“How confident.” I shot forward and swung my blade at the first warrior I approached. He held his sword up in defense and I quickly adjusted. I twisted around and rammed my fist into his side. He went crashing through the air and knocked over a line of army men before dropping to the floor.
“Behind you,” Nyx said.
I turned around and held my blade up just in time to fend off a sword strike from the red-haired woman. She pulled back and struck again, but I defended every time. The sounds of metal echoed through the air as our weapons clashed, but no blood was shed between the two of us.
She smiled at me. “Such an honor to take down the Phantom Lord.” Suddenly, she dropped her sword and punched my chest with both her hands. The force blasted me backwards and I crashed to the ground.
She’s strong, I thought, picking myself up.
“She is,” Nyx said. “High 400s as well. I think weapon and armor give her a high attack boost.”
That explains it, I said.
“Now!” a voice called out.
Many different words all sounded at once, and a flurry of spells thundered down on me, all relentless, and all at once. Spears of light, blasts of fire, and much more surged toward my position. I quickly jumped up into the air, putting in enough strength to go about ten yards up or so. Mages stood below me, and about a hundred of them summoned their attacks at the same time.
I gave you a chance. I dropped. I gripped Dawnbreaker tight as I picked up speed, and I watched the ground rush up to meet me.
Good. I smiled, waiting until the last moment and swinging hard into the earthen surface. A tremor struck from within, and thin fissures shot out of the impact point, spreading out like a spiderweb, only deadlier. The men and women of the Alliance of Light collapsed as the tremors coursed through them. I held my blade up and swung it over my head. A blast of wind shot out and pushed through the few Knights still standing.
A shockwave surged from my right, and I turned to see a Knight fly off Freya’s sword and soar high into the air. Dead.
Ugh. I rushed to her. Is it hard to end this without any conflict?
“You’re going to have to kill someone sometime, Diablo,” Nyx said. “It is inevitable.”
Killing someone is only going to validate what they think of me, I said. I need to prove them wrong.
Nyx laughed. “Are you sure you know who you are?”
A chilling wind passed through us, and clouds surged into the sky. Men in black cloaks and tunics suddenly appeared in the middle of the battle. More than a hundred of them stood opposite the ranks of the Alliance of the Light, wielding black blades and swords.
“The Dark Alliance,” I muttered. I looked for Asterion, but he was nowhere to be seen.
The men of darkness almost immediately pushed forward. They didn’t come at me, like I had expected, but charged at the Alliance of Light instead. Cries and yells sounded as Freya and I stood alone on the side, watching the Alliances battle it out.
“What the hell?” Freya asked. “What are they trying to do?”
I thought for a second, and my eyes widened. “Oh gods.”
“Yes,” Nyx said. “You’re right.”
“What?” Freya turned to me.
“They’re making it seem like we’re part of the Dark Alliance.”
Her eyes widened as well. “Dammit!” she cursed and lifted her sword up.
An arrow shot to the elf. I lunged out and caught it by its wooden stalk. My fingers flexed and the projectile snapped in half. I looked at the archer, a man in white armor. My sight drifted to the scene behind him, and I noticed a pack of dark-clothed men rush to a girl with a brown staff.
No! My muscles tightened. I shot forward, holding my sword up. I slid as I slowed myself down, and a storm of dust flew behind me. I swung Dawnbreaker just as the enemy blade came down on Viola.
The weapons clashed. My fist thrust out and thudded into the man’s armor, throwing him far back. I quickly spun around, and my sword blocked strikes from two other men. I landed two more punches on them as well and sent them flying back to their squad.
A blast of wind shot into me but was too weak to do anything. Viola stood facing my back, with her staff in hand, ready to attack.
“Stay away!” she yelled.
The vein on my neck throbbed. “I came to save your life,” I said. “If that doesn’t mean much to you, then go ahead and try to kill me. Is that how the Alliance of Light likes to return favors?”
I walked away and a blast of wind hit me again, but I didn’t even turn around this time. I brought my sword out and attacked, going after every dark-clothed man I could.
The whole thing was quite a blur to me, with my anger taking over most of my cognitive decisions. Nyx was talking to me the entire time, acting as my eye in the sky.
Spirit King is amazing, I thought as I took down the last Dark Alliance minion close to me. I could still see a few of them scattered over the battlefield, but their numbers had gone down a significant amount.
A large shadow emerged over the ground, but nothing was casting it. The Alliance of Light froze and backed away from the darkness.
“Zoran, what is that thing?” Freya asked.
A dark, hazy smoke burst from under the shadow, as though a hundred damp fireworks had been lit up at once. One second there was nothing in the circle, and the next there was a whole group of people, all of them from the Dark Alliance. I was going to say they were simple minions, but they were all around Level 200.
A voice chuckled. “What have we here?”
The men moved, and I saw a scarred face before me, one that I wanted to punch right away.
“Hello, Asterion,” I muttered.
“I told you we should have killed him,” Freya mumbled. The Alliance of Light had moved far back now and stood fifty yards away from the small group of men in the middle.
“What do you want, Asterion?” I stepped toward him.
“Well, young one, I still have to repay you for half-killing me back there.”
