"Ahh, you survived my Great balls of Fire"

He rolled in behind a stone pedestal and peeked out at the room, he was in what looked like a throne room filled with treasures or what King might think of as treasure.

"I chew my nails and then I twiddle my thumbs

I'm real nervous, but it sure is fun

Come on, baby, you drive me crazy

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire"

Louie ducked behind the pedestal as another fireball smashed against the front.

'What the fuck?'

In the one corner was a stack of paper money two meters by two meters stacked up to the roof, all tied in neat packages.

The place looked gaudy with mirrors in fake gold frames and gold-painted pillars with long red curtains strung between them, to each pilar there was tied a glowing statue of a woman, no two were the same. There was also a gold-painted throne. The effect that King was going for might have looked regal in his mind but in reality, it made the whole place look tacky and cheap.

Louie snapped his head to the right as he saw movement, but it turned out to be a reflection in one of the big mirrors that were leaning against a sofa.

In the reflection he saw somebody that looked like a bad imitation of Elvis, that is to say, Elvis in his last years.

There was a throne and in front of the throne was the Elvis wannabe with his guitar and to the right of the throne was the catgirl with what looked like a golden chain around her neck, and on the left armrest of the throne was a glowing red orb.

Louie cast

Orb of Alla-din, legendary

This beautiful translucent dark blood-like red gemstone is a prison holding a powerful AFRIT that is chained within. Millennia of imprisonment have driven it mad. It has vowed to destroy the world. It's said to have fed on the souls of multiple beings who tried to master its power.

It is said that those who can master the orb can use its power to transcend life and death and perform miracles.

Beware it is known to have its own agenda and to torment its wielder to try and facilitate its release.

A blinding pain ripped through his head as King snapped his gaze in the direction of the mirror and placed his hand on the orb breaking the connection.

“Ah-ah-ah.” King wagged his finger like a mother scolding her naughty child. "No trying to steal my treasures. It's mine, only mine, I found it, and only I can use it, if anybody else tries it will kill them…"

Louie looked at King's face as he rambled on while he stroked his orb. He was reminded of a book he had read and the animated movie he had later seen where the creature had gone on about his precious, as he stroked a ring he had found.

Name: Zack De Koning (King)

Race: Human Level 6

Class: Manasinger

Like a switch being thrown, King suddenly stood up straight and shouted. "Welkom, to my kingdom." He threw his arms out in a dramatic fashion as if Louie should be grateful to behold his treasures.

Louie leaned with his back against the stone pedestal.

"You are a fucking bard?" He spoke out loud.

King gave a demented laugh.

"Who better to be the next King to rule them all, than the King of music and magic, Zack De Koning?"

"A fucking Bard!"

"NO!" He screamed, "I'm a Manasinger! A Fucking MANASINGER, NOT SOME COMMON BARD!"

Spit flew everywhere and the catgirl tried to get as far away from him as the chain allowed while he raged on about being a manasinger and king.

His theatrics came to a close as a bit of spit went down the wrong hole and he started coaching.

While he was distracted Louie sneaked out from behind the pedestal and behind a couch where he could see the brightly glowing statue that was tied to a pillar.

"What's this?" He whispered when he saw the statue move and realized that it was a live person, but she was barely alive and looked more like a dried-out husk of a mummy.

King stood up straight as he heard Louie's whisper.

"You like? That's one of my masterpieces, why get rid of dissidents when you can put them to work, of course, the glow must come from somewhere, it uses the body as fuel."

He started singing again as he concentrated on the woman.

"So many nights I'd sit by my window

Waiting for someone to sing me his song

So many dreams I kept deep inside me

Alone in the dark, but now you've come along

And you light up my life

You give me hope to carry on

You light up my days

..."

The light brightened and then dimmed as the woman suddenly died, and King went into a rage.

Louie saw the sudden fear in his eyes as he looked towards the shimmering portal and the now dark corner where the women were tied.

King started stammering as he screamed at his guards to bring another prisoner, but nothing happened.

