On a small house on the cliffside of a large mountain two men were sitting at a table, “So preparations are almost finished then?” Crow asked the cloaked man in front of him.
“Of course they are, it’s been nearly 7 years coming but the quest is ready to be complete” the man replied seemingly happy, although hard to truly tell due to the hood covering his face. The man was known to few as Ghost, and wasn’t known by anything to everyone else. 7 years ago the god of passing time, Constordo, gave Ghost a divine quest to subjugate the demons on another world Constordo had control over. If this was a normal quest, or even a normal divine quest then Ghost would’ve been able to finish it in just a few days, but unfortunately the strongest member of the group would have his power sealed during the duration of the quest, and so it required him to find teammates that could complete the quest for him. Of course there was another option, of finding someone stronger than Ghost to join him, but that was impossible. No one was stronger than Ghost in this world, or the next.
“So will you be off to find the last person now?” Crow asked another question towards Ghost.
“Yes, while I’m gone the others will be arriving please keep the company until I return” Ghost answered before teleporting away before a reply could be heard.
In a deep ocean far away from the meeting place of Crow and Ghost a man stood on trial in a giant courtroom underwater. He was huge, was over 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide. He was a behemoth of a man. He was cuffed by reinforced steel chains that wrapped all around his body to prevent his escape. “By the power invested in me by the goddess of the ocean, do you admit to your crimes?” a man with a fish’s tail and a man’s body loudly yelled across the room. He was Tritan the King of Mermaids.
The man on trial didn’t answer in words and instead spit, or tried to spit, on the floor. Although the spittle just floated upwards the sentiment was still there. The king’s face grew red as he started speaking louder “Well fine for your crimes against the people of Unatla you will be sentenced to death!”
The two guards on either side raised their giant axes and sliced through the water to drop their axes on the man’s giant neck. However before the axes touched skin they suddenly disintegrated into dust. The guards were shocked and quickly looked around the room to find out what happened as did everyone else in the courtroom. What they saw was a man leaning against the door of the building looking extremely relaxed. He wore a long cloak with a hood that covered his entire face, in his hand was a single dagger. The man was naturally Ghost, although the ones in the courtroom could not know this. He let go of the dagger in his hand and it immediately duplicated into a 2 then 4, then 8, and kept multiplying until it had reached well over a 100. The daggers floated in the water perfectly pointed towards the far end of the courtroom. Immediately the king gave his order to attack, “Kill that intruder now, how dare he interrupt this sacred ritual”
As he yelled the guards responded by raising their weapons and charging towards the cloaked figure. Ghost, unbothered, simply snapped his fingers and the daggers went flying around the courtroom. Each dagger found a target and cut their head off their neck, in an extremely anticlimactic scene only two people were left in the court, the intruder and the prisoner. The now singular dagger was back into the man’s hand for only a second before he flung it. This time no extra daggers appeared as it swiftly headed towards the prisoner. The man in chains who had been watching the scene this entire time was extremely shocked, he hadn’t even tried to escape during the chaos or tried to say anything. All he could do now was watch the dagger fly towards him. However he didn’t die, instead he felt the chains break away from his skin and float away. He looked at his now free hands and waved them around for a few moments. It was then that Ghost finally spoke, “Would you like to repay me for this?” his tone of voice filled with indifference.
“How in the world would you need my help?” The large man boomingly laughed. He didn’t seem scared at all after watching the horrific scene unfold in front of him. Ghost had to give him props for that, most would faint after watching the brutal decapitations of over a hundred people in a few seconds.
“Come with me” Ghost replied before grabbing the giant’s hand and teleporting away back to Crow.
When Ghost reappeared at the cabin there were 4 new faces, thus creating a small group of 7 people. When Ghost saw this he smiled underneath the cloak, finally I’ll finish this annoying quest, Ghost thought to himself. He led the man he had brought here to the table and sat him down. Fortunately the wooden chairs were reinforced with protection magic so the table didn’t break when the giant of a man sat down. After sitting down himself, Ghost spoke towards the 6 other people at the table, “I suppose introductions should be made so that we can work more effectively, I’ll start.” Ghost cleared his breath before somewhat awkwardly and stiffly spoke as if speaking from a script “I’m known as Ghost and am often described as a powerful hermit, I spent the last 7 years bringing you all together in order to complete the divine quest handed to me by Constordo.” To the other members at the table this wasn’t new information, with the exception of the ex-prisoner “What the hell are you talking about, divine quest? Aren’t those so dangerous even veteran warriors don’t have a chance at? And you are only bringing 7 people? Are you trying to just lead us to our death?” the giant bellowed.
