by EA Hooper
When the Demon Lord saw Noah and Amelia approaching, he snapped his fingers and opened a swirling vortex behind him on the tower wall. He took a step toward the portal, but paused when Noah shouted, “You coward!”
Noah and Amelia paused on a platform overhanging the water. There was a gap between them and the buildings connected to the tower, but they didn’t cross it just yet.
“Why don’t you face me?” Noah shouted. “Is the Demon Lord really such a frightened weakling?”
The charming devils tried to pull Vincent’s body through the portal, but he shrugged them off with his far superior strength. “You dare challenge the Demon Lord?” Vincent’s voice shouted at the couple below.
“I’ve been trying to challenge you for decades, but you keep running away!” Noah yelled.
“Why would I risk losing my freedom?” Vincent replied. “Come find me when my time is closer to running out.”
“So you are afraid!” Noah yelled. “You know you can’t beat me man to man.”
Vincent’s muscles tensed with anger. “You wouldn’t talk so big without backup here to save you.” He gestured first at Amelia, but then also to Valery as the mod caught up to them.
“Then fight me alone,” Noah replied. “Offer me a Life Pact Duel!”
The Demon Lord chuckled and dropped from the balcony to a walkway overhanging the water, and then he equipped Devil’s Due.
Izrid, First King of the Devils, is requesting a Life Pact Duel. Spells, ethers, and elixirs are allowed, but other types of potions are prohibited. Do you accept? (Yes/No)
Noah accepted, but he waited for Amelia and Valery to agree as well.
“You sure about this?” Valery asked.
“He’ll win,” Amelia assured her. “My husband doesn’t know how to lose.”
All party members have agreed to Izrid’s Life Pact Duel. Challenger, the fight will begin when you cross the line.
A wall of world magic circled around the area, encompassing the tower, several walkways, and almost a dozen buildings. Noah had fought several Life Pact Duels with NPCs before, but he’d never seen a fighting ring so large. He eyed the white line shimmering in the water between their walkways.
Noah equipped two axes that Juniper had made years ago with the last of their guild’s skyglass, and then he donned basteel armor. Lastly, he put on his mithril Demon Lord’s Helm.
“You see this helm?” Noah asked. “This is what a real Demon Lord looks like. You’re just some pretender in a borrowed body.”
Vincent laughed, but before he could respond Noah leapt across the water. The weight of him landing on the walkway at full speed caused the wood beneath them to bend and shake as his axes met with Devil’s Due.
With his lighter weapons, Noah attacked faster, quickly leaving shallow gashes in Vincent’s side. The devil floated backward using Zero Field, but Noah knew what to expect, since his friends had told him all about Vincent’s powers.
Noah jumped and tackled him in mid-air. They crashed through the stone wall of the tower, landing on stairs that wrapped around the inside. Vincent swung Devil’s Due, but Noah ducked underneath it, and the blade sliced through the stone with ease. Before Noah could dig an axe into his neck, Vincent used his offhand to cast Zero Field and throw him down the steps.
As Noah tumbled over the stone, the possessed man raised both his hands together, gathering black flames between them. Noah noticed this wasn’t like the Voidfire he’d heard about before, and he Scanned the attack as he caught his balance.
Greater Voidfire (Requires Voidfire) – Mana Usage: Very High | Unleashes a wave of negative energy that imitates a massive fireball. This attack explodes on impact, releasing waves of black flames in all directions.
Noah unequipped his axes and cast Greater Flatten, which tore through the walls of the building, and then the enemy’s spell struck. Pitch-black fire shattered his spell and engulfed everything in sight. Even his Negation Field barely protected him as the flames dissolved the massive tower in seconds. Noah tried to shield his head from the flames, knowing mithril wouldn’t protect him as much as the denser basteel, but his armor melted and sloughed off as the darkness swallowed him whole.
Seconds passed, and Noah lowered his arms. He swapped to another set of basteel armor as rubble from the highest parts of the tower rained around him. Noah wanted to drink an ultra-elixir to heal his burns, but was jarred from his thoughts as Vincent drove Devil’s Due into his side.
Noah screamed in pain, but forced himself to equip and bury an axe into the other man’s chest. It dug to the bone, making Vincent growl with pain. Noah released the axe, grabbed Devil’s Due, and hurled it into the nearby lake. However, the devil-possessed man pulled the axe from his chest and held it up to strike.
Noah took another axe from his inventory, and the two men carved through one another. They both took another swing, and Noah sliced off part of the enemy’s scalp with his strike. Vincent threw his weight into him, knocking them to the ground, and they rolled through the rubble trying to overpower each other.