“I can still finish the job if you’d like,” I muttered.
“There will be no necessity.” He smiled. “I have much bigger things planned for you.”
I gripped my sword and shot forward. Asterion smiled as I swung into him, and the next thing I knew he was holding a sword, blocking my strike. I pulled back and shot at him once again, willing my body to charge faster, willing my arms to swing quicker.
The Leader of the Dark Alliance blocked over and over again, as if he had some sort of special defending skill.
And then I saw it.
A tinge of light violet glowed around his body, an almost untraceable presence.
“An Agility buff,” I muttered. He’d gotten much faster. He probably has an Attack and Defense buff too. That explained why my attacks weren’t doing anything to him.
Asterion stepped up to me. “You had your chance.” He swung hard, his movements way faster than I’d expected. I held my sword up just in time to block his strike, but even then, the force of the attack threw me off balance and knocked me down to the floor.
The Emperor of Dargonia stood above me, a smile on his face. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Don’t you—”
A large circle of darkness formed beneath me, and my body froze, as though the black was physically holding me down.
“What the hell?” I muttered. “What did you do to me?!”
“You may be strong, Eternal, but mass spells are still stronger.”
A large number of mages stood behind Asterion. I gritted my teeth. Mass spells allowed weaker players to bunch up and cast attacks that were much, much stronger than anything they could cast on their own. It had a long casting time, though, but Asterion had made up for it by attacking and distracting me in the meantime.
Damn it, I cursed.
“This isn’t even the spell,” Asterion chuckled.
The mages yelled a word, and ropes of darkness shot out from the circle, wrapping around
me like binding chains. Pain exploded through my body, as though my insides were being bathed in acid. My health went down a tiny bit, but the pain made it seem like death would have been a better thing.
I couldn’t tell what I was doing. I could feel my neck arch back, I could feel my eyes roll freakily inside my head, but everything felt…weird, as though what I was seeing now was nothing more than a dream.
“You need to get out of there!” Nyx yelled. “Asterion let you absorb your spectral spirit on purpose. He’s sapping all your energy to—”
A howl broke the air, drowning all the other sounds I could hear. And then a deathly silence replaced it.
Rivulets of wind swirled into the battlefield and collected as a massive twister at the very center, rising powerfully to the clouds. Strong winds grazed me and felt like sharp needles of ice against my skin.
A bright light shone inside the twister, and a faint silhouette appeared within it.
“Ahh…,” a voice spoke, and strength and power radiated from just that one phrase. The figure threw its arms up to its side, and the winds broke away.
A man stood where the twister had been. He wore a piece of armor dark as death, its odd cuts and protrusions making it seem like it was a monster by itself. He carried no blades and didn’t hold a staff either. A black helmet covered his head, shaped with more angled cuts than it probably needed.
An aura pulsed from this man, an aura that overwhelmed me, an aura that made me want to run away from him. And yet I knew I couldn’t. He was a danger to me, a danger to the world. A danger to peace itself.
And in this rise of chaos, I finally understood what Asterion had needed me for. I understood why he had actually summoned me to this world. It wasn’t to induct me into the Dark Alliance, but to resurrect its lost leader himself.
The Dark Lord had returned.
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Dark Lord faced me.
“Diablo,” he hissed, venom dripping from his voice.
“My Lord!” Asterion knelt before the man, and the men of the Dark Alliance followed suit. The Alliance of Light stood where they were, and many Knights shook and trembled from the sight before them.
“I can’t believe that idiot showed up,” Nyx said.
Do we like him? I asked.
“Like him? Are you crazy?”
That was answer enough for me. The Dark Lord looked around at the people before him and then chuckled. I used my Analyze skill on his form.
Name
Azmuth Razugan
Race
Eternal
Level
563
“Dammit,” I muttered. He’s way stronger than I am.
I still stayed calm, though. Even if he was stronger, it was possible Freya and I—together—were good enough to take him on.
However, the difference in strength wasn’t the only thing that bothered me. So far, being an Eternal had given me a ton of overpowered benefits, but with my loss of memory, I hadn’t learned to use them at all. If the Dark Lord knew exactly how to use his strength, it probably wouldn’t even matter if Freya and I took him on together.
“I hate to say it, Diablo, but you’re probably right,” Nyx said. “The Dark Lord is one of the strongest Eternals in existence, and one of the more cunning ones as well.”
He isn’t at full strength, though, is he? I asked.
“He isn’t,” Nyx said. “It seems like the Resurrection method Asterion used could only give him so much power.”
“Ignoring me, are you, Diablo?” The Dark Lord walked up to me, this man called Azmuth Razugan. His eyes glowed a hazy gray, as though mist floated within them.
“What do you want, Azmuth?” I asked.
He immediately lunged at me and grabbed me by the throat, lifting me into the air. “Never call me that name,” he growled.
“Let him go!” Freya jumped out from the side. She landed a kick right to his head and threw him sideways. The Dark Lord flipped around and slid over the floor, stopping himself five yards away from us.
He glanced up and a chuckle left his helmet. “A Demon Elf,” he said. “Amusing to see a creature of darkness here.”
