-Somewhere in the No Man's Land-
-Liz's POV-
"Master, what are we doing here?" Reinard asks me.
"I didn't tell you right?" He shakes his head hearing that.
"Well, the incident that happened in L.A. looked like a normal dungeon break but, guess what, I found a Dragon there." I told him as I took out the dragon meat from my dimensional space, it was being held inside a barrier
"I see..and what do you plan to do with it master?"
"I want to have a nice chat with it, we might also get new information on the World Updating thing" Observing the meat for a few seconds, the soul of the dragon came out of it, screaming and crashing against the walls. But we didn't hear anything, it was because the barrier had sound canceling effects and I didn't want to hear a dragon's screams just yet.
"Master, he's...."
"I know, he is not of this world and he is the one who will be providing us with new information" I look at the writhing soul doing everything it can to get out of the barrier.
-Dragon’s POV-
I am Vorgrim, The Bringer of Calamity, and I am being held by a human inside a complex barrier, which I don’t even know how she could create. ‘Sigh… What should I do now.’ I let out a sigh thinking about the soul pact I had made with that tyrant of a god. Even though my body is crushed, my soul still remains. After screaming and thrashing against the barrier, I eventually gave up.
I looked at the person standing beside the woman, and what I saw was something I’d never forget. It was like looking at Satan himself, but in the body of a human. I could feel the evil aura around him, the massacres he must have committed. Then I looked at the human woman, who didn't even emit any kind of aura or even so much as hint of killing intent. It was as if she was an angel with a pure heart, who was also observing me, and talking to the person standing beside her, I couldn’t hear them because of this barrier around me.
After telling that person something, she looked back at me and I could hear them.
-Liz’s POV-
The dragon had already stopped thrashing the barrier and I looked at him again after telling Reinard a few things. I removed the sound canceling effect on the barrier..
“So you want to talk now?” I asked the dragon, who was looking at me and Reinard.
“I don’t have a choice, now do I?” he spoke, his voice had a deep tone to it.
“You don’t” I answered him bluntly.
“What’s your name?Where are you from? Why were you in that dungeon?” I rapidly ask the important questions to him first and would go into the system questions later on.
“Well, unfortunately I can’t tell you, I have a soul binding pact, which would instantly consume my soul the moment I said anything important to anyone.” he spoke, and what he said was true I could the soul chains binding his soul and there was another presence to them, and it was more powerful than that of the dragon.
“Fine, I’ll be removing that pact from you soul but you’ll have to make a new one with me” I looked at Reinard and told him mentally to remove the soul pact as soon as the dragons made a new one with me.
“That would be a generous offer, I would have even accepted it, but the pact I made is not a simple one. If someone interfered with it, my soul would instantly blow up and I can’t make a new soul pact with anyone else without the permission of the..” he told us the reason and stopped right before he took the name of the one who had forcefully made the pact with him. This person had to be strong enough to easily overpower The Dragon’s Soul, to make a forceful soul pact between them.
“Reinard, just remove that pact and make the new one, where he’ll be my servant for as long as I want and he has to answer every one of my question, without telling white lies, half truths or else his soul will burn with hellfire and put him into an eternal torture, unless and until I want him back” I tell Reinard about the pact I wanted to be made with this dragon and he immediately steps forward. Using his soul pressure alone, he breaks the soul pact the dragon was bound to. And instead of simply removing it, makes the other side of the soul pact believe that the dragon had spoken something important and had his soul erased from existence. Reinard then proceeds to forcefully put the pact I told him, onto the dragons soul, writing the things in a complex language that the dragon couldn’t even understand. By the end of this, the dragon was left speechless at the precision and the speed that Reinard had shown in breaking and forcefully putting the soul pact on him.
-Dragon’s POV-
I look at the Satan in the skin of a human, breaking the soul pact with that Tyrant God and forcefully putting a new soul pact on my soul. The moment the process finishes, I am left speechless, looking at the intricate and complex language the soul pact was made using. I couldn’t even understand it, I have been living for hundreds of thousands of years, but what this ‘Reinard’, as the woman called him, made was on a whole another level than that Tyrant God had made with me. I didn’t understand the language of the soul pact but in my mind, the lines that woman had spoken resurfaced. The next moment I found my soul self bowing my head down, looking at her feet, I didn’t want to but I was forced by the soul pact. I had tried to raise my head but it was a futile attempt. The human woman spoke, right then.
