I walked up the stairs of the bunker. I felt reborn, my legs both unsteady and filled with limitless power the result of ethereal energy flowing through every cell of my body as my passive abilities used it. That was both a blessing and a curse; it made those abilities more powerful but at the cost of cutting into my already limited regen amount for that resource.
Pushing open a heavy stone door, I entered into the central chamber of the tower. Remara looked up from a sitting chair next to a boiling cauldron.
“Your up,” she said pushing herself to her feet. “You stopped screaming a few days ago but I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. I was able to make contact with the spirits inside of you and they explained to me what was going on.”
You guys talked to her? I asked.
Only briefly, Voidra said. Her connection wasn’t very stable we didn’t feel it was important to bring up with you.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“They headed southeast to the border of Camelot,” Remara said. “Jeriah felt that it would be best to draw attention away from your location, they disappeared into the forest to travel through it unseen. I sent some Totems I carved to keep them from being scryed on. I should have thought to make them long ago, but I didn’t think of it until you brought it up.”
“What were our casualties?” I asked.
“Surprisingly few considering,” Remara said stirring the contents of her cauldron. “We lost around two thousand-five hundred during the entire battle, a miracle some might say. The spirit of Ares was instrumental in that, your own actions not withstanding of course.”
“I just did what had to be done,” I said shrugging settling the new cloak on my shoulders it hung much longer than my last one going to my ankles instead of ending at my hips. The maroon striped lion pelt had a different look than the dark grey of the Cloak of the Forest Lord.
Cloak of the Berserker King; (Legendary); Crafted from the hide of the World Boss Warden this cloak is both a symbol of its wearers power and prowess as well as protecting them from nearly attack from behind. Made from the hide of an elite nemean lion and enchanted by a master enchanter this cloak is at the pinnacle of what a mortal can create. While wearing this cape any time the wearer inflicts a wound, they gain an instance of Red Frenzy that last for three minutes and stack up to six times.
You have the Beast Lord status while wearing this cloak.
Nemean Pelt: This cloak cannot be damaged except by a weapon made from another nemean lion. It will take no durability damage even from Artifact weapons and Divine damage attacks.
Red Frenzy: Your attacks deal an additional amount of minor damage to a target suffering the bleed condition turning your vision red and filling you with a deep hatred for your opponent.
Beast Lord: Your prowess at killing beasts has been noted and beast type creatures will not attack you unless compelled by outside forces.
Weight:
65 lbs.
Hardness:
16
I had made some changes to the enchantment of my last cloak removing the negative parts as best I could allowing me to keep a clearer head while in combat. The Beast Lord status hadn’t been something I had added but given to the item by the System. Of course, the main benefit was it being made from a Nemean lion, I wouldn’t have to worry about the durability damage destroying it like my last cloak.
“Did they leave any messages for me?” I asked Remara. “I need to do some stuff before I leave for Camelot, but I can try to solve any immediate problems before I have to go.”
“No,” Remera said waving me off. “Your army has taken after you, solving our problems on our own is something we do naturally.”
“Good,” I said nodding and sitting down cross legged.
I’d gotten a lot of rank points over the course of the battle and a new ability. I couldn’t rank it up without pushing me into Hero rank but that was fine. All my rank points would be going to Void Asura for a while anyway until I got it rank thirty-five.
“There might be some more screaming,” I told Remara. “Don’t worry its normal and I probably won’t have any permanent damage from it.”
“Probably?” she asked.
I ignored the question. “Raise Void Asura to rank twenty-five,” I told the system.
The burning as my soul was altered hit me but I’d been experiencing it for the last week, so it was nothing new. I wasn’t immune to this pain like I was to physical pain, but enduring agony was something I had long since grown used to. Dismissing the minor notifications as it ranked up one rank at a time, I finally got to the notification for rank twenty-five.
Void Asura, (Rank: 25): You have created a symbiotic instead of parasitic relationship with the spirits inhabiting you, through the use of an ability token you have changed this ability to make it somewhat compatible with the System. Through manipulation of your mana and stamina, they have created a third type of energy and can use it to manifest through your body and interact with the world.
Void Armor: You gain a passive resistance to Soul & Void damage reducing the damage taken by 5 stages. The spectral arms created by the spirits residing in your soul when manifested appear armored, the armor has hardness 25 with an additional 1 hardness per twenty points of Spirit you have. Current hardness 33.