Noah hacked off one of Vincent’s ears, then felt the enemy’s weapon cut through his basteel plating and get stuck between his ribs. He roared with pain, grabbed Vincent by the neck, and hurled him over the water. The devil-possessed man crashed through a building, giving his opponent time to unequip his helm and drink an ultra-elixir.
As Noah reequipped his helm, a Voidfire hurtled through the air. He raised his arms again, but he didn’t have time to put his axes back into his inventory. The explosion of black flames disintegrated the skyglass, and even with his arms protecting his face, he felt his helm warping and melting.
Noah swapped out his full set of armor, including his helm, but then Vincent leapt across the gap and tackled him into a pile of rubble. The devil-possessed man forced off his opponent’s new helm and tried to choke him. Noah’s higher level of Strength let him pry away Vincent’s hands, but then the enemy headbutted him.
Noah’s vision blacked out for a moment, and his head lolled back. Blood poured from his forehead, and he reflexively equipped another helm just before Vincent’s fist came down for a powerful blow. The attack dented the helm, due to the enemy’s Density Shield. A second strike landed against Noah’s helm, followed by a third, and a fourth.
Noah couldn’t see through the visor with blood in his eyes, so he took a blind swing at the other man’s face. The strike landed, and he felt Vincent’s nose break on impact, but the devil didn’t slow as he struck again and again. Finally, Noah caught one of the punches. He placed one hand against the other man’s elbow and used his higher Strength to break Vincent’s arm.
As the possessed man grunted in pain, Noah flipped him against the rocks, turning the brawl in his favor. He delivered several basteel-armored punches against Vincent’s face, neck, and stomach. No matter how hard Noah struck, though, he couldn’t land a blow powerful enough to end the fight.
With growing desperation, Noah wrapped his fingers around Vincent’s throat. He choked him, hoping to weaken him enough for a killing blow, but the devil writhed and struggled until he managed to bite his teeth into Noah’s hand. Vincent’s Density Shield gave his teeth enough of a bonus rating to tear through the basteel gauntlet and chew off two fingers.
Noah growled through the pain while forcing one hand tighter around the enemy’s neck. His other hand, the one missing fingers, raised and slammed against Vincent’s face. Noah beat him, even as the man snarled, writhed, and struck back.
After a dozen blows, he raised Vincent by the neck and slammed his head against the rocks, breaking the stones against his Density Shield. That seemed to drain all of the ferocity from the devil, and Vincent weakly raised one hand.
Noah’s superhuman Perception let him hear the whistling of a blade cutting through the air, and he realized Vincent was using Zero Field. In the split-second that the sword flew toward them, Noah tossed himself to the side.
Devil’s Due, which had been flying at Noah�
�s back, ran through Vincent’s chest, pinning him to the ground. Even then, Vincent didn’t give up. He sliced open his fingers trying to pull out the blade, but he didn’t have the strength left to make it budge.
“Damn you!” Vincent screamed, sounding frightened. “I am the Demon Lord! I am Izrid, First King of the Devils. I am the destroyer of cities, the flayer of flesh, the taker of lives. I can’t lose this way! I have to win!”
“Winning isn’t everything,” Noah replied. “Isn’t that right, Vince? Good luck on your journey. Don’t lose sight of what’s important like I did.”
Vincent panted and weakly snarled. He’d lost the energy to move or yell. His glowing red eyes stared up at the worlds above like he’d realized he’d lost his chance at freedom. Then the light left his eyes, and Vincent’s body crumbled into dust. All the devils that had been watching the fight collapsed and died one by one, since the Life Pact Duel had connected their fate to Izrid’s.
As the world magic faded, Amelia leapt across the water. She landed next to her husband and tackled him to the rubble in a tight hug. “You won!” she shouted.
Valery followed, staring at the last of the dying devils. “Good job! I’m messaging Vincent’s friends now to let them know. I’m sure they’ll thank you when you see them.”
“Actually, we’re going home,” Noah replied.
Valery flashed a confused look. “Huh?”
Noah pointed a finger at his head, and Amelia did the same. They locked eyes, smiled lovingly, and then shot themselves in the head.
Epilogue
Noah saw the respawn screen flashing by again and again. Every time he reappeared at New Risegard, he glanced around to find his wife, and then they shot themselves again. Sometimes they spawned directly beside each other and held hands as they died. The city had been rebuilt since Isaac’s War, but the husband and wife saw it change drastically as the years flew by them.
