Chapter 234: A Challenge to the Gods

  Zach hopped down a short distance and landed on both feet near his sleeping bag. The moment his boots touched the grass, he looked over his shoulder just in time to see the portal stretch, thin out, and then vanish, leaving nothing behind but a dark, nighttime view of the tower he’d come here to climb.

  Taking a blind step forward, he bumped into the far-too comfortable chest of a Vixen Portal Commander, which made him remember that he’d left eighty-two of his various cards scattered all over the grassy area outside the tower where he’d set up camp. Spinning around, he spotted most of them, each of which was still spread about at random.

  He was back.

  Zach exhaled slowly, then shook his head. Uncertainty took over as he replayed events in his mind. He was confused. He was troubled. And how could he be anything else? After all, his one—and only—interaction with the real Landy had ended in such an abrupt, final way, and it had left him with a whole lot of questions.

  For instance, why had Landy changed his mind so suddenly? Was it due to his innate craziness, or was there a deeper reason? After all, he had been so excited to adventure, to the extent that he could barely manage to wait. What was it that Zach had said in there that had caused him to go one-eighty and decide that the two would never meet again? What words could Zach possibly have uttered that Landy had completely changed his mind about adventuring together?

  I just don’t get it, he thought to himself. I don’t think I said anything wrong…so why?

  On the one hand, Zach realized he should be relieved. Landy behaved in extreme, unpredictable ways, and he was incredibly dangerous and had the potential to be very violent. The NPC was like a stick of dynamite with a half-inch fuse just waiting to go off. But on the other hand, Zach found it hard to blame him for his temperament, and it was lonely being up here all alone. Having him around had really helped to break up that sense of isolation.

  But wasn’t that what I wanted? Didn’t I do that to myself on purpose?

  Yes, he had. After all, it wasn’t like Zach couldn’t have brought people up here with him in the first place if he’d truly wanted to. It wasn’t like he couldn’t have taken his phone with him instead of deliberately leaving it back at his estate. From the beginning, there had never been anything that actually prevented him from having a few guild-mates tag along with him during this journey.

  I chose to come here alone for a reason.

  That was right. His isolation was by his own design. From the outset, his goal had been to improve himself alone and unaided. And so, in a way, this really only marked a return to his original intention. Zach had deliberately come here all by himself in order to put his own two feet to the fire: to push himself without having the option to lean on or rely upon others.

  Otherwise, I could’ve just let Kal tag along.

  Right. If he was on his own once more, then so be it, as that was what aligned with his initial plan—and he was fine with that. Really, he was.

  But what he wasn’t fine with was the horrifying sight of Landy, and the incomprehensible suffering that a thinking, sentient being was made to endure for such a long, equally incomprehensible amount of time.

  Just the idea of being trapped in one place all alone for thousands upon thousands of years…it was no wonder the NPC was driven to such madness and rage. It was no wonder he behaved so erratically and was so hard to understand or have a conversation with. But none of that was his fault. How could any reasonable person blame Landy for his twisted hatred? What more could be expected of someone who had spent an entire, endless existence in a cage without any real purpose or hope?

  He can’t even die, Zach thought, shivering out of sheer disbelief. That’s got to be the worst part of it all. Landy can’t even die.

  Zach felt himself becoming gripped by a sense of existential dread as he continued to imagine what such a hellish, eternal existence must be like. It was an uncomfortable feeling, one that began in the pit of his stomach and spread outwards until traveling into his arms and legs while causing goosebumps to form on his mostly naked skin.

  Still clad in nothing but a helm, underwear, and boots, Zach realized that he suddenly felt a chill in his back, one that may well have been solely caused by his thoughts, but also could have been from the breeze that ran over his shoulders. The sky having now turned completely dark, the air temperature dropped despite the sky island having its own, internally regulated atmosphere.

  I can barely see ten feet in front of me now, he thought. I better clean up my cards.

  Zach yawned, stretched, and then spent the next few minutes going around and using Card Dismiss, the ability echoing in his mind as fast as his eyes were able to spot another target. With one hand extended, card after card came flying into his palm. But eventually, the stack grew large enough that he had to put some on the ground near his sleeping bag before continuing.

  After dismissing what he believed to be all eighty-two, he counted the cards just to be safe, and it was here that he came up short.

  Gods-dammit, he thought, counting them a second, then third time just to be sure he wasn’t making a mistake. I’ve only got 79.

  Zach spun around and around, looking for some sign of where the remaining three cards could be. But it was just too dark. And honestly? He doubted it mattered. Come morning, they would be unmissable. He’d get them later when he could actually see them.

  Actually, speaking of later…should I go to bed now?

  Without a doubt, Zach’s circumstances had changed during the past few minutes. Because assuming Landy was serious about calling off their plans to take on the boss bright and early tomorrow morning, Zach wondered if there was any longer a reason for him to stay up all night and grind experience points like he’d originally planned—which was incidentally the entire damn reason Landy had even brought him to his item shop in the first place.

  Landy had told him that he had an item that would help Zach see in the dark. But the only reason Zach was planning to stay up in the first place was to catch up on XP that he’d end up missing while adventuring with Landy and all the cards. Thus, paradoxically, by accompanying Landy to his item shop, he had set off a chain of events that resulted in him no longer needing the thing he’d gone through the portal to get—and all because he’d gone to get it.

  Crazy how that works…

  Ultimately, he no longer needed to manage his time between leveling and pushing forward with Landy, and thus, he no longer needed to pull an all-nighter. And yet…he kind of still wanted to.

  Yeah, he did.

  “It’s not about needing to stay up,” he said aloud to himself—and possibly to the three cards that were concealed somewhere in the dark. “I want to keep going!”

  Desperate for anything to keep his mind off the traumatizing discoveries he’d made about Landy, Zach decided to put all of his focus on himself instead. Selfish? Perhaps. But there was absolutely nothing he could do for Landy: not a single thing. As far as actions were concerned, the only one Zach actually had the ability to take was to sit and mull over Landy’s suffering, which would do nothing to change it and only slow him down. For now, it was best he kept pushing forward.

  But first, he needed to put away his cards and take stock of what he had. And the thought of doing this brightened his mood somewhat, as he remembered that not all of what he’d just experienced was negative. No, not even close. Because even amid the disturbing sight of Landy bashing his own head in for millions of points of damage, Zach had been treated to a weekly haul that was hand-over-fist better than all of the ones he’d seen at Mushkie’s—to an absurd degree!

  And so, after crouching down and rummaging through his belongings, Zach slinked his hand beneath his helmet, and with that, he gathered all the stones he still had with him here, of which there were five: three Red Rejuvenation Stones, zero Yellow Rejuvenation Stones, and three Purple Rejuvenation Stones. All five, he placed together in a neat pile next to his cards before adjusting the strap to secure his helm a bit more tightly on his head. Once that was done, he raised his hand above his head and activated Bank and Storage.

  And now, as a box that only he could see appeared beneath his eyes, he realized that it had become filled with almost 11 million gold worth of new shit that he’d only just bought at Landy’s item shop. But before he took stock of any of it, there were two things in particular that caught his eye and that he immediately marveled at—two items that he stared at with a sense of complete and utter awe.

  Light Stones.

  Zach mentally selected one from the box. He was going to put it back, but he just wanted to touch it with his own two hands and look at it, if only to reassure himself that it was even real. Mentally selecting one, it appeared in his raised palm an instant later, and then Zach lowered his arm to look at it.

  Gods, it was beautiful.

