Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration

by Edward Castle

"A name as beautiful as the owner," I insisted. Calling ugly girls pretty had always worked well for me.

  "I hear that often, but I appreciate the sentiment," she said contrary to my expectations. "Come, Male Fire Scout Leader ordered me to bring you to him."

  "Well... Why can't he come meet me?" I wasn't thrilled about following the rock to the lair of her people, especially if the Fire in the leader's name meant he was made of fire. Valia had given me enough unpleasant experiences with that element for a lifetime.

  "Don't be silly," she said with a giggle. "Come, he's waiting." She turned and began to walk.

  Bear said with an insufferable grin.

  I crossed my arms.

  His grin widened at my refutation, as if he had been waiting for it.

  Daggers said.

  I frowned and began to follow Thirty-Seven.

  Bear sighed. He theatrically sniffed as if holding back tears.

  I asked my Destiny Spirit instead of paying attention to Bear.

  The childish voice replied in my mind.

  My frown deepened.

 

  That made sense. Now, for the main reason I contacted Zenhit again:

 

  My heart might have skipped a beat if it had been beating.

 

  Warning received!

  You are forbidden from worshipping Zenhit, cease it immediately.

  If you are detected worshipping non-gods again, you will be stricken by divine punishment.

  This is an in-game warning, not a formal player warning. DIR supports freedom of belief and all players are free to worship whomever they want, including Valia's AIs.

  I didn't know whether to laugh or be offended by this absurdity. I hadn't noticed it before but Zenhit actually acted like an ignorant child. Even the wager he'd made against me during the Challenge, which he couldn't pay, could be attributed to an impulsive youth.

  I said.

  Zenhit sighed.

 

 

  The conversation ended and I shifted the focus to the rock girl. "Hey, Thirty-Seven. May I inquire as to the name of your species?"

  "Elemental," she said simply. Apparently, she wasn't much of a talker, which was a shame.

  "How long until we reach our destination?"

  "Two minutes. I advise holding your tongue; Male Fire Scout Leader doesn't like to be spoken to without permission."

  "And where are we going, exactly?"

  "To meet Male Fire Scout Leader," she said matter-of-factly.

  "Yes, but where?" I insisted.

  "In the tunnels ahead." Her voice now was slightly upset.

  "But what is the place called?"

  "The prisoner will remain silent." She said aggressively.

  At that, we stopped walking. Daggers became translucent, Bear closed his helmet, and I quickly backed away.

  "Seize them," Thirty-Seven said and I immediately dropped to the ground.

  It was a useless move, all that happened was the nearest rock walls quickly dissolved, revealing five rock elementals. They were quite dissimilar, sharing only their deformed humanoid shapes. One of them even had a leg two times as long as the other.

  "Thank goodness," I said as I got up and moved behind Bear. "I thought I'd have to do a side quest after all. Bear, Daggers, we only need one of them alive." I threw a firebomb at one of them.

  303 fire + 92 burn damage dealt to Rock Elemental #3 (395 total)

  One of the elementals was hit and to my surprise, it took full damage. I had thought that because they were made of rock, they would be resistant to it, but I got lucky.

  A small rock fell from the elemental, it looked as if it wouldn't take much more for it to crumble.

  Bear, on the other hand, was as unlucky as possible. His huge black sword swung at the closest stony figure and... It bounced off leaving barely a mark behind and dealing no damage at all.

  He complained and tried to punch the rock, but the only effect was him yelling in pain right after.

  Daggers was much more effective. I had seen her blades pierce armor before and yet again, they were miraculous; it was as if the rock wasn't there at all as the daggers penetrated deeply into the elemental's head.

  [Daggers] 285 (95 x 3) piercing damage dealt to Rock Elemental #4

  She had to strike four times to equal my firebomb damage. Still, she managed to stab the elemental three times before having to dodge an attack from it.

  The skill she had used was a dexterity-based one called No Defense Before Me. Bear took his cue from her and used his own strength-based skill called Pierce and Crush.

