My time spent in wrath form is always a bit fuzzy after the fact. However, I distinctly remember Elluin’s [Trueshot] and then sprinting towards him to turn him into an elf-sized smear on Dryadal’s pavement.

And then there were the quiet words that somehow echoed through the entire town.

If I had been in a normal state of mind, I would have known that any skill starting with “heroic sacrifice” should have been on the top of my list of “things to run away from really fast.”

Instead, I took all seven shots from the rainbow-colored skill head-on.

I died so quickly that I was still giving a fierce mental yell when I found myself back without a body.

If I had eyes, I would have been blinking in confusion. Instead, I kinda just floated there for a few seconds.

What just-

My thoughts were cut off as I read the System message.

System: Hero Elluin has slain the Demon Lord! The realm will have relative peace for the next 50 years. Demon morale will be reduced for the duration

Well, frick. I immediately [Scried] Elluin and got to see the tail end of him dissolving into motes of light.

System: The Hero has given his life to slay the Demon Lord! As the Hero has named no successor, a new Hero will be chosen

[Heroic Sacrifice: Trueshot Finale]. I thought. That skill certainly lives up to its name.

I had taken a bit of damage from all of the Dryadal soldiers that I fought, but I had the unmistakable feeling that Elluin’s final skill could have one-shot me.

That’s even stronger than Jake’s [Sunder] with [Limit Break]. I gave a mental sigh. Well, good for you, Elluin. It turned out you had it in you after all.

I peaked around at a few more screens on the scrying array, but that was mostly to distract myself from the conversation I desperately needed to have with myself.

My distraction was short-lived. I kept looking back at the screen where Elluin used to be and that now contained only a thoroughly devastated portion of Dryadal’s capital city.

I turned the scrying array off and was left alone with my thoughts.

Congrats, Titus. I thought. You threw a temper tantrum, killed hundreds of innocent people, and ruined all of your hard work getting all the nations to trust you again. All because of her.

I thought back to the final moments of Sarah’s murderer. I remembered my anger as I tortured the woman who took my last friend from me. A twisted part of me wished she had suffered more, but mostly I realized that vengeance had done nothing for me.

I felt tired.

I felt hollow.

I felt… alone.

Megan. Jake. Sarah. Elluin. I… I’m sorry.

There were many more people whose lives I had ended, but the twisted side of me realized those 4 were the only ones I cared about killing.

The rest were just statistics.

That thought didn’t help either, and I withdrew into myself.

I have no idea how long I moped like that or how long I would have continued to do so if not for the following automated message.

System : Warning. Major event detected. Deactivating temporal controls

Huh? I asked groggily as all the screens flipped on to a lion-maned beastborn man wearing full plate armor, standing next to a horse.

“You may be the [Hero], but what you’re planning is madness!” an elven man next to him said. “You can’t just ride out there alone!”

The beastborn man patted the horse on the neck and made soothing noises.

“I was made [Hero] for a reason,” he finally replied. “There is no [Demon Lord] to defeat for another 50 years, so what purpose could my class serve but to save our people?” The elf looked like he was about to protest, but the [Hero] cut him off. “And it may very well be suicide, but I would give my life to protect this city from those humans. You know as well as I do that we won’t hold up much longer under their siege.”

The elf deflated. “Very well, I can see that I won’t dissuade you, but do you have to take that poor beast along with your reckless charge?”

“I will look after Earthquake and protect his life as if it were my very own,” the [Hero] continued.

“You say that, but the poor animal has less HP than a low-level [Warrior],” the elf protested. “They’ll surely target him first.”

“Ah, you’re right, but that’s why I had this made for him.” The beastborn man pulled out a heavy set of horse armor from his inventory and began outfitting his warhorse. As soon as he finished, he mounted up. “There, man and horse, both ready for battle. We will ride together, for death or glory!”

The [Hero’s] visor was still up, so I got to see his eyes go wide.

“Orrian, System has just replied to my unspoken prayer. How many blacksmiths do we have that can make a suit of armor similar to this one?”

