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Volume 5

Chapter 46: Slave Acolytes

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The audience recovered from the shock of the events that transcribed. Then they looked at the giant reaper standing there with the masked summoner while it held someone on its hands.

In fact, is it really a reaper? Where’s its scythe?

That giant humanoid figure was just an image of a red-eyed giant wearing a hooded cloak.

After a few moments, everyone, including the ones frozen from the roar of the Lapis Lazuli, the Guild Masters, the survivors of the tornado, and the ones hovering in the sky 200+ meters away… all processed the things they heard from him.

“This event ends here so I will only say this once. Submit or perish.”

Domineering…

Arrogant…

Dominating!

His ghastly voice added a sense of reality to the listeners and the giant reaper 20m tall hovering around him added more dread to this building sense of horror.

This guy gave them the vibes as close as to that of Elder God Donar.

When no one moved or answered, Siva raised his staff slightly and then drew down the staff to stab the floor.

TAP!

The silence of the crowd allowed the sound to travel all around the stadium in waves. Sparks flew from the staff’s glowing orb and this added another layer of deterrence to his presence.

And then, the giant reaper threw Zabrze towards the astonished Queen of Fire and Sakura Angel, landing hard on his face and rolling twice before stopping… groaning as he sat up.

Siva said with an uncaring tone, “I will only count to five. Those who do not submit will die with no explanation.”

ROOOOAAAARRRRRR..!!

“Five.”

Although tired, the Lapis Lazuli still did its best to assist its master and it roared again, doing a Pose of the King!

“Four.”

Siva’s voice resounded and he had no qualms if they can move or not. There was only one question on everyone’s visions. Yes, they can’t move a muscle but they all only needed to say it or the slaughter will begin and they will die.

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WILL YOU SUBMIT?

(YES?) – (NO?)

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“Three.”

When Siva said the number, yells began to rise one after another. Some cursed at him but majority of the people in the arena submitted.

Those proud members of the guilds also did so as well as the other members of the NDG and even some of the girls from the Valkyries as they all understood what would happen if that number reaches zero.

Rationality succeeded on their minds.

And yet, Siva doesn’t seem to be satisfied as he still continued to count even though there is almost 1/8 of the entire crowd already submitting to him.

“Two.”

“All Ebony Sanctuary members, accept it now!”

Zabrze’s frantic voice rung. He didn’t want to lose his guild and since he already submitted, even if it’s against his will, he had no choice but to at least preserve his guild. Almost immediately, majority of the confused members of the Ebony Sanctuary agreed to the ridiculous order.

Sakura Angel and Queen of Fire were also lost in confusion.

As they can’t move a muscle to their limbs, the only thing they can do was agree to submit or be food for the Lapis in this pathetic manner.

“Damn it!” Sakura Angel was really bitter. She was positive earlier but now, she had lost all her face and dignity as she and the rest of the people in the crowd right now, underestimated their enemy.

Queen of Fire was the one most irritated.

She had vowed that Siva was an enemy of the entire federation and yet, now, they were being forced to accept this irregular deal.

“One.”

There was a long pause before the last countdown. Siva had given them the last chance to life.

“Ze––” on the first syllable, the last hesitating men and women in the arena spoke their agreement on the hidden submission contract and so, like Zabrze, they all saw the same rules that basically retrained them on being slaves to his organization appear on their visions.

Upon accepting this contract, they had willingly accepted their fates.

“––ro”

“I agree.” The Queen of Fire heard Sakura Angel spoke in a calm voice beside her.

She looked at her incredulously and saw her closed her eyes as she swallowed her pride and accepted life over a pathetic meaningless death.

Siva didn’t do anything right after the last word he had spoken. He only looked around him, he was looking at the men and women of his newly founded syndicate.

Above their heads were green pointing arrows.

“My… company…” He thought with satisfaction.

A big smile broke into his face like a joker under his mask but no one was able to see it, only the glint of the red eyes on his mask.

“Are you really going to go with this?” the Queen of Fire told the Sakura Angel.

The Sakura Angel opened her eyes and she then turned with a stiff expression beside her and replied sternly, “Don’t forget that we have a deal.”

Queen of Fire felt the words she wanted to say got burned on her throat. At that moment, Siva spoke with a delighted voice, “Now, for the new members of The Company… I now welcome you. As your branch commander, let me introduce myself. I am Dilim. And for my first command…”

This long pause came like a thunderous command at the ears of everyone present. The Lapis had stopped roaring now and began to rest to restore energy while the effects of its Pose of the King had been lifted within the quietness of the crowd.

