His name was Galadrius Atraxus, 37th of his name. He was King of Paradise, the Warrior King of the Only Kingdom Under the Sun. He was a husband and a father. He was a hero to his people. He was the Savior from the 7th Horde, and the God-Killer. Of the Hundred Heroes of the realm, he was regarded as one of the strongest.
His name was Galadrius Atraxus, and he was having a bad day.
The warrior king sat on his gilded throne, staring down from his castle’s great hall at the ruined mess that was his former capital. Smoke poured into the sky, blanketing the city in a smog of death that darkened the twin suns of his homeworld. The ground shook as explosions sounded off, his enemies roaring with victory as they tore apart his pride and joy.
He sighed and pushed off of his armrests, flexing powerful fingers and dismissing the System screen in his vision that informed him of the completion of his regeneration. He donned two gauntlets made from God-Dragon skin and starblood, then put up the cowl on his cloak. It magically stayed in place and he activated the cloak with a thought, causing it to spread out into two flaming wings. He pulled his ringling blade, a hooked dagger attached to a long rope with a ring at the end, from his belt and twirled it around in the air as he leapt from the ruined throne room in an effort to rejoin the fight.
Demons crumbled like so much ash before his strikes, none coming close to his body as the living death that was his skill whirled about him. A red-skinned demon, close to ten feet tall, darted in as his blade passed it in rotation. It moved close to a dozen meters in an instant, but Galadrius was already gone, the blade left to its own devices as he stepped through space to appear behind and above it, a gauntleted hand closing around its skull and crushing it like a melon.
The warrior king dropped back down to the ground nimbly, raising a hand for the blade to return to as it weaved a tornado of blood and gore around him. The rotation slowed and he hung it back to his belt as he checked that the area was clear. He moved a hundred meters over to repeat the pattern, sending his blade ahead to punch holes in the wings of a massive fiend wielding a sword of flame and lightning. It carved a building in half, squashing a few of his citizens, and cackled. Galadrius made no move to call out in rage or go faster, he simply continued to move forward at his steady, swift pace. The time for heroics was over. Now, there could only be victory. The fiend hissed in pain as the king carved out swaths of membrane from its wings and pointed the greatsword at him.
“Ruined King, issss that you? Sssstill a thorn in our ssssside, yessss? Roll over and die, mortal. Ragnarok has won. Your forces are decimated, and only a few of you warriorssss remain. What doesssss thisss resssissstanssse earn you?” It asked.
“My world is doomed, yes. But I may yet win this battle and end his conquest.” Galadrius answered succinctly as he moved closer. The balor laughed in mockery and swung the sword, launching waves of flame and lightning at the approaching king.
Galadrius sighed and swiped a hand through the flame to disperse the attack, then snatched the lightning bolt from the air. He twirled his body, using the momentum and his ki to redirect the electricity back at the fiend that he battled. It screeched and darted to the side, narrowly avoiding the damage from its own attack as it exploded.
“Die, worm!” It screeched, raising a hand to conjure a circle of flame around Galadrius’ feet. He took a deep breath, circulating his ki as he moved his body in a circle to generate a whirlwind around him. The air moved upwards, creating a tornado of flame around him as he moved forward undeterred. His ring flashed as he conjured more weapons from his living armory: a slender sword called a flyssa, and a heavy sword with rings woven through the backside of the blade for extra weight.
He dragged the heavy blade across the ground, catching sparks on it as the rings jangled. The blade thrummed as he danced the wind around him. He activated his feat [Dance of the Phoenix] and flew through the air on wings of flame, the tornado warping around him as he crashed into the enemy Balor. The tornado dissipated, but Galadrius wasn’t done. He slashed forward with the ringed blade, a sonic pulse ringing through the air as the sword stopped ringing. The balor’s singed skin dropped as ash as the sonic boom sent the fiend crashing through several walls.
With one step, Galadrius appeared beside the Balor as it pushed up to one knee, a wing hanging limp as the other stretched out in an attempt to flee. He stabbed the flyssa down into its shoulder, pinning it to the ground.
“Where is Ragnarok, fiend? Answer, and I will dispatch you. Refuse, and I will carve you a new hell right here, then leave you dismembered in a pile of acid to combat your regeneration. As far as I’m aware, your liege has a propensity to leave these worlds once they’re conquered. How does an eternity of pain sound?” Galadrius growled, and the creature yowled with fear and pain beneath him.
