Ikarius.
“Zoran, you should head on,” Freya said, tension in her voice. “I’ll follow you with Nazu. It’s better for you to head over to Ikarius as soon as possible.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s clear it’s the Dark Alliance that’s attacking us. I’m sure they have a ton of contingency plans for every move we make. I don’t trust that they don’t have a few people stationed out here ready to face off against you. We need to stick together.”
“They seem to have just attacked the village,” Nyx said. “Damage doesn’t seem to be much, but it’s going down fast.”
“How much do you think it can take?” I asked.
“Definitely not what’s coming. The village is in no way equipped to handle even a moderate attack, let alone one from the Dark Alliance itself.”
“I know,” I muttered.
The Dark Alliance was one of my biggest enemy factions, and if their name wasn’t a dead giveaway already, they had been the sole perpetrators of the Dark Lord’s first resurrection. Of course, that meant now they were probably focusing entirely on finding him or raising him up to his true potential.
And the fact that I was seeing the Dark Alliance here, in a village that I now possessed, after months of silence from their side, was definitely not anything close to calming.
The sounds of metal and stone rang in my ears as we approached the entrance to the village. I looked through the shadows of the night and saw men in dark armor clustered in the streets ahead of us, smashing into buildings all around them. Walls came crashing down as tens upon tens of men sent their weapons into them, tearing through rock and wood with their strikes.
“I can’t contact Ijyela,” Freya said from beside me, a worrisome tone in her voice.
Did the Dark Alliance go after her? I wondered. She was the only resident of the village as far as we knew, but I was certain she’d have taken measures to protect herself the moment she’d realized Ikarius was under attack. She was a smart woman, I knew that much.
“Oooh, black beam,” Nazu said, pointing at the center of the village. I looked up and saw a massive beam of black light shoot up into the night sky, and a loud explosion sounded, sending flames and sparks high into the air.
“Dammit!” I cursed. “Freya, take Nazu with you and see if you can find Ijyela. I’m heading to the center of the village. That’s where the enemy forces seem to be concentrated.”
She nodded. “Stay safe.”
I pulled Dawnbreaker out. “You can’t attack my village and get away with it unscathed,” I muttered as I shot through the street. My blade passed through the Knights all around, slicing clean through their bodies. I heard gasps and screams as I surged through the streets, my blade passing through every enemy that came at me. I was merciless, as was the weapon I wielded.
I received a few strikes in return, but I cared nothing for them. They were but unfelt scratches on my body. And I repaid the attackers back in full.
“Diablo, you need to calm down,” Nyx said.
My body froze at his words, and I paused for a moment, slowly looking around and taking in what I had just done. Bodies lay on either side of the street, flesh and bone hiding amongst the rubble of the broken houses. Blood dripped from my blade onto a street whose stones were already stained red.
A lone Knight rushed at me and thrust his blade hard, but I caught it between my fingers and smacked him to the side with my free hand, sending him crushing against the wall.
“Can’t believe I’m saying this, but you need to be a little less murderous,” Nyx said.
“I know,” I said. I pushed myself off the ground and onto the rooftops of what was left of the houses around me. A few Knights came after me, trying to block me from moving forward.
Stay calm. Don’t attack, I told myself.
“I applaud your bravery,” I said, looking to the Knights, feeling the wind blow past us all. “But our difference in levels is far too high for any of you to leave this battle alive. I will have to end you if you wish to oppose me.”
They yelled and charged immediately, as though my words had had no effect on them. I sighed. I gave them a chance.
“Fine,” Nyx said, sighing as well. “Can’t do anything if people don’t listen.”
My blade moved like lightning, and when I stopped, the Knights had all collapsed on the ground, bleeding and unconscious.
Well, at least they’re not dead.
“Yet,” Nyx added.
Okay, you’ve made your point. I hastened my steps, sliding across the roofs as I headed to the center of the village.
Ikarius was small, so a few seconds in, I came to the fountain that had rested in the center of the village. I peeked from the rooftop, noticing that a large group of Knights were all crowded around one man.
A man in a hooded cloak the shade of night, the dull moonlight striking his silhouette, as though the dark skies were picking him out.
That was never a good thing.
I focused on his form and used my Analyze skill.
DING!
My eyes shifted to the screen that popped up. But before I could even focus on the words on it, I noticed a hand pointing up at me from the crowd.
The hooded man.
A blast of dark energy shot at me with a blazing speed. I ducked for cover and jumped from the roof, pushing myself off the stone wall and down onto the man, my blade thrusting at his head.
I heard a phrase being mumbled, and a hemisphere of gray light extended out from him in the blink of an eye. My sword clashed against it, rupturing the wall, but the aftereffects were mutual. I dropped down to the ground below, my momentum completely taken away by that exchange. The Knights had already moved out, forming a wider circle around us, giving us the space we needed.
I looked at the man, the cogs already turning in my head. He looked familiar, and the strength behind his attacks was familiar—and I already knew why. If I was right, that would mean bad news.
