(Ashen POV)

Arriving at a small but very secured looking fortress, we soon got out, the guards of the carriages and the fortress conversed until we got the approval to enter. The large building was most akin to a square castle, which had a large set of gray doors leading inside. Walking inside was me, the magic-user, and a couple of other guards, we slowly traversed through the hallways eventually getting to a large room with a large runic gateway. The spell was teleportation but was limited to other gateways.

After taking a step inside with the others, the runes lit up slowly and after a few seconds, we were concealed in a thick light which soon faded to another room much like the last, with several guards nearby looking over to us. Once more we walked without issue through the hallways and eventually arrived at a throne looking room, which had an empty throne in it that was even fancier than the king of the Bandarainian empire had. Through the few windows that were there, a plethora of buildings littered the outside, making it hard to see past a few dozen buildings before the road turned.

“The king should be here in a few moments, is there anything in particular you need?” The magic-user, which at this point it was safe to say he was a wizard, said to me.

“Not anything at the moment, and are you certain that the king wouldn’t mind a demon such as myself to roam his halls?” I still didn’t know if this would be a good call, even if the guards were relatively fine with it.

“Of course! The king loves all races, except for elves of course…” He paused, assuming I knew the rest, to which I gave him a non-existent blank stare in return.

“Well, the elves aren’t particularly kind to other races, at least not on this continent.” It was still awfully vague but it will due for now.

Just as our small conversation came to a close, the king entered the room and sat upon his throne in a gesture of power. He had a long cape of blue and gray with a lavish set of fancy clothing beneath it. His grey crown had three large gemstones, each a deep blue color that radiated a small amount of mana off of each one. He held in his hand a golden walking cane that was embedded with several different gemstones of different colors. The guards and the wizard kneeled as I stood.

“For those of you who kneeled, you may rise.” And with that, they rose and all of the guards in the room took a long hard stare at me, to which I didn’t react.

“Thank you, your majesty. I come bearing news of the battle with the elves in Highfield Meadows.” To which the king seemed to be more intrigued.

“Isn’t this early? Did it not start only a few moments ago?” To which I had a non-existent smile on my boney face.

“Well, it should have, when the sun was highest. But we encountered this fellow in the middle between us and the elves. We approached, as did the elves and he soon agreed to aid us in combat.” The king seemed slightly shocked but was able to quickly respond with good questions.

“And whom might you be?”

“Ashen Fur, but please call me Ashen.” To that, the king seemed to tense, as did everyone else except for the wizard.

“Alright then, Ashen. Why did you aid us?”

“He was the first one to ask, it could have gone either way.” To that everyone in the room tensed, especially the wizard.

“Okay, where are you from, and why were you at the Highfield Meadows?” His interest seemed piqued.

For now, I would just keep to a simple story of being in the ‘Black Castle’, “The Black Castle, I was on the Eatherian Plane and ended up here by mistake when returning.” His face noticeably grew in excitement.

“The Eatherian Plane? How do you get there? What gateway has such a destination?” The wizard was just as excited to hear the answer as the king.

“No gateway, as you should be aware of by now, I am a magic-user. A Grand Archdemon to be precise.” To that, both grew in shock without losing their excitement.

“But what kind of magic-user could cross planes?” I would keep some information private, but I’d be as open as possible.

“To my information, only a very few people should be able to use [Trans-Planar Gate], if not anything more powerful.” To this, all the guards almost lost themselves as this was a great deal of information, and most nearly buckled at the knee.

“A tier 17? How does a mortal cast such a spell?” Well, I’m not quite mortal by several standards be he didn’t need to know some.

“Although I may appear to be a mortal, I am in fact, a deity.” To that most seemed surprised and the king looked at me with wide eyes, as did the wizard.

“A god? On the Physical Plane?” The king blurted out.

“A minute one at that, although my strength is not limited to that of one.” And that made most of the guards gain an edge but none would try anything, they weren’t that stupid, and the wizard and king looked at m in wonder and amazement.

“Still, to become a minute deity, you’d have to have 131 in a single attribute and at least a 50 in all others!” Wait, that was all? I presume I didn't acquire the rank due to having no followers, but that means I need more followers to become a higher ranking deity.

“I am a local deity of a town I rule, I only have 5 followers as I’ve not introduced myself to the public eye as much as other gods would’ve.” I didn’t know why the king seemed so interested in the whole deity thing, the magic was understandable, but just being classified as a deity?

