Max's POV
Max opened his eyes and saw a large continent spreading in front of them, in reality it was a huge island, it's name was well known as Eel island or otherwise the land of Samuries.
Guilgo wasn't sure why but he could see many flying objects in the sky above the continent, he was somewhat reluctant to continue flying forwards.
'We should land'
Guilgo said inside their heads, it was his telepathy since he himself could no longer talk in the human language.
"What's the plan?"
Lidie asked somewhat irritated since they hadn't come with any plan of what to do next mostly because of Galie and Red who didn't agree with her suggestions of abbandoning Guilgo and Max, her plan to escape by rushing out of the cave was a success but her plans after that were rather stupid, like leaving the world altogether or using Red's money to create a base or town for them to rule. Of course that would be her dream but the other two were nowhere close to accepting her idea, of course Guilgo didn't mind her idea of making him a god protector of the village, as for Max he could be the leader of the guards or something as for red and Galie they could be whatever they liked but Red didn't care she didn't really want to rule others she and Galie were free spirits they liked to travel and find new adventrures.
'I will be leaving for a while, if you find a cure just send me a message'
Guilgo said suddenly and flew away, he didn't care about them too much after all it was virtual reality and they would respawn if killed. Guilgo just flew away to Drogan where he wanted to go.
Max didn't really care but suddenly he saw someone or something approach, it had a player name tag but it's name was red, it looked human but on it's head there was a large fat horn.
"Girls we have company!"
Max shouted as the player was already holding a weapon akin to a spear with a lange balloon on it's head, something similar to an oversized drum stick.
The creature was an Oni, a type of monster of demonic origin akin to a demon but these demons are rather weak so the god's of Allastar don't care about them of course the race is only accessible through the descendant system, meaning that you have to do some quest to gain access to the race.
The oni rushed at them just by seeing white names, in truth there was a good reason why the player attacked them but they probably wouldn't know about it yet.
"Red behind you!"
Lidie shouted as she took out her shield and sword, she didn't know how strong the player was but his weapon seemed strangely menacing to her, it looked like a two handed mace in a more fashionable design, of course that didn't mean that it would be usable in real life but here in the virtual world it was terrifying.
One swing of his mace send her away costing Red half of her heath points, if not for Galie's kinetic barrier Red would have died from that blow.
Red was furious from the threatment but at that moment Max charged at the oni and with skillful movements begun fighting with it.
He wasn't an expert at sword fighting but neither was the oni after Lidie and Galie entered the fray they easily overtook him with numbers leaving him with no choice but to flee.
"Why is just one guy so tough to beat?"
Galie asked surprised, they were four against one and yet he was dominating them most of the time, if not for her healing staff, the others would have died many times over and it was good that her kinetic shield could actualy absorb most of the damage making it practicaly impossible for the oni to kill them with a single hit drawing the battle out for longer than it should have lasted, in the end he probably got bored and left after seeing that Galie's magic didn't seem to run out.
"I think that he was quite high level"
Max said, it was the most probable answer, if only they knew the truth about onis, they would have laughed out loudly and facepalmed themselves.
Their journey begun from the coast or rather cliffs where Guilgo had left them. Their new target was finding a town or city after all They couldn't live without food and their stocks were getting low.
Galie was the leader of the group right now since she had psychic powers that enabled her to see faraway places without being there, of course the distance was proportional to her ki.
"Didn't you say there's a town here?"
Lidie asked somewhat surprised, there was absolutely nothing at the place where Galie brought them.
"But I saw it just a few hours ago there was a town here"
Galie protested, of course they believed her but they could do nothing but camp outside once again.
"What are you..."
Galie asked seeing that Red was secretly chewing on something but she was immediately silenced.
"Don't talk, this is a drug that helps me calm down and sleep, i'm sure that you don't want it but Lidie will surely ask for some"
Red said, of course she had a limited number of it but it didn't mean that she wanted to share it with the others.
"Isn't that a little too selfish?"
Galie of course believed what Red told her, although in truth she shouldn't have, the drug Red took was a hallusinogene substance that made her high, she would stay in that situation until she fell asleep.
Of course there was no answer from Red who at the moment had lost comunication with the world.
"Lidie, Red seems strange after she took the sleeping drug"
Galie said, but Lidie didn't answer back she was too preocupied with making the tents, fixing the stones for the fire and cooking all at the same time, it wasn't really cooking, she was just heating up the food while Max was gathering wood for the fire.