Suddenly another person’s voice could be heard, it was a beautiful lady with short blonde hair, “and who the hell are you, huh? I’ve never heard of someone powerful that looks like you? If you're scared, why did you even come?” The blonde-haired lady answered the man’s questions with questions of her own.
Before the giant could answer back another man spoke up, “I’m Crow, also called the free king, world’s protector and hero’s blade, among many other epithets.” The sudden introduction caused the two to stop arguing, in that silence another voice popped up.
“I’m Eitr, the world’s greatest alchemist” the new voice came from a man with dark green hair with yellow vertically slanted eyes like a snake, he had a tall and lanky stature and he obviously didn’t do much physical exercise. However no one would underestimate him after he stated his name. The name Eitr was well known across the entire world, not only was he the greatest alchemist in over a thousand years but he had a monopoly on the potion market with his company Yggdrasil, which reportedly owns over 85% of all alchemists worldwide.
The girl who had yelled earlier decided it was her turn to speak “I’m Lilith the demon king's sister” Similarly to Eitr’s introduction it was short but extremely powerful. Although Lilith isn’t well known anymore due to her hiding for over 100 years, her previous battle records spoke for themself, 100% domination in every battle she was in. A terrifying statistic. She alone made all of humankind come together in order to try and defeat her, however that battle never came as she mysteriously disappeared and never was seen again. Until today that is.
The giant finally spoke again “Torrent.” As if to one up the previous powerful introductions Torrent spoke only his name as if to try and scare the members at the table. Unfortunately for him no one showed any reaction except Eitr who had a look of confusion on his face. Seeing this Torrent cleared his throat and resumed speaking as if he hadn’t stopped “I’m known as the terror underneath the sea, my skin is impervious to damage, my strength is unparalleled, and my speed unmatched.” Now rather than impress by saying almost nothing he seemed to try and impress by saying too much.
“You are the weakest person here in both strength and speed, although your skin is actually extremely tough” Ghost said matter of factly. And although it looked as if Torrent wanted to refute Ghost, the scene he had previously experienced came to his mind and he decided that staying silent would be in his best interest.
“Among my kind I am called Aurem, although the mortals of your world would call me the Ancient Dragon.” Next was a man with long blonde hair and golden eyes, his skin was tan and seemed to glitter even though there wasn't much light inside the cabin. Aurem was the oldest living dragon, and also the most powerful, he alone would be able to beat everyone in this cabin together, with the exception of Ghost of course.
With only one person remaining everyone looked towards the end of the table where the 7th person sat. She looked to be about 70 with wrinkled skin, a mixture of gray, red and brown hair and dark brown eyes. “Ah,” Ghost said suddenly, “I’ll handle this one. She is Autumn, the third priestess of Constordo, her healing prowess is unmatched across priestesses. And in order to gain her powers she has given up the gift of speaking and communication. She’ll be our guide to the other world.” As if she was showing proof of what Ghost said, Autumn raised her hands and mana started to vibrate uncontrollably in the air as it began to warp around itself. Suddenly in front of the table a portal appeared, on the other side of the portal was a desolate landscape with no life to be found. Torrent audibly gulped “Do we really have to go in there?” he asked but didn’t receive a reply. Instead everyone else at the table stood up and got ready to receive Ghost’s orders, and with seemingly no other option Torrent stood up as well.
“Eitr and Autumn will protect me, remember I’m powerless during the quest so I’ll be putting my life in your hands.” Ghost didn’t like this part of the plan. As would be expected of someone that only 7 people know of, he didn't like people knowing of him. And if it wasn’t for the quest he would’ve never revealed himself to people like Eitr and Torrent. One being someone who was sly, smart and ruthless enough to create a monopoly and one who was an idiot who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. But in order to complete the quest he had to. “Aurem, you'll be in charge of defeating the demon king. While he’s doing that Torrent will be bait for the demons while Crow and Lilith pick them off. Make sure that the demon’s aren’t able to bother Aurem, does everyone understand?” Everyone except two people gave a quick nod, one was Autumn who wasn’t able to communicate while the other was Torrent, “Wait why the fuck am I the bait? I haven’t even agreed to help and yet I’ll be the center of the demon’s attention, what the hell is that about?” Torrent was extremely angry, he was ready to die at the hands of the Mermaid King before suddenly being saved, and now he was being told to throw his life away again.
