had seen before turned out to be a wall of light, impenetrable to vision.
“Shhssshsshs,” said one of the blobs, and pushed him through.
Alistair fell into an arena of shadow and light. When his feet touched the ground, brilliant white waves emanated from the point of contact, like ripples on a pond. The surface was an inky pool of utter darkness, where it felt like he was stepping on a liquid of such high surface tension he could somehow stand.
Interspersed within the darkness were pockets of light. What felt like infinite discs of white light carried thousands upon thousands of blobs, all with the same gelatinous composition and red tentacles for brains. They went up for as far as the eye could see, which, for Alistair’s visual acuity, was dozens of kilometers.
“Looks like I’m in front of a crowd again,” Alistair told Dev’rox. “Now I really wonder whether this is real.”
As he stopped moving, the ripples of light faded. Alistair tested this out by stepping his foot down carefully, noting how, when he touched the inky surface, the ripples of light appeared once more.
Cool. It’s like I’m in some stylized science fiction movie. Alistair stretched his muscles and waited, taking in the crowd’s succor in a language he could not understand. Were they cheering for him?
The suspense ended and the crowd’s roars died as something approached in the distance. Alistair felt the presence of the enemy far before the glowing ripples appeared. An aura that he would never forget as long as he lived.
A large holographic image appeared hovering in the air, as much for him as the crowd. The text was alien, but there was a grid with pictures on it he could partially understand. The grid appeared to be a ranking, and in the sixth slot was what might have been a number and a small avatar of a man cloaked in ice wielding a bow and arrow.
Unmistakably, that was George Moulin. Before he could think of what that meant, a new image appeared next to the ranking, partially overlayed on top of the first. An image of the creature who came closer with every breath.
Kalgur Bykrozz, Prince of the Blood Orcs, the leader of the first monster wave that had almost killed him so many months ago.
There was no natural lighting to their dark stage, only brief flashes of illumination when either of them stepped or when the multitude of discs passed over them as they swooped down in interminable patterns.
Prince Kalgur was the same as Alistair remembered. The golden orc towered over Alistair despite the latter being ten centimeters taller since their last encounter. He wore golden armor and carried a double-headed axe that gave off a deadly aura.
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Beep. An electronic sound played through the air accompanied by a screen depicting himself and Kalgur. Alistair couldn’t read the words displayed over their persons, but he knew the meaning. Fight.
Alistair took the fight seriously from the get-go, activating [Eyes of Truth] to see if there was any change since last time.
> Name: Kalgur Bykrozz
>
> Species: Continuum Bloodsun Orc I (Partially Evolved)
>
> Level: 60
>
> Class: Dimensionalist (Rare) [Primary Attribute(s): Wisdom and Endurance]
Not seeing a difference, Alistair considered his opponent’s old abilities and his new level in the split second he had before the fighting began in earnest.
Alistair unsheathed his Devilsbane Gauntlets from his wrists and entered Tranquil Mind.
The sublime ocean of tranquility washed over him, crashing down like a tsunami. The raging waters that he called home offered complete silence to the cries of the world. He was separate from all ties and attachments, dedicated solely to victory.
Alistair was the one to close the gap, [Dashing] forward. Dev’rox added to the speed by shrinking the distance between them, though his Badge, “Deliverance of Justice”, did not trigger its activation requirements since as a likely program of the system, Kalgur could not be considered evil.
There was a massive spatial tug half-way through the [Dash]. A Dimensionalist Skill, no doubt. Dev’rox reacted instantaneously and surged space affinity Mana through Alistair’s system to guard against the threat. Last time he fought the orc boss, he didn’t have the imp.
Alistair arced a long side kick toward his opponent, activating [Force Fist] around his foot.
Kalgur was gone in an instant, the coral light of the Skill passing through empty space.
In the depths of Tranquil Mind, Alistair reacted even as he felt the space affinity Mana coursing through the orc’s meridians. He couldn’t directly see it, but he could feel it with his aura sense, leading him to cast down a [Lightning of Justice] where he felt the space affinity Mana shift toward.
A blinding bolt of golden lightning coursed down into the inky surface. Which he quickly found coursing back at him. In a taste of his own, or rather, Dev’rox’s, own medicine, the Dimensionalist had created a blue portal above him where the lightning would strike and redirected it straight for Alistair.
Normally, he would have dodged, but Alistair sensed a different play to be made with Tranquil Mind. While under normal circumstances timing such an attempt would be impossible, his reaction time was so quick that as the edge of the lightning first made contact with his gloved hand, he activated [Frozen Claw].
Ice spread around the lightning bolt faster than it traveled, emboldened by the superior freezing capabilities of the somewhat recent Tier 2 upgrade. Luckily, [Lightning of Justice] did not travel as fast as a real lightning bolt, or even his reaction time would have been for naught.
At the same time, he added the “Permanent Haunt” division of his Ghost Node, making his own Skill more ghost-like and easier to freeze. Then, he threw the ten-meter-long bolt of frozen lightning at the orc.
A cover for his true attack, he [Dashed] forward, peering into the future with [Eyes of Karma]. In less time than Kalgur could react, Alistair swapped places with Dev’rox.