Weezing he struggled to talk before a glow covered his body, and that's when Louie saw the healer lurking behind the throne.

Suddenly it was as if a switch was flipped.

'He is crazy, I think that the orb drove him crazy and he looks afraid of the dark.'

"Yes," he sputtered, "you can reach a lot of people through music, and when I unlocked this Manasinger class, I saw that people were listening to me. I had to have a reason for people to flock to me, what better reason than to give people a common enemy."

Louie couldn't believe his ears, and he took a chance as he gambled that King liked to impress people and that he could dodge anything that King could throw at him.

He walked out from behind the pillar to face the crazy King.

"You are an idiot, there IS a common enemy, the bloody monsters killing people, but no, you have to awaken old hatreds and discriminations. You want to start a race war while everybody is trying to stay alive by fighting monsters."

The king sputtered. "I have the right. . . ''

"You have what right? You have the power to do so much good, but instead, you opted to destroy instead of to build." The rage in Louie's voice turned cold as he remembered the teen assassins, and King took a step back as the temperature around Louie dropped.

"You decided to kill, torture, and rape. Who gave you that right?"

". . this is a new world, there is no law except the law of the strong!"

"Really?"

Louie's voice sent shivers down King's spine. "So you think that because you have power, you make the laws?" The king took another step back, falling back onto his throne, as Louie took a step forward.

"So by your own explanation, might make right, since I'm stronger than you, then my word is the law."

Louie walked up to the king, "your law hung two people because you said they were different, impure, and not fully human."

The king spits on the floor. "Dit is my donderse dorp, hier is ek die, foken baas, geen halfbreed sal in my dorp toegelaat word nie!" (This is my bloody town, here I'm the fucking boss, no vermin will be allowed in my town.)

"Vermin? They were human, changed by the system."

"Ha, ons sal sien, honde naaier." (We will see, animal fucker.)

Before he could take another step, King grabbed his guitar, started singing Leeuloop.

"Tennisball, Krieketballe, Snoekerballe as jy wil, Tennisballe, Krieketballe…"

Suddenly Louie had trouble walking as it felt like his testicles grew to the size of cantaloupes

"What the fuck?"

"Kill him!"

Guards suddenly rushed at Louie from behind a divider where they had been hiding.

Louie heard King scream like a little girl as he cast a to his chest.

Even with the movement debuff, Louie had no trouble dealing with the guards and as he finished off the last thug he turned to King who was now looking haggard and sweating buckets after the orb expired, he strummed a new song.

"Another summer day

Has come and gone away

In Paris and Rome

But I wanna go home, mmm

May be surrounded by

A million people I

Still feel all alone

Just wanna go home

Oh, I miss you, you know….."

Louie had the sudden urge to just drop everything and return home to the one he loved.

'Why am I fighting for all these ungrateful people, I can just go home to my loved ones?'

In his mind, he saw his farmhouse with his family waiting on the stoep, when he entered the living room they smiled at him before the room suddenly turned into a nightmare with blood running down the walls.

"NO! NO!" The image shattered and Louie found himself on one knee before a shocked healer with a raised dagger.

Louie collapsed to the right and rolled to his feet as the healer brought the dagger down where his neck should have been. He Sparta kicked the staggering healer, and with his 23 points of strength, the healer went flying back a good four-meter, his breath was knocked out of him as he smashed hard against the wall.

He lay groaning on the ground gasping for breath, but not for long before Louie blaster a through his chest.

"Fucking fighters with healing skills are the worst enemies."

He saw that King had grabbed the struggling cat girl and was now using her as a shield.

“Let her go, King,” Louie demanded. He held ready to release any second, but King wasn't stupid he knew that if he gave Louie the slimmest of chances then he would be dead. King shifted the girl into his line of fire and with a twisted grin replied.

"Afraid I can’t do that. See, I can't let this creature's taint spread through the camp.” King shook his head sadly. “A beautiful girl child. Can you believe that?”

Louie looked at the cat girl that King was using as a shield.

"What taint? She is just a child."