“Who are you?” I asked, holding Dawnbreaker up high to keep the Knights wary.
The man laughed. “Can you not tell?” he asked.
I clicked my tongue in annoyance. “I know of another man of the Dark Alliance who was as playful as you are,” I said. “I would suggest you abstain from acting the same. Asterion did not leave this world in peace.”
The man paused for a second, and my heart skipped a beat, wondering if he was indeed Asterion, the Beastmaster I had dealt with before.
“Asterion,” he muttered. “That child was never worthy of leading such a legion.”
Child? I blinked.
“Well, that means this guy is super old,” Nyx chuckled.
“That helps me in no way,” I said.
“I will ask you again, old man.” I looked at him. “Who are you?”
“I go by many names,” he said, a playful tone still in his voice. “You may call me whatever you wish.”
“I managed to run Analyze on him,” Nyx said.
“Show me,” I said.
Name
Jelal Orson
Race
Human Dark Sorcerer
Level
461
I stared blankly at the mental image before me, fear crawling up my spine just a little bit.
Why are all of these people so strong all of a sudden? I asked.
“What happened, Eternal?” Jelal chuckled. “Analyzing someone is sometimes a fun thing, especially for the person being analyzed. How do you like my stats?”
Dammit, he knew. I groaned.
“What is your purpose in my village, Jelal?” I asked. “What do you want here?”
He let out a chuckle. “I do not know how Asterion does these things,” he said. “But it is my understanding that I should not randomly provide key information to the enemy.”
“That’s true, Asterion was quite stupid,” Nyx said.
“Not the time for this, Nyx,” I said, keeping my attention on the man. It bothered me that he was so confid
ent with his demeanor. It bothered me that he was already this strong. He was a mere sixty levels beneath me, and that was not very comforting. He could prove a big threat to me if he were to come at me with better resources.
For the most part, people I’d dealt with, apart from Asterion and the Dark Lord himself, were close to half my level. I found it odd that in the past day, I’d seen three people who’d all surpassed that, and by considerable margins too.
It felt like there was something else going on here that I wasn’t aware of. And that made me very uneasy.
“Well, it was nice meeting with you, Diablo,” he said. “But I’m afraid I cannot stand here idly. I have a job to do.”
He thrust his hand out before I could even respond, and a beam of dark energy shot right at me. I swiftly pulled out my blade and cut into the beam, deflecting parts of it. Knights and buildings collapsed from the force but the man kept going.
“Stop, Jelal!” I yelled. “You’re attacking your own men!”
“So?” he asked.
What does he mean, “so”? I gritted my teeth.
He struck me again with his blast of darkness and I deflected once more, the rays hitting the Knights once again.
Dammit, I cursed.
“You have no choice now. You have to use your Arts,” Nyx said.
I know. I thrust my hand up without hesitation. “Uher!” I yelled. A dark form emerged from the ground, morphing into a phoenix and surging at the man. He cut off his beam for a moment and put up a shield, absorbing the impact of the bird.
I used the opportunity and shot forward, aiming for the spot on the shield that the bird had already weakened and slamming through it. I went through with ease and took full opportunity of the opening, sinking my sword straight into the man’s chest.
“I see,” he chuckled and burst into shreds of light.
A decoy, I realized.
But before I could even process what was going on, a beam on dark energy shot down from above, smacking me to the ground. The pressure kept me pinned, and I felt my body crack the surface, sending tiny fissures through the stone.
“Your health is depleting,” Nyx said, a little stunned.
And I found his astonishment apt, since this was the first time since facing the Dark Lord that my health had actually gone down faster than my health regeneration rate could bring it back up. Even Lazarus and Gorias had been unable to do that to me.
“If you thought you could win so easily, you were wrong, Diablo,” Jelal chuckled, his form materializing before me.
I pushed strength into my bones and pulled myself back up, bearing the pressure from the attack. “So you can make clones of yourself,” I muttered as I gazed at the man before me.
“Ah yes,” he said. “It’s sad that I had to reveal that trick so early on, but it was necessary.”
“I will ask you one last time, Jelal,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
I could feel him smile under his hood. “You are an interesting man, Eternal.”
DING!
Warning!
Your village, Ikarius, is close to critical damage. Villages that have been dealt critical damage will lose fame and will have a reduction in defenses. Additional penalties may be added.
Dammit, I cursed.
“We need to take this guy out, and fast,” Nyx said.
I gripped Dawnbreaker tight, infusing the sword with power, and swung out hard. A pressure wave came from the blade, slicing through the dark beam for a moment. I charged at the man, surging into him. My mind focused entirely on his presence, noting his every move.
I wasn’t sure how he’d been able to plant a decoy in my path, but I sure as hell wasn’t letting that happen again. I could feel the village growing weaker with every second I wasted here, putting Freya, Ijyela and Nazu in more and more danger.
I couldn’t waste any more time.