“I know this might come across as rude, or at least impolite, but may you share your World System information with me. Just the attributes would be enough.” His passion was reaching a new high, and the wizard also seemed interested.

“Very well, how do you want me to share? Verbally or visually?” I was capable of both, but I’d rather not go showing my stats around, but to one person and only my attribute scores? It wouldn’t be too much of an issue.

“Visually, if you’d like, of course!” He responded without pause from my question.

“Very well.” I walked over to him and roughly a step or two away I outstretched my arm which they had a blue rectangular light that was adjacent to my palm, the light was the World System that I put the Attributes tab on.

The king looked in shock, horror, amazement, nervousness and a plethora of other emotions, with the only response being a small gasp and “O-oh,” to which he sank into his throne.

“Your majesty, is something wrong?” The wizard asked worried, and the guards looked the same.

“Ev-everything is alright, I just need a moment to collect myself.” The king said, then placed his face in his hands.

“Wizard, you wanted to see it as well did you not?” To which he slowly nodded, “Then come over here, and I’ll show you.” He slowly walked over, and eventually looked at me with a stern look that was most likely faked.

“I-i-i-it can’t be-.” Before he said any more, the mana in the air went completely dead, and soon was being pulled into an area beyond the walls of the room.

Some guards were collapsing from the absolute power that the rush of mana created, one even fell unconscious, “Well king, I shall return in only a moment, take the time to think what I gave you over.” With that I teleported outside to which I found Aeyrs standing there, a devilish grin on his face before he rushed to me, quickly binding me in his arms.

“You did it! How? I’ve no clue! But you’ve managed to summon the REAL Oronix!” Aeyrs cried out in excitement, how he got here I had no clue.

“Calm down, and get off of me!” I started to shove his face from my chest and he finally gave in, with a slightly saddened face.

“But how could I calm down? My little brother just summoned the REAL Oronix!” His face glowing with joy.

“I’m in the middle of something, I’ve another human king to deal with.” He started to chuckle at that.

“Another? Let me guess, he hates elves or something?” He said in between laughs.

“That is correct.” He started to roll on the ground laughing before suddenly stopping and standing back up.

I looked where he did, on the horizon was an even larger legion of elves that were just outside the city, “Aeyrs, go protect civilians.” We were in the city, presumably the royal capital of the kingdom, and there were thousands upon thousands of buildings and plenty of civilians to inhabit them.

I quickly teleported back inside the room to state the situation to the king, “King, a larger legion of elves is closing in on the city, they should arrive in less than an hour at best.” To which, the king and guards all jumped and he soon tried to ask for more information.

“H-how many?” I didn’t know for certain but there were close to half a million at least, compared to the barely two hundred thousand that was on the Highfield Meadows.

“At least half a million, most likely more.” The king sat depressedly in his throne once more and managed to utter a single sentence in desperation.

“Will you help us, Ashen?” I felt he was on the verge of becoming a follower, and having a kingdom that worshiped you would be pretty nice, so I had no reason to decline.

“Naturally, I wouldn’t leave a new friend and his city to be conquered by mere mortals,” I said with a non-existent wink.

The king looked at me in surprise and was about to say something before he was interrupted by the doors bursting open with guards reporting loudly of the same findings, and I teleported away before he could speak regardless. Finding myself outside the city walls, there was the large elven army standing uniformly in front of me, they all reacted appropriately to how you should when a demon randomly appears in front of your army. Putting up arms and drawing bows and readying spells, the elvish army stood with an air of self-consciousness that would soon be shattered.

With only a few arrows shot at me, all with precision and grace that elves carry, they all managed to flawlessly curve around my body, making them seem to bend before hitting me. Several looked in surprise, mostly the ones who shot them, but all seemed to be careful for the moment. With a louder than normal voice to make up for the distance and volume of subjects that I was talking to, I had boosted my voice to speak to them all like a megaphone.

“Elven army! How pleased I am to see another! Would you like to surrender? Or would you like me to dispose of you? With what I wonder? Fire? Acid? Absorb your life? Steal your souls?” Some looked in fear while others just started laughing.

“Very well, a surprise it is!” To which I started to gather all the immediate mana from the air, even taking some from the elves themselves, and soon had a large multi-colored sphere of magic in my right hand.

