“Lust,” I said warily. “Shouldn’t you be defending the city?”

  “Shouldn’t you be in prison?” he replied.

  I stared at him.

  “...Well, I may have slightly underestimated Wrath,” he said sheepishly. “I couldn’t hold him off as long as I thought I could. It’s over now. He’s king.” The elf shrugged. “Oh well. I got this.”

  He held up Patience for me to see. Patience looked gave me an unreadable look, and I heard her voice in my head again.

  If you can get him to set me down and distract him for 30 seconds, I will be able to escape on my own, she said.

  “Who’s that?” I asked, stalling while I formed a plan.

  I had nothing against Patience, and if what she said was true, and that she could stop Wrath, helping her escape was definitely in my best interests. But how could I distract him? I couldn’t just attack him, because Patience would get caught in the crossfire, and even then, he’d probably just teleport away. His spatial magic was advanced enough to bypass the church’s high security wards, and even Natalya wasn’t able to pin him down. I would have to somehow talk my way to success, since magic wouldn’t be an option. Unless…

  “Ah, I forgot, you haven’t met her before,” said Lust while I mused. “This is Angelina Esposito, but you probably know her best as the Godly Emissary of Patience. Poor Angelina’s been stuck as Donnie’s plaything for a year now. And look at her condition! How could he treat her so poorly.” He leaned in so that his mouth was by her ear and spoke softly. “I’m going to treat you far better than he did.”

  “Disgusting,” I said.

  “But enough about me,” he said. “What about you? You look great! Way better than you did in prison! You took the Demon King class didn’t you? It suits you.”

  “I did… Yes…” I spoke slowly while I finalized the details of the plan I had concocted. “I got some good skills with it too. You would consider yourself to be an expert on spatial magic, yes?”

  “It’s just a hobby of mine,” he said with a wicked grin. “But you’ve gone and made me curious. What kind of spatial skill did you get? Do you need help figuring out how to use it? I’d be happy to give you a hands-on lesson.”

  I fought back a grimace as I continued. “I might. I haven’t used it yet, but it seems strong. Have you ever heard of a spell called [Domain]?”

  “[Domain]...” he pondered. “I can’t say I have. What does it do?”

  “I’m not completely sure yet,” I lied. “It looks like it will let me create an extradimensional space that living beings can enter, but I don’t know all the specifics. So I was thinking, when better to test it out than while I’m with the continent’s best spatial mage?”

  “Oh, you flatter me,” he said, pretending to be embarrassed. “You know, you don’t have to butter me up if you want my attention. I-” he glanced down at Patience. “No we would be happy to accommodate you whenever you’d like. Two Demon Kings and a Godly Emissary… Do you think it’s ever been done before?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if it has,” I said. “But back to the topic at hand, I haven’t gotten a chance to test out this [Domain] skill. Would you like to watch as I do?”

  “Absolutely!” he said. “A spell that lets living beings enter extradimensional space will no doubt be impressive.

  “Then I’ll start it now.”

Domain lvl 1

Create an extradimensional pocket of space entirely under your control. The caster can choose their targets, as long as they are within range of the spell, and they will be pulled into the space pocket.

  On my way to Maradona, while I rested in between teleports, I had taken a closer look at the spells I had gotten from my new class, and for the most part, they confirmed what Pride had said, though there was some information that was given by Pride that wasn’t stated in the skill’s description, such as how it was a very [MP]-intense skill, or how only I would be able to use magic while within the confines of [Domain].

  I had almost given up on the idea of using magic to distract Lust, because if Natalya couldn’t stop him, I wouldn’t be able to either. However, with my new class, I had a few abilities that would give me an edge over her, one of which was [Domain].

  I started the spell, holding my hands in front of my chest as spatial mana gathered in a sphere between my palms. It was strange, letting the skill move my mana for me. I had only ever used spells that I learned the hard way, so I was not used to the sensation. It took a full 10 seconds and nearly half my [MP] reserves before the spell was complete, and I spread my arms, expanding the mana out in a dome around me. Alexander took a quick step back, but the wave of mana was faster, and he was soon enveloped by it. As soon as it passed over him, I tensed, halting the spell’s expansion and sealing off the space before he could try to leave.

  When I did this, all traces of the outside world vanished, and the elf and I were alone in a world of darkness and deafening silence. With [Night Vision], I was able to see that Alexander was looking down at his suddenly empty arms.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Welcome to my domain,” I said, smiling even though I knew he couldn’t see me.

  “What did you do?” he asked, his voice devoid of humor. “Where is Patience?”

  “Outside somewhere,” I said. “I can’t tell. It’s actually annoying. I really have no clue what’s happening outside of this space.”

  “You-! That was mine!” he screamed as he got into a fighting stance.

  “Ooh, feisty,” I said.

  He glared in my general direction for a few moments before the tension left his body and he started laughing. “Alright, I’ll admit, that was a good one. But now what? Was this just a plan to get me alone? Didn’t want to share me with her? You really didn’t have to. I would have let you have the first go if you wanted.”

  “Surrender,” I said. “Or die. You cannot use magic here, but I can. Trying to fight is pointless.”

  He laughed again. “Didn’t I already tell you that I would happily surrender if you would just spend but one night with me? You didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”

  “Choose, or I will be forced to kill you,” I said, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice. The skill activation alone had taken half my [MP], and I had lost another 5% since we started talking.

  “Well, when you put it that way… I choose neither!”