“A dozen perhaps, but-“

“Get all of them on it immediately!” the [Hero] ordered. “And get the best and bravest riders in the city! System has given us a path to salvation, but we must hurry!”

Okay, what did the System give him? I asked. He was talking cryptically, and I would have gotten incredibly irritated if not for that handy feature that AltSys had put in.

System : Tapping into System communications for Garrik Valhice

System: Oath Accepted! Would you like to change your base class to Heavy Cavalier?

System: Class Change Accepted! Base class set to Heavy Cavalier.

Huh. Apparently, the induction of heavy cavalry is a big deal? Or is it just because the [Hero] did it? I gave the mental equivalent of a shrug and reactivated fast forward. We’ll see how effective this new class is.

I kept the [Scry] on the new [Hero], who the System conveniently informed me was named Garrik Valhice and watched his preparations.

It was mostly him raising morale and finding other troops to become part of his heavy cavalry squad. In other words, that stuff was boring.

There were a few bits of excitement as a giant fireball exploded the block over from him at one point, though.

That made me curious about what was going on, and I finally zoomed out.

Oh, Gram didn’t waste any time, did they?

There was a full-blown army camped out of bow range from the walls. However, out of bow range was apparently not “out of [Siege Fireball]” range. The humans were sitting back at a distance and just having their mages cast their oversized [Fireballs] into the city.

In other words, similar to the last war that I got to watch, it was a lot of “hurry up and wait.”

However, the wait was 100% worth it. Early the following day, the [Hero] and a group of 2 dozen other mounted soldiers readied up at the gates.

“Riders!” Garrik shouted. “You have gathered here today because you are the bravest among us and willing to give your horses’ lives the same worth as your own! So, if you truly believe that, mount up! Accept the class [Heavy Cavalier] and its perk, [Amored Mount Pact: My Mount’s Life is My Own]! No longer will you have to fear for your trusty stead as its damage, its pain, and its HP will be as your own!”

I furrowed my non-existent brow at that one.

Wait, so they have a perk that makes them share HP? I thought about it for a few more seconds and then sighed. Yeah, I guess that makes as much sense as anything else in this world. I mean, how many RTS[1] games have I played where cavalry units were treated as a single bundle of stats?

I didn’t dwell on that for too long because the answer to that last question was “I don’t remember,” and it was always annoying knowing that my memories of Earth were as holey as Swiss cheese.

I wonder if Swiss cheese exists in Placeholder. If it does, did some Earther still name it that even though Sweden isn’t a thing?

I shook off that tangent as the [Hero’s] inspiring speech drew to an end.

“And now, for our country, we ride!” he shouted.

The gate was raised along with his voice, and the new cavalry charged out.

A cavalry charge isn’t exactly subtle, and Gram saw them coming from a mile away. They quickly formed up their battle lines, and the Dryadal horse riders soon had volleys of arrows and spells headed their way.

I watched in amazement as the arrows simply bounced off. The spells may have done some damage, but the charge wasn’t slowed.

Dang, their armor’s no joke. I thought.

However, that wasn’t the best part of their charge. That came when they reached the line of shields and spears that the well-trained Gram army leveled at them.

They charged into them with no fear… and completely obliterated the battle lines.

Tons of horse flesh and plate armor bowled the infantry over and trampled them underfoot. They barely slowed as they charged towards their real goal, the mages casting the [Siege Fireballs] in the backline.

It was an absolute slaughter. Gram’s mage ranks were devastated at the hands of the [Hero] and his riders.

However, being that deep inside Gram’s army meant they were surrounded.

That didn’t matter for long. Garrik yelled for everyone to group on him, and they punched their way back out, just like they had come in.

Alright, I guess this might be worth watching. I grudgingly thought.

-------

Garrik’s charge was a devastating introduction of heavy cavalry to Placeholder. It would have been fine if they still had the same weakness to spears that many games allowed to be their hard counter, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Those riders were essentially the equivalent of a tank on a modern battlefield.

It seemed like that was the turning point for the war. I didn’t see what it was like before that, but I had to assume the answer was “not well.”

