I froze in place as Melkior spoke. If he was truly the individual that served as the basis for the Devil of the various Abrahamic religions, that meant the Coalition of Light had spent a significant amount of resources warning humanity of this one individual. From the perspective of the Coalition of Light, Melkior must have been the most evil person in history.
The other two Humans present reacted in two very different ways. Aiko looked confused, and her eyes darted between Melkior and Selim. Certainly, she had heard of Satan. Every culture on Earth had some understanding of God’s adversary, the source of all evil. Aiko’s muted response spoke of the minimal focus her culture put on Satan. Unlike Selim and I, Aiko was not raised on stories of the Serpent in the Garden or the attempted corruption of Christ.
Compared to the rest of us, Selim had by far the strongest reaction to Melkior’s utterance. He began shouting something in Arabic, and I didn’t need to speak the language to know the words were abusive and vulgar. The only word I understood from Selim’s tirade was, “Al-shaitan! Al-shaitan!”
An amused smile appeared on Melkior’s face as he listened to the abuse. He could probably understand what Selim was saying due to his translator.
“There’s always at least one,” Melkior said ominously. “As [Lords of the Greater Dungeons], you and I are equals, Twelfth, so I shall allow your insult to go unpunished just this once.”
Melkior cleared his throat before continuing, and the translator caused the cough to warble like an audio file that had been overlaid over itself.
“To put this into simple terms that any literate Human should be able to understand, we are all on the same side now. Naturally, I will need an assurance that you will not betray me or the Archons. I offer each of you a gift. Accept it or die.”
[YOU ARE BEING TARGETED BY THE SPELL: GREATER BRAND]
[DO YOU CONSENT TO THE SPELL?]
YOU ARE BEING TARGETED BY THE SPELL: GREATER BRAND
DO YOU CONSENT TO THE SPELL?
I couldn’t help but laugh quietly at the wording of the notification. Melkior had a funny definition of the word “consent.” One of the first things I learned in Contract Law was that a contract was considered void if one signed it under duress. Of course, I highly doubted that Satan abided by American Common Law. The threat was unnecessary in my case, since I was looking to work with the Conquering Horde anyway. I pressed the [Accept] button, and another pop up appeared.
[ARE YOU SURE?]
[IF ANY AGENTS OF THE COALITION OF LIGHT REALIZE THAT YOU BEAR THE GREATER BRAND, THEY WILL BE OBLIGATED TO KILL YOU ON SIGHT]
ARE YOU SURE?
IF ANY AGENTS OF THE COALITION OF LIGHT REALIZE THAT YOU BEAR THE GREATER BRAND, THEY WILL BE OBLIGATED TO KILL YOU ON SIGHT
“Friggin’ UI,” I muttered angrily as I pushed down on the [Accept] button again. The warning was unnecessary since the presence of Epsilon in my eye already put me in such a precarious position.
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The moment my finger pressed the button once again, a terrible pain filled my entire body all at once. The pain was much worse than the pain I experienced when Epsilon burrowed into my skull the day before. It was as if every single one of my cells was being rewritten all at once.
I fell onto my knees and immediately began vomiting violently upon the floor. Almost automatically, I began tearing at my chest where the pain was the greatest. I tore open my dress shirt, causing most of the buttons to fly off. With each passing second, the pain grew worse, and it felt like my brain was being rebuilt at the cellular level. I tore my undershirt in half, revealing a pure black burn mark that had appeared on my chest right over my sternum.
Just as I felt that the pain was more than I could bear, and my hand began reaching for the Esotech Pistol, the pain stopped. I spent several seconds breathing heavily to stop the ache in my lungs and the drumming heartbeat in my ears.
Once the pain was gone, I realized something surprising. I felt stronger, much stronger. It was as if the pain had rebuilt me into an entirely new creature that was significantly stronger and much smarter. I checked my [Menu], and the changes to my stats astounded me.
Name: Vinzadir
Class: Eldritch Alchemist
Level: 6
MDC: 20+78/78
Body: 24
Fortitude: 26
Power: 23
Speed: 24
Mind: 29
Reason: 30
Perception: 29
Memory: 30
Name Vinzadir Class Eldritch Alchemist Level 6 MDC 20+78/78 Body 24 Mind 29
[ALL OF YOUR STATS HAVE BEEN INCREASED BY 10]
Needless to say, +10 to all stats was a significant power-up. The average person at level 1 had a ten in most stats. It was as if the power of another person had been added to my own.
My body was changed significantly, but I felt the changes in my mind much more acutely. I felt like everything around me had slowed significantly, and I had to adjust my perception to understand what the people around me were saying. In the dark corners of my mind, I began making connections without any conscious thought. Concepts in math and science that had never previously made sense to me clicked in an instant.
Half-remembered lessons spiraled in my mind. Disparate thoughts connected to one another and built upward like a ladder to heaven. Quantum mechanics and special relativity suddenly made sense to me, and I felt like an idiot for not understanding earlier.
This spiraling ladder of knowledge continued building. I could visualize folded spacetime. I understood how everything connected from the largest star to the smallest subatomic particle. I could see the biological processes occurring within my own cells and atoms with astounding clarity.
In an instant, I understood the [Truth] of the many mysteries that I faced in this new world. I didn’t need Melkior to explain it to me. All the evidence I needed was already at my fingertips, and I was just left to wonder how I hadn’t realized before that moment.
Looming over all of these other realizations was one terrible thought. As I was swept into the nature of the universe, I saw the hand of the artist. In one terrifying moment, I realized with absolute certainty that God was real.
[YOU HAVE DISCOVERED THE TRUTH]
YOU HAVE DISCOVERED THE TRUTH
Once my breathing was controlled enough that I could enunciate properly, I spoke.
“I think I know why you’re fighting the Coalition of Light, Melkior. You’re simply carrying out God’s will.”