4,096 Rank Points gained.
Blood and Souls (Repeatable): Kill 40,960 monsters or humanoids. Current Progress 56,689 out of 40,960. When you complete this quest, you will gain 8,192 Rank Points, and the next quest will require double the amount to be completed but will award double the rank points.
8,192 Rank Points gained.
Blood and Souls (Repeatable): Kill 81,920 monsters or humanoids. Current Progress 93,374 out of 81,920. When you complete this quest, you will gain 16,384 Rank Points, and the next quest will require double the amount to be completed but will award double the rank points.
16,384 Rank Points gained.
Blood and Souls (Repeatable): Kill 163,840 monsters or humanoids. Current Progress 173,439 out of 163,840. When you complete this quest, you will gain 32,768 Rank Points, and the next quest will require double the amount to be completed but will award double the rank points.
32,768 Rank Points gained.
Blood and Souls (Repeatable): Kill 327,680 monsters or humanoids. Current Progress 8,843 out of 327,680. When you complete this quest, you will gain 65,536 Rank Points, and the next quest will require double the amount to be completed but will award double the rank points.
The notifications continued to scroll past my vision, but I pushed them to the corner passing over the responsibility of managing them over to Ares. I turned my attention from the never-ending scrolling of kill notifications as I stared at my quarry Merlin standing guard over him.
“Give him up,” I demanded as I advanced towards Merlin.
“You should never have come here Mordred,” Merlin said. “You are in the heart of our power, there is no escape for you now.”
“I won,” I snapped. “Your own damn traditions and laws you care so much about demand that you give me Guinevere.”
“You know nothing,” Merlin scoffed at me. “Guinevere will marry Arthur, this tournament was always a show, nothing more. The Law only exists if we say it does.”
“I figured as much,” I snarled. “I should have just killed you all from the start of this. Arthur had to get his hypocrisy from somewhere, I see the stain of it permeates your entire society.”
Scarlet lightning tore from my fingers but Merlin deflected it again his staff able to redirect the energy but not able to disperse it entirely and it targeted some random survivor in the arena and flew towards them. Any base human would be dead by now but there were hundreds of nobles and soldiers who would have survived the first chain of lightning.
I rocketed forwards and crashed into the front lines, my weapons ripping through flesh and steel with equal ease. Then Lancelot’s shield hit me in the face unexpectedly, I hadn’t foreseen it and it totally blindsided me like a car crash. I rolled across the sand before popping back up and blocking the next attack a spear from Kay. An arrow whizzed past my head, again I was unable to foresee it.
“We found out your trick with seeing the future,” Lancelot said, and I could hear the grin in his voice. “It was difficult, but we found a way to block it.”
I was outnumbered and I wasn’t in the mood to coddle this nation anymore. Arcane words fell from my lips as I dodged and blocked attacks. A portal opened up behind me, then another and another. Jeriah stepped through followed by Tobias. My army marched out their spears and shields met those of the amassing elite Camelot soldiers.
Crouching, I leapt up and was fifty feet up in the air. I activated Storm Fall and roared unleashing Voice of the Chasm and Helheim’s Scream against the champions and soldiers of Law. The soundwave threw a hundred me across the arena grounds clearing more space for my troops as they poured through the portals into the very heart of the city of Camelot. Lighting shot from my fingers arcing between the soldiers below me as I rained down death from above.
---
Vone heard the rumbling of thunder as she sat in the darkness under the arena. She stood up grabbing her glaive and she ran forwards before coming to a stop as Exar walked down the hall in front of her. He also stopped examining her in surprise for a moment.
“Who are you?” Vone asked pointing her glaive at him. “I know who Ishmael… Mordred is. That means you serve him.”
“Serve is in an incorrect assessment of our relationship,” Exar’kun said. “Ours is an alliance for mutual survival and power.”
“Who are you?” Vone asked again; her teeth gritting together.
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Exar’kun looked at her and she felt a shiver run down her spine as his soft brown eyes shifted to the red and orange color of magma. His voice changed growing deeper and louder, more bestial.
“I am Exar’kun, the Star-fallen, the only survivor of my mother’s clutch,” he said.
“You’re the dragon from the Event,” Vone said taking a step back. “I’ve seen the creature you really are.”
“The creature I am,” Exar’kun spat rage entering his voice for the first time. “I was poisoned in my egg because of a champion like you, all my siblings were born twisted and malformed. The ground I hatched on was corrupted and the creatures twisted because of the actions of your kind.”
“And yet you chose to ally yourself with the Warlord,” Vone said.
“He was the only one of you champions who gave me a choice,” Exar’kun said. “I work with him because he has given me the opportunity to ascend and become greater than what the System would let me be.”
“What choice is there?” Vone asked. “If I let you live thousands will die because of you, and because I let you live those deaths will be on my head.”
“You assume you can kill me,” Exar’kun said. “I will give you this choice, stand aside, choose life. If you attack me, I cannot promise that I will not be forced to kill you.”
“I came to this world to protect innocent people,” Vone said tensing her body as she got into a fighting stance. “If I die, so be it.”
