Lerhadar was silently cursing.  His Hell abilities were all downgraded to Demon abilities after his restriction by Feyrath.  Now was , was , and so on.  The actual loss was where he was able to use it in conjunction with the monolith to create a nearly unending horde of lesser demons.

But Lerhadar had lived for thousands upon thousands of years, even with the restrictions he could find a way.  was now and he would turn this disadvantage into an advantage.  Jude wasn’t the only one that could manipulate and change skills, Lerhadar could do the same as well. 

First, he began with an innate ability that all demons have: .  This power made it possible to charge up a skill and make it stronger than the original skill was meant to be.  The downside was that it added a long cool down before the skill could be used again.  The more one overcharged a skill, the longer the cooldown.  This cooldown was typically a day to a year.  Any less than a day and it wouldn’t be worth overcharging the skill, any more than a year could kill the caster.  Lerhadar was overcharging the skill .

To get the most out of , Lerhadar overcharged it to the max.  But doing so would take a long time, which was why he was glad that Jude wasn’t attacking right away.  The longer the cast time, the more potent the result would be. 

The second thing he was doing, was tweaking the skill so that it would do something a little more surprising.  This surprise would give him an advantage during the fight that was about to happen.  But the long cast time and changing the spell was also taking all his concentration.  He had no time to observe what Jude or the others were doing.

***

Jude had stopped his tests because he finally felt the power that was emanating out of the .

“Everyone, form up and get ready for battle!” he shouted.

Heroic Retribution got up and quickly filed into their positions.  By now, they worked together like a well-oiled machine. 

The energy build-up reached its critical point in which he yelled, “!”

The power rushed out of the and into the three that were standing near him.  Instantly they started to change.  These were the three demons who had yet to step through the monolith gate while it still worked.  But now they were undergoing a similar change that had affected the other lesser demons, albeit at a much faster pace. 

The metamorphosis was incredibly quick as the screamed in pain as their bodies changed.  Each one of them grew taller, their feet became hooves, and their horns became much larger.  Their skin turned gray as ash when they finally reached the end.  The were now .

One was troublesome enough, but three plus the was going to be a problem.

“We will take the adds!”  A voice came from down the hill.  “Jude you take care of that , and we will take care of the rest!”

Now that the spawns from Allur Forest were fully engaged with the extra force of demons, Morgan and three raids came up the hill to offer Jude support in his battle with the .  Jude noticed that they were all of a lower level.  Most were at level 10.  But they also had superior numbers than he had.

Jude still remembered Morgan as he had left a good impression on him from the start.  This bald monk still gave off an air of danger to Jude even after all his advancements.  But this feeling was also tempered by an air of righteousness and goodness that Morgan also exuded.  He was more than glad to have Morgan on his side.

“Morgan!”  Jude said with a smile on his face, “Your timing is perfect.  If we can defeat them here the rest will fall into place.”

“Ha ha, you remembered my name?  I am honored!”  Morgan replied as he and his troops rush in, ready to take to battle.

Jude was a little embarrassed, he could see everyone’s nameplates, so there wasn’t any reason why he wouldn’t know Morgan’s name.  But he wouldn’t let it show and instead shouted the charge.

A yell went up from the humans as they charged forward to the demons that stood by the monolith.  The separated, each engaging one of the massive raids that Morgan brought.  This caused the to curse. Apparently, he hadn’t wanted them to separate.  Jude, however, found it quite convenient.

The battle quickly became four different hemispheres, and Jude could no longer pay attention to the others.  The was now his primary concern.

Jude shouted, “Warriors engage!  Rogues get into position!  Healers and Wizards stand by.” Then in a quieter voice, he said, “Ellie do your thing and Anthea reserve your strength and don’t show him all you can do at the start.”

The seethed as he stared at Jude, “You pathetic little runts are no match for me.  I am the great Lerhadar.  If you wish to live, submit and become my demons.  Then you will no longer be runts, but the rulers over mankind.”