Not that Gram took that lying down. They were quick to change tactics against the new armored threat, and they tried many different things.

Caltrops. Temporary barricades. Terrain.

In a world of HP, caltrops were a lot less effective than on Earth. They might take a horse out of commission for a while, but not until after it had already broken your lines with a charge.

Barricades did a bit better, but they were smashed through with little impedance.

That left Gram’s only saving grace as terrain, which was the great equalizer. Boggy ground, muddy ground, and trenches were enough to put the horse riders to a standstill.

However, needing to use terrain almost necessitated being away from the open plains near the elven cities. Also, holing up in a bog is great for neither your supplies nor your morale.

I didn’t hear them say it specifically, but I’m guessing the Gram army was expecting a quick win and didn’t have enough supplies for the long haul. They sounded the retreat and headed back across the river.

I was sure that Dryadal would bring the fight across the river, but they didn’t. After scratching my head at their decision, I eventually figured it out. In comparison to Gram, they had a logistics problem.

Every 1 in 10 or so of Gram’s soldiers was the pack mule of the group. And they may have actually had the [Pack Mule] skill. Either way, they carried most of the food, supplies, and even a small boat that could be used to get their squad across any rivers they needed to.

Not only did Dryadal not have their own “portable navy,” they wouldn’t have been able to ferry their horses across in the same manner anyway.

So, that war was ended without a formal truce.

… Which meant that Gram got to try again.

Gram tried their hand at making heavy cavalry, but given that their horses almost all died during the attempt, I say they didn’t have much success.

Most likely because they didn’t have any riders that would be willing to claim “my mount’s life is my own,” and they therefore never unlocked the class or perk.

Their anti-cavalry tech improved quite a bit during that time, though. In addition to the shovels that their infantry was now equipped with as standard-issue to dig their trenches, they also had an unusual piece of equipment that became fairly standard.

Nets.

Since they didn’t deal damage, nets were used to tangle up a horse’s feet or drag a hapless warrior off the top of his stead.

As a side note, the latter was devastating. It turns out that [Amored Mount Pact: My Mount’s Life is My Own] (which I still think is an incredible mouthful) only holds true while you are… well… mounted.

Take the rider off the mount, and the horse is now just a horse. Also, their HP is no longer shared. Many a horse was sentenced to a quick death after their rider was yanked off them one way or another.

One other interesting note about that perk was that it favored the horse over the rider. I got to watch a few times where a heavily injured [Heavy Cavalier] dropped off his horse and then immediately went into the dying state.

In other words, I wagered a guess that any missing HP from their shared health pool was taken from the rider once they were separated.

Which I think those weirdos were actually happy about. Most of them genuinely believed that their “mount’s life was their own,” and they put their horse above themselves however they could.

… Like I said, a buncha weirdos.

Anyway, the cavalry was enough to bring Gram to a standstill, and while they didn’t officially win the war, they did the next best thing. They bought enough time for the dire straits that Gram was in to cause mounting civil unrest and a near civil war.

You know how the last time I died, I mentioned that Gram’s purse strings were pretty tight? Yeah, it turns out that wars are expensive when you don’t win and can’t push for reparations or tribute. The land they had taken from Pumil was also not doing enough to keep afloat either.

Any way you look at it, despite no formal declaration of surrender or victory, Dryadal definitely won the war. Almost all thanks to their new [Hero].

------

I watched later on as the [Hero] was receiving the usual boring accolades that they ended up getting.

Blah blah blah, saved the world. I thought. Blah blah blah, great courage. I sped up the ceremony a bit because I was about ready to go back to not watching the scrying array at all. However, as I watched the [Hero] get a medal looped around his neck, I couldn’t help but size him up.

The new [Hero]. I thought. [Heavy Cavalier] Garrik Valhice. I could probably take him pretty easily. Just get him separated from his horse, and he’s a sitting duck.

I immediately stopped that thought.

