Phantom Lord
Undead Emperor
Necromancy Demon
Master of Ikarius
Reputation
Infamy Level 10 – “Kings shake in your presence”
I noticed that I’d gotten a new ability and a new title. Necromancy Demon sounds neat. I grinned.
“Also a little scary,” Nyx chuckled.
“Everything is scary at this point.” I tapped on my new ability, and its info screen popped up.
REANIMATOR
You can now raise beings from the dead and induct them into your forces. Level of the raised undead depends on the level of the summoner, and the level of their Death Arts skill. Number of beings you can summon depends on the level of the Death Arts skill. Currently, you can summon 30 undead, all of them around Level 200 on average. Summoning more than this limit will cause each individual summoned to be of a lower level.
Wow. I stood there, stunned. This ability was super sweet! It made sense, given my new title, that my new ability was something related to necromancy, but I was still super excited.
DING!
A Ga’em prompt screen popped up in front of me.
Congratulations! You have obtained a new skill:
Water Arts Level 31!
The oceans and the seas are now within your realms.
Effect 1
Attack power increased by +35% while in the water.
Effect 2
Agility increased by +15% while in the water.
Effect 3
Health regeneration rate increased by +1.5% while in the water.
DING!
Congratulations! You have obtained a new skill:
Wind Arts Level 28!
The skies are no longer the limit.
Effect 1
Attack power increase by +5% in the presence of a storm.
Effect 2
Mana regeneration increased by +1% in the presence of a storm.
“Lord Diablo!” Raffiel ran to us, panic in his demeanor.
DING!
Warning!
The mirror shield has been taken down. Ikarius has been invaded. Sundown Haze has been deployed. Empty moat and guard hounds have been defeated.
My eyes widened. We’ve been attacked, I realized.
“Dammit,” Nyx cursed. “We should have been more alert. We knew we were going to be under fire soon.”
“Raffiel, get your men deployed,” I said. “We don’t know how strong the enemy is at the moment, but we don’t have a choice but to take them on anyway.”
“Yes, my Lord.” The man ran back the way he’d come.
“Drat,” I muttered. “How do you even defeat an empty moat?”
“Beats me,” Nyx said. “All I know is, the moat around the village doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Zoran, we need to head out.” Freya walked up to me. No doubt she’d gotten a notification of the attack as well.
“What do you mean, head out?” I asked.
“It’s likely this attack is from either the Dark Alliance or the Alliance of Light coming after us,” she said. “We don’t have the resources to take on both of them at once. And we haven’t even considered the Black Guardians yet. We need to regroup before we do anything.”
“Regroup where, Freya?” I asked, a little annoyed. “We’re less than fifty people here. There are no resources for us. This is it. We either fight them off here, or we wait too long to—”
“The men are coming for Nazu, Diablo,” Krof said, his tone calm and collected. “If we stay here, we risk them getting the Kobold. And once that happens, they will be the ones to resurrect Acnologia.”
I froze up, the simple logic hitting my emotions hard. I realized I was being very emotion-driven at the moment, and that it was best I stopped and took a breather.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s fine,” Krof said. “So, of the places we can go, the best one would be—”
“I still don’t agree with leaving,” I interrupted.
The old wizard looked at me, confused, not expecting to hear those words.
“I do not plan to run away from these men now. Our best chance of defeating such a large force is within this village, a place we have control over. If we run away, all we’re doing is putting off a battle we must fight. Do not forget, the Shadow Dragon’s chambers are here, and it is likely they are is within whatever is down that dark path.” I pointed to the hole in the village square. “You may leave if you want to. Leave Nazu here and go. I will take on the intruders and search the darkness for Acnologia’s chambers.”
Ijyela sighed. “Stubborn as usual,” she muttered. “There is sense in what you say. I will stay alongside you.”
“Fine, we’ll stay,” Freya said, and I could tell Krof agreed as well. I’d won them all over to my side with my statement.
“Thank you,” I said.
I heard rumbling from the village boundaries, and I could immediately tell that the invaders had entered the streets.
“Come on, we don’t have much time!” I yelled. “Freya, keep Nazu in your sights. Find a place to hide. Ijyela, stay with them.”
“Got it,” the elves said and picked up the Kobold, running away with him, hopefully to a well-hidden spot.
Krof and I ran to where the noises were coming from, the old wizard surprisingly nimble for his age. And then I realized he wasn’t even touching the ground with his steps. He was gliding across the streets.
“Don’t underestimate the powers of the Wind Arts, Diablo.” He smiled as we headed forward.
And there, about twenty yards ahead of us, I saw dark-suited Knights charge in. Raffiel and his men were fighting them, exchanging strike for strike as both sides injured each other.
“Ikarius, move!” I yelled, and my forces quickly shuffled out the way, letting the enemy run up to me. I pointed my hand right at them. “Oskis!” I yelled. Flames burst from my palm, stronger than before, and shot through the enemy forces. I heard screams as Knights fell to the ground, their armor melting off in the heat, their bodies singed and burned in the flames.
