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

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  “Abort mission. Their leader might be able to sense you even with your cloaking abilities. I don’t wanna take that chance.”

  “You’re being awfully worried about this,” Nyx said. “Feels like that man has you shook.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I mumbled. I had to admit he was partly right. It was disconcerting to think that man could scope our cloaking skills. But I was still quite confident I could take him out on a one-on-one battle if it came to that.

  Actually I could probably take him out regardless, I chuckled. I should use Analyze on him the next time though. Just in case, I reminded myself.

  “Sure, you’re not worried,” Nyx teased.

  DING!

  “Are you sure? I think I’m almost near their base. I can see white tents a few hundred yards ahead. And some of the men said something about it too. This is a good opportunity to find out what that machine is doing.”

  I panicked a little. I was not happy that she was that close to enemy territory. Usually I wouldn’t be worried, but like I said before, that old sage bothered me a lot. I wasn’t sure if Freya could take him out on her own. Having him take her hostage would be the worst possible outcome and one that I wanted to avoid for the exact same reason. I sent her back a message.

  “Stay where you are, I’ll come to your location and we can refocus what we want to do.”

  DING!

  “Sounds good. I’m holding ground where I am. Find me on your map and we’ll talk once you get here.”

  “Is it Shadow Travel time again?” Nyx asked.

  “Are you kidding? You know I can’t use that skill again unless I’ve waited six hours. It has a crazy cool down time.”

  “You should be more careful with how you use it then.”

  “It was the safest way to get to see what the Knights were up to.”

  “So, are we just walking to Freya now?”

  “Well we can always run,” I chuckled, and charged forward.

  Wind burst onto my face as I charged down the desert-like land, dust and sand kicking up all around me, swirling around in the gusts of wind I’d trapped around myself.

  Nyx, can you pull up my Map menu and see where Freya is? I asked.

  “Already did,” he said. “Head a little more to your left, and about two thousand yards ahead.”

  Gotcha, thanks, I said, making the adjustment and pushing forward.

  “Five more seconds and stop. About five hundred yards straight ahead.”

  I counted down in my mind and then pushed down on my feet, letting my heels dig into the ground and bring me to a stop right where Nyx had wanted me.

  “Wow,” a voice said. The air in front of me folded out, as though a wall of paper were crumbling and Freya emerged from within it, a grin on her face. “That was a pretty good entrance.”

  “Where are the Lumina Knights?” I asked, getting right down to business.

  She looked a little taken aback at my seriousness, but it seemed like she understood it as well. “They should be quite a while away from us by now,” she said. “If you look close you can see the tents over there,” she pointed behind a few dunes in the distance, and I could see white tents peaking over the valleys between them.

  “Ah, okay,” I said, registering that it was about a thousand yards away. “We need to be careful about making our way there. That guy I told you about before gives me the creeps.”

  “How do you suggest we do this? I see no other way other than cloaking.”

  “I’d agree,” I said. “But we need to keep a close watch on what’s going on around us just in case something does happen. I want at least one of us to be guaranteed a way out.”

  “What?”

  “If we get attacked all of a sudden, I’ll take them on. You get out as fast as you can.”

  “What do you mean you’ll-”

  “Just go with it will you?”

  “Fine.”

  We made our way to the dunes, and the whole time I was on full alert, wondering if there was anything suspicious about the place. And much to my credit, I was right.

  “Wait,” I caught Freya’s shoulder, pulling her back as we neared the top of the dune.

  “What’s wrong?” she fell back to where I was.

  “Don’t you sense it too?”

  “Sense wh-” she stopped. “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “There’s a trigger barrier around here.”

  “I can attest to that,” Nyx said. “I sense it too.”

  “Ugh,” I mumbled. Trigger barriers were the worst. They weren’t defensive barriers, so they wouldn’t force someone out, but because they didn’t do that, they had a super small energy signature and were nearly impossible to detect from far off. Their main selling point was that the moment someone passed through it, the caster would immediately be alerted, and that was exactly what the Lumina knights were trying to do here.

  Of course, my first intuition would have been to just throw something over in order to mess up the trigger, but things didn’t work that way. The trigger only set off when something with a life signature passed through it.

  “What do we do?” Freya asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, thinking hard. I was a bit annoyed honestly. I’d been spending quite an amount of time learning to control my mana and power so people couldn’t sense my presence as easily, and the fact that I was being stumped by a simple trigger barrier was not fun to think about.

  A gust of dusty wind hit us, and I looked up, using my hand to shield my eyes. The sky peeked through the gaps in my fingers, colored a midnight blue. “Oh wait,” my mind sparked. The good thing about trigger barriers though, was that they were cylindrical, not hemispherical.

  “What?” Freya asked, as the wind stopped.

  “We’re taking a different route,” I said, stepping forward and grabbing Freya by the waist. “Hold on tight,” I said.

  “What are you-”

  I surged off the ground, shooting high up into the air. The angle of the jump took us a little further over the top of the barrier, and that was all I needed.

  “Wind Arts please,” I chuckled.

