Author's Note: It's great to be writing again! This isn't to my usual chapter length, but I'm slowly easing myself back into it. Would y'all like to see the rest of the Overgods' stats and skills? Enjoy the chapter!

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“Anyone can give up, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.”

-Unknown

Title: Lord Sky’s Heir (Active)

Name: Alexander Taylor

Class: Sky Walker

Level: 15

HP: 462/462

MP: 635/635 (1475/1475)

STR: 30

VIT: 20

DEX: 40 (60)

INT: 35 (44)

WIS: 22 (28)

LUK: 11

POINTS: 0

MONEY: 47 USD

With a self-satisfied smile, I dismissed the golden screen out of existence and stretched out next to Akito who was silently staring out towards the murky red-veined sky. Several hours had passed after the fight and we’d long since found a cave in the mountains to set up a camp of sorts.

Flashback to a couple minutes before Izzy regained consciousness

“What’s wrong with her?” Clara’s soft whisper broke all of us out of our exhaustion from our run through the mountains to the secluded cave we were now resting in.

“Mana exhaustion,” Milik clarified for her though he and everyone else were still attempting to slow their breathing.

“You’re talking about the MP bar thing?” Clara’s question was met with a nod from Akito who was leaned up against the rock wall of the cave next to Izzy’s unconscious form.

In that moment I looked over at Clara and saw her mouth set into a firm line of determination. I watched in wonder as she slowly approached Izzy’s petite body and knelt down next to her. Clara raised both her hands at Izzy and whispered something I couldn’t quite catch.

Everyone in the room was surprised when a blue glow began to emanate from Clara’s hands as she laid them on Izzy’s large chest. The next couple of moments were met with silence, but in less than half a minute, Izzy began to stir from her slumber and let out a cat-like stretch. I’m sure that everyone else in the room had the same surprised looks etched on their faces from what we’d just seen, but Clara crushed Izzy in a big hug before anyone could begin to question her new ability.

“Wha--! Clara!? What’re you doing!?” Izzy’s face began to heat up from Clara’s actions and I couldn’t help but let out a laugh that was repeated by the rest of my friends.

Izzy, after finally having wrested herself from Clara’s arms, glowered at her before looking at the rest of us in confusion and then turning her eyes on Akito.

“What happened to me?” Her face was still red from embarrassment and we all had to stifle a laugh before she set her ire on us.

Akito looked at her with amusement in his eyes, but quite passively said, “You apparently used all your mana up and that caused you to pass out.” Izzy’s eyes bulged in surprise at his response.

“But all I did was use a fireball…”

I cleared my throat causing Izzy to focus on me and said, “You might want to check out exactly how those green flames of yours work since they were different from the flames you used in the tower right before we left it.”

Moments later, she furrowed her eyebrows in concentration and I could tell she was looking through the skills feature of the Infinity Complex to read up on her skill. After several minutes she finally swiped her hand through the air to, I could only guess, dismiss her window screens from her view. The rest of us looked at her in expectation, but she turned her eyes down to the ground as a blush crept up to her cheeks once more.

“Well, my flames aren’t differently colored because I’m weaker than any other fire user—” She quickly shot daggers at me with her eyes and I cringed at my lack of tact from when I’d said that to her in the tower. “But they don’t only change color according to my mood like you thought, Alex.” Everyone waited several moments to wait for her explanation, but when none were forthcoming, Kyra broke the silence.

“So, are you going to fill us in or not?” Kyra’s green eyes flashed with a hint of annoyance at Izzy and this only served to fire her up.

“It just has different skills and colors depending on my emotions! It’s nothing you have to concern yourself with geez!” Izzy’s face was now red with anger and she looked ready to shoot lasers from her eyes.

Seeing that the situation was escalating in a direction that was unwarranted, I was about to speak up, but Akito beat me to it.