All of a sudden, I felt the air chill, and a blast of darkness came straight at me.
“Zoran!” Krof yelled, and a shield of light immediately emerged around us. The dark blast broke through easily, though, and smacked hard into me, sending me sliding across the ground.
“Well, well.” Jelal walked to the front of the Knights. “It’s nice to see you, Eternal.”
I smiled, my added strength giving me confidence. “You looked better with all that blood on your face,” I muttered.
“Zoran, there are people coming in from the streets a few yards to the right,” Nyx said.
“Krof, Raffiel, can you check the street a few yards to the right from here?” I said. “I’ll hold down this entry point.”
“Sounds good,” the old wizard said and glided away in a flash, with the Knights running behind him as well.
“Oh?” Jelal looked at me. “You’re taking us on yourself? Confident, aren’t you?”
“Why did you come here again?” I asked. “What does the Dark Alliance want with this place?”
“Playing innocent, how childish.” He smiled. “Acnologia.”
Dammit, I thought.
“We know the Shadow Dragon’s resting chambers are here, Eternal,” Jelal said. “The Dark Lord told us of it.”
“If the Dark Lord was so great, you would have come to this place first instead of going to the Ulhur Mountains.”
“We did.” Jelal smiled. “We did come after your village, but we couldn’t find the chambers. The Dark Lord thought he made a mistake and sent us to the Ulhur Mountains next—the site of the Dragon chambers closest to here.”
“That’s why the Dark Alliance attacked Ikarius,” Nyx said.
“Sounds like the Dark Lord doesn’t know what’s going on anymore,” I said. “How do you even know if he’s right this time?”
“Because if this wasn’t the Dragon’s chamber, you w
ouldn’t have come here.”
“He has a point,” Nyx said.
“You’re not getting to the chamber, Jelal,” I said. “Leave now, and we can stop this from happening.”
“I don’t think you’re in any position to be making demands,” Jelal said.
“Oh, I think I am.” I lifted my hand up. “Uher!” I yelled, sending the dark phoenix right at him. He put up a shield, ready to block it, a smile on his face.
But he was wrong. I was stronger.
The phoenix went crashing through Jelal’s defense, sinking into him and throwing him down to the ground. The dark bird crushed into the men around him as well, killing them all in a mere instant. I rushed up to Jelal, Dawnbreaker in my hand, ready to slash into him.
He stumbled to his feet, fear dominating his body language. “How…,” he mumbled. “It wasn’t supposed to…”
“Diablo, enemies coming in from the other side of the village,” Nyx yelled. “We’re being attacked on two fronts now.”
“Dammit!” I yelled, anger coursing through me.
“You won’t win, Diablo,” Jelal said as I reached him. A gust of darkness shot across him, and when it disappeared, an enemy knight stood there instead.
I slashed into him anyway, bringing the confused man down to the floor.
“Where did that fiend go?” I muttered.
“He’s still here,” Nyx said. “That wasn’t teleportation magic he used. I think he switched places with someone from his ranks.”
“Figures,” I said. “Where on the other side of the village is this enemy force?”
“Uploading the map to your mind,” Nyx said, and the image showed up immediately. A flurry of purple dots entered from about five streets on the opposite side of Ikarius. I looked at the bunch of red entering from this side too. I could see one green dot holding down an entire street by himself. Krof. There were a bunch of green dots on the other streets too—Raffiel and his men, but they were being subdued fast.
I thrust my hand up at the few Knights remaining in front of me. “Oskis!” I yelled, sending a blast of fire down on them and taking them out in a flash.
With my street cleaned up, I took off, running to the other end of the village. Gusts of wind blasted behind me, and the stones cracked under my feet, the elements unable to bear the sheer force I put into my strides.
“What do we do about Jelal?” Nyx asked.
“If he shows up again, I’ll take him down,” I said. “Personally, I think he’s shocked enough not to think about attacking me again for quite a while.”
In seconds I was on the other side of the village. Men in black ran through the streets ahead, with others even running across the rooftops. For a second, I thought these were the second force from the Dark Alliance, and then I realized they weren’t.
A badge of silver lay on the breast of their outfits. The Black Guardians. I gritted my teeth and slid to a stop, gauging the forces rushing up to me.
“Hello, Eternal.” A man stood atop a rooftop.
“Lazarus,” I muttered.
“I am honored you remember my name,” he said as his men charged into the village.
I thrust my hands forward and delved into my mind, not for a spell I’d always used, but for something new, something different.
Something unexpected.
“Tritus oceanus!” I yelled. A drop of water formed between my palms, and before I could even blink, a huge blast of swirling blue, larger than a house, thundered into my enemies. The men were trapped by the waters and went flying back, completely taken by the torrent.
I saw Lazarus and a few others bear the brunt of the attack, and I immediately switched to my second plan.
I dropped the blast of water and summoned another spell immediately. “Iglacier,” I yelled, and the water before me, the water I was in contact with, instantly froze over. The men within all froze with it, trapped in the prison of ice I’d put their bodies in.
