Overlord - The Beast of the Apocalypse

Sorry for the long break but my exams didn't go exactly as planned and a whole bunch of stuff came up in RL. Anyway I am back and Here is chapter 7 of Overlord. ENJOY!

Anyone anxiously awating the release of the Real Overlord Anime?

I can only hope it turns out as good as the novels. But alas, it doesn't come out until July, so merely one more month to wait..............AAAUUUGGGHHH! I CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG!

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Chapter 7

Sharil POV

I tried to stay calm as I paced the room I had been shown to. This was completely above my expectations. At most I had expected a bag of valuables, given to me by Septimus. Not for the Overlord to take me back to his castle on the Demon Continent.

Normally something like this would be a precursor to me being hauled off and killed in various horrible ways, but I wasn't very worried because the Overlord seemed very happy when he found the seal, so I don't think that I will be tortured and killed unless I do something stupid.

Ugh. What to say? What to say? What should I ask for? It has to be something that will be acceptable to the Overlord. It must be large enough that it s worthy of the finding of Harak but small enough that I don't seem greedy.

Damn. This is hard. It is so much easier when I only have to kill people. Now I have to figure out how to appease a super-powerful Overlord who wanted me to name a reward for myself and it can't be to big or too small.

I almost jumped at a rapid series of knocks on the door. I opened it to find a maid standing in front of it.

"Please follow me. Dinner is ready and will be served immediately. You will be seated with the Overlord and his Pillars. Are there any problems?"

"No. None at all."

I quickly followed the maid as she led me down the hall. There was no way in hell that I was going to complain about the Overlord's castle, and even if I wanted to, that maid gives me the shivers.

I am a several thousand year old assassin, I don't scare easily, but this maid scares the crap out of me. The dining room is a massive chamber that is lit by thousands of small balls of fire that hover in the air about 18 feet off of the ground.

The long table that stretches down the middle of the chamber is beautiful and carved intricately. It seems to be made out of some tough rare wood which would explain it's durability and unique sheen.

The Overlord is in his demon form and is sitting at the head of the table while the Pillars line the sides. There is an open seat inbetween Septimus and the one known as Dimitri. Apparently it is my seat because the maid lead me there and pulled out the chair for me.

This is completely surreal. I am about to eat dinner with some of the most powerful people in the universe............This is so not happening. This has to be some sort of dream right?

Nope. Definitely not a dream. If it was a dream I wouldn't feel so scared because Septimus is glaring at me because I haven't sat down yet. Come to think of it. Just how does an undead skeleton glare? I mean, he doesn't have any facial muscles or skin.

"So Sharil. What is the reward that you desire?"

I jerked my head as the Overlord's voice rang out, shocking me out of my thoughts. Umm. What do I say? I thought for a moment before deciding on a safe answer.

"I desire............whatever you believe is a fitting reward."

There was a long pause as the entire table went silent, before the Overlord gave a low chuckle, relaxing his pillars and allowing me to give a gasp of relief. That answer had been a gamble since it could have been seen as an insult to the Overlord's generosity.

"Very well Sharil. As of this moment you are apprenticed to Septimus and given the rank of sub-pillar. You are also given a single trip to the treasury where you are free to take as much gold, jewels, or weapons as you want, as long as you can carry them out yourself."

"Thank you, My Lord. I am honored to serve you."

I bowed my head low as I recieved my reward from the Overlord. To be honest it was more than I had expected and more than what I was sure I wanted, but you didn't refuse an offer from the Overlord. Not unless you wanted to die in the worst way possible.

He wasn't called the Overlord for nothing. I had known him for a short time, but I knew that he was far more powerful than I could ever hope to be. Honestly I would rather kill myself than think of betraying him, not because of the blind loyalty his pillars show him but because I would rather die than face what he would do to me for betraying him.

Luckily the rest of the dinner passed with no interruptions or disturbances. I headed back to my room once the Overlord had left and began preparing myself for tomorrow. It's not every day you help lead an attack on a major city and I needed to be prepared.