“Izzy, it’s okay to have been afraid.” His words caused the flame in Izzy’s eyes to die down. Kyra watched her uncertainly for a moment before looking away without saying anything to her. Izzy slowly lied back down and let loose a long sigh.

We all sat in an uncomfortable silence for nearly a minute lost in our own thoughts before I decided to speak.

“Izzy, I’m sorry.” She was clearly surprised by my apology as she shot back up and looked at me in astonishment.

“What do you have to be sorry for? You didn’t—”

She began to rebuff my apology, but I quickly cut her off, “No. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have asked you to do something you weren’t ready for. What if mana exhaustion had caused you to go into a coma or even die? It was under my orders that you used that big fireball earlier. So, I’m sorry.”

She sat there for a moment before slowly standing up and drawing herself up to her full five foot two inches. I looked up at her waiting to see what she would do before in the next instant I found myself easily dodging a slap that had been aimed straight for my face. Letting out a yelp of surprise at the anger in Izzy’s eyes, I scrambled backwards until I hit the nearest wall with my back.

Izzy was stalking towards me as she said, “Idiot! You’re not supposed to dodge! Come here this instant!”

“Wait, Izzy—” My next words were cut off as her palm made contact with my face and though it stung a little bit, I was otherwise unhurt. I looked at her in bewilderment as I rubbed the spot she’d slapped, then I looked at all my friends in the cave with me. Kualin and Milik were literally falling over themselves trying not to laugh at me while the rest of them were watching in slight amusement.

“Alex!” I turned my attention back to Izzy who was still seething in my face and I flinched at being on the other end of those piercing blue eyes. Despite her small height, she was a very fierce woman.

“Erm, yes, Izzy?” I answered slowly.

“You do remember that I’m the one who said that I should be able to help in any way, don’t you?” She raised her hand violently, threatening me to disagree with her so I only responded with a quick nod and looked away in embarrassment.

She stared me down for a couple more seconds before slowly dropping her hand to her side. “Then you should know it’s not your fault,” I looked at her in confusion before she clarified for me, “I should have known my powers better than I did… and yes, I was afraid.” a red blush again crept up into her cheeks much to her chagrin. “But those green flames are a product of my fear. They burn until all the enemies are dead or until I run out of mana…so it’s not your fault.”

Memories of the invasion at my college flashed through my head. Everything that had happened that night was my fault and to find out that this wasn’t nearly caused me to tear up, but I held the tears back just barely.

“It was a good idea, Alex. Using your wind and Izzy’s flames. I do wish Izzy hadn’t burnt them all the way down though. I was thinking monster stew for dinner, you know?” Kualin’s easygoing voice broke the tension in the room and I let out a laugh despite myself. Izzy gave me a small smile before returning to her spot next to Akito a little further in the cave. Lightly slapping my cheeks, I returned to my spot in the cave next to Milik and Clara sat herself down next to me. She was looking at me weirdly, but I couldn’t guess what was bothering her.

Once everyone got comfortable, Milik asked the group, “So, just to clarify, if we run out of mana, then we’re going to instantly pass out? That’s a bit different from a lot of the video games I’ve played…”

“Well, I’d be surprised if everything was just like a video game since we’re not in one,” Kyra reminded him. “But hopefully none of us will ever be fighting alone so even if we do pass out, then we’ll be watching each other’s backs.”

A chorus of agreement met her words but I could only sigh in response.

‘Hopefully we’ll be strong enough to watch each other’s backs like that before our first battle. Draco Interfectorem…I wonder how strong they’ll be…We can only hope to gain as much strength in the week that we have before reaching the ‘Plains of Death’ that the Overlords messaged us about.’

“Alright, everyone.” The young Overgods turned their attention to me and I took a calming breath before saying, “We should look at our map and figure out where the Plains of Death are…for the fight.” I could almost feel everyone’s mood drop in response to my words, but it’s not like we could put it off any longer.