I didn’t think Elluin was that strong either, and yet he managed to somehow one-shot me. Maybe it’s time for me to stop being an idiot and not underestimate [Heroes]. If I want to not spend all of my time taking a dirt nap, I need to develop a better plan for how to deal with them.

And so, I decided to come up with a few key rules.

Rule 1. Don’t underestimate [Heroes]. I didn’t think Sarah had it in her to kill me, but her oaths proved me wrong. I also thought there was no way Elluin could take me either, but he busted out a Heroic Sacrifice skill.

I mulled it over a bit more before finally deciding.

Rule 2. Don’t get involved with [Heroes]. Once again, I’m batting 3 for 3 on making friends with the [Hero] and then getting brutally murdered.

I thought back over all 3 of my non-tutorial deaths. A [Limit Broken] [Sunder] from Jake with the fate of the world on the line. A [Holy] [Cure] from Sarah with her oaths forcing her to stop me. And finally, a [Heroic Sacrifice] from Elluin with Dryadal’s capital and an unknown number of civilians at stake.

Rule 2A. If I can’t avoid getting involved with a [Hero], never put their back against the wall. It seems like when the stakes get high, that’s when the System gives them all sorts of random BS. I gave a dry chuckle. That’s probably why I’m 0 for 3 fighting [Heroes].

Then I remembered something. Technically, I was 1 for 4. I deflated a bit as I remembered Jake’s death.

There wasn’t too much I could have done to prevent that. I didn’t exactly have a way of keeping myself from going crazy, even if I had miraculously picked up [Restore] in my first life.

Thinking about [Restore] reminded me of madness form. Madness form prompted me to make another rule.

Rule 3. Avoid Demon Lord form if at all possible. While it does have the ability to save my life, it has only ever made things more complicated. I paused for a moment and jokingly added. And rule 3A. Don’t get wrath form or madness form.

Then I paused.

Actually, that might be doable. Every time the System has told me that a form was set, it had a trigger right before it. My first life, I just got increasingly angry until I snapped. My second life, I was crazy. And my third life, Sarah’s death pushed me over the deep end right before I spawned.

If I had a body, a wide grin would have split my face.

Alright, so how do I game this?

My initial thoughts went back to the seven deadly sins and what I could remember of them, just because that was what “wrath form” brought to mind.

I remembered that it was a trope that appeared fairly often in media, especially for making themed evil characters, and even more fortunately, I was able to list them all.

There was a range of usefulness.

Lust and gluttony. Are… either of those even possible with [Asexual] and [Biologically Needless]? I gave a mental shrug and moved on. Even if they are, I don’t think they’d be much help.

The next on the line was also suspect.

Sloth. Yeaaaah, while I could probably try to pull that one off, I don’t think empowering myself with super laziness would be very helpful. I want something that makes me smarter, if possible.

That left only three.

Greed and envy… What’s the difference? I mulled it over. Those might be options. I mean, I think I remember seeing greed played as “greedy for knowledge” before, but I’m not sure I’m sold on aiming for those.

That left only one.

Pride. Hmm. Now that’s an option. I couldn’t give any concrete examples, but I had the feeling that pride was always the strongest of the themed bosses whenever the seven deadly sins trait showed up.

If it’s stronger than wrath and doesn’t have the downside of making me completely lose my head, that sounds like a clear winner.

There was just one problem.

… How do I cause myself to be prideful? I remembered the trigger for wrath and madness. And not just prideful. I need to be extremely prideful.

I mulled that over a bit. I came up with a good place to start.

What does it mean to be prideful? I thought. The first thing that came to mind was a generic sneering antagonist who saw everyone else as beneath him.

I wasn’t too happy about that.

Do I have to act like that? I groaned. But those types of characters are the worst!

I was getting close to scrapping the idea of pride form, but then I finally remembered a critical piece of information.

The most important thing about proud characters is that they don’t think anyone else matters… If I succeed with time-traveling, that’s actually true. That realization hit me like a blow to the stomach.

Sarah would never exist because Besti wouldn’t fall. There’s a chance Elluin could still exist, but he wouldn’t be the same one I knew. If I succeed… I paused. No. When I succeed, all of my mistakes will be erased. Placeholder will be completely different, and everything I have done will be to people who no longer exist.

