“Hehe, you kids are alright. I’ll spare your lives. Consider us even.”
Several months ago, Stryke and Hogosha received a large shock when they rescued a being from crystallis at the end of a particularly difficult dungeon. Going by previous intelligence, they assumed the being was a god, but were stunned when they shattered crystal revealed a humongous white tiger the size of a heli-carrier..
As it turned out, Razznik battled and sealed more than gods. He also sealed some of the Demon Gods. Stryke and Hogosha just happened to be the unlucky duo to be the first ones to release a demon and thus serve as a warning to the rest of the world.
Fortunately, the Demon God they released seemed to have a sense of humor, as it proclaimed that sparing their lives was enough to offset being freed from a millennium of imprisonment. The determined Stryke sweettalked his way into extra benefits, but he ultimately underestimated a demon’s penchant for chaos.
“Your body is incompatible with my blessing, so let’s change that.” First, the demon altered Stryke’s biological construct, transforming him from a human to a tora. “Hmm. You are both too weak. Your bodies would explode if I gave either of you my full inheritance. Yes. I’ll share it. Neither of you will be able to access the inheritance without the other.”
Before Stryke or Hogosha could react, the demon pierced both their chest with its claws. In the blink of an eye, the demon completed the transfer, and then revealed a cheeky grin. However, that grin quickly disappeared, replaced by a helpless snort, “Argh. He’s already caught my scent. I need to return.”
And thus, the Greater Demon promptly disappeared before either could ask about the inheritance’s specifics. Fortunately, Stryke had the Game’s System Menu.
Passive Skill: [DEMON GOD BYAKKO – Earth Form Lv.1]
Evolved from the Greater Demon Byakko, Demon God Byakko battled in the Netherrealm for several millennia until it mastered wind and the opposing earth elements to obtain godhood. The Demon God Byakko selected its Earth form to pass on, as it was most compatible with your defensive style.
Demon God Byakko’s Earth Form temporarily transforms its user into a Legendary Earth Elemental. However it deemed this power too much for a regular hume, and has thus shared it between similar bodies. Full potential shall be unlocked upon fusing.
Solo Passive:
+50 STR
-50% Earth Magic Mana Cost
-50% Earth Magic Cast Time
+150% Earth Magic Potency
Fusion Passive:
+200 STR
-150% Earth Magic Mana Cost
-75% Earth Magic Cast Time
+450% Earth Magic Potency
Earth Control [Lv. 1]
Cast Time: 5 Mins | Active Time: 10 Mins | Cooldown: 24 Hrs.
After studying the specifics, Stryke understood Byakko’s prank. The Demon God basically ensured that he and Hogosha would have to rely on each other to unleash the inheritance’s full potential. This incident resulted in Leila essentially seceding Hogosha to Stryke despite being its official owner.
Stryke and Hogosha had since spent several weeks dungeon diving to improve their fusion time and elemental skills. Of course with only ten minutes a day, progress was slow. Fortunately, their hard work prevailed. Currently, their fusion had reached level three, which extended the time to twenty minutes.
“Heh, it is true what I heard. The Hopeful Maggots is a guild of monsters.”
The fusion of Stryke and Hogosha turned to see Renark walking up to them. The embittered orc painfully wound his arm, testing his joints even as the wounds healed at a visible pace. Strangely, Stryke still felt a sense of danger from the orc despite their fusion. As someone who had learned to trust his instincts, the young man vowed to alert Kashi to this potential threat.
“Hehe, I’m still a cub compared to the real monsters in our guild.” Despite his apprehension, Stryke, who took the drivers’ seat in their humanoid form, replied with a warm, embarrassed chuckle.
It wasn’t hard to see why most people found Stryke the most approachable of the Maggots’ top brass.
Renark issued a soft snort, ultimately choosing not to point out the absurdity of that claim. Instead, he looked to the sky, where a giant tear had begun to appear following the previous mournful shriek. The orc then took out a strange device that had twelve hourglasses displayed in two rows of six. Eleven hourglasses had drained to their bottom half, while the last one only had a few grains left.
