The Temple of Marthyl, one of three gods worshiped by the Tigerkin.

Elves have a large array of gods, and each god was often associated with some concept or "job". However, the Tigerkin had only three.

Marthyl is the first Tigerkin god—and one of the earliest Beastkin gods in general—and was the one who built the city Iohro. Looking at the history books, it seems like she was a War Goddess for several hundred years, pushing back the advance of the Tigerkin's enemies. It was like this, that Iohro became a center of power, early in the history of this region.

Things have settled down in the last era, but it seems her worship is still wide-spread in this nation.

Even though I call them "Gods", I learned from Sophinna that gods in this world are much less than what I thought. Excluding the original Primordial Gods, all others were at one point mortals who ascended. Once they ascend, their power increases exponentially, but at the same time, they become bound, and practically barred from the mortal realm.

According to Sophi, the ascension was always a feature of this world. It was intended to be as a system to create gods in the lore, but then the residents of this world—specifically the Elves—started to obtained that power, and began to monopolize it for military purposes. At that rate, it would have just been a system to create super-powered beings, so the developers threw a wrench onto that plan, and created a scenario that effectively restricted anyone who became a "god", to have them better fit into what they wanted.

It's a bit tragic, but in exchange for great power, the gods of this world rely on the faith of mortals, and are unable to exert much of their power inside the mortal world.

Of course, the only ones who know of this history are the eldest of gods. As far as everyone else is concerned, it has always been like this.

Still, the gods continue to exert rules according to their own moral compass—even rules that are not enforceable in the god's current state. The church tries to enforce those rules in the place of gods, but the populace may often ignore older rules that are no longer... viable to their current lifestyle.

You could say it was the same in my old world.

That said, there are other rules that aren't ignored.

For instance, a law shared by many—no weapons within a holy temple.

Warriors are made to leave behind swords and shields, and Mages are made to leave behind staffs and wands.

Of course, I knew better than to expect these intruders to follow the rules of a foreign country.

The party of six predictably walked through the front gate of the mansion, pushing aside the guards trying to stop them. I was mildly surprised the Mage had survived—looks like their healer has quite the power.

Still, they showed up sooner than I expected. Not that it mattered. I didn't have complicated traps to lay out or anything. I just wanted to fight them somewhere away from crowds of people, and where they probably didn't have more traps to spring on me. Hmm? One of the two swordsmen switched to a bow? Well whatever.

"Hey hey, you guys came pretty quickly," I greeted them at the courtyard, as they were pushing away the two guards. "Why don't you leave the poor guys alone? You immortals may not care much for life, but it's kinda distressing seeing you treat others loosely."

The large tank looked over at me, as his swordsman and assassin kept the two away. "So you were here waiting for us? I figured you would run away an hide."

"Why hide? I have business to get back to, so I figured I'd take care of you guys and get back to my spot." I said calmly, as I turned my gaze towards the guards. "You two, get out of here. Oracle Alenastra asked me to deal with them. These humans are outsiders, so don't bother risking your lives for them," I shouted.

The guards seemed to back off for a moment, and hesitate. The swordsman and assassin (I think his name was Sen?) also stopped their attack, as they wondered if they'd really back off. The guards exchanged a look, and one of them shot a glance at me, before they began to back away.

Using Sophi's name is really effective.

"You're all talk! Com'on, I'll take you on alone!" shouted the assassin.

"I let my guard down; it happens," I could only shrug back, a bit embarrassed that such a loudmouth assassin got that close to me. And with poison, no less.

"I've heard about you," the warrior began. "You're some kind of guide to this city. How can you tell pla—outsiders apart?"

"You all look the same to me," I said with a shrug. "Got that stupid look on your faces, and you all talk funny." It was a lie of course. I was hoping to goad them into a fight already. I figured the assassin would have already attacked me by now, but instead, I had to block an incoming arrow with my wind magic. So it was the archer first?

"If all you want is money in exchange for that man's location, I'm willing to make an exchange."

"Nah, I'm more interested in why you want him," I waved him off. "I'll ask him later though. For now, can we just get started? The other guards will be here soon, and I'd like to settle this quickly."

Saying that, I went ahead and activated a number of wind-based buffs.

"!—He's using magic!" The mage blurted out. Oh? She's pretty good, if she can sense the activation of magic, huh?

"Everyone, get ready to take him down!" The tank-leader shouted, as I made a dash right for their group.

