The Eternal: Dragonborn - A LitRPG Saga (World of Ga'em Book 2)

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  DING!

  A screen popped up, containing the words ‘Assigned Leaders: Ikarius Village’ as a heading at the top, along with a blank screen underneath it. I found a small plus icon at the center-top and I pressed on it. A smaller screen, titled ‘Acquaintances’, appeared above the already existing screen, and on it were two names.

  Allies

  Followers

  Freya

  Nymph Mother

  Nymph Mother? I blinked for a second and then I recalled that she was someone I’d met on one of the adventurers from three months ago.

  Okay so I guess I just assign one of these people to my village, I thought.

  “I think so,” Nyx said.

  I tapped on ‘Freya’ and a prompt popped up in front of me.

  DING!

  You are about to assign ‘Freya’ as a leader to your village: Ikarius. Assigning and removing a leader, no matter how far apart in time, lowers your standing with the person, and can also reduce your fame. Do you wish to proceed?

  Wow, that’s intense, I thought but hit the ‘Yes’ option anyway. If there was ever a time when I had to remove Freya from being an assigned leader to my village, I figured I’d have more problems than having to worry about a relationship demotion or a fame decrease.

  “Honestly your fame probably could do with a decrease,” Nyx said. “The more people seem drawn to you, the more trouble you’ll get into.”

  “So…Zoran,” Joseph dropped back to walk beside me. “What brought you to that village?”

  “Oh,” I stopped, not expecting that question. “We were just exploring and so happened to come upon that village,” I said, lying blatantly. “It was as standard adventure development really.”

  “Ah, I see,” he said. I tried to gauge from his tone whether he’d bought it or not but I couldn’t really tell for sure.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Where were you headed back from?”

  “A field far to the east,” he said. “There are many herbs and plants there that are valuable to a herbalist in the kingdom. This is how we make our living.”

  “That is interesting,” I smiled.

  “Seems pretty standard to me,” Nyx said.

  Shh, I’m trying to be nice, I said.

  “Good job.”

  About the quest screen though, I said. What do you think the ‘???’ means?

  “I’m quite curious about that too actually,” he said. “I know that if a reward for a quest hasn’t been set yet it’s supposed to say ‘Unknown’ and not ‘???’. The question marks are pretty weird.”

  Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, I bit my lip.

  Quests in general were basically goals or adventures that the Ga’em gave one based on things like who they were, who they got the Quests from, and what their true inner desires might be. The fact that I had a ‘???’ under my rewards section for a quest was quite confusing to say the least. I was curious about what kind of a scenario made the Ga’em present something like that in the rewards section in the first place.

  I was still plenty excited though. There was a lot of mystery to this, yeah, but it had been quite a while since I’d gotten a quest and so I felt a kind of giddish excitement to get one to myself again.

  A part of me couldn’t help but wonder why I’d gotten it though. What part of me wanted to accompany these travelers so much that I’d actually gotten a quest to take them back?

  “Maybe a part of you just wants to go back to Aingard,” Nyx suggested. “This quest might be how the Ga’em decided to give you what you wanted.”

  Why would I ever want to go back to Aingard? I sighed. I looked up to the sky, at the dull light of the setting sun and the dimmer clouds that caught the red rays. I turned my sight to the clouds that sat higher up in the sky, shielded from the light. They were a pale gray, not the gray of the storms, but rather a gray of calmness, a gray that stayed silent and simple.

  “That’s a lot of gray,” Nyx chuckled.

  Okay just stop, I groaned. You read my mind way too much.

  “It’s a compliment. You’re an interesting person.”

  I see, I said, totally not buying it. He probably just wanted to poke around and see if you could get any juicy stuff on me.

  DING!

  You have received a new message from: Freya. Would you like to read it?

  That’s odd, I blinked and tapped the ‘Yes’ button beneath the prompt.

  Hey, how’s everything going?

  Did she just want to check in? I wondered. It had only been a few minutes since we’d left the village. Had something gone wrong? Thoughts plagued my mind and I dropped back a few steps from the adventurer group to get some privacy.

  I long pressed on the reply icon sitting on the screen, and two new icons rose up in front of us, one with a miniature keyboard and the other with a sound wave. I tapped on the sound wave icon at the bottom of the screen, and a small screen with a gauge emerged.

  “Yeah everything is fine,” I said. “By the way, I made you an assigned leader for the village.”

  A loading icon appeared on the screen as my voice processed, and a message formatted, basically writing down what I had said in words and then sending it to her in an instant.

  “Zoran?” Joseph looked back at me. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” I smiled. “Don’t worry.”

  He looked at me a bit hesitantly. “If you say so.”

  “He doesn’t seem that confident,” Nyx noticed, sounding confused.

  He’s had a rough day, it’s fine, I said, looking back at my screen.

  DING!

  I know you made me an assigned leader. I get notifications too you know. You could have at least told me before you actually made me one.

  “Well she doesn’t seem too happy,” Nyx chuckled.