"She is the devil incarnate, spreading her looks over my men, charming them, bewitching them, she is a Jezebel."

Louie sneered, "yea and it helped that you were dressing her in a skimpy bikini and holding her on a lease. You think you are Jabba the Hutt?"

"Who?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his Dark Puppet enter the room and also saw King notice the pitch-black puppet that scurried over and started looting the fallen guards.

King shrieked, "what the hell is that?"

"What?"

"That… that demon of darkness." He pointed towards the dark puppet with a shaking finger. Louie pretended to see nothing, just waiting for the right opportunity.

The puppet, uncaring about the terror its existence created started looting anything it thought its master might want and raced around the room inventorying anything shiny.

Its face turned in the direction of the shiny red orb.

King screamed as he saw the dark demon look at his treasure and he hurled the girl from him as he jumped towards the orb just as a dark blade slashed across his throat and he fell across the orb ripping it from the armrest of the throne and taking it to the ground with him.

Louie turned to help the catgirl to her feet and to tell her to move back through the portal as he cut through the chain with an engraving pen, he handed her a dagger and told her to help with getting the other glowing women down, when there was a sudden strobe of light behind him.

He turned back and saw that the globe, which had absorbed the spilled blood and the lifeforce of King, all that remained was a dried-out husk of his body, starting to shine brighter and brighter, there was a startlingly loud crack and the space shook with the sudden release of power as he saw the light spill through a crack in the globe.

He remembers that King said the orb would destroy itself and he also remembered the BB when he analyzed it.

'Shit that can't be good, can't let something that powerful free.'

He turned to the girl with the dagger to tell her to run but saw the women tied to the pillars weakly moving.

'Shit.'

"Cut them down and help them out of here, I will see what I can do to hold back the power."

He rushed towards the globe as she started cutting the bonds from the other women while praying, promising that she will be a good girl to whomever god was listening.

'Shit what do I do? Can I drain the power?'

He just knew that if he didn't do something then there was a big possibility that the orb might destroy the Tree, maybe the whole of Paarl, not to mention releasing a crazy AFRIT, so he reached out and placed his hands on the globe.

Immediately he screamed as his hands charred from the lash of power, instantly crisping his flesh. Then he remembered where he had heard about Afrits, they were beings of fire not unlike a Jinn.

He tried to remove his hands from the globe but they were stuck fast, then he tried to place the globe in his inventory but it refused to be stored, next he tried to move the globe closer to the entrance but it refused to move.

He gritted his teeth and bit off the scream as he cast on the globe.

The spell transformed the power of the globe as it rushed through his body trying to heal the burns as fast as they formed.

Again he screamed as the spell tried to keep up with the damage the globe was doing to his body but slowly the damage outpaced the healing.

He again tried to remove his hands from the globe when he saw the girl and one of the glowing women disappear through the portal, but it felt as if something had grabbed ahold of his hands and suddenly the flow from the globe doubled as more power was forced into him.

The pain intensified as more and more mana rushed into his mana channels. He screamed again as his mana channels expanded and it felt like something was trying to force a tennis ball through a hosepipe, a tennis ball made from razor blades.

Frantically he searched for a way to get rid of all the excess power when he thought of his link with his bonded.

'Sorry guys'

The power flowed through his link to the sisters and BOB.

Through his link, he felt the sisters pass out and BOB threw his head back and let a loud howl rip into the sky.

Through the tears running down his face, he saw the girl come back through the portal this time accompanied by her mother and started cutting through another woman's bonds as she whimpered while throwing glances in his direction.

He realized that he would kill the sisters if he channeled more power through his bonds so with a force of will he diverted the flow of power from his bond with the sisters and struggled to direct the power away from the links to the sisters, it reminded him of the time he tried to control his lightning saber, he started looking deeper.

He reached down deeper and saw all the links that linked him to the structures that he owned, his Tower, his Dungeon, the cornerstone in Starter Town, the capstones of the Fort, and the one on the temple of Gaea. He screamed again as he channeled the power towards those links, links that were not made for the purpose that he wanted to subject them to.

he sensed the Dungeon, his Tower, and the Tree greedily drinking in the power.