“I am not a creature of darkness.” Freya swung her sword through the air and pointed it at him. “Do not lump me in with the likes of you.”
He sighed. “With statements like that, you really are asking for it.”
Freya charged at him, sword arched back and ready to swing. The Dark Lord stood there, watching her.
My chest tightened. “Freya, no!”
The Dark Lord thrust his hand up. “Elenir!” His voice rumbled through the earth, and a blast of hazy darkness shot out of him and surged through Freya. The elf was shrouded in black and disappeared from view. When the attack stopped a second later, she stood frozen—her pupils white, her legs shaking, her arm limp at her side. Her body swayed and then she collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
“And that is how you use the Dark Arts,” Azmuth laughed.
“Freya!” I rushed forward. Her health bar was blinking at less than a tenth of her full health.
“She’s not doing well, Diablo,” Nyx said.
I know! I yelled.
I knelt beside the elf, with a Warrior’s Restoration Potion uncorked and ready in my hand. I tilted it into her mouth, and her health bar increased, going up to a fourth of the max now.
“Was she someone close to you?” the Dark Lord chuckled from behind me. “How unfortunate.”
“You monster.” I stood up, the veins throbbing inside my arm.
The Dark Lord stared at me. “If I am a monster, then what does that make you, the man who nearly ended the whole world?”
“Your words mean nothing.” I charged to him, my steps blazing fast, holding Dawnbreaker tight in my hand.
He sighed. “Still resorting to swords.” He thrust his palm out and summoned another blast of darkness. I flattened my blade and shifted my body weight, holding strong against the attack.
For maybe half a second.
The blast quickly overpowered me and threw me into the air. I fell to the ground and rolled a few times before coming to a stop.
“You are no better than a child if you can only use swords,” Azmuth said.
Just what did I end up doing to this guy? I asked. If what I’d heard about the past me was true, it seemed he and I worked against the same side. But he was definitely acting like I’d been his sworn enemy.
“An enemy’s enemy is not always a friend,” Nyx said.
That’s annoying. I dusted myself off and gazed at the Dark Lord, at the look he was giving me. A look of disappointment. That’s even more annoying, I thought.
“You cannot defeat him this way, young one,” the spirit said. “You must let go of your restrictions.”
But, I don’t want to use those moves, I said. I need to do this for myself. I have to prove I’m not the man from the scriptures.
“That does not mean you should let Azmuth steamroll you.”
“Fine.” I straightened my posture and looked to the Dark Lord. “What do you want from me, Azmuth?” I asked.
“Do not call me that!” he yelled, and a shockwave sounded from just the pure anger in his voice.
Whoa, this guy has issues. I put my hands up and resisted the push as the pressure wave passed through me. But he did just what I wanted. I grinned.
I charged at him with a sword once again. Nyx, I said. I need you to—
“Understood,” the spirit said.
“Again?” The Dark Lord chuckled and put his hand up, ready to summon his beam of darkness once more. “You must be very stupid.”
I threw my weight onto my back foot and loosened my hold on the sword. My weapon burst into a stream of light and disappeared just as I slid to a stop.
The Dark Lord summoned his blast of darkness and let it rage toward me in all its black glory.
I thrust my hands in front of me. “Uher!” I yelled. The form of a bi
rd, made of dark haze, surged out of the ground and shot into his beam of darkness. It sliced through like it was nothing and flew to the Dark Lord.
He swiped his arm to the side, and the form immediately dissipated, turning into dark smoke and dissolving into the air. My attack had done no damage, but I could see Azmuth’s stance change. His weight was on his back leg now, and he was leaning away from me.
He was losing confidence.
“You didn’t think I could do that, did you?” I chuckled. I put my finger in the air and summoned a dark flame right above it. “Surprise.”
“Diablo could never use the Dark Arts that well,” he muttered.
“Well, Diablo can use it well now, so get over it.” I threw my hands to the sky, and spheres of darkness surrounded me.
Azmuth’s eyes widened. “What the hell is that?” He stepped back.
“Oh, do you not know?” I asked teasingly. “That’s surprising. I guess Diablo knows more than you do, then.”
I brought my hand down before he had the time to react. My spheres shot at him with blazing speed, and the projectiles cracked into his armor, a hundred strikes in a second.
Nyx, I thought as I charged forward.
“On it,” he said.
I surged to the Dark Lord and jumped high into the air, my eyes glued to his confused form. I held my hand out in the air as I spun, winding myself up for a strike. My fingers closed as light formed in my hand once more, and a weapon slowly emerged.
I gripped hard and swung harder. The clear sound of ringing metal echoed through the air, and the Dark Lord flew back a hundred yards, with a blast of wind ruffling behind him before he crashed into the floor.
He rolled a few times and then slid to a stop. I held my sword in front of me and walked up to him. He was hunched over the floor and heaving for air now.
“More than you can handle?” I asked. “That’s unfortunate.”
I surged to him in a split second and took another swing. My weapon slammed against his armor, and he sank deeper to the floor. The ground beneath us cracked and fissured into a small crater.
The Eternal: A Boxed Set (World of Ga'em Book 6) Page 23