  No she doesn’t, I sighed. I was about to tap on the soundwave icon and reply back, when a stifling sound echoed through the air. It felt like mumbling to me, but I couldn’t make out what it was saying.

  The adventurers in front of me all stopped, their demeanor changing as well. I quickly closed down my screen and walked up to them, wondering what was going on. The wind picked up around us, sending mud and dust surging through the air.

  “Joseph,” I clasped the man’s shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  He threw my hand off and turned around, the friendly look in his eyes now all but gone. “I apologize, Zoran,” he said. “But we lied to you.”

  All of a sudden, what had been a still sky and a quiet ground erupted, the sands of the earth rising up in a tornado around us. One second we had been in calm land and now we were in the nexus of what seemed to be a twister of sand and dust. The adventurers looked at me stone-eyed, any emotions they had shown before now rushing away from their personality.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “It isn’t me,” Joseph said. “It’s them.”

  All of a sudden, shadows cast around the ground, as though liquid darkness was moving through the earth. The black color rose off the surface in an instant, as though the very shadows themselves were taking on lives.

  The Valdar? My mind panicked, reminding myself of a not-so-cherishable memory from long ago.

  The shadows morphed, taking on human shape, and then dissolving away. A squadron of dark clothed men appeared from within them, about forty or fifty of them in total. They a short-hooded cloak of black that lowered down to their knees, and had sleeves that went halfway to their elbow. The rest of their limbs were covered in scaly armor of silver, the material weathered but still shiny in the dull light.

  All of a sudden, a man materialized from a shadow in front of me, wearing the same outfit as the others, but additionally carrying a large sword in his hand. He pointed the weapon at me, the tip of the sinister blade right in front of my face.

  “Welcome, Phantom Lord,” the man chuckled. “The Black Guardians have been awaiting you.”

  ***

>   CHAPTER FOUR

  My eyes fell upon the silver pin on the men’s cloaks, the object shaped like an eye with no pupils.

  The Black Guardians, the name floated in my head, I and Nyx both trying to see if we knew anything about such a group.

  We didn’t seem to.

  “I’m more concerned about why they know you’re the Phantom Lord,” Nyx said.

  The sand twister around us rumbled and constricted, pushing us all into a tighter circle. The man in front of me slid his blade closer to my skin, threatening to slice into it.

  “It will be hard for you to get yourself out of this one, Eternal,” he jabbed his blade right at me.

  I dodged to the side, away from the swing and right into the twister. Sand and wind blew in my face for a few seconds, and then I finally came out.

  Only to find myself inside the twister once again.

  What the hell just happened? I blinked.

  “You can’t get out of this,” the man chuckled, and shot to me, blade pointed at my chest.

  I stumbled back, thrown off by everything around me. I managed to put my blade out just as he swung in. The weapons clashed, and I was thrown back. My body flew into the twister again and I found myself thrown back out into the center once more.

  “There’s some kind of enchantment in this thing,” Nyx said.

  That makes things a lot harder, I grit my teeth as my momentum took me forward.

  The man was already facing me, sword pointed at my chest, his allies next to him, ready to attack as well. I put all my strength into my right leg and leaped to the side, making sure I just got over them and still landed before the circular winds.

  I quickly gazed at the man and activated my Analyze skill.

  DING!

  Name

  Lazarus Titanus

  Race

  Human

  Level

  402

  Health

  8650

  Mana

  11800

  Stamina

  8090

  What the hell? I blinked. Why is he so strong?!

  “He seems to have done some kind of specialized training too,” Nyx said. “Your Analyze skill says his companions are all in the low 300s level-wise.”

  I looked at this man, this ‘Lazarus’, his and his cohorts’ weapons still pointed at me. I could make out Joseph and his group behind them, standing nonchalantly as though they’d done nothing. The twister around us constricted a little more, and its wind speed kicked up, spraying harsh sand against my back.

  I need to nullify this thing first, I put my hand up in the air. “Arkerius,” I yelled. A black ball of energy condensed at the tip of my fingers and strong waves of darkness shot out of it, cutting the twister at multiple locations.

  However, nothing happened.

  “Your spell wasn’t strong enough,” Nyx said.

  “What do you mean it wasn’t strong enough?” I looked at my hand, and then the twister. “I’m more than a hundred levels higher than him.”

  “You can’t nullify this spell just like that,” Lazarus smiled. “A mass spell from my men takes more than one strike from an Eternal to nullify it.”

  Damn it, I cursed. I held Dawnbreaker out in front of me, my eyes jumping between the men advancing. I had to work with what I had, and at the moment that meant fighting these people without nullifying the twister.

  When did they even cast that mass spell? I muttered.

  “They must have been hidden when Joseph and the others led you here,” Nyx said. “That would have given them enough time to cast a mass spell of that caliber on you.”

  “Die!” Lazarus slammed at me, blade swinging, his companions pushing in from all sides.

  I grasped my blade with both hands and swung hard, sending a blast of wind at the incoming enemy. The force from my swing pushed them back, but Lazarus cut through, heading right for me. I quickly managed to hold my blade up above me, and a thundering clang sounded from the impact of the weapons.

