The Elves that just heard my statement of intent, kneeled in front of me. I didn’t even have to try to conquer these guys. Still confused, as to why they were kneeling already I spoke, “Why do you kneel before me, I have not ordered you to do so?”.
The oldest elf looked to me with worship in his eyes, there seems to be a glimmer of hope, whether to befriend me or to save himself I don’t know. He spoke, “Long ago, our people worshipped a god that ruled these lands, he was quiet, yet extremely powerful. If there was an issue, his powers would resolve it almost instantaneously. He was known as the Emperor of Shadows. He ruled this continent and brought peace to all of our species lands. However, one day he ended up disappearing, gone from the continent, possibly even gone from the world. Ever since that being left, there has been an all-out war between, shadow elves or our species, lizardmen, humans, and the nomad beastmen”.
The mountain ranger from earlier then looked to me with the same glimmer of hope and said, “It is because, once we saw you use the shadows to resurrect, what we assume was once the shadow elemental, we understood. You are our Lord, you are our god and have come back to us”.
I listened to their speech and finally understood what my class entails. There was once another before me, however, that being perished due to incompetence. He probably went insane from life force and started to kill his kin for it. In the end, their past god was killed off by his once loyal soldiers due to greed. However, these elves assume that such a being has returned. It’s time to clear this up; “You are both right, and wrong”. The shadow elves were confused by these words. I continued, “I am not your god, or your savior. The being you once worshipped was killed by his own arrogance. I am something much much more, whether it be powerful, knowledgeable, or worthy of such power”.
The shadow elves had blank faces as they were digesting my words, still kneeling in servitude. When they realized just what I am, they were worried, If I am not their god that they once worshipped. What are my ambitions, what will I do to them. I continued speaking once they seem to understand what situation they are in; “I have just arrived from the shadows, and I know not what this land… this world contains. I am new, and I have yet to be impressed by either the wildlife’s strength, your strength, or even the goblin’s strength. It all seems weak and unrefined. I can see the potential in all, but such potential is wasted. Like a gem within a rock, untapped and unable to shine it’s true color to the world. We will talk as we go back to your home. I will look upon your species and decide what I can make of you”.
The shadow elves all looked up to me, even though I'm terrifying they showed no fear, even though I’m not their god, they showed no reluctance. In fact, they even showed hope, something stronger then their previous god can help them? However, the news that was never discovered by them still rang in their ears. The reason their almighty god from the past, the god that led their species to the golden ages… was incompetent? I could see the mixed feelings written all over their faces, besides one man. As I have heard before, he was the grand elder, the leader of the shadow elves. My knight could face him head-on and still fight 29 others, this race will need a lot of work to be brought up.
…
I figured out, the grand elder only has few months of life left. After spending life force for repopulating their species through the essence of shadows, he lost 3/4ths of his life expectancy, just to birth 3 children. I saw why he only had one look on his face, and that look was of hope for his species future. When we started walking back through the forest towards the gate of the protected area, the elves on the gates were surprised. However, they opened the gates quickly when they saw the grand elder. However, most, if not all, froze when they saw me and the void-knight that was next to me guarding me. Although the elves were tall, for human height, mostly around 6.5 - 7ft/2m - 2.2m, I was still 9ft or 3m in comparison. Not only that, my figure looks both terrifying and majestic at the same time.
I got the feeling, the reason why the shadow elves didn’t even want to know of just how strong I was, was because of the vibe I gave off naturally. Almost as if, anyone in my presence instinctively wanted to kneel before me and worship me. Which is not completely new to me, in my past whenever I descended upon Earth, it was the same.