  His next swing of the sword rent the rock as if it was made of butter and almost split the elemental in half. It counter-attacked and he defended for some time, until his skill came out of cooldown.

  There was no rock elemental close to me and I safely threw firebombs at them.

  "Kill the mage first!" The beautiful voice of Thirty-Seven filled the corridor, full of rage.

  My first enemy died with a mere five firebombs. Daggers was still fighting hers and Bear became my meat shield, eventually using the Pierce and Crush skill to attack. He took some damage but it was clear that we would win the fight.

  Daggers' No Defense Before Me had a much greater duration and much lower cooldown, so she was tearing her opponent to pieces; literally.

  Thirty-Seven seemed to realized that she would lose, turned around, and ran. As if that had been the cue, the remaining rock elementals tried to do the same.

  I said while throwing firebombs at the running elementals.

  Daggers had just finished killing her elemental and Bear body-slammed another one into the wall.

  Or at least he tried. The wall dissolved away, as if afraid of touching the elemental', and all that happened was that they both fell on the ground.

  I withdrew a rope from my ring and threw it to Daggers. She quickly began to tie the elemental.

  I said as I watched her work.

  Bear complained and threw himself atop the struggling rock elemental.

  It was struggling hard. Still, Bear seemed to know what to do and managed to keep it pinned to the ground, and Daggers also appeared well-versed in the art of restraining enemies.

  Before too long, the elemental was our prisoner.

  I told Bear and he did so. As expected, the wall melted before the elemental could touch it.

  Bear opened his helmet and smiled.

  "Relax," I told the elemental. "We need you to melt some rock for us, and we'll free you after that."

  "I'll never help you!"
It bellowed with a male voice and... Became still. A golden liquid light left its body and shot through the corridor too fast for me to do anything.

  Daggers was faster though. She threw a knife at the light, but it passed harmlessly through it and clattered off the rock wall instead.

  A few seconds later, the rock elemental began to move again. Except, now it thrashed like a wild animal! It struggled hard against the rope, even though he was firmly bound.

  "Stop!" I said. "You can't free yourself!"

  It ignored me. Daggers took some rope from inside her cloak and began to tie the elemental even tighter.

  However, in the process of doing that, something that shouldn't have happened did: the elemental touched the wall... And it didn't melt.

  I said. He did as told, and nothing happened. I kicked the elemental right before throwing fireballs at it.

  All my current fire morbs had been created with the mana cost for firebombs, so it took me an extra two seconds to launch each. That's just how magic in Valia worked: I either created the morbs with the right amount of mana for the spells I intended to use, or it would take me extra time to cast the spells.

  It eventually died, having taken only half the damage as the rock elementals from before. Apparently, that light which had left it was some kind of soul that strengthened the elemental and made it sentient.

  I kicked it again after it died. The rocks that formed its body had separated from each other.

  Bear asked. It was the first time I'd ever heard him less than thrilled at the prospect of a battle. And understandably so; he was just a punching bag when it came to the elementals, other than the single effective strike he could periodically make with his skill.

  This simple lucidity though, said a lot about him. It made it clear that no matter how suicidal he acted most of the time, he could still think straight even in the face of imminent battle.

  Which brought the question: how much of what I'd seen reflected his true personality, and how much was some kind of roleplay?

  It was rare that I had cause to reassess someone I had already analyzed, but Bear was such a case. Maybe he wasn't in here just for 'yolo fun', after all. When I thought about how he dealt with the other zombies, it painted a picture of a man with much more depth than before.

  People were usually simple. Unidimensional. Daggers, for instance, was crystal clear: she was a soldier to the bone. Ted was a spoiled rich girl who thought the world was a beautiful place or something.

  Bear, however, wasn't. And that worried me.

  I had training to avoid being predictable. Lots of it. Why was he not predictable? Who the hell was Bear?

  That made me frown and look at Daggers. Had I misread her too? Not about being a soldier at her core; of that, I was confident. But could there be more to her than I thought?

  Bear jolted me out my ruminating.

  I said.

  the zombie interrupted me.

  I sighed.

  I kicked the pile of rocks again. It had made me very upset.
 