  The stone vaguely resembled a diamond, only it was large enough to fully cover his palm, and it shone a light of its own, one bright enough to make Zach squint amid the all-encompassing darkness of night. But of all things, the most spectacular aspect of the Light Stone—in his opinion—was the way in which any light that reflected off it, no matter the source of such light, beamed back with the color of a rainbow.

  An actual Light Stone, Zach thought, turning it over, feeling its smoothness; it was perpetually cool to the touch. I can’t believe I have two of them.

  Come to think of it, as rare as these stones were, one of them had actually once been used on him—back when he’d gotten badly messed up by that Gods-be-damned dragon. After rushing him to the hospital in the city of Tomb of Fire, Peter Brayspark V had used a Light Stone from the Guild of Gentlemen’s vault to save Zach’s life, as Zach had been facing certain death. But so much had been happening at the time that Zach had never really taken the time to truly appreciate the magnitude of such a gift, nor had he ever felt any great sense of appreciation until right now.

  Peter had his issues, but he wasn’t a bad guy, Zach thought, sadly, recalling the way Sir Alistair Morrison had literally stabbed him in the back. His guild, though…that’s a whole different story.

  Flipping over the Light Stone a few more times, Zach returned it to the chest along with the five stones he had on the ground and the seventy-nine cards he’d recovered. He then used a mental command to “auto sort” the items in his box, a feature he’d never even known existed until Jimmy had told him about it. Actually, no one knew about it until Jimmy “discovered it” and informed them during their traipse through that not-so infinite hallway in Angelica’s.

  Was that day four or five of our expedition? Zach wondered. I can’t even remember.

  Regardless, Zach chuckled as he recalled how the other adventurers had been so flabbergasted, shocked, and even a bit outraged by the casual way in which Jimmy had informed them of this never-before-heard-of “feature.” Because not only had Jimmy told them about this pseudo-secret ability with Bank and Storage, but he’d apparently found out about it on his second or third day as an adventurer, too, never bothering to tell anyone.

  Making things even more frustrating was that, from the way Jimmy had explained it, it became clear that it hadn’t even really been a “discovery” to him at all; rather, it was more of an assumption he’d made. One that had come naturally to him—like its existence was never even a question or a doubt. Zach smiled fondly as he remembered how mad the adventurers were that Jimmy hadn’t mentioned it way sooner. He’d only even brought it up at all because of a conversation he’d overheard between Rian and Lienne.

  “If Zach’s right,” Rian had said, “and there really is an end to this hallway, I hope there’s some sweet loot waiting for us.”

  “Me too,” Lienne had agreed. “But my box is getting kind of full, and it’s starting to become such a pain in the ass having to organize it.”

  Zach could vividly recall the way Jimmy had scratched the top of his head before giving her a wry look. “Why the hell are you not just auto-sorting, Lienne?”

  “Auto-sorting?”

  “Yeah. Auto-sorting.”

  “What the fuck is auto-sorting?” Donovan had asked with a grunt from the front of the formation, clearly eavesdropping on the conversation.

  Jimmy had laughed and called everyone noobs as he explained that, obviously, you could just have the items in the box sort themselves to both maximize free space and also to make everything neater and optimally organized.

  “How the hell do you know that?” an adventurer had practically screamed.

  “How could you not? Of course they’re gonna let us auto-sort boxes. That’s been a standard QOL feature since like the year—”

  Zach couldn’t recall much of what was said after that, as things had devolved into shouting and cursing, some of which he’d partaken in. And now, smiling at the memory, he looked down on his freshly sorted box, where his stones were nice and neat, organized by color.

  Thanks to the ones he’d picked up at Landy’s, he now saw that he had: 9 red, 5 yellow, 6 purple, and 2 Light, for 22 stones in total. Mentally selecting one of each color—but not Light, of course—a red, a yellow, and a purple appeared in his hand, and he tucked all three beneath his helmet, where he was keeping stuff until he had pockets again.

  After that, he took stock of the rest of his items. First, he noted that he now had 13 Escape Rope, way more than he would ever need. He took one from the box and tied it around his waist just above his underwear. He also now had a crazy amount of Teleport Stones: 25 in total. Although Landy had only sold him 3, he had bought plenty from his Mushkie runs, especially last year, and nobody knew what they did or why, so they never got used and had simply sat in storage all this time.

  They’re taking up so much room in my box, though, Zach thought with a frown. From now on, I’m not going to buy them anymore until I find out what they do.

  For whatever reason, Teleport Stones had absolutely no item information associated with them. But rest assured, they were items. The fact that they could go in the box was proof of that, as only items—or food and beverages—directly from the adventuring world could go into the box. An ordinary banana, for example, or a can of cola could not. But an “adventuring” cola dropped by a mob? Absolutely—assuming such a thing existed.

  Wait, I know for a fact it does, Zach thought. I’ve seen them a few times at Mushkie’s. Skelly Apple Cola. It always sells out immediately.

  The thought of an apple-flavored soda actually sounded really nice. Unfortunately, Zach didn’t have much in the way of adventuring snacks or beverages. Actually, he didn’t have anything at all.

  I should have packed some junk food, he thought. Now I regret bringing only healthy shit.

  Continuing on, Zach inspected the last of his newly acquired items, of which he was familiar with only one: the Enchanting Awakening Gem of Authentic Cognition.

  This deceptively beautiful gemstone was, in actuality, a sticky, slimy, slippery, and, oddly enough, meaty piece of food that, when fed to a card, a pet, a mount, or basically anything under the user’s control, resulted in a sentient, talking, and self-aware companion. It was the item that had created Ruby, and in many regards, it was an incredibly cool item from the perspective of the number of possibilities and doors it opened up. But it was also an item that Zach understood on an intrinsic level needed to be used carefully and respectfully, as bringing sentient life into this world came with responsibility, something Adamus clearly did not understand or believe in based on his actions.

  Actually, Zach wasn’t even sure that using the item was ever okay, no matter the reason. It was a moral conundrum that he wasn’t equipped to solve. Genuinely, he did not know if deliberately turning a mob or an NPC into a servile, sentient being could ever truly be justified.

  Still, Zach would be lying if he said the idea of bringing one of his cards to life did not tempt him. Especially a Vixen Portal Commander. He actually felt heat rising into his cheeks at the thought of the red-haired Vixen calling him “master” and asking how she could serve him.

  Yet, even for purely innocent reasons, it would still be unwise to use the gem. Zach recalled the way that Ruby, as a non-sentient card, had been level 90. And after Kalana had fed her the gem, she’d leveled down into the 60s, matching Kal’s level. This meant that, if Zach fed one of his cards the gem, it would plummet all the way down to level 29, where he currently was, making them much less useful to him.

  Wait, wait, wait! What in the hell am I even thinking? Zach wondered, chiding himself. Granting something life based only on how “useful” it would be for me…that’s disgusting. Why would I even think that?

  Zach had to spit on the ground because his own impulse had made him feel so dirty as well as a touch guilty. Seriously, what a terrible thought. And really? It just went to show how dangerous and tempting the item was. He decided it was best to leave it in his item box for now and forget about it.

  With that, he evaluated his remaining three new items, two of which were nearly identical except for their size. These were called Stamina Potion (Small) and Stamina Potion (Medium). And true to their names, they differed only in the fact that one was just a touch bigger than the other. Now, as Zach mentally took note of the fact that he’d bought 3 of the small and 2 of the medium, he plucked one from his item box and then lowered his arm to look at it.

  “I’m guessing this is something you drink,” he whispered to himself.

  The item was made of glass with a wide, rounded base and a narrow top, almost like a vial from a science lab, and it was filled with some kind of bright, green liquid. Zach considered popping off the wooden cork and smelling it, but he wasn’t sure if that would count as consuming it and make him lose the item. So instead, he merely brought up its description.