I don't really have a main weapon. I use to carry around my mother's dagger, and there's also the bow she gave me, but I keep those in a safe place. Instead I've focused a lot of perfecting my wind blades. They're a great close-to-mid-ranged attack, and coupled with my usual movement magic, they give me a lot of mobility.

The tank saw me coming, and put up his tower shield, and used a reinforcement magic, trying to stop my advance. I decided to test the durability of his defense, so I fired a strong blade of wind at him—no effect, huh?

"He uses invisible wind swords; don't let him catch you off guard!"—Hey wait, can the mage see Aether? No, that's not it. She has wind-based tracking magic active, so she could see my attack, huh? I didn't notice her put up this field. I really am a bit rusty.

Seeing as the tank was no good, I decided to take on the Assassin, who was trying to circle around behind me. Like before, he had a dagger coated in toxins, ready to attack me.

But I was faster—I slipped passed his defenses, ducking under his blade, and close up to his face. The look of shock on his face as I blew him away was satisfying.

I didn't kill him immediately though. The wind blew him out into the temple garden, which set off a trap I set a while ago.

"Hey, what's this?" He said, as he tried to get up—but vines and roots had began to coil around him. He tried to struggle, but he was pulled back down. He was restrained by the plants, which now began to pull him under the earth.

"Hey! Guys! Help! Ah! It hurts! Crap crap crap crap!" He began shouting, as the sound of the plants crushing him.

The swordsman ran over to him, and tried to cut him loose, but he was already too late. He was already pulled beneath the soil.

Ah, sweet sweet nature magic. It's quite scary though.

The swordsman looked frantic, as he tried to dig the assassin out of the dirt.

The tank was glaring at me with irritation and anger.

The priest and archer were both horrified.

And the mage was surprised.

"The hell kind of horror magic was that?" the swordsman finally shouted after giving up on saving his friend.

"Nature magic," the Mage answered before I could. "It's the Elve's specialty—Rick! Get out of the garden!" she shouted at the swordsman.

He seemed to realize what she meant at the last second, as he tried to leap away—but it was already too late; a vine had slowly curled itself around his ankle while he was trying to help the assassin, but instead of pulling him down, a large plant pulled itself above the earth, and flung the human swordsman towards the tank at high speed!

The Mage, seeing that it was already hopeless, began constructing a great fireball magic, which she shot towards me. However, I merely swung my arm, and the wind blew the fire away.

"Something that weak won't harm me," I said as I turned towards the tank, and began to close in on him.

I more or less understood the magic the tank was using—I've seen it used before.

Before the fight started, he was already bound to his comrades. This current reinforcement magic restricted his movements, but made him almost impossible to penetrate. And if I went to attack one of his more squishy allies, he would have activated the second part of his magic, which would allow him to move between me and his allies, intercepting any attack, and allowing his DPS to attack from the sides.

So-called "Conditional Magic", were extremely powerful, but they gained their powers based on the restrictions placed on them. I hated using them, precisely because of that.

The assassin came in to attack me first, so the tank didn't bother to dash between us. But if I counter attack, then I didn't need to do much else. The restriction meant he couldn't prevent the assassin from being blown away, and even if he tried to dash to him and get him out of the garden, he would still be unable to do much more than the swordsman.

But I couldn't deny the strength of that spell.

So I needed him to deactivate it.

Rather than having the swordsman pulled underground, I opted to have him flung towards the tank. It costed more Aether, but at the speed he was going, he would die upon crashing into the Tank's wall. Or at least be out of commission. Depending on his Vitality stat.

"Cushion him!" the tank shouted, as he instead opted to escape. He turned into a blur, as he was pulled along by his magic, and darted towards right in front of the party healer.

Almost immediately after, a cushion of air appeared where the tank was, which slowed the swordsman's crash as he hit the ground, and went tumbling through the air. I figured I'd finish the swordsman off, but a set of arrows went punching through my wind wall, so I had to dodge them with care. With my high agility, one measly archer wouldn't hit, but she'd at least keep me from finishing off the swordsman. And she knew it.

"We underestimated you," the tank finally admitted. "You're a child, and unarmed. Didn't think we'd lose half our damage dealers in one exchange," he said with narrowed eyes, as he canceled his magic, and stood up, with his shield still fixed between us.

"I've had worst," I responded.

