Several hours passed since Faith and the others agreed on their plan. They all split up to prepare for the battle. While Sean went to do research on Vijan and prepare positions for the battle with the little money he had, Faith and Parker enhanced their abilities to a new high. Since they were in Jime, Faith headed over to the nearest church to increase her level capacity with the Maxina.
The two entered the Jime Forest and fought off hundreds of demons for XP. Parker ranked up twenty times and learned dozens of new offensive and defensive abilities. His growth was exponential. Faith on the other hand, with her level going above the capstone, made it even harder to gain a single level.
Walking out of the forest, Parker made it to level 37 and Faith to 32. Parker threw his hands in the air and exclaimed
Parker: [That was fun! I didn't know fighting demons could be so entertaining.]
Faith: [There's never a dull moment in this world, Parker.]
Parker: [Must suck to be on a lower level than me, huh? Maybe I can command lightning at will.]
Faith look at him with narrowed eyes.
Faith: [You can't do things beyond your class. You're a healer. You can only heal.]
As the two were walking, Sean's head suddenly popped out of thin air and scared the confidence out of Parker. Like sticking his head through a window with no other end, he just appeared. Faith walked around the head with a raised brow and dropped her jaw at what she saw.
Sean: [Guys, I don't think we can take on Vijan.]
Faith and Parker walked through Sean's portal and arrived at William's tavern. They took a seat at one of the long tables as Sean projected an info tab that had every bit of information on Vijan that was publicly known.
Sean: [Look at his stats.]
Sean took a seat while the others were reading through everything. Faith's eyes widened in fear as she came across his kill count.
Parker: [He's level 48. Nothing too special.]
Sean: [Yeah, his level isn't amazing, but look at those kills! Three goddamn million.]
Parker: [Do those account for mobs too? 'Cuz I killed a couple hundred today–,]
Faith: [That doesn't include demons or ultras. Those are actual people and NPCs.]
Parker: [Oh shit.]
Faith: [To put it in retrospect, an average kingdom in this world has approximately eight million people. The biggest having thirty-seven million.]
Parker: [Is he the next Hitler or something?]
William walked up to the three with his eyes covered by his bandana.
William: [He doesn't work alone, but I doubt things would be much different with a squad.]
The three looked at him.
William: [I'm about to close the shop, we should head out.]
Sean closed Vijan's player profile and equipped all his gear.
Sean: [I read somewhere that Vijan is currently in Leviere and has already caused some damage.]
William: [Then that's where we're going.]
With a head nod, Sean stuck out his wand and closed his eyes.
Sean: [Cổng] (Gate)
With a short burst of wind, a portal to another location suddenly opened up with no physical presence.
Faith turned to William as he closed the door to his restaurant.
Faith: [You're going to help us find Andy after this, right?]
William: [I'm not completely sure where he is, but I'll try my best to help out. I don't think we're talking about the same person, though.]
Faith: [That'll be fine! I look forward to working with you!]
Faith smiled widely and stuck out a thumbs up, brightening up the mood in the room. William couldn't see the smile, but he could feel the tension fall.
On the other side of the portal, they found themselves at Zack's office with him walking in circles with his hands in his hair. Wanting to say something, Faith hesitates and kind of nervously hides herself behind Parker. Concerned, Parker sent her a private message through text.
Sean: [Zack!]
Zack stopped his steps and saw the four of them standing together behind his desk. His face brightens up.
Sean: [What's up?]
A few minutes later,
Zack: [Sorry you had to see me like that... you should really notify someone before you teleport to them.]
They had switched positions, with Zack sitting at his desk and the others sitting on the chairs set up around his office. He brought them all snacks to eat while they talked. Faith was eating a biscuit, Parker a sandwich. and Sean a cup of tea.
Sean: [That would make it take a bit longer than usual.]
Zack laughed nervously as he kept an eye on Faith.
Zack: [Fair enough.]
William: [How couldn't you sense us coming? If you're a paladin, you should be better at sensing danger.]
Zack silently stared at him for a while with multiple questions running through his head. Sean noticed his glare and interrupted.
Sean: [We're here to ask if you heard about Vijan, the Hydra ninja. Have you heard of him?]
