There was no signal for the start of the match other than the soft blink of the screen being erased from existence. Both teams wasted no time as various large ripples of energy rebounded through the arena.
During their match replays, Drake and his team had explained some of their strengths and weaknesses regarding their ability sets. They were very trusting of Seth so he knew most of the names and effects of their abilities to boot. This allowed him to understand some of the energy signatures that were activated upon the start of the match.
The team was engulfed in a blast of white flames as Drake activated Reign of Valor, an ability that gave him a large increase in Might as well as a smaller increase to his allies for a short duration. Licht also had an active buff ability that bestowed significantly enhanced defense upon the team at the same time as Drake.
“I pray to the indomitable God of Wyrms. May you grant but a fraction of this impenetrable shield to those most unworthy of thine embrace.”
A green coat of ethereal scales appeared around the four of them as a result of Licht’s Dragon God’s Embrace. The other team was unaffected by the display though. Despite being outnumbered, the other team was still comprised of tier threes, so in reality, Seth and the trio were most likely at a disadvantage. This became more apparent as the paladin activated some sort of bolster ability that caused him to grow several feet while he charged toward the opposing squad. Regardless of the walking tank heading their way, Drake erupted into a sprint, ready to meet the paladin head on.
As Licht and Blair began to support him, Seth turned his attention away from the main fight to find the hooded fighter. He was surprised to find that the fighter was not moving at all, so instead of wasting any more time, Seth started to conjure a series of illusions to distract the mage. Although it was his first time using them on people, Seth wasn’t stupid enough not to have a strategy in mind. Just throwing a bunch of random objects at the spellcaster wasn’t going to work.
This was the time that all those hours of YouTube deep diving and reddit horror story reading were about to show their worth.
Seth weaved a few preliminary illusions for preparation before he began the main act. As Drake and the paladin continued their clash at the center of the arena, the spellcaster seemed to be charging up an ability of their own. Using True Sight, he watched as the energy finally reached the point of activation, to which he instantly enacted his own ability. A pillar of black needles erupted from the ground beneath the spellcaster, all aimed directly toward their hands and face.
Seth knew his illusion was successful as he watched them abandon the previous storm of energy to throw up a desperate shield of prismatic crystal. It seemed his gambit had worked better than he thought, as the paladin fighting Drake dropped back for a split second, seemingly expecting support from the mage. Drake didn’t allow his retreat to go unpunished, and without whatever spell the paladin had been expecting, there was nothing to stop his searing white scimitars from biting into the behemoth’s golden plating. Before allowing himself to become distracted by the small victory, Seth doubled his focus over his illusions, showing the mage images of sparks flying and needles falling to the ground after hitting the shield. Shortly after, a resounding boom echoed throughout the arena, signaling Blair’s contribution to the match.
The match continued like this for a short while, with Seth interrupting three more large spells from the spellcaster using different types of illusions. As the match dragged on, Seth couldn’t help but feel more and more uneased. Despite him stopping multiple spells, and the three on one brawl set upon on the paladin, it still didn’t seem like they were winning. Despite the disadvantage, the golden warrior had not faltered at all. Even Blair’s powerful blasts only staggered the paladin for a short time. Even more worrisome was the fact that the hooded fighter still hadn’t moved from their position behind the mage.
Although most of his focus was on doing the job Drake gave him, Seth was no slouch at multitasking. This skill gained from his previous life was the only thing that allowed him to discover the true danger of the opposing team. As another one of Blair’s spells erupted and the following shockwave kicked up billows of sand, Seth grunted in panic when the sand went straight through the unmoving figure.
“Shit! Watch out! The hooded guy isn’t actually there!”
He wasn’t sure if they could hear him over the clamor of the fight, but it looked like it wouldn’t have mattered if they did. He looked at Licht for the first time in the entirety of the match, only to find him on the ground, clutching at his chest. Shattered pieces of grey scales were strewn around him and the hooded fighter that was previously across the arena was standing above his body. Seth cast a glance back over to the hooded fighter’s double that was still standing alone. Without wasting another moment, the real one raised a boot and viciously stomped down on Licht’s neck, causing him to burst into a swarm of moths.
