Arc 4: The Descent of the 7 Gods
Due to the events of the previous arc, the next stage of the game is revealed where 7 demon kings rises each representing each of the 7 deadly sins. They come from the six corners of the continent and the centre and set up their bases much to the despair of Eden who was in the process of repairing those places.
Volume 10: The 7 Battles of Kallamore
Begin: 5Y
1. With one thing done, the group waits for the next set of orders that Eden will give them. As such, they are promoted into trusted members of the guild from simply regular members since they had proven their worth to a certain extent. Due to this, they are given access to the 'Hub' which is a place where independent guilds can pick up lesser jobs exclusive to them. In this 'Hub' which is a place external to the continent and can be accessed at certain places, it is revealed that it can connect to points all over the continent making it easy for those in Independent guilds to move about the place when they have a job. The masters of the group appear and guide them to the section where their guild base is located. Sain questions why they have bases on the continent and Gen answers that it is good to have bases on the continent and second to trick people into thinking there wasn't a secret place where those in independent guilds can access. Furthermore, this place can only be accessed by those in at least a B rank independent guild or higher to trusted members. After some more talking on the skill sets of the group and how to improve in some areas; there are comments on whether Sain wants to be a all rounded character or specialise in something, Miriel to go with rapid fire attacks or single strong attacks, Lyndis focusing on her sword skills or fire skills, Raven focusing on defence or attack, Serena on healing or support magic and Shadow being an assassin or trap expert. While they are discussing the possibilities, they enter the true base of the S.S Centre. Lyndis asks why this was the true base and not the other. Ron explains that this is the place where all the other members usually stay when not on missions. As such they see some of the rest of the members. They see Eart and Arch who they are familiar with as well as Nue who nods to them. Several of the female members tease them while most of the male members nods to them while trying not to traumatise such young members too early.
2. After the meeting with the rest of the guild who were now getting to work, doing missions that payed a bit more since their success rate was much higher than normal players and such, the group and their masters meet with Alexandra and Viv again. Mel questions where Eden was and Alexandra grins saying the prize of killing the Warrior King was an item that can restore other items and buildings if you pour mana into it. Namely Eden became a mana battery for a while. Some of the group questions why and Viv tell them that his base man is half a million and adding onto his buffs and active skills multiples it into the millions. Though a bit shocked, Alexandra explains some things on how they will need to take missions which is basically a more stable way of doing guild quests though most of them are either too easy or too hard. This time, they are required to do 20 guild quests in a year, 30 for the year after get to level 350 by 2 years time if they can. However Alexandra tells them that they will do some more advance training first. Alexandra explains that in around a year, a new power form the mark will come forth called [Awakening] which basically boost their racial characteristics. In order for it to actually develop though, they need to change their race which is difficult. For starters, the method the guild uses is to select a stone which will be bound to the player and will change them over a year. Side effects includes sudden pain/dizziness as well as increase or decrease in skill and power. The second thing with the mark is that it will get more potent with changing classes and will affect their emotions more when used. Due to this, while changing races, they need to allow the power of the mark to spread without being consumed by it. Alexandra calls this the Sin Curse stage. Another thing is that Boost is unavailable to them during this time as well.
3. However there are some good things that will come out of this. For starters while boost is out of their reach, a lesser version of it can be used though the powers that come with boost such as double stats and effects won't come, their other powers like Living Ice and Genesis Flame will be available though weaker than they remember. When the group accept this and choose the stone that will allow them to change races, Sain chooses the Blood Stone, Lyndis the Lion Stone, Serena the Chaos Stone, Miriel the Moon Stone, Raven the Wrath Stone and Shadow the Dark Stone. Next thing Alexandra and Viv discuss with them is their choice of how things will play out on how they will fight from now on. Unlike before where they can get away with it generalising their skills, they need to specialise their skills more than ever to survive enemies which they discussed with their masters. Lyndis immediately decides to focus more on her sword skills since she likes it and goes with Ron to train with him much to her displeasure. Ron tells her that he will teach her how to focus her flames more into her sword. Not to be outdone, Shadow goes the assassin route with Anna who tells him he will be able to fight with those Shadow Clones much better when she is done with him. Raven is the next to go deciding on a more offensive style is best with Park agreeing since Raven had always been more aggressive but forced himself not to. Serena goes with the mixed route of healing and support with Mel being happy to help with some healing spells and a larger number of support spells that will help out. Miriel goes with the strong ice attacks, rapid barriers and support route which will be difficult but Jenny will help her cope with it. Sain lastly decides to drop his support skills in favour of curses and go with mid range battles with his spear and magic. Gen thankfully has a similar style and helps him with it. The group spends a month learning some new skills as well as adapting a new style of fighting. The effects of changing their races slowly were also coming about as well. Sain was feeling a bump at the back of his head, Miriel's hair was turning white, Shadow's skin was turning pale, Lyndis was feeling bumps on her head as well, Raven was growing taller, Serena's ears were changing a bit as well turning to fur.