“Heroic Retribution,” Jude replied, “show this scum your response!  Show him how us runts have become kings and how this devil will be defeated!  Show him our force, show him our heart, show him our courage, show him who we really are!”

The Rogues vanished from sight as the Warriors bellowed their charge.  Even the Wizards couldn’t hold back as they threw out and the healers, not to be let down, threw stones to show their might.

Lerhadar wasn’t happy with their response, but he wasn’t surprised either.  With a wave of his hand and a stamp of his foot, a wave of frost appeared on the ground and on those rushing in.  This magic broke the stealth of the Rogues and disrupted the Warriors charge.  But it did little to the unexpected hammer that slammed into his face.

Ellie broke out with a grin as her hammer reappeared in her hand, then she started chanting the skill.

The charge was broken, but the morale was still high as they knew that their Ellie was backing them up and nothing ever seemed to stop her.  Those near Lerhadar broke the ice that bound them and closed in for the melee.

Jude kept the Wizards limited to not daring to engage in a costly spell in case this also had a teleportation skill like Guudnash did.  But because he couldn’t be the core of the spell like before, he sent out orders to his Wizards to converge on Cairfray’s when they did attack.

were nothing but mosquito bites to the great Lerhadar, so he ignored them for the time being.  Before the Warriors and Rogues could make it to him and just as they were breaking out of the ice he created, Lerhadar unleashed his . 

Balls of black and red flame swirled around Lerhadar before they shot out every direction.  Then they started multiplying as they blasted outward.  Six flames became twelve and twelve became twenty-four.  The black and red flames hit the front line but didn’t cause a lot of damage initially.  Instead, the flames corroded at both the Health pool and the gear that they wore.

Jude decided to try a new application of his , instead of forming a mental blade, he formed a ball of water.  This water was a mental image created by both his feel and logic imbued with the power of and was not visible by ordinary means.  He shot this ball at one of the Healers who had been unfortunately hit by the corrosive flame.

The relays of the were chaotic in nature and were always moving and vibrating.  When Jude’s hit the chaotic mess, it drowned out the fluctuations and calmed the vibrations.  When this happened, the spell could no longer support itself as its nature was disrupted.  The healer breathed out a sigh of relief seeing that he was ok.

Now that he knew it worked, Jude immediately created a massive mental wave of that washed over the front line of Heroic Retribution.  Formulating such a great spell cost him quite a bit of magic, but it was worth it.  Not only did the faces of his people look relieved, but the shock on Lerhadar’s face was priceless.

***

Lerhadar could barely sense the power of magic sweep over the battlefield much less tell what Jude had done.   This action surprised him, for he knew the details of all the skills and spells that existed here in this .  The only class that could do something like that was Saint, the Elite class of Priest, that is the advanced class of Healer.  Longdale only had two priests, one who he had assassinated before he became and the other he had his minions target and killed at the beginning of this war.

But then Lerhadar looked at the stone witch.  Perhaps she was the cause of this.  She had clearly changed to a race of unknown origens, so that was the best possibility.  Besides, she had always been a thorn his side and if she had acted like a typical stone witch his transference to becoming the would have happened much sooner.  But because she resisted him so much, he had been delayed.  Thinking about it now, if it wasn’t for the stone witch, this day against Jude wouldn’t have happened.  And Feyrath may not have come.

It was all the cosh’ing stone witches fault!

Now that she had changed, surely she was the one who extinguished his .  In this battle, in his reduced state, his was necessary for him to have.  The damage it would cause over time and over a vast area was a need to quickly expend the mana and resources of his enemies.  Without it, this battle would be increasingly more challenging. 

But the real victory in this fight would be when the ate away the gear of Heroic Retribution.  If their weapons and armor were gone, they could easily be swept aside!