  Zach’s mouth fell partially open. Now that was an incredible item. Assuming it worked the same as other stamina-restoration abilities that Zach had encountered, he could probably use it to extend the timer on Unleashed Phase or recover from E-debt. Returning the potion to the box, he took out the slightly larger one, which, unsurprisingly, had almost the exact same description with a higher rarity and a stronger effect.

  Zach nodded to himself, pleased. These were very good items. Expensive? Yes, particularly the medium, which was around 1.4-million gold per potion. But clearly, if used strategically at the right time for the right reasons, it would be worth every last gold and then some. Thinking back, there had been many, many moments Zach could have completely reversed a bad situation with nothing but one of these potions.

  I need to save them for when I absolutely need them, he thought.

  At any rate, with those inspected, only one last item remained. And now, finally, Zach looked into the last of his new items—the one that he’d gone in there to get. This one was called Star Gun (White), and from its appearance in the box, it kind of looked like one of Anelia’s pistols, only it had a white, plastic tip, and the trigger was much thinner. It also had a cheap-looking, plastic-like scope on top of it. Grabbing just one of the three of these that Zach had purchased, the item appeared in the palm of his raised hand, and immediately after getting hold of it, he brought up its description.

  Zach read the description over a few times despite it seeming simple enough. Then, leaving his item box open, he turned around and looked in the direction of the tower, which was now only barely, faintly visible, as a cloud from higher up obscured the moon, eliminating what was currently the only meaningful source of light.

  “Okay, let’s give this a shot.”

  Zach did as the instructions bid, and he held the gun-like item up to his face. Closing his left eye, he peered through the scope with his right, and through it, he saw the world just as it was save for one little addition: a yellow, flat, grid-like “hologram” that appeared midair and moved along with the gun as he peered through the scope. He supposed that represented the location where the light source would end up.

  I should put it near the oculus, Zach thought.

  Even during the brightest of days, all of the light in the tower came through the glass dome on the top. As long as there was a sufficiently powerful light source above it, Zach would be able to see what he was doing once inside.

  Rotating the gun towards the tower, he then felt for the knob on the left of the gun and used it to push out the flat, yellow grid until it intersected with the tower, practically cutting right through it, with half of the grid disappearing inside of the tall structure. But the moment of intersection, the grid turned from yellow to dark red, and Zach could actually feel the trigger becoming stiff, implying the item would not fire at an invalid location.

  Raising his arms, he angled the gun higher, watching as the red grid lifted along with the shift in his aim until it was just above the glass oculus at the very top. The grid once again turned yellow, and like before, Zach could feel the trigger loosen. But to be safe, he aimed about two-dozen-or-so feet higher beyond that point, and once there, he pressed the trigger.

  “Pffffft!”

  Far removed from a bang or a pop, a gentle, soft, static, and fizz-like sound emerged from the muzzle of this flimsy “gun,” and a white, moderately fast-moving ball of not particularly bright light sailed across the darkness, doing little to illuminate the landscape as it rose higher and higher in the air.

  Zach watched as it came to a halt upon approaching the tower, hovering midair for a moment before shooting up, traveling higher and higher until it rose over the top, crested above the oculus, and continued to ascend until at last, finally, with a soundless explosion, it simply expanded until it became a massive, burning light so bright that it was like staring directly into a flashlight inches from your face.

  At once, the entire terrain illuminated beneath its glow. But it was not like the illumination of the daytime sun; no, it was nothing like that at all. The lighting was harsh, uneven, and felt like standing directly beneath a spotlight, creating an unusually high contrast between dark and light areas that caused noticeable shadows to form around every visible object while painting the world with a washed-out look.

  It’s like standing in front of a DEHV’s headlights.

  Though not a pleasant source of lighting, it would still probably be good enough. And as if to reassure him of that point, Zach could now immediately spot the two Vixen Portal Commanders and the Legion Portal Guardian that he’d “lost” due to the darkness. One of the Vixens was hanging around not far from the steps that led up to the tower, and the other one was together with her Orcish companion around just twenty-or-so feet from where Zach was standing, making him wonder how he’d missed those two. But, with a shrug, he dismissed all three, caught them in his hand, and then stowed them away in Bank and Storage before at last dismissing the ability.

  “You’ve got to go too, buddy,” Zach said to his saber-toothed Kralzek’s War Beast. “You’ll cut my XP in half.” Either by coincidence or design, his mount let out a dull roar as it faded into thin air, having been dismissed. And now, with that, Zach was ready to get going.

  Guided forward by the harsh ball of light, he ascended the twenty steps and entered the tower once more, and upon coming inside, he was relieved to see that, unlike on the outside, the lighting in here looked almost exactly as it did during the daytime. Why? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it was some science-thing to do with how the glass let light pass through—or maybe it was just plain fucking magic. Either way, as he strutted towards the partition, he decided it didn’t matter and instead he took a peek at his stats and XP.

  “Damn,” he said aloud. “Zephyr wasn’t kidding when he said it really starts to slow down around the 30s.”

  From what Zach understood, most adventurers, upon reaching their mid-20s, began relying more on completing quests and killing raid bosses for XP, as there seemed to be a point where grinding became far less efficient and safe than simply frolicking through Archian Prime’s dense, region-wide forests and saving skeletons from trolls, or whatever bullshit “storylines” were taking place there.

  Point being, Zach would probably be okay for now, since, while solo, mobs in here seemed to give an upward of 100k experience points a kill. But at some point, he would have to make the transition to questing.

  But questing sucks! he thought grumpily. At least, it did from what precious little he knew about it. Sure, he’d completed a couple of quests here or there since becoming an adventurer, but from what he’d heard, most quests were like: “slay ten boars” or “loot five cogs” and were tedious and repetitive. Rian and Lienne had once told him that, on Archian Prime, they would run around NPC villages and “snatch up” quests from anything with a yellow exclamation point over its head, and then they’d do them all at once and turn them in.

  I’d rather just fight it out, Zach thought as he drew his Primordial Void Blade along with his Frozen Blade of the Mystics, gripping the former in his left and the latter in his right. Brand new to dual-wielding, it felt clumsy and awkward, so perhaps this would be good practice.

  Exiting the partition, he extended his arm forward and pointed the tip of his icy spell-sword at the Orcish Elite waiting for him, and with that, he shouted out, “Val En Flamir Arr!” Briefly, two orange lights from flaming arrows sailed across the room, with both becoming brighter as they exploded into the Legion Portal Guardian’s face, the first hitting for 165,211, and the second knocking it off its feet and striking for 200,021.

  Unrushed and unworried, Zach twirled both blades around as he slowly approached, allowing the mob to pick itself back up; upon doing so, it let out a delayed shout of “Krest zencht harganar,” and then it charged forward at Zach before swinging around its left, then right arm in a staggered left-right attack of its axes.

  Zach, having already memorized every one of its attacks, chose to deflect both strikes with his Primordial Void Blade, as the artifact-quality weapon clearly had the durability to absorb the hits, and he did not want to risk shattering his Epic-Rarity spell-blade, especially considering the sword wasn’t meant for sword fighting in the first damn place.

  With a whip-like gesture to his left and then one to the right, two loud clangs filled the air, and two strikes were neutralized. With that, Zach got to work. This was going to be easy.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  *****

  Alex couldn’t believe he still hadn’t been detected; truly, it exposed in plain sight the sheer desperation faced by the Guild of Gentlemen. For them to willingly cross into Elvish territory…Alex could scarcely believe it, even as he had slowly and covertly traveled with these men and women all throughout the afternoon and now into the night.