  Freya hastened and cast a spell, summoning a gust of wind from her palm and using it to ease our landing.

  We touched the ground softly, and all of a sudden, the images around us folded, as though they were shifting. One moment we were on the edge of the camps, and the next we were inside some room. I immediately looked up, noticing there was an open roof that let in the sky.

  “What the heck?” Nyx muttered.

  “We were tricked,” I realized, panic setting in me.

  “Who would dare do such a thing?” a voice chuckled. A familiar one.

  I turned around, and there stood the old sage I’d seen before. A grin held on his face, his arms crossed in front of his body.

  “Nice of you to drop in, Phantom Lord.”

  ***

  CHAPTER SIX

  Okay, first things first.

  That was one hell of a pun. ‘Drop in’? After we literally came flying down from the sky? Have to admit that was pretty good, intentional or not.

  Other than that, I was definitely not okay with what had just happened.

  “I must say, Diablo,” the sage said. “I did not think you would actually fall for my illusions just like that.”

  That’s what happened? I blinked.

  “We fell for an illusion?” Nyx asked, just as astounded. We both knew that meant only one thing. The man in front of us was way more powerful than we’d anticipated. I was tempted to use Analyze on him, but I knew it wasn’t the time to do that. If he knew I was trying to scope out how strong he was he’d know he had me rattled.

  “What do you want?” I asked, going with the classic trope of villain-questions to ask.

  “What do I want?” he chuckled. “I might be wrong, but weren’t you the ones who came barging in? Quite an irresponsible thing to do Phantom Lord, especially considering your betrayal to the Kingdom of A
ingard.”

  “I betrayed no one,” I muttered.

  “That is questionable,” he chuckled.

  Who is this guy? I asked. His confidence made him seem a lot stronger than I’d expected him to be. Okay, I’m doing it, I thought. Can you grab the numbers?

  “Yeah,” Nyx said.

  Analyze, I thought, summoning the skill.

  DING!

  I immediately swished my hand across the still-forming screen, hoping the old sage didn’t realize what I’d just done.

  Did you get that info? I asked, my eyes on the sage.

  “Got it,” Nyx said, and gave me a mental image of the information the Analyze skill had brought up.

  Name

  Gorias Orken

  Race

  Human Sage

  Level

  489

  Health

  8650

  Mana

  9800

  Stamina

  7090

  What the heck, I blinked. He was much stronger than I’d anticipated. Hell, he was quite close in level to how strong I was, and I was the goddamn Phantom Lord.

  “He seems to have been specially trained as well,” he said. “Those stats seem much higher than his level should have been. It might be that the Sage profession gives him a lot of boosts.”

  That’s possible, I thought, recalling that professions gave one a lot of very specific, and very strong, advantages.

  “What’s the matter, Diablo?” Sage Gorias chuckled.

  He thinks he’s still got the surprise factor, I realized, immediately trying to think of how I could take advantage of the fact that he didn’t. But since Freya was also here, it seemed likely the Sage would go after her to hold the advantage over me. She was definitely not strong enough to hold him off on her own, unless she broke into her original form, but I wasn’t sure if she could do that right now.

  “What are the Lumina Knights doing here?” I asked the sage, careful not to use his name. If I did he’d immediately realize I’d used Analyze on him, and I’d rather he think he had the element of surprise for the moment.

  “I should ask you the same question, Phantom Lord,” he said. “What is a man such as yourself doing meddling in the affairs of a people you do not care about?”

  “When a Knight Faction is constructing a massive machine in the middle of deserted land it piques my curiosity,” I said.

  He chuckled in amusement. “Of course,” he said. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid this is where the niceties of our meeting end.”

  “What?” I blinked.

  Sage Gorias snapped his fingers, and I felt an invisible wave of energy passed through me. I stood confused for a second, and then it happened.

  Pain burst through my chest, spreading across my nerves faster than lightning across the sky. I felt like my blood was boiling, like my flesh and muscles were swelling up.

  “Zoran!” Freya rushed to me.

  I collapsed onto my knees, my hand against the floor to help support me up. My breathing was raging, sounding like gusts of wind on a stormy day. I glared at the sage, anger coursing through me. “What did you do to me?”

  A calm smile sat on his face. “The Seal of the Eternal,” he chuckled.

  Nyx, what the hell did he do to me? I asked.

  Silence.

  NYX?! I yelled, panic setting within my mind.

  “You seem quite shook,” the old man hunched before me, a chuckle on his lips.

  “I don’t want to fight you,” I said, my voice calm. “Don’t turn this into a battle.”

  “You did that when you invaded our camp, Diablo,” he said. “However, I have an offer for you. Join the Alliance of Light. You know what the Dark Alliance did to you. We are different. I will personally put you within the good books of every single Knight in the Alliance. You will not regret it.”

  “The Alliance of Light is the one that chased me away in the first place,” I growled. “You have no right to put your actions any higher above what the Dark Alliance did.”

  Sage Gorias sighed. “Very well then,” he said. “There is a big battle coming, Eternal. You will regret not being a part of the winning side.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, my teeth clenched tight as a wave of pain coursed through me.