There was another crack from the globe.

'Shiiiit how much power does this thing have?''

He tried to think of what else he could do, but his mind felt like it was cast from jello as the pain played havoc with his body.

A shout broke his concentration. "Louie!"

He looked through pain-filled eyes as Shadow appeared in front of him.

"Get out!" The scream ripped through his bloody lips.

"Get them out, leave the building, leave! I don't know how long I can hold it from exploding."

She nervously looked at the pulsing orb in his hands before she nodded, "I will let you know through chat when we are clear."

It felt like an eternity before he got the message back from Shadow.

(Louie, we are out, Shadow)

He screamed as with a force of strength and will he tore his hands free from the orb, leaving a lot of flesh behind, and rushed towards the portal. There was a blast of power and he yelled as a blast of heat impacted his back with enough force to destroy most of his armor, he could do nothing as he saw his HP drop to forty-five percent while he was blasted through the portal, across the room, and out through the big window.

Well mostly out, he felt his left side of his body explode with pain, although nothing compared to what he had just been through, as he impacted the window frame, destroying the wall next to the window in the process, and then smashing his right knee into the railings as he went through the Juliet balcony.

Time seemed to slow down to a crawl as a dull roar filled his head. His thoughts were muddled from the impact with the wall as he couldn't figure out where the roar was coming from, was it from the explosion or from the wind rushing past his ears as he moved through the air.

His whole body was in pain from the orb and the blast, his mind was fighting to stay away from the dark.

He briefly thought that there was something that he was missing, something that he needed to do. Then it clicked, he was falling from the penthouse window on the fourth floor. Time seemed to slow down even more as he flailed around trying to think of a way to not impact the ground, but his thoughts seemed to be made of molasses, suddenly time snapped back to normal as he was grabbed by his leg and with a snap, his trajectory changed from impacting the rushing tarmac to connecting with the looming wall of the market.

Something had caught his left leg and he screamed and nearly passed out again as it felt his leg twist and then snap.

He impacted the wall across the street where the spilk line snapped or was released and he fell the last meter onto the broken asphalt of the pavement.

“Fuck!” he croaked as his burnt back made contact with the asphalt, driving the molten pieces of his armor deeper into his back.

Louie coughed and spit out a mouth full of blood, he straightened himself till he sat against the wall, before sucking in a deep breath and leaning forwards so his back didn't touch the wall.

It felt like he was coughing up a lung. He looked down and saw through the tattered remains of his armor, that his left leg was broken in several places, the worst of it was the broken piece of his fibula sticking out of his skin, and his right knee looked as if somebody took a sledgehammer to it.

Luckily his kicked in and his body was already starting to repair itself.

It started with a burning pain flaring up where his bones poked out of his skin. His ribs creaked as a fire burned them inside his body.

Ripping what remained of his chest armor from his body, he laid a hand over the broken ribs. Even to his fingers, it felt as though someone was moving his broken pieces under his skin. BBs' started flashing in his vision as he fought not to pass out. Tears and snot flowed from his face as he tried to cope with the pain.

Through the tears, he saw a couple of wrapped-up thugs laying against the wall not far from him.

He cast and suddenly the healing was sped up and with every heartbeat, the burning faded steadily.

He screamed again as the broken bones of his leg grated on one another as it pulled back inside and aligned itself to start healing. His back had been shredded and burnt but not broken. He felt something in his upper left arm as he gingerly leaned back against the wall and looking over he saw what looked like a sliver of glass sticking from his arm.

"Fucking window."

He groaned as he pulled the blade of glass from his arm and slowly toppled to the right.

Laying half on his still-healing back he saw the spider, on one of the tree branches, that had caught his leg with a neat throw of spilk, it was waving at him with its front legs.

He groaned again as he shifted slightly to give a feeble wave back at who looked like Ansi, he heard footsteps rushing in his direction before everything went black