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“Rise and answer my questions.” The next moment my mouth opened on its own and I began speaking.
“I am Vorgrim, The Bringer of Calamity. I am from this Universe but I come from a different world, Astria. I had no choice in the matter, I was sent into the realm, that you call a dungeon. I don’t know how I got here but I had orders, to make a pillar into the world where I would be transported to and to conquer the world.”
-Liz’s POV-
Well I wanted a simple soul pact but it seems Reinard had made a few changes to it.
“Hmm…tell me about this world, Astria and also about the person who had put that soul pact on you” I ordered Vorgrim.
“The world of Astria is a beautiful world, if seen from nature’s perspective. Full of life, different kinds of races, the humans, the dwarfs, the elves, the orcs, the ogres, the beast humans, the beast clans and much more all living in harmony, although there were skirmishes among them, in the end it was peaceful. We also had the help of a system to rise in power. Life in Astria had been peaceful for a long time. I was born in that world and had been living there for hundreds of thousands of years. But it was invaded by the upper realms of the world. The people that came from the upper realms were not normal, they were powerful, their levels were much higher than I had ever thought. Their Leader, The Tyrant, God of Destruction, Ayer. He had sent his army to conquer our world and its people. I was leader of the Dragon Clan on Astria, our clan had helped all the races to defend against the common enemy, many of the beast clan leaders had fought the battle with Ayer but, I was the only one left in the aftermath, I had never faced such an overwhelming enemy in my entire life. He had spared my life but put a leash on me. Although I don’t have any right to say this to you, please save my world if you can.” Vorgrim told the story of his planet, the invasion, the battle against Ayer and the aftermath of it. He had also mentioned that the army of Ayer had much higher levels than the people of Astria.
“I see…I won't promise you about saving your world, if you serve me faithfully, I will eventually help you in saving your world but, why do you say that Ayer was a God and what even was his level?” I asked him and he gave me a look, like it was such a dumb question. Still he answered.
“It was because when we had fought with him, all of us identified him using the system, and the name that we got was ‘Ayer, The Tyrant, The God of Destruction’, he had two titles to his name. His level was above 1000, the system couldn't give us his exact level though, which is also known as the level when a mortal leaves their fragile body and becomes a God. Did you not know about this?” Vorgrim told us the answers and also asked us another question while giving the same look someone gave to a dumb person.
“We do not know about the level 1000 and the stuff of ‘mortal leaving their fragile body to become a God’ but we do know a bit about the system in this world. So how about you explain to us the whole mortal becoming a God thing.” I again ordered him and he started speaking, all the while Reinard had been casually killing the monsters approaching the barrier I had put up before this conversation even started.
"The level system goes like this- It starts with a person getting integrated into the system, then leveling up until they reach the end of S Rank, as you humans call it. After that the whole leveling scenario changes, as soon as the World Updating message is given by the system." Saying this Vorgrin goes into simplifying things and shows us a chart of the leveling system. It went like this -
[ LEVEL 10 - 20 ] - F Rank
[ LEVEL 20 - 30 ] - E Rank
[ LEVEL 30 - 40 ] - D Rank
[ LEVEL 40 - 60 ] - C Rank
[ LEVEL 60 - 80 ] - B Rank
[ LEVEL 80 - 100 ] - A Rank
[ LEVEL 100 - 200 ] - S Rank
From this point onwards, after crossing the threshold of S Rank and the World Updating Event, the leveling system changed from Ranks to Tiers. It went like this -
[ LEVEL 200 - 300 ] - Tier 1
[ LEVEL 300 - 400 ] - Tier 2
[ LEVEL 400 - 500 ] - Tier 3
[ LEVEL 500 - 600 ] - Tier 4
[ LEVEL 600 - 800 ] - Tier 5
[ LEVEL 800 - 1000 ] - Tier 6 ( DemiGod )
[ LEVEL 1000 - ? ] - Tier 7 ( God )
Looking at the chart, I start getting a headache, I mean I have fought God-Like beings in the Universe of Elanoir but, this shit was on another level. Vorgrin told us that the Universe is not as small as we imagine it to be, having only a few solar systems per galaxy or like that. It's huge and there are perhaps thousands of Gods like Ayer who are currently conquering the whole solar systems and doing who knows what. The information Vorgrin provided was a major one. There was a long way ahead and my dreams of exploring the universe might come true.