That almost led me down a rabbit trail about what would happen to my current timeline when I was done, but I cut that off quickly. I knew that nothing good would come from thinking about that.

Instead, let’s do something productive. I thought. Is there a way that I can practice my magic while I wait?

I spent a few minutes throwing random commands at whatever the heck was running the scrying array, hoping that one of them would let me do a magic visualizer or something.

No dice with all of that.

That’s lame. I guess my best bet for magic practice is probably going to be with the fairies after I respawn.

I was about to set myself back to fast forward when a thought struck me.

Wait… The fey… Maybe there is a way to practice my magic after all?

I zoomed out and played my favorite wait-for-respawn game. Find the Fey Forest.

It took quite a while, they had moved it off to a pretty remote area, but once I found it, I did the same thing as last time and tried to force the scrying array to show me inside.

I eventually succeeded and was met with the sight of a sighing Primavia.

“Impatient daw,” she said. “Thee hath said thee would contact us thy next life, but I see thee couldn’t coequal wait yond long.”

Couldn’t coequal wait yond long?... I couldn’t wait that long? Oh. Yeah, I did say that I would contact them next life, so I’m almost 50 years early.

“Doest a gib has’t thine tongue? Hello? Bid not me thee cameth to us again without a way to communicate from thy end.”

Oh. Right, I can hear them, but they can’t hear me.

However, I had a way to improvise. I shook the [Scry] back and forth to simulate a headshake.

Primavia grew even more exasperated. “Wonderful. Thee has’t cometh to us with the communication arts of a sufficiently ensorcell’d tree. Wait hither f’r a moment.”

The fairy [Queen] called for more of her subjects, and they got into a heated debate.

I tried to move the [Scry] in closer to get a look, but a glare from Primavia stopped that short.

They continued their heated but muffled debate before they finally came my way, cackling.

“Behold yond way,” she stated. When I paused in confusion, she restated. “Look… over… there.”

I nervously obliged and found myself facing a tree.

“[Scry Lock],” she cast, and my [Scry] was now locked into place. So, I got to sit there with absolutely no idea what was happening behind me as the gathered fey laughed and started casting spell after spell.

They can’t hurt me. I reminded myself. The oath they swore will see to that. They can’t hurt me.

That became my mantra as I waited for what felt like eternities before Primavia declared. “We art anon eft to taketh our guest!” The fey cheered as she followed it up with a spell. “[Grand Teleport]!” she cast.

Wait! No! I cringed as I prepared for the wave of pain I felt the last time I was forced out of my respawning state. It took me several seconds to realize that I had physically cringed.

I looked out and up at the gathered fey.

“Did you all get bigger?” I asked.

The fairies laughed uproariously at my expense and eventually gave in and showed me a mirror.

“Ha ha. Very funny,” I said as I finally saw my new “body” that was basically a wooden doll complete with a dunce cap. “Now, if you’re done having a laugh at my expense, I’ve come to make good on our deal.”

“Very well. Stories f’r spells,” Primavia replied.

I nodded my wooden head. “I told you my story up to Megan’s death,” I said. “But after that is when it gets interesting.”

I had their undivided attention.

-----

I spent quite a bit of time with the fey after that. While I didn’t have access to most of the System while I possessed a doll, I was able to speak and at least sense magic.

I had no MP, HP, or SP of my own in that state, and Primavia warned me that I would die if I tried to set foot out of the fey forest like that because its magic was basically my life support.

We both were a bit fuzzy on what death would mean for me when I was like that, but I figured that was one thing I didn’t want to science.

As for my time there, I told stories from my life and was rewarded with tutoring in spells.

I went with [Scry] first. I figured I would ask for an easy one and finally get it out of the way.

Fortunately, while I couldn’t generate my own MP, with Primavia’s help, I was able to guide MP that she gave me to form the spell.

When my casting of [Scry] was deemed “barely passable” by Primavia, she called it quits.