“Didn’t you say that your skin was impervious?” Ghost asked “where is that confidence now?”
Torrent didn’t reply back after that which Ghost took as a sign of compliance, “alright let’s get started.” Ghost turned his body towards the priestess who clapped her hands causing the portal to move towards the group throwing them all through the portal.
On the other side of the portal everyone was getting ready to go into battle. Ghost felt all his power left his body. He felt as if someone had just torn off all of his clothes in public. He hated this feeling but beared with it and nodded towards his dragon companion. Aurem snapped and teleported to a nearby mountain, in the distance they could see a towering castle that seemed to stretch on forever. “I’ll be going first” Aurem spoke towards the group before flying away.
After he left, Ghost looked to Crow and pointed towards Torrent. Crow gave a short nod before heading towards Torrent and picking him up, “huh, wait- what the fuc-” Torrent’s words suddenly cut off as he began to scream after being thrown towards the castle by Crow. Although the castle was no short distance, Crow's strength was legendary and he had thrown Torrent so far that he looked like a speck of dust as he flew further and further. But suddenly the speck formerly known as Torrent became much much larger and instead of crashing through a part of the castle relatively unnoticeably. His body became so large that it crushed the entirety of the west side of the castle. “What the-” Crow exclaimed, shocked. “I really wondered why in the world you’d bring someone like him along, but I think I understand now.”
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“Torrent’s inherent ability allows him to grow in size proportionally to the amount of enemies and the amount of danger towards him.” Ghost said to the remaining members of the group. “That coupled with his truly thick skin allows him to become the best bait possible.”
Lilith who hadn’t spoke in quite a while spoke up “Come on Mr. King it’s our time to shine” She said removing a whip from her belt as she got ready to pounce off the mountain “Last one there loses” she said laughing as she shot away at a speed not less than Torrent.
“I’ll see you afterwards” Crow said as he also launched himself off the mountain following Lilith.
The three remaining members watched the two fly off, “does she not feel anything about killing her own kind?” Eitr asked Ghost, confused. He had been wondering this since Lilith made her introduction as he knew of the quest’s details before Ghost revealed it.
Ghost didn’t answer for a second and just sat down on the floor leaning back. He took out a large pillow from his storage ring and used it to prop him up so he could watch the demon castle. “Do humans not fight against each other all the time?” Ghost asked back. Eitr didn’t know how to reply and decided to just stay silent as he pulled a potion from his own storage ring and poured it on a good sized rock, immediately the rock carved itself into a nice chair that even seemed to somehow have cushions on it. Eitr sat down on the newly formed chair and watched the demon castle with Ghost. Lastly was Autumn who stayed standing watching from behind Eitr and Ghost.
The Demon castle was currently a mess, in the sky two beings were causing the very air to warp around them. And on the west side of the castle was a gigantic man who no matter how hard the poor demons tried couldn’t even leave a single mark on. Furthermore the demons were noticing that their numbers were very quickly dropping, and they couldn’t even worry about the cause of that problem due to the previous two. Although they had confidence in their king to be victorious in the sky, the state of the castle afterwards was almost certainly going to be the worst case scenario. Every time the gigantic man took a step the ground quaked and destruction of a part of the castle would occur. Demons would die trapped under debris or impaled by falling rocks.
“Kill this monster at all costs” One demon general yelled, “His skin may be tough, but their mus-” his orders were cut off by a whip constricting his neck tiny spikes along the whip impaled deep into his skin causing immense pain. The demon died a few seconds later. This scene was happening all over the castle. Demon generals were dying by the second to quick whips and sharp swords. The generals didn’t even have time to retaliate before they fell.
The sky was relatively peaceful compared to down below, disregarding the intense explosions of course. If the demons had time to watch the sky and watch the fight they would almost certainly fall over in despair. Their king, a living god to all demons, Balek, was losing. No matter how hard Balek cast magic and rushed towards his opponent, it was all shrugged off. “Who the hell are you?” he bellowed towards the man.
Balek’s opponent simply smiled and two sharp fangs could be seen protruding from the man’s mouth “your demise.”
Balek’s face paled, not from what the man said. Many opponents had said similarly useless babble when fighting him, and they had all ended up dead in the end. His change in complexion was from something else entirely, the visible fangs on the man’s face. He had finally realized why this man was so confident “You’re a dragon aren’t you, you bastard!” Balek yelled a hint of fear in his voice.