His anger rose as he swatted away two warriors with the intent to charge toward the impertinent b*#ch.  But as he moved forward, he felt another slight fluctuation in magic right in front of him.  With his defense and the disarray of battle he would usually ignore such a thing, but after seeing what it had done to his , he was far more cautious.

The ground waved momentarily as if it was a liquid rather than a solid.  But instead of returning to a solid state, it burst forth as a deadly spike made of hardened earth.  Lerhadar was already on guard and was able to dodge out of the way, but the spear of earth still grazed his arm.  To his surprise, the fluctuations inside of the earthen spear were just as chaotic as his own !  These fluctuations ripped through his defensive shadow armor leaving a bloody wound.

The frenzied magic inside the earthen spear quickly settled down as it became no more dangerous than any other obstacle in the battle.  Lerhadar’s rage was now tempered with new discernment.  But he still had to press forward. He had to root out this problem before it became more serious.

He had to kill the Stone witch.

***

Jude watched as Lerhadar pushed forward.  He had just unleashed his to create the earthen spear.  He was pleasantly surprised at the damage that it caused even if it was just a graze.  But he was also a little worried.  Using this way was very unpredictable.  That earthen spike could have gone just about any direction, and he was just lucky that hit headed for the .  It was a shame that he hadn’t had more time to practice with it so in the meantime he would have to be careful how he used it.  To fully employ it, tactics would need to be deployed.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Krinn,” Jude said, “Keep taunting, but don’t block his path.  Rogues, this is your chance to get in some easy strikes.  Cairfray start your whenever you are ready!”

Jude saw that Lerhadar’s eyes were locked onto Anthea, so he told her with a smirk on his face, “Back up out of the group and lead him in circles around us.”

Jude then separated himself from Anthea, he no longer had or , and he felt rather defenseless without them.  And just because Anthea was kiting the boss, it didn’t mean that he wouldn’t hit anyone that got too close.

***

Lerhadar saw the stone witch slip away, and it only made him angrier.  Did he not understand such simple tactics?  Did these people think that he was some random mob that could be kited around and readily killed?  He would make them believe that he had fallen for their ruse.  When he made is move, it would draw in the stone witch.  Then he would deal a lethal attack.

The stone witch was pulling him away from the Raid, and when he was directly in between the stone witch and Jude he unleashed his strike!  He launched one of his corrosive at Jude.  With Lerhadar in the way, the stone witch wouldn’t be able to negate his flame like she did before.

But to his amazement, he felt that odd sense of magic once again.  Like a blade, it cut the ball of fire in half; this caused it to lose stability in its chaos and explode.  He stared at Jude, and now his anger was raised yet again.  He had been tricked by a human?!  The humiliation!

“Anthea, do it now!” Jude shouted.

The stone witch’s long willow like hair covered in flower blossoms exploded in light.  Each flower bloomed revealing dozens of small fairies that shined in a golden radiance.  At the same time roots started to grow up his legs and each step she took closer to him cause the vines and roots to grow faster and thicker.

The rogues were now coming in and executing while the Wizards were just starting to converge their at the lead of Cairfray.  The fairies that sprouted from the stone witch now closed in on him and started unleashing all kinds of magic.

The rage finally reached a critical point inside of him; this caused a maddening smile to spread across his face.  Now he could use the innate technique: .

Lerhadar unleashed his anger into the overcharge of his .  An explosion of cold blasted across the landscape.  The Faries simply disintegrated upon impact while the Rogues turned into a wall of ice.  The rest of Heroic Retribution was covered in a thick layer of ice that held them fast like cold steel.  Even the plants that had grown on him had frozen solid.  And with a cracking sound, they splintered into small pieces as he walked out of his previous confinement.

“Ha ha ha,” Lerhadar laughed slowly. “I have to admit; it wasn’t a bad plan.  Leading me out and tricking me with your strange magic.  But now that you are frozen, you won’t be able to cast any more magic.  You will watch as I slowly kill all your friends and then the stone witch that you saved.