Void Edge: Your attacks while this ability is active deal Severe Void damage and bypass 17 levels of hardness.
Void Soul: Like the beings of the void, you feed on the souls of others to grow in power; your Ethereal regeneration is increased by .03 and your max Ethereal is increased by 3 for every creature with a soul that you kill permanently.
Void Arsenal: You are able to bind 3 weapons to your soul letting you store them there and summon them and dismiss them at will. If you lose your weapons, they are transported back into your soul vault to be resummoned later.
Void Matter: You are linked to Void body and soul and are able to make the void manifest physically. For the cost of 10 ethereal , you can create 1 pound of Void matter, the matter will degrade overtime while outside of the void.
Cost:
11 Ethereal per second
Cast Time:
Instantaneous
This ability should not exist, it will take 10x the normal amount of rank points for each rank up of this ability. Ranking up this ability does not advance any of your attributes. Current Max Rank 35.
Breathing out heavily I read over the changes. The armor my void limbs would have was an absurd thirty-three hardness, I doubted the heart of most planets was even that hard. I would deal more void damage and bypass seventeen levels of hardness. The hardest I could make something was hardness sixteen so even my best armor would be unable to do anything against these attacks. My regeneration for each kill I made had gone up and I wished I’d been able to upgrade it more before the raids but if wishes were fishes… I could bind one more weapon to my arsenal, I had Janus and Clarent bound to it so I bound Thorn to as well with a thought.
My new ability was strange, I didn’t see how if fit the rest of the ability yet and it seemed to have more in common with Hell Dragon’s Armory. I spend the mana and held a black oddly shaped stone in my hand marbled with silver light. I could feel it slowly melt but it would take hours for it to disappear entirely.
Void Matter (Rarity Legendary); The Void rarely manifest anything physically and getting matter out of it has happened can be counted on one hand. The uses in crafting for this type of material are unknown.
I dropped the rock. I was a mystery best solved at another time. I still had more rank points to spend I wouldn’t reach rank thirty five in the ability today but I’d be close.
“Raise Void Asura to rank thirty,” I told the system my voice rough from screaming.
The agony hit me again but I endured. I dismissed the notifications for the minor rank ups. Every moment was pain but I embraced it rather than flee from it. The moments passed and the pain ended as I hit rank thirty.
Void Asura, (Rank: 30): You have created a symbiotic instead of parasitic relationship with the spirits inhabiting you, through the use of an ability token you have changed this ability to make it somewhat compatible with the System. Through manipulation of your mana and stamina, they have created a third type of energy and can use it to manifest through your body and interact with the world.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Void Armor: You gain immunity to Void & Soul damage. The spectral arms created by the spirits residing in your soul when manifested appear armored, the armor has hardness 30 with an additional 1 hardness per twenty points of Spirit you have. Current hardness 38.
Void Edge: Your attacks while this ability is active deal Extreme Void damage and bypass 23 levels of hardness.
Void Soul: Like the beings of the void, you feed on the souls of others to grow in power; you Ethereal regeneration is increased by .04 and your max Ethereal is increased by 4 for every creature with a soul that you kill permanently.
Void Arsenal: You are able to bind 4 weapons to your soul letting you store them there and summon them and dismiss them at will. If you lose your weapons, they are transported back into your soul vault to be resummoned later.
Void Matter: You are linked to Void body and soul and are able to make the void manifest physically. For the cost of 10 ethereal, you can create 2 pound of Void matter, the matter will degrade overtime while outside of the void.
Void Shield: Time, space, and reality are not constant laws in the Void; when you take damage you can expend 100 ethereal to change the outcome of time and reality to negate all the damage taken in the past 5 seconds. Cooldown 1 minute.
Cost:
13 Ethereal per second
Cast Time:
Instantaneous
This ability should not exist, it will take 10x the normal amount of rank points for each rank up of this ability. Ranking up this ability does not advance any of your attributes. Current Max Rank 35.
The new ability was game breaking. Sure, it was massively expensive with a massive cooldown but the ability to just nah-uh damage taken was incredible presumably the length of time and the cooldown would be adjusted to make it even more powerful as it went up in rank. I didn’t have the rank points to get all the way to thirty-five, but I could get to thirty-three.
