I lifted my sword out. “We don’t have the time for that.”
“These are Ijyela’s people, Zoran.”
I held my pose for a moment, and listened to the words play back inside my mind. “I know.” I pushed forward.
My sword swung through the air, easily cutting bodies in half. I couldn’t tell how many enemies there were, but from just my direct vision it seemed like close to two hundred.
Was that how many people Heslia sent to this area? I wondered.
“He said he sent them to the Delta, did he not?” Acnologia said.
Yeah. I slashed into five Dark elves. Which is why this is perplexing.
“Maybe they all wandered here. It is possible this chamber’s presence was a lot greater before than it is now. It could have been easier to find it earlier on.”
Wandered in here? I breezed through a line of the enemy ranks, bouncing through them like a ball between trees, and cutting through each Dark elf I saw. Did you forget the spirit we had to take down before we even got here? There’s no way a group of Dark Elves could have done something like that.
“True.”
These elves were not coerced into anything. I cut through another five elves, taking their heads clean off in just one strike. I huffed and sucked in a deep breath of air. They were most likely forced into whatever state they’re in now.
“Do you think their consciousness is still in there?” Nyx asked. “You know…watching as something else controls their body?”
I slashed through another set of elves, spilling their blood onto my tunic and the grounds. “I sure hope not.”
It took me about another thirty seconds to wrap everything up. And at the end of it, two hundred elves laid on the ground—most of them missing body parts, a lot of them completely unrecognizable.
Sorry, I kinda overdid it. I flicked my blade, but still didn’t get rid of all the blood that dripped along it.
“You think?” Nyx’s voice was quieter than usual.
DING!
Congratulations! You have defeated:
Dark Elf Horde!
That was certainly an…interesting fighting style. Are those things even conscious? Reward: 1,800,000 XP Reward: 3,200,000 Sol. Reward: Tunic of the Dark elf (x37). Reward: Dagger of the Dark Elf. (x78).
A horde? I blinked. Shouldn’t it be squadron?
“Yeah,” Nyx said. “Calling that a horde is…weird.”
“Must have something to do with how they were behaving then.”
“Could be.”
“They kind of were like animals after all.”
“Ouch.”
“What? It’s true.”
I left the bodies behind me and looked to the sword. It seemed like it would be fairly easy for someone with my physical strength to just get the sword out of the rock.
Wouldn’t it?
“Something about that placement seems like a test to me,” Nyx said.
“I agree,” Acnologia said. “I do not think a weapon like this should be this easy to obtain.”
“Easy?!” I frowned. “We had to find an obscure crevice, take down a spirit, and an army of what can only be described as Dark Elf zombies. How was that easy?!”
“You get what we mean, Zoran,” Nyx said.
I looked at the sword once again. I definitely felt an odd presence from it, and there was a tingle in my mind, like something had slithered down my back.
Dust sprinkled onto my face. Eh? I wiped it off. What was—
The surface shook, throwing me to the ground. Acnologia flapped his wings and took flight, hovering in the sky. A hum burst into the air, and a light shone on my face. The crystal holding the sword was now glowing a bright white, the same shade as the moonlight shining onto it.
Fissures cracked into the surface, glowing as they spread out. About a hundred of them emerged, stopping within ten yards of the crystal rock. The glowing pulsated, slow at first, but speeding up quickly, as did the thumps of my heartbeat.
A groan sounded. And then two more. And then an army.
Humanoid forms of light rose from the ground, and their bodies were pure white, as though they had been sculpted from the moonlight. Red eyes emerged on their heads, and were the only feature on their face.
Just like the spirit from before.
I shook my head, getting rid of the image.
“What the heck are these things?” I asked.
“I have never seen them,” Nyx said. “But they seem to be coming from the sword?”
The weapon was glowing with a white aura now, and that was in addition to the reflection of the moonlight. The crystal pulsated, flickering between glowing bright and glowing dim multiple times a second.
Nyx sighed. “Looks like a hundred enemies for us to take down.”
I nodded. Shouldn’t take too long.
“Just going to let off steam?” Acnologia asked, but his tone seemed…different
“Yeah,” I said. “Is that an issue.”
There was a long pause. “No.” The Dragon said.
Good.
My dark blade was slicing through the enemy before I knew it. I cut through their bodies, and glanced at their falling forms for less than a second before moving on to the next set. I surged around the crystal, killing everything in my way.
“Diablo,” Acnologia said.
I cut through a white humanoid for. “What?” I asked.
“They’re not dying.”
My eyes widened. What? I turned. The injured soldiers on the floor were glowing with a bright white, as if the moonlight was also falling onto them, just like it had on the crystal. The beings slowly rose from the floor, with their body completely intact.
I frowned. Damn it.
“What do we do?” Nyx asked.
I gripped Dawnbreaker tighter. “Well, there’s nothing brute force can’t fix.”
“Great.”
I thrust my hand into the air. “Beltair, Uher!”