“I guess you saved her with a node in Allur Forest right?  Maybe I should just corrupt the node now that you’ve ruined my monolith.  That way you can watch as you lose your stone witch yet again! Ha ha!  Perhaps this time she will turn corrupt as well. 

“That would be a sweet picture, wouldn’t it?  The one you saved slowly corrupted.  Or even slowly corrupted and die.  The possibilities are endless, and there is only one way to find out!”

***

The ice covering Jude was frigid and felt like needles stabbing him all over.  Somehow he could barely breath out his nose, but the vice-like ice tightly shut his mouth.  He could see well enough and was aware that there was no one less off than he was.  The ones up close to Lerhadar had it the worse as they formed a near wall of ice.

Lerhadar prattled on as Jude attempted to find a way out of this situation.  His showed him that the ice that covered everyone was much different than what he expected.  Instead of ice magic relays, it was simply a mass of energy that radiated hate.  Looking for another possibility, he focused his gaze on the ground underneath the frost only to find the relays themselves to be frozen solid.

His current tactic with would not work with frozen relays.  When he cut a relay, the power inside would wildly erupt then quickly reform relays in the pattern of that eruption.  That was how the earth spikes came to be.  But with them frozen, at most, they would reform.  There was no frenzied energy to burst forth.

“… Let these be the first,” Lerhadar said catching Jude’s attention once more.

Lerhadar wound his arm up slowly as the muscles therein bulged out twice their normal size.  Then he swung at the frozen wall of people shattering them like glass.

Pain wrenched Jude’s heart.  Each of these people were here because of him.  To see them murdered right in front of his eyes was hard to take.  He hadn’t developed close relationships with his people, but he was their leader and in a sense their teacher as well.  He had guided each and every person of Heroic Retribution.  He had given them advice both by his words and through their Modicuit.

The more he thought about it, the more he recognized that these people were closer to him than he realized.  There were so few people in his last universe that he was close too, yet here he already had and an entire company of people that were closer to him than the vast majority of people from his previous life.  And now these people, his people were dying.

He tried to yell out, but all that could be heard was a muffled scream.

Lerhadar laughed again, “Your human hearts are so easily broken.  But then again, there is no heaven or hell here.  No place for their souls to go after they die. 

“Do you know what that means?” Lerhadar asked.  “That means that they are gone forever!

“Ha ha ha ha!”

Anguish built up in as hot tears ran down his face.  But this sadness quickly turned to wrath.  He needed to find a way.  A way to overcome this situation.

Lerhadar walked calmly over to one of the Warriors and placed his hand on the Warriors head.  Lerhadar was three meters tall, and his hand effortlessly encompassed the whole head of the Warrior.  A muffled scream could be heard as the hand squeezed until crunching could be heard which ended in the head popping like overripe fruit. 

Then the demon licked his fingers like he had eaten the most delicious meal.

Zeon, Rian, Belkin, Butch, and Namath were the names of those who died.  The gory scene engraved these names into Jude’s heart for all eternity.

Next Lerhadar walked over to Krinn.  Jude and Krinn had a rough start, but that was mostly due to his sister’s crude personality.  Krinn ended up being more of a peace maker.  And besides Krinn’s lust, he found the man to be enjoyable company with solid ideas.  He was a hard worker that Jude admired.  He always looked out for his sister, even if she didn’t need his help.  

Jude knew that Krinn didn’t even like being a tank or even the Warrior class.  His real ambition was to set up a small inn, get married and raise kids.  The only reason why he continued in the mercenary business was for his sister.  She loved the lifestyle but didn’t know Krinn’s true thoughts on the matter.  His love for her was the real thing.

But now Lerhadar’s hand was coming down onto Krinn’s head.  The precious moments he had with Krinn and Wen flashed through Jude's mind.  Even with the impending doom, Krinn was resolute and didn’t even make a sound.