Renark frowned as he put away the device. “We should hurry. Midnight is almost upon us. Judging by the sands, I would wager two-to-three minutes maximum.”
“We should.” Stryke concurred, and then inexplicably fell forward. Shockingly, the tora rapidly morphed as they fell, soon turning into a lightly armored seven-foot tall white tiger.
The tiger’s grey eyes glared at Renark. “Get on my back.”
“You must be the Nespian Tiger then.” Renark accurately identified the driving personality from the tigers’ rude tone as he jumped onto their back. After settling in, Renark recalled an important detail. He shot a flare into the sky, and then asked, “What about your team? Do they know we are leaving them behind?”
Hogosha lightly shook their back in a bid to get used to the strange feeling. Orcs were quite heavy. It was nothing like carrying a regular hume like Stryke or Leila. “Stryke already sent a message,” Hogosha replied. “They will finish off the remnants and then make their way to the main battlefield.”
“Smart. I instructed the rest of my men to do the same.”
“Hold on.” Hogosha off-handedly warned the orc as pale yellow aura poured out of the earth rapidly enveloped them. Then, Hogosha leaped into the air and ‘dove’ straight for the ground.
Renark was thankful for his vast experiences, else he might have let out an embarrassing shriek as they somehow ‘slipped’ into the ground, and then bolted forward like demons from hell!
***
A few minutes ago, inside a white world, Kashi smiled at the robed undead, who stared at him with flickering eyes and shaky hands. “My apologies, Scrollkeeper. I would have loved to stay and chat, but I’m on something of a time limit. The key, if you please.”
The Scrollkeeper flatly nodded as it took out a small painting from amidst its duffel bag. It handed Kashi the painting, and then looked at the draconian with flickering flames that seemed to seek salvation. “You are Lord Razznik, are you not?”
“No, I am not, thankfully.” Kashi shook his head, chuckling as he recalled the Scrollkeeper’s past. This seemingly harmless undead was a Greater Lich that served as the previous Demon Lord’s Librarian. Liches were born from lingering resentment and regret that crossed unimaginable boundaries. That resentment gave rise to their phylactery by absorbing undead mana, either by killing and absorbing other undead, or by absorbing death mana in areas like Oni Hill which had several millennia worth of accumulated death miasma.
The Scrollkeeper’s resentment was borne from a raid that killed his past life while he was in the middle of reading an ancient scroll he unearthed. His obsession with reading and uncovering historical records eventually brought him back to life as a Lich.
The Scrollkeeper was an invaluable partner when Razznik took over Oni Hill. The former’s massive library helped Razznik discover many new fighting styles and locations of uber foes in several hidden dimensions. In return, Razznik sometimes told the Scrollkeeper stories of the real world –within the game system’s tolerance boundary of course.
The Scrollkeeper also adopted a habit of keeping Razznik’s paintings. It rationalized that Razznik’s paintings were worthy historical records based solely on their rarity, and how each one carried significant meaning.
Razznik rarely painted, but when he did, there was always a significant story behind it. The Scrollkeeper was perhaps the one being in the world who knew Razznik’s most detailed history after the man himself… and Kashi of course.
Kashi would have loved to pick the Scrollkeeper’s brain to find out when exactly this Razznik started to diverge from the one he knew, and the true history as to why Razznik dethroned and imprisoned the gods.
Unfortunately, time was the one thing Kashi lacked at the moment, so he accepted the scroll and then left the white world without another word, leaving the Scrollkeeper staring pensively at his disappearing back.
“Finally! What took you so long? Why did you come last? Did you do the white world thing? It was so scary. That woman’s world almost destroyed mine!”
Kashi stepped out of the portal into an empty stony hall to meet Zuri’s rapid-fire questions. The little rascal expertly clambered up Kashi’s arm and nestled around his shoulder where she belonged.
“Haha, I didn’t do anything. I stopped to get the key. It’s a trick Razznik played, locking you out if you don’t ask for the key.” Kashi chuckled as he placated the antsy daeben.
