Dan could just wait for the Sortilege monsters to disappear from the Crucible area. He was still going back there though. For a few reasons.
As he told Ace, he had started regulating, and he wouldn’t be done until every single traitor he knew of was dead.
Max Zamotin and the monsters were there because of Dan, and he wouldn’t leave his mess for others to deal with.
All the best fighters from last time, every true warrior Dan knew of besides one, Jun Huang, had become traitors.
He still planned on making everyone as strong as possible and hoped they’d be powerful enough to stand with him when he fought Asmodon, but he was down to the B-team. The people that were good, but not great.
If Jun Huang or some B-team people entered the fifth area while Max and all the Sortilege monsters were there, they wouldn’t last long.
The last reason was the same as why he tackled the SS version of the Trial of the Shining One at level 20 – if he couldn’t handle Max and those Sortilege monsters now, he had no chance standing against Asmodon.
Last time, all the leaders of humanity waited as long as possible and helped everyone else remaining as much as possible before summoning Asmodon.
Everyone had completed every Trial on SS and were about as strong as it was thought they could possibly get.
Over two thousand humans had been there when Asmodon was summoned. The champion didn’t even show. Only a couple hundred of his demon followers did.
And those demons slaughtered us like we weren’t nothing, thought Dan. I got to make sure it goes a lot different this time. I won’t fail. I can’t.
The Game itself was a trap. Last time, everyone that was alive at the end, regardless of the difficulty they started on, even Easy, had completed all the Trials of the Boss area on Hell Difficulty.
Everyone assumed that was enough. They assumed that meant they were ready.
The Game and Trials weren’t nearly enough to prepare people to face Asmodon’s forces, never mind the champion himself. Even the strongest were cut down like wheat. And most folk that hadn’t started on Hell difficulty didn’t even have 5-Star Souls, and that was about half that remained.
There was no information anywhere that said people should grind for years and years after completing all Trials before they’d stand a chance.
If all those remaining at the end had 6-Star Souls, then maybe they would’ve had a chance. Maybe. Dan wasn’t so certain.
He was a lot more certain that he had found every secret hidden within the Game. There wasn’t one clue anywhere that said anything about what they’d face. There just wasn’t a way for anyone to know. Not from within the Game itself.
But there was a way. After lasting a year, everyone remaining could receive new techs. Not demon techs. Techs working for the other side, Heaven.
If those techs came, if even one came, every surviving human could’ve known they weren’t close to ready for Asmodon. Things wouldn’t have gone the same.
It took Dan a long time to kill those initial demons that were summoned. His worst years. It was really rough going back then.
It was mostly just running and hiding at first. When he started fighting back, he’d get close to dying multiple times a day, every day, even picking off the demons piecemeal and being extremely careful about it.
Dan had thought Asmodon was one of those demons. He thought he was about to win the Game when he killed the last one summoned.
That wasn’t true at all. A couple hundred more came, a mix of demons and devils, and they were all much tougher than the first wave.
Things got really rough for a while again. Even though the new ones were much tougher, so was Dan.
Again, he thought Asmodon was mixed in among those demons and devils. He was certain he’d win the Game when he killed the last remaining of the second wave.
But he didn’t. A couple hundred more demons and devils showed up. There was a real monster among their ranks. Asmodon had finally entered the Game.
The other demons and devils could talk, but Dan couldn’t understand them. Asmodon spoke English. But even if the champion couldn’t communicate with Dan, it was clear he was different than the others. Not just bigger, but far more powerful.
Things got really rough again. Much rougher than it had ever been before, but Dan had also become much rougher himself, and no matter what Asmodon threw at him, he remained.
And when it was clear he’d keep remaining, only then had Aphariel made her first appearance.
By then, Dan had stopped trying to keep track of time. Life was a blur of fighting, killing what he could, escaping, experimenting with Orbments, searching for secrets, and some way to kill the champion.
Time passed strangely. A day or an hour could seem like a hellish eternity, but it also went by in the blink of an eye.
He’d get in a major battle and barely escape alive knowing the events of that terrifying fight would be etched into his memory forever.
He’d think, “Well, that was awful. I ain’t never forgetting that,” and a few short days later, that major battle was just mixed in with and hard to distinguish from all the others.
Once the Game first initiated, it was about five or six weeks before the first wave of monsters attacked each area, but the time between waves got progressively shorter as the Game went on.
By the time the forces of Asmodon were summoned, each area was being attacked weekly. Sixty years after that, there were many waves each day.
Dan’s only reprieve was that bugged bind point.
Early on, Asmodon constantly tried out new strategies and tactics.
Dan was forced to adapt or die. He had no choice but to become an expert at both fighting and escaping.
It infuriated Asmodon that none of his strategies and tactics worked. The demon Champion was supposed to be a big deal on the fast track to greatness. Instead, he was stuck inside the Game with a cockroach he couldn’t kill.
