But that doesn’t make sense, I thought. Something didn’t add up here. If I was the Phantom Lord, then who had made the Valdar who attacked me? Who had created those tortured wraiths? Who had raised the Desert Snake back from the dead?
I frowned. And who put the Death Seal in my mind?
I needed to look into this more, but for now, I wanted to stop feeling anything about the situation. My emotions could take the backseat till things calmed down again. I quickly tapped on my new ability and brought up its info screen.
SPIRIT KING
You now possess total control over all spirits, including spirit-infused creatures and objects. You have gained the ability to host spirits within yourself. Other effects unknown.
Host spirits within myself? I blinked.
DING!
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill
Dark Arts Level 35
The domain of darkness is a familiar old friend. The destructive power you possess is frightening.
Effect 1
Agility increased by +50% in darkness
Effect 2
Strength increased by +100% in darkness
Effect 3
Max damage of Dark Arts spells increased by +100% in darkness
DING!
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill
Death Arts Level 42!
The Undead will rise for their Emperor once again. You’ve become so great at killing people, that power of death itself has become your ally.
.
Effect 1
Attack increased by +5% with every one-hit K.O. landed.
Effect 2
All stats temporarily increased by +50% in the presence of mass death
Effect 3
Max damage of Death Arts spells increased by +100% in the presence of mass death.
Effect 4
+50% increased resistance to all forms of magic.
HOLY HELL! I blinked. This was insane, and it wasn’t even the end of it.
DING!
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill
Chain Casting Level 21!
One can never cast too many spells at once. You can now simultaneously cast multiple spells of different kinds. While activating the skill, the Mana cost of each spell is temporarily multiplied by the number of spells being simultaneously cast at that moment.
.
Effect 1
Attack of each spell increased by +15%
Effect 2
Casting speed of each spell increased by +5%
I turned away from the screen and looked at the Moon Elf sitting next to me. She gazed at the floor, a blank expression on her face. Thoughts wrung my mind. Was she rejecting me? Was this where we parted ways, where we turned from allies into enemies?
“I will not judge you, Zoran,” she said, still looking at the floor. “I have not known you for long, but I trust you. I don’t care if you really are the Phantom Lord. I will give you a chance to show me you are not the man the ancient scriptures claim you to be.”
My heart lifted, and a warmth spread through my chest. I coughed up the words stuck in my throat. “Thank you, Freya.”
The sound of steps came from beneath me, and the sharp sound echoed off the circular walls around us. It’s a small group of people, I realized.
“Eternal.” Asterion’s voice sounded. “I know you’re in here. You can hear me, can’t you?”
I kept silent, and pushed my back harder against the wall.
“You know, Zoran,” he chuckled, “it’s quite funny how things turned out in the end.”
“Sure,” I mumbled.
“I do feel bad for you, though,” he said. “To go through so much, thinking you’d find your oppressor, and then finding out you’re the worst kind of man to have walked this land since the start of time—that’s a harsh thing to deal with.”
I gritted my teeth. Don’t you sympathize with me. Freya touched my hand, and her fingers gripped my palm. Her warmth soaked my skin, and her gentle caress soothed me. I looked at the small smile on her face and calmed myself down a little.
“You must be wondering why I am here, young man,” Asterion said. “There are many questions you probably have, and I will answer them. Whether you like it or not.”
I tensed, but didn’t speak out.
“First, that seal that you have,” he began. “The Seal of the Eternal was made from the greatest sealing magic ever known. That seal is a soul seal, meaning a spirit’s very essence was used and manipulated to create it. Your seal, however, is quite special.”
He chuckled. Footsteps moved to and away from me as Asterion walked around the room. “You see, Zoran, as the Phantom Lord, you were not the nicest of people. As far as niceness went, you were pretty much the last one on the list. Any list. But that wasn’t surprising given you also had one of the worst anger fits on display.”
What? I blinked. That didn’t sound like me at all, but then again, maybe it wasn’t supposed to.
“You went on a rampage a few millennia ago,” Asterion said. “You leveled towns and cities, sending some people to the afterlife and using the rest in your own undead army.”
My fists clenched. He’s lying, I thought. He has to be lying.
Asterion continued, “Things…got worse when you attacked the places overseen by the people who called you an ally. No one knew what went wrong, why you were attacking everyone around you. You were ready to take down the entire continent when the Eternals finally came together to try and stop you.”
I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. The raging heat in my chest subdued but didn’t vanish. Don’t let your emotions speak, I thought.
Asterion sighed. “In their panic to calm you down, the Eternals did what they could do—they put a seal on you,” he said. “Unfortunately, those idiots didn’t realize that your power was too strong to put you under a seal, and you broke your restraint mere seconds after it was imposed. Moreover, your anger at your own kind turning against you was not a fun thing to deal with. And so, your rampages got even more hectic and destructive.”