“The king will kill you, mortal! He fightsssss elssssssewhere, near the ocean!” The balor yelled, and Galadrius punched down wordlessly, exploding its head.
He summoned his ki, stepping a dozen meters with each footfall as he moved towards the ocean. In minutes, he had crossed half the city and could hear the sounds of pitched combat. The air grew hot and cold, changing by the instant as spells and skills flew through the atmosphere. He saw him then: a bare-skinned man wearing nothing at all. He grinned as he waded through the water, deflecting attacks with his hands or just weathering them.
A gorgeous woman with pale skin and a bald head moved her hands in strange patterns, conjuring spears of ice that shattered against Ragnarok’s skin. She threw cold winds against him, slowing him down a bit as she froze the air around him. She surrounded his feet with frost so that it took extra effort for him to walk, but his smile didn’t falter.
A man wearing a bird mask and black leather and cloth armor that exuded a stench of disease muttered in a strange language as pale green magic circles appeared in front of him, launching putrid streams of energy at Ragnarok’s form. The conqueror’s skin withered and sloughed off of his body as the energy touched him, only to regenerate just as fast. Those that encountered the bird-faced being simply called him the Carrion Lord.
A dwarven man engaged Ragnarok in single combat, hammering into his flesh with a large golden hammer. The blow knocked him back several meters, but the smile never faded. Ragnarok coughed and chuckled.
“Yes! Come at me, friends, give me a challenge! This is what you’ve been preparing for.” He roared as he advanced back out of the ocean. The dwarf, Magnus, leapt forward again with a mighty blow, but Ragnarok blurred to the side and punched the stout warrior in the side to launch him a dozen meters or more. Galadrius knelt down and began his [Dance of the Falling Stars], still quite a distance from the battlefield. His [Eye of the Heavens] allowed him to keep a close eye on the unfolding combat, though.
Sariel, a great winged man who’d accepted a class change from the system a few years ago, fell upon the naked man with a legendary blade, the [Sword that Guarded the Garden]. Ragnarok’s eyes widened and he vanished, reappearing a few feet over.
“That’s a pretty blade you’ve got there, celestial,” He growled, ignoring many of the other threats as fire and ice pounded into his back in order to focus on this newcomer. Sariel snarled and struck again, his golden eyes flashing with rage. Ragnarok jumped forward, taking the slash across his chest to grapple the winged man with powerful limbs. The two tumbled to the ground and the other heroes used this opportunity to pile on. Magnus chanted in the dwarven language to shackle the conqueror in stone, and Aurora froze him in a prison of ice. Sariel roared in anger as Ragnarok shattered his wrist, but the flaming sword didn’t fall from his grasp.
Instead, it hovered in the ground, rotating in circles to slash at the conquering entity the heroes attacked. Ragnarok grimaced as his hand was severed from his arm, the heat from the sword instantly cauterizing the wound and preventing it from regenerating properly. Ragnarok laughed, a loud, booming sound as they made headway against him.
“Ha! Yes, it’s been some time since a world managed to take one of my limbs!” He roared, flexing to break from Sariel’s other grasp and slamming the stump of his wrist into the celestial’s face, stunning him. Ragnarok kicked out viciously, shattering the bindings around his legs and launching himself into a haphazard roll a dozen meters away to get space. The mages in the group switched targets immediately, no longer afraid of damaging their allies.
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Beside Ragnarok, skeletal hands sprouted from the beach to grip his limbs as he recovered. A shadowy form rode on a tidal wave of bone and rotting flesh. A horde of zombies prepared the necromancer, Lazarus, into battle.
“Ragnarok, you have been a fool. The fodder you have wasted in the city has been nothing more than fuel for my power. This world is dead. Luckily, the dead is my domain,” The cloaked figure said, his voice crawling across the skin of those present like so many insects. Hulking monstrosities made of bone and muscle rushed towards Ragnarok, hammering into him.
Ragnarok roared with glee even as he disappeared under the sea of zombies. Lazarus raised another hand and summoned a dozen wraiths, each of which locking onto Ragnarok with their negative energy fields. The champions heard meaty thwacks and roars as the undead monsters ripped into the interdimensional conqueror.