However, I wanted a bit more than just [Scry] for my trouble. Next up was a big one. [Teleport].

I had to exhaust all of my stories about my life since coming to Placeholder, but it was 100% worth it.

My cast time was a full 10 minutes, and I didn’t have near the range that Primavia had, but it was teleportation. From a mechanics perspective, it was also a second [Spatius] spell, so I was pretty sure I could pick up the skill when I next had five skill points. But more importantly, it was teleportation.

Primavia scolded me a few times after that because I couldn’t stop grinning like a loon, and it was apparently unnerving seeing a doll grin like that.

However, I had my biggest ask ahead of me, and I knew that it would be my most dangerous one.

-----

“Say, Primavia,” I said. “Do the fey happen to know anything about magic for… say… speeding up time?”

Her eyes narrowed at that. I had done my best to edit time magic out of the tales I told of my life, but I felt that she pieced it together.

“Time magic is perilous,” she stated bluntly, and also the most coherently I had ever heard her. “To daw with the flow of time is to invite certain disaster.”

I tried to play it off. “Oh, nevermind then-“

“However,” she interrupted. “Speeding ‘r slowing the passage of time is a simple matter. I would beest willing to teachest thee.” She gave me a wide grin. “Shouldst thee has’t a story worthy of t.”

Bet. I launched into one that I had been holding in reserve. “It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves-[2]“

-----

It turned out that plagiarizing the Lord of the Rings was the right call. My reward for that was the second [Temporus] spell I had waited for… [Temporal Slow].

It wasn’t a useful spell because it did exactly what I told Primavia I wanted to do (i.e., it “sped up time” by making my internal time tick slower), but it was still a second spell and even more insight into time magic.

I was hoping to maybe get something more out of her, but I had mostly worn out my welcome by that point.

Primavia pulled my “soul” out of the doll, [Grand Teleported] it back to my respawn area, and told me not to contact them for at least a few decades.

Apparently, the fey realm was “gorged on my stories,” so they wouldn’t want to trade for a while.

I didn’t begrudge them that. I figured the time I spent learning magic from them was way better spent than watching boring stuff on the scrying array.

Speaking of that, as soon as I got back, I deactivated it and reactivated 10 times speed.

I was pulled out of it sooner than I wanted.

------

System : Warning. Major event detected. Deactivating temporal controls

Oh, what now? I grumbled as the scrying array reactivated itself once again.

”My people! Today marks the completion of the greatest project our people- no, all of Placeholder will ever undertake!” a regal-looking dwarf with a crown addressed a crowd.

Pumil? What important event could possibly happen there? I asked myself.

“Our [Craftsmen] and our [Stonecutters], our [Enchanters] and our [Miners], our [Overseers] and our [Laborers],” he continued in a building voice. “All of us worked together. All of us worked ourselves until we were empty. And all of us will benefit from this project’s completion.”

He paused dramatically.

“The bulwark of Pumil is complete!” he shouted. “No longer shall we have to fear the human threat!”

The crowd roared in approval.

The what now? I asked. Not about the human threat part, of course. I had long ago come to the same conclusion as Dryadal and Pumil that both human nations were basically the worst.

I moved the [Scry] around to see if this ”bulwark” was nearby when I finally saw it.

Oh. I thought. A wall? I mean, I guess it’s pretty tall. If I had to guess, I would have put it at maybe 40 or 50 feet up, but that wasn’t that much more impressive than even Dryadal’s wall.

I panned along the wall as fast as the scry would let me until I got bored of that. Then, I finally decided to zoom out as far as possible.

Either the render distance thing got patched, or [Scry] was unaffected. I was finally able to see the entire wall.

Holy frick. I thought. They went full frickin’ Ba Sing Se[3].

That wall surrounded the entire interior of Pumil. And since they most certainly didn’t have that wall the last time I checked, they had basically completed their own “great wall” in less than a hundred years.

The dwarves are batspit insane. I thought as I took another look at it.