"Do something usefull and ask her if she has any water or some drink, I've run out of water"
Truth was that thirst was worse than hunger, finding drinkable water was hard and many adventurers travelled with more than one flask of water per person, of course with the magic of Allastar it could hold many litres of water but even those flasks were sometimes not enough especially when travelling in the sea or through deserts.
Galie went to Red and asked but no answer came from her, it was strange how she just chewed on the strange leaves as if she was a cow, making a dumb blank expression.
"Lidie, Red's broken, can you fix her!"
Galie shouted as after a minute or two of complete silence passed. Lidie really didn't want to get mixed in this but she couldn't just throw a blind eye on her, after a simple check she took out a green potion and gave it to Galie.
"If you want to get in a fight with her then give her his potion otherwise let her stay this way until she falls asleep"
Lidie frowned and left, it was just a stupid drug, of course she didn't know that Red was an addict but she didn't care since it wasn't her money that bought the drugs and there wasn't any bad effect for her real body to begin with, in parts there wasn't any addictive substunce in the drug, the thing that was addictive was the sensation she felt right now.
Galie tried to read her mind in her current situation but she couldn't make ends meet, it was too chaotic and strange, it was as if she was seeing a dream right at the moment.
The night passed silently and safely, there was no sound at night and they didn't take shifts on watching after the fire since they fell asleep in their tent, only Max couldn't sleep and looked after the fire, it was silent and made him think about many things, he didn't regret going with the girls yet but he had a bad feeling that he would eventualy regret it, that was what made him stay awake right now.
His psychic power was weak and he didn't train it at all, after all there were countless better skills to train rather than his psychic skill indominable will.
As I said before there were lots of those who had this psychic power, but they weren't all as talented as Simon, most were average and their resistance to psychic powers was weak.
Max while sittin near the fire looked at the stars and the strange multicoloured moon, he was used to it by now but still found it beautiful, the moon was as if alive with multiple colours sparkling up in the sky. If only Lidie was a little more friendly, maybe he could at least approach her, but she was not, she was closed to a small circle of her own people, in her mind she probably didn't care about the rest of the world.
Max could only frown as he thought about the prior battle, he was almost useless and was used like a meat shield or a punching bag for the oni.
Max in a fury took out his sword and begun practicing there right in the middle of the night.
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Simon's POV
When Simon woke up he was shocked, there were at least a hundred fire demons all around him,
They were carefully inspecting him and one of them, the one he had named their leader said in a boastful voice.
"All hail noble lord Domina!"
"Hail! Hail! Hail!"
"Glory to the lord!"
"Eternal Power to the lord"
And countless other blessings left the crowd of small sparks that could be easily crushed under his foot.
Domina didn't dislike such threatment, after all they were praising him and were to become his subordinates.
"First how many of you are there here?"
Domina asked, he really wanted to organize this somehow before setting out to conquer the Demon world.
"Many, too many to count my lord"
The leader said, Domina didn't know what to think but then he suddenly shouted.
"You will be grouped in teams of ten from now on, one will be the commander of the group, who that will be depends on the group and and the centurion's opinion, the centurions will be decide from among the group leaders, as the name implies centurions will control a hundred demons each and although you are not going to be fighting each team will be specialized in a single path so decide your commander well because your path of evolution will depend on his actions rather than yours, centurions are the only ones who will be bothering me from now on and you the leader will be my advisor and general of my army"
Domina said and went to sleep once more, it was really tiresome to think up shit like that.
Domina woke up half an hour later to find them all killing themselves, it was probably their way of selecting the comanders or the centurions but in general only ten rather large balls of fire were left in the end, these ten would be known as the ten great commanders while the rest who lost will be the team leaders.
he looked at them, the ten centurions and wanted to laugh out loud, nine of them were palm sized while one was a little smaller, but still half a palm big.
Normally demons become bigger the more energy they have but at some point they all can compress themselves to become smaller, mostly because there's no reason for them to stay big and become a target for others.
Domina could only frown as he didn't know what to do next, first of all he had no idea about where most of the other demons were but he had an Idea of what to do when they found them.
'They will join us or Die'
A rather simple catch phrase that he had heard some old people say, of course he had no idea where it came from or how it came to be after all movies were rather outdated and very few watched them nowadays.
