Volume 8: The Arrival of the Warrior King

Anyway this is the first of many summaries coming, this is a slow work in progress and this is actually one of the longer ones due to the added more detailed segments in the middle and at the end since I wrote them before I started on the volume. I think I'll update once every week, maybe on Sunday for me that is. Anyway I'll be posting the rest of what I have after this.

Start: 4Y 3M

Upon Shadow finding where Lyndis was, they fight due to the fact that Shadow once again taunted Lyndis which resulted in her revealing that she could track him using a heat sensing ability. However Shadow can use [Substitution] to avoid her attacks even if it uses quite a bit of mana a time when he does. Furthermore, Lyndis made a [Burning Napon Trap] skill that is similar to long ranged bombs that were planted. It is also revealed that Shadow had learnt the [Sonic Edge] skill that increases that width of the cuts he makes. Moving on, there is a flashback where it shows Lyndis finding out that some zombies drop repair crystal which are rare to get and she used them to gradually repair all of her gear to a proper level. The two unwillingly team up to try to clear the dungeon they were in which is the remains of a forgotten and haunted lab.

On the other side, Sain and Miriel are travelling from place to place with Sain telling Miriel to focus on training some of her newer spells that she gained compared to him since he learnt less spells in the same time frame though he also focused on close combat training. Eventually Sain decides to take up some long term guard duty to protect a travelling merchant figuring that it will be good experience and a good way to travel with attacks once in a while to train some skills when he's not in a dungeon. Miriel comments that he chose the quest since he couldn't figure what to do now or where to go. The two take up the quest with two full parties with them as well and being mostly isolated as they together guard 15 caravans at once. The time frame for this quest is about 6 months.

Serena and Raven on the other hand are focusing on the Purple Wave event with the Giant Purple Rabbits and are helping out taking them out and healing the wounded. It is revealed that this event happened before and on a large scale at some point that the Kingdom knows what to do to contain it at least. Several guilds and the Kingdom guards and knights band together to make a parameter and slowly compresses the Giant Purple Rabbits into a small enough area and mages and otherwise bombard them into pieces in a quick series of attacks to prevent them from repopulating at all. Due to the large area, this tactic is done several times and Raven is noted by others to be fearless, suicidal in some case and merciless in killing them. Serena on the other hand is known as a kind hand in helping others though when she snaps, she snaps hard and at once point turned into her Wyvern form and broke several of the rabbits at once with rapid fire tail sweeps.

Knowing that Purple Wave event was kinda, no entirely his fault to begin with, Eden dreams of a event that happened in the past. Extract below:

Segment of the Destroyer's Broken Dream

He stood unrivaled till the very end,

Using a forbidden power that consumed even the heavens.

A lone monster that had nothing else,

His desire to protect turned to destruction,

Yet despite his strength his soul still suffers,

Unable to live nor to die as he is eternal,

And thus the eventual end to the world.

His powers fragmented through time and space,

Collecting power until the end,

Waiting for forever and forever,

When he can finally disappear from existence itself.

xXx

He stood alone in the newly made battlefield drenched in blood. His breath was more ragged than anyone could expect, far filled his eyes and pain filled his heart.

No, no he cried reaching for the place where he laid his 'heart', his hope. A place that his peace could be found for a sort time. A place that once filled with happiness only brought him despair in the end.

And yet, another part of him felt it was not enough. There was no enough blood. There was not enough cries. He did not do enough to torment, torture and kill those who took away those who were precious to him.

“Eden...Eden...” the blond woman cried, hugging him trying her best to distract him, “It's not your fault, none of this was your fault.”

He did not look at her, only to gaze at what was left of their small dream, their small hope in this cruel cruel world. Even if they were not real in the most cruel way, their laugh, their smiles forever remained in his eyes, even if theirs no longer reflected anything.

They were dead.

His eyes held no confidences no longer, no energy for there was no longer any kind of innocence in them. They were old from the years of battle, tired of the endless battlefields, weary of the hidden enemies , sad of those he had lost over time and finally defeated in the end.

And absolutely devoid of all hope.

He could only blame himself for this, since he could only bring misery to the world, as he was the Elemental Chaos, the Destroyer of Sovereigns, Dreamer of Misery and now...the Crushed Hope.