“So then you know what’s going to happen next then, don’t you” Aurem raised his hand toward the demon king, instantly a wall of spears appeared, each one perfectly gold shining in the mid afternoon sun. Balek knew his life was over looking at the spears, realizing his imminent death he looked towards the ground at his castle for the first time since the battle started. It was completely ruined, a giant man, presumably the dragon’s companion was destroying the castle with his large size alone, and seemed to be completely unharmed. Balek thought this to be expected of someone a dragon would bring with him. He looked back up towards the dragon and decided to ask a final question “Why are you doing this, what is there to gain? All dragons have already escaped this world after the gods left, why have you returned?” Well, two final questions, but he was dying and felt he had earned this right.
“I’m doing this as payment, and I haven’t returned, it’s my first time here.” Aurem thought similarly as the Demon King, and decided to answer the questions of a soon to be dead man honestly.
The demon king gave a bitter smile towards the dragon, he thought the answers to be an obvious lie, but he had no power to force the truth out, he watched as the spears flew towards him piercing his body one by one, he tried to incant magic but the draconic spears were enchanted with anti-magic spells and mana sap spells. It was a futile effort.
On a nearby mountain three humans watched the entire scene play out, “well that’s it then, right? I can get what I was promised now?” Eitr asked Ghost.
“That’s it is it?” Ghost said as if amused. “This is a divine quest, do you really think it’s that easy? Furthermore, you haven’t done anything yet.”
“I’m protecting you aren’t I? That’s what you said to do.” Eitr said a hint of skepticism in his voice. He began to think that Ghost wasn’t planning to follow through on his promise.
“No, Autumn has been protecting me, but don’t worry it’ll be your turn very soon,” Ghost said with a smile on his face unseen under his hood. Although Eitr had no clue what Ghost was talking about he didn’t ask further and continued to watch the death of the demon king.
The entire process lasted about 10 minutes, a long death but a fitting one for the being called the Demon King. After he finally took his last breath the book in the robes of the priestess Autumn suddenly flew out and hovered in front of Ghost. This was Constordo’s prophecy book. A special book given to the four priestesses of time. It flung open and landed on an empty page. Words started to quickly appear on the page.
You have completed part one of the Other World Divine Quest. Power limiter restriction has been lifted.
Part two will now begin.
As the words appeared Eitr’s face began to pale. Ghost saw this, “Are you ready for your turn.” Ghost asked, feeling his power once again flow through him.
“Your power is already back, how the hell could I help you now.” Eitr grumbled.
“Easy, just give me the Divine Elixir.” Ghost said brimming with happiness now that he was back to normal.
The Divine Elixir was a special potion that took 3 years to make, and only Eitr possessed the abilities to make it. The Elixir enhanced one's powers by more than two fold with no limitations. Even an Ancient Dragon like Aurem would go crazy over it, so it was safe to say this elixir’s cost was unfathomable. However Ghost asked for it like one would a glass of cheap beer. Instead of doing what almost anyone would think the rational decision is and refute Ghost immediately, Eitr began to calculate the risk and reward of doing this.
“I better get what I was promised” Eitr finally said, taking the mythical potion out of his Storage Ring. Ghost drank the elixir immediately upon receiving in and he felt his power soar once again. He cracked his neck and looked towards the sky. A portal began to appear in the sky, that was several magnitudes bigger and more powerful than the one that sent Ghost here. It looked as if the sky would fall from the heavens any second as the mana in the air shook uncontrollably, the other non-natives to this planet saw this and began to retreat back to the mountain with Ghost on it. Fortunately Aurem was able to locate them immediately and teleport them there instead of them all having to run back. Torrent was especially lucky as he definitely wouldn’t have made it in time.
“You guys wait here” Ghost directed, “it’s finally my time to fight.” Ghost leapt up into the air and flew towards the gigantic portal in the sky. As he left the Prophetic book began to shake and its pages flipped until it landed on another empty page.
Part two of the Other World Divine Quest has now started, please defeat the Demon God to return to your world. Good Luck.
As everyone read the new lines their chest started to pound and their faces paled. The man who had just left after telling them to stay still was going to be fighting a god. They couldn’t believe what they had just read and looked towards the most powerful being left, the dragon. Aurem however looked just as pale as the rest of them, “All we can do is put our trust in him, we have no chance.” The rest of them nodded as if in a trance at the Ancient Dragon’s words.