Once the champion entered the Game, he couldn’t leave. Not until Dan was dead. And Dan kept on not dying.
Asmodon would be sent replacement forces every day, but Dan became an expert at killing every kind of demon and devil sent.
After a while, there were no more surprises. Dan saw it all and survived it all.
Year by year he could stand against Asmodon a little longer before recalling away. He had no chance of killing the champion though. He never even came close.
Dan had managed to empty the champion’s core a couple times. But even when Asmodon had no mana, Dan couldn’t hurt him much.
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All those years and decades blurred together. The only constant throughout was his Class and its required Orbments. He had experimented with every slot he could with nearly every Orbment his Class allowed.
Nothing ever worked.
This time would be different. Things were already going very differently.
Last time, Dan had been a nobody. He wasn’t even good enough to have a permanent party. He took what offers he could get, usually for a one and done Trial, or grinding a specific Trial.
No tech ever wasted Viel trying to kill him or show him ghosts.
He had gotten lucky getting his hands on the Epic Orbment Bind and Recall. Since he had poured so many Orbment Fragments into ranking up his Uncommon Orbment, Blink, he wasn’t going to unslot that. He took a Class with two utility slots for those two Orbments.
A couple of months later he went to level up at a Class Obelisk and saw something amazing. He had gotten lucky. Somehow. Or had done something right.
At the very top of his selections was a Rare quality Class. The 4-Star Traveler Class. He just needed the Teleport Orbment first.
Having that Class and the Teleport Orbment made getting into parties easier. The price was almost always Teleport’s cooldown and transportation to the area the Trial was in.
Dan became known as the teleport guy. Or one of the teleport guys. He wasn’t known for being tough or a good fighter or a good guy to party with. He was known for one of his Orbments and the ability to cut down on travel time.
Dan hadn’t been the sole human to remain in the Game because he was tough or a good fighter, though he had become both. The reason he hadn’t been slaughtered along with everyone else boiled down to dumb luck.
He had gotten lucky by having Bind and Recall drop which led to being offered the Traveler Class. Then a tragedy of errors resulted in him binding to a glitched recall point in a Trial, something that shouldn’t have been possible.
A bug had saved him. And, in turn, he had become one himself. A cockroach.
After he was the last remaining, when his Soul increased to 6-Stars, he could only take a direct upgrade to the same Class. He couldn’t change his Class. He could only make lateral changes with different slot compositions.
When he first switched to the Traveler Class, all his bind points were reset. They didn’t transfer over. Only one of his bind points was important, but the day he lost it would’ve been the day he died. That bugged bind-point kept him alive for over sixty years.
And that bugged bind-point had just saved him again. Somehow. He had an idea how that happened.
Dan stopped his rumination to focus. He hadn’t seen anyone in the Castle area. Not clearly. He did spot some movement off in the distance.
Since they had been trying to kill him for such a long time, Dan had a good sense of what the forces of Hell had planned. He wouldn’t be surprised if there were more traitors waiting to jump him in the Court, along with all their techs ready to hit their Sortilege for that area.
He hoped there were. He wanted all the traitors dead and gone.
He needed this type of combat too. As much of it as possible. Experience fighting with his new Class and build.
And the way he figured it, the more resources the forces of Hell spent on him, the less they’d have to spend on others.
Dan already had Ashen Ruin summoned and Molten Armor activated. There wasn’t much else he could do to prepare. He entered the Court. There was no trap set up. He wondered if one was set up closer to the exit.
There wasn’t, which surprised him. He was betting there actually was, but it wouldn’t be sprung until he finished up in the Crucible and headed back down to the Court.
Then Dan entered the Crucible for the second time that day.
None of the Sortilege monsters were near the entrance, so he relaxed a little. He quickly killed the spawned infernal. As he went to collect the drops, he felt a tingling sensation on his scalp before SIXTH SENSE warned him of danger.
He knew that tingling feeling well, and exactly what it meant.
After fighting all the real demons and devils for so long, he had learned to sense when he was being targeted by certain Orbments that had a unique feel.
One always caused his head to tingle a little. The same Orbment he had given to Andrew five days ago, BOMBARDMENT. Max Zamotin had it slotted and was targeting Dan with it.
Out of all the traitors he faced that day, Max was the only one Dan had ever partied with and talked to in more than a passing manner.
Dan wouldn’t say he was friends with Max. He had no friends. He and Max were never close, but Dan respected, looked up to, and liked the man a lot.
This time, Max was a traitor. Dan didn’t know Max’s new build other than that his mana-type was a burning type of energy, and he had Dodge and BOMBARDMENT slotted, but he had fought beside the man a few times and seen the man fight hundreds of times.
He didn’t need to know Max’s new build. He knew how Max thought.
Dan charged out of BOMBARDMENT’s area of effect and straight at the small thicket 15 or so yards to his left. He couldn’t see Max, but he knew the man was in there. And that was confirmed as Ashen Ruin invoked Incinerate.
