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

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  “Lazarus,” I muttered.

  “Ah, so you remember me,” he chuckled. “I’m honored.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “What do you want with me?”

  “You’ve been a thorn in our side for way too long, Diablo,” he said. “We let it go in the hope you would cease your annoyance, but that has not happened yet. And so, we’re taking matters into our own hands now. You’re going to have to leave.”

  “Sneaky way of saying you’re here to murder me.” I grinned. “Do you not have the guts to even admit what you’re doing?”

  He smiled. “You are stronger than we are, Eternal. But I recommend you do not test our patience.”

  I froze up for a second, taken aback by his sudden aggressiveness, but I snapped out of my daze almost instantly. “What do you want, Lazarus?” I asked. “What is your faction attempting to do, siding with a group like the Dark Alliance?”

  “I feel like I’ve said this to you before, Eternal, but do not judge an entire group based only on what your experiences with them have been.”

  “They tried to kill me and summon a man who was known to love death and destruction. Is that something you’re saying I shouldn’t judge?”

  “What is going on now is beyond you, Diablo. Do not try to meddle in it. It will not end well for you.”

  “You know, funnily, I think I was told the exact same thing when Asterion was attempting to raise the Dark Lord,” I chuckled.

  “What is going on, anyway?” Krof stood beside me, staring right at Lazarus.

  “I’m surprised you involved yourself in this, Grand Wizard,” he said.

  “Tch,” Krof muttered. “Just answer the question.”

  Lazarus smiled. “Arrogance will get you nowhere,” he said. “I follow Sorcerer Jelal’s doctrine. Never hint at what you’re doing. Especially to a foe.”

  “I see. You’re under orders to shut up,” I said.

  “Something like that, yes,” he said. “Apologies, but I can’t chitchat any longer. There are other orders I am expected to follow.” He snapped his fingers, and a multitude of men emerged from the darkness around us, standing much closer than I’d expected. About fifty heavily armed Knights, all within a few yards of me and Krof.

  “They have some stealth skills from the Dark Arts as well,” Nyx said.

  “I noticed,” I said. “They have better control of the Darkness than maybe even some higher-ranking members of the Dark Alliance.”

  “Yeah.”

  The men before us stood still for a second, and then they charged right at us, weapons swinging hard. Krof waved his hands in the air, and a hemisphere of blue light formed around us, blocking their strikes. Cracks formed on the shield from the weapons’ impact, but the gaps refilled almost instantly.

  He’s fixing the shield in real time? I looked at Krof, who was staring hard at the dome, mouthing something in silence.

  DING!

  My Analyze skill summoned a screen into my mind, even though I hadn’t intended it to.

  Name

  Krof

  Race

  Human Sorcerer

  Level

  181

  Wow, he’s a lot stronger than I’d anticipated, I realized.

  “His stats are a lot better considering his level as well,” Nyx said.

  I heard something shatter and jerked my head up to see that one of the Knights had climbed up to the top of the shield and was now ramming hard into it, sending tiny shards down from the roof. I quickly realized that all the men were slowly crowding around the shield, climbing up its surfaces like ants on a piece of sugar, breaking it down with their weapons.

  It wouldn’t be long before the shield went down. We had to act fast, and luckily for us, I had a solution.

  “Krof,” I said. “Hold that shield up for ten more seconds. Drop it on the countdown.”

  “Understood.” He nodded.

  “Drop it and jump about twenty feet away.”

  “Got it.”

  I put my hands in the air and closed my eyes, focusing hard on the energy within me. I channeled it into my arms, feeling a burning sensation within my fingers as I did.

  “This is the second time in a day you’re casting something of this scale,” Nyx said.

  “I can handle it,” I thought, and I counted down aloud.

  “Two,” I said just as the men began breaking big chunks off the dome. “One,” I said, and they’d broken through the shield, dropping into the space within it.

  “Now!” I yelled. Krof immediately broke the shield, and everyone that had climbed on it fell to the ground in an instant. He used the distraction and jumped away from the attack zone. I held my palms up to the sky. “Helios Azure!” I yelled.

  A spark of fire flamed between my hands, and in less than a blink of an eye, it exploded. Flames surged around us, and a twister of fire surrounded the region, the heat enough to make the air feel like it was melting. Tongues of fire latched onto the warriors within, charring their bodies before they even had the chance to squirm and scream.

  When the attack was done, a pile of men lay on the ground, all of them burnt and dead. I realized immediately, however, that Lazarus was not here. He’d escaped. Just like he always did.

  Dammit, I cursed.

  I waved my hands through the air, and the flames cut off. I saw Krof standing right outside the attack zone, yelling at someone. He had a man in a dark cloak within his grasp, forcing him to stay where he was.

  “Saw this guy trying to run away,” he said as he walked up to me, dragging the cloaked one along with him.

  “That’s convenient.” I grinned and leaned close to the man, and whispered into his hood, right at his hidden face. “You’re going to tell us everything you know about what the Dark Alliance is doing,” I said.

  “I don’t know anything!” he said. “Please. You have to believe me!”