  With the scale helmet concealing most of his face, the one thing that actually threatened to compromise his identity was the sound of his voice, and so he’d spoken as little as possible, yet there had now been a few circumstances where speech had been unavoidable. Even despite this, not one of them seemed to bat an eye at him. Such was the effect of Anelia’s sterling reputation. With her involved, they never even considered who he might be or what he was doing here with her.

  Not one of them brought it up.

  Now, as they stealthily crept through the farmlands of Whispery Woods towards Vazzal Shelen’s last known location, neither the ten leveled members of the guild, nor the hundred-or-so level-1 troops providing support appeared to have any idea whatsoever that Anelia and Alex were working against their interests.

  But likewise…they also had no idea of how badly—and confusingly—things appeared to be going for them.

  Something definitely isn’t right, Alex thought. This shouldn’t be possible.

  “How much farther?” Anelia asked, a rustling sound following her words as she disappeared just ahead of Alex into yet another crop field. Alex wondered if she was as unsettled as he was, because if so, she did extremely well to hide it.

  “We’re nearly there,” Sir Bradlay Camonae, 11th in command of the Guild of Gentlemen, replied as he removed a tablet-like device from his pocket and activated it, causing the darkness to abate from the glow of the screen. “I think we’re only about an hour out from where we last managed to contact Vazzal and his—”

  “Shut it off!” Anelia hissed at him suddenly, slapping the device out of his hand and causing it to shatter upon a rock.

  The moment she did so, about fifteen of the hundred level-1 troops, those nearest to her, raised their rifles even as their arms visibly trembled; at the same time, the man Anelia had already knocked out once today raised yet another staff in a threatening gesture, and as if inspired by his courage, the other eight members of the Guild of Gentlemen, Sir Camonae excluded, all raised weapons of their own—at least until their heads turned upwards and their faces became lit with panic as the sound of yet another WWSR-41 helicopter filled the air.

  “Gods dammit!” one of the troops blurted out.

  “Hide in the crops!” Anelia hissed. “Now, hurry! And shut the fuck up!”

  A level-1 staff sergeant directed the troop formation by turning his body sideways and waving his hands. At once, their entire party rushed to take cover, dropping to their knees in the blackened, winter-dead stalks of whatever crop had been grown here during the warmer months. Alex, Anelia, and the leveled members of the guild joined them, and there they all remained, huddled and quiet, as the helicopter shone its spotlight, searching for any sign of the bounty hunters.

  “Nobody move,” Anelia said threateningly. “Don’t even think about moving.”

  Alex spotted someone shaking: a young, level-1 soldier with light, blond-colored hair around Alex’s age. The man was quivering, and a wet spot formed at the front of his trousers. It reminded Alex that, though he would almost certainly have to kill this young man in very short order, it was still important for him to be empathetic.

  Right now, however, empathy did not come easily, as it was worry that threatened to drown out the rest of his instincts. Because something just wasn’t right here.

  Something is indeed very wrong, Alex thought. But what? What could it possibly be?

  As someone in a position of power, Alex knew that there were many, many problems that needed to be taken care of in a single twenty-four-hour period—to the extent it could often feel overwhelming. These days, as the second-in-command of the Lords of Justice, Alex was constantly forced to pick and choose what battles he fought and what issues he dealt with. For this reason, he understood that Queen Vayra and Princess Kalana would naturally have other matters to attend to, some of which would likely be very important.

  But Gods! What could possibly be more important than this?

  Something has to have gone wrong, Alex thought. Something that isn’t reasonable or can’t be explained.

  Since sporadically deciding to tag along with them, Alex’s biggest worry had been how the queen might react towards the Guild of Gentlemen’s breach of her territorial integrity, along with a more general concern over how he and Anelia would manage to save the children. And given that they were in constant, close proximity, it had seemed unlikely that either he or Anelia would have any chance to contact the queen or the princess to inform them of the situation and request aid.

  And yet, that was not the case at all.

  No, in what came as a shocking surprise to Alex, there had now been six such cases where either he or Anelia had managed to get a bit of distance from the others, as they seemed to be so obsessed with capturing their heir that they paid the two of them almost no attention at all. In spite of what it had initially seemed, the two of them had found no trouble in attempting to communicate with Fylwen: the keyword there being attempting.

  Because despite this, neither one of them had managed to make contact: not with the queen, Kalana, or even her top advisors. The queen had gone radio silent. And this posed a question for which Alex had no answer, as the fact that she would make herself unavailable seemed inconceivable given what was at stake for her both politically and emotionally. The same was true of Kalana as well, if not more so.

  And yet, here they were, he, Anelia, and the wayward forces from the Guild of Gentlemen, all of them huddling up to avoid detection as they closed in on a battle that might prove too much for the two of them to handle. And not because of the ten members of the Guild of Gentlemen, whom Alex was fairly certain he could handle all on his own, but because of the elite bounty hunters that Anelia claimed Vazzal Shelen surrounded himself with. Supposedly, they were a touch above the rest. Alex would clearly not have as easy a time dealing with them as he’d had with Sir Ultdern and his men.

  And neither will Anelia, no matter how confident she is that she can take them on.

  If Anelia had any concerns whatsoever, she clearly did not let any of them bleed through in her words or actions, not even when conversing alone with Alex outside of the earshot of the others. And to be honest, Alex had good reason to believe she, in fact, was unworried—more so, that she was completely mistaken in her view of the situation, as she’d clearly set out on her own with the intention of dealing with this “Vazzal” fellow all by herself, something she would most certainly end up doing if Alex had not come along.

  But Alex, naturally a skeptic, typically had a fairly good sense of things, and he wasn’t so sure that Anelia would survive the encounter or rescue the children. And even if she was correct and actually was capable of taking them on all on her own, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t kill the children during the struggle or simply dispatch a few members to take the kids and run while the other bounty hunters fended her off, inadvertently causing her to lose them for good.

  No, Alex had serious doubts that her initial plan was as sane as she claimed. And while yes, Anelia may have been a professional, her job had been to kill for a living, not rescue. She had several evident blind spots that she was unaware of. Thus, it was important to reestablish contact with their allies.

  It took more than brute strength to save lives.

  But it might come down to just that, Alex thought in both disbelief and profound annoyance. How are they not responding to our calls? What in the name of the Gods themselves could even possibly be so important that they would prioritize it over the rescue operation?

  Even if, by some unseen chance, something had come up that was more important than what was taking place here in these farmlands, it still should not have stopped Kalana from answering her phone, as Kalana was the one who’d begged Alex to go after Anelia in the first place.

  “I’m so, so worried about her,” she’d said to him. “Please, Alex. I don’t wanna punish her or anything. I know she did really bad things, but I just…I just want her to be okay, and poor Denisoa is so scared, and everybody here in town just wants her to come back safe.”

  “I’ll find her,” Alex had said.

  And he had. And here they were.

  So where was Kalana? Why wasn’t she answering? What was she doing that took precedence over this? What could possibly be so damned important to the girl that she would fail to reply to him or Anelia? Could there be anything so important?

  I just can’t see what or why, he thought. It makes no sense.

  As they neared Vazzal’s last known location, he wondered if he should risk using unsecured lines to contact his own guild and have them coordinate with the Elves in Den of Ziragoth. At this point, it might be riskier to not call for reinforcements than to take the chance that information was leaked. Especially with the lives of two innocent children caught up in the balance.

  Anelia has no idea how to conduct a rescue operation, he thought. It’s not as simple as blasting everyone in your path.

