by John Nest
A speechless Smoke stared at the notification window. “I… I don’t know what to—” he was cut off by Florissant’s hand, and became silent.
She then pointed at Smoke’s Journeyman Emblem on his chest. “Et crescant in flamma avis!”
TATTING
The silver phoenix with opened wings was engulfed in flames. When the flames died out the phoenix had become golden.
“That is the symbol of your advancement,” said Florissant. “Wear it proudly.”
+ Upgraded unique brooch: Florissant: Red Seal Emblem
A grinning Smoke clutched the ornate brooch and lowered his head.
Without further delay, he inspected his newly upgraded unique accessory.
Florissant: Red Seal Emblem
Made from mithril, goldium, and phoenix feathers. It is the symbol of graduating Florissant’s Journeyman program.
+40,000 HP
+70,000 MP
+40 Intelligence
Restrictions:
– Can only be used by those who have passed the Florissant Journeyman Program.
– Must be at least level 120.
Equipment Ability:
*Xantico’s Inheritance (Passive)
+Endows bearer with the flames of the great flame goddess Xantico.
+All Equipment is blessed with Mortal Flame Resistance [99%].
+Improves basic stat attributes of all equipped items [15%].
+Gains offensive/defensive power on all flame abilities [50%].
Note: Xantico’s Inheritance only applies when the brooch is equipped.
*Xantico’s Flames (Active)
+Ability to create flames based on the MP used.
“Hey! Focus!” commanded Florissant. “Anyway, it’s ready,” she added. She stepped to the side, revealing seven logs stacked up in an intricate manner behind her.
“That’ll only get you there,” added Eleve. “So, you’ll have to find your own way back.”
“No problem,” said Smoke, excited. “What do I do?”
“Wait,” said Florissant. “Remember, this is the first time for a Sonstwelter to enter Mictlan. And even Magna is the only Zectian that I know who came back from that realm. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Positive!” replied Smoke, walking towards them. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Even if it means being stuck in Mictlan… forever?” asked Florissant.
Smoke stopped dead in his tracks. “What do you mean?”
“Can’t really say,” answered Florissant. “I’m not really sure how you Sonstwelters get here in the first place, but I do know that Mictlan is different from our world.”
Instantaneously, Smoke got an ominous vibe, like a terrible warning sign had just popped up without him noticing.
“It’s fine,” he said, somewhat reluctant. “There’s no way the developers would do something like that,” he murmured, unsure.
“Developers?” asked Florissant, confused.
“Just a term we use from where I’m from,” he quickly answered. “Anyway, I’m ready. Let’s do this!” He added with much gusto.
Florissant nodded. She had Smoke step in front of the sacred logs as she stepped away herself. Her hands turned to flames and said. “Fortis ingressus in interitum.”
Then, seven casting circles formed, one on top of the other. They were imprinted around the sacred logs, which instantly turned ablaze. Its smoke went straight up. And beyond logic, turned the afternoon sky into a starry night. Shortly after, a green aurora lit up the heavens. The northern lights and the blazing auburn flames gave Smoke a weird nostalgic feeling of Christmas and Halloween at the same time.
Captivated by the view, Smoke was unaware that he was already floating towards the green aurora. He looked down and saw Eleve and Florissant waving at him before his vision blurred and was sucked into the northern lights.
He felt like his mind was being cracked open, while his body experienced a pummeling like being sucked into a whirlpool. When he tried to open his eyes, he noticed several eyes were growing out of his hands. He experienced overlapping visions as more eyes grew out of his entire body.
In pain, he tried logging out but was met with an error notification.
– Realm Transition In Progress
“Waaaaaaaah!” screamed Smoke in agony, the only thing he was able to do at the moment.
* * * * * *
When Smoke opened his eyes, he found himself in a misty forest. He did not know how much time had passed but more importantly wondered whether he made it to Mictlan.
He immediately tried calling Sierra, Darius, but found it impossible to contact anyone.