A minute passed with those capable of providing support doing so, earthen spikes shooting up into Ragnarok’s location as diseases and other effects that undead were immune to layered over top of the area. All the while, Galadrius continued his [Dance of the Falling Stars], increasing his speed as the stone cracked around him.
Finally, there was a great explosion as hundreds of zombies were blown to bits, falling clear of the area. Ragnarok stood at the epicenter of the explosion, blood dripping down his forehead. His hair was matted with blood and sheared off at points where he’d been injured, and one eye was missing completely. Cuts and bruises adorned his body, not healing due to the negative energy centered directly on him. He wasn’t smiling anymore.
“I’ll admit, this is a good fight. It’s been quite a few dimensions since a group really did this much damage. I’m not even having much fun anymore… though the thrill is still running quite high. It’s time to end this. Some of you are vessels, yes? Sariel? Lazarus? I will permit the rest of you to be vessels as well.” He swiped at an unseen System display.
“All those alive have earned that right. Now, I will end this.” Ragnarok raised a hand, but then vanished as an explosion appeared behind his location. Galadrius stood in the crater, his fist punching straight through Ragnarok’s chest.
The bare-skinned man coughed up blood and scowled.
“The little ruined king is back to play?” He choked out, spitting blood into the warrior monk’s eyes. He punched into Galadrius’ chest, knocking the younger man back and removing his fist from Ragnarok’s chest. The hole wasn’t healing due to the wraiths, and Ragnarok grimaced with pain as the rest of the champions resumed their assault now that the shock had worn off.
Galadrius didn’t bother wiping the blood off of his face, his ki flooding the area to provide plenty of spatial awareness. Ragnarok launched a flurry of blows, but Galadrius dodged and parried each one, his movements aided by haste magic, his own ki, and the [Dance of The Falling Stars] at stage 5 speeding up his momentum and ki strength.
Even with all of his active buffs, Ragnarok was making headway. Galadrius’ gauntlets were chipping, and his armor had numerous dents in it. His wings had long since faded away, the magic that powered them running out. For minutes, the two groups battled. Ragnarok made several attempts to go after other members of the group, but Galadrius and Sariel were able to beat him back before he could cause too much damage.
The minutes stretched into an hour as Ragnarok slowly regenerated and the champions kept their own healing active. Galadrius switched between weapons whenever Ragnarok seemed to get a sense for his attack patterns, and it worked. He sheared off an arm using his falcata and got a good stab in with a spear, but he lost his own left hand when he overextended and Ragnarok redirected Sariel’s sword into his arm.
With one hand gone, it was infinitely harder to stop Ragnarok from going after the other champions. The conqueror’s skin was pale and sickly, and he kicked Galadrius in the chest, finally making an opening to appear in front of the Carrion Lord, who began to fold into a bird-like form to escape, but Ragnarok slammed his fist into the front of the bird-mask, smashing his brain into paste before the effect could complete. The corpse fell to the sand, black blood spilling out onto the ground. Galadrius used the unwanted reprieve to summon a troll token, a small stick made from troll and phoenix essence, from his inventory. He snapped it in half, and his hand quickly regenerated.
Ragnarok used his momentum to move over and attack Aurora, who scowled and turned to ice as his fist smashed into her. She appeared in a puff of frozen air behind him.
“I’m sorry, friends, if you are caught in this,” She said as the air dropped into the sub-zero temperature and a sudden blizzard flared to life over the beach. A prison of ice and snow sprung up around the two combatants, armor made of ice encroaching over Aurora’s skin as a blue sword appeared in her hand.
“Ragnarok, as surely as you are the king of your realm, I am the queen of the sky above it. I am the North Wind, and the Snow that Caps the Mountain. There is no height you can reach that I can not follow, for the higher you go, the colder it gets. Your reign ends here. Weep, if you will, for there are no more worlds for you to conquer.” She spoke, slashing forward with a barrage of razor sharp icicles that peppered Ragnarok’s skin with wounds. He spat out a glob of blood before moving forward, dodging her physical attack and slamming a fist into her gut. She retched and was flung back, but he was already moving.
An elementalist, Vega, moved forward to throw flames in an attempt to aid, but it was so cold that the fireballs sputtered out. Several other champions rushed to her aid, including Galadrius, but it was too late. Even as Ragnarok was thrown back from Aurora, she died as her organs were pulverized.