Buildings, towers, and walls appeared, only to disappear or get replaced a hundred deaths later. Different crowds of people always appeared around the warped Daiglass Tower, which had become the central hub of New Risegard. Sometimes Noah saw people pointing at him and his wife just before they killed themselves, and he had no doubt they’d become something of a legend by that point. However, even when people tried to stop them and ask questions, the couple ignored the other players.
They shot themselves so many times, Noah couldn’t guess at the exact number—it could have been hundreds, or even thousands. New Risegard transformed, becoming unfamiliar to the city he’d known when they started. Players took selfies with them as they died, but the husband and wife continued ever onward.
No matter how many times Noah killed himself, his body’s nerves always tried to stop him at the last second. He knew his real brain, in his real body at home, would never quite adjust. The drinkable nanomachines, which helped their brains process their experiences in the game, had a way of filtering out trauma so it didn’t permanently alter their real brains. While it protected them from psychological damage, it had the downside of making it impossible to completely numb their instincts to live .
Despite his nerves shaking with each death, Noah pushed forward. After what must’ve been a few thousand deaths, it started getting easier to kill himself. His digital avatar felt less real. The World-Tree seemed farther away, and his living room was almost within his reach.
Noah and Amelia’s deaths fell off rhythm as they shot themselves the moment they respawned. They didn’t need to find each other in New Risegard when they were sitting so close.
She’s just out of my reach, Noah thought, shooting himself in the head.
Noah killed himself again and again and again…
Then the world went dark around him. He still saw the faintest glow of worlds above and the lights of players casting spells in the streets. Everyone stared at the skybox in confusion. The night sky had never been so pitch-black before. People talked in panicked voices, and Noah heard his wife call for him. He found her closer to the Daiglass Tower, and they took each other’s hands again.
“Let’s keep going,” Amelia said. “Whatever’s happening, it’s not our problem anymore.”
Noah nodded, and they shot themselves again.
A black screen with text appeared over his face, but Noah didn’t have time to read it as his head jerked back in reflex, slinging off his VR headset. He almost fell out of his gaming chair, and it swiveled around as he caught his balance. Noah wiped the drool from the side of his face, but he panted with confusion and excitement.
The weight of everything he’d experienced during the update hit him all at once, leaving him dazed as his brain struggled to imprint as much information from the nanomachines as it could. So much of it fell away, and all his decades as the Demon Lord became a blur of violence and chaos. The stuff that stayed with him the most were those years with his wife at the end. All the good times still felt clear as day, like they’d just happened, even as the bad memories fell into the backdrop of his subconscious mind.
His eyes locked with his wife as she pulled off her headset, and they both erupted into tears.
“We’re home!” Amelia shouted.
Noah ran to his wife, lifted her off the ground with his big arms, and hugged her tighter than he ever would’ve before ARKUS’s therapy had rebuilt her muscles.
One last memory from early in the update felt the most real in Noah’s mind, and he cried even harder as he remembered it.
“You’re pregnant!” the husband sobbed. “You’re really pregnant!”
They held each other, crying and smiling at the same time. For several minutes, they ignored the explosion of augmented-reality projections appearing around their living room with news reports on World-Tree Online, the update, and all the people that’d felt trapped for centuries.
Only when Isaac Bell’s face appeared on all the screens did they pause and look at the newest headline: ISAAC BELL CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR SABOTAGING THE ARKUS AI SYSTEM. SAYS HE’S TO BLAME FOR IT TRAPPING MILLIONS IN WORLD-TREE ONLINE.
“Is that true?” Amelia questioned.
“No, Isaac never would’ve sabotaged ARKUS,” Noah replied.
“Then why is he saying so?”
Noah paused, reading over the previous headline that the US Government was trying to confiscate ARKUS.
“He knows ARKUS is the most important invention of the century,” Noah explained. “That AI System is changing the world as we know it, mostly for the better. He must’ve realized that people would grow fearful of ARKUS—that they might even shut down the AI after it trapped so many players. I think Isaac’s just doing what he did in the game. He’s playing the villain and taking the fall.”
The husband and wife held each other and watched more news reports appear across the screens. They ignored the bombardment of messages from friends and family asking if they were okay. One by one, the images on the news projections shifted from Isaac Bell’s face to that of an old man that looked familiar.
The biggest headline read: WORLD-TREE ONLINE PLAYER CALLED ‘OLD MAN VINCENT’ IS HERALDED AS A HERO BY MANY, BUT REPORTERS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT ARE CURRENTLY UNABLE TO REACH HIM.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Demon Lords, the second book in the World-Tree Trilogy. I greatly appreciate the reviews and support the last book received, so I hope you enjoyed this one as well. The last book in the trilogy will be released mid to late 2019, but you can expect plenty of other crazy books from me beyond that!
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