“Raise Void Asura to rank thirty-three,” I told the system.
The pain of my soul being altered was brief. I looked at the ability but there was no changes to it between its five rank intervals. I stood up wiping my face with my cleansing cloth removing the sweat from my body. I could feel the direction of my vassals, I needed to visit them before I went to Camelot. I lifted off the ground, my body surrounded by crimson lightning as I shot into the sky towards the Ancient Forest.
----------------------------------------
It took around eight hours of none stop flight before I spotted my vassals. I dropped down out of the air hitting the ground with an impact that caused a small localized earthquake. Weapons were drawn in a moment of panic before I was recognized. Jeriah, Tobias Juruk, Korsis and Kas’tu all moved forward to greet me.
“I see you survived,” Korsis said bowing his head to me.
“As if there was any doubt of that,” Jeriah said clapping me on the shoulder. “Ready to take the fight to the enemy now on our own terms?”
“In a way,” I said shrugging. “I am going to be entering the Dragon Tourney in disguise, but before I did that, I thought I’d make sure all of you were all right. Where is Exar’kun?”
“He flew off a couple days ago and we haven’t seen him since,” Tobias said with a shrug. “He said he’d be back, but we have no idea when.”
“He is his own to command,” I said dismissively. “I’m here to make sure you’re all well-equipped. Jaruk, I meant to give you these awhile back.”
I tossed him the set of clawed gauntlets I’d taken from Jamis. The massive goblin’s eyes widened as he read the description.
“These are a mighty gift Warlord,” he said bowing to me the braids of his hair rattling with the bits of bone and metal woven into them. “I will wield them proudly against your enemies as we proclaim the greatness of your teachings.”
“I wasn’t aware I had teachings,” I said mildly, finding his antics amusing. “Jeriah bring all your weapons and armor to me; I have improvements to make. I saw you guys didn’t properly harvest the battlefield, so I collected the scales of the Leviathan and the metal from the iron golem.”
“It will be done,” Jeriah said bowing his head to me.
There was a distinct difference in how I was treated now. I had always been respected before, but that respect had changed to reverence now and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
What’s up with everyone? I asked Voidra.
You fought six World Bosses in a row facing each one head on by yourself sometimes, Voidra explained. You basically died multiple times in front of everyone and stood up each time. Your more than human, more than mortal in their eyes now. I can feel the emotions off of them, the closest I can describe it is when you flew past a temple back in Dragonhold.
Not sure how I feel about that, I said.
This is the goal, Ares said. What do you think will happen when you reach God rank? This is just a taste of what is to come.
Letting there words settle in I used Hell-Dragon’s Armory to create a stonework bench and table and set Mab down. I started taking the scales of Conqueror out of my storage pouch. Each was already the size of a round shield so I decided that’s what they should be. I started morphing them on mass adding metal from the metal constructs I’d harvested and condensed from across the battlefield.
I created five masterwork shields about every ten seconds stacking them to the side. It took about three hours to complete all of them. In the meantime, the weapons of my armor were stacked before me. I experimented with the multi focus my spirit symbiosis gave me. I let Ares take over creation of the shields while I started work on enchanting. Voidra and Karnen started compressing metal into the weapons modifying them to give them more strength.
Since I could just focus on enchanting, I was able to start mass producing enchantments Mab’s pages flipped before me as the tome suggest enchantments for each weapon and piece of armor set before me. Since I didn’t need to use tools to carve the runes it took only seconds then a quick infusion of powered mana infused gemstone, I set it to the side.
The process of enchanting and infusing was so relaxing that I only noticed anything had changed when the sun broke the horizon and I didn’t have anything else left before me. I sat back, my mana pool was close to empty but even with all the work I’d been doing I had so much of the stuff I could have gone for another six hours without draining it.
My army had assembled before me. Their armor all the same glossy black obsidian of my own armor. Every soldier carried a round shield made from the scales of the leviathan and carried a long spear with another weapon strapped to their hip for close quarters fighting. Juruk as armored in full body scale armor atop his raptor his followers sitting atop their own feathered reptile behind him.
I felt the need to say something to commemorate this moment. The ground morphed before me as I mounted the steps to look over my army and let them all see me as I spoke. I activated Void Asura spreading my many arms.