Zack: [You mean the guy that's terrorizing my kingdom as we speak? Yeah, never heard of him.]
Parker: [If he's here now, what the hell are you doing in your office?]
Zack: [The king doesn't want me to get involved. The war with the Demon Lord could begin at any moment, and he doesn't want any of his powerful forces to fight. Rather, he wants the magi-knights to catch him off guard and by some miracle, get him behind bars for public execution.]
Sean: [What the hell are magi-knights?]
Zack: [A crossbreed between Knights and Mages. They have half the strength of a knight and half the magic capacity of a mage.]
Faith: [Is there a word for being a part of two classes? Biclassial?]
Zack turned to Parker and smiled. He noticed the rise in power level and individual skill experience and was shocked to see his development. Even though Parker was still carrying around the rusty staff Zack gave him when they first met, he seemed to be going strong regardless.
Zack: [You grew a lot in power, Parker. What have you been up to?]
William: [This is not the time to be catching up. Sir Zack, your king is racist.]
Zack lowered his head and groaned. He had no words to add but knew it was entirely true.
William: [How is a kingdom of mixed breeds going to allow their king to be a racist? This kingdom is full of retards.]
Zack: [Please don't use that word. Leviere is like early America after Abe. One of the early rulers added a law that allowed immigrants and mixed breeds to enter. They also added a law that prohibited any future ruler from changing the laws made before his death.]
Parker: [Oh, so since the king must always follow that law and be from the bloodline of racists, he's just treating them like ragdolls?]
Zack nodded.
Parker: [That's fucked up.]
William: [Break the king's order and go fight. If I remember correctly, you're the head officer too.]
Zack nodded again.
William: [Then stop being a pussy and do what you know is right.]
Sean: [Yeah, this isn't America. The king isn't the head of the military.]
Zack raised his head and looked straight at the ceiling.
Sean: [We're about to go fight him ourselves, so if you want to join us... feel free.]
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Sean stood up and opened another portal, but before any of them could jump through it,
Zack: [Wait!]
He threw his hand out. The four of them stopped and looked at him.
Zack: [As the head of the royal army, Paladin of Leviere, and strongest person in the northern hemisphere... I'll join you guys.]
Faith and Parker smiled. Zack walked up to them and let his hand out to William.
Parker: [He's blind.]
William grabbed Zack's hand and shook it with a smile. It was almost as if they had met before, but neither of the others could take out any clues.
Before they could leave, someone knocked on the door. Surprised, Zack opened the door and saw a group of guards holding a blonde girl caught up in knots and had tape over her mouth. She was trying her best to escape, but her attempts were futile against the strength of the guards. When Zack looked into her eyes, he saw nothing but fear. The Knights, on the other hand, seemed exhilarated to have made it this far. After a round of high-fives, they calmed themselves down and seriously looked at their boss.
Confused, the four in the back waited near the portal to downtown Leviere.
Guard 1: [Sir! We have successfully captured the woman that was with Vijan. She hasn't shown any form of hostility, and her profile shows that she is completely harmless, but she was with Vijan so we thought she could have been held captive.]
With a disappointed sigh, Zack ordered them to untie her. He allowed her to enter his office and had her sit on the comfy chair behind his desk while he stood with his hands behind his back.
Zack: [You don't look like the kind of girl that does bad things. What led you to follow a sick man like Vijan around?]
Ruby: [You guys are the sick ones!]
William raised his head and looked toward Ruby. He didn't know what he thought he heard, but the voice was familiar and hit him close to home.
Ruby: [Kidnapping and interrogating isn't how you get information out of a person.]
Zack replied in a soft tone like he was trying to be nice.
Zack: [I didn't order them to kidnap you, but having you separated from him would make asking you questions a lot easier.]
Ruby: [Questions like what?]
Zack: [Who are you and what business do you have with a mass murderer?]
Ruby: [My name is Ru-]
She hesitated to end her sentence once she caught a glimpse of her blonde hair.
Ruby: [Anna. Anna is my name.]
William became more confused about Ruby's answer.
Ruby: [I don't know any mass murderers.]
With a sigh, Zack turned to the four behind him.
Zack: [It doesn't sound like she's lying.]
He turned to the guards that brought her.