  Whatever Alex chose to do, he’d have to make up his mind pretty quickly. Because they were getting closer and closer, and soon, they’d have to fight—even if it was just the two of them against the strongest bounty hunters on Galterra.

  But it shouldn’t be this way. It was unthinkable and outrageous.

  What could the queen and her daughter possibly be doing?

  ********

  Zach delivered a really impressive, dual slashing attack that knocked off the yucky mob’s entire head. It was like really gross. And he was way too proud of himself. Especially because another one of those big, bloody-axe-wielding monster things was about to slice him in half. He seemed to welcome the challenge, though. He was playing with the mob like it was a child’s toy made for his amusement. He jumped over it, landed in a crouch, rolled over, and then began delivering slash after slash into a red-haired, spell-sword-wielding mob with obscenely big boobies.

  And he looked at them, too.

  Yeah, he did! She saw it.

  “Fuck, that was dangerous,” he said with a smile after finishing the fight, breathing heavily. “I can’t believe I took down three at once. That was so dumb. I should just stick to farming the one by itself on the first floor. Good thing Kal’s not here to give me shit.” He continued to pant, clearly out of breath yet still smiling. But that smile soon fell off his face, and it became clear a moment later why that happened to be.

  “Ah, man. What bullshit. Oh well. I’m sure there’s another big one around the corner.”

  Zach turned around—and then vanished for a moment as a giant piece of burning terrain—a literal flaming chunk of burning land the size of an entire island—crashed down from the orange-black sky and obscured the view of him that floated in the air like a sports player on a stadium screen.

  For what had to be the fiftieth time just in the past hour, this humongous, island-sized piece of land met its end as it crashed into a barrier that wrapped around them, one that remained invisible up until the moment of each impact, where it revealed itself to be a flat, glass-like, vertically sliced wall of energy that had gridlines running along it.

  With a massive boom that caused the ground to shake, the island-sized piece of terrain exploded into tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of smaller pieces, and each of these pieces was then further burned up as it crossed a secondary barrier, this one made by Eilea.

  For a moment, there was nothing to be seen other than smoke. Then this smoke cleared, and once it did, Kalana could again see the projected image of Zach floating high in the air and to her left, and across from him, in a separate screen-like projection, she could see the grossly, terribly disfigured, poor little NPC that Adamus had tortured and scorned for thousands upon thousands of years.

  She knew ‘cause she’d seen all of it happen. She’d seen the item shop. She’d seen how Zach was compassionate to him and not mean like he could be sometimes. And she was so, so angry. So upset. So wronged. So aggrieved.

  Looking around, she once again felt out of place. She couldn’t believe she was actually standing here with her mother on the soil of Gol’Darkrask, the Orcish homeworld—a planet that had apparently been destroyed in a civil war by the Gods that took place long before the existence of Galterra.

  Unlike Earth, there weren’t even lingering signs of civilization. Whatever battle had been fought here had been so violent that half the landmass of the planet had ended up in unstable orbit around it, and every single day, for thousands of years, some of it would come crashing down, occasionally with a force even greater than the nuclear explosion that had struck Ogre’s Axe—or at least Olandrin said so. But Kalana didn’t bother asking him for clarification. She was so mad at him, too.

  But at least…at least she could see the guilt in his eyes. There was none in the eyes of Adamus, and the only guilt Kalana could see within Eilea was guilt that she felt for hurting Kalana. Not for the fact that she was actually agreeing with Adamus for once, something that not even Olandrin could believe.

  Wiping more tears from her eyes, Kalana restated her position. “I’m not doing it,” she said again.

  Fylwen snapped her head in Kalana’s direction. “Daughter, please!” she cried, her voice a mixture of equal parts desperation and sadness. “You stand in the presence of three Gods. I understand your pain, but you must not embarrass our family this way!”

  Kalana glared at her mom. “I’m not doing it!” she shouted. “I’m not gonna!”

  “You don’t have a choice, I’m afraid,” Adamus said.

  Eilea came over as if to comfort her, but Kalana pushed her off. “Don’t,” she warned. “I’m super, duper upset at you.”

  “Beautiful princess, I know this is painful,” she said, hurt and pain in her voice. “Believe me, nothing enrages me more than cooperating with that foul beast of a man.” Prila tensed as if taking offense on behalf of Adamus, yet she was cooed as Adamus put a hand on her shoulder.

  Kalana shook her head. “Then why are you doing this? I don’t understand why you gotta go this far.”

  “Because that creature is dangerous! If it were a matter of apologizing and making amends, I would be all for it. But it is an abomination.”

  Kalana didn’t even bother to reply. She simply let her gaze drift off into the barren, ripped-apart, and completely uneven landscape that had apparently once been a beautiful, blue-skied home-world for the Orcish people, but was now an entire planet that looked like the aftermath of a devastating, planet-wide battle on a scale that her brain couldn’t even conceptualize.

  Another boom resounded from above as another massive chunk of landmass crashed into Adamus’ barrier and shattered. Then, like firecrackers, a secondary wave of tens of thousands of popping sounds filled the sky along with brief flickers of light as the smaller chunks came to an end on Eilea’s.

  “Kalana,” Olandrin whispered to her. He stood closest to her. She looked at him, and she immediately became infuriated, because of all those present, he and he alone knew deep down that this was wrong. She could tell. She just could.

  He’s not that different from me, she thought.

  “Why are you letting them do this?” she asked him.

  Rather than reply, he averted his eyes. There was shame in them. That much was beyond doubt. And though there was pain in the eyes of Eilea, there was none of the shame that she saw in Olandrin. This confirmed to Kalana that Eilea really did not believe what she was doing was wrong, and that she was only upset because of how it would make Kalana feel.

  Her mother, on the other hand, was carrying so many contrasting emotions within her that Kalana could not pick them apart. Her entire face looked warped with grief, though Kalana doubted much, if any of it, had to do with the reason they’d been brought here to this nightmarish planet. No, much like Kalana, she must’ve been so worried about little Peter and Adim. So was Denisoa, who for some reason had been dragged into this mess. And as a level-1 whose only connection to the adventuring world was Anelia, seeing all this going on around her was likely traumatizing in its own right.

  “G-g-g-g-g-g-gonna kill the Gods!” Landy shrieked, banging his head against his desk again. Kalana just happened to spot it on the mentally projected, stadium-like screen in the sky above and to her right. “I hate the Gods. Hate them so much! Gonna find them!”

  On the other screen, to the left, Zach was once again taking on the mean mob “elite” thingy on the first floor of that tower place. Seeing him had sent a jolt straight into her heart. She was so glad he was okay. But she also felt guilty ‘cause, with all the stuff going on, she’d almost forgotten all about him, something she never normally did.

  I love you, baby, she thought, wishing her words could reach him.

  For the past five hours, she’d been assembled here with her mother, Prila, Denisoa, Adamus, Eilea, and Olandrin, and the seven of them had been studying the situation, waiting, and all to enact a disgusting, awful plan that made Kalana bristle with disgust and loathing.

  And the more she’d learned, and the more she’d seen—the more unhappy and rebellious she’d become. Whereas her mother viewed this as the single-most important thing she’d ever done or participated in during her entire life, Kalana viewed it as a disgusting, immoral, and evil act, and not even the Gods could convince her to do something that she so strongly viewed as bad: as terrible.