Not only was the wall an engineering marvel, but I was also pretty sure I saw some cryptic-looking runes etched every mile or so that I assumed had to be an enchantment of some kind.

In other words, I was duly impressed.

But what about the outlying areas? I asked.

The southern part of Pumil was pretty easy to figure out. Humans still occupied it. However, the part that surprised me was that they just… abandoned their other towns. There were ghost towns sprinkled around the outermost sections of Pumil, with their obelisks a dull grey.

It’s literally free real estate. I thought. Why haven’t the humans tried to grab it yet?

My best guess was that the “free real estate” was too spread out to be helpful. That and all of the meaningful roads connecting it to the interior of Pumil were now cut off by giant walls. I had a sneaking suspicion the dwarves wouldn’t let the humans through those.

Alright, cool enough. The dwarves have cut themselves off from the rest of the world by means of a giant wall. I paused. Deactivate scrying array. 10X speed.

I was all prepared to get back to my “nap” and maybe continue trying to be prideful for at least a relative month or so, but it seemed like I was interrupted far sooner than I expected.

System : Warning. Major event detected. Deactivating temporal controls

Again? I groaned. What now?

I was zoomed in on a group of human [Priests] or maybe [Clerics] standing in the middle of a deadzone.

Are they in the deathlands?

I would have been terribly confused if the most ostentatiously dressed one hadn’t immediately answered my question.

“Brothers and sisters! Today, we gather here to take back our land from the blight that was brought forth by the wicked [Necromancer]!” the… [Bishop]?... proclaimed. “You have been hand-selected for this because of your great skill, your unwavering faith, and your dedication to see this great work done. Know this, with System on our side; there is no way that we can fail!”

His speech was met with cheers.

“Now, let us begin the ritual! Everyone, in your positions!”

They’ve figured out a spell to revive the land? I thought as I watched them. It was a little interesting, but not terribly. The deathlands didn’t mean anything to me after all.

I was half-tempted to just fast-forward till the end to see how it turned out when one of the [Priests] started spreading out a blueish powder in intricate patterns.

What the heck is that stuff? I thought. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a direct answer that time. Everyone was busy doing their part for the “ritual,” and that was apparently a part of it.

[Identify]! I tried to cast… It failed. I was stuck waiting and watching until one [Priest] was chided by the [Bishop].

“Don’t touch the powdered magicite!” he said. “You’ll throw the MP balance of the entire array off!”

Powdered… Magicite!? Gram has a magicite supply!? I belatedly realized that the magicite handcuffs Sarah had tried to use on me had to have come from somewhere, but I guess I’d always assumed that the dwarves had made them. I shook that tangent off. More importantly, they’ve figured out how to use it to power spells?

My interest went from about a 3 to a solid 10 instantly. The hurdle of trying to power my time travel spell was one that I had somewhat left on the back burner and mostly figured I would solve by chugging a lot of mana potions.

If I can just use magicite to store MP instead, that will be way more efficient. I might not need potions after all! However, I quickly realized my stupidity. After all, I got more MP out of the potions than what I put in, so I needed to do both if I wanted to be truly efficient.

Anyway, I didn’t just sit back and do nothing while waiting for them to complete the ritual. Instead, I poured over every inch of the ritual in detail.

I didn’t learn as much as I would have hoped.

This section… determines the range? I flipped the [Scry] sideways. Or maybe that’s an internal mana buffer. Or maybe that’s the type of healing that this is doing?

I mentally frowned. It was just my luck that the first large-scale magic ritual I would see was based on [Animae] magic which wasn’t exactly my specialty.

Come on, Titus. You aren’t going to get someone casting a [Temporus] ritual. This type of casting is probably the closest you’re going to get.

I paused as I realized I probably should have looked at all the [Siege Fireballs] that Gram was casting and figured those out too.

Either way, I struggled to wrap my brain around a super-complex ritual in a spell school that I wasn’t great at for several days.

Dang, this cast time is no joke. How long has it been? A week?

Not that they just stayed up that entire time. They swapped out and took breaks but always had at least one person maintaining the ritual.