Learning from experience, he hurriedly scaled one of the trees to get a better view of the place. Settled on a sturdy branch, he clicked on his map.
– Entered Hellroute
– One of the many dwellings of the sycophants. Only the sycophants can survive here. Escape unless you want to be one of their victims.
Before Smoke could wonder what a sycophant was, he spotted a hovering humanoid gray monster. Its arms reached below its knees and had mantis-like hands, and its head had no eyes, nose, or ears. It only had a wide mouth with sharp teeth.
Smoke wanted to attack it but was bothered by the fact that his Cunning of the Dire Fox did not sense it.
‘Better observe it first,’ he surmised, worried that there would be more of them. He followed from up the trees.
A few minutes later, the sycophant he was tracking suddenly yelled out. “Merde! Merde!”
Seconds later, another sycophant came out and shouted the same. “Merde!”
Up ahead, Smoke heard several voices shouting the exact thing. “Merde! Merde!”
Then, he saw him. A familiar face surrounded by six of the gray faceless monsters. A massive Maneator bravely facing the hovering sycophants.
At once, Smoke got out his hook swords. He leaped down to help an unarmed König Mitleid.
Chapter Nine:
Delusive Mictlan
Six hovering sycophants enclosed the former Maneator King. These gray faceless monsters kept shouting “Merde! Merde! Merde!” while threateningly aiming their long cleaver-like hands at him.
Yet, the unarmed König Mitleid was calm and composed. He turned his head to the left but suddenly jumped to the sycophant on his right. He grabbed both its arms which prevented the monster from stabbing him.
In a swift motion, Mitleid pierced his horns into the sycophant’s chest. He then lifted the monster and threw it to the sycophant next to it. Then, he punched another sycophant right in its jaw, sending it three meters into the air.
Mitleid might have pushed back three of the sycophants but there were still three more ready to attack him.
THUD!
Mitleid and five of the sycophants turned to the source of the loud noise. One of the faceless monsters was knocked down, revealing Smoke equipped with his hook swords.
Smoke used his Moon Blade’s Lunar Force ability, which consumed half of his MP but increased the weight of his blade by 10% of the MP he used.
The unlucky sycophant was sprawled on the forest ground.
“Smoke?” asked Mitleid, surprised. Less than a split-second later, he ran towards Smoke and screamed. “Run!”
Smoke was slightly confused. He had already taken out one of the sycophants but trusted to heed Mitleid’s advice.
Yet, as soon as he lifted the Moon Blade, the sycophant attacked Smoke with its cleaver-like hands and nicked his left leg. That scratch alone damaged 20% of his life bar.
Surprised, he looked down at the sycophant whom he assumed to be dead. The faceless monster’s life bar displayed (4,500,000/5,000,000 SP).
‘SP? What’s that mean?’ he wondered as he reflexively ignored the injury on his leg and parried the monster away with the hook end of his sword.
“What are you doing?” asked Mitleid who was now right next to Smoke. “I said run!” he added, grabbing Smoke by the waist and carrying him a
way.
Being lifted up by Mitleid as they escaped, Smoke could see all six sycophants getting ready to give chase. The gray faceless monsters levitated half a meter above the forest floor and hovered towards them.
Left with a little over half of his MP, Smoke created an earth-wall at least two meters thick.
However, the sycophants’ bladed hands easily broke through it as if it were paper thin.
“Put me down,” said Smoke. “Run a head and I’ll catch up,” he added, wriggling out of Mitleid’s hold.
“You don’t understand!” said Mitleid. “It’s impossible when they’re this many.”
Smoke stood his ground and pointed his Berserker’s Ring of Flames at the charging sycophants. Instantly, a circular firewall engulfed all six faceless monsters. A casting circle appeared within it. All of the sycophants convulsed uncontrollably. Their bladed hands and legs contorted in a painful manner. Suddenly, they stopped. Each sycophant went after the nearest faceless monster. They were all inflicted with the Berserk status and began stabbing each other.