---
Valerie opened the door to her apartment tired after a day at work in the market. She had closed shop early since most of the city was going to the tournament or watch it through a scrying projection in one of the many viewing stations scattered throughout the city to allow those who hadn’t managed to get a seat in the grand arena to still watch.
Valerie smiled as her youngest child; her son Nico rushed her hugging her skirts. He’d been sick today and so she’d left him home while she and her husband went to work. Her husband was still out in the city having left to go view the last fight in the Dragon Tourney on one of the viewing screens.
She walked into the room that served as there bedroom for their two children. The distant sound of thunder could be heard, and she frowned. She hadn’t remembered seeing any storm clouds when she came in. Going over to the window she opened the curtains looking out as the rumble of thunder continued to rumble. It echoed between the massive glass, metal, and stone structures where she lived. Blinking her eyes, she winced as scarlet light was reflected off the windows of the building across from her the thunder growing louder and louder.
A bolt of crimson lightning smashed through the glass and hit her in the chest. Valerie was dead before she even registered the pain her only blessing was that she had died first and hadn’t had to watch as the lightning chained off of her jumping between her two children leaving the smoking burning corpses on the floor. The lightning blasted through the floor disappearing into the apartment below more screams rising up as the devastation continued to spread over Camelot.
---
Arthur spasmed on the bed he’d been placed into after Merlin had dragged him to safety through the portal. He may have been saved from Mordred killing him directly, but his own body was killing itself now as he suffered the backlash of his dueling ability being active for more than ten minutes and from copying the attributes of someone of a higher rank.
The healers were trying to fix him, but the issue wasn’t one of wounds or poison but of his own body being unable to handle the energy inside it. He didn’t know it but Arthur was suffering the same thing Mordred had been after the magi had attacked him. Mana burn his pathways were slowly burning out.
Merlin and Arthur stood back helpless to do anything as he spasmed on the bed. Suddenly his body went still. People rushed around trying to resuscitate him, but his heart had stopped beating his skin going pale.
--
Arthur hung off the edge of a precipice overlooking a dark expanse of nothingness. Something hungry approached him and he could feel his fingers slipping. Excalibur was in his other hand its form spiritual rather than physical lighting up the surroundings with a clear golden light. A dark maw started to close around him but he slashed out and the light drove it away.
A snarl came from the darkness as whatever monster that dwelt in the void expressed its anger. His fingers slid more and Arthur could feel his life slipping away ready to plunge into the Void. His vision brightened as a golden light shone from above him.
“Grab my hand!” a woman’s voice called from above.
He looked up seeing the radiant form a woman above him her hand extended out for him. Excalibur didn’t drop from his hand just disappeared as he grabbed the hand, and she pulled him up. The beast howled below them.
Arthur looked back at it and shivered realizing the fate that could have befallen him.
“What is this place?” he asked. “Who are you?”
“Do you not recognize your goddess?” Vivian asked her voice amused before sobering. “This is the Void, it is the anathema of our world and the gods.”
“Mordred’s powers, they were like this,” Arthur said.
“Yes,” Viviane said darkly. “His goddess should have struck him down already. To let her champion carry a piece of the Void within him into our world was bad enough, but to embrace it and use it… It goes against everything we are regardless of Law or Chaos.”
“Why am I here?” Arthur asked.
“All mortals come here when they die,” Viviane said sadly. “It is why you humans worship us. Even now I have many other avatars rescuing the souls of my followers before they are fed to the beasts within. I can protect your souls within my divine realm but for those who don’t have the protection of a god, they feed the creatures like the one you just saw.”
“So I’m dead?” Arthur asked sitting down feeling defeated but also relieved.
“Not yet,” Viviane said sitting beside him. “Your souls rests on the edge, only you can make the decision to keep going.”
“Can I defeat this?” Arthur asked gesturing outwards. “Mordred beat me, I hate to admit it but I couldn’t beat him even in the most favorable situation for me. Yes he pulled out a lot of tricks I couldn’t see coming, but whose to say he doesn’t have more? Can I beat these Void powers he has?”
“I’m not sure,” Viviane admitted. “He did beat you, and even now he grows stronger. If you were to return you cannot stop the slaughter he is committing against your people it will be weeks before you are recovered from this but… if you return you will be stronger. Victory is never guaranteed but you are the best hope our world has of defeating this monster.”
Arthur let out a sigh but stiffened his back and shoulders. “I won’t abandon my duties, not while I can still try to defend the world and make it safe for my child.”
--
Arthur’s heart started to beat again and he opened his eyes feeling his whole body in agonizing pain.
You have completed a hidden objective and earned a title. Objective, survive a Void Entity trying to feed on your naked soul and return to the world of the living. You have been revived by Celestial Light changing your mana and stamina forever. You gain a third energy type, Celestria allowing you to push past limits imposed upon mortals.
Reward: Witness of Death and Life
*Witness of Death and Life: You have gained a third type of energy through the divine aid of a goddess which has come at a great cost to her but will allow you to push past many limitations.
You have completed a hidden objective and earned a reward.
Objective, survive death itself. Reward: Unknown.
Arthur pushed Celestria into his body feeling the agony as his mana channels burned themselves out. Slowly the burning stopped, and his body began to repair itself. Viviane was right though, he felt weak as a newborn, and it would be weeks before he could fight again.