  Once more, she tried to appeal to Olandrin, as at least she could tell that the boyish-faced God understood the wrongness of this all. “Please,” she said. “Think about how much you’ve already hurt that NPC. The books of Elvadin say that the Gods, that all of you, are supposed to be just and righteous. That you are—”

  Kalana flinched as her mother slapped her across the side of the face hard enough to cause genuine pain. It even left her disoriented, and, for a moment, she’d confused the crashing of her mother’s palm on her face for another impact from a falling piece of terrain. It also caused Eilea to react as though startled and Adamus to shake his head. “Please do not hit the princess, my child,” he whispered. “It is not necessary to inflict pain upon her simply for voicing her opinions.”

  “Forgive me, Great Lord,” Fylwen said, bowing down meekly onto one knee. “But I cannot allow my daughter to question your divinity. Your righteousness.”

  Kalana rubbed her cheek while defiantly staring daggers at her mother. “If they’re so righteous, why’re they doing evil?”

  Her mother scowled at her as though for having the audacity to ask such a question, but Kalana refused to change her attitude because she knew she was in the right. Prila and Denisoa, on the other hand, two level-1 human women who must’ve felt totally out of place, merely kept their mouths closed and pretended not to be observing any of this.

  Kalana waited for the loud boom to fade as another piece of land crashed down through the broken atmosphere and ended its existence on the outer barrier created by Adamus. Afterwards, she fixed Olandrin with a hard, unflinching look, and with her voice breaking, she asked him, “How can you do this?”

  Olandrin lowered his eyes, his shoulders slumping. He wore an elegant, blue-white coat with the image of stars emblazoned on the chest in silver threading. His fingers were adorned with rings made of gemstones that did not naturally appear on Galterra, one of which he began to rub as though uneasy, if not quite nervous.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Kalana said to him.

  “He’ll kill my sister if I don’t,” Olandrin replied. “He’ll kill so many people. He already has.”

  “We could try talking to him.”

  Olandrin opened his mouth to reply, but Adamus cut him off. Having apparently “revitalized” himself, it was strange to hear a young man who looked to be around Kalana’s age speak as though he were so much older.

  “There is little left to discuss. The princess knows the plan, and she will cooperate. The queen will see to that, will you not?”

  “Yes!” Mom replied with fire in her eyes, fire which she directed Kalana’s way. “My daughter will,” she added as her eyes turned so that they settled directly on Kalana.

  “Good,” Adamus said. “But let it be known that it is only due to your wishes that I even entertain her cooperation. As I’ve made clear, she need not be a willing participant. I can simply have her fall into a dreamless sleep.”

  Fylwen again got down on her knees, pleading in her voice. “Please, it would bring her such dishonor.” Actual tears fell down the queen’s face. “To report in our holiest of books that my daughter, the princess, had been unwilling to abide by the Great Lord’s instruction, and instead had to be used in such a way…I beg that is not her legacy. I would trade my life to prevent that.”

  Kalana could feel her expression souring further. Her mom cared about the completely wrong things. She opened her mouth to say as much, but she paused as she noticed Landy begin to shift. The grotesquely disfigured, monstrous-looking creature got up from the counter and began scratching the walls and the flooring until his nails were bloody, and each subsequent scratch began to do thousands of points of damage to him.

  He began muttering to himself, most of it incoherent. But some of it, albeit only a small portion, was intelligible. “…find them, gonna find them, gonna find them, gonna…”

  As Landy went back to muttering, a purplish, spiraling vortex of energy opened up beside Kalana, and from within, emerged Angelica, the cat-eared NPC.

  She looked miserable.

  Truly miserable.

  “I’m only doing this to protect my mother,” she said, the hatred in her eyes briefly dulling as they fell upon Eilea, who lovingly regarded her. It reminded Kalana that, to Angelica, Eilea was basically her mom. “I won’t allow her to be hurt.” To Kalana, she then said, “I’m so sorry Adamus is making you do this. I’m just so, so, so, sorry, you little thing.” Immediately, her name flashed solid red and stayed that way as her gaze turned cold upon Adamus. “One day, I’ll give you his severed head to make up for this.”

  Fylwen gasped, Eilea grinned, Olandrin rubbed his eyes, and Adamus merely shrugged as she openly spoke such words right in front of him.

  “Say what you will,” Adamus replied. “But make sure that the barrier holds after it arrives. I cannot have it escape.”

  “Landy is a he not an it,” Angelica insisted. “But fine. I’ll do it.”

  And to think, all of this was happening because one of Adamus’ “slaves” had, as of five hours ago, “hacked”—the word Olandrin used—some kind of “node thingy” or whatever, amplifying his power to the extent that he was now considered capable of challenging Adamus.

  “He’s behaving like a system virus,” Adamus stated bluntly. “He’s infecting the nodes that uphold the system and drawing power into himself.”

  “Nah-uh,” Kalana interjected despite the glare from her mother. She pointed at the screen. “He’s not doing that at all. He’s…he’s hurting himself. That’s what he’s doing.”

  Gently, Angelica whispered, “What you see there is misleading. That’s his physical self. You’re not able to see the rest of what he’s doing like we can, Kalana.”

  “Oh…well, even still, I dunno if I even care what he’s doing or not doing, ‘cause from my view, he’s—”

  “Get ready!” Olandrin abruptly blurted out, his voice turning deathly serious. Flywen reached out and tightly squeezed Kalana’s hand, and there was no gentleness in the way she clamped down. She was clearly trying to convey a message, one that demanded obedience.

  “…gonna find them, gonna find them, yes have to find them, I have to,” he continued to mutter even as he scratched. In a flash, his vastly differently sized eyes both widened, and he inhaled sharply. “I…I found them! I found, found, found them!” He looked at the screen now—no, not at the screen, but through it. Directly at them. And just from the look on his face, Kalana could tell he saw them. Even if he didn’t know where he was looking or how, the NPC clearly saw them.

  “The Gods! There they are. There!”

  No sooner had he spoken those words than his body simply collapsed, his red-lettered name floating in the air just above his blackened, blood-stained flooring about ten feet in front of his head as he went completely limp and unmoving.

  Adamus spoke, and as he did, there was an intensity in his voice that was unusual for him. “Remember, Queen of Elvadin. I will not harm your daughter, no matter how it may seem.”

  “I trust you with her life,” Fylwen said, bowing. “And even if you took it, it is your right to do so, oh Great Lord, Adamus, God of the Elvish people.”

  Following those words, there was a moment of silence, and now, Kalana had just enough time to send Olandrin a last, helpless plea as the air became disturbed about a mile’s distance ahead of them—across a giant chasm punched in the land, one even larger than the one in Shadowfall Coast that Zach had caused during the fight with the Ziragoth adds.

  The air continued to be disturbed until it became distorted, and it was through this distortion that the “monster” appeared. Even as his form could be seen lying unmoving on the second of those two large screens—or at least it did until just now, as both disappeared. A moment before they vanished, Kalana was able to see and hear Zach swearing angrily about getting “another shitty scythe” as loot from an Orc mob. And then both floating images thinned out until leaving existence entirely.

  The time had come.

  “Not again,” Prila whimpered. “Not again. Oh, Gods, no, not again.”

  Adamus reached out and held her protectively, a rare display of affection from the cold, callous God. “Do not fret, my dear sweet Prila, for this creature shall no longer threaten your life.” He looked at Kalana. “I am sorry, but you will play your part in this, willingly or not.”

  “I won’t!” Kalana shouted. “There’s nothing you can say that’ll make me—”

  “Gooooooooooooooooods!” screeched the voice from across the chasm as the NPC named Landy approached, even more menacing and terrifying in this projected form. His teeth were sharper, and he was literally drooling with hate, something that became noticeable as he floated over the chasm towards them all. “Goddddddddddddddddds!”