4. In terms of skills, Sain didn't learn much except for changing his style of fighting though learnt [Mana Fist] and [Mana Spear] for more power. He also got used to fighting with Luna and learnt when to use his debuff skills effective and his D.B skill as well. Miriel learnt the [Ice Spear] and [Ice Hammer] spell as well as [Barrier Overlap] and [Double Barrier] passive skills that allows her to double or quad-triple the number of barriers placed with a single cast. Serena increased her skills with her current spells though added [Healing Aura] which made those around the targeted to heal wounds and [Accelerated Healing] which healed the targeted a certain amount each time they are hit. For support spells, she also learnt [Dust Cloud] for blinding to escape, [Poison Ivy] which added the poison and paralyse effect on her vines and [Second Mind] which allowed for low intelligence in the vines for auto defence and attack. For Lyndis she learnt [Fire Sword] which was a upgraded Fire Blade, [Flame Burst] which unleashed a burst of flame where she swung and [Fire Wave] which was like Sword Wave but fire in nature. Her sword skills also reached the Advanced level as well. Raven got the passive skill [Double Revenge] that doubled damage to those who attacked him per hit, [Closed Eyes] that increased defence and pain resistance when eyes closed and [Iron Skin] which increased defence a good bit. Park changed Raven's style to have more offence and focused more on attacking and countering attacks while pushing pressure on them. Shadow got focused training on teamwork with his shadow clones and increased his skill with all his skills. He got the [Dark Blade] skill that increased attack in the dark as well as the [Fade Away] skill that increased stealth when enemies aren't focused on you. [Light Step] was added in to decrease detection as well.
5. With the training done, the group started doing guild quests left and right for a while. 2 months passed like this and they had completed 5 guild quests of the D and C rank already. Due to this, they got quite a bit of money again and decided not to upgrade their equipment until their race change finished since their bodies were changing and they would need to buy new equipment again. They also noticed how people changed in reaction to them as their races changed. With both Sain and Lyndis having small horns that were barely noticeable, some people were more withdrawn from them in the NPC department. Lyndis was noticed more from males and Serena with females. People generally avoided Raven and Shadow who were becoming larger, more muscular on one hand and the other being more pale and growing short fangs. Due to this, there were some problems with members of minor churches in the area that didn't like this change but didn't speak up since they were part of an Independent Guild It didn't stop them from trying to increase costs and decrease relationship with those close to churches. Because of this, the group had somewhat been more isolated than before with NPC and players since they didn't want to lose relationship as well. Deciding to counter this a bit, Sain signs the group to a dungeon raid of a level 350 dungeon that needed some members. Seeing the skill the group had which was enough to handle some of the weaker level 400 mobs, they were accepted in by the leaders of the party who see the worth of them joining since they had a good reputation in their skill and connections even though some minor churches don't like them.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
6. After spending a good month in the dungeon raid, the group gets along with most players though there are some that are jealous of the group due to their performance. One such player challenges the group in a duel to see how they fair against other players. The group looks at each other and uses rock- scissors-paper to determine who will fight. After a couple rounds of this Lyndis wins the chance for the duel much to the grumbling of the others since she seemed to have the best luck most of the time for some strange reason, even higher than Shadow who had the highest luck stat in the group. Lyndis faces off against a knight with heavy armour with the standard sword and heavy shield. She immediately uses [Sword Dance] and [Fire Dance] together to bring out a lethod series of sword strikes along with her other skills rapidly. Seeing the barrage of attacks that lasted almost 3 seconds and 10 strikes in that time period, the knight was knocked back with his shield heavily damaged. The knight throws away his shield and charges using several skills to keep the pressure on Lyndis but the group aren't worried. Lyndis wasn't taking this seriously even though she and the knight were around the same level at a bit over level 300 each though Lyndis gained 5 levels due to the dungeon raid. After another minute, Lyndis knocks out the knight and wins the duel. The other players sees this and challenges Lyndis as well, mostly knights since winning duels will gain them honour for their class. Lyndis fights and wins another 5 fights before Raven tags in when Lyndis was going for another match when tired. Facing strong opponents was one thing but continuous battles against those over level 300 were difficult even if their skill level were lower. A dozen battles with Raven later and no one wants to fight any of the group anymore. All of a sudden Sain gets a message from the guild to get their asses to Kallamore since demons were invading them.
