The Eternal: A Boxed Set (World of Ga'em Book 6)

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  ***

  CHAPTER TWO

  We rushed into the village, paying no heed to what might actually be going on in there.

  “Really?” Nyx asked. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “I mean, it’s always worked for me before,” I said as I charged in.

  “You have also been nearly killed on numerous occasions before.”

  Good point, I chuckled but kept going, the thought of death not worrying me.

  “What do you think made that sound?” Freya asked, running beside me.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, my eyes scanning the houses as we headed deeper into the street. The village seemed empty for the most part, something that I found very odd. The wooden walls around us were musty, dust and mud collecting on their corners and edges.

  “This village seems to have been abandoned many centuries ago,” Nyx said. “It’s possible that’s why it was never on a modern map in the first place.”

  That makes a lot of sense. However, if this place was abandoned, where the heck had that screech come from? I’d heard goblin cries before, and I could tell for sure that definitely wasn’t what I’d heard.

  A threatening silence loomed as we took a few more steps into the village. I stepped softly over the cobblestones, a little hesitant about what we were facing. In all honestly, I found it hard to think the enemy was stronger than I was, since that was statistically really unlikely, but at the same time, I wasn’t willing to take the chance.

  No more than ten seconds had passed when I heard scuttling from behind us, as though wood was scraping against stone. I turned around, and my eyes widened.

  Skeletons.

  I blinked, watching the small group of skeletons rush up to us, silver swords in their hands. I froze for a second, still taken aback, and then swiftly made my move. I slid out Dawnbreaker and swung it far before they even reached the attack zone of my blade. A blast of air surged out as my sword sliced into the skeletons and threw them to the floor, dismantling their bodies into a pile of bones.

  I looked at their broken forms and used my Analyze skill.

  DING!

  Race

  Skeletal Warrior

  Level

  96

  “Okay, what was that?” Freya asked, breathing heavily for a moment.

  “A Skeletal Warrior,” I mumbled, confused a bit.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “They’re undead creatures,” Nyx said. “Very much like zombies, but distinct at the same time.”

  Wait… if they’re undead—my eyes lit up—Does that mean I get to control them?

  “Because of your title of the Undead Emperor?”

  Yeah

  “It makes sense that you would, but I’m not sure how exactly that would work.”

  “I hear more noises.” Freya turned to me, gripping her sword tight.

  “Let’s get to higher ground,” I said. “I want to observe these creatures for a bit.”

  “Fine.” She nodded.

  We jumped off the stone floor, landing softly on the top of the nearest house, perching a little more than two stories above the ground. I saw a flash of white on the streets in front of me, and all of a sudden a swarm of skeletons flooded the pathway, clattering around with silver weapons in their hands.

  Why are there so many of them here? I asked myself.

  “Was this the darkness Ijyela sensed?” Freya whispered.

  “It seems plausible,” I said, keeping my voice low. “But these skeletons aren’t beings of the Dark Lord. I don’t know why she would sense darkness from them.”

  A skeletal cry pierced the air, and a sword flew right at me. I quickly jumped back, sliding a bit on the roof before coming to a stop, panting hard.

  Sure, my level was about five times higher than the skeletons’, but critical hits and skill hits were still possible even then, which meant that if a low-level enemy managed to injure one of my vital points, like my heart or my brain, I could still end up taking a ton of damage.

  “You almost got killed, Diablo,” Nyx said. “Pay more attention.”

  I will. I walked along the roof to the edge.

  “Are you okay?” Freya stood there, a worried look on her face.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  I slid Dawnbreaker out of its sheath and held it beside me. A piercing scream exploded through the sky, this one not of a skeleton, but something else.

  A human.

  “Come on!” Freya mobilized immediately, rushing off the roof and down to the path below. The skeleton men made their move an instant later, charging after her with vigor.

  That idiot. I jumped down, landing softly on the ground and following her. Normally I’d have tried to smack my blade into the ground or something, and maybe cause a wide-range attack to take out the Skeletal Warriors. But the fact that there was a victim somewhere here meant I was going to have to be careful about what kind of moves I used. I certainly didn’t want to take them out with some mass attack.

  I quickly turned around to face the skeletal creatures and charged into them. Dust and wind kicked up as I surged through the streets, slashing multiple warriors with Dawnbreaker. A few seconds later, bones cluttered the ground, a bunch of weapons lying abandoned between them.

  DING!

  Congratulations! You have defeated:

  Skeletal Warrior Squadron (Lv 76).

  That was a whole lot of skeletons destroyed in very little time. You should be called the Bone-cruncher. Reward: 40300 XP. Reward: 1200000 Sol. Reward: Spear of the Skeletal Warrior (x17). Reward: Sword of the Skeletal Warrior (x10). Reward: Shield of the Skeletal Warrior (x5).

  “I’ve auto-transferred them to your Equipment Inventory,” Nyx said.

  Thanks. I turned from the pile of bones and rushed away, catching up to Freya in a few short seconds. On a regular day, I’d have been enthusiastic about the loot I’d gotten, even though it wasn’t that useful to me, but right now, things were different. There was something more important to focus on.