I don’t want to listen to this. My hands hovered over my ears, but didn’t clamp down on them. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to listen, but I wanted to know.
“You see, Eternal, you are what I would call the biggest danger to the world,” Asterion said. “So, the Eternals came up with the greatest solution they had. A greater version of a soul seal.”
I froze. What?
“The Seal of the Eternal that you have? It was made from the lives of every Eternal alive in your time.”
No. My eyes shot open. The heat in my chest burst out, raging even more than before. No no no no. I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palm.
Was I the one who made them all disappear? I asked. Did I even want to know the answer to that?
“You always called me a monster, Zoran.” Asterion’s footsteps neared. “But you’re the true monster here.”
The words sank right into me, stronger than any weapon I’d ever felt, harsher than when the wolves had torn my very being.
“Don’t believe him, Diablo,” a voice spoke. “You’re not a monster.”
My eyes widened, and all of a sudden, the sounds around me disappeared, as if silence was screaming over them. You’re the voice from before, I thought.
The space in front of me darkened for a moment and turned completely black the next. The faint lashes of wind from before stopped abruptly. Now I was trapped in a box. A box of darkness.
“I am indeed who you’ve been hearing all along,” the voice said. An orb of light emerged in front of me. “Took a while until I could finally meet you, Zoran Diablo,” he said. “You may call me Nyx.”
I stared at the glowing ornament. “Nyx,” I said softly. I looked up and around but saw nothing but darkness for as far as I could see. I turned to the orb. “Where are we?” I asked.
“Your Spirit Space,” he said. “It’s where the spirits from yo
ur Spirit King ability are stored.”
“Wait.” I blinked. “So you’re a spirit that’s in me, then? I’m your host?”
“Of course,” he chuckled. “It is understandable you are confused, since your memories are now lost. But I, Nyx, am the spirit that has always stayed with you in your Spirit Space.”
“My memories.” My eyes widened. With everything that’d happened, I’d completely forgotten about that. My heartbeat hastened. I’d broken the first stage of the Seal of the Eternal. Did that mean I was going to start getting my memories back?
“Indeed,” Nyx said. “Apologies for reading your thoughts. Your memories have been manipulated because of the Soul Seal. They will slowly appear as you break the seal further.”
“I see.” My memories would finally come back to me. I’ll finally know who I am, I thought.
“You already do know, Diablo.”
My chest tightened, and my mouth twitched into a small smile. I know, I thought. I’m just not sure I like it.
Nyx chuckled, “It is easy to feel conflicted based on what other people tell you about yourself, Diablo,” he said. “I will, however, tell you this. Scriptures change over time. Experience doesn’t. I have known you since you existed. You are not a villain.”
“Maybe,” I said softly.
“It seems you are confused about something else as well. Is it about the Valdar and the tortured wraiths?”
I nodded. “For the longest time, it seemed like the Phantom Lord was coming after me,” I said. “So, it just makes things more confusing to learn that I’m the Phantom Lord.”
“There is a simple explanation for that,” Nyx said. “When the Soul Seal first afflicted you, it split your spirit into five parts, or spectral spirits—hence a five-part seal. Asterion appears to have summoned one of these spectral spirits through that mass sacrifice of his.”
Images of the piles of dead bodies flashed my mind, and I cringed. So that’s what he used them for. I grunted.
“It seems Asterion managed to trap this spectral spirit in a Kronos Crystal, an object known for holding large amounts of magical energy. Once he got the spirit into the crystal, he was able to draw power from it and perform the kinds of things that only you—the Phantom Lord—could have done.”
My eyes widened. “So, he’s the one that summoned the Valdar.”
“And the one who made all those tortured wraiths. Well, he did have the help of one of your spectral spirits in doing that. Actually, his act of summoning a spectral spirit was what caused you to reappear into this world in the first place.”
I froze. “What?”
“Every spirit has a body that it truly belongs in. When Asterion performed a mass sacrifice to summon your spectral spirit, he ended up summoning your body as well. When you first appeared, you were a shell of sorts, a body of the Phantom Lord that held none of his spectral spirits.”
My hands shook. “Asterion is the one who caused all of this.” The veins in my arms throbbed. “Every single stupid thing happened because of that one man.”
“I suggest you keep your calmness intact, Diablo,” Nyx said. “Your anger is justified, but it is better you do not give in to it. There is too much at stake here to let emotions dictate your actions.”
I caught a breath of air. “Fine.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Now, we can’t stay here any longer. It is time to head back.”
I nodded.
The darkness around me melted, and I found myself back on the balcony once again, overlooking the circular hall. My back rested against the wall, just as I had been before.
Asterion’s voice still filled the air, and his overconfident tone resonated in every word he spoke.
“Annoying,” I muttered.
Freya sat next to me, a blank expression still on her face.