Relief that Licht was taken before being killed gave him a brief respite before the assassin disappeared yet again. The next second, they were back by the mage, whispering something to them. Seth knew he was fucked as the assassin waved their hand through the spinning sword illusion that was currently hounding the mage. He quickly ditched the illusion with a grimace before bounding toward the mage himself. Without Licht, Seth didn’t know how much longer Drake could hold his own. Even with two supporters, he still couldn’t get the upper hand, meaning that with one of them gone, he was bound to lose eventually.
Seth needed to take the mage out as fast as possible so he could help the other two. After exposing the illusions to the mage, the assassin had yet again disappeared. Seth used this to his advantage as he dashed forward using his superhuman constitution. No matter how fast he might have gotten, the mage was still all the way across the arena, so there was no way he was going to reach them before they got a spell off. As they began activating another ability, Seth cursed himself for the umpteenth time because of his lack of ranged abilities. Using his most reliable trick, he hurled Anar like he had done a hundred times before.
He continued his sprint forward, hoping that it would interrupt the spellcaster one last time. Unfortunately, the odds were not in his favor as the assassin appeared in a flash and deflected his glaive with a short sword. The assassin was not a strength-based fighter though, so the projectile’s force wasn’t totally redirected, and the edge of Anar ended up grazing their shoulder. Shit! In his desperation, Seth used the majority of Fear Itself to conjure up an eldritch horror directly in the mage’s face. But this time, they didn’t allow the illusion to stop them.
A hurricane of sharp crystals tore his illusion to shreds and continued on to where Blair was standing. She raised a hand to shield herself from the spell, only to be stabbed in the back by the hooded assassin.
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“Dammit!” She grunted in pain.
Her body seemed to cease up right after the attack, allowing the crystal storm to begin ripping through her flesh unimpeded. Blair lasted for only a brief second before she too dissolved into moths. To make matters worse, the mage already had another spell ready, and Seth was still too far away to stop them. He watched the energy coalesce at their hand, and he shortly found himself face to face with a prismatic crystal the size of a car. He used his enhanced constitution and reflexes to dart out of the way, but just as he was about to continue his dash toward the mage, Seth’s instincts kicked in, and he slashed behind himself. Anar met nothing but air, yet his slash was successful as the assassin fighter appeared from nowhere to dodge his attack.
This guy is seriously pissing me off. It’ll be impossible to get to that mage if this guy can teleport around like that.
Regardless if the assassin could actually teleport, or was just incredibly fast with a high tiered stealth skill, Seth had no chance of beating them. Speed was one of Seth’s strong suits, but the assassin was a tier three just like the rest. The tyranny of rank was truly nothing to scoff at, that’s why even Drake’s whole trio couldn’t beat the paladin. The fight was all but over at this point, as Drake was fervently defending himself to no avail against the hulking golden warrior, and Seth was outnumbered himself.
Screw it.
A huge billow of smoke erupted from Seth, covering his immediate surroundings. Seth swiftly moved the smoke along with himself, getting closer and closer to the mage that he could still spot using True Sight. He could only move the smoke along with himself at a jogging pace, so his progress toward the mage was a lot slower than before. Even with that hindrance, Seth was much safer as the smoke made it harder for the mage to pin him down.
After a handful of ineffective attacks, the mage opted to instead shift focus to Drake, leaving the duty of taking out Seth to the assassin. It wasn’t a bad decision by any means, as the assassin technically should’ve had the advantage in a smoke cloud. Seth’s intuition was found correct as he slashed outward into the smoke and heard a grunt of pain. Unfortunately for the other team, Seth had an optical ability that allowed him to see energy signatures, meaning that when the assassin entered his smoke cloud, Seth would instantly be able to sense him.
Since the hooded one was so good at hiding their own energy, if they walked into the smoke, it would look like a large empty pocket in a fog of purple. This single fact spelled the end for the assassin, as they were now wounded and caught in the spider’s web. Seth wouldn’t allow the assassin to escape, so he sacrificed a portion of the smokescreen to conjure a clone of himself and placed it in the path of the retreating pocket.
He sensed the activation of an ability inside the smoke and heard the assassin cuss in surprise. Seth hungrily leapt forward and finished the job, burying Anar deep in the back of their chest. The pocket disappeared and a swarm of moths fled out of the smoke shortly after. A victorious grin ripped across his face before he finally dismissed the smoke and continued his initial goal of taking care of the mage.