Siva continued. “…You should be able to see on your visions who are your allies and who are not so for the first command, subdue the ones who had not accepted the offer. Those with the most number of subdued dissidents shall be given a rank of up to a Team Captain. Go.”

Silence.

They tried to process the words they just heard.

Earlier, they were offered to be slaves and now, they had the rules of The Company in their visions and they, as people with brains, could only think about these rules being imposed as an open declaration of them being The Company boss’s slaves inside the game.

But now, Siva had just offered a change into the hierarchy… anyone who could subdue more people shall be given a rank higher than the rest of the other members.

The more people you subdue, the better your standing on The Company will be.

And almost quickly, those on the same guild but had not accepted the offer all looked at each other, a strange glint coming from the eyes of the ones who had said yes.

“H-Hey… we’re friends… right?”

“Dave, we started the game together…”

“I agree ––huh? It’s not working? Hey I want to join… I want to agree to the offer!”

“Honey, we’re real life couples, can’t we talk?”

“Cupcake, if you don’t submit to me, I won’t let you in the bed tonight.”

“I submit.”

“Good boy. (pat pat)”

When the people started talking, fists, weapons, magic, and arrows also started to fly.

For the sake of their own standing, for the sake of a higher position, friends turned against each other, lovers fought, neighbors warred, and weaklings bowed to the strong ones.

Human nature was in full display.

Seeing this, Siva added another declaration, “If you submit to them, we will guarantee your safety but if you resist, you will die. Choose wisely. I will only give you two minutes.”

After saying that, Siva turned around as the giant reaper bent down to hug him towards its chest, the vanishing summoner served as its heart.

Zabrze was left there, dazed, but before Siva could even disappear quickly, the Queen of Fire roared with a raging fury dashing towards him with her armor burning in hot red flames.

Sword in hand, she used her most powerful spell to magnify its effects and kicked the air to leave a burning semi-circle, a tunnel of wind and fire was left hot on her trail…

It didn’t take three seconds before she reached Siva’s location but Siva didn’t even have to turn his head around to stop her when another shadow appeared and pressed her down. She was stopped by a pink-ladened beauty from the behind that pressed and neutralized her to the still intact marble floor on that part of the arena.

“What are you doing, Sakura?! We have to kill that man before he can turn us against each other! Are you fucking insane?!”

“Fei.” Sakura spoke with a tinge of ironic glum on her tone. “You are a sensible person. I know you hate him for the sake of your federation but there is also the fact that you’ve made a deal with me so I can’t let you die. Submit or be forced to submit by someone else except me. You choose wisely, Fei.”

The pressed down Fei went silent, tears on her eyes as she hatefully stared at the sight of the now retreating giant reaper.

She couldn’t believe it herself. Such a monster of a player exists in the game without them all knowing of neither his existence nor his name.

Dilim is an envoy The Company, an organization that no one had ever heard before.

This man controlled Erebus, the so called God of Darkness from real world mythology who once lived in the world below… the Underworld.

Such names were unheard of. An envoy controls a God? If he wasn’t at the level of monstrosity as that fabled Siva “The Destroyer” then she couldn’t think of Donar as being a God of War.

Filled with bitter tears, she could hear the call of help of the federation members. They were a united force and so no one actually agreed on the first offer.

Perhaps only 1% of the 1%.

But if she submits to it now, then all of them will be underlings of the Valkyries.

She could hear the intense fighting happening on the background and her tear-laden eyes looked on the back of the giant reaper with hate and detriment.

“I hate you.” She cursed and then, with balled fists and tears in her eyes, she slumped her face to the marbled floor and spoke, “Everyone of the federation… submit… to the Valkyries. Don’t add up to the numbers of casualties.”

Almost immediately, the sounds of fighting were minimized and cries of a different kind of pain could be heard from the back.

“You did well.”

DING!

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[You have chosen to submit. Due to the order, you are hereby assigned to be under the authority of the rules imposed upon by a 2nd-Class Underling. 3rd-Class rules and regulations shall now be imposed upon you and thus also serve as your rank.]

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Fei, the Queen of Fire, saw the prompt in her vision and she could only grit her teeth in great frustration as she cancelled her guardian form to shed tears while facing the floor.

She came back into a he, as his red armor and short hair with a handsome face also came into view along with his sobs.

The federation members had dejected faces as they saw the prompt on their visions.