“Vassals!” I said, my voice echoing through the forest. “We have fought a great battle together, the gods banded together to strike us down, but we are still here!”
A roar rose up from the army and they shook their spears and banged their shields I let them do this more a moment before continuing.
“They thought that they could send some monsters to do their work for them and wipe their hands of us, but they forgot something, challenges are only a problem for the weak. For the strong a challenge is just an opportunity to grow stronger. They sent machines alongside the Forge, and we smote him down! Shapeshifters and assassins came with Averice, and we ripped them to pieces! They sent angels from the sky and Balance, but we plucked them out of the sky like sparrows! The corpses of the slain rose up at the word of Decay but we crushed them back into paste! The beasts of the forest came with the Warden, and we strangled it as our arrows bled out their beasts into a river of blood! Then they sent what should have been a death blow an Exarch rank World Boss, but we took it down like a hive of wasps!”
Another roar echoed up through the forest, the slamming of weapons against shields resounding like the beating of drums.
“And when that was done it was still not enough, the order of the Magi tried to strike us down, but we lived through that too. Those that follow me cannot be beaten because you are strong as an individual first before working together. Go forth now, take the war to the doors of Camelot and drive them from our lands! Bring others to our cause, we are here to reenergize this world to remind them what it is to be strong and to purge the weakness from themselves!”
“Warlord!” the cry went up as spears clashed against shield. “Warlord!”
Again, and again the cry went out. I decided this was probably the best exit I would get and lifted off into the air crimson lightning rumbling as I shot into the sky.
----------------------------------------
I dropped out of the sky about ten miles outside of the town. I needed a record of me arriving in Camelot and I couldn’t risk people asking to many questions about me. I had used the last of rank points to rank up Shadow Allias to rank twenty.
Shadow Allias (Rank 20, Max Rank): Not everything you can see is real, trust no one. You can change your description to appear as another person.
You can alter how your Rank appears.
Creatures must make physical contact with you to use true telling abilities or spells on you to read your true description.
You can use the titles of creatures you have slain in your alias.
You can make an aura around yourself that will make you more forgettable and people will have greater difficulty remembering your features.
Max Rank Bonus: Perception checks and abilities made against you slide off unable to pierce your false disguise without overwhelming power over you.
Cost:
50 mana
Cast Time:
20 seconds
Upgrade this ability to increase the difficulty in piercing your false description. Each rank up increases your Perception by 1.
I had put away my regular armor and equipment, making myself a full set of plate armor. It was one of the most heavily enchanted pieces I had ever created, a dark flat grey it didn’t look impressive from the outside. I had completed it with a black cape, I might have to play the roll of knight but that didn’t mean I had to leave the aesthetics of the Warlord entirely behind. Thorn was strapped to my hip, none of my enemies had ever seen me use the gauntlet sword so it wouldn’t link my alias to my real identity.
I pulled up my alias to reassure myself it was still there.
Sir Ismail the Storm Knight, Gifted- humanoid/human, Veteran, Rank: 356
I had lowered my rank to help myself blend in with the rest of the contestants. Taking a breath, I walked down the dirt road into the fishing village. The sun had risen fully by the time I had entered the village. I found my way to the docks where a number of ships were being loaded.
“Where can I find a ship headed to Camelot?” I asked a passing sailor.
“Captain Marrin has a merchant ship headed there,” he said pointing to a large ship with blue sails. “You can try to buy passage.”
“Thanks,” I said and moved towards the ship.
Stopping before the gangplank I looked the ship over. An elderly woman walked down the gangplank to stand before me.
“Can I help you?” she asked her tone not rude but implied she wasn’t here to waste her time.
“I’m looking to buy passage to Camelot,” I said. “I was told your headed there, what sort of fee would you charge for taking me on?”
“Ten gold coins,” she said.
I didn’t bother haggling. I’d collected lots of money over the course of my battles and minted the golden jewelry I’d gotten into coins. I tossed her ten of the ones I thought came from Camelot. She raised an eyebrow at my casual display of wealth but moved aside.
“Welcome aboard Sir…” she said pausing.
“Ismael,” I said realizing she wasn’t gifted and couldn’t read my description. “My name is Sir Ismael.”