Zack: [Did you guys kidnap a random civilian or something?]
Guard 2: [She was walking with Vijan when we took her. There's no way this is a different person.]
William: [That's Princess Ruby,]
Ruby flinched while no one was watching her. Everyone raised a brow at William's deduction and turned back to her. She didn't look anything like the Ruby they knew, but William was confident he was right.
William: [I recognize her voice.]
Zack turned to her and stared at the blonde hair. The Ruby he remembers was an Asian girl with night-black hair and dark brown eyes. The complete opposite of the person sitting at his desk.
Guard 1: [I thought Ruby went down with her kingdom.]
Zack: [I wouldn't be surprised if Hydra took one of the royals captive.]
Ruby: [Captive? They aren't bad people.]
Guard 2: [Yeah, because killing millions with no purpose makes you a good person.]
Ruby grew more confused.
Guard 2: [Only people that have been brainwashed would think they're remotely decent.]
Ruby: [What's that supposed to mean?]
Zack: [You claim to not know any mass murderers, but you also say that Hydra is a group of good people... There's no way you're Ruby, right?]
William: [I've heard her voice long enough to be certain, that's Princess Ruby.]
Curious, Zack leaned toward her with an arm out and reached for her head. Ruby pulled her head back with her teeth clenched, afraid of what they'd do if they caught her. She felt Zack's hand press against her hair and a gentle tug.
With a grunt, she opened her eyes to notice her blonde hair between his fingers. The disguise remained. Zack turned back to William with narrow eyes, but before he could say anything–
From the portal Sean kept open, an entity was listening in from the other side, but no one could sense their presence. It wasn't until all of time froze that a shadowed figure walked in from Sean's portal, and no one could do anything about it.
Sean watched as the entity walked past him and toward the girl sitting down on Zack's chair. Everyone in the office was incapable of moving an inch while the thin figure walked past all of them. The pitch-black figure grabbed Ruby by the arm and carried her out through the same portal he came from.
Once they disappeared, time resumed and everyone in the room collapsed to the ground. While everyone was trying to catch their breath, Zack frantically looked around and ran to where he remembered Sean's portal was. He ended up running right into a wall.
Zack: [Shit! He got away!]
Zack slammed the wall, indenting it with his bare knuckle.
Parker: [WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?!]
Zack: [It was a time-stop. An ability all ninjas develop early. It isn't supposed to be powerful enough to stop me though. Now I understand how he got through Penn. Vijan isn't a force to be reckoned with.]
William: [You're telling me he walked right past us and none of you did anything?]
Everyone stood silent.
William: [Fucking hell, man!]
Sean: [I'll open another portal,]
Raising his arm in front of him, he read the chant, but nothing happened. Looking at his UI, he noticed his mana was depleted. With a grunt, he looked at Faith. Sean pulled out a bottle of some blue substance and chugged it down like a bottle of water. His mana bar slowly raised as the substance in the bottle depleted.
William: [We need that portal back up before he gets away!]
Sean stopped drinking and glared at William before continuing to chug his drink. After finishing, he burped and raised his hand again. With total concentration, he opened up another portal to the water fountain, in downtown Leviere.
Zack and William charged into the portal with the others following afterwards. With her anxiety building up, Faith was trying her best to stay hidden throughout the kingdom. She had already gone against the plan and didn't know what to do.
[Zack: Stand still, everyone. I'm going to do an Omni-search.]
An Omni-search is an ability granted to those of the Paladin class. It allows them to use the eyes of god for lookout purposes. The ability can detect magical auras, the smallest critters, and also has an enormous radius. Though, while using it, the Paladin becomes unconscious.
Closing his eyes, Zack collapsed to the ground within a few seconds. Now with his eyes in the sky like a bird, he looked around the city in search of any abnormal magical auras. Right next to his body was an enormous dark aura that looked like it was crying for help. He ignored it and went searching for a second aura, one he found heading away from the kingdom.
Zack returned to his body with a gasp,
Zack: [Gates!]
and started running at an abnormal rate. William followed after him at around the same speed, leaving clouds of dust behind him as he ran. The rest were completely clueless but followed after anyway. Sean opened a portal to the gates, which the three of them took and made it immediately.