Overlord POV

Huh. Sharil seems to be an interesting person. Not many people would have come up with an answer like that. It was both a test for me and for her. Her answer was created to test my generosity and goodwill as well as her intelligence for seeing how much she could get away with.

It was a very subtle way to test my attitude towards her and what her new work enviroment would be like. She seems like a clever girl, and as long as she stays loyal to me she will have a place in my shadow. The other pillars seem to accept her, although only time will tell if they truly mean it.

Some of them can be rather possessive of their Overlord. Well, not that I mind. The more loyalty they feel towards you the harder they work to please you. Hmph. Anyway, I suppose I should begin preparing the teleportation spell. This will drain a lot of my power but I should be able to refill it by absorbing the stored mana, when I break the seal on Harak.

It only takes a moment for Solomon to move me to the teleportation circle that has been drawn outside the castle. Several thousand S ranked demons had been gathered from the 10-14 rings as well a couple hundred of the giant mutated ants who roam throughout the rings. All of them expendable and very deadly. Sebastian's dragons are keeping them in line for now.

Well, I created all of the demons so they should live and die for me. Besides their kingdom was going to be wiped out by one of the larger ones in a couple of weeks. Now their deaths will actually mean something. And as for the giant ants, I have plenty of those, who cares if a bunch of them die.

Hmm. Now who should I take with me? Sharil, to test her battle skills. And obviously Sebastian and Septimus would accompany me, but who else? Minerva and Shakira traveled with me last time, so perhaps Niverna, and Diablo would accompany me this time. Yes, that is a good set. Allright, that is who will come with me. Only two hours until the attack.

Two Hours Later

I raised my arms and closed my eyes, reaching deep into my mana pool and grabbing handfuls of power before forcing them into the teleportation circle. It was a very draining process but a necessary one. No one else had the sheer depths of power that I possessed and even if my body couldn't use all of it, I could still infuse it into things.

Teleporting several thousand demons and giant monsters however; was very taxing even on me. I took a couple of deep breaths before finishing the mana infusion and watching the teleportation circle light up.

Here we go. I watched the demons and monsters disappear, before activating a smaller teleportation circle and taking my small group into the capital city. What I saw there can only be described as pure chaos.

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Demons were killing and slaughtering and doing all those other things that they do best, while giant ants simply started to walk through and over buildings. It was.........beautiful. The humans who had tried to keep my friend sealed away from me were dying in droves and I was free to advance to Harak's seal.

I lead the way through the chaos filled streets as the human guards tried to make sense of demons being in their capital city before being cut down.

"Please! Help Me!"

A woman cried out as a demon dragged her to the ground and began ripping her clothes off. The scene was occurring everywhere as we walked through the streets. Men and children were being murdered and the women were being taken forcefully by demons. I looked at all of this, at all of the chaos, horror, and pain my petty revenge had caused........and laughed.

The humans begged for me to save them, but what they didn't know was that I just didn't care. Their pain and horror fed me and stoked the burning flame that was my revenge. They had the audacity to believe that their lives actually meant something in the grand scheme of things.

Oh, how wrong they were. The gods that they prayed to and begged for mercy wouldn't intervene. They were probably laughing just as I was. To us the humans were nothing more than bugs to crush when they got in our way. We were far more important than any of them could possibly imagine and the only way they could have some worth would be to serve one of us.

The only way their lives would mean anything at all to me was if they were related to someone who served me loyally or if they could be used as pawns. That was the harsh reality of life. Power was everything and if you didn't possess it then you were worthless.

Just as we rounded a corner we came face to face with a squadron of guards who were hastening towards the fighting. They didn't even have time to react before lighting bolts sprayed from Niverna's hands and scathed across the street turning what had once been a guard unit into smoldering piles of flesh.

I glanced over and saw Sharil frown as she watched another woman being dragged screaming into the darkness of her house.

"What's wrong Sharil? Can't handle the reality of who you serve? Do you wish to rethink your allegiance to me?"