  “Just die, you Eternal,” Lazarus looked at me, his eyes rabid.

  I felt myself being pushed back by his strength, and confusion riled through me. I was so much stronger than this man. How was he able to push me back so much? Worry seeped through my mind. I’d been afraid of getting a critical hit from a low leveled enemy before, but it seemed like this man and his abilities were something that I had to worry about even more.

  Stress riled me up as he pushed my sword further back. Strike after strike swung into the weapon, each one too fast for me to find an opening and attack. I kept defending for a few seconds, unable to do anything else. Scratches and cuts formed on my skin as Lazarus’ sword fighting turned faster and faster.

  Tch, I clicked my tongue.

  I quickly let my feet give away and dropped down, sliding to the side and immediately swinging around. My wrists flipped my blade so the flat end was facing Lazarus, and I smacked him hard, sending him sliding across the ground.

  “Haha,” he chuckled as he brought himself back up. “This is fun, Phantom Lord.”

  I need to end this, I said.

  “I don’t think you have any other choice at this point,” Nyx said.

  I nodded and threw my hands up in front of me, my eyes focusing on just the man and his companions. I felt energy boil within me, and I let it all loose.

  “Uher,” I yelled. A phoenix of darkness surged out from the ground and shot towards the men, intensity in its very presence. I set myself up, pointing my hands to the air and using my Chain Casting skill to cast one more spell, a support one.

  “Beltair,” I said. The light around us dimmed quite a bit, and power surged through me. The bird of darkness screeched as it shot towards the men, its body growing in size the moment I cast my second spell.

  “All Dark Arts attacks have been boosted,” Nyx said.

  Lazarus smiled at me from afar, the bird of darkness just inches away from him. “Oyir!” he swung his hands outward. A blast of darkness surged out of him, like a sphere that was expanding. The walls of black surged into me, throwing me hard against the ground. I coughed as I hit the surface, my body stiffening up on contact.

  What the hell is going on?! I asked, struggling to get up. I glanced ahead and saw the men of the Black Guardians standing there, a few bruises on their skin but nothing else. It was like my attack had been greatly nullified.

  “I’m confused,” Nyx said, sounding quite worried. I was worried too. I was the Phantom Lord. The Dark Arts were one of my specialties. It was not plausible for me to think that another man could nullify my own attack and cause significant damage to me, especially at the kind of level difference I and Lazarus had. However, what was going on right now was going against that plausibility.

  “You cannot fight us alone, Eternal,” Lazarus said. “Something big is coming, and you will not be able to survive it.”

  “Shut up,” I stood. I didn’t want to kill anyone, but this man was not making that easy. All I wanted to do was leave, but that seemed impossible at the moment. This mass spell was keeping me locked in like a trapped animal.

  “My turn,” Lazarus chuckled and put his hand up. “Oyir Lezut!”

  A combinatory spell, my eyes widened.

  The ground beneath me rumbled, and my legs turned heavy, as though they were slowly being turned to stone. I moved forward, only to stumble to the ground.

  “This power-” Nyx said.

  Another mass spell, I grunted, looking up at Lazarus. The man grinned, and behind him, Joseph and the adventurers stood there with their eyes closed, mumbling something inaudible.

  “They were setting up mass spells while you’re distracted with these men,” Nyx said.

  The beneath me ground cracked open, and darkness burst through, surging into me with immense force. The wind knocked out of my lungs as I struggled against the blast.

  “Zoran!” a voice yelled.

  I felt an arm on me, and all of a sudden, I was out of the darkness. An elf’s
face appeared in my dazed vision, her long locks of obsidian tickling my skin as she looked down onto me.

  “Freya?” I blinked.

  “Thank god, you’re okay,” she sighed, relief abundant in her tone. She stood me up quick, and I could see the enemy standing a ways from us, confusion on their faces.

  “How did you get in here, elf?” Lazarus asked, annoyance in his voice.

  “Was I not supposed to be able to?” she smiled, sliding her sword out of its sheath.

  “Tch,” the man looked at us. “It doesn’t matter how you got in,” he said. “You’ll never be able to get out.”

  My eyes widened. “That’s it,” I said.

  “What?” Freya glanced down at me.

  “Get ready to cast your strongest Light Arts spell.”

  “What?” she blinked, sounding even more confused this time.

  “Just cast it when I give you the signal,” I held Dawnbreaker tight in one hand and threw up the other. “Asgionis!” I yelled and a flame covered me for a short second, boosting my Agility. I lowered my body weight, ready to strike.

  “This won’t help you, Eternal,” Lazarus smiled.

  “We’ll see,” I shot forward.

  The Black Guardians were ready for me, but I missed them entirely, swerving to the side and running straight into the twister. Sand and dust dug into my skin but I shot through.

  And came out from the other side of the Black Guardians.

  I slammed my blade down on the first two knights I saw, cutting into one’s arm and slamming another one to the other side of the ground. Lazarus looked at me in confusion for a second, but I just kept going, surging across the ground and into the twister once more.

  Faster, I urged myself.