Maxwell
The Demon Lord Rezdona the Beautiful has returned to life! Mortals! Prepare your armies! Choose your side!
I shot up in my bed, breathing heavily. The notification blinked hauntingly in my vision. A crash came from the other room before Rowena burst into my room wearing just about nothing. She only had on her underwear and they weren’t exactly covering.
“Wow! Put something on!” I shouted quickly covering my eyes. I heard the door quickly shut before some more banging went up from her room. I did the same and got dressed before going out into the common room.
“What sort of idiot revives a demon lord!?” Rowena exclaimed as she burst from her room wearing proper clothes this time.
“I’m going to need some background information.” This game was based in a fantasy world, so I more or less expected something like this existed. If it was worthy of a world wide post, then I the demon lords must be extremely dangerous.
“I don’t know much myself. The demon lords were more of a footnote on the few places I looked up before I started playing myself. They were basically the opposite of the gods. Ultra powerful. That sort of thing.”
“So… should we be expecting the end of the world or what?”
She shook her head with a frown. “I really don’t know.”
I sighed and leaned back in my seat. “At least we were able to tell where the demon lord revived. It was far to the west. I think it was even on another continent.”
“Yeah. I had the same thought. We should have plenty of time to prepare for anything that might come our way.” The fact that we were even worried about this almost made me want to laugh. I knew this game attested to realism. Even national borders could be changed with enough work.
Finally, I shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to keep going as we have.”
Rowena yawned and nodded in agreement. “I’m going back to sleep.” I waved after her. It was still early in the morning or late in the night. I was tempted to do the same. I rubbed the sleepiness from my face then pulled up my menus. I might as well as do some work since I was already awake.
With the seven mana stones that we acquired yesterday, I had been able to build a few more of the specialized buildings before we retired for the night. The quarry and mine had already paid off. During the day, we’d gathered nearly a thousand units of each after you took in what I contributed. With the two buildings, we’d gathered that in just the ten hours that had passed since supper.
I hesitated on what to spend some of the resources on but when I checked the clock saw that I only had three hours to decided. With the implication that the demon lord had revived, manpower was going to be needed even more. We had a need to start forming a military to defend our territory.
With a click, the Immigration Gate was upgraded to level two. Just as a matter of interest, I checked the cost to go to level three. I nearly choked it was so expensive. Wood: 5,000 Stone: 7,500 Iron: 10,000 Mana Stone:100 Vix Crystal: 100. I slowly closed the screen since I was god knows how long away from upgrading it again.
I pulled up my territory map. I had been placing buildings where they were needed, but I hadn’t placed any roads yet. There were dozens of options to choose from starting with game trails going up all the way to some sort of magic based road. It was locked and greyed out. That didn’t stop the system from showing my how expensive the option was. It made the few buildings I’d built so far seem like drops in the ocean.
Still, the village needed roads. They increased the speed of anyone on them. It also allowed for cheaper movement of resources down in the future. We might be isolated for now, but I planned to have trade in the future. I settled on the stone paths and after checking my resource pile, I started laying out the city I hoped to achieve in the future.
Working on my designs for the planned city caused the time to fly by. It felt like a blink of an eye when I noticed the sun coming up through the windows. I closed all the screens and stood up. It was a little early, but the cook might have something I could snack on. I wasn’t disappointed when I reached the kitchen. Cooking meat and soup filled the air making my mouth water.
Freida bowed slightly when she noticed me before returning to her work. Even before I had reached the counter, she had already set out a bowl with what appeared to be bacon and soup. I thanked her and consumed the meal quickly. I was starving after staying up all night.
“As delicious as always,” I said handing Freida back the wooden cutlery.
“Thank you, my liege.” I wanted to ask how life in the village was so far, but I didn’t get the chance as more people started showing up. She was too busy for me to bother her, so I waved goodbye and teleported up to the Immigration Gate.
Walking into the cave, I had to pause in my steps. The Gate had been impressive before, but now it was even more so. The cave had been carved out by some sort of magic to allow the structure space to expand. The four obelisks were now six. With the magic circle covering several meters. I had a few minutes before the next group was supposed to arrive, so I walked up onto the platform and looked the intricate magic circle over.
At first, I was just curious. I figured it had to be advanced magic, but as I was studying it, I realized that I had seen many of the symbols before. In fact, I had seen them just a few minutes ago. I created the teleportation spell without a destination. The magic formed around my hand. Looking between the two magic circles, I was certain that the Immigration Gate used a higher-level teleportation spell.
That fact was obvious if you thought about it, but at the same time not so much. I was operating that it was simply a game device to allow people to join my community. That I could actually learn from the Gate had never crossed my mind. I canceled the teleportation spell then pulled it back up using the unfamiliar parts of the Gate spell.
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The magic construct wrapped around my hand then further up my arm until it reminded me of a sleeve. I was about to give it a destination when there was a moment of complete silence. The Immigration Gate activated and before I could cancel my spell, I felt the full-body pressure of teleportation as the cave vanished.
My senses returned to me as purple, and blue filled my vision. I was… floating in a space that appeared to be devoid of anything other than those two colors. The best I could liken it to, was being in the middle of a nebula. For now, it looked like I could survive here. At least, I was able to breath.
I recreated the teleport spell, but I found that my mana was zeroed out. I had two points to my name. Since I had been near full a second ago, that meant the spell had cost every ounce of power I had to my name. At least the energy was returning to me even in this strange place.
“Now then. The first thing that comes to mind is the void,” I remarked as I spun around looking for something, anything to focus on.