I watched as her face rapidly smoothed over erasing the frown and going to a emotionless face. It was amusing to watch her expression change so fast.

"No, my lord. I am simply unused to it. It is nothing but a simple adjustment that has to be made on my end. Something as small as this has no chance of affecting my allegiance to you. The gold and jewels I took from your treasury were worth more than all of the money I have made in the few centuries. That is why I am here, because you pay far better than any of the pathetic humans, because I want to be on the winning side of this war, and because I am deathly afraid of what would happen if I attempted to oppose you. I would sell my soul to be able to stand in your shadow."

I laughed then. She was an amusing person, not many people would have given me the full truth of their actions just like that. But her words were true. She did not serve me out of any sense of loyalty or honor, but because she was afraid of my wrath if she disobeyed and because serving me was more profitable for her.

"You would sell your soul, you say. You already have little one. You already have."

With that we entered the route into the underground passageways. Sharil took the lead and we quickly transversed the long corridors until we reached the room where Harak was sealed. The demons were doing their job correctly and we could hear the shaking of the ground as massive spells were set off and buildings crumbled back on the surface. There should be enough fluctuations from the magic being used in the battle to cover the temporary breaking of Harak's seal.

We quickly filed into the room and surrounded the glowing seal. I had Sebastian use a little device that Dimitri had whipped up for this project. It scanned and copied the seal so that when Harak was free we could replicate the seal and no one would be able to tell the difference.

As soon as Sebastian finshed scanning the seal I closed my eyes and began searching for a loose strand of magic in the seal's formation. No seal is perfect and if you know how it works you can unravel it or you can just release a large amount of power and shatter it. A seal is merely a magic barrier that is unbreakable from the inside. As long as you are outside of it you can break it.

It didn't take me too long to find a few loose ends of magic, which I quickly grabbed and began tracing back into the center of the formation. People think that a seal powerful enough to hold a god is very complex but it is actually just a lot of simple seals placed on top of each other. The more powerful the creature you wish to seal, the more seals you apply. That is how most beings tend to think. After all why waste time creating really strong and complex seals when you can just use a bunch of simple ones.

Sometimes there is an exception and someone creates a really strong seal and then adds many weaker seals on top of it, but I'm not worried because the most of the gods are dumb enough to believe that no one will ever try to supplant them.

It took me several minutes but I finally found the center of the seal, and after breaking the centerpiece, the rest of the seal fell apart. I had braced myself to absorb the power that had accumulated within the seal but it was far more than what I had felt since the sealing of my original body.

I screamed as the power rushed through me, I struggled to contain it, and after a fierce battle that left me exhausted, I managed to add it to my own mana pool, tripling it in size. As soon as the rush of power left me I began to collapse, but was caught by Niverna and Sebastian each of whom grabbed one of my arms to keep me upright.

I had used up too much power today. First I strained my mana pool by teleporting a massive amount of beings a long distance, and then right after I had stretched my mana pool by absorbing too much power. Both of these things combined had left me drained mentally.

But it didn't matter. The first of my objectives had been accomplished. I watched as an armored hand broke through the ground, soon followed by Harak's distinctive armored body. I watched as he drew himself up to full height and rotated his arms, cracking joints back into place.

His eyes blazed through the slits in his helmet, and he slowly turned to look at me.

"Greetings, Overlord."

When he spoke it was as if thousands of souls were being tortured and those with weaker minds would be driven insane just from hearing him speak. My pillars were by no means weak but they grimaced when they heard the terror that seemed to fill every word he spoke. Sharil grabbed her ears and moaned when she heard him, but to her credit she stayed standing.

For me Harak's voice was nothing if not smooth and gentle, but I knew that everyone else was hearing all kinds of horrors. I grinned as Sebastian replicated the seal and placed it on the ground where Harak had been. It was done. I had finally accomplished the rescue of one of my friends. I turned to Harak and smiled. It was my first true smile since I had been betrayed.

"Hello Harak. Good to finally see you again."

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