“…you were a villain, Zoran.” Asterion’s words entered my ears.
Really annoying. I stood up and walked to the balcony. “Hey, Emperor of Dargonia!” I yelled. “Shut up!”
Asterion turned to me, his eyes wide. But his expression quickly shifted to give me his classic, unsavory smile. “So, you were here after all, Eternal.”
“A big surprise,” I said. “Now, if you’re going to try and get me to join your Alliance, I should let you know you’re wasting your time.”
He chuckled. “Ah, Zoran,” he said. “Still so innocent. Why do you think I did all of this? Grand schemes, intricate plots, mass murders. All just to induct an Eternal into my Alliance?”
My chest tightened. What’s going on? I thought.
“Asking you to join the Alliance was—how should I say it?—a small side project at most.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I will say, it would have been nice if you had joined the Alliance and then regained your powers, but it’s fine now, for with the spectral spirit within you, all I need is your unconscious body.”
“What?” I blinked.
He laughed and threw his hands up into the air. Gusts of wind surged in from all sides and enveloped him. In seconds, his body changed form, turning into a giant creature that was half-man, half-bull.
A minotaur. I looked at him, wide-eyed. Words formed in my throat but didn’t come out of my mouth.
The beast looked at me, his eyes like burning coals. “You may have escaped death, Diablo,” Asterion said. “But you will never escape pain.”
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The minotaur’s heavy breaths pulsed through the air.
The beast burst forward, with a pace that was not normal for someone his size. I surged away, and with my heightened speed, I’d gone across the whole room before I could even blink.
Got to get used to that. I turned around to face Asterion.
He stared at me. “I see,” he said. His legs crouched, and the next moment he was right in front of me, his fist pulled back and ready to punch. I dove to the side, and his hand thundered to the wall behind me. His punch went right through it and sent waves and tremors through the ruins.
“Tch.” He pulled his arm back and cracked his knuckles. “I was hoping that punch would have landed.”
“You’re going to have to try a lot faster than that, then.”
He chuckled. “You see, Zoran, you may be an Eternal,” he said, “but you’re still not strong enough to go around acting like one.”
He opened his mouth and a burst of fiery flames shot right at me, at a speed too fast to process. I instinctively put my hands in the air, and a phrase left my mouth.
“Askar el thum.”
A wall of fire burst from the floor, rising between me and Asterion. His attack collided with my flaming barrier and the whole thing exploded. The blast sent me back a few inches and filled the room with dark smoke.
The faint silhouette of the minotaur stood a few yards in front of me. I took advantage of the split-second distraction and used my Analyze skill on him.
DING!
Name
Asterion
Race
Beastmaster
Level
435
Beastmaster? I tapped the Race section and brought up a racial characteristics info screen.
Beastmasters:
A tribal race that lives deep in the wilderness. They hold special abilities that allow them to turn into any kind of beast. They can change into a beast only after facing it in combat and defeating it. The Beastmaster race has high physical prowess, with great strength and agility.
Damn, I cursed. Minotaurs were strong creatures, and if this man had managed to take one down, then that said a lot about how capable he was in battle.
The smoke cleared just as I dismissed my screen. The minotaur’s silhouetted form flickered and then disappeared from sight.
What? I blinked.
“Looking for me, Eternal?” a voice said from behind me.
I immediately turned, and my eyes widened. The minotaur stood five yards away and held Freya’s arms
within his massive palm, letting the poor elf dangle helplessly in the air.
“You better pipe down if you want this one to live.” He traced his large finger across her face.
Her eyes went bloodshot, and her muscles tightened, as though she were getting ready to punch. Winds broke into the room and swirled around her. Sparks of red and orange showered the air, and an intense heat radiated from them.
I froze. Uh-oh.
Freya’s body flickered and changed form. The blood and black made its way into her appearance once again. Asterion’s coal-like eyes fixed onto her presence, and his shoulders tightened.
But it was too late to be surprised.
Freya flipped her body and swung herself above his shoulder. Midswing, she twisted forcefully and jerked the beast’s arm along with her. The minotaur flew off the floor and crunched into the stone walls.
The elf landed gracefully onto the ground and then looked at the beast. “Do not use me as a damsel in distress.”
“Ughhh.” Asterion ran his hands over his arms and swept the dust off them. He turned to the elf as he stood up, and a smile curled on his face. “I did not think I would see you here, Queen of Iskaeil.”
She smiled. “So, you do know of me.”
“The Traitorous Queen is well known to the heads of the Dark Alliance.”
She threw her hands forward, and a twister of wind blasted out of her palms. The strong gales surged into the minotaur and threw him against the wall once more. “Then you would know not to cross me,” she said.
Asterion’s minions mobilized now and surrounded Freya in an instant. She looked at them, and a smile shone on her face.
The Eternal: A Boxed Set (World of Ga'em Book 6) Page 21
