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Chapter 526: The Controller

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Siva faced the Gaia and Hugo who were standing and waiting for him. “We came here to rebuke the Theocracy and convince them to divert all of their attention into protecting The North. Whether they do it or not, or if Romano will listen is up to those two but frankly, I don’t care about the result. I will expect Romano to even throw a fit. For now, we have to complete our preparations in taking over this place and also confiscating a few resources.”

When he spoke to here, he actually meant looting the Haven Dust Company of at least half of all of its assets and making them realize their folly. This was nothing more than a warning.

“Cortana. How’s the cleanup on the other side?”

[98% finished sir.]

“Siva.” Hugo called with reluctance but then made the correction. “Lord… Siva…… can I… if it’s not so late, can I…”

“If you swear that you will never betray the Asgard and that you will strive to become part of it and to pour all your strength into making it the strongest country in the future, then I can think about your Cynthiana Republic joining my Asgard.”

Hugo, delighted, knelt on the floor and put a hand on his right chest and swore the same oath of fealty as the Dwarf Prince did before him.

Siva nodded and accepted the oath.

Now that everyone here is of one heart, they can then proceed to the next step of their cleansing.

“Gather your forces, prepare to depart. We will be visiting your countries and absorbing them to the Asgard’s territories after this. This might take a while so I will be giving you seven days. Gaia, return to Elf Forest to prepare your people and also inform the Dwarf Prince of the next stage of the cleansing. I don’t want this information leaked out. Hugo, you also do the same. I will be handling things from here and controlling the forces to safeguard this location. The enemies won’t sit around and will be sending retaliatory forces to take back what has been lost so your job is to use this chance to take the contract I’ve given you to cleanse your own people of the filth of the Bloody Church before I absorb them into the Asgard. You should start with your closest and highest ranking officials and then downwards. If they do not comply, you can just send them to join the other prisoners in the Prison Realm. I’ve already given you the keys in our mission here so you can use those.”

After he spoke, Hugo asked, “What about those leaders from The Legion?”

“Them? They’re already in another prison. The moment you used the other Prison Key I gave you that’s specifically meant for them, they are all immediately sent back to the Asgard.”

With this story, it would seem that there was nothing else to do here except to loot the Haven Dust Company and secure the place where the Blue Card Merchant Group used to be.

Siva will be taking charge of that operation now so they immediately followed the instructions, going back to their territories and leaving the two lovers behind.

After the paladins escaped, there was no more barrier shield spell placed in the room so Siva had to seal it again using his own methods.

Using a hostile party’s own conference room as if it was theirs… would there be a greater insult than this one on their dignity as a Major Power here in the Southern Isles?

When they were finally alone, Scion collapsed into a tired sigh and fell on his embrace.

Siva felt her trembling body and was proud that she actually held on for long until the NPCs were all sent away.

“I will never do that again… I was really scared and it’s tiring being angry. I don’t want to feel that same feeling again.”

She was shaking. Extremely so. Siva hugged her tight and stroked her hair until she was able to relax herself into his arms.

“Well, because our Mandy seems to be a strong girl after all, it would seem that she needed a good reward for standing up for her man.”

Through the playful words, Siva looked at the red-faced girl straight into her eyes and smiled evilly.

“I want a kiss.” she demanded. “A long one!”

“Just that?” Siva asked playfully.

Scion blushed further, hid her face on his chest, and wordlessly nodded.

“Really?” Siva asked with a chuckle.

“Well… are you ready? In the real world we can, you know…” When Scion raised her head, there was an impish grin on her lips while she drew circles on his chest.

This time, Siva was the one being teased.

Right now, it was the pride of a man that’s at stake here so he mustn’t step back.

“Ahem. Are you ready to lose it?”

She grinned proudly, “Anytime.”

Siva swallowed and a strong desire rose on his chest… no, it was coming from inside his body.

“After the Conclave.” He said.

“Oh snap! The Conclave! Rex, we have to hurry!”

“We still have things to finish here. Don’t worry; I included everything in the plan. Even if things did not end early like this in here, we can still come late in the conclave. After all, this is just the first day of the three nights meant for the event.”