When he wakes, he finds that Alexandra is concern about him, in a twisted way with her threatening to throw him off the floating island they were hiding on but concern nonetheless though he noted that she was more tempered than usual. After some arguing with Viv telling him to just go since it would actually speed things up compared to their current rate, Eden decides to see if he can help and hopefully no cause bad things to happen. Of course, he decides to play it in the shadow not informing anyone else on what he is doing.

Back with Sain and Miriel, Miriel is completely bored out of her mind with the quest both of them has. It didn't help that Sain was more silent and isolated from everything than usual. He would train, think and then train again without a word and with everyone else not talking to them, after a certain incident where her 'Queen' trait and Sain's 'Commander' got out of hand, she was being driven nuts with people avoiding both of them. However things gets at least interesting with some strong, level 250 player bandits coming out. Most of them are red named though the ones who were not were a concern. Sain tells Miriel to deal with it on her own before jumping to simply watch what the others do with him using some support spells at time. Miriel attacks as usual but realises after 10 minutes of battle that the enemy numbers were too great with their own and with the two other parties not as strong individually as them. This gap caused 2 of the caravans to be destroyed while Miriel had to use Boost and Living Ice to summon two large Ice Lions into form with Sain summoning Bright Luna to help support and take out most of the red named players before they retreated. Sain sighed seeing that he was bored with Miriel thinking something similar even though they still had a hard enough time.

Months pass with Lyndis and Shadow being about to reach the final boss room...in between a safe area they barely made with a massive amount of zombies around them. In a nutshell, they are outnumbered to the point that they couldn't even escape now though Lyndis is convinced with enough explosives things will be find with Shadow being not fine with that since he would probably be blown up as well. Both of them resort in using Boost immediately with Lyndis making a large opening to the boss room doors while Shadow trying to maintain that opening with his clones for both of them to get through. They do though somehow Shadow regrets it seeing the actually Boss monster in question. It was a large 5 metre tall hulk like creature with arms taking half its width and with a small head that looked misplaced or stuck on later. The two fight it immediately and it is surprising and near impossibly fast for its size. Lyndis is tempted on using Mankai to finish it off in one go but Shadow tells her that only Sain knew what to do to use it and was it worth sacrificing something for something on this level. The two target the boss' legs but find out that it can also 'walk' using its arms like a gorilla and a roar can stun them for a second which was usually enough to kill them in one hit. Naturally they do this over several deaths and retries fighting the boss monster and eventually with a combination of lots and lots of Burning Napon Traps, the Boss dies and leaves a journal and a book on all forms of life and a way out. Lyndis thinks both of them are a waste of time and the two split ways at last.

Some more time passes with each member of the group group gradually getting stronger by levelling up and increasing their skills and spells' levels. In the mist of this, a certain Luke in reality had found Lyndis in game and had taken it to himself to 'conquer' her since his efforts in reality wasn't much in that department. By stalking and hiring other people to stalk her, Luke goes in when Lyndis is in trouble with some monster to try and save her. Lyndis being herself, easily dispatches the enemies quickly by the time Luke was struggling to get to her while afterwards making an off comment that he was kinda weak. This infuriated Luke to no end and damaged his pride, especially since Lyndis was suppose to be lower level than him and thus weaker. As such, he hired some relatively high levelled player to kidnap Lyndis to prove he was stronger than her by 'saving' her after she is captured. A week later, Lyndis is knocked out by several of the players Luke hires and is brought into a castle that Luke's Independent Guild manages.

Shadow gets wind of what happened and with great annoyance, contacted Sain to ask on what the hell he should do. Sain replies on whether Shadow can just save her on his own and Shadow replies that even with his stealth skills, getting in was extremely difficult and getting out, especially with Lyndis was next to impossible. However the good thing is that Miriel finds out that the Independent Guild is relatively new and has an average level of around 250 with only some above level 300 and fewer above level 400. Due to this, Sain contacts the rest of the group and they all meet around a few kilometres from the castle and discuss the plan on saving Lyndis with Miriel not really wanting to, Sain in a blank expression, Raven being silent, Serena being worried and Shadow stressing out more than he liked. Both Sain and Miriel commented that they had to end a guard duty quest early thanks to this. Sain asks and finds out that their average level was around 240 at best. He tells them that they need to train to at least level 260 since facing level 400 players would be that much harder even if they were money based players that lacked true skills and depended on items brought with cash for their strengths.