Once we were past the gates, the grand elder spoke quickly to the guards and told them their duty was no longer needed here, however, do not take it as a bad thing but there has been an alternative discovered for their racial problem. During the walk with the grand elder, I have understood one thing… their species relies heavily on the shadow’s presence. But even this confused me, when the grand elder talked about his sacrifice of life force, I sensed something fishy. Yes, their species may rely on some ambient energy of shadows, however lifeforce as a sacrifice to a dead-god, that should not be necessary at all, even as a jumpstart, the process should draw in ambient life-force either from what parents have consumed or just in the air. I thought there could be the possibility of another hidden shadow elemental that is just feeding off people’s life-force unconsciously nearby. Definitely worth investigating, whether for a new royal guard or just increasing the species opinion as me. Even as a potential god, whether they feel they can rely on me to help them is a huge factor in future relations.
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The trip was quiet for everyone but me and the grand elder, we talked about the land, the species, and their current technological capabilities, I was about to ask how magic in this world worked when I sensed a humongous amount of life-force nearby. Not only that, it was moving this way fast. It was large, very large and seemed to be eating all of the trees, shrubs, and rocks directly in its path. As if a large worm-like creature was consuming everything on it’s way here.
I turned to the grand elf, “There is a worm-like devouring creature on it’s way here. Any idea what it could be?”.
The grand elf looked at me in shock, “it’s a … megaladora, it’s a titan monster that travels the forest path consuming all. Their population is incredibly small, however, each one has a scale-like armor and steel razor teeth, usually, we can’t hurt them at all and have to move to protect ourselves. We’ve lost a great deal to them”.
As I considered the elf’s words I thought of a great Idea. Why not show off my power to consolidate my foundation with the shadow elves. I turned to the direction the worm is heading in. I used my blink ability to teleport in the air and then hovered there above the trees. I saw off in the distance a snake-like worm creature moving its way towards us. It was massive, almost like an entire cave system brought out of the ground, and moving around in a Z-shape pattern consuming all in its path. I could sort of understand where the shadow elves are coming from when they talk about needing to migrate whenever there is one of these creatures around. However, I am not the shadow elves. I looked at the creature with pity, a wild titanic monster that could scare entire cities, to be used as my stepping stone. It's both sad and wonderful. I would just blame it on bad ‘luck’.
I condensed the light and darkness from the surroundings, almost like my soul-flame. Condensing it further and further until there is a small completely black ball. I started to pump my mana into the black ball and in a crushing motion made it collapse on itself.
System
Ability Learned: Black-Hole
Huh.. good to know you can learn abilities without revelation effects or class upgrades. Probably what mages in this world do to learn new spells. It seems like the reasonable fantasy-like outcome that I have come to expect every now and then.
[Congratulations master, you have successfully created a black hole!]
Thanks Zero, its all thanks to your instruction from before. How about we test this baby out!
I could feel how to aim the black hole, almost like a grenade. It has some drop, due to the world’s gravity but is much less affected as that in itself is consumed by the black hole. After considering how to use this new-found ability. I decided to go one step further. I surrounded the ball in an elongated shadow. It is like a shadow missile now. I made it hover above my hand and launched it just by making the throwing motion just like a javelin without weight.
System
Ability Learned: Shadow Bolt
The shadow missile containing a black-hole flew across the sky, leaving a thin trail of darkness. It hit right at the mouth of the titanic worm that was much closer now since before. Although extremely large, it was quite a slow creature, that gave me much needed time to create my spell. As soon as the missile hit the creature a wave of compressed energy uprooted the surroundings whether it was trees or boulders. As everything was pulled out of the ground and 100ft/30m or so, it was yanked back and crushed everything into pieces from the force. The wave of energy collapsed on itself sucking in everything in a 1500ft/500m radius. The titanic worm being was completely sucked in besides the tip of its tail which was nailed into the ground far away as if to anchor the worm when it realized the black-hole.
“HA! That was awesome! I want to do it again! Wait… it’s already dead. Damn”. I glided back down to the forest floor where the elves were sheltering themselves behind boulders and large trees with exasperated faces on. “So, it's dead now. Let’s get going. I still haven’t seen where you live yet”. I started walking in the general direction where we were going before, my void-knight unfazed right behind me.
System
Level Up (x28)
Kills - Megaladora(x1)
...