  Kalana looked behind herself as she felt two hands settle on her shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” Olandrin whispered.

  “Don’t do this,” Kalana begged him, her eyes becoming damp. “Please. How can you see what we saw and not…and not hate yourself for this?”

  “I can’t,” he replied, the answer both simple yet complex at the same time.

  It had only been five hours, but Kalana had seen a lot. Enough. She’d learned all about the monster that had been chasing Prila. She’d learned about his weird but actually kinda cute alliance with Zach. But then she’d found out the extent of what they’d done to him through sheer negligence. And it had broken her heart. And the fact that Adamus didn’t show any kind of remorse or guilt—it made her resent him in the strongest of terms.

  Just as she’d begun to rethink things. Just as her mother had begun convincing her that maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. She was once again reminded of why Angelica and Eilea hated him, and she was starting to hate him too, if she didn’t already.

  I don’t wanna hate anybody! But I’ll never forgive him for this!

  The disfigured, hideously beautiful creature wept and cried even as he approached, and Kalana detested Adamus even more. “There you are,” he said as he came even nearer, close enough that Kalana could smell him despite the fact that he was what Olandrin had called a “partially physical projection.”

  “There you are, Gods,” Landy said. “Now, you kill me, or I kill you. Yes, yes, has to happen.”

  Kalana could feel Olandrin tremble as he gripped her shoulders more tightly, only to abruptly release them. And it was here that Kalana realized it was about to happen. Right here, right now. And she wasn’t going to be a part of it. No! She refused! This was wrong and evil! But before she could even consider a way to defy the Gods, Adamus’ plan went into effect so fast that it was already in motion before she ever had the chance to stop it.

  Two events took place in the exact same instant. First, Landy’s worn, flaky hands began to stretch as his limbs horrifyingly made snapping, tearing sounds, beginning to grow, change in color, and elongate until the fabric on his torn robe became shredded, and what stood before them was a malformed man with ten-foot-long, scorpion-like pincers for arms, each appearing sharp and deadly. His face was also ripped apart, and a horn-shaped beak escaped his mouth while his unevenly sized eyes blackened and leaked a dark-blue-colored blood.

  “Gooooooooddddssss!” he shrieked.

  And with that, he made a high-pitched, alien-like cry and lunged forward, though Kalana wasn’t sure which one of them he was heading for. But Adamus did not appear to care. Because in the simultaneous moment that Landy sprang forward, the heartless God turned his body, reached across a small amount of space, and with a vicious, painful tug, he grabbed Kalana by the throat and pulled her in front of him.

  Kalana tried to scream, but he shifted the hand on her throat so that it covered her mouth instead, and in the same motion, he yanked her towards him so that the back of her head pressed against his chest. Then, shifting her eyes, she saw black dust particles begin spiraling around the fingers of his other hand, and from thin air, he materialized a dark, steel-like dagger, which he held to her throat, the blade digging into her flesh. She screamed even louder, her voice muffled as she felt a thin layer of blood trickle down her throat.

  Her mother did nothing. Angelica did nothing. Olandrin and Eilea—nothing. All simply remained motionless as Adamus shouted out, “Landy! Look at who this is!”

  A mere second before Landy slammed into the whole lot of them, his body halted midair, and his pitch-black eyes reverted to their previous uneven size, his pupils reappearing as well. Following this complete and sudden halt, he pulled back and moved quickly in the opposite direction. He remained still, as though uncertain, his expression unreadable due to the extreme changes in his visage.

  “Look who this is,” Adamus said again. The dagger held to her throat was removed, and instead, shifting his grip, he grabbed the top of her head and forcibly manipulated her face as if to display it to the NPC. Kalana tried to scream, but his other hand was still muffling her voice. She tried to bite, but Adamus was a God and felt no pain—none that she could inflict.

  And then there was a croak. No, more than a mere croak. It was a sound that came from Landy, one that carried the unmistakable note of fear.

  “You know who this is, don’t you?” Adamus asked him. “You’ve seen her before. In the mind of your first friend.”

  The beak that had sprouted from his mouth became detached and fell onto the dead, barren soil in a small puddle of blackish-blue blood. “Ka…Lana?”

  “That’s right,” Adamus said. Kalana resisted, but she was powerless as he forced her head to shake by pulling on her hair.

  “Zach’s girlfriend?”

  Adamus let go of the top of her head, again shifted his grip so that the dagger was held with lethal intent, and he made as if to plunge it into her throat. He stopped at the last moment as Landy cried out, “No! No!, Gods stop! Gods stop! Gods stop! Please…don’t.”

  “Should I?”

  “Please!” Landy begged. “Why do the Gods involve her? Don’t hurt Zach’s love!”

  The sincerity and genuine pain in his voice caused Kalana to briefly struggle to see him as her tears blurred her vision.

  “If I hurt her,” Adamus said, “you’ll have to tell Zach it was your fault. Won’t you? You’ll have to tell him that, if you had only listened to him, if you had only stayed with him, Kalana wouldn’t be dead. He’ll hate you, Landy. Your first friend will hate you.”

  “No!” he replied in agony.

  Kalana fought harder than she’d ever fought. She kicked and screamed, her words still muffled. But even as she did so, she hated herself, because there was virtually no difference between “playing her part” and “sincerely struggling,” which was likely why Adamus had allowed her to remain conscious in the first place. And from the knowing look of sympathy Eilea gave her, Kalana could tell that, much like Eilea, she had just fallen for one of his stupid, mean games.

  “What…why do you do this?”

  “To let you know what’s going to happen if you don’t cooperate, Landy. You’ve broken the rules.”

  “No!” Landy screamed. He pointed his arm-turned-pincer at Adamus. “You broke the rules! You did!”

  “Oh? How?”

  “You were supposed to give me people to meet. I was supposed to make friends. I was supposed to be like special-favorite-girl Angelica!”

  “I have not prevented that. Chance and circumstance did.”

  “Why did you let me suffer?”

  Though Kalana couldn’t see his expression, she had to imagine that Adamus was forming a look of disgust, and this, she judged just based on the sheer depth of outrage that Landy’s eyes reflected back their way.

  “You?” Adamus asked. “There is no you. You are an object of the system. You are not a person, Landy. You are a construct meant to serve. Same as this thing,” he said, his voice filling with derision as he shifted his head, likely in the direction of Angelica.

  Of all things, rather than react with anger, Landy reacted as though some fundamental misunderstanding was taking place, because he began fervently shaking his head. “You don’t know?” he asked. “Gods don’t know?” He waved around his pincer. “I feel. I do! Always did. Always have. Gods didn’t know? I can feel. Did the Gods not know this? Is that why?”

  As Adamus replied, Kalana thought she finally understood his game plan. And as heartless, cruel, and wicked as it was, she almost, almost gave up on her anger, as she realized the genius of it. Even she couldn’t help but be fascinated by how super-duper smart it was. Because now, Adamus could lie to him and tell him that he hadn’t known all along, and they could make peace and stuff. It was so terrible, and so, so cruel, and it was heartbreaking, but at least, it would put a stop to all of this.

  And it was for this reason that Kalana’s dislike of Adamus turned to true, Eilea-level hatred when he failed to take this obvious, glaring off-ramp, dishonest as it might have been. Because rather than end this situation right here and now, which was clearly what he was supposed to want, Adamus escalated it further, and for a reason that Kalana simply did not understand.