  “I take it the Skeletal Warriors are gone?” the elf asked me as I entered her field of vision. She had taken out the men around her, and I could tell she’d done it quite easily given that there wasn’t a single scratch on her body.

  I nodded. “That set won’t be coming after us.”

  Cries echoed from an intersection in front of us, and a swarm of skeletons rushed through on cue, these ones just as active and invigorated as the previous.

  “You might want to rephrase your statement,” Freya sighed. She hunched down and jumped into the air, landing gracefully on the closest house and hopping from one roof to the other, completely avoiding the streets and thus the Skeletal Warriors.

  “Well, that seems super convenient.” I smiled and followed her up just as the swarm approached me.

  In seconds, we’d turned our fight on the ground into an escape through the roofs. I took my steps softly, careful about not crushing the surfaces. I was still getting used to my strength even now, and shattering a whole roof would not be the best way to showcase that I was slowly getting there.

  A scream echoed through the air once again, this time more pained than before. Another one accompanied it, this one distinct from the other.

  More of them, I realized, my mind silently wondering how many victims there were.

  “And what exactly are these things even doing to them?” Nyx asked, concern showing in his tone.

  I don’t know. Anger coursed through me.

  A few seconds in, the cries of Skeletal Warriors and humans alike intensified, both worrying me and letting me know we were on the right path. I picked up the pace, a little less wary of damaging the rooftops as I pushed ahead.

  Freya seemed to notice my urgency, and she pushed forward alongside me, a few odd tiles cracking under our feet as we moved ahead. A puff of smoke rose from the ground a hundred yards ahead of us, and we both locked onto that location im
mediately. I considered going back down to the streets to attack, but I knew that would leave us at a disadvantage.

  A speck of white caught my eye, and I instantly stopped, sliding on the clay tiles of the roof before coming to a stop at the edge. I knelt down, hiding my presence, and looked to Freya, who’d done the same on the adjacent roof.

  I turned to the sight ahead of me, a large town square beneath us with a waterless fountain in the center and a massive swarm of white around it. The Skeletal Warriors. I leaned over a bit more to get a better view, and I managed to catch a glimpse of our targets.

  Five young humans, three men and two ladies, all clad in metal armor and with swords in their sheaths and bows over their shoulders. They were all tied to wooden posts, and red marks covered their bodies. A few Skeletal Warriors stood in front of them, with whips in their hands.

  “They were being tortured,” Nyx whispered.

  “What the hell?” I muttered.

  I sprung off the roof and up into the air. Gravity did the rest, pulling me back down to the ground. I kept my sword ready at my side and prepared my mind, reminding myself to use only physical moves and no spells. This was not the time to arouse suspicion within these men and women, and having them learn I was the infamous Phantom Lord would only give my current position away.

  I’d prefer that didn’t happen. Especially since it’d been hard going into hiding in the first place.

  The moment I touched the ground, I whirled around, striking the Skeletal Warriors around me with one swing. I surged around the square, taking out the warriors fast, my sword swings just flashes of purple even before my own eyes. I caught Freya in the corner of my vision, taking out a bunch of skeletons as well.

  In just a few seconds, the entire enemy squad had been reduced to a pile of bones on the ground. I looked around at the sea of white in front of us. There had been a lot more warriors this time.

  DING!

  Congratulations! You have defeated:

  Skeletal Warrior Squadron (Lv 112).

  Yup. Bone-cruncher. Definitely. Reward: 80300 XP. Reward: 1950000 Sol. Reward: Sword of the Skeletal Warrior (x23). Reward: Tome of the Skeletal Mage.

  A tome? I blinked, curious immediately. I also noticed that these warriors were a lot stronger than the previous squadron, which meant they had specifically been sent for this task of capturing these adventurers, something I found very odd.

  Oh yeah, adventurers. My eyes turned to the bound people before me. I caught sight of their health bars, and my body tensed upon seeing that they were nearly empty. I quickly stepped up to them, using the tip of my blade to cut the ropes binding them. They fell to the ground, gasping for breath as they lay there, their fingers brushing the wounds all over their body.

  “Th-thank you,” one of them gasped, breathless from everything that had just happened to him. I could tell a few of them were on the brink of losing consciousness, so I knew I had to act fast.

  “Warrior’s Restoration Potion?” Nyx asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “How many do I have?”

  “Enough.”

  “Give me five.”

  “On it.”

  A stream of glowing lights emerged in the air, condensing in my hands as glass vials. For some reason, Nyx seemed to have control over parts of my Ga’em menu as well, so he could put in and take out weapons and items from my Item Inventory and Equipment Inventory as he saw fit. I found that a pretty neat feature.

  I held the vials in my hand up to the light, or at least what was left of it, and saw the red liquid inside.

  “Here.” I tossed two to Freya. “Give this to them.”

  She nodded and we both knelt beside the half-conscious fallen adventurers. I quickly uncorked the vials and emptied the contents into their mouths. Health bars around me quickly filled up, the color going from red to green in a few seconds. The adventurers’ eyes fluttered open nearly a minute later, and they sat up gingerly, looking around for a second and then noticing me and Freya.