Meanwhile, Lyndis woke up to find that Luke was the one who ordered her captured. She hears him rant about something about not going to plan and how she screwed everything up in a high pitch voice. Listening through, Lyndis had little chance to getting out by herself and logs off when she could even though she was trapped and bound in a cell. Outside the game, the group meet up where Maria express that she was captured and is in a castle. Much to her surprise, no one was surprised at this news and said that they were working to get her out of there. Hina points out why Eden or other members help out while Shadow snorts that level since they reached level 200, the hand holding stopped and it would cost them. Maria shouts on why they are being nice to her and not being angry at her and Peter immediately says that she's the one who was angry at him and not the other way around. He express some regrets on what happened when they last met but pretty much pulled it under the rug. Maria still unsure decides to wait until whether they save her or not to trust them, or really just Peter again to at least the level when they first met.

A month later with Sain's extra special hell grinding trip in a level 350 dungeon, the group save Lyndis who pretty much decided to stay logged out until near when the rest of the group would come. The group met up near the castle at near dawn since people would relax and let their guard down the most at that time. The five went in quick smoothly and straight to Lyndis thanks to Shadow and Miriel being able to detect people around them. Plus Miriel has a silencing spell so it just made it so much easier to get around undetected.

On Lyndis' side, Luke made another round at Lyndis by screaming at her on how everything was her fault and that his genius was wasted on such a useless person. Although unable to move or use most spells, she still had her thermal sensing skill and felt five people storm into the room knocking Luke out quite easily, too easily if Lyndis had anything to say about it. All of a sudden, a trap door appeared where there shouldn't be as expressed by both Miriel and Shadow who kept track of those kinds of things and all five fell down into a pit where there were strange monsters about. Seeing this along with all the stress she had thanks to Luke, Lyndis shouts out and explodes into flames activating Mankai with anger and turning into a temporary level 1000 player. In a manner of a minute, the castle burnt down into ashes and the sky was turned bright red and not due to the sun.

Seeing this kind of power, everyone except for Sain was surprised who just said this was the power of Mankai though with some displeasure. Several more minutes, the flames continued until it finally died out with Lyndis screaming about something. All five of them ran to Lyndis worried where they saw...Lyndis stuffing various pieces of food in her mouth and screaming how she couldn't taste it anymore. Shadow and Miriel immediately start laughing at her with Serena giggling. Raven had a slight smirk on her face and Sain just patted Lyndis on her shoulder and said that it seems the cost of using Mankai that time was her sense of taste.

Epilogue on Eden's side of things. It had been 3 months since he and the others had activated the transfer magic circle and allowed 5000 people, with all players paying a sum to even come thanks to Weed, they had finally made it to the final boss room where Arthur, Solomon and Kyoshiro guarded the Warrior King. With less than a hundred men left, the battle continued with Arthur, Solomon and Kyoshiro being slain by Alexandra, Viv, Weed and Seoyoon who were some of the strongest players around. Eden took this chance to get a rematch with the Warrior King along with Weed.

“Great Firestorm!” Eden shouted casing the ground and air to be consumed by a violent flame that could even bring dragons into ashes. He was not holding that much back anymore, or at least in terms to his limits in the mortal realm at least.

“Eden!” Alexandra shouted worriedly seeing Eden using one of his 'bigger' moves immediately and dragged some of the few remaining alive players under some protection spells and barriers.

“Moonlight Armour! Moonlight Sculpturing Blade!” Weed shouted covering himself in a dazzling series of light that wrapped around his armour and sword to such an extent that Eden's flames that little effect on him with 'Stone Skin' also active.

BANG!

That sole sound resounded around the room as something unexpected happened. Weed's sword was blocked, the flames were gone...and the Warrior King was there unharmed at all. Furthermore he looked amused.

“Surely this can't be all? Last time you all made more of an effort to harm me” he commented with a slight smug look on his face. Weed stayed calm though ticked at the Warrior King. Alexandra on the other hand...

“Fuck off! Sword Wave!”

A brilliant wave of light came off her sword and flew to the Warrior King and...disappeared before it even got to him. Alexandra was wide eyed at what just happened as an invisible bullet shot and hit her back along with a couple other players at once.

Seoyoon not to be undone, moved in a flash and stuck from behind the Warrior King but her sword, or body refused to move at all just before she could hit him and was flung back. Seeing this, Eden threw some Lightning Bolts at the Warrior King for it all to just move around him.