7. The group quickly rushes to Kallamore on their orders, spending a bit of time in the Hub and transferring to a location where it takes a week to get to Kallamore. Another thing is that many other independent guilds were called up as well and by the time the group got to the hub, there were a thousand powerful Independent Guild members to be deployed to Kallamore in an emergency. What they find, is a large scale battle between knights and demons. The knights defending were being overwhelmed bit by bit. The independent guild members rushes in from the edge and back of the demon army for maximum damage with the group joining in. The demons averaged at level 300 but there were those whose level reached 500 or even 600. Those demons were taken down via lots of players were just the strong ones alone. The group didn't face those demons and focused on the weaker ones. After 5 hours of battle, the independent guild members lost a third of their numbers and reached the edge border of Kallamore where the knights are thankful though still panicked about the situation. Not only were there demons, there were even more monsters in the mix. Even though they were only level 100-200, their numbers overwhelmed the knights and forced the Kallamore knights to split up to protect all of their borders. But for now, the area was safe and it will take another 3 days until the demons attack again. Walking around, the group examines how close Kallamore was truly to be destroyed. The walls were almost gone, most of the buildings were damaged, the clerics and priests were being overworked to save lives. With a sigh, the group knew this was going to be a pain.
8. 3 days later, several churches sent their troops to help out since Demons were enemies of their God. Due to this, the size of the army for Kallamore doubled in size with the average level of each person to be around 250 which was quite low but they were strain for numbers either way. The enemy numbers however were at least 3 times higher than the Kallamore forces. The group went in battle once again and with the forces armed to defend Kallmore, pushed them back. This allowed for them to recover and repair as much as possible in three days when the demon army came back. In each battle, a Demon General appeared and until that demon was killed, the enemy won't retreat. As such, it was at the most importance that everyone worked together to take down this general at all times. Most of the time these generals were at the middle of the enemy formation making them hard to kill but sometimes they were at the front making them stronger than the rest of the demon army or at the back enhancing the demon army. All three options were difficult to deal with and the Kallamore forces suffered great loses due to this.
9. This repeated itself 5 more times totalling up for 7 battles for Kallamore. At the eve of the seventh battle, a High Demon, a monster that was level 700 appeared with resistance to fire, darkness and most physical and magical attacks. Due to this, most of the Kallamore forces were wiped out in a matter of minutes since a level 800 monster that was also a boss was something of a legend. The demon shouted its name as the demon general Bebel. The group seeing this demon gets a message from their guild to eliminate Bebel which turned into a B rank Guild Quest which meant A rank in normal circumstances. With a sigh, Sain analysed their group again. Due to the battles, they levelled up quite a bit due to a constant stream of monsters to kill thus increasing their level to 320 which made the Demon over twice their level. However they each had a trump card to use otherwise known as Mankai though they will sacrifice one of their senses or worse to use it. It is at this time that Bebel attacked them as well with them activating Boost at the same time drawing its attention to them. In 3 seconds, both Lyndis and Shadow are killed with a swipe and Miriel placed her strongest barrier onto Raven as he activated Mankai. In the next second, gravity around the Demon General increased 50 fold forcing it to slow down enough for the rest of the group to dodge. Sain tries to use his Art skills on the demon but it is ineffective and this causes him to be killed as well with a stab. Raven charges in with his body boosted further by his Gravity Force making him several times stronger and the enemy several times weaker with the use of Gravity. Raven after a minute battle where his powers were running out, uses his most powerful skill [Meteor Burst] to kill the general gaining him 15 levels from the final kill.
10. Epilogue of Eden viewing the battle between the group and the demon General. He is pleased with the growth that they can take on something of that level even with Mankai. Though the majority of the group are around level 320, their stats were something closer to level 350 and with boost this increased their ability to a level 400. However Eden was quite saddened that single hit from a level 700 boss monster could still kill him. He would need to correct that for the future battles. But for now, Eden took away Raven's sense of pain not that he needed it to function in the first place.
End: 6Y
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Author's Notes:
This is the last summary for a while since I haven't finish the next volume and won't for a while. I kinda love not have a schedule since there is no pressure on me to write anything. Anyway with the start of the arc means the start of some sort of training for new skills and such for the rest of the arc. In this case, it's for the group to battle an army of demons along side an army of knights and others. Might have been exciting if I wrote it in whole might not be but I like how Raven gets the final kill. Raven of all the MCs seems to be the most dull next to Sain since everyone else has a good distinct personality.
Anyway, until the next one...