  “You saved us!” One of the men jumped up, happiness glowing in his eyes. “Thank you so much.” He smiled, his hair fluttering in the wind.

  “We did what we had to,” I said, my attention still focused on the other people behind him.

  All of a sudden, a loud roar shuddered through the air, sending shivers down even my spine. And trust me, that hadn’t happened in a while. I quickly turned around, trying to locate the source of the sound, but it was too hard. It was far too loud to discern what direction it was coming from.

  “Maybe it’s coming from all directions,” Freya said.

  “It sounded like the Skeletal Warriors,” I said. “But I don’t hear any movement.”

  Suddenly, a massive shadow cast itself over the square. I immediately turned around, but there was nothing there. I looked at the shadow again, confused.

  The darkness suddenly shifted, and immediately, a beam of black shot from it, straight into the sky. It lasted but half a second, and when it cut off, I saw the enemy in front of me.

  A massive Skeletal Warrior, at least twice the height of the average house in the village.

  “What in the world?” Nyx exclaimed, a little surprised himself. I quickly used my Analyze skill on the creature, and the screen popped up.

  DING!

  Race

  Skeletal Giant

  Level

  216

  He’s pretty strong, I thought. At least compared to most other creatures we’ve met.

  “He’s stronger than I am,” Freya muttered from next to me, a little annoyance in her tone.

  I silently realized that this was the first time in a while that she’d had to go up against an enemy that was leveled higher than she was. I wasn’t too worried about it, but it sure was an interesting thing to think about.

  Meanwhile the Skeletal Giant had noticed us and was already making his way forward. He held a massive sword of rustic gray in his hand, holding it up high and ready to swing down on us. I was about to dodge when my eyes darted to the adventurers beside me, their reflexes too slow to avoid such a strike.

  Dammit! I cursed as I stepped forward and held my blade above me, just as the sword came hurtling down.

  The weapon smacked against mine, the force enough to push me down to the ground, cracking one of the paving stones beneath me.

  “This thing is stronger than even its level implies,” Nyx said. “Seems like it has a pretty high strength stat.”

  “Well, it is a giant,” I muttered.

  A flash of black appeared from the corner of my vision, and I saw Freya use one of the roofs as a launching point and jump straight for the beast. Her longsword lay in her grasp as she shot to the creature’s head. The elf twirled around and sank her blade deep into the Skeletal Giant’s skull in one fluid motion.

  The monster froze for a second and then convulsed, wailing as it tried to pull the sharp weapon from its head. Freya held on tight, twisting the hilt and the blade for all she was worth. I watched the warrior’s health bar sink fast, but not fast enough.

  The giant swiped at Freya with his hands, but she hung on. However, she was taking on a significant amount of damage, and I knew I had to end this before she got too much. I used her distraction well and shot forward, slashing my blade hard against one of the skeleton’s legs before going straight for the other. The giant instantly crumpled, its body no longer connected to its legs.

  I rebounded from my slide and quickly shot back, slicing an arm off in one motion and sliding to a stop right before the head of the amputated warrior.

  “Game over,” I said and swung my blade hard down its skull, splitting it into two.

  And just like that, we’d gotten rid of the creature.

  DING!

  Congratulations! Your party has defeated:

  Skeletal Giant (Lv 216).

  Is it even a surprise that you defeated a guy less than half your level? Reward: 30000 XP. Reward: Sword of the Skeletal Giant.

  Nice. I grinned,
thinking about how massive such a sword would be.

  “You and your swords,” Nyx sighed.

  Hey, let me have this moment, okay? I chuckled.

  “Are you okay?” I heard Freya behind me and turned around to see the elf resheathe her sword and kneel before one of the fallen adventurers. I put away my weapon as well and reached out to the lady nearest me.

  Thankfully, they all seemed perfectly fine—a little shaken up, but that was expected.

  “That was…astounding,” one of them said, completely taken aback by what she’d just seen.

  “Who are you?” another asked.

  “Just your everyday adventurers.” Freya smiled.

  I looked to the least shocked of the adventurers, the man I had talked to before. “What happened to you guys?” I asked. “Why did the skeletons come after you?”

  “I do not know,” he said. “We are simple adventurers heading to the Kingdom of Aingard. We were looking for food and water and were hoping to find it in the village here.”

  “Wait, you were able to see this village from afar?” I asked.

  He blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “Diablo, it seems like they did not have the same invisibility problems we did,” Nyx said. “I suggest we keep this to ourselves for the moment.”

  Fine, I looked to the man. “Please, go on.”

  He nodded. “As I was saying,” he continued, “we had just headed into the village when all of a sudden a swarm of skeleton surged to us, and the rest, you know.”

  “I see,” I said, thinking hard. It seemed odd that an enemy would suddenly attack them like that. What were the Skeletal Warriors even doing in this village? It didn’t make any sense to me.

  I turned around, taking in the scene around us. I felt a certain odd sensation when I looked at the fountain. I stepped up and walked over to it, curious. My fingers brushed the stone surface nonchalantly, stopping cold when I felt an inscription close to the main spout.