Kashi did not particularly care about keeping a low-profile among his peers. However, he did not want to bruise Brilith’s ego in front of her enemies. After all, he only took over the Pride Floor so smoothly because his previous reincarnation basically created the damn thing.
It would not be fair to single out Brilith as the only one who failed her floor, especially because she would have eventually won out. It was just that she had less than three minutes to do so – an understandably impossible task for anyone.
Kashi surreptitiously glanced at Brilith, and was surprised to see the guildmaster intensely glaring at him with challenge and battle intent. Ah, wait. Did he fail this gamble? Was Brilith the type that hated pity more than anything?
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Well, either way, Kashi was happy to let Brilith take the heat. Somehow, he doubted she would reveal the truth to anyone. That would just be double humiliation in her eyes. Yes, that’s right. Kashi graciously pushed the ‘burden’ of being tagged ‘overpowered’ to Brilith.
No matter how the mischievous draconian tried to dress it up as taking pity on Brilith, he ultimately just wanted to avoid drawing more attention his way!
“We don’t have much time left.” Kashi expertly diverted everyone’s attention as he took the scroll and walked towards the sole door in the hall.
The massive doorway stood at about seven meters tall. Kashi had to strain his neck to see the very top. An intriguing mural on the door depicted a massive throne at the end of a long hall. Columns of undead separated by a blank, red carpet stood with their backs to the throne, glaring at whomever stood before the door.
Kashi took out the scroll, and injected some mana after he unfurled it. The scroll lit up as several hidden inscriptions activated, causing it to harden until it became like a thin metal slab.
Kashi took the hardened painting and fixed it at the center of the door, overlapping the throne and the red carpet. The new image now had Razznik seated majestically on the throne with a column of kanji on the red carpet. They translated to “Might Makes Right!” Each character dripped with such ferocity that it almost hurt to look at them.
The door suddenly burst with brilliant light, nearly blinding the invasion party. Once the light subsided, they were shocked to find the undead legion had turned around, and now kneeled towards the man on the throne. A thin line then split the picture into two and the doors subsequently slid away from each other, disappearing into grooves in the walls.
Kashi led the group into the hall beyond, which was a shocking 1:1 replication of the image on the door, except only three undead statues stood just a meter away from the throne.
“Did Razznik paint all these?” Miote could not help but ask as he peered at the dimly lit walls. The images on the adjacent walls depicted Razznik accomplishing various feats, from a beginner adventurer to challenging Skyrm in a world of fire and ash. Opposite them, behind the throne, lay the most magnificent painting of all.
Standing at over fifteen meters tall, and roughly seventy meters wide, the wall depicted a massive banquet hall. A couple dozen men, women and even beasts of various races drank, ate, wrestled, slept or were engaged in several more activities. Unlike most pictures of that scale, every single character was drawn in such excruciatingly photorealistic detail. It could be seen that every being in the painting mattered dearly in some way or another to the artist.
The image, which shimmered in a short four-five second loop looked like a moment captured from time. It was so powerful that every member of the invading party could not help but get caught up in the atmosphere.
“*Cough* *Cough* Fortunately, Kashi still retained his faculties. With a loud cough, he pulled everyone back to reality, and then pointed at a side door. “That’s the way to the top. Let’s move. There’s no time.”
“Yes, Boss!” Syèl jokingly saluted and then led the others to charge through the door.
Kashi waited until everyone had gone, and then cast a wistful glance at the three statues guarding the throne and Razznik’s ‘heart.’ “So, you waited this long for him to return? Razznik, you bastard.”
Kashi then glanced at the painting. Tucked away at the corner of the painting, a dark haired human dressed in a light tunic laughed as he drank and joked with a few adventurers. Upon closer inspection, it was obvious that person was Razznik’s depiction of Suzuki.
“That wasn’t there before. Did he add that later or…” murmured Kashi.
“Kashi, what’s wrong?”
Kashi patted Zuri’s legs as he shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just thinking about an old friend. Come on. Let’s catch up with the others.”
With those words, Kashi looked away. He then charged through the side door, but not before pausing momentarily at the doorway. Kashi filled his finger with mana and then softly drew a symbol on the adjacent wall.