The imp had worked his way around the orc in the spare time, staying just close enough away to not trigger any alarms. By already being mid-[Dash] when the swap happened, Alistair used that momentum to near instantly bring himself upon his enemy.
Based on his attempted interruption of Alistair’s [Dash], the orc had good reaction times, but he was unprepared for the sudden shift in location.
A deafening roar shuddered the realm of darkness as Alistair poured his mind and body into a vicious, point-blank [Draconic Roar]. As a Dimensionalist with high Wisdom, Kalgur was primed to resist nue more than an ordinary cultivator of his level, but he was stunned for a split second.
Exactly enough time for Alistair to strike three times. One [Force Fist] to the face in the form of a right straight, imbued with a big chunk of the Fist Node, one [Blood Hand] spearhand to the heart imbued with the Ghost Node, and then a [Frozen Claw] kick to the legs also imbued with the Ghost Node. Each blow came with the aftermath of a Spiritual Fighter's Echo as a fist made of Dao energy struck in a delayed fashion.
The impact of the three strikes seemed to overlap with one another. The fajin aspect [Force Fist] careened him back, while bountiful life force passed from his body unto Alistair. [Frozen Claw] wrapped around his feet and legs midair, sapping him of his movement.
In a panicked last move, Kalgur summoned not dozens, but hundreds of blue portals. Thousands of axes fell from the skies while an enormous amount of space affinity Mana took hold of Alistair for but a second, anchoring him to the ground in the path of the arsenal from the heavens.
Each axe was imbued with the Dao of Space, trained never to miss their exact mark where Alistair stood. They cleaved space itself as they flew down, creating a spectacle of silver light intertwined in darkness, to the pleasure of the crowd.
“I’ve got this one,” Dev’rox said, though Alistair already knew what was to come.
The imp had two options: counter the incoming assault directly, or free Alistair from his stationary position. The former required a huge investment of Mana and effort, with no action needed on Alistair’s part. The latter required still required Alistair to run away from the axes at peak speed.
The imp went with the latter.
In a burst of primeval Mana, two arcane arrays appeared above Alistair in silver and shimmering transparent writing. They cleansed the anchoring Mana in no small feat, and Alistair could feel an exhaustion from the imp.
Alistair [Dashed] away from the epicenter of the massive Skill. At the end of his [Dash], a single stray axe collided with his back. He could have stopped it altogether by ending the Skill and reacting, but he chose to let it land.
Thud. His danger sense and Karmic vision told him it wouldn’t be an issue, so he tanked it. [Steel Body] worked its magic, taking away the force of the axe as Dev’rox countered the small amount of the Dao of Space within it. A small test of his new Skill, which he knew would serve him nicely in the battles to come.
Alistair walked calmly toward his downed opponent, who had skidded even further away than a full [Dash]’s distance. The fajin impact of [Force Fist] was nothing to scoff at, though he supposed it wasn’t ideal when trying to keep an opponent still.
Feeling the dwindling life force of the orc, he exited Tranquil Mind, hit by a flurry of strange emotions as he left.
All-in-all, a clean victory. Alistair hadn’t meant for Dev’rox to expend what was over half his Mana, but it was actually an efficient trade. Space countered space, so if Alistair wanted to achieve his victory without relying on Dev’rox, he would have had to use even more of his own Mana, while Dev’rox only used 400 of his approximate 800 Mana pool.
Now that he had left Tranquil Mind, a bit of his cheekiness returned. Real or imagined, the crowd deserved some entertainment, right?
Alistair made it to the orc. As a level 60 Dimensionalist, he would have been the bane of many stronger cultivators, perhaps even stronger than Alistair, if not for Dev’rox’s help. As he was, his face was caved in from the powerful [Force Fist] and he was frozen against the ground.
For an orc, he had low Constitution. Endurance could only help him so much with that level of injury.
Alistair picked the dying orc up with a single arm and held him in the air.
The crowd ate up his gladiatorial antics, cheering so loud that the liquid surface beneath vibrated so hard it lit up with those glowing white ripples. Hundreds and hundreds of meters of the boundless arena became flooded with light, which in turn caused even more of them to hum and hiss.
Not wanting to draw out his victory any longer, Alistair tossed the orc in the air and purged him for good. While he was not in Tranquil Mind any longer, he gave solemn words to the former leader of the monster wave.
While I do not know if you are the same individual as before, I hope that you can get the release you wanted. Alistair had deduced from the many peculiar statements of the monsters that they were in essence, Dao-bound slaves of the Pathfinder AI, reproduced and created at its leisure to serve as fodder for the growth of initiates.
A pitiful life. While it seemed antithetical to his theatrics, Alistair did have a purpose for those, and did mean what he thought. There was no contradiction to him.
[Lightning of Justice] came down and Alistair turned his back, not witnessing the obliteration in the sky.
There was nothing more evil than the slaughter of the powerless. Everyone understood that, at a basic level. A baby was the most innocent of all. A primal vengeance grew in Alistair’s heart as he saw the next opponent appear in a window, as soon as he defeated Kalgur.
Atavius Meloi.