Several looked in fright, mostly the magic casters and higher leveled individuals, and the others just laughed some more, even a few spells and arrows were fired towards me, none hit of course. The swirling ball of magic and glittering lights started to condense into a small point no larger than a pebble or small iron bead before being shot out into the sky above. The bead started to rapidly expand into a large cloud-like gas that blocked out the sky and sun, making the elves take a small pause from their laughter.

The cloud had streaks of variously colored light that gleamed in fractured patterns resembling either lightning or broken glass that always changed in angles. From it, came several jets of mana which caused a plethora of effects; from actual lightning to frozen shards of ice or sizzling acid pits. The elven army reacted quickly though, with the magic users quickly using spells to rid the mana from the spell, but to no avail. The storm grew larger by the second and struck down several dozen elves with its large bolts of varying effects.

A single elf charged a spell circle, blue in hue that looked to be of no attribute, blank casting. A stream of grey colored light struck against one of the bolts from the multi-colored cloud of mana and held its own until more bolts came cascading down to it. She quickly made a dodge roll-off to her left side causing the large stream of mana to crash into the ground, and in its wake, the ground started shifting into a form. A rock golem was naturally spawned from the mana being forced into the dirt and stone that made up the hills outside the city.

Several footmen rushed over to the golem only to be swatted away with broken bones and similar injuries with a single long blow from its large stone arms. The golem’s joints were made of dirt to allow it to move smoothly and would be the most vulnerable part of its large body. Several arrows went flying into its body, most being either hit away or bouncing off, with only three penetrating the hard stone that made up its upper left arm, chest, and stomach.

The elven woman ran to the golem and sliced at its left elbow joint and sliced clean through, causing the heavy stone arm to slam into the ground and start to disintegrate into sand and dust. The woman swiveled on her heel and effortlessly cut through the legs and arm, eventually making it an immovable chunk of stone, which was not the best outcome due to a naturally created golem’s death circumstance. The golem’s outer layer of rock started to show cracks but stayed in one piece until it exploded like a grenade.

Shrapnel of jagged rocks rained over the immediate area causing many deaths and many more injuries. The woman put up a barrier protecting herself and several soldiers near her, then it fell and she rushed out towards the front, where the footmen that tried to attack me were being burned alive due to my [Flame Aura] and other abilities. She stopped just outside the range of where it could reach and stared at me with not a single sign of hardship, acting as though what she just did were nothing to her.

Sending a large series of spikes from the ground at me, which were turned to liquid while some even sublimated, the spikes were stopped only a few meters away from me. She snarled and quickly charged another spell circle, this time it was a bright purple. I offered a counter, and held up my hand and did the spell circle for the show, mine a bright and brilliant crimson. A large bolt of fire exploded from my outstretched hand and met with her invisible bolt of energy causing a mana explosion.

Mana explosions were often caused when void magic met with other physical magic, like water or earth. Fire worked mostly due to its size and power, due to it needing more fuel it was able to counteract the void magic and cause it. She took a step back, not from the explosion, which in itself was powerful and caused the ground under it to be instantly turned into plasma, but from the surprise of not hitting me presumably. She tried again, this time large spell circles littered the ground and sky facing me, and soon they all shot out similar bolts of invisible energy, only to be met by Vron bocking with a wide condensed air barrier.

A constant stream of purple filled the area around me, until I expanded the barrier to the spell circles, destroying them, and going beyond a few meters before it dissipated. The woman seemed to breathe a little heavier but nothing else changed, besides the hundreds of corpses that surrounded me that were now missing bits and pieces of them. Before I was going to shoot a small bead of earth at her head, like a bullet, the storm started to finally trigger, my grand spell: [Binary of Life and Death]!

The storm eventually swirled faster and faster until the center was but a blur, and soon thousands of black bolts struck into the army, with white ones striking back upwards. Then after a few moments, several bolts of white came cascading to me, and my mana instantly went to full again, Pretty broken, but pretty useful, I thought to myself. The woman managed to hold out for the first two bolts of black that came for her, but when the storm focused slightly more on her, a bolt the size of a building came crashing down into her with a loud BOOM, and she was crushed into the ground, with tendrils of white bolts shooting back upwards.