‘Map,’ I thought to myself silently. I had assumed another golden screen would pop into existence, but instead a mental image formed inside of my head. The image was golden and structurally flat, but it had black markings on it that I quickly realized were letters as well as different shapes. On the southern side of the map, I saw seven white triangles with each of my friends’ names next to it and one circle labeled ‘Me’ that were all located on the bottommost eastern outskirts of a long chain of larger triangles that had the words ‘Shrouded Mountains,’ running along its length.

Quickly realizing that this map was showing me the entire layout of the second floor, I was extremely surprised by just how small the area the symbols for my group were in comparison to the entirety of the mountain range and then to that of the whole new world which utterly dwarfed the shrouded mountains.

Letheron, it read at the very top of my mental image.

With a thought, I zeroed in on my group’s location and a more detailed map formed within my mind. It was almost like messing around with a map app and now I could view a fair number of trails throughout the Shrouded Mountains as well as the opening to the cave that my friends and I were in.

‘Wow. This has potential,’ I thought to myself. My thoughts quickly veered to the various ways I could use the map function in the future and I smiled at the wonders of the Infinity Complex.

Quickly zooming back out, I observed the new world, Letheron, in its entirety and began to analyze the geography of the massive continent that was apparently the second floor of the tower. Various countries or states—I wasn’t quite sure what to call them—were outlined by what I could only assume were their recognized borders and many cities, symbolized by squares, were littered across each of those countries. I could only hope that these cities were inhabited by humans or at the very least some intelligent lifeform that wouldn’t attempt to eat or skewer us on sight.

I was amazed at how detailed the map was as well as how the Infinity Complex could provide us with information that we had no inkling or knowledge of. The whole second floor was literally laid out in my mind and I quickly realized that what the Overlord had told us on the first floor was true. Each floor was a completely new world and I shuddered at how different the dangers of each floor would be if…no, when we climbed higher. With a sigh, I scanned the area next to the map and found that the wastelands we’d walked out of several hours ago had actually been the Plains of Death.

“So the Plains of Death were right next to us all along?” Pixie asked.

Nodding in response, I said, “Yeah, that’s what it looks like. The only good thing is that it’s not on the other side of the continent. I doubt we’d make it in time if it weren’t so close to us and I don’t want to think of what would happen to us if we didn’t make it to the fight in time…” My thoughts turned back to the memory of the two groups that had been burned alive on the first floor by the Overlord when they’d refused to fight. Apparently everyone else’s thoughts had run along the same path as mine as they all grimaced in response.

After a couple seconds, it was Kyra who ended up breaking the silence. “So what’s the plan?”

“I mean, we could just set this place up as some sort of camp and go fight monsters in the plains to level up and get stronger, make new skills, whatever. Right? I mean, we’ve heard that damn lightning go off once more already and that’s just nearby so I doubt there’s a shortage of monsters out there.” Kualin’s words pretty much resonated with what I was thinking and I quickly gave my support.

“I completely agree. We don’t know how strong the aliens are going to be and we need to gain some combat experience. Even then, it may not be enough. I have a feeling that if the Overlords chose ten separate races to climb the tower, then their potentials should all be roughly equal. Otherwise, the fights would all be boring and one-sided.”

As I finished speaking, I looked at my friends and could tell that they agreed even if it was a sucky thing to realize.

Flashback End

After agreeing to stay in the cave for the week before the fight, we’d had some light conversation for a couple hours and ate some of the food that Milik and I had raided from the fridge before leaving the first floor. I had eyed the alcohol in my inventory for a bit, but decided against it. There was sure to be a better time for it and being in a mountain range at the edge of a place dubbed the Plains of Death didn’t seem like the best place to get drunk.

After dinner, we’d all laid out our sleeping bags and I had nearly died from happiness when Clara set hers only a couple inches away from mine. I’d had the biggest smile on my face causing her to blush and look away, but she’d laid in the sleeping bag anyways. I’d just finished adjusting my stats and gotten relaxed in my sleeping bag when the silence was broken.