Behind me to my left was their mage, who was busy preparing some complicated homing magic—doesn't look like she's use to quickly forming complicated magic yet. The archer was near the tank, but further to my right, as she backed up away, with a few arrows notched on her bow, and a sword at her hip. The healer behind the tank had already began a long-distance healing magic on the swordsman. Even if he could heal the mage's neck wound, a long-distance heal like that was surely to take a while.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"You guy's probably know my name is Aishean; it's a courtesy to introduce yourselves."—of course, courtesy and manners usually went out the window in the middle of a fight. But some names couldn't hurt.

My opponent however, just looked at me for a moment, before giving me a name, "The name I go by, is Arthur."—Oh, now that is rich. I couldn't help but grin, hearing the name of King Arthur. In the games of my time, duplicate names are generally impossible—but this world doesn't care about that, and instead uses some other system.

Just as I was about to respond, my ears perked up, as I heard the loud sound of static. I smirked, as I turned myself around, and watched.

The Mage, for the last minute, had been gathering up what Aether she could, and built it up into a powerful lightning-bolt spell. I probably isn't as strong as a real bolt of lightning—but it wouldn't be good if it hit someone nonetheless. Worst of all, I could tell that it was a homing spell, which probably took the most of her time to set-up.

But—

"HAH!" The mage let out an excited shout as she thrust her staff forward, signalling the initiation of her spell! The bolt of lightning flew towards me at high speed, and running away would be pointless.

So, I raised my palm, and caught it.

I tried to scatter the discharge of the bolt using my wind magic, but it barely weakened the bolt as it hit my head on.

However—

"No effect!?" the archer and mage shouted in unison.

That wasn't quite accurate. It took down about a quarter of my health, so this would have killed me 5 years ago.

"There's quite the difference in our stats," I finally said. "If you had moved in on me back at the inn, when your assassin poisoned me, you might have given me a hard time. Fighting 6 people while caring not to harm pedestrians and at the same time restricting my arm's blood flow—that would have been a pain."

"But you're saying you still would have won?" Arthur asked, as he began to pull his sword from his sheath.

"That's right. "

"Are you done playing yet?" A voice from behind me asked.

"Ah, sorry Sophi," I said, looking back at the young oracle as she made her way here. "I wanted to see how I fared against... Outsiders."

"Just finish them already," she said boredly, "You said they would make this quick." She turned her gaze towards the mage who was closest to her. "I suggest you stop invoking your magic." As she said, the mage was preparing a binding magic—did she want to hold Sophi hostage?

The mage did hesitate for a moment, wondering how Sophi knew she was using magic, but a moment later, she activated her Earth magic anyways, which created a dome around Sophi, locking her in place! She has quite the arsenal of Elements, huh?

"There! Now tell us what we want or else!"

"She warned you," I said with a shrug, and turned back to the tank, Arthur. "Anyways, I guess I'll end this," I said, and began walking towards him.

Behind me, I could hear the mage preparing another spell to attack me from behind, but before she could get anything ready, the walls to her Earth dome began to crumble, as the Aether supporting them were sucked into Sophi.

"H-hey, how did you do that?!" The mage panicked, as she backed away, diverting her magic towards Sophi instead.

Sophinna gave a sigh, as she looked back at me. "I'm taking this one," She said stoically, and raised her hand. Just as the player mage fired a bolt of fire, dark magic tendrils shot out from Sophi's arm, swallowing the ball of fire, and then grabbing hold of the mage. She squealed in desperation, as the tendrils stabbed through her, and wrapped around her, was quickly sucking her body into them, before vanishing back into Sophi's hand.

I could "see" it all happen behind me, using my Aether Perception, and those tendrils were a manifestation of Dark Magic—a hidden magic of this world, whose base property is to greedily eat away at everything.

"You don't need to be giving away your trump card, you know?" I said, "These people won't really die."

"Let them see what they want," She shrugged.

The players on the other hand were in a state of shock. Not really horrified, but they were amazed that their mage was taken out in an instant.

"Come on, I'm your opponent here, you three," I said, bringing their attention back to me, as I approached Arthur.

As a flaming arrow made its way towards me, and pierced my wind-wall, I went ahead and caught it in the air. "If you'd like, I can take you out first," I said, looking over to the annoying archer, who was already notching another arrow, as she fired it at me.

I shot the arrow out of the air, and sighed. "Ok, you're on," I said, but just as I began my approach, the archer switched to her sword. As if that'll change much.

As I dashed into range, I saw the tank also running our way. I figured I'd finish the archer/swordswoman before handling him. I fired a wind blade at close range, but it was blocked with her sword—damn, the equipment these guys have are pretty sturdy.