Arriving at the gate, Zack quickly used Omni-search and came back before his body could tip over. The second demonic aura was coming from the left side of the gates. Zack prepared by reaching for his weapon's handle and holding onto it tightly. The atmosphere suddenly became dense once the demonic aura was visible from a mile away.
Zack: [COME!]
Five identical figures of pure white magic suddenly appeared out of thin air. They were all in a battle position with a sword made of the same substance as them reaching over their heads. Watching with eyes of fascination, Faith chuckled.
Faith: [Angels!]
The angels made Faith fan-girl over the holy power they were formed out of. Though it's an ability exclusive to Paladins, it's not impossible for other classes such as healers, wizards, necromancers, and sorcerers to have their own form of the same ability.
William: [Let me handle this.]
His sudden request surprised Zack. Turning to him, he saw the seriousness in his posture.
William: [I have to be the one that takes him out.]
Zack: [You saw what he did in my office, didn't you?]
William thought back to that moment and clenched his teeth.
Zack: [I understand you want to take vengeance for what he did to your people, but there's absolutely no way you can take him out alone.]
William raised his head and opened his mouth.
William: [How do you know about that?]
Zack: [I'm the Leviere Paladin. Not some random like those three. You need all the help you can get.]
Faith: [That's where you're wrong, Zack.]
Grabbing onto William's shoulder, Faith built up the courage to come out of the shadows.
Faith: [He has us by his side,]
Parker silently cringed in the background. Zack looked at Faith with a worried glare. With a sigh, he replied.
Zack: [I'm sorry, there's no way you four can handle a catastrophe-class enemy.]
The light from the angels gathered the attention of the guards in the surrounding area, getting them all together to march toward it. The sound of a crowd stomping made its way towards the entrance of the kingdom. With the tension rising, William gritted his teeth.
William: [I'm sorry,]
He disappeared in an instant, and suddenly a large burst of wind came to the entrance gate from where the huge amount of demonic energy was. The force of the wind was so powerful that it pushed Faith over and made the rest stumble back.
Zack: [That idiot!]
The angels ran ahead of Zack while he told the others not to get involved. Knowing that Vijan isn't someone they should be messing with, Sean agreed but the other two didn't feel right about it.
Parker: [We followed him to get information on Andy. We weren't going to be anything but decoys.]
Zack stopped running and looked at Parker from the corner of his eye.
Zack: [I'm not going to sit back and let an enemy kill an ally.]
With nothing to say, Parker watched Zack run into the battle.
*
While all this was going on, Omar sat at the Hydra hideout with a thin stick in his mouth and a ball of pure darkness in hand. The ball was letting out a dark smoke like it couldn't contain all the energy it was made of. Omar was staring at a tree in the distance while tossing the ball in the air to catch it again, over and over. With a chuckle, he stared at the ceiling.
Omar: [Vijan went on a rampage.]
He stood up and started to contemplate whether or not he should interfere and break Heirloom's plan.
-
Heirloom: [If everything goes according to plan, you will get what you want.]
-
Groaning, Omar shut his eyes. The mysterious power he sensed a few weeks ago hasn't shown up since, and it was starting to demotivate him. Was there a reason he should be following Heirloom's orders? Would the demon lord get mad at him? Sitting back down and scratching his dark hair, Omar's eyes shined a bright red.
Suddenly the ground shook, surprising Omar and making him tip over. The cry of a battle horn came from the entrance of the hideout. Confused, Omar walked his way toward the balcony to look outside, and when he made it he was shocked.
A large black and green flag being held by a small man was being waved around and being blown by the wind. Next to the man was a guy covered in armor from head to toe holding a horn that was a chipped dragon's tooth carved from the inside. The both of them looked up at Omar with deathly glares while he smirked.
Behind the men was an entire army of armed knights and wizards that ranged out too far into the frozen woods. There were so many, Omar couldn't see them all without a broad search.
They all glared at Omar in complete silence. A flare rose into the sky and blew up after it reached a certain height. Once it did, however, every soldier charged straight toward the Hydra hideout and several mages shot out fire and ice balls right at Omar.
Excited, Omar hopped off the balcony and stood right in front of the entrance gate with his arms crossed and a large smile.
Omar: [BRING IT ON!]