“Go! I’ll catch up,” Smoke said to Mitleid, still pointing the ring from Crucibelle at the sycophants. “You probably got ten seconds.”
A hesitant König Mitleid nodded and ran ahead of Smoke.
Smoke observed the sycophants fight. Each stab attack damaged its fellow sycophants for 40,000 points. Considering the damage of his Lunar Force, he surmised that these faceless monsters had a much higher defense that himself. But he still wondered what SP meant.
Not wanting to deplete his mana, he only used Crucibelle’s ring for eight seconds. He ended the Berserker’s Ring of Flame ability and used Hyper Jump to follow Mitleid.
While running away, Smoke observed that the sycophants were slightly slower.
“What are those things?” asked Smoke, as he kept pace with Mitleid.
“Not sure,” replied Mitleid. “Heard they used to be souls that lost their essence,” he added in between strides.
“They’re catching up,” said Smoke, worried.
“Run faster,” replied Mitleid. “We’re almost out of Hellroute—” But before the Maneator King could finish, four more sycophants appeared up ahead.
Smoke knew that an earth-wall or a trench would not help. He only had 130,000 MP left. So, he gambled on one attack that would sacrifice some of his precious magnetic rocks and electro stone.
He threw them on the ground and used Electromagnetic Golem Offering. This golem was inferior to his Automaton Knight but it required five times less the mana.
Smoke pointed his silver ring on them and activated its ability. The electro stone flew up in the air, pulling in the black and silver metallic rocks towards it.
One metallic golem stood up and faced the incoming sycophants.
“Good distraction,” said Mitleid, picking up his pace.
While running away, Smoke looked at the sole metallic golem with a pained expression. Now, he only had six electro stones left.
He watched as the golem was shattered into pieces. All ten sycophants swarmed the golem and kept smashing its black metallic rocks.
“We’re here!” said Mitleid, and led Smoke out of Hellroute Forest.
Smoke’s eyes grew wide when he saw that the forest was actually on a floating island.
Further ahead were thousands of floating islands suspended in eternal darkness. Curiously enough, each levitating island gave off a unique radiance. Some of the islands were floating above the one they were on, while others were below. A few of them were purely made out of grassy knolls, while some were barren deserts. Most of the larger islands had forests with rivers turned waterfalls as they kept flowing off into the dark abyss below. All of these islands were connected through bridges which looked to be made out of vines. Moreover, these unstable vine-bridges sometimes swayed violently.
“Hurry,” said Mitleid, running to one of the bridges.
* * * * * *
“So you know where Sharur and Laernea are?” asked Smoke, grinning widely.
“Sure do,” replied Mitleid. “The two of them found wandered around for a while but luckily they found my town and have been living there since.”
“Awesome!” exclaimed Smoke, looking back to face Mitleid, only to almost fall to the side of the vine-bridge.
“Careful,” said Mitleid, quickly pulling him back upright. “They say that if you fall into the void, you’ll come back as a sycophant.”
Walking on the meter wide vine-bridge, Smoke looked down on the side and saw nothing but the complete vastness the void.
“Noted,” replied Smoke, grinning. “But I gotta say, it’s great to see you again.”
“You saw me die, right?” asked Mitleid. “Where else would I be?”
“Right,” said Smoke, still smiling. “But what were you doing in Hellroute?”
“Was refilling this,” replied Mitleid, carefully pulling out a glowing white orb. “Hellroute’s one of the principal islands that connects you to most places.” The massive Maneator stows the orb, etched with mysterious runes, away inside a sling bag then points to the vine-bridge they were on. “This here connects us to an Insel. A smaller floating island, which connects to ten more other Insels.”
“What was that orb for?” asked Smoke, curious.
“I’ll show you when we get there,” answered Mitleid and gave him a wink. “But right now, we’ve got to focus on getting there.” He pointed to the grassy floating island up ahead.
As soon as Smoke’s feet touched the green Insel, a notification window popped up.