If they accepted the first offer, then they would have been 2nd-Class Underlings but now, they were reduced to 3rd-Class because of pride.

What would have happened if they accepted the first offer? Perhaps they would have been the one to subdue others now and weren’t the ones to be the fodder in this organization.

But what is The Company…?

They don’t know a thing about this company but with regards to the words of The Summoner named Dilim earlier, it would seem that it was a very big organization and him, with his strength, was only a Branch Commander.

If the branch commander was actually this strong then perhaps the leader of this organization is a monstrous figure belonging to the top 1000 names of RPG: Terroa!

Or perhaps even of the top 200 names…

Smart people could discern this from the words he said before the subduing process. If they had only known this in the first place, then they wouldn’t have rejected the first offer only to be forced to submit this time.

The Lapis flew and landed on the edge of the arena close to Siva. By now, the chaos of the had already been put to a stop. Everyone had been successfully subjugated.

Behind Siva’s mask, he was beaming with a smile so wide his eyes were crescent arcs. He didn’t expect everything to go according to his plans and the fact that it did happen according to his abruptly built up plan was actually… almost very impossible to imagine ––considering how abrupt and on the spot he had calculated it all.

“Kwihihihihi…”

Siva’s shoulders were shaking and he was making this sounding laugh that was creepy to even his trusted allies’ ears.

Thorn and Volt who hovered in the sky was in the verge of collapsing from disbelief. Of course they knew what plans Siva had.

“Supposedly, he only wanted to violently trash all of these people in the arena…”

“But then he saw the grand entrances…”

“And then his weapon just timely finished…”

“Leading everything to this mess…”

““Sigh…””

““He’s just someone who refuses to bend to the rules of society.””

The two of them could only appease. They’ve given up trying to compute how Siva’s mind worked since his own invention, this… Black Tech… defies the logic of its first impressions.

It was supposed to only be a normal arena match but Siva improvised when Rentaw appeared and when he also finished the Black Tech, he, again, made an improvisation to their plans.

But like Siva, they, too, didn’t expect that it would go smoothly this way.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been possible without the Lapis Lazuli which they knew nothing about.

“In the end… he really did it.”

“Yeah. He enslaved them all.”

2nd-Class? 3rd-Class? All of them are slaves and even the two of them, considering about it, are also slaves… 1st-Class Slaves.

They will now all work for Siva’s cause.

When Siva reached the southern portion of the arena, Siva looked up and started to fly upwards.

He wasn’t looking at Rentaw specifically but his location and his gaze at the Akhenaton just so happens to pass by Rentaw so he noticed him.

The face this guy had tells him that he wanted to have an explanation but because of the Lapis Lazuli walking proudly alongside the giant reaper, even if he’s the city lord, he could only purse his lips and shut up.

With but a thought, an invisible whirlwind surrounded Siva as the giant reaper disappeared into thin air.

Just how many minutes did it take for him to take all these people down and subdue them?

Such feat was unheard of!

No, it was a big impossibility!

This person, this…Summoner… had just defeated thousands of players alone.

Does Gats, the currently recognized strongest player in Terroa, have this kind of ability?

Perhaps.

…or perhaps not.

After all, not everyone can have a Lapis as a pet.

Not everyone could have a formidable weapon such as that giant reaper.

When he was 10m away from Rentaw, Siva stopped and looked at him.

“The event ends here.” He said. “I will be taking them as my slaves from this point on so I will have to apologize for reducing your forces from this point on.”

Ren was startled but he still managed to calm himself down as he stared at Siva. “Who are you and what is your guild affiliation?”

“I’m Dilim… from The Company.”

Siva only spoke at this point and before Ren could even ask another question, he already turned and went to fly again.

It was at this point that Thorn and Volt came down to hover 30m above the arena, and announced the decision regarding this purpose and result of this event.

“His Highness has decided. This test ends here with the members of the Acolytes now chosen!”

“I will say the names of the chosen ones and every name spoken will be considered the ten acolytes with authority to lead a force of their own numbering up to fifty. Any subordinates or affiliations they are related to are considered as their subjects and are then treated as footmen by His Highness’s cause.”

“Those who do not agree to this are given one chance to back down now. Once the names are spoken, we will depart immediately.”

When these voices rung, the crowd of audience and players all swallowed down to calm their spirits. While they drank red and blue potions, Thorn spoke as he sneaked a glance at Siva who stood in the same level as them in midair.

“First name…”

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Slaves and followers have been decided…

Their next stop is Alexandria!

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