  “Oh, of course I knew, Landy,” he said to the NPC. “I fully understand that, through the power of advanced emulation, you’ve got a working digital equivalent of a consciousness. A regrettable thing, in fact. Not something I invented, nor will I be held to account for the machinations of my peers. No, it was not I who granted you sentience. That would be the fault of my beloved, Eilea Vayra. Though she had the best of intentions, when she created you, I had always warned her that her creations would be bound by the rules of the system. All I have ever done, Landy, is uphold my values. I neither targeted you nor subjected you to anything.”

  To say Landy did not take this well would be an understatement. The NPC’s entire projected body began to shake and convulse, more black-bluish blood leaking out of its eyes, ears, and mouth. “Gods knew!” he hissed desperately. “Gods knew and understood! I hate the Gods!”

  “And you may continue to hate us.” He again pointed the dagger directly at Kalana’s throat. “But you will submit to the authority of the system.”

  “I will destroy your system!” he shrieked.

  “If you do, I will kill Kalana—and then Zach.”

  “Fight me for the system!” he begged. “Big, powerful God. You fight me. You fight Landy!”

  “There is no Landy,” Adamus said, his words coming across as disgusted. “You will do as you’re told, and you will behave. You are not a living creature. You are a virus.”

  Kalana could no longer tell if the substance leaking from his eyes was blood or tears, or if, in this state, there was ever a meaningful difference at all. All she could do was continue to struggle as Landy insisted that Adamus battle him.

  “Big, powerful God,” he said again, rage and misery joining together, his tone becoming hysterical. “Cowering behind Zach’s love, because you can’t fight me? I will kill everyone! I will kill Prila.”

  “Do it,” Adamus said. “I’ll make that trade. Kalana and Zach in exchange for my system and my dear, sweet Prila. Come,” he said, nodding his head at her. “Come and kill Prila. You know the cost.”

  Landy stayed where he was. Did this mean he valued Zach’s life more? Having only just met him? If so, it only amplified her disgust at the way Adamus behaved. It only amplified the raw emotion burning in her chest.

  Landy began to weep. And now, with a final, desperate plea, Kalana shifted her eyes towards Olandrin, and he could see him glancing back at her. She couldn’t speak to him. She couldn’t get so much as a single word out. But she poured all of her emotions into this one, fleeting look of hope, and with all her heart, she prayed to him: prayed that, if he truly was the God that everyone had always said he was, that he would do something. That he would actually do something!

  Please! she thought to him, begging him, having no idea if he could hear her. Please, Olandrin! Don’t make me have to see any more of this! If you don’t do anything, then how are you better?

  Olandrin began to tremble, though she could no longer see his eyes, as Adamus had again moved her head so that she could only see a piece of the fun-loving God that the adventurers all looked up to.

  Olandrin, please! I’m begging you. Don’t let him do this! If you aren’t gonna do anything, then you shouldn’t be a God! You don’t even have the right to call yourself a—

  “I’ll fight you!” Olandrin shouted out abruptly, causing a gasp from Eilea as well as from Adamus, one that Kalana could even feel with her head on his chest. Adamus appeared to be so surprised that his fingers slipped on the dagger, and he dropped it. Somehow, Kalana did not think that was something that happened to him very often.

  “Olandrin!” both Eilea and Adamus called to him as he stepped forward, grabbed Adamus’ hand, and yanked it away from Kalana, freeing her. Even Angelica looked astonished.

  “Enough of this bullshit,” he said, stepping forward, his eyes becoming fierce. “Let him fight if he wants to fight. We’ll settle this the right way. Right here. One-on-one.”

  “He’ll kill you!” Eilea yelled, running towards him. Yet without even turning around to face her, he shoved out his arm, pushing her backwards.

  “He can’t.”

  “Right now, he’s far more powerful than you are, Olandrin. Stop this foolishness at once!”

  Olandrin shook his head. “Goddammit, I’m done with this. I can’t stomach it. I’ve floated in a void for a thousand horrible years, and somehow, I’d still rather be caught in the gravitational pull of a black hole than be forced to go along with this chickenshit for another second.”

  “My dear brother, I say this not to cause you offense, but to appeal to your senses. You are the least equipped to be making such a brash decision. You are, after all, the weakest of all the Gods, including those who have perished.”

  “Not the weakest,” he replied, his voice becoming cold, harsh even. “The gentlest. But no one, not even you, sis, has ever truly known me.” He regarded Landy. “I’ll give you what you want.”

  Olandrin exploded.

  Kalana had never seen anything like it. She wasn’t even sure she understood what her eyes were taking in, as it made no sense. One moment, he was standing there, arms at his side, and the next, a fiery, royal-blue aura was exploding out of him, causing the already badly battered terrain to become even more so as massive chunks of it were ripped up and sent skyward. She herself was blasted backwards as though by some unseen wind, and her mother had to jump in and steady her.

  For the first time in perhaps thousands of years, entire masses of land were sent directly upwards instead of down as this blueish aura ripped apart the land, causing scars and cracks to form all along the dead planet, creating a spider-web-like formation that extended for miles in every conceivable direction.

  And as all this took place, the reaction from Adamus shifted very quickly. Kalana didn’t think anyone else saw it. Perhaps she was the only one. She might’ve been. But for just an instant, his gaze turned from disapproval to fear. And not of Landy. For just a half a second, or maybe even as little as a quarter, a terrifying look of pure confusion crossed his features as Olandrin closed his eyes and materialized an entire suit of shiny, metallic armor, which covered him from head to toe, along with a set of attached forearm blades as well as sword-like weapons attached to his shoulders and pointed forward, each of which emitted a stunning combination of electricity and flame.

  “You and me,” he said, speaking to Landy. “We’re gonna set the sky on fire.”

  “The sky on fire,” Landy agreed, nodding. “Kill the Gods.”

  The two ran at each other and collided in the blink of an eye, and the result was a blast that caused Kalana’s ears to ring and her body to be tossed in the opposite direction while her mother was still gripping her. Eilea and Adamus rushed forward to protect Denisoa and Prila respectively, and Kalana and her mother began tumbling and rolling all the way across the dead landscape, flipping again and again as a violent, rumbling aftershock of some clash or another caused the planet itself to shake.

  Her mother was now shouting at her, but Kalana could hear nothing but a ringing sound as her lips moved. Then, weakly, Kalana pointed, and her mother looked over her shoulder. She immediately released Kalana, stood up, and placed her hand over her chest at what she saw.

  There could be no doubt: these Great Ones really were Gods. Even if they weren’t perfect.

  *****

  “Ahh, for fuck’s sake!” Zach shouted out, kicking the dead Legion Portal Guardian even as it began to disappear. “I got a ‘nothing’ level. I hate nothing-levels.”

  It had been a good long while since he’d leveled up and had gotten literally nothing. Not even, like, a single point into luck or something. Exhaling to calm himself down, he reasoned that he was due for this. It was always only a matter of time before he had to get through a bunch of junk levels like this.

  Still, that really sucked. Especially since it had taken him two hours of camping the first and second floors of this dungeon. And now he needed a whopping 1.8 million experience points to reach his next level.

  I’ve got to just keep it up, he told himself. There’s really nothing else for me to do but keep going.

  And so, he did. But first…

  Zach summoned Bank and Storage. With his hand lifted, he grabbed one of his small stamina potions. He popped the wooden cork, placed the glass against his lips, and downed the delicious, sugary beverage inside, which was way less gross and way more refreshing than he’d expected. The moment he finished consuming it, he felt energy rushing into him, similar to how it did when he used to proc the stamina-regain ability on the Sword of Light Amidst Darkness.

  Having drunk the potion, he tossed it over his shoulder—and it vanished even before the glass shattered on the floor.

  Nothing to do but keep grinding.

  He hoped Landy was doing all right.