Domina spent his time teaching the little demons about tactics and guerrilla warfare, hit and run tactics. If the hit and run tactics wouldn't anger a demon enougth to make them run after them then nothing would.
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Next he begun with job asignments, each demon had his own specialty, although they were all fire demons, some of them specialized in speed while others in strength, there were all sort of different individuals.
Thus he begun reallocating demons to different groups, based on their specialties.
Sometimes they would lure roaming demons of great strength and since Domina didn't care about their energy, they were absorbed by his small legion of fireball demons.
In just a weak there was the first evolution in his litle army, but as he had comanded the demon awaited him to tell him what to evolve into.
He was the biggest of the fire demons and one of the centurions, to Domina's disapointment there were only three evolutions for him.
Demonic flame
A strange purple fire ball, instead of the normal yellow one, with red eyes.
fire imp
A small red imp with his tail and horns on fire.
It had wings but he wasn't sure if it had the ability to fly or not, but it was far weaker that the first evolution.
Fire eater
A strange fatty, it looked like a red egg with hands and feet, it's ability was to eat flames or something, It had a little head but a large mouth which was on it's stomach. It was the largest in size of the three evolutions.
"Tell me Pit, what do you tourself want to evolve into?"
"Master, I will chose whichever evolution you command me but fire eater is my true path"
Pit was the largest of the demons he had under his command. He was used to bully other fire demons and eating them one by one so the fire eater was probably a choice because of these actions.
Pit's group was became known from that day as the fire eater group. The bane of any fire element demon or beast.
Domina continued developing his demon army, as well as recruiting other demons as well until the day his actions caught the attention of the local Overlord.
He was but a small character in the Demon world but he was strong and proud, he had few subordinates and as luck had it one of them fell into Domina's trap and died.
The overlord and most powerfull demon of the areaa was called Ochelot. He was a demon knight and subordinate to a noble of the demon world.
The demon king didn't need anything from his generals, unless a war broke out they were free to do whatever they wanted to.
Ochelot was only an armor with nothing inside, but pride and honor were the two words most characteristic to him. When he heard that his subordinate died he quickly assembed a small army of hundreds of lowly demons and the few of his subordinates that he had.
"Sowa what do you think about this Domina Demon?"
Ochelot asked one of his subordinates, she was a beauty with rather revealing clothes but no doubt she was a demon like everyone else.
"I don't know, he's probably a new demon that tries to establish itself in our territory, probably doesn't know the difference between stong and weak"
She said disdainfully.
"Boss, you don't need the whole army, me alone is enough to tremble the little baby of a demon"
Boboro said, he was a large earth demon, he looked more like a golem if you asked anyone's opinion but he was a demon non the less.
"Why not send a scout first, or a few spies, I've heard that he's recruiting right now, if I go as a spy it will be easier to come up with the best action"
The one who spoke was Liches, he was a fat worm that looked like a leech. A disgusting demon that would bite and never let go.
He was the strategist and brain behind Ochelor's back, after all strong demons need no strategy to win their battles, but to cut the losses short strategy was a must, after all in the demon world each loss is a gain in power for the enemy.
"Liches is right, after all Ovas was killed by them not so long ago, they probably have some strategy that works on strong demons like us"
Sowa said somewhat distressed.
Ovas was a large hellhound that could spit flames, in reality in Allastar he would be considered mediocre but in the demon lord he was among the upper half of the weakling demons, well he wasn't weak but not strong either, other than Ochelot their group had no upper level demon, and even Ochelot was considered weak by the Demon King although he was one of his generals, he only controlled a small area, but in this area he was the undisputed ruler, the strongest existance.
If anyone asked who was the overlord of this area everyone would name Ochelot.
Domina's appearance was a big blow to his image and reputation, after all he only had his name on the line, treasures and artifact were of no special use to demons, after all they had no lack of them.
Artifacts like Ochelor's sword and armor were part of his body, every demon had inborn weapon and armor as for skills and spells they were naturaly developed as they leveled up.
It was the truth of the demon race, every demon advanced gaining new powers, they didn't need training or even weapons, all they need was eating other demons in order to advance.
In truth the demon world was like a testing ground for new monsters and stuff, every creature here was a prototype for a monster in Allastar, so they didn't need food or anything else, the reason for the evolution system was because it was a left over from tests that were later used for other worlds.
After they talked for a while they decided on sending a spy to Domina's side, in order to find out how strong he was after all they knew nothing about this new demon, other than that he was openly recruiting weak demons to form an army.