“But Thorn said they’d be early! Everyone in the core group is attending tonight. We should not be late like we’re special. Let’s go already! I wanna see Coralline and the others as soon as possible!”

Siva chuckled and stood up then they vanished and began to loot. Ten minutes later, they ended the task and returned to their forces that were at least half-numbered less than their first.

This was the army meant to take charge of all the secured areas and guard it. There were no forces that came from the Asgard because they were all busy hunting…

…hunting the players of The Legion.

Since he did almost all the work just by himself, this means that only a few Legionnaires will be targeted by the Asgardians and that almost all of his manpower would just be wasting their time.

He realized belatedly that some of his actions are actually a waste and that his impulsive decisions sometimes affect his manpower and operations to a certain extent, even to the point that the Asgard was crippled temporarily.

“Sigh… if I knew that things would turn out this way, I shouldn’t have sent them on that mission.”

After he lamented this, he issued an update for the Asgard’s Mission Board. Right now, he stated that majority of the targets are already captured so only a few more remained.

The remaining targets were Kladis, Kira, Hijack, and Mouse. But Siva removed Kladis in there for he knew that aside from him, perhaps no one else would be able to survive Eros’ CC-ability.

(CC = Crowd Control; CC Abilities are those that can ‘control’ the crowd like for example, [Stun], [Freezing Fire], [Pose of the King], [Bind] and many others that affects movement and actions)

Siva also updated the information about the rest of the members of The Legion, especially as to why the Asgardians must not face Kladis as of the moment.

When it was done, he also sent a message to all the Asgardians via their emails about this change in the situation.

He didn’t care what kind of reaction both of the Theocracy or the haven Dust Company will have when they find out everything that had happened here but Siva do care when they still don’t learn their lessons and antagonize him.

If that’s the case, then he can just give them the cold shoulder and defend if they were attacked.

“Well then, shall we checkup on the contingent from Jeremiah?”

“It was that Zelga, the King Candidate, again?”

It should be noted that this wasn’t the first time the two of them had met Zelga. Back in Jeremiah, Zelga had plotted against Siva to get his hands on Scion but it was foiled and he was severely done in and even lost his right to be respected by the Kingdom’s Guardian Corps.

“Yeah, for some reason, he learned of this entire operation and timed his appearance and wanted to join the fun to seize this chance to place on top of the rankings or perhaps seize some treasures.”

“How dirty…”

“But good.” Siva added. “His information network is what interests me. I want to know how he found out about the operation and weed out if there’s a spy in our ranks. But more than that, I’m actually surprised that his people are this strong… it’s as if they were baptized in True Dragon Blood.”

Scion was surprised, “True Dragon? And all of his forces are baptized in it?”

“Yeah. Look.”

As Siva willed it, he showed Scion the battle within his [Purgatory Realm] thru a miniature [email protected] rendering of the battlefield.

With the entire battlefield covered by the Absolute Domain, not an inch of the 10km-large battlefield wasn’t coverable by the [email protected] rendering.

“Remember that the Neo-BMA is already as heavy as a bike, perhaps more, and any normal player with even 200 stats in STR cannot fight against it head on. But now look… the Sword Master had just swung the Fire Sword with a full momentum, adding that and the weight of that heavy weapon along with the Fire Lord Set that’s made of 30% Glandanium and Black Ironwood Alloys and 65% Fire Dragon materials, you could only imagine that the attack is definitely at least double the attack weight that I can swing the Fire Sword with my 900 stats.”

But contrary to what he said and the expected one-hit decimation of the receiver of such attacks, the enemies that took the Sword Master’s strikes head on was only knocked back by a step or were just blown off but still relatively safe; moreover, if the Sword Master did not follow up another fatal attack or two upon them, the enemies wouldn’t be defeated and sent to the Asgard to be prisoners.

Scion saw this and frowned.

“Rex, do you remember the dragon that attacked us back in Alexandria?”