“Help.” I spun around as I thought I heard something. Several long moments went by, and I didn’t find anything new in the void. “Help.” I jerked toward the sound that was like a whisper in the wind. I couldn’t be sure, but I began to float in the direction I thought it came from. Checking my mana pool often, I saw that it was moving at a snail’s pace. Much slower than it normally would fill, I was certain of that.
The repeated call for help grew stronger as I made my way through the strange place. I didn’t even bother to question how I was able to move and just went with it. Some time later, it could have been minutes or hours, I finally found something different. A small island from the looks of it, floated in the void directly in front of me. I was certain the calls for help were coming from it.
It looked like a reserve pyramid. Or maybe, I was just approaching the bottom. The structure had black roots covering a large portion of its surface. Whatever the structure was, it looked old. Ancient even.
I paused in my approach. Now while I was all for an adventure, this was the void. I didn’t know too much about it but given the context that I have seen so far, there was a good chance whatever was on the island might try to kill me. What would happen to me if I died in here was a question I’d rather not have answered today. I scratched the back of my head as I racked my brains. The calls for help convinced me to at least check it out. I resumed my approach and soon landed on the island.
Since I didn’t fall off, the flat side must be the top. I looked around but there was really nothing to see. It was just a flat smooth stone surface that had the black roots covering it. Heaving a deep breath, I strode toward the center, I could see an indent that might be some stairs leading into the structure.
Standing at the top of the stairs, I stared into the black abyss in front of me. I half expected some sort of eldritch monster to attack me, but it was eerily quiet. Biting my lip, I descended into the darkness. I held out my hand and summoned a small flame over my palm for light, relieved that my magic did work here.
The stairs went straight down. There were no other passages or rooms. They let out into a large cavernous room that almost appeared to be a temple. Defaced sigils were all over the walls near me. I would be lying if I said my heart wasn’t beating faster than it even had to this point.
Gulping, I continued into the room. My tiny flame barely casting enough light to illuminate two meters in front of my face. As I made my way through the room, another light caught my attention. I froze at first, but when I saw it wasn’t moving, I decided I was still alone. I crept toward the light slower than I cared to admit.
When I was finally close enough to the light, I was both amazed and taken aback by what I found. A woman, though it was easy to tell she was anything but mortal, was strung up by black chains. It would be one thing if they were just attached to her via her wrists and ankles like one was normally held in a prison.
No, whoever did this had stabbed the chains through one of her eyes, her heart, and her stomach. Then there were chains and hooks that pierced her palms and feet. Above her head was what appeared to be a halo. It had been shattered into several pieces that rotated lazily.
Despite all that, she was still alive. Her slowly rising and falling chest indicated as much at least. I moved closer in awe of the spectacle. Despite the gruesome things done to her, there was a majesty, an undefeated pride that was contained in her features. She was beautiful as well.
White hair that seemed like moonlight was holding her. Pale blue skin that reminded me of the ocean at night. Her one eye was such a deep blue that I thought I would be sucked into it. She had focused on me as soon as I had entered the area of the light but had yet to say anything. Perhaps she couldn’t.
“Are you the one asking for help?” her eye briefly closed then reopened. The movement caused her other eye to ooze fresh blood with was purple. I looked the chains over. Something told me there was no way in hell that I could break those. “I’m not sure how I can be of assistance.”
She closed her eye again only this time I could tell it was in resignation. Even still, her body was resolute in that she wouldn’t give into defeat. I stared at her really wishing I could help her. Even if she was another demon lord, this just felt… cruel. While I contemplated, my mana finally recovered. I thought about leaving and then returning when I was stronger, but there was no way to know if my arrival in this plane could be reproduced. The void seemingly enjoyed chaos from what I could tell so far.
The thought of teleporting gave me an idea. While I was certain normal teleportation was likely to fail, I had copied the teleportation spell from the Immigration Gate. That thing appeared to ignore all sorts of rules and limitations. I walked up to the bound woman before I wrapped my arms as carefully as I could around her body. Not surprising, her eye shot open but see was bound so tightly that she couldn’t move a centimeter.
Concentrating, I began the teleportation spell and pictured the ledge I liked to use as my lookout. The entire structure around us started to shake as it didn’t want to let the woman go. I ignored that and continued to work the spell. The full body pressure once again wrapped around me before the collapsing temple vanished.
This teleportation was much more violent than any I had experience so far. The morning light slammed into me as we reappeared near the top of the mountain. The woman still in my arms. My location was a bit off and we fell to the ground as pre usually. Thankfully, I was ready for it and managed to catch us before we fell over or worse off the ledge.
I carefully lowered the woman to the ground. Her now free wounds leaked some blood onto my hands and chest but they sealed in seconds once they were free of the chains. The woman sighed in relief and looked at me with her now recovered eye. “Thank you.” That was all she said before… something in the air grew dense. Her body condensed into purple light before blasting into the sky.
Voasis, Goddess of the Void has been freed! As you are directly responsible, the ability Holy Void Aura has been granted to you. The consequences of this event will resound around the world. Your current territory has been converted to Divine Ground.
Voasis, Goddess of the Void has been freed! Mortals! Prepare your armies! Choose your side!
I had a front row seat to watch as a wave of purple energy washed over my territory. She was a goddess! Holy fricking shit. I had embraced a goddess. That was some serious bragging rights if I said so myself. Now I just needed to wait for my mana to recover then I could go get my new people working in the village.
Warning! You have made a mortal enemy! The Dungeon core Aurora Nightingale has sworn death onto you.
What the?! I reread the message several times but had no idea what was going on. Dungeon core? We hadn’t even seen a dungeon let alone set foot into one. I groaned at this new development. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take up too much of my time.