“I’ll take first watch.” Hearing Akito’s deep voice, I slowly extracted myself from my sleeping bag. The light pops of my cracking bones accompanied the movement and I sighed in contention.

“I’ll take watch with you. I’ve got some things I want to work on anyways and guys—” I looked back at the rest of my friends who were preparing to sleep and said, “Don’t forget to distribute the points you all got from leveling up today.” With that said, I looked at Clara and smiled her way. She looked a little upset for some reason, but smiled back at me anyways. I felt my heart lighten a little at her beautiful smile and wished more than anything to keep her safe in the tower.

Moving to the front of the cave entrance with Akito, I took a seat and sighed at the sight of the dark sky that was still pulsing and letting off occasional bolts of red lightning. Akito and I sat there staring out at the mountain range and Plains of Death from where we sat for a couple minutes as our friends behind us fell asleep.

“Do you think they noticed?” Akito’s low words broke me from my reverie of thoughts and I looked at him in confusion.

“Noticed what?” His brown eyes looked directly at mine and I saw them soften for a hint of a second.

“Do you think they noticed when you looked like you were going to start crying when Izzy was hounding you earlier?” His words caused me to freeze and my heart started thumping in embarrassment.

“I…It was nothing. I had just remembered something terrible when she was lecturing me is all.” I waved his worries off and calmed myself back to normal. He watched me with curiosity for a moment before turning his attention back out to the landscape. Silence reigned for another minute before he spoke to me again.

“I know you didn’t want to tell us what happened to you when the Overlords invaded the world, but if it’s holding your decision-making skills back as our leader, then I can’t help but worry.” I was momentarily surprised by how talkative Akito was being when he’d given off this impression of a strong, but silent type of guy and then his words finally reached my brain.

‘Me? The leader?’ I said it slowly in my head, letting the word roll around for a bit. I then thought back to that night and grimaced in response.

I shook my head at him and said, “Trust me when I say I’m not a leader.” Akito showed surprise for a moment before shaking his head back at me.

“You don’t see it then?”

“See what?” I replied in annoyance to his matter of fact tone.

He rolled his eyes at me and let out a small smile. “Don’t you see that all of us have been following you since the beginning?” My eyes widened at his words, but he cut me off before I could reply. “Ever since we walked into the tower, we’ve looked to you to explain the Infinity Complex, how to use mana, how we should fight, and you turned that worst-case scenario earlier into an easy win.”

“But Izzy—”

“Yeah, she passed out from mana exhaustion. It could’ve been worse, but it was the best plan we had at the time and we’re all here now alive and well. You need to start trusting us just like we trust you regardless of what happened to you that night. Because we have been trusting you.” I paused at his words and, after several moments, I only had one question.

No longer caring how he might view me I said, “I led a lot of people to die that night. They followed me. You don’t know a thing about me…so why me?”

He rubbed his bald head and said in a serious tone, “I’m not so sure myself. I know we’re a team and we’ll get through this together, but we need a leader. Something about you gives me this feeling that you’re it. And the rest of them,” He gestured to the sleeping figures of the other Overgods, “…have that feeling too.”

I didn’t have a response for that, so I just let his words stew in my mind. Did I have to be a leader to my friends? Do I have what it takes for that kind of responsibility? What was it about me that gave them the feeling that I could lead them?

Shaking my head, I expelled those questions from my mind.

‘If my friends need me then I won’t let them down. Simple as that. Leader or not, I’ll just keep on doing what I’m doing and protect them all.’ These new thoughts allowed me to calm down and I gave a firm nod to Akito who’d been waiting for a response from me.

He nodded back and slowly picked himself up off the ground. I looked at him in question until he dropped down into a push-up position.

“Missed my workout today.” I sweat dropped at his actions and only gave him a nod before he began turning out push-ups like a machine.

While he exercised, I grabbed a hold of my mana and laced the air around me with it.

Time to get to work.