  My eyes met Bear's.

  As I spoke, I could see my father in me. He loved to give long speeches and they all sounded downright reasonable, no matter how illogical they were. Although my speech right now was all one hundred percent true, my intonation, and even the words I chose for my current audience, were a clear reflection of his example.

  Bear didn't say anything. From what I knew of him, that meant submission. But I had just realized I knew nothing about him.

  There was nothing I could do though, besides continuing to observe and try to get closer to him. For now, I had a castle to conquer.

  I turned to her.

  she replied.

  I said.

 

  I smiled.

  * * *

  When we got back to the excavation site, the zombies were attacking the walls in a surprisingly lively fashion, even the ones they didn't need to dig through.

  "What the hell is going on in here?" Bear asked one of them.

  "He was right," the zombie said nodding my direction. "Working on these walls is great for getting strength and constitution points."

  "I'll be damned, Ugly-face," Bear turned to me. "You're a Prophet of the Lord!"

  I was surprised at first, then I became worried.

  he said.

  I sighed.

  Bear replied.

  I said as I led the way.

  We walked to the place we had to dig, the old dead end of the maze. It had been widened by the zombies and they had even made some progress ahead. However, they had stopped digging there, more focused on getting attribute points than on making forward progress.

  I had an extra metal pickaxe in my ring, which I threw to Daggers. Bear did the same. Soon, she was holding four pickaxes in her hands.

  "You six," I told the zombies nearby, "give me your extra pickaxes and go mine somewhere else."

  They obeyed, and I gave Daggers the extra tools. Then, she started working.

  Like a boss, she used her skill to pierce the walls with the pickaxes. All of them seemed to penetrate at exactly the same angle, to the same depth. Soon, all ten were sticking out of the wall.

  Without saying a word, she sidestepped. Then, Bear and I went ahead and began to pull.

  It took some strength but the pickaxes were just at the right position for me to take a considerable chunk of stone out of the wall. It was the same for Bear.

  When we were done with one pickaxe, we would simply drop it on the ground and Daggers would grab it and pierce the wall again.

  And so, the seemingly endless cycle began.

  The zombies hadn't been wrong; both my strength and my constitution went up by one in less than an hour, allowing me to reach
level thirty-one.

  Daggers had to stop to rest a few times, but even so, our progress was extremely good. By the time I logged out, I had a feeling we would reach our objective tomorrow.

  * * *

  I removed the VirBridge and ate something. When I checked the online news, I was shocked.

  On the screen, I saw an Army General, another from the Air Force, and an Admiral right beside my grandfather and a few other men.

  A headline that read 'Armed Forces and leading politicians focused on restoring order to the country,' greeted me and I continued reading.

  '"We need justice, but there can be no justice without order," says Louis McHolen. "I'll be the first to take my turn in the defendant's chair when the time comes, but for now the people must unite so we can take our country back. The country that has been looted by vandals and destroyed by criminals pretending to fight for justice. This is a North American Commonwealth that belongs to its decent citizens, not to those whose agenda is to bring terror and destructions to our homes."'

  That scared the hell out of me. Grandfather was using emotional arguments to justify putting the Armed Forces under the control of a Congress that would give the Forces free reign to do 'whatever was needed' to give peace back to the people.

  Grandfather never used emotional arguments. Never. He was known for being a blunt politician who used logic no matter who it hurt.

  For him to change that much meant that things were even worse at both the Senate and the House, than I had thought.

  That was just the tip of the iceberg. There was a lot of stuff going on at NATO and at the UN.

  V-Soft had never been able to sell the Immersive Reality technology in other countries, but these countries were still ordering us to give them the Immersive tech for 'security reasons.'

  Foreign courts were condemning the Department of Immersive Reality for reading their citizens' minds when they visited us, and banishing the tech from their countries.

  I tried calling grandfather but his number had been disconnected. Whatever was happening both in Congress and on the global stage was nothing like what the news was portraying; that much was a given. But without the ability to contact grandfather, I had no way of knowing what was actually happening and preparing for it.