Jude, however, was going mad.  He wasn’t even able to move a half an inch.  If only he could use directly on Lerhadar!  But sadly, any target that had a soul naturally resisted external skills that would affect the relays that made them up.  This was a natural law of this universe that Jude innately understood because of the Spell Analyst class.

However, if Jude couldn’t use his , then he would just have to do something crazy.  The last crazy thing he did brought a giant sword down from the sky, which could have destroyed the town and burned out his Modicuit.

Oh, the Modicuit… That’s an interesting idea.

Armed with this new idea, Jude quickly started weaving his skills together using .  He took as the base of what he wanted to do, then connected to give him range.  After that, he then did the craziest part of all by linking in ; this would help him force his way into Lerhadar’s Modicuit.

***

Lerhadar’s hand was clenched around a Warriors' head.  He noticed that Jude's reaction was even more about this one, so he decided to relish in the moment.  He would slowly crush this one’s skull and perhaps pick out the brains and eat them in front of Jude.

But as this thought ran through his head, a wave of dizziness hit him.  Then a searing pain!  He closed his eyes and searched his consciousness for the reason behind this disturbance.

He quickly located the section of his body that contained his soul.  Inside was a circuit board like interface, and that interface was being invaded!  Lerhadar was stunned.  In no reality of the digital universe should there be a skill that can access another’s circuitry interface, yet here he was being invaded by another soul.

Lerhadar was able to quickly identify the culprit.  There was nothing that he could do to this circuitry.  It was in an area that he could not manipulate.  If he could, he wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of making his body the way he did!  The circuitry was the quintessential item required to exist in the digital universe.  Yet here Jude was cutting off his lifeline to this universe!

Letting go of the Warrior, he rushed towards Jude’s physical body.

***

The soul that invaded Lerhadar’s Modicuit was Jude and Jude was wreaking havoc.  The infusion of allowed Jude to destroy any circuitry he pumped virtual mana into, it was like the virtual mana was the disruption.

But Jude didn’t go about randomly destroying Lerhadar’s Modicuit.  Killing off Lerhadar’s skills wouldn’t necessarily get them out of the ice, nor would it stop Lerhadar from killing them one by one.  If Jude could identify exactly which part of the Modicuit was, then he might be able to get them out of the ice.  But he didn’t have time for that.  Instead, he sent small amounts of disruption mana into each of the inputs for all the skills.  It wouldn’t destroy the skills, but it would stop Lerhadar from using them.  More importantly, it would disconnect his soul from the Modicuit.

Jude was gambling on this outcome.  If he could disconnect the resistance effect that a soul had over its relays, then Jude could use to directly attack Lerhadar.

Perhaps this way of fighting was despicable.  But against a who was killing his friends one by one right in front of him, Jude thought it acceptable.

However, he didn’t have much time.  Lerhadar had already noticed.  But Jude was quick.  He was entering mana into the inputs like one would swipe their hand across the keys of a piano.  The tune of destruction was very pleasant to Jude’s ears.

Unfortunately, the pleasant tune was interrupted by a giant fist slamming into his chest.  The thick ice did little to dampen the damage caused to Jude.  His chest was partially caved in as he was rocketed out of the ice.  Jude flew ten meters before landing on the ground and then sliding further.

He had destroyed most of the inputs, but there were still more left.  However, the blow that he received interrupted his spell, and he was no longer inside Lerhadar’s Modicuit.

Jude weakly propped himself up and coughed up blood.  That single blow had nearly killed him.  His HP was in the tens, and any casual strike would end his life.  Several icons popped up displaying more critical wounds and broken bones.  He was in bad shape.

Lerhadar stomped towards Jude, “You pesky little runt!  Don’t worry; you won’t die just yet.  First, I will torture you until you tell me how you did that.  Then I will flay the skin of all your friends.  I will keep them alive long enough to cook their meat and feed it to them.   Only after they have utterly despaired will I let them die.  And they will know that it was all BECAUSE OF YOU!”