“It’s a shame, Diablo,” the man said as he dodged my strike. “You are strong. It would have been nice to have you as part of the Dark Alliance.”
“Over my dead body,” I grunted as I turned around and swung hard, catching a piece of his robe my blade and slicing it off clean.
“Over your dead body?” He laughed. “It is amusing for a man with the powers of necromancy to say such a thing.”
I infused power into Dawnbreaker once again, and this time the blade glowed with a purple hue. My strikes hastened, and I could tell Jelal was finding it harder to dodge. My blade found his body more frequently, cuts and tears in his robes appearing in just seconds.
All of a sudden, I leaned in, feigning a strike, and let go of my sword. The man moved back, his eyes focused entirely on my weapon. I quickly dropped to my knees off to one side, out of his line of sight, and then sprang at him, my hand touching his chest.
“Ekter!” I yelled.
I heard a chuckle, and suddenly his resistance to my hold disappeared, leaving me with just a black robe in my hand. My attack came down a moment later, a strike of black lightning racing down from the sky and blazing into the empty clothes in which Jelal had stood a mere second ago.
“He teleported,” Nyx said.
Dammit, I cursed, but my mind immediately shifted to what I had to do, unwilling to let this opportunity go to waste.
I turned to the Knights around me, the men who had refrained from attacking us out of the fear of being caught up in our attacks. Of course, many of them had already been killed, but a significant number still remained, close to a hundred and fifty, at least.
I stood at the center of the village, brandishing my sword in one hand and the burning robes of their leader in the other.
“Jelal has abandoned you,” I yelled, my booming voice silencing those who spoke and freezing them all in place. I could feel uncertainty in their minds, their unease showing clearly in their collective body language. They sure as hell knew how strong I was, and I could sense the fear that grew in them with every second that passed.
“You men have destroyed a village that I own,” I said. “Your death is warranted. However—”
I paused, waiting to see what their reaction was, and unexpectedly, I saw relief and hope on their faces.
“I will give you a second chance,” I said. “All of you before me have two options. You can either pledge allegiance to me and become a part of this village, or”—I sliced into the burnt robes, mincing them to slivers—“you can go ahead and die.”
***
CHAPTER NINE
Silence hung in the air, my words echoing through the empty black of the sky and into the panicked minds of the Knights.
I knew I had to dominate this exchange if I had any chance of getting these people to join me, so I did something I usually wouldn’t.
I played the Evil Overlord card.
“What do you choose, Knights of the Dark Alliance?” I said, pointing Dawnbreaker at the men before me, the blade glowing an ethereal purple as I infused power into it.
I could feel the fear play in their minds. They knew I could kill them here and now if I wished it. I had all the power in this exchange, and I was going to make sure they felt every ounce of it.
But of course, there are always idiots amongst cohorts of a legion, and as expected, there were a few here as well.
“Die, monster!” A group of seventy to eighty Knights charged me, their weapons swinging in the air, like a wave of metal approaching.
I sighed to myself. You poor fools. I put my hand up in the air and yelled, “Qeteria!”
The ground beneath the men shook violently, sending them sprawling. A fissure cracked through the stone, and the street split open. Raging fires sprawled beneath, rising high up into the air as the men fell within the gaps, their screams of terror echoing through the walls. The fissure closed just as quickly as it had opened, and the street looked like nothing had ever happened.
Silence dominated the Knights in front of me, a greater fear now holding them prisoner. They knew I was not afraid to kill, and kill bruta
lly at that.
“Wow, was that rough,” Nyx said. “Was that the first spell you’ve used from the Death Arts?”
I nodded. I figured I’d go for the most dramatic spell I had.
“You chose well,” he said. “Although I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s the most dramatic. There are certainly other things you could have chosen.”
“Maybe,” I said. I focused on the task at hand and addressed the men before me. “This is what happens to those who oppose me,” I said. “There is only one safe choice for you. Join me, and I will grant you a pardon and the journey to a fulfilling life.”
“I’d rather die than serve you, you villain!” A Knight raised his sword into the air and then thrust it into his chest, falling to the ground dead.
My eyes widened for a moment, shocked at the thought of someone choosing to die over actually serving me. Did I miscalculate? I wondered.
“We will never follow your path, Phantom Lord!” a lot more men raised their swords and plunged them into their bodies, taking their own lives in an instant.
“Ugh,” I mumbled, but a cold, hard expression remained upon my face, as though I cared not a bit for the lifeblood that had been spilled right in front of me.
I looked past the pile of bodies at the last few men remaining, about forty of them left. They all stared at me, their bodies stiff, silence on their lips.
“Do you wish to defy me as well?” I asked, a hint of a threat within my voice, my Evil Overlord card playing its part. More than three-fourths of the soldiers either had been killed or had killed themselves. I had the upper hand here, and I made sure my demeanor showed it.
“We do not wish to defy you, Phantom Lord.” One of the Knights stepped forward, his helmet design clearly that of someone in charge, not a mere underling.
“What is your name, Knight?” I asked.
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