The storm lost most of its colors and went to that of a grey cloud with large circuit-like streaks of white and black creating brain-like design. The storm raged on and continued to strike down at the elves, which at this point started to scatter and panic as their commanders were trying to calm them and form an orderly fighting line. The storm grew with every strike and soon it would reach the size of the city itself, I would have to either dismiss it or move it elsewhere before it takes the entire city down too.

The woman started to charge at me, much like the woman from Wheatberg but instead of anger or hatred, she ran with grace and self-confidence. She Had in her hands a large brass colored staff that twirled lightly in her hand until it was pointing towards me while half was under her arm perfectly straight. The end was pointed and had six small points branching down on both sides of the small circle at the top. The tip started to glow in a light blue hue and started to absorb what little mana that was left in the air, and started to create a black spell circle in front of it.

A large burst of black mist exploded out from her staff and a black shadowy hand came shooting out from the tip, connected by a long jointless shadowy black arm. It slithered through the air swiftly until it slammed into Vron’s large crystalline plating, which quickly caused a rippling of the arm causing it to jut and started to look more jagged and broken before fading back into mana. With a heavy exhale of air through her nose and a sigh, she spun her staff once more until it shined in a golden aura.

After a series of fancy and elegant twirls, the staff landed upright and punctured into the ground which soon allowed for a large crack to form in my direction, which unfortunately was also in the direction of the town, so that had to be stopped immediately. With both arms extended, I did a slow press, and my hands slowly joining each other from my sides, which caused the ground to seal up with several jagged and rough protruding spikes spread about the former tear. She quickly jumped to the side with her staff in hand before the spikes could stab her, but what she didn’t expect was several other spikes started to form around her, limiting her movement.

I was intrigued by the magic that she used, it was non-chant based tiered spells but they felt like they were altered from what the game originally had. After several spikes were raised from the ground she managed to leap between a few and eventually jump off of one directly to me, which shattered the stone spike in the process. She flew through the air quickly but not faster than I could act, and I acted faster than the blink of an eye.

A wall of air quickly formed in front of her, a literal wall from the air being packed so closely and the energy being taken out of it, causing the air to quickly go through deposition and form a solid defense that made her stop. The sudden stop surprised her and she attempted to brace herself with her arms only to be slammed into the cloudy white substance that suddenly formed in front of her, she crashed into it at nearly 70 kilometers per minute, and her right shoulder hit first.

Her shoulder fractured, but remain in mostly one piece when the rest of her body came in contact with the wall, the wall was forcefully shoved backward and slowly dissipated as she rolled a few meters forward on the ground. She stood up slowly, obviously injured and surprised by the sudden appearance of the wall as she slowly used a golden spell circle to heal her shoulder with her other hand. The shoulder started healing as cracked a small smile that gave her face a crazed look.

“Alright then, you’ve managed to injure me, be glad, you’re the first. I give you the right to know my name and give me yours for you to not be forgotten.”

“Big talk for a small girl, regardless, I am Ashen Fur, but please, call me Ashen.” She started to have a wave of slight anger to overcome her face but not her voice.

“Very well then, Ashen, I am Melida Sten, The Elf Hero. Summoned to this world to defeat the demon lord to free the inhabitants of this world from their grasp. What relationship do you have with the demon lord, you are a demon after all.” Well, I did say race was important to Hairz, so I can’t judge her for making assumptions based on mine.

“Ah, the demon lord, well she is a subordinate of mine as of late, why?” I could guess why but left it up for her to decide her fate.

“Oh, so you’re the new demon lord I presume?” Wait, she does have a point, I am the Lord and I do have a lot of demons under my control, so technically I was.

“If you wish to refer to me as such, then yes, I am the Demon Lord.” Just as I said this I got a notification from the world system.

[Titles Gained: Lord of Demons, Demon General, Demon Commander, Demon Lord] [Awarding 135 Attribute and Skill Points] [Demon Command Chain Unlocked]

“Very well then demon lord, you best make amends for your actions and prepare for your fate.” What level could she be I wonder, maybe 200?

“Before then, please answer just one question if you can.” Her interest seemed to rise slightly.

“Very well then, what is it?” She still readied her stance for combat once more.

“What level are you?” She seemed shocked at first but then grew into an overconfident smile.

“A level 117, but us heroes don’t take as long to level up as the natives of the planets do.” Wait, there were more heroes? Well, I’ve got more questions then, time for a capture.