  I put my finger in the air, and a red flame sparked right over it. “I hope you won’t make me use this,” I said. “You saw what it did to the other men. However, imagine my doing that to you, but bit by bit, charring every limb till you can’t move anymore, till—”

  “I’m sorry!” he wailed. “We were supposed to take that Kobold to the chamber in the Ulhur Mountains. I heard something about a sacrifice, but that’s it. That’s all I know. I promise!”

  “Where is the Kobold?”

  “Our men in the Ulhur Mountains have him.”

  “Oh?” I said. That was a surprise. I’d expected the man in white armor to have found him, but I guessed the Black Guardians had found a way to keep him away from Nazu. And since the Black Guardians had the kobold, that meant the Dark Alliance had him as well.

  “What else?” I asked.

  “That’s all I was told. I swear!”

  “Good.” I pulled him away from Krof and gripped his arm. A flame of blood red spread over him, killing him in an instant. He dropped to the ground, his charred body hissing as it touched the damp soil, sending the scent of burnt meat into the air.

  “Wow,” Krof said, stunned. “That was a little…harsh, even if I do say so myself.”

  I froze for a second, trying to comprehend what I’d just done. I breathed in and turned to the wizard, putting on my best “I’m okay” face. “We can’t have anyone reporting back to the Black Guardians about this,” I said. “We can’t compromise.”

  “That’s…sensible,” he said, a little hesitant.

  My eyes looked at the burnt body on the ground. I hadn’t meant to do that. I would never have meant to do that. And yet, for some reason, I’d done it. It was almost like I felt an overwhelming desire that had compelled me to do so, a desire that wasn’t mine.

  “Zoran, are you okay?” Nyx asked.

  “Not really,” I said. “In that one moment, I felt like I’d turned back into…him.”

  “No, you just did what you had to,” he said.

  “Maybe that’s how I justified being a monster back then,” I said
.

  DING!

  Congratulations! You have defeated:

  Knight Squadron (Lv 164)!

  This is turning into child’s play for you. Reward: Lance of the Human Knight. Reward: Bow of the Human Archer. Reward: 160000 XP.

  DING!

  Congratulations! You have advanced a spell.

  Helios Azure: Storm of Fire Level 10!

  Storms and fire. What could go possibly go wrong? Spell recovery time reduced to 4 hours.

  Mana Cost

  3000

  Casting Time

  5 seconds

  Cooldown Time

  4 hours

  Range

  1000 yards

  Effect 1

  +10% chance of inflicting a burn

  Effect 2

  +1% Agility boost

  “We need to head back to the Ulhur Mountains,” Krof said. “If indeed there is to be a sacrifice, we must prevent it. And fast.”

  I nodded. I put my hands up in the air. “Hiestia,” I said.

  The darkness spread around us and consumed us whole. My vision blackened, until we were back in the familiar world of portals and pathways.

  “What is this?” Krof asked, intrigue in his voice.

  “Shadow Travel,” I said as I walked forward, searching for a way back into the chamber with the Dragon sign. It took me about five minutes, but I found a way—a portal made through a lone shadow cast by one of the pillars in the chamber.

  “Come on,” I called out to Krof, and I entered the portal in front of me. The darkness around me vanished and a chill hit my spine, both indicators that I was where I needed to be.

  “Fascinating process,” Krof said as he followed after me. “You must let me study this sometime.”

  “Later,” I mumbled and glanced around, realizing the chamber was as I’d seen it before. The water was untouched, and the creepers grew unhindered. There was absolutely no one other than us in here, and I found that very odd.

  Wasn’t the sacrifice supposed to be done in here? I wondered.

  “Maybe they haven’t started it yet,” Nyx said.

  I turned to Krof. “We need to head back up.”

  The old man nodded. I charged up the staircase, with the wizard hot on my heels. The rocky door from before was open this time, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. I ran back into the upper chamber and then froze, my feet coming to a stop, my eyes glancing at the sight in front of me.

  “Oh dear,” Krof said as he climbed up to my side.

  The men of the Dark Alliance and the Black Guardians all lay on the floor, and between them was a massive pool of blood, connecting the dead bodies everywhere together. For a second I panicked, wondering if this was a result of the Dragon roar Nazu had summoned earlier, but I knew it couldn’t be. I’d seen that attack. All it had done was trap a few men in a fissure. What was before me was more like…a massacre.

  I heard a moan from a few yards away, and I looked for the source. My eyes widened as I noticed the writhing form of Jelal in front of me, blood soaking his cloak.

  I rushed to him and knelt down, my face close to his. “Where did you take Nazu?” I grunted, no sympathy in my voice.

  “You’re here, Eternal,” he chuckled, his voice weak and hoarse.

  “Answer my question, Jelal.”

  “You know, we were set on the right path,” he said. “We were going to do it. We were finally going to raise Azmuth back to this world. Properly this time. It was as you’d predicted. We were going to use the Kobold to resurrect the Shadow Dragon. The beast’s power would just be enough to summon the Dark Lord to this world once again. It was the perfect plan.”

  “I don’t give a damn about what you wanted to do and what you did,” I said. “I have no sympathy for you and your actions.”