"Reinard, you know what to do now right?" I asked Reinard as he stopped looking at the chart drawn on the ground and cleared it all with a swipe of his hand.
"Yes master, I'll be pushing the plans and getting ready for the World Updating Event."
"Hmm. By the way, what Tier and Level are you at, Vorgrim?" I ask the dragon who is looking at the skies.
"I am at the 4th Tier, Level 530" he answers quickly and continues looking at the skies as I start contemplating about my plans and how they'll be changed, moving forward.
The gods, the level system, the invasion of other worlds, the power these gods had. Everything was complicated and without witnessing the god's power first hand, was a risky matter to step on. I had recalculated the time required for the World Updating Event and there was only 2 years remaining because of the stunt I pulled in L.A. I had to start moving fast, now that the time was less, I had to build that alliance of guilds to even have a chance to save this world. I might not have wanted to be the savior of this world, but who knows what could happen. These things might reach Elanoir eventually and destroy the peace there. I had to do something about it. Not for my sake but for the sake of my subjects on Elanoir and for the sake of a few people on Earth that I had started to care about, only a little bit though but, still I cared about them.
I got out of my thoughts and looked at Vorgrim, and then at Reinard.
"Should I do it, Reinard?" I asked him.
"It's your call, Master, if you think that he can help us, then I'm fine with it." He answers me in a calm voice.
"Ughh... I'll just do it, he will become a certainly loyal servant to me if we could save his world from Ayer." This conversation draws Vorgrim's attention back to us and he asks "What are you gonna do?"
Instead of answering his question, I create a magic circle below him and start circling mana through it. The next moment his soul is dragged inside the spell.
There is this thing called the cycle of reincarnation. When a body dies, the soul inside is taken by the Grim Reaper and put inside the cycle of reincarnation. There are also ways to hide one's soul from the Grim Reapers and the barrier I made around Vorgrin was one of the ways to hide it.
After a few minutes the mana in the surroundings as well as my own mana rush towards the magic circle and out of it comes Vorgrim, back in his Dragon Body. What I used was a resurrection spell. But there were rules to it, the mana cost was also high, depending on who I was resurrecting. Even if there was a piece remaining, I could revive that being back to life, even if there was no soul, I could revive them. But the only problem was the time, the time between the contact of the being with the Grim Reaper. The being I wanted to revive had be either, inside the barrier of my own making, hiding them from the Grim Reaper or I have to perform the magic circle before 10 minutes had passed, since that being's death. Any more or less than these conditions, the revival would not be possible.
So I had hid Vorgrim's soul from the Grim Reaper and now revived him fully back to his state from that of the meat paste. As he opened his eyes, he was shocked that he was back in his body and it was no longer a meat paste.
"This...is ridiculous" he said while checking his body to find any injuries, but there was nothing other than the scars, Ayer had left on him. After checking himself for a few minutes he transformed into a humanoid form. He had blue wavy hair, golden slit eyes, his body covered in blue scales just like the one in his dragon form ( that I hadn't mentioned in my previous fight with him ), he was handsome, by his humanoid appearance he should be in his mid 20's but, alas his real age was already in hundreds of thousands years. He immediately took to the knee and bowed his head to me.
"I am honoured to be by your side, Master" and there he went, same as when I had met Reinard. 'Ughh.... these men and their master-servant relationship with me.'
"Rise and serve I, Lizandra your Master, faithfully for the rest of your life, Vorgrim, The Bringer of Calamity."