Dan saw a tree catch on fire, but Max wasn’t in it. He assumed his enemy used Dodge to move to another tree.
As he ran, Dan dove out of a large splash of burning energy. Once he reached the thicket, he invoked STORM.
Max fell out of a tree and his body slammed off a branch before it banged off the ground. As Max fell, Dan ordered Ashen Ruin to freeze.
Surprisingly, Max had survived STORM. Once Dan stood at the man’s feet, he saw why. Max was wearing a bulletproof vest under his Indestructible Hide of Bak'ung.
The man was alive, but he wouldn’t be for long. He took quick and shallow breaths as blood flowed and sometimes spurted out of a large chest wound.
“You got me,” said Max.
Dan checked the burning tree. The fire was already out. The Hellfire burned up what it hit too quickly to spread.
Max coughed out blood. His face crinkled up as he began crying. “I don’t want to die! I am going to Hell. For all eternity.”
Dan knelt by the crying man.
“They said I was going anyway,” said Max. “This was the only way to make it not…not so terrible of a fate. Did they not tell you what it would be like?”
“They did.”
“Why did you not accept? Eternity is a long time to suffer so much.”
Max had been reaching his hand out for Dan to hold. Dan had been ignoring it. He sighed, dropped Molten Armor, and held the offered hand in his own before saying, “I ain’t never turning traitor or working with them.”
Max smiled and spat out a little more blood. “You are a good man. A better man than I.”
“Naw. I ain’t. I reckon if things went a little different, you’d be a hero. Tough as nails and giving hope to all of us.”
The man let out a painful laugh before he began crying again. “I’m so scared! I’m so scared! Oh, God! Please! Please forgive me! I don’t want to go to Hell!”
After another fit of coughing, crying still, Max asked, “It’s too late for God to forgive me, isn’t it?”
“I reckon so.”
The man’s face calmed, and he sighed. “’Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.’ I proved him wrong.”
After a moment, Dan said, “I like that, but what do you mean by proving him wrong?”
“That...it was Tolstoy. I…I thought of only…I don’t have time to explain. He meant something different. Listen, before I die, promise me…promise you will watch over my…my nephew. He is strong. He said…he told them no. No to their offer. He is a better man than…”
Once Max passed, Dan took the dropped fragments and searched the corpse.
He left the boots since they were so big but took the bulletproof vest and donned it under his hide armor. He liked the man’s camouflage outfit, but that wouldn’t last long or help much in Trials.
Max also had a large knife Dan put in his belt. He didn’t find anything else useful so stood and thought about collecting more of the close-by drops from all those he killed earlier.
He figured that was a bad idea until his business was finished up. He reactivated Molten Armor and began walking towards the Trial of Conquest. He last saw the Sortilege creatures around there.
He didn’t have far to walk before he felt a burrower coming at him from underground a moment before SIXTH SENSE gave him a warning. He kept walking like he didn’t notice. Right as the burrower broke through the ground, Dan hopped back and sent a strand of lava around it and tugged.
The burrower tried to retreat underground as it spit acid Dan had to avoid or block with mana. Enough splattered on him that his two Block charges were removed.
The cord of lava bit deeper and deeper into the burrower until it finally cut it in two. Its head kept moving around and trying to get at Dan, so he cut deeply into it with a lava-sword over and over.
Dan’s last order to Ashen Ruin was to freeze. He had forgotten about his summons, but getting into combat caused it to come running over.
Ashen Ruin hit the burrower’s head with Incinerate, finally getting it to stop moving around and fully die.
Dan couldn’t see or sense anything else, so after collecting the drops, he stood there waiting for his Block charges to reset. He almost made it too.
After a minute or so, he saw a large group of monsters off in the distance charging at him led by a huge swarm of locusts. He thought there was time for Block to reset.
He felt Ashen Ruin die right before SIXTH SENSE gave him a warning, but it didn’t give him enough of one.
Something he had never seen before lashed its tongue or a tentacle from its mouth at him. Dan tried diving away, but it got his ankle. Then two more tongues or tentacles got ahold of him.
The thing attacking him looked like a giant, half-decayed, monster flower. In the middle of its petals was a huge, fang-filled maw where all the tongues or tentacles were coming from.
Dan wasn’t too worried. He could easily cut through whatever the three things holding him were.
He thought the thing was going to pull him into its mouth. When enough electricity flowed through his body to nearly cause him to lose consciousness, he found out pulling him into the flower’s mouth wasn’t the purpose of those tongues or tentacles, or not their sole purpose.
Dan tried to manipulate mana and remove himself from the three cords holding him before the other locusts and monsters arrived, but he was shocked again before he could.
And the same happened right after. And then again. And again, until locusts covered him. He couldn’t protect himself with a thin layer of lava, and they began biting deeply into him.