“Hm? Do you mean that…”

“I seem to recall that Lady Brea once told us that there was a King Candidate that could summon a dragon as a pet to defend himself. But although it wasn’t as big as that True Dragon that attacked us in Alexandria, I now suspect that the True Dragon that attacked us back then and the one who sent it was actually Zelga.”

Siva thought for a moment and found that there’s indeed a possibility that it was Zelga.

“You’re right. I do remember hearing about it. But isn’t the size a bit of a problem? Brea said it was 20m at most in size but that True Dragon was big, measuring 4km in length alone!”

“What if it’s a [Magic Spell] or an [Ability] that can change a targe6t’s size at will?”

“An ability… there’s indeed a chance if it’s one of those special abilities that can change a target’s size… but Akhenaton said that it was a [Summon] so I’m positive that it may actually be an ability that made its size change rapidly like that…”

A sharp look flashed on his face and he looked at the battlefield with a little more hostility.

“If what you say is right, then I can only say that this guy is really testing the limits of my patience.”

“Are you going to punish him?”

“I’m going to punish him but I’m going to make it so that he will never forget this time’s punishment and humiliation!”

After he spoke, Siva pulled out his [PNF Window] and designed a device. It wasn’t something very elaborate and in fact, there are templates available online that Cortana downloaded and made into his reference. It only took him 5minutes to finish the blueprint since he didn’t have to change anything too much on its original design.

“I originally wanted to make this [controller] in the future when I infiltrate The Union, but maybe now is the right time to use this.”

Looking at his picture from behind, Scion couldn’t help but tilt her head and ask, “What is that thing you just finished designing?”

Siva spread the blueprint wider for her to see.

“It’s a 21st century [Controller]. To be precise, it was a design that used to be popular for gamers who were into games. Back then, they called the game console Game Station and there were many version released before it eventually got trashed and stopped developing after the 6th version for it was at that time that the VR concept began to take mainstream gaming by storm.”

“I see. But what is a Controller for?”

Siva pointed at the Sword Master in their video feed and said, “For controlling this dude.”

He didn’t dally further and took out materials from the inventory, pouring them all into the PNF so it would start producing the item immediately.

Pausing everything that’s on queue and focusing all production resources into [Controller], Siva had only taken a few minutes before it was finished.

Taking out the finished product, the smooth and elegant contours of this classic-design Game Station joystick controller, even Scion found this palpable sense of longing and curiosity to use it.

There were buttons on the controller and it was a design that meant to be held by both hands.

It has two analog mini-sticks, four-directional keys on the left hand top-side and four buttons made of a square, triangle, circle, and an “X”. It also has a 2-inch touch panel screen in the middle of the joystick that’s lets you see a few options while you can choose a variety of options.

“How do you use it?” Scion’s curiosity burned as she looked at the ancient thing in Siva’s hands. To be precise, the way Siva pressed the soft keys to test them or plainly just because they were too damn attractive not to press, the sounds were all transmitted to her ears and so the sense of ‘fun’ that took the world by storm upon its first release immediately started to tickle her ears and bones, urging her to try it.

“Watch me.” Siva said.

In the President’s Office of the Merchant Group, a sofa appeared and an extra-large [email protected] video was in front of the cozy two.

Siva held the controller in his hand and pulled out a panel window to configure the settings and the functions of the buttons according to the combos and capabilities of the [Sword Master Puppet].

After assigning the combinations and the combos, Siva stretched his fingers and ordered, “Cortana, start the synchro and announce the start of the game to our guest army.”

[Yes boss.]

*****

[Realm Announcement! The Warmup Phase will be ending within ten seconds and the Challenge Round will commence. All participants remaining inside Purgatory Realm are requested to survive if you wish to meet the Realm Lord. I repeat, the Challenge Round is starting in ten seconds and the Realm Lord will be participating. Surviving is your only goal if you want to question him.]

Warmup Phase?

Purgatory?

Challenge Round?

Realm Lord?

Survive….?

The announcement was like the one you hear on an airport when a delayed flight arrived or when a lost child was announced on a mall or something.

It was loud, clear, and the message was evident.