A dragon-mage named Wynn shifted into her scaled form and summoned her flame breath to banish the cold. The atmosphere heated up as her flames pushed through the frigid air to envelope Ragnarok. When it faded, his body was covered in the wrinkled skin of burns, and his head was bald. He shook with rage.
“You… you’re really going to make me use my true form?” He chuckled darkly. “That’s not very funny anymore. Were I a lesser man, I’d retreat and heal now… But I am Ragnarok the Ender, and I will prevail. The thrill of the conquest and the feeling that your blood coating this world will give me will more than make up for this failing of mine.” His body slumped over, unused, and the champions rushed to destroy it before whatever second phase Ragnarok had alluded to could begin.
Galadrius recognized the problem and shouted it to the other champions. “Astral projection!” He yelled before placing a finger to his own forehead, causing his body to slump to the ground as Ragnarok’s had. Inside the Astral Plane, Galadrius saw the form of Ragnarok standing tall, healing quickly, and growing in size. Soon, the figure was five meters tall and had 18 arms in total. Galadrius flew forward, but the figure swatted him aside and raised a single finger: Wait.
Galadrius watched, enraged, as the figure seemed to solidify. He knew without a doubt that Ragnarok’s true form was materializing in the Material Plane. He returned to his body and continued the assault against their foe, but the battle was different even now. Ragnarok used magic and energy attacks with impunity, launching waves of flame and pestilence against the champions. He summoned a scythe and swiped at a squad of a half dozen champions, and they fell like grain beneath his blade. Ragnarok raised the scythe to swipe again, but Galadrius wrapped his ringling blade around the haft to stop its descent from behind.
A spear of light and flame pierced Ragnarok as Vega renewed his attack, but Ragnarok raised a hand and a coffin of stone trapped Vega underground, releasing his mutilated corpse a moment later. Galadrius snarled, his mask of nonchalance shattered as their victory was snatched from them at the moment of triumph. His ring flashed as he summoned legendary weapon after legendary weapon, using every consumable he’d hoarded and item he’d looted. Tornadoes, flame, ice, lightning, and raw energy shattered against Ragnarok’s summoned shields and raw form. Champions fell one after the other until only Galadrius remained, beaten and broken.
Galadrius’ dance was up to the 9th stage now, and his body was a blur as he moved at speeds impossible to comprehend. As 18 fists pummeled his body, he dodged and countered each and every single one. His gauntlets had long since shattered and fallen from his fists, but his palms were harder than any metal. He slammed his life force against Ragnarok’s form, his ki attacks damaging the opponent but not enough.
Always the case, isn’t it? It’s good, but it’s not enough, he thought to himself as another weapon broke against Ragnarok’s magic. He summoned another consumable troll token, snapping it in half to regenerate his hand as Ragnarok chopped it off. Their battle picked up in momentum as Galadrius fought valiantly. But even as he punched holes in Ragnarok, as he chopped off limbs and disrupted his foe’s very life force, he knew that it was lost. His energy was waning as he exhausted his vitality for more ki, and Ragnarok still seemed to have plenty.
He grew closer to his limit, and finally he made a mistake. He moved at supersonic speed to counter Ragnarok’s punch, but it was a feint. A second hand darted in to snatch at Galadrius’ wrist, and he was caught. Ragnarok lifted him into the air to prevent an instant escape, then summoned two spectral blades to pierce Galadrius’ now bare chest. Ragnarok summoned a small sphere around Galadrius’ ring, then dropped him to the ground.
Galadrius gasped on the ground, circulating his ki around his body in a desperate attempt to manually activate his [Godlike Regeneration] feat before the cooldown expired. Ragnarok stabbed down into the ground, bisecting Galadrius’ body. The conquering god rolled the king’s body over so that he was looking up into the sky.
“Rest now, brave warrior. You fought valiantly. I have no doubt that one day, it will be you and your vessel that slay me. We will do battle again, I promise you.”
His name was Galadrius Atraxus, 37th of his name. He was King of Paradise, the Warrior King of the Only Kingdom Under the Sun. He was a husband and a father. He was a hero to his people. He was the Savior from the 7th Horde, and the God-Killer. Of the Hundred Heroes of the realm, he was regarded as one of the strongest.
His name was Galadrius Atraxus, and he was dead.