Without waiting to see the result, the draconian resolutely tapped the wall twice and then walked out of the hall.
Just like over a thousand years ago, the door opened to a stone staircase hewn onto the side of Oni Hill. Kashi gazed at the massive moon whose light spilled over an endless flood of clouds. The draconian sped up, soon catching up to the others atop Oni Hill.
“No matter how many times I see it, this place doesn’t make sense.” Kashi chuckled as he gazed at the rocky field atop the mountain. With about a radius of two hundred meters, the flat mountain top looked like someone had cut off the original jagged peaks with a single, smooth cleave.
A massive throne made from white crystals sat at the center of the field next to a small pound. Kashi almost felt like Razznik would emerge from behind the crystal throne.
Pa. Pa. Pa.
Instead of Razznik, a young daeben, garbed in a skin-tight dark fabric that accentuated her bountiful curves, clapped as she stepped out from behind the throne. A spider symbol featured prominently on the woman’s shoulder and forehead, but her sultry smile elicited impure thoughts in men and women alike.
The lady smiled as she praised the invaders. “Impressive. I did not think you would make it this far. With just over two minutes to go too.”
In the skies, both the Transcendents and the Broken Swords seized up as they paid attention to this great confrontation!
Queen Alia smiled as she examined the party that stood opposite her. “Brilith, GrizzlyDiamond, Honne Onna, RustyReaper, Nightslayer and Rono of the Silver Spear. You did well to make it this far. Your mettle does indeed match your cunning. Taking over Daggerfall was no fluke.”
Without waiting for a response, she moved on to the next group. “Sonic, GentleBreeze, Storm, Tempest, Rolling Hail and Crow of Nature’s Vanguard… Ah, you lost Crow, did you not? How unfortunate. But, he espoused your virtues to the end, forever protecting your own and territory. But, I wonder, how many more villages will you burn down under the flag of promoting peace?”
“You bitch—” Rolling Hail almost charged forward in rage, but Sonic held her back. The speedster could tell. This woman was a cut above the rest. They would die without even knowing how if they rushed in blindly.
Alia ignored the little drama, and instead turned to the final group at the center with obvious intrigue. “The Hopeful Maggots. I have longed waited to meet you in person, Kashi. It is a shame though. I thought I would be meeting a daeben, not a draconian.”
Kashi chuckled. “What, my people don’t get an introduction? Are you looking down on us because of our guild name?”
“No. Wh-What?” Alia visibly stumbled upon her words. The proper queen was aghast. She just wanted to express how eager she had been to see the draconian. Why did he turn it into something else? She wasn’t so petty to look down on a group because of their name!
“Pfft. Even Zuri can tell Kashi is joking.” Zuri chuckled as she patted Kashi’s head. “Spider-Lady must not be very bright.”
“Now now, Zuri,” Kashi lightly tapped the little daeben’s leg and softly scolded. “It’s rude to call out people’s deficiencies to their face.”
“Pfft.” Gentle Breeze nearly spat out his non-existent drink, but a sharp glare from Sonic ‘helped’ the young man regain his composure.
“Forgive the little one. As you can tell, she’s still very young.” Kashi put on his best apologetic expression, continuously pretending like he did not know what he was doing. “I’ll introduce my people by way of apology. First, we have Syèl, Vampire Prince of Blood and Guts. You don’t want to be caught in an alley alone with him.”
“HEY!”
“Next, we have the handsome bishoujou, Shokō. Her blade can cut through anything. She ranks number one on people I don’t want to fight.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Next we have Larsial, my daeben spy. You might recognize her, but she’s on employment probation right now, so we can’t give her back to you yet.”
“I—”
“The one with a permanent ice block on his face is Shadow. I won’t say much. You’ll probably forget he exists in two minutes anyway.”
“…”
“See? He didn’t even say a word to that! Anyway, the tough-looking guy to my right is Hektor. He’s the future God of War, so I suggest fighting him. That way, you can become immortal as you feature in his future epics.”