– Entered Insel-478322
– One of the millions of grassy islands sheltering the chaneque, the ones born into Mictlan.
When he finished reading the notification window, goosebumps covered his arms as he heard little voices calling out to him.
“Can you hear that?” Smoke asked Mitleid.
The Maneator shook his head. “There’s nothing.”
“There it is again,” said Smoke. The creepy voices became clearer as he walked farther into the lushly matted island.
“Come and play,” said the voice of a child.
“Stay, we’ll have fun,” added another child’s voice.
“You seriously don’t hear that?” asked Smoke.
“No,” replied Mitleid. “But stay close. There are—”
Before Mitleid could warn Smoke, a dozen short imp-like monsters popped out of the tall grass. These red monsters were a little over than a meter tall. Their horns towered over the grass, stepping out they revealed their pointed ears, webbed hands, and webbed feet.
“Come and play,” said the small imp-like creatures as they showed Smoke their sharp teeth.
“That’s the one talking?” said Smoke out loud, peeved.
“Wait, you can understand them?” asked a surprised Mitleid. “What are the chaneque saying?”
“They said they want to play,” answered Smoke.
“Stay and play,” added another chaneque, laughing like a child. All twelve creatures were frolicsome and leered at Smoke.
Smoke turned to Mitleid. “What do you hear when they talk?”
A worried Mitleid looked at Smoke and said. “Nothing. Just the gnashing of their teeth.”
Suddenly, all of the red imp-like creatures came rushing at Smoke.
“Run!” said Mitleid, dashing for the next vine-bridge off the Insel.
As Smoke watched the rushing chaneque with their claws protruded out of their webbed hands, a feeling of wanting to impress Mitleid overcame him. He wanted the former Maneator King to know how much he had grown.
Smoke stood his ground. “You run up ahead,” he said. “I’ll deal with them.”
Mitleid stopped running and called out to him. “No! These creatures are Mictlanders… Wait—” he began but was ignored as Smoke was already charging towards the chaneque, equipped with his twin hook swords.
Smoke aimed for the nearest chaneque with the hook of his sword. But the body of the chaneque bl
urred as if its body was ghost-like. He squinted his eyes, confused. He was then flooded with notification windows that he had not seen in a long time.
+ Attack miss chaneque. Damage 0.
+ Attack miss chaneque. Damage 0.
+ Attack miss chaneque. Damage 0.
+ Attack miss chaneque. Damage 0.
The chaneque appeared to stand perfectly still but none of Smoke’s attack could hit it. He tried catching it with the hook of his sword but even that passed through.
“Oh, he’s playing with us,” replied the chaneque Smoke attacked, sinisterly laughing. Its eyes grew thrice in size as it exposed its razor-sharp teeth. “Our turn!”
Without warning, three more chaneques swarmed Smoke.
A flood of damage notifications blinded him. Sharp claws scratched his head, arms, body, and legs. All he could do was hide behind his arms, as he couldn’t concentrate to put up a Manatl barrier. His life bar quickly went below 50%.
“I told you to run!” screamed Mitleid, grabbing Smoke from behind and carried him towards the next vine-bridge.
Thanks to Mitleid’s thick defense, the Maneator managed to bring himself and Smoke safely across the Insel.
THUD
Mitleid dropped Smoke on the bridge as he gasped for air. “Run!” he sternly yelled at Smoke. “It’s the one thing we should be doing until we reach Corpos Quentes.” He said in between breaths, as his breathing steadily became normal. “Creatures born in Mictlan are exceptionally agile,” he added with all seriousness.
Mitleid led the way to the next Insel. This floating island was nothing but a barren desert.
“So, even you can’t hit them?” asked Smoke, following closely behind.
Mitleid sighed. “I can, but their more pesky than the sycophants. Just run when you meet the chaneques and their kin. Besides, those red little imps like to stay near their grassy patches and never give chase when you’ve reached the next bridge.”