It was around now that I heard voices coming from behind these men, and they were not voices that were coming closer but voices that stayed put. I looked at Lazarus and panicked, realizing that the leader of the Black Guardians had frozen with a wide smile on his face.
He had something planned.
The voices grew louder, their chanting quickly intensifying. A mass spell. My eyes widened. I jumped high into the air, onto the pillar of ice I’d made, and rushed ahead. I didn’t even need to take a step forward, though, before I saw about fifty cloaked mages standing behind a house, hidden.
I surged down onto them, sword in hand.
“Osiris Liora!” they yelled. A gemstone of dark purple glowed between them, and a blast of light instantly shot out from it, spreading out into a sphere. The wall of light surged into me mid-jump, slamming me to the ground hard.
Pain instantly shot into my body. I lay collapsed on the ground, partly immobilized, aching in all sorts of ways.
DING!
My eyes glanced up at the screen next to me.
Warning! You have been afflicted with:
The Curse of the Phantom.
All stats lowered by 60%. Health regeneration lowered by 90%. Mana regeneration stopped. Stamina regeneration stopped.
My eyes widened. What the hell is this? What was that spell?
“Diablo, this isn’t good,” Nyx said. “That lost spell was something that people tried to use against you many millennia ago. Although, it never worked back then. I have no clue what’s going on, but you need to get out of there. Now!”
I slowly stood up, my body still aching. I heard cracking from above me and looked up just in time to see my pillar of ice shatter completely, the large chunks dissolving away even before they dropped a few feet in the air.
Darkness emerged where the ice had stood, and Lazarus stepped out from within, a black aura around him, a smile on his face. “The Dearth Stone’s amplifying powers worked much better than I’d expected,” he chuckled. “How do you feel, Diablo?”
“Better than ever,” I muttered and charged at him.
He put his hand in the air. “Uher!” he yelled.
I froze in shock and in that instant, a dark phoenix surged out from below me, crashing into my body. I went flying into the air, my health decreasing by more than half from that attack alone.
This is what it feels like to be attacked by the phoenix, I thought.
My body went flying down to the village square, rolling a few times and sliding to a stop right next to the mysterious hole. Blood spilled from my forehead, coating my eyelids with its slick texture. Pain was exploding through me, terrible and prolonged. I could see my health inch upwards, but at a rate that wouldn’t help me at all.
I heard laughter from above and saw Lazarus jump down from the roof. He smiled as he strode up to me, his mages and Knights behind him as he did.
“How does it feel, Eternal?” he chuckled. “How does it feel to be weak again? To be attacked by the same move you deal your foes?”
He pointed at me, and a sharp blast of darkness shot out of his finger, piercing my chest. I gasped, watching as my health slowly decreased, the small amount nowhere close to the intense pain I felt. Laughter exploded in my ears, Lazarus’s sadistic chuckles the only thing I could still hear.
I can’t die, I thought. Not here. Not now.
“Diablo,” a voice resonated in my mind—one I had not heard before. “Come.”
I looked down at the drop beside me, the apparent source of the voice. In a spark of instinct, I rolled over, dropping through the darkness. I heard Lazarus yell above me, but his voice disappeared into the distance. Air rushed past me as I fell down, the drop lasting many seconds.
All of a sudden, a surface emerged, and I fell smack into it, my chest and limbs nearly crushed by the impact. I gasped, unbearable pain now churning through me. Even more blood trickled from my wounds, pooling on the ground beneath me.
“Help…me…,” I croaked.
A loud hum sounded from all around, pierc
ing my ears. The ground began to vibrate, and all of a sudden, runes began to glow right beneath me. The light multiplied quickly, and in seconds, concentric circles of runes glowed bright and strong over the ground. The vibrations within the surface grew, turning from simple tremors to a full-fledged earthquake. Rocks and debris fell from the walls around me, sinking down to the ground.
“You have done well, Eternal,” the voice said.
In the blink of an eye, I found myself back on the surface, my body on the dusty ground of Ikarius, hurt and pain still within my bones.
What just happened? I wondered, and my ears picked up a gentle growling next to me. I turned to my side, and my breath instantly froze in my chest.
A majestic beast of darkness stood there, its body a pitch black worthy of hell, its blazing blood-red eyes powerful and murderous. It reared up, sending torrents of wind with its wings, and spoke to the sky with a roar worthy of the heavens.
The Shadow Dragon had awoken.
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The skies darkened and silence hung in the air. A chill spread through the air, and the very ground trembled in fear, as though death itself had spread across the lands.
My eyes stayed glued to this beast of brilliance that stood in front of me, my ears still ringing from the monstrous roar it had let out just seconds ago. The men of the Black Guardians stood still, their bodies frozen, unable to contemplate what was going on here. A few of them ran away, and the others stood there shivering, the Shadow Dragon’s mere presence enough to strike fear into their hearts.
“Acnologia,” Lazarus whispered, standing atop a rooftop, glancing right into the beast’s terrifying eyes.
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