If the area turned darker, I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that it was supposed to. The Dark Phoenix then crashed out of the ground, breaking through the stone and smashing into the people of light around me. Fifty of them went flying into the air, and the little bulbs of light disappeared into the black.
“Well that takes care of a quarter of them,” I said. “Now onto the—”
A flash of light burst before me, and something smacked into my chest. I went flying back, and slid across the floor, into the darkness.
Urgh. I groaned, and rubbed my head as I got up. That was not enjoyable.
“Ummm…Zoran?” Nyx asked.
Bad news? I glanced up, and looked ahead of me. Holy hell.
The soldiers of light had multiplied in seconds. There were no longer just two hundred people, but probably three times that. And if that wasn’t bad enough already, they moved towards each other, and groups of them fused into weird blobs of translucent white jelly.
“I don’t think they’re jelly,” Nyx said.
Like that actually matters. I thrust my hand toward them. “Tritus Oceanus!” I yelled.
A massive blast of water struck out, swirling into the beings of light, but nothing happened. The water flowed harmlessly through them, as if they weren’t even there.
When the attack ended, sixty giants of white stood before me, with large eyes of blood-red looking right into mine.
“I don’t like you,” I mumbled.
The giants charged at me, and I dodged, sliding away from the first punch and sending a fire blast at the creature. But before I could even turn around, a fist slammed into my face and I went flying back into the darkness, rolling over the dry floor before coming to a stop.
“I don’t think they like you either,” Nyx said.
I rubbed my jaw and got up. What gave it away?
An army of white came at me, but I was ready to take them. I put my hand in the air. “Erkiela, Oskis, Tritus Oceanus, Iglacier, Uher!”
Blasts of fire and water surged out, creati
ng a melody of blue and red when they struck the enemy. A few of the giant soldiers broke off from the pack, and collapsed, too injured to continue, but the rest charged on. The Phoenix rose from the ground, smacking into a few giants when it broke out, and crashing through another five before dissipating.
Okay, that works. I put my hand in the air again. “Uher!”
The Dark Phoenix rose once more, but the giant soldiers disappeared from its path, as if they’d merged into the darkness.
I jerked around. Where the heck did they go?
The ground rumbled beneath me, and I jumped high into the air. The creatures of light shot up from underneath, and followed me into the sky.
“Peona!” I yelled.
A twister emerged from the ground, capturing the beings. But when the attack ended, I was falling to the ground and they were still coming up, as though nothing had happened.
My fists clenched. Why do so many attacks pass through them?
I swung my sword at the incoming giants, slicing through them before landing back to the ground. About thirty men stood around me, now larger than before. The crystal rock glowed brightly behind them, pulsing faster with every second that passed.
I need to get rid of it first. That rock is the one causing all of this.
I shot forward, and the giants of light charged right after me. I thrust my palm at them and cast multiple spells, slamming them with fire, and ice, and water, and everything else I could think of.
I need to get to the rock. I pushed off the ground, leaping up to it, with Dawnbreaker in hand.
The soldiers of light were still a ways behind me. I had time, I had space. I pushed every ounce of muscle into a strike and brought Dawnbreaker down on the crystal. The sword ricochet off the surface, but it’d done its job. A large crack broke into the structure, and I slashed forward once again, widening it.
A howl sounded behind me.
The soldiers of light writhed over the ground. “Got you,” I grinned. “To think all I had to do was attack this crystal.”
A howl screamed once more, and this time their bodies instantly shifted to a shade of red, merging with the color of their eyes.
What? I stepped back, with Dawnbreaker tight in my hand, and my eyes darting between them all. What’s going on? I cracked the Crystal. They’re supposed to be down.
A fist sank into my chest and I went flying back, smacking into the transparent rock I’d just cracked. I gasped as I slid down to the ground, trying to suck in lost hair. The crystal cracked more from having my back crush into it, and the gash widened. The red soldiers of light stomped over the ground and shot to me, with their hands aimed at my throat.
I stood up and lifted Dawnbreaker, still heaving for air, but it was one sword versus fifteen of these rabid things. I can’t take them out, can I?
Someone snapped their fingers, and the sound echoed through the air.
The darkness suddenly shifted. Shadows rose from the ground under the soldiers, and consumed them completely. In seconds, all of them had disappeared. Just like that.
My eyes widened. I know this move. I jerked my head around.
A man in dark robes stood before me. My hand gripped Dawnbreaker, and fingers shook as they wrapped around the hilt. “You’re the Dark Lord’s minion.”
“Maybe.” He looked down at me. The moonlight in the chamber filtered into his hood, illuminating his eyes—eyes the shade of morning-violet.
“Hello, Diablo.” The man bowed. “I am the Death Lord.”
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Death.
The word echoed in the dark, bouncing of walls that didn’t exist, and resounding within my mind over and again. I took a step back from this robed man, and traced his form with my gaze. He seemed as large as I was, but there was no way I could tell for sure what he was like within his cloak. His face was completely hidden under his hood, and black and violet were the only colors that showed within.