Jude prepared his last gambit.  The harder to cut relays required more mana.  He was at half mana, but with all his equipment and class levels it still meant that he had 700 mp.  He also knew that Lerhadar could sense , but so far he had only been able to react after the disruption started.  Lerhadar would also expect Jude to use some sort of incantation and hand movements to cast the spell.  However, Spell Analyst skills didn’t require any of that.  This would be the last surprise for Lerhadar.

Jude formed his mental blade; the blade was the size of Lerhadar himself.  Then Jude dumped his entire mana pool into that single blade.

Lerhadar’s eye twitched.  Unfortunately, he already could feel the magic power that Jude was about to launch at him.  The magic was formless to normal perception, so he wouldn’t know how the magic was coming at him.  But Jude decided to do one last ploy to ensure that this magic would work.

He lifted his hand and shouted out, “

Lerhadar was already backing up and attempting to dodge, but Jude still managed to hit him from his shoulder down to his groin.  It wasn’t quite the bisect that he wanted, but a hit was a hit.

The first thing Jude felt when his magic hit Lerhadar was the sheer amount of resistance that his soul was providing.  It felt like the soul hadn’t been cut off at all! 

Jude was starting to panic, but so was Lerhadar.  The others looked on and could only see the two at a standstill.  Blood was slowly dripping from Jude’s mouth while the was stiff as a statue.  An invisible battle was being played out between the two that the others could not see.

Jude’s mana was completely invested into this last desperate strike.  Lerhadar was fiercely resisting with all his might as well.  The mana inside the mental blade was slowly dissipating, yet Jude had no results against the relays that made up Lerhadar.  Lerhadar was panicked as he wasn’t expending mana for this resistance, but health.  His health was already down by half, and this invisible magic was draining it at a rapid pace. 

Jude continued to push, and Lerhadar continued to resist, yet one was bound to lose out in the end.

“Ha ha ha,” Lerhadar did a quick laugh, “you lose!  Your magic is getting weaker, and I still have plenty of health.”

“Your losing health?!” Jude responded genuinely surprised.

Lerhadar was confused, “You mean this spell doesn’t target health?”

“No,” Jude grew serious and redoubled his efforts.

“Then what does it do?” Lerhadar asked, now with a terrified voice.

“It cuts relays, the very makeup of your magic and body,” Jude said coldly.

Lerhadar wished he never asked!  This change in his mentality lowered his defenses.  It was only a very little, but it was enough.  He could feel the blade closing in on him!

Jude was watching through and could see that the blade was finally getting close enough to begin contacting the relays that made up Lerhadar.

He continued to press and finally he cut his first relay on Lerhadar.  The screamed in pain, yet it didn’t erupt as it had in the past.  This was because the blade was still there, blocking the eruption from happening.  But once one was cut, the resistance Lerhadar offered weakened significantly.

A chain reaction quickly occurred where the more relays he cut, the less resistance he encountered and soon the mental blade of disruption sliced all the way through the .  Now the disruption occurred, the frenzied magic erupted out of Lerhadar at a rapid pace.  But instead of reforming relays as the ground did, the energy simply erupted in an explosion.

The two halves of Lerhadar separated and flew apart.  Once the magic drained out of his body, it became an empty husk, withered and dry.

The also dissipated with Lerhadar’s death, and everyone got the notification.

Not just in Longdale.  Everyone in the got the notification of the death by the hands of Jude and Heroic Retribution!

The other that had been elevated by Lerhadar were once again turned into regular .  Morgan’s raids mopped them up quickly after that.

Nellie and the rest of the healers quickly began working on Jude.  But the class of Healer could only do so much for wounds at Jude’s level.  However, his life was no longer in danger.

Cheers were going up for the victory that was had and mourning ensued for those who had fallen.