  “Zoran, we need to leave,” Freya said, her voice tense.

  I wanted to disagree with her, but I realized she was right. I was in a compromising situation. And the fact that this Sage was so strong was not good for me. I could still take out quite a number of people, but I was doubtful whether the old sage was one of them, and that meant taking him on wasn’t a good idea.

  My mind reached out to Nyx, but silence was still the only reply I got. Fine, I’ll have to go solo then, I thought.

  I grabbed Freya’s hand. “Until next time, Sage,” I glared at him, and pushed my feet off the ground. I picked the elven lady up in my arms and surged ahead, battering through the stone walls and out into the open. The illusion from before had disappeared now, and I saw in front of me, not a small camp, but a big battalion of soldiers marching through their base.

  Eyes fell onto me as I dropped to the ground, the walls behind me crumbling as I did. I surged to the right, but pain shot into my leg, turning it numb and pushing me down to the ground.

  Damn, I cursed, as I held myself stable while kneeling on the ground.

  “Zoran, let me down!” Freya said, but I held her tight.

  “Get the Phantom Lord!” the men around me yelled, their weapons and armor surging onto me.

  In an act of desperation, I pushed myself up with my good leg, and we shot into the sky. I don’t know how high we went, but when we came back down, we were quite a ways from the Lumina Knights’ base.

  I landed hard on the ground this time, no Wind Arts to break my fall. My feet struck the sand and a big chunk of the ground flew away, just from the sheer force of impact. I let Freya down and collapsed onto the sand, my chest heaving. Shooting bursts of pain still flowed through me, rendering parts of my limbs numb.

  I saw Freya open up her inventory screen, and a second later, she handed me some berries. I took them without prompt, chewing them up fast.

  “Rest,” she said quietly, putting her hand on my forehead. Her palm was cool and smooth, a welcome contrast to the hot, coarse sand beneath my body.

  “Diablo! Are you okay?!” Nyx finally spoke to me.

  I think so, I said. Where the hell did you go?

  The spirit kept quiet for a second. “That man knows more than he’s supposed to.”

  What? I asked.

  “Your Seal of the Eternal limits the powers that you are allowed to use. If you somehow ever force the use of powers the Seal does not allow you to use, you get a response reaction similar to what you’re experiencing now.”

  Wait, so what does this have to do with what he did to me? I asked, confused.

  “I don’t know how, but he forced the exact same reaction to occur even without you using those unallowed powers of yours. I have no clue what he’s doing, or how he’s doing it.”

  I stayed silent, contemplating what had just been said. I will say, I felt a little fear on hearing that. Sage Gorias had already bothered me quite a bit just because of how strong he was, and the fact that he now knew things he wasn’t supposed to only made that bothered feeling turn into fear.

  Seconds later my mind distracted from those thoughts when I realized that the pain in my body had begun subduing. I wasn’t sure whether it was because of whatever Freya had given me or because the rebound effect from the Seal of the Eternal had worn off, but I was too occupied to think about that for now.

  “What happened?” Freya asked as I sat myself up. I could see the Lumina Knights base from where we were. It was at least four times as big as what I’d perceived before. Which meant Sage Gorias had cast a field-size illusion, and realizing that he’d done that did me no good because I got more worried about that man.

  “Zoran?” the elf asked.
<
br />   “I’m not sure,” I said, turning to Freya. I explained to her what Nyx had told me, and how we didn’t really have any clue how the sage had set off the rebound reaction. She listened to me patiently, but a few words in, her hands began to claw into the sand, fidgeting with chunks of it. It was clear that she too was worried about what had happened.

  “We still don’t know what that machine was, or what the Lumina Knights were using it for,” I said.

  “Those knights I followed said it was to find something,” she said.

  “But we don’t know if that’s true, and if it is, what is it that they’re searching for?” I said. “And why do they need so many people for it. You saw that base, they had nearly a thousand people in there.”

  “True. The fact that these many of their ranks are here is worrying,” Freya said. “This is easily half the entire Faction within that base, and if they’re devoting that many resources to whatever they’re doing here, it can’t be something small.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. “The presence of a powerful man like Sage Gorias supports that idea.”

  “Speaking of that man, he’s given us the only clue we have for the moment.”

  “Ah, you mean his statement at the end?”

  She nodded.

  There is a big battle coming, Eternal, he had said. Those words were never a good thing, no matter what context one read them in.

  “What unnecessary conflicts are the Alliances stirring up this time?” Nyx asked.

  I have no idea, I sighed, slowly standing myself up. I don’t expect it to be something good.

  My legs were a little sore from the waves of pain they’d endured, but other than that I seemed fine.

  “What should we do now?” Freya asked.

  I looked at the base ahead. I could feel the battalion of knights swarming in there. I was confident I could take them all out, but Sage Gorias would probably cause the rebound effect in me once again if I stepped inside the place, and I was quite certain I was not going to be able to defeat all those knights if I had to take them on with that kind of a handicap.