“You just helped me.” I took a step back. “Why?”
The Death Lord looked up, and his eyes followed my motions. “If you did not wish for me to save you, then I apologize.”
My eyebrows furrowed. Is he trying to be funny? I couldn’t tell. The fact that his face was hidden masked his emotions as much as his tone did.
I sighed. “I appreciate the assistance,” I said. “But you too would be skeptical if you were saved by the very man that imprisoned you.”
“Allegiances are never what they seem to be.”
Great, he’s cryptic all the time.
“But he helped us,” Nyx said.
“It could be a ploy to gain our trust,” Acnologia said.
“And do what? The Dark Lord already has Zoran acting like his servant. Why would he need to deceive us now?”
The Death Lord’s eyes were still on me.
“Why did you change Allegiances then?” I asked. “You are on the side of the Dark Lord, are you not?”
“Does Death always have to be along with Darkness?”
“Okaaay,” I said. This makes no sense right now.
“I will tell you what you need to know, Diablo. Nothing more, nothing less. You have no reason to fear me.”
“And why would that be?”
“Because, I am not an Eternal.”
“What?” I blinked. “What are you then?”
He shook his head. “No more, no less.
That’s what you think. I used my Analyze skill on him.
Name
???
Race
???
Level
???
I blinked. What the heck?
“You should know better than to Analyze a man like me, Eternal.” His eyes reflected the smile he probably had on his lips.
Dammit, I muttered. Who is this guy?
“Let us get the Infinity Sword first,” Acnologia said. “Mysteries can come later.”
I nodded and turned around, glancing at the cracked crystal rock. The sword still laid deep within it, buried up till its studded jewel. I leapt to it and landed softly beside the weapon. I grasped the hilt and gave it a sturdy tug, only to see it stay still, like the wind had just tapped it.
I grabbed onto it with my other hand as well and pulled harder. The crystal budged, and the torn crevice within it shook. But nothing else happened.
The Death Lord walked up to me. “Strength is not everything, Diablo.”
He touched the sword, and a spark of darkness exchanged between his fingers and the weapon. The purple jewel turned black, corrupted with darkness, and the rest of the blade fell prey to it as well. The sword pulsed with a dark haze one moment and the crystal shattered. The rocky structure turned into a billion pieces and dropped to the floor as dust. The sword lay between the ruckus, with the shattered jewels around it, the tiny bits catching the moonlight and radiating rainbows instead.
“There.” The Death Lord stepped back. “I do not wish to pick the weapon up. The Ga’em will claim it as mine.”
I blinked. “Don’t you want it?”
“Don’t you?”
“I mean, I do, but given how reluctant you seem to take such a thing I am questioning myself now.”
“Swords do not suit me, Diablo. They are not my style.”
“If you say so.”
“Go obtain the weapon,” he said. “It is meant to be yours.”
I stepped to the sword, and the metal reflected the moonlight into my eyes. I knelt beside it, and my hand traced a path through the shredded crystal and up to the now-white blade. I touched it, with my finger running down its surface. A tingle spread through my nerves.
I grinned. Hello to you too.
My fingers tightened around the handle and I lifted the sword up. The blade was heavy—much, much heavier than Dawnbreaker. Might drop it. I latched onto it with my second hand, and held it up.
The Death Lord’s eyes squinted at me. “That is certainly an…interesting way to lift up a sword.”
&
nbsp; “No, no. It’s just…never mind,” I sighed.
DING!
Congratulations! You have obtained new equipment:
Dearthsoul, The Infinity Sword!
The weapon resonates with your heartbeat, as if there is an untold connection between the two of you. Do you wish to transfer new equipment to your Equipment Inventory?
Yes
No
I frowned. A connection? I tapped on the equipment’s name and its Equipment Details screen came up.
DING!
Equipment Title
Dearthsoul, The Infinity Sword
Damage
???
Special Effects
???
Grade
Seven Stars
Durability
???
Rarity
???
Value
???
What the heck? I blinked. I know this can happen with people, but with weapons as well? Why is everything showing up as questions marks?!
“I’m starting to think the Ga’em is getting more and more broken these days.”
DING!
Warning!
You have picked up a cursed item: Dearthsoul, The Infinity Blade! Unless you can break the curse of the weapon, it will be unable for use during battles.
“What.”
The Death Lord peeked over my shoulder. “Ah, I believed this was the case.”
I jumped. “Don’t surprise me like that!”
He went on, “There are tales which mention the Infinity Sword as a cursed blade. However, it is interesting to see it in person.”
I scanned the white sword. “So, this blade is useless.”
“Not to you, it isn’t.”
“Why?”
“Your Spectral Spirits.”
My eyes widened. “Why do you know about them?”
The Eternal: A Boxed Set (World of Ga'em Book 6) Page 91