  “I know you don’t,” he chuckled. “I did not expect you to. It is just amusing how confident we all were. The Dark Alliance. The Black Guardians. Me. My men. The Dark Lord himself. None of us saw the threat looming over us.”

  “Jelal, I will only ask you this once,” I said. “Where is the Kobold?”

  He looked at me, a smile on his face. “The light…,” he croaked. “The light took him away, Diablo.”

  My eyes widened, the meaning of his words clear in my mind.

  All this while, there had been something about this whole situation that had felt off to me, as though there was a small puzzle piece that I was yet to find. I could tell from the very start that this piece would be crucial when I found it, and I could affirm now that was indeed the case.

  I stood up, my breathing calm, my mind clear.

  “Zoran, are you okay?” Nyx asked. “What’s going on?”

  I looked at the chamber, at the bloodstained ice within. “The Alliance of Light has made its move.”

  ***

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “The Alliance of Light is after the Shadow Dragon as well?” Krof asked.

  I nodded, bearing the chilling winds as we headed down the mountain slopes. I’d used Shadow Travel once already, so teleporting out of that chamber was not an option. Instead we took the route Freya and I had taken to get out of there the last time, the small tunnel section that was at the sides of the chamber.

  I’d presumed the winds would slow down as we headed closer to the base of the mountain, but the opposite happened, with the speeds picking up fast, snow and dust running through its streams.

  “Where are we headed now?” Krof asked, following right beside me.

  “We need to find the Alliance of Light first,” I said. “If they’ve got Nazu and Freya, then we’re just going to fight them to take him back.”

  “Mmm.” He nodded. “I still find it hard to see that the Alliance of Light is the one that caused all that death in there.”

  “They’ve done worse things,” I grunted.

  “Ah.” He paused. “I see.”

  I sighed. “Sorry, I’m just pretty biased against them.”

  “That’s fine,” he said. “I know a bit of what happened before, so I think what you feel is justified.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled.

  A burst of wind shot at us, plastering my face with snowflakes. I chuckled as I brushed them off my cold cheeks, and continued down the icy incline. The sky above us now had light gray clouds all around, the misty puffs of moisture hiding the sun away, blocking the last source of warmth left on the mountainside.

  I couldn’t help but wonder what Freya and Nazu were going through right now. A part of me felt annoyed that I hadn’t been able to save them back then, that all I’d managed to do was go and get myself killed.

  A shiver passed through my hands, my nerves recalling the lightning that had coursed through them. That had not been fun. It’d been painful.

  Really painful.

  “Just who was that man?” I muttered.

  “We’ll probably find out at some point in time,” Nyx said.

  “Yeah, I know. But still,” I said.

  “I get what you mean. However, there’s no expedited process for this. You’re just going to have to wait.”

  “You make it sound like you’re not curious at all,” I noticed.

  “I’m just not as curious as you are,” the spirit said. “We’ve been through these things enough times to know that such answers find their way to us, probably not in the best or safest way possible, but they end up coming to us anyway.”

  I sighed. “That’s true,” I agreed.

  DING!

  You have obtained a quest:

  Who is the Dragonborn?

  The identity of the Dragonborn you encountered is a mystery, and it seems who he is will play a great role in how things develop in the future. Find his identity to understand what his motivations are. Reward: 1800000 Sol. Reward 1000000 XP.

  “It’s almost like the Ga’em is taunting me,” I chuckled.

  “Indeed,” Nyx said, amused.

  “Diablo.” Krof pointed at a looming shadow a few hundred y
ards away. I looked hard and made them out against the white of the snow. A large group of horses, carriages, and men, all headed down the slope of the mountain.

  “Alliance of Light?” the wizard asked.

  “Possible,” I said.

  “I’d say ‘likely,’ actually,” Nyx said. “Who else do we know that might be patrolling this region. The Ulhur Mountains are not that frequent a tourist traveling spot. Actually, they’re never a tourist traveling spot.”

  “It’s probably the Alliance of Light,” I said. “Which means Freya and Nazu are in there right now.”

  “What’s our plan of action?” Krof asked.

  “Well, we can’t attack head-on, that’s for sure,” I said. “We don’t know what kind of warriors they have in there. Moreover, they could just use Nazu and Freya as hostages if we attack them.”

  “True.”

  “Let’s get closer and tail them for a bit. We should be able to figure out what to do from—”

  I heard the rumbling of thunder coming from higher up on the mountain. For a second I froze, expecting lightning to strike and the man from before to appear again. But then I realized this was just a normal storm.

  “You okay?” Nyx asked.

  I nodded quietly and walked ahead. We picked up the pace, and in a few minutes, we were within a hundred yards of the shadowy squadron. White armor came into view, camouflaging them well against the snow. With that, however, we could now confirm this was indeed the Alliance of Light.

  I wasn’t sure if it was the Lumina Knights, though, and that actually bothered me a lot more than I’d expected. I realized that every time I’d dealt with the Alliance of Light, it’d been through the Lumina Knights. That faction had collectively represented the Alliance of Light for me. It seemed amusing now, but in context, it made me realize I didn’t have much insight into how the Alliance itself functioned, and that cluelessness could mess up my planning.