“Heh.”
“Finally, we have the cutie on my shoulder. Rescued the little monster from one of your settlements. I’ve already killed the bastard who tortured her, so she’ll have to give you a good punch at the very least for not training your subordinates better.”
Kashi chuckled at Alia’s thunderous expression. If looks could kill, he would have died ten times over. “I’m not sure I need introductions. But I—”
“Enough!” Alia roared, successfully shutting up the draconian. “Are you having fun? Or is it despair? Need I remind you, you only have one minute until Gunder completes the portal.”
“Gunder?” Kashi’s brow rose, but then he smiled as he glanced at the dragon floating several hundred meters in the skies, constructing a gigantic mandala. “Ah, that must be the soul corrupting Skyrm. Well, one minute is more than enough to turn things around.”
“Ah, I know all about your trump card.” Alia’s lips spread in a mocking smile as she regained her composure. “You know Skyrm’s true name, do you not? You seek to disrupt Gunder’s control by uttering Skyrm’s true name.” The queen’s smile deepened as Kashi’s smirk dimmed. “Haha, but what can you do? You dare not speak his name out loud, so you will have to get close to him”
“However—” Alia spread her hands, and two dozen men and women ‘shimmered’ into existence as the illusion hiding them broke. “Can you get past everyone here in that time?”
Kashi frowned and then raised his hand.
“Do not bother attempting to tear space either,” Alia interjected, her gaze flowing with immense confidence. “We sealed this space before you arrived. No one can teleport in or out, nor can portals be created.” Pointing at the sky, the daeben queen gloated. “We baited you into Oni Hill, all for this moment. All attempts to reach Gunder will fail. Sit back, and watch as we usher Chaos into this world.”
“Thirty seconds left,” Kashi muttered, and then looked up at Alia. “Say, do you know the meaning of the words, ‘trump card’?”
“What!?” The daeben queen frowned in confusion. She could not understand why Kashi did not reveal any fear. Both Sonic and Brilith at least fidgeted a little, revealing that while they both had trump cards, they were not certain it could turn the tide with so little time left. The draconian, however, was different. Aside from his smile dimming a little, Kashi’s confident gaze had not wavered in the slightest.
Could it be possible they missed something?
Impossible! Alia was confident in her organization’s intelligence network. There was no way they missed something significant enough to turn the tides!
“A trump card is only a trump card for as long as it remains hidden.” Kashi’s lips slowly parted, revealing a toothy, snarky grin. “I suppose it is time I lose another trump card.” The draconian’s red eyes twinkled in the moonlight as he uttered the phrase, “Ten seconds left. Petrify my enemies, Make stone of their flesh, and gourds of their skulls. Heed My Call and come to my aid, *^R#(@!t(&!!!”
Following Kashi’s call, a gigantic mandala suddenly appeared in the skies above the stationary Gunder.
“NOOO!”
Ignoring the daeben’s disbelieving scream, a golden figure charged out of the brand new portal. It latched onto the massive Skyrm’s back with its realm-tearing claws and then heavily bit into the Divine Dragon’s exposed neck!
Skyrm, no Gunder let out a bloodcurdling scream as fountains of blood burst out of his neck. The unexpected near-fatal injury caused the Divine Dragon to lose its concentration, causing the almost-completed Divine Gate to immediately become unstable.
The golden figure was not greedy. It quickly took flew a few meters back after its successful attack, and then hovered silently as Gunder writhed in pain.
“H-How?” Queen Alia stared in shock at the majestic golden Griffin. A pair of imperial golden wings kept up a powerful body of a lion wielding a dangerous, steel-eyed cobra tail. A pair of sapphire horns sat atop a regal maned lion head that prompted worship and adoration.
The majestic Divine Creature, formerly known as Belrug raised its head and let out a roar that shook the very foundations of the earth. For thousands of miles, several humes and monsters felt their souls leave their bodies for a moment.
“See, Zuri. See the shock on their faces?” Within the midst of the mass hysteria, Kashi chuckled as he patted Zuri’s legs. “ This is the definition of a trump card.”