This was not the same ability that negated his attacks before...this is-

“Absolute Air Control” the Warrior King answered Eden's thoughts.

Eden gritted his teeth on this revelation and asked, “How? Your ability should be Negation am I right? Or at least it was when we first faced off.”

With a smile and immediately restricting the air in the room causing everyone to have trouble even breathing let alone moving, the Warrior King simply said, “Oh, just another ability this sword granted me at times” as a sword he recognised turned into, or back into in this case of a broken shard of a sword appeared floating above his open hand.

Eden immediately felt fear coming from that shard of a sword even though it should be more deadly when morphed into a complete sword.

“This shard...of a weapon that was once of the greatest of Kings and of Heroes is powerful...more powerful than anyone would like to think” the Warrior King explained to no one in particular though everyone was listening in, “Yes, a Destroyer like yourself should fear this since it is one of the only effective weapons against your kind...and to llyfr as well though his curse is sometimes...to almost always too much for even this shard to compare with.”

The Warrior King smiled sadly to Eden and approached him and said, “To think I would meet a Destroyer when my 'world' is long gone now” the shard turned back into a sword as he said, “Such pity since in the end we are all playing in the hands of Gods.”

Stab!

The sword went into the left hand of Eden and he felt something...invading him!

“AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

His body immediately reacted to the shard, the shard of the sword that once belonged to the Hero King, one that defied the Devourer though failed in the end. A sword that was the beginning of countless legends.

Everyone watched as the golden aura around Eden fluxed and changed several times and several manners before chains spouted out lashing at the Warrior King.

“What?!” The Warrior King was surprised was an understatement. He didn't know this would happen. How could he when he never faced a Destroyer before and never stabbed the shard that once belonged to the Original Destroyer in one who processed the part of the power of one.

The sword soon was absorbed into Eden's body as countless chains burst out of his body, all while Eden was screaming, wailing in the pain that it was causing him.

“Eden!” “Eden!”

Both Alexandra and Viv shouted in concern. They knew that Eden had an unhealthy tolerant of pain to the point they figured him to be at least an extreme masochist at one point. But it had been years, decades or to some degree a century since he screamed like this in pain.

The chains came and went as they broke apart of the giant castle that was on the floating island in the sky. The Warrior King stared in disbelief for a few seconds before making a look in realisation and then understanding.

“So that's how it is...that is my role in all of this eh?” he pondered but still said, “But I won't make this easy, at least it would prepare you all for the rest.”

Golden Chains continued to erupt from Eden's body but soon started to go BACK IN him causing him even more pain. Even Weed was a bit pale at the sight of Eden being ripped apart literally thanks to the chains. An hour, a very long hour passed until Eden stopped shouting, screaming and begging for mercy, for death and the chains to stop and to disappear.

Several worried people came to Eden's side immediately while some others avoided him in fear. Weed on the other hand ignored all of this and looked to find where the Warrior King was since at the same time as the chains stopped from Eden, the presence that forced them to not move was gone.

Weed saw an opportunity, an unguarded and unprepared Warrior King.

He took it, stabbing his sword into him.

“Hahahahaha, do you think it is that easy? Why I am...in many locations right now if you believe it” the Warrior King laughed while disappearing into golden dust before Weed's eyes. And just as he was about to think of what happened-

Ding!

The Million Warrior Kings

The Warrior King used his last resort fearing for his life. Using an ancient and powerful ability, he split himself into a million copies and spread them all about the continent though each copy is slightly different from each other in ability and strength and much weaker than the original. Slay the original for the Trial of the Emperor to end.

Rank: Unknown

Requirement:

- Kill every last Warrior King copy

- The Kingdom must last before this quest is done

Reward:

- Artefact from the Gods

Weed could not help but scream in fury and frustration of this situation. A million of that bastard was running around HIS Kingdom right now! Things became even more unfortunate in the end for him.

End: 4Y 9M

Author's Notes:

The main thing I wanted in this volume was a separation and renewal of bonds. This was naturally done by Lyndis leaving and the rest of the group breaking off for a while. You can say the ending of this volume is the start of a newer and stronger bond between the group resolving their trust issues. Plus reading this now, I was kinda tempted to do a reboot of 'The Unfortunate Fool' since Eden is easy for me to write. It comes out naturally for me.