But the thing is, the announcement only gave the people in the realm ten seconds to process all the information they have heard.

As absurd the announcement’s contents are, ten seconds wasn’t enough to fully process every bit of confusing detail on their situation. This was even made worse by the confusion caused by the words “warmup phase” spoken in the first part.

But still, they were given a respite.

Firstly, they’ve been fighting “Siva” for a long time but it seems he doesn’t know how to get tired as he still kept on moving about and fighting them in a violent manner; secondly, no matter how much damage he received from their numbers, nothing seems to work for his armor and sword of flame could both slash and defend their Magic spells, as well as receive all their attacks and seem as if they were hitting a humanoid battleship —Randall even thought that all his efforts were useless as even if he had managed to hit “Siva” solidly once with his sword, “Siva” didn’t even flinch before he was hit square in the chest and sent flying.

Randall lost consciousness and was forcefully sent out of the game. He didn’t know that once an enemy was knocked unconscious, NPC or not, all of them were sent to the Asgard’s prison cells for future interrogation.

Lastly, although Siva only showed Sword Mastery all this time, that alone was truly scary enough as his movements are those that they could only see on movies and books; they were dreadfully artistic as they were lethal.

What more if Siva used those “blades” that killed 7,000+ people in Jeremiah within a minute?

As such, Zelga knew… that Siva was only playing with them all this time and that he hasn’t taken his entire force seriously. This only added to the fires of hate Zelga felt against him.

Yet now, there was this announcement.

Warmup…….. Phase…?

Zelga’s face twitched and contorted, his elegance lost in the flames of his rage.

He was really insulted!

“SIIIIIIVVVVVVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

A roar of utter animosity, a detestation seeping to his bones, an abhorrence that could permeate his next generations… a wail carrying his soul that felt only hate and enmity to this existence: Siva.

“How dare you… HOW DARE YOU!!!”

Zelga had lost it. There was no reason holding his ‘strength’ back anymore so he raised his sword in the sky and “willed” it, opening a familiar [gate] to summon the being that once sent horrifying chills down the spines of all the citizens of Alexandria.

Following the advent of the [Summoning Circle] in the ‘skies’ of [Purgatory] was an ear-splitting roar that shook the entire isolated space and putting a few cracks into its borders, making the people inside it feel the true wrath of a True Dragon.

But unlike before, the True Dragon didn’t take its time descending into the isolated space.

Because of its presence and the natural Mana of the True Dragons radiating off its body, the space that it was summoned into threatened to breaking.

Its presence alone bent the fabrics of reality and the cracks webbing out from across the Purgatory Realm from the Magic Circle widened; chunks and pieces, polygonal shards of space were shattered and turned into dusts, reveling the view outside: the sky of Mundus!

ROOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!!!

After the one loud roar the space finally shattered and the Magic Circle collapsed along with a bright display of flickering lights. But along with that eye-catching beautiful display of Mana, the shattered space around the Magic Circle had still given way to the descent of that creature.

*****

In a dark room —no, place— where no light could enter nor escape, or even be generated, a place that nothing could coexist with the entity trapped in there, the [entity] opened his eyes and stared at his feet.

“My [Vessel]… finally…”

When was the last time he spoke?

Time here is irrelevant. It travels too fast than the world outside that a single thought outside could stretch out into a thousand cycles in here.

If he recalls clearly, the last time he felt this ‘glad’ was when he ‘felt’ him come back into [this world] again… and when he finally got his connection to him reestablished, he didn’t let that chance go and so thereby unleashed the first [seal].

—no, he wasn’t actually looking at his feet.

He was looking at a place beyond this space, to a distant location —for now— that when logically seen on the outside, would go on a ‘straight line’ from this location directly to his feet’s direction… and on to Terroa, then to Heartilia, then into that isolated [space] in Mundus… and then finally into that battle happening below his feet.

“If you can’t free me… then I will free myself…”

[He] could feel it—

“…just like how they freed themselves…….”

———[They] were already outside.

“I will kill you all… I will destroy everything…”

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Who is…

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