“Very well, I presume that you want to fight?” She stopped getting into position.

“Isn’t that obvious?” She tightened her grip on her staff.

“Well, I have a strict rule to all combat I partake in, you can either surrender or face me head to head, no rules. Your choice.” She gained an arrogant smile and retorted quickly.

“Oh my, I guess I ought to surrender to a mere low-life such as a demon. You know, back in my world in that game we all played, demons were the single race that no player wanted to play as since they would be killed from the start.” Wait, does she know of Sugarea?

“Oh, what was the name of this game? It couldn’t have been Sugarea by chance? Could it?” Her face grew in shock before responding hesitantly.

“How do you know it!?” Her stance getting slightly sloppy.

“Well, I do remember my life as a player, but regardless, let us fight then.” Her face grew slightly worried before she had a confident aura, but now, she had little more than a scarred one.

“Wait you were a player? But how come your a demon? You should’ve been killed on sight and recorded in the list of slain demon characters!” It seems that we played the same game but perhaps different worlds or copies?

“Well, one last question before combat couldn’t hurt, how many level 1000 players are you aware of?” If she didn’t recognize me, one of the most famous and influential players, then surely she would have played in a different world.

“There only were three of course, over the ten years, there have only been three top players.” Well, that answers that “Wait, you don’t mean?” Oh well, I guess she’s figured me out.

“Oh, right! My level. Yeah, I’m a level 1000, one of 13 in my world, another is in this world too, my brother.” She started to panic.

“T-two maxed players? On the same team? And 13 of them? Do you come from Tycho’s world?” She asked quickly, to my surprise as well.

“You know of Tycho? Wait, he is in this world?” It clearly wouldn’t have been the Tycho from the guild, but maybe the man from the supermarket?

“Yes, he is one of the four summoned heroes, a human.” Well, I can only assume it was the man from the store, but still, this brings much more to be explored.

“Alright, once more I give you the choice, surrender or fight. Which will it be?” If she knew of level 1000 players then she would know she stands no chance.

“As much as I know of your strength, I can’t surrender. It is my duty as one of the summoned heroes to serve and protect the people.” She said, her voice gaining slight strength.

“Very well, I shall leave you alive but will capture you for questioning. I am sorry though, obliged to serve people you have no connection to, must be painful, to watch them die.”

“I will not go down easily, I hope you prepare yourself.” She started to retake her stance.

“But you won’t take me down, I’ve too many ways to secure victory and recovery form defeat that losing isn’t available for me. I will try to limit the damage I cause you here, don’t know what would happen if I were to kill and resurrect you.” She used some magic on the staff and it expanded and turned into a platinum color with a more fancy design.

She raised her staff at me, point first, and from it, came a green burst of energy that shot out in an ionizing beam that crackled through the air towards me. Child’s play, the beam collided with my chest piece, and without much thought, I channeled the energy absorbed for the hit into my attack. From my now outstretched right hand formed a spell circle that changed color rapidly until forming into seven separate layers in front of each other, forming a rainbow before a large multi-colored beam of light shot out from it.

The beam pulverized her left shoulder and completely ignored her defenses and magical barrier she just cast to protect herself. It shredded through her flesh and bone, tearing a massive hole through her arm which also tore her arm off. She shrieked in pain but still stood, she stared at her arm that started to soak in blood, and she walked over it, towards me once more. She slowly picked up speed, traversing the 30 meters between us with a slow but steadily increasing pace.

She got to around ten meters away before she suddenly stopped, looking around, I had noticed that there was a figure lurking next to her using an invisibility spell. She didn’t speak but was listening to the figure, and before I could try to discern what it said, it vanished into nothingness. She took a few steps back, then walked over to her fallen arm, and picked it up while leaning her staff on her shoulder and the ground.

The ground seemed to distort and where she once grew blurry, and soon, a new figure appeared. A gold and white angelic figure stood in her previous place, standing at nearly six meters tall and elegant with a golden staff with a cross at the end. It held the staff flat across its hands and slowly used it’s right hand to hold it alone and started to point it towards me. I cast [Abyssal Harpoon], but it was stopped by a golden barrier around its body.