That finally ended when they all grouped up and began chanting in unison for about 10 minutes.

“Revive this land with the power of our purifying light, [Land Purification Ritual]!” they finished.

The scrying array zoomed itself out without any intervention from me. I watched in fascination as a wave of green spread out for miles over the greyish-white of the dead land.

I was speechless for a bit.

Alright. That’s pretty impressive. I grudgingly admitted.

However, the exciting part was now done, so I went back to fast-forwarding.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but I eventually got worried.

Okay, I feel like I should have respawned by now. What gives?

To answer that question, I reactivated the scrying array and centered it around Faroff. I figured if there was anywhere that would be talking about the return of the [Demon Lord], it would be there.

The scry showed me a large portion of Gram’s army camped in the small town.

Oh, so it must be close. Maybe I can get an ETA. I found some people that looked like officers and decided to listen in on their talks.

One of them was a grizzled-looking man sitting at a desk, who opened a letter from a [Messenger] and winced.

“What is it?” his aide asked.

“More bad news from Dryadal. Looks like the knife-ears and the dang mutts have finally pushed Gert back from their shores.” He pounded his fist on the desk. “And so humanity has lost our foothold. If only their [Queen] wasn’t slacking off, I’m sure that she could have at least fought their riders to a standstill! But no, she’s still missing, and no one has heard a word from her!”

Wait. Really? My curiosity was piqued. [Scry] Gertrude.

The spell failed. Either she was protected from [Scry] by some new ability, or she was still in the dragonlands, which were unreachable by my current scrying array.

I mentally shrugged as I got back to listening.

“It doesn’t help that the [Demon Lord] is late,” the man growled. “It’s supposed to be 50 years after his death, isn’t it? Why has it been six bloody months with no show? We can’t keep our forces down in the middle of nowhere forever! We’re wasting supplies for nothing!”

I tuned out the rest. Six months late? Why am I not respawned yet?

I had a light bulb go off.

Oh. I spent… I dunno… Years? With the fey. I probably interrupted my respawning by about that much time. I chuckled inwardly. I guess there goes my plans of reverse-engineering what the fey did to me so that I didn’t have to waste 50 years every time I died.

I turned the scrying array back off. I didn’t have a clue how long I had left to wait, but I knew that it was time to start being prideful.

None of them will ever exist.

I am the only one whose life matters.

No one can stand in my way.

I realized that the third line was a lie to myself because Gertrude and the [Hero] most definitely could, but I shoved those traitorous thoughts aside and made those lines my mantra.

It paid off when I was once again ejected from the obelisk in the tutorial.

I got to my feet, wiped a layer of dust off the obelisk, and took in my reflection.

“I’m beautiful,” I said as I gazed over my golden hair, halo, and flashing golden eyes.

The System gave me several prompts, but I ignored them.

System: Pride Form Set

System: Pride - Overriding level requirement of 25 for Pride Form

And the most concerning of all.

System: Pride Form Activated

Not only had I succeeded in breaking my third rule right as I respawned, but I had also managed to do it at level 1 when I didn’t think it was possible to enter Demon Lord form. A part of me screamed that something was wrong with this picture, but that was a tiny voice in the middle of a vast canyon.

Just like wrath form, pride form was going to have its way.

I gazed at my new appearance for a minute longer.

“No. I’m not just beautiful,” I said as I took in my angelic visage. “I’m Perfect.”

I strode away from the obelisk as I prepared to deal with the trifling tutorial.

I was unkillable.

I was invincible.

And none would stand in my way.

[1] RTS – Real time strategy. Many real time strategy games focus on building up forces and commanding multiple units at a time to destroy your opponent’s army. For simplicity’s sake, in games like that a horse and rider would be just 1 “unit” that you command that has 1 health bar. In other words,

[2] Opening monologue for the Lord of the Rings.

[3] Ba Sing Se – From the animated series Avatar the Last Airbender. Ba Sing Se was in the earth kingdom (which was full of people who could control earth and rock) and its primary feature was its gigantic wall that completely encircled the entire small-country-sized city