  Suddenly, aura flared up from his body at a level comparable to Otto’s. I immediately erected a thick layer of [Hex Shields] while simultaneously readying a [Greater Magic Missile Barrage]. I knew that only one cast of the spell would be nowhere near enough to finish the Demon King off, but it would hopefully distract him long enough for me to prepare my most powerful spell.

  As I hoped, Lust increased the density of the aura around him, and curled up as spell washed over him. Meanwhile, I summoned a large metal construct out of [Greater Inventory]. It was an idea I had come up with based on Earth technology, and experimented with at night while Natalya slept. While I hadn’t fully perfected it, it was still by far my strongest spell, and the most cost effective too. I hadn’t gotten a chance to use it yet, as it was large and clunky, and I wanted to save it as my trump card, but I didn’t see any other options in this scenario.

  It wasn’t anything too complex– just two large bars of silver, with a tungsten projectile encase in aluminum resting in between them– but the sight of it made Lust pause. Unless the Chronomancer also had this idea, this would be first time that he was seeing a railgun, and it made sense for him to be wary of it. He started to increase the amount of aura in front of him, but it was too late. I had already loaded the machine with electricity, and the tungsten bullet was en route to him.

  I saw Lust’s eyes widen as he tried to dodge, but his efforts were futile. Even with his speed and reaction time greatly enhanced by his aura, it was still no match for the hypersonic projectile being fired at point blank. My aim wasn’t perfect, and while the metal rod passed through his aura shield easily, it only hit his right arm, instead of his body. However, the force of it would no doubt have severely injured his ribs and side, in addition to obliterating his arm, and as long as we were in [Domain], he would be helpless.

  Unfortunately, I had miscalculated. The bullet was barely slowed as it passed through him, and continued on its way past him, into the borders of the extradimensional space, instantly shattering the spell. Lust and I reappeared back on the hilltop, him flying off to the side from the force of the super-weapon, and me collapsing to the ground and vomiting blood from the recoil of the broken spell.

  I didn’t stay down for long, getting up as soon as I was able so that I could finish Lust off. I was down to a tenth of my [MP], but as badly as Alexander was injured, ending his life wouldn’t be an issue. When I followed the trail of blood to where he had landed, however, I found that his body was nowhere to be seen.

  “FUCK!” I shouted.

  He had gotten away. How he was still conscious after getting hit by a railgun, I had no clue, but he had somehow teleported away while I was dizzy from the recoil of the spell. Even worse, since he teleported away, even with so much of his blood on the ground, I wouldn't be able to enthrall him, because he was too far away. I looked back to the top of the hill where my railgun now stood, and noticed that there were no signs of Patience either.

  I took deep breaths to calm myself and tried to think objectively about the situation. Lust had gotten away, but he was in bad shape. The gun had only hit his arm, but the force of the blow had likely ruptured many of his internal organs, and as far as I was aware, only very powerful members of the church would be able to repair that, and none of them would be willing to help a Demon King. There was a good chance he would bleed out.

  And since Patience had escaped, Wrath would no longer be an issue. My actions just then had taken care of two Demon Kings. Even if I wouldn’t get to witness their deaths directly, I had done well. I walked back to the railgun, and put it back in my inventory, then sat down to meditate.

  While I recovered my [MP], I kept an eye on my HUD, waiting for the number of Demon Kings to decrease, but when the minutes continued to trickle past, turning into hours, and the number remained at 5/6, I started to grow angry. If Lust was not dead yet, that means he had survived his wounds. He must have had a priest captive somewhere to keep him alive.

  I wanted to be mad at Patience as well, but when remembering her condition, I realized that I couldn’t be. Whatever her abilities may be, expecting her to confront a man who even Lust had run from so soon would be foolish. And she had promised that Wrath would no longer be a problem for me, not that she would immediately kill him. That may still have been true.

  Whatever her plan, my battle with Lust had made a few things very clear to me. First, I was weak. Without using [Domain] or [Railgun], I didn’t stand a chance against Lust. I needed to get stronger. Especially since I doubted I would be able to use either of those abilities against him again. Having fallen prey to them once, he would not make the same mistakes again. I would need to level up significantly if I wanted to stand a chance against him in the future. Or any of the Demon Kings, really.

  Second, I needed more information. I had had no idea that Lust’s aura was so powerful, and it had nearly gotten me in deep trouble. And I barely knew anything about Wrath. The church would have the most information, but they wouldn’t be willing to help me. Well, Evelyn might, but confined to the cathedral as she was, I doubted I would be able to gain an audience with her. My best bet would be Anatoly, assuming what he had said about always being on my side was true.

  I could also get information about how to level from him. I had outgrown most of the world. Very few would be able to grant me the experience I needed at this point, and while the old book I had gotten from him on Dungeons was useful, it wasn’t quite as detailed or personal as I would like. He would be able to give me better, more accurate information than any book could. And with Natalya being his daughter, he would probably have more information on the existing Demon Kings too.

  About four hours after my battle with Lust, my [HP] and [MP] were finally fully recovered. I stood up and stretched, and looked out over the city of Rio Azul. It was almost midnight, but the city still radiated a soft white glow of magical light sources, occasionally interrupted by the flickering orange of a torch or bonfire. I couldn’t see exactly what was happening, but with what I had learned from Lust, I could guess what the fires were for.

  For a moment, I considered going into the city, and possibly confronting Wrath, just to see how strong he really was, but I quickly pushed the thought aside. Attacking without any information would be reckless and foolish, and while I am reckless on occasion, I am certainly no fool. I looked at my HUD one last time, making sure that there were still no changes before I activated [Teleport], returning to Bizet for the first time in half a decade.