They could now see the demon god start to appear. His size was so big that it made Torrent’s size from earlier seem tiny by comparison. In the distance was Ghost, a speck so small that looked as if it would disappear in an instant. Up in the sky however Ghost was completely calm, if anything he was a bit excited.
It’s been a while hasn’t it. He thought to himself. He thought about what weapon to use before pulling out a 50 foot spear, his hand wasn’t even close to large enough to completely hold it so he held a little handle sticking out from the bottom. The spear was completely black and seemed to absorb color around it. The spear had a very simple but apt name, The Blessed Holy Spear. As its name implies it was a spear filled to the brim with divine power, perfect for fighting demons. Though this demon was a god, he still shared the same strengths and weaknesses of a normal demon, although his strengths would be greater, and weaknesses lesser than any demon. As such even if the effect was lessened a divine weapon like this was bound to cause damage.
Ghost waited until the god had fully exited the portal and began to close behind him before he shot the spear forward, after all wouldn't it be a shame if the demon god decided to run away after getting hurt? Ghost launched the spear with all his might towards the god’s shoulder. The spear flew so fast the demon god had no chance of reacting, The Blessed Holy Spear embedded itself in his right shoulder and he cried out in pain. The demon god tried to remove the spear but to no avail, the divine power of the spear was too much for him to get close to. Seeing this, Ghost smiled and brought out a new weapon. This time a sword appeared in his hand, over a hundred feet in length, once again he was holding a small handle protruding from the hilt of the sword. This sword had no name, and no special abilities or attributes. It was just really big. Ghost’s thought process was simple, to kill a big thing, use a big thing. He put all his strength to swing the sword towards the demon god, but this time the sword was too big and the demon god had already noticed it, as the god began to use his left hand to block the incoming attack he noticed something else flying towards him with the same speed as the spear had. The demon god immediately noticed that the air was warping around the rock as it flew, but as a god he knew it wasn’t because of magic but rather the air simply gravitating towards it due to the sheer density and mass of the rock. And just what was the target of said rock, his own pair of rocks. Instinctively the demon god moved his left hand to block the rock instead even though it wasn’t technically a threat to his life. He had no choice but to just watch as the sword cleaved towards him completely unhindered and cut through his skin, he once again cried out and the gigantic blade went through the top of his head through his skull, down through his neck, chest, stomach, finally cutting him into half.
The 4 humans, dragon and demon watched this play out from their spot on the mountain. They watched in silence as the god was split into two and fell towards the ground. The 6 of them had just seen the impossible, man had beaten god. Although Eitr knew this was probably only possible due to the Divine Elixir, he was still in a state of shock. Over a minute in silence went by before someone finally spoke.
“Holy shit.” Torrent said his mouth agape. This time no one thought Torrent was stupid or annoying as they nodded in agreence to his words. A few more moments went by before Ghost came back.
“Come on, it's time for our spoils,” Ghost said, hood still covering his face.
Cleanup went by relatively quickly with 7 immensely strong individuals, first was the quest rewards, as it was Ghost’s quest only he was given a specific reward which he took one look at before rolling his eyes and throwing it in his Storage Ring before the others could look at it. Other than that, as Ghost had promised Eitr was given the Demon Hearts of all the demons including the Demon King, but not the demon god.
Like Dragons, demon’s have a special affinity towards magic, their hearts were filled with magic and were useful for making potions, but also as components in magic devices among other things. Eitr, as with most things he did, monopolized demon hearts on their homeworld, and was promised he could do the same here. Eitr calculated that all of those hearts would be about equal to a Divine Elixir. He wasn’t allowed the demon god’s heart however as only anything at or below a Demon King’s Heart was in the contract. Eitr felt some loss over it but quickly forgot about it as he filled three whole Storage Rings with Demon Hearts.
As for everyone else they got certain weapons or items that the Demon’s had been wearing or using. No one complained as only Eitr was here under contract, the rest of them were here to pay debt towards Ghost. The only exception of course being the divine priestess Autumn who was here under Constordo’s orders.
The entire process took about 4 hours, which ended up being much longer than the fight actually was. No one complained as since the demons ruled over this world forgotten by the gods they had many goodies to ransack and steal. Everyone returned with their rings full of items from this world. After finishing Autumn created yet another portal and everyone left the small cabin.
Eventually a few months passed by with Ghost living alone in the cabin when one day he woke up and had the same breakfast he had for the last 5 months, disgusting oatmeal that arguably shouldn’t count as edible. Ghost picked at the grub for a few minutes before speaking aloud to himself “I need a new chef.”