Upon emergence out of the smoke, Seth was greeted with a brick sized crystal that slammed into his stomach with the force of a truck.
His pursuit was cut short as he fell to his knees before coughing up his lunch. Another impact caught him in the side of the head, making his skull rattle and vision darken. He got one last look of a gilded boot coming toward him before he was encompassed by a familiar, but uncomfortable cold feeling followed by a million wings fluttering against his skin. He found himself back in the main hall a moment later, with his face full of notification screens. He stumbled for a moment now that his feet were back under him, but then promptly faceplanted onto the cold tile. The next second, he was out cold.
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Their eyes fluttered for a moment before opening to a wide window.
The scene of endless black space did nothing to calm Shilung’s gem heart. Pushing itself upright, Shilung moved over to the small control panel of the escape cruiser.
It had been three days since Origin’s headquarters had been destroyed.
Shilung could only assume that all of their subsidiary branches followed shortly after. An organization with roots spanning thousands of dimensions wide, obliterated in only a few minutes. It was incomprehensible, not even an Umbra could achieve such a feat alone. Not to mention, Origin’s headquarters was located in a fabricated pocket dimension of their own making. It shouldn’t have even been possible for anyone to know where it was. Even those in Origin were given soul brands that rendered them unable to release the information to anyone.
Shilung hummed out a sigh as they rubbed the lifeless and brittle grey crater that continued to slowly eat away at the integrity of their gem body. It was the only proof that the attack had happened at all.
Shilung’s body was created from the mother gem, an experiment of Origin’s that was successful in creating organisms immune to all forms of virus, sickness, and cell decay. The disease was something not of this realm. The idea of their own mortality was something Shilung had never needed to spare a thought to before, but for some reason, Shilung wasn’t thinking about it’s impending death at all.
Instead, their mind could only replay the horrific event that caused their life's work to dissolve into ash.
Before the catastrophe began, Shilung had been looking into a Class S restricted file on behalf of the Commander. He hadn’t given Shilung all the details, but they knew enough to put the pieces together and were able to recognize the immense danger it contained. Right as they were about to send off the information back to the Commander, an eerie silence had engulfed the entire room. It was as if Null himself had stolen all of the warmth in the compound.
That’s when they started to appear.
Abominations of life oozed into existence like a plague. Beings so sinister it seemed as if the air itself couldn’t stand being in their presence began to form right in front of Shilung. Despite being a tier seven, Shilung’s entire existence screamed at itself to run.
In their escape, one of the things had barely grazed Shilung’s side, causing the festering wound that now robbed them of their vitality.
Barely a moment after they were finally able to get to a spare vessel, they activated the jump engine and escaped through the large gate it had created. What followed was some sort of space distortion caused by the destruction of the pocket dimension’s core. It threw the escape cruiser through a random tear in space, causing immense damage to the vessel and stranding Shilung in an unknown dimension. Despite being in an entirely different plane of existence than the things, Shilung couldn’t get them out of it’s head.
Only one word seemed fit to describe the horrible creatures that came from the other realm: Demons.
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Seth woke up with a quiet groan.
“Geez, I thought I was done getting knocked out.” He grumbled.
“It’s pretty hard to stay conscious after getting kicked in the head that many times.”
Seth looked up to find Blair standing over him wearing a casual sweater and skirt. “Although I’m surprised it only took that paladin five tries with that thick skull of yours.”
He looked around for a moment before realizing that he was lying on the bed in a vaguely similar apartment to his own. He rubbed his aching head before sitting up to use one of the lower classed recovery potions in his cache.
“This your place?”
She gave him her trademark flat look before heading over to a tan couch sitting across the room. “Licht and my brother went to talk with Regurd, he was the big guy in golden armor. Unfortunately for me, I got stuck babysitting.”
Seth shrugged off the insult as his migraine melted away. He glanced around for a second before pointing at the door he assumed was the bathroom.
“Well, if they aren’t going to be back for a little while, mind if I take a shower?”
Blair shrugged with disinterest before crossing her legs over one another, causing her rather short skirt to ruffle against her reddish pink skin. Seth didn’t even spare the movement a glance before escaping into the bathroom. Although gorgeous, Blair was a little too young for Seth’s tastes. Not to mention, she didn’t seem to like him at all either. Seth cast the thoughts aside as he undressed and began warming up the water.
“Maybe she’s just a tsundere.”