Trying again, I cast several other spells: [Hell Flame], [Dark Rupture], and even [Silent Raid] but none worked, all being stopped at the same golden barrier. Knowing that them barrier seemed to only stop demonically aligned spells, I cast forth a large metal spike that formed from mana that shot out with great speed. The spike ripped through the air, slamming into the barrier and smashing through, penetrating through the angel who didn’t stutter or pause from readying a spell with its staff.

Three spell circles appeared in front of the staff head, one golden, silver, and white. Each were on top of each other, effectively making it one spell. The runes in each started to be activated and suddenly a massive bolt of holy magic was sent cascading into my chest, I could only take a step backward as it dealt nearly a hundred thousand damage. I would have cracked a smile if able to, as the storm shot a white bolt towards me and I instantly regained the lost health.

The storm continued to circle in a vortex that would casually rain down bolts of black and retrieve bolts of white. The storm shot several black bolts towards the angelic figure only for it to be nullified by the barrier, but as the spike impaled the figure, the barrier went down long enough for the storm to send an absolutely massive streak of black bolts that battered it’s body, only having shreds of white leak out in ever-flowing streams. It stood there, motionless except for the staff which started to churn again and create more spell circles.

I ordered for the storm to assault only the angelic figure, and to stop assaulting the gathering of useless cannon fodder. As it stopped shooting the last of its black bolts, it finally grew darker by the second, until it all converged into a condensed black strike which ripped through the figure’s body and branched out into several other bolts which constantly shot through its form. Each time a new branched off end of the bolt would strike the figure, it would send a white stream back upwards, and would be replaced by several other new bolts.

The angelic figure stood no chance, and soon started to crumble, it’s form losing a grip on the reality it was in, and fading in an explosion of holy mana that would have purified curses for kilometers. The woman, which by now had reattached her arm via the holy mana from the angelic figure’s death, started to walk away back to the sea of corpses and barely living elves. I would have stopped her for capture, but felt it would be more interesting to let her leave.

I teleported back to the city after canceling my storm, which collapsed into a small bead of swirling black that was the souls of all who perished because of it. Grabbing that, I finally appeared back in the room with the king who was being surrounded by guards and the wizard, and after they saw me the king immediately called out in a slight panic.

“Ashen! What is the current status of the battle? We were able to detect a large source of magic nearby that was followed by a large magical storm and a rippling of mana.” Well, at least they knew the gist of what happened.

“They retreat for now, by my estimations, around 84,000 or so managed to escape alive at the very least. This includes an elvish woman named Melida Sten, a summoned hero.” To that, he grew worried for a bit before responding.

“A summoned hero? What business did she have for joining the battle?” to that I had no clue, but could only guess why.

“I am unsure, but she claims that her people were suffering and she was here to slay a powerful demon, which I presume would be me, to set her people free.” The guards around the king eased slightly as knowing there was an ally that could defeat a summoned hero was reassuring.

“And you managed to still slay over 400,000 of the enemy while in combat with her?” His face grew in concern but I couldn’t tell what for.

“That would be correct, and as for any that could have entered or attacked the city, I had my brother defend against them.” To that his face became surprised.

“You have a brother?” What? Was having others that were related to you by blood all that uncommon amongst demons? Surely not.

“Yes, although we are brothers, he is of a different species.” To that, even the guards and the wizard grew strangely interested.

“Then what is he? A devilkin? A tiefling?” Well, I do suppose having a brother of similar race would make sense, but not in the scenario that we came from.

“A Dragonoid, and before you say anything, yes, we are blood-related.” And with that, almost on queue, Aeyrs appeared beside me, seemingly from nothing.

“And it is as my brother here says, I am Aeyrs Dragonheart, a Dragonoid indeed. Only two elves even made it near the city let alone entered, which were promptly killed of course, by none other than yours truly.” The way he acted made the room feel a little lighter but still serious.

“It is true, a demon and Dragonoid, as brothers. It is as the old prophecies have foreseen!” Wait, what now?

“I'm sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve no clue on what prophecy you refer to, would you mind explaining, oh dear king?” Aeyrs said I wanted to smack the back of his head like how I use to when he said or did stupid things back on earth.

“Long ago, one of the greatest prophets alive had received a vision. The vision was that of two opposite creatures, one of the true good and one of true evil, a dragon, and a demon, would one day walk the planet together in harmony. They would go across it, and together help and rebalance the world back into a place of order and out of chaos.” The king said as if it were one of the greatest stories to ever be made, which was then followed up by the wizard siting the more.