As she moved to attack me in retaliation, I used that chance to get within her guard, "Your swing is too wide," I said, as I pressed my hands to her chest, and let loose a wind blade into her torso!

But... She survived? She was blown away, her chest piece was torn, but she only suffered a shallow wound. Damn, she was still able to fight as soon as she landed.

As I ducked my head, I managed to dodge another swing from Arthur, who figured he would attack while I was distracted, but he wasn't quick enough.

I figured I could put this guy out of the picture, so I leaped up, grabbed his head as I mounted his back, where he couldn't get me.

There, I focused a strong spell around my extended fingers, and thrust them down to the base of his neck, severing his head from his shoulders!

"Arthur!" The healer in back shouted.

Speaking of healer—I went ahead and rushed over to the downed swordsman from before, without anyone's interference, I figured I could kill him, but the other swordsman intercepted me. She tried to swing at me, but I merely caught her blade with my magic-enforced palms, and pushed back against her blade, causing a giant gust of air to repel her blade backwards with great force!

With her body now exposed, I thrust my hand forward as I slipped my hand under her armor, and let loose a powerful sound pulse into her body, producing various loud "pops".

As she fell onto back, she didn't quite get up. I tried to imitate a sudden high-pressure wave blast inside her body, and that normally would kill a person—but in this body, it causes a heavy stun, and a large amount of damage.

"Sleep tight," I said, as I grabbed her own sword, and plunged it into her chest.

Unlike people in this world, when a player dies, they slowly begin to disintegrate into light. Arthur, their tank, had already began to vanish. The swordswoman would be gone soon too. With that in mind, I also used a well aimed Wind Blade to finish off the swordsman who was injured earlier.

"That makes five," I said, as I began leisurely walking towards the healer. "So, I don't suppose you'll be nice enough to explain your goals, right?"

Normally, after seeing ones party be wiped out in front of them like that, the last and weakest member would be in a frantic state, pissing themselves.

Of course, to these guys it was only a game. Even if they could be surprised or shocked by what happens, it's not like threatening their lives means much.

Proof of this was how the healer defiantly refused to say a word, as he vigilantly looked between me and Sophi.

"Don't talk; that's fine. We have ways of making people talk, even if you're immortal," Sophi finally spoke up.

This, however, prompted something I wasn't quite expecting. The Healer, some sort of priest, pulled a large dagger out from under his robe, coated in some green fluid, and jammed it into his gut, as he fell to the ground.

"Ah, he committed suicide."—I said disappointed.

"It's fine. I still have their mage for answers."

"And I have their assassin," I said, as the unconscious assassin was pulled up from the garden by my plants, and set down on the ground.

"Oh, I didn't realize you kept him alive?"

"He was very talkative, so I figured he was useful."

"Well, I'll hold on to him for now. It's going to be a pain to explain this to the Head Priestess."

Sensing danger, I turned around towards the temple gate, and prepared to leave.

"Right, well, I'll be at work—"

"Oh no you don't!"

Before I could escape, black tendrils coiled themselves around me, and pulled me into the air.

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Author Notes:

Maybe this should have been part of the last chapter to make it twice as long?

So this was an amusing chapter to write, I think. Tad of a reveal with some of the power Sophi's also hiding. Thought it would be funny to have a holy priestess with Dark Magic. But then I realized I don't really have a taste for Dark Magic.

Honestly, "Dark Magic" always felt like something you add to a game for no other reason than romance, and I can't remember a time where it made sense for Dark Magic and Light Magic to be opposites. I've gotten into an argument about this with a friend who felt that "If there's Light Magic, there MUST be Dark/Shadow Magic", but it never made sense to me why "shadow magic" wasn't just a different way of using Light Magic? Just felt like a pointless trope that existed so that it could have opposites.

So I made Dark Magic into a menacing type of attack completely unrelated to Light or Shadows, that manifests as black matter/energy and sucks up and eats everything, instead of being some bizarre solid shadow that apparently is evil because reasons. On the other hand, Divine Magic is a force that gives in the form of light, so in this way Divine and Dark magic are opposites and counter-act each other.

Anyways, seems some people misinterpreted what I meant last chapter, about rewriting Volume 1 (ch 9 and below)

I WANT to rewrite them, and lengthen them for publishing, but I don't really have the skill to do it myself. Probably won't be doing that very soon. Only things I can imagine doing is adding quite a bit of fluff to the story, or add several new scenes and more exposition. Though I haven't even started, so what am I complaining about, right?

As always, suggestions and feedback are always appreciated and encouraged.