Of course things like that didn't really concern the higher ups but if this demon was strong then even the Demon king of the region would get involved.
Three days passed by before they could get news from their spy, a small demon they send to join Domina's side, you might find it funny but the information stated that Domina was no weaker than a demon God.
Of course this was what created the first uproar in Ochelot's Lair, it was after all impossible for a demon boss to fight a demon god, but this was terrifying for another reason.
If Ochelot had brazely stormed Domina's lair he would have been eaten for lunch, not to speak that normaly demon Gods didn't need an army unless they were going to become Demon Kings themselves.
Unknown to domina a tide of information shook the foundations of the demon world, all but his little hunting spot.
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Lidie's POV
Lidie and Galie woke up in the morning only to see Max swinging his sword like an idiot up and down, making slashing movements with his sword.
If this was reality than his movements would be rather effective in training in sword wielding but this was a game, to train your swordmanship you had to hit monsters with your sword, all he did was earn a little stamina maybe some attack speed but a good skill and some monster farming would give more effect than rigorous training.
"You do know that if you gain sword mastery you can gain some attack speed with swords and with the sword expert you can gain some good damage"
Lidie said, seeing as he looked tired.
Max looked at them somewhat lost for words, he knew all that but his mother was somewhat of a real world maniac, so she had him learn how to use weapons the hard way and it became sort of a habit.
"So where should we go next?"
Lidie asked after all there was little to nothing they knew about the area and after a search on the forums they couldn't even understand what was happening on this Island.
In reality Eal Isle or otherwise known as earthquake Island was a rather strange oriental Island with a strange mix of cultures, the Island was ruled by two sides, one was the Jins, who were sort of strange godly beings and the other side from the Yokai.
Truth be told the Island was divided with the Yokai having 2/3 of the Islan and the Jins with difficulty holding the last 1/3 of the Island.
The reason was easy, most of the players went to Yokai side leaving only a few on the other side after all who didn't want to become a Maou, a demon lord of the eastern fantasy genre, while demon swordsman was much more alluring than being called a sword saint.
The Jin's side of course had it's own advantages, but too few people ever cared to find out the world of the mysterious eastern mages. Truth was that the Jin side only excelled in its monks since the Yokai side had no monks but had its more dreaded counterpart the demon tamers who used demons to fight and in the end could even merge with their demons.
The swordsmen, talisman masters and ninjas were the three merged classes, since each could change sides whenever he wanted and talisman masters were even forced to experience the both sides.
Talisman masters were divided into Yang and Yin masters, and they needed both classes to unlock the more powerfull Yin Yang master class.
Even you might find the Yokai side more alluring but there was a tiny bit of a problem, Yokai were hostile to outsiders so new players had to pass through seven hells to join their fuction and even then they would understand that only the strong in the Yokai fuction have a nice time since the Yokai side was a heaven of PKers and even Npcs were killed for no special reason.
The funny thing was that most Yokai players didn't even hide their glowing red name tag as it gave them prestige on that side, hiding it was akin to telling others to kill them.
But the most problematic thing was because killing red tag players didn't make someone a PKer, to renew a Pk status after death they had to go kill someone with a white name tag or an Npc, many simply charged to the Jin side to kill someone and came back happily after killing some misfortunate noob.
Lidie's group's problem was that they ended up on the Yokai territory, and they would have to move for days to reach the Jin territory where no PKers were allowed, it was said to be a peacefull territory the further inside you went after all the Jin border forts and villages were the only ones being attacked.
The time it took to reach the Jin side, they had taken numerous attacks from the Yokai players and monsters that resided on these lands, but with a little bit of luck didn't encounter anything outside of their capabilities to hundle.
"How many days until we reach the Damn Jin territory!"
Red shouted angrily, her anger was justified, after all they had been walking all the way till now and if this wasn't a game their legs would surely be hurting right now, but all they felt was the psychological fatigue and pressure.
After all she wasn't really into playing the game, she was mostly forced due to some bad circumstances.
"Wait I think we are almost there"
Lidie exclaimed as they reached the top of the mountain.
It wasn't so high as to ascend the clouds but from here a vast region revealed itself ahead of them.
The land was a natural paradise, of trees and rivers, there was nothing lacking but the strange fort that could be seen as a small dot on the ground.
They turned around to fare goodby to the gloomy valleys and mucky forests behind them and begun descending into a new world.