“And one day the world would have itself, several heroes like it had in the past to deal with the major evil, but instead of a demon lord or great villain, they found the demon and dragon together. Only fulfilling their duties they attacked them, to relieve what suffering there was left in the world, only to find themselves as the villains. But as time went on, both the demon and dragon soon found themselves in a situation that forced them to face one another, and the outcome is still unknown.” If I knew anything from my old world, it would have to be the fact that prophecies are complete and utter bullshit.

I thought over the story once more, as did Aeyrs, and we must have come to the same conclusion as we both just started laughing. They all looked in worry before I had held up my hand to stop any from speaking, only waiting out until I felt like seizing my monotone laughter. The chance of me and Aeyrs helping the planet? None. Not a single chance, besides the Dark legion, that seemed to be a much larger threat than it was, and there was also the fact that it was a direct threat to us as we were in the direct path of the demons.

“No, I don’t believe we are the ones prophesied, or at least, it was off by a fair degree.” Both me and Aeyrs said in unison.

And to the king’s surprise too, as he sat down on his throne after standing for his protection. He looked like he was going to speak but the words wouldn’t leave his mouth, neither did a single sound from any other in the room save me and Aeyrs’ laughter that leaked out now and again. We took a small bow, and teleported outside, to the ocean of dead bodies. Aeyrs looked in excitement, his hunger showing once more, as he craved and relied on either meat or souls to sustain himself.

We walked through the remains of the army which still had most of their gear in perfect condition, a waste, if anything, to leave them out here in the open. I reached into my pocket dimension portal and grabbed a small black pointed rod that I promptly threw into the ground next to me. As the rod entered the ground, never losing speed, it was concealed in a black mist, that soon faded to find a black and dark grey golem-like creature in its place.

The creature started to gather the items each corpse had and put them into its body that seemed to have no limit or end. I threw down a few dozen more of these rods and left them to their work for the moment, as I went about to fiddle with the soul bead I collected from the storm. It was nearly the size of a musket ball and was insanely dense, nearly eight hundred kilograms of the small gem-like substance. It seemed to almost shriek out in cries and pleads with every roll between my thumb and pointer fingers, which were followed by short-lived gasps of black mist that would escape with a frown and wide eyes before being dragged back into the bead.

Aeyrs looked at it and shivered slightly, not that I would have felt the same due to being emotionless and a demon on top of that. The soul stone radiated a massive aura of despair and grief, but Aeyrs was struck harder due to his race. Dragons, at least those of metallic and gemstone variants, were more open and helpful towards the other races and often attempted to aid them through any means as long as it did not interfere with other races too greatly.

Aeyrs wasn’t quite a chromatic dragon or a metal or gemstone dragon, he fell under one specific classification: an Underdragon. Underdragons were a very rare subspecies of dragons that only helped others if they got something of equal or greater value in return, and were often known as mischievous or manipulating. Although Underdragons were known as such, it doesn’t mean that Aeyrs, or other players as the same race, would be this way, it was just a general conclusion.

As far as I knew, Aeyrs was good to his friends but completely devastating to his enemies. Which was always good, especially if you had a lot of enemies or if you played Sugarea. Speaking of, that elvish woman made me think about how much of a gap there truly was between the levels in Sugarea, and even in this world, whatever it was called. Generally, you needed roughly 30% more experience points than you did for your last level to level up, which sounds alright on paper until you account for level scaling and dropoffs.

The power increase between each level also fluctuated greatly depending on what the player does with their new level, they could either grow slightly or become much stronger. More often than not though, it was the ladder. If put into a statistic, the average power gain per level would be an increase of around 5% of their current power and would be compounded every time. But it could go anywhere between nearly zero and even thousands of percent.

The little gem contained over 400,000 souls, and I could probably use it to experiment more on my magic or even feed some to Aeyrs if I had excess. He did gain permanent bonuses with each soul he consumed, but with the quality of the souls harvested being so low tier, it would only increase by an extra health or mana point per soul. I threw down a few hundred more of the blacked spiked rods all across the massive lot of corpses, and all activated in unison, and then I quickly teleported back to the castle with Aeyrs, to discuss the information we had gathered, and the results of which were more than interesting.