Demon Lords (World-Tree Trilogy Book 2)

by EA Hooper

  “Stop right there,” his wife said sternly. “You told me next time I died, we would take a little vacation. You should’ve been waiting for me at Risegard.”

  “Vacation?” Noah questioned. “Didn’t we just take one?”

  “That was eight years ago,” Amelia said. “You promised we’d visit some more pleasant worlds. Maybe backtrack to Nottinghym to check out that player resort.”

  “But Nottinghm is so far,” Noah protested. “That’d waste over a year of our time.”

  “Everything we do here is to waste time,” Amelia said. “The only benefit of fighting monsters nonstop is that I lose lots of time respawning. Even that’s been slowing down though, since we’re so strong. Why not waste a few years enjoying ourselves?”

  “I enjoy fighting monsters,” Noah countered. “I mean—we enjoy it.”

  Isaac’s comment from earlier in the day tugged at his heart, and he couldn’t help but notice his wife’s beautiful face looked more worn than he remembered. He thought that had been a consequence of constant battles, but even after respawning, the lines on her face looked harder, and her eyes seemed dimmer.

  “You still enjoy this, right?” Noah asked. “When we first joined this game, you were as eager as I was to fight monsters and explore worlds. You were up for any challenge. The two of us could defeat any boss.”

  “Noah,” she said, her voice weak. “We’re just fighting the same monsters repeatedly. We rarely leave this world, and we can’t even talk to our friends, since communication is limited here. I might’ve grown numb to dying repeatedly, but that hasn’t made this easier. With each passing year, I’m losing the will to keep going. It seems so pointless. Does it even matter if we defeat the angels—if we beat this game?”

  “It does!” Noah shouted. “We’ve gotten so far. Our team was the strongest in the entire World-Tree. We were going to be the first to reach the top. Once we have a child, we both know we won’t have as much time for gaming. Being trapped here is our opportunity to beat this game before starting our next journey. Don’t you want to see what’s at the top?”

  “I do,” Amelia said, but her husband heard the doubt in her voice.

  Noah took his wife’s hands and held them tight. “My love—my everything. Our time here will only feel like half an hour when we finally log out. It’ll all be distant, compressed memories. I’m only asking for half an hour to beat this game. Then we’ll go out to dinner to celebrate your pregnancy. We’ll use some of the money we’ve made off gameplay footage to go on a long, long vacation. Anywhere in the world you want. Just let me finish this game first. I’m begging you.”

  Amelia’s eyes looked a little brighter, and she flashed a loving smile. “Alright, sweetie. I’ll give you till the end of the update to beat the game.”

  Chapter 10 | Year 93

  Player: Vincent the Wanderer

  Location: Illian (World) | Redshield (City) | The Pits (District)

  Class: Ranger

  Subclass: Mage

  Vitality: Lv 186

  Spirit*: Lv 195

  Resolve: Lv 178

  Perception*: Lv 201

  Agility: Lv 186

  Strength: Lv 185

  The crowds roared and cheered as a team of players in the nearest pit fought off several drakes. Every time someone skewered a monster, or a drake ripped off the head or limb of a player, a flash of white light restored their bodies. Vincent eyed the restoration runes that covered the walls of the pit, remembering his battle with Fynn and Lucas.

  Vincent and Xan moved away from the pit and worked their way through the crowd. Within minutes, they made their way to a similar pit. Viewing runes watched each of the dozen or so arenas and transmitted fights to other worlds.

  Around thirty-thousand players populated Redshield, and Vincent would’ve guessed almost half were at the Pits that day. From what he’d heard, Redshield was a popular stopping point for players that had challenged themselves to climb higher. Just reaching the next City-World, Styxis, was difficult enough, and once there, you had to deal with the never-ending attacks by the Demon Lord and his devils.

  The two friends continued to the next arena, finally finding who they were looking for. At the bottom of the pit, surrounded by a dozen other players, stood Quinn. The fierce woman had created several Breaker Doppelgangers, clones that could use her Breaker spell, to fend off half of the players while she tore through the others with Gravity Fist. She Vanished through attacks, striking foes with Breaker as she reappeared. Vincent thought he even saw her use Phaseshift, a spell developed by Jim to let him pass through enemies and attacks.

  A bell sounded, and all the players stopped to drink ethers. Soon a second alarm rang, and they returned to killing each other. After two more minutes of fighting, Quinn ran out of mana. Without her Gravity Shield to slow attacks, one foe finally caught her off guard and stabbed her in the heart.

  “Rambo Joe gets the kill!” an announcer shouted. “Congrats to him for winning the prize.”

  All the players but Quinn left the arena. Guildsmen brought her more ethers, and she drank up. Those men left, and then another team of twelve players stepped into the arena.

  “They’re treating her like a monster battle,” Vincent noted. “Whoever kills her first gets the prize.”

  “Yeah, you’ve never watched transmissions of her fights?” Xan asked.

  “No, I wasn’t on a close enough world to get those broadcasts until I met up with you,” Vincent explained. “She’s told me about her battles, but I didn’t imagine they’d be like this.”

  He watched Quinn slaughter another team. After a few minutes, they finally wore her down, and two players hit her with Mana Cannon at once. The blasts tore her apart, and the announcer congratulated the combatants, saying the two killers would split the prize.

  “I’ll send her a message and tell her we’re here,” Xan said.

  “Wait a sec,” Vincent told her. He equipped his Mysterious Mask, hiding his name and levels. “I’m going to challenge her.”

  “Seriously?” Xan asked. “Doesn’t she know about your mask?”

  “No, I never told her about it or the gun,” Vincent said. “It’s always been my plan to show up in disguise to fight her.”

  Xan shook her head. “Go on, then. I think I saw a tunnel leading to the pits over that way.”

  “Don’t need it,” Vincent replied, working through the crowd.

  After the guildsmen cleared broken equipment from the arena and left, Vincent used Zero Field to throw himself over the crowd. He landed on his feet in the pit and equipped Song of Peace. A momentary thought crossed his mind, and he grabbed Builder’s Tome too.

  This thing already proved useful in combat once before.

  Quinn turned to the arena’s intruder, eyeing his gun and book. “What’s this about? Why can’t I see your player profile?”

  “A masked man has jumped into the arena!” the announcer shouted. “Our Rangers say Scan is giving little information. How strange! It looks like he wants to solo Pit Boss Quinn.”

  Vincent aimed his gun, firing off a shockwave that Quinn sidestepped. A smirk crossed the woman’s face, and she rocketed toward him, crossing the arena in a split-second. The masked man had already willed his tome to flip to a page with walls. He raised a several-meter-thick wall between them, but Quinn smashed through it with Gravity Fist.

  Vincent used his tome to create a tower below his feet. He took another shot at Quinn, but she dove out of the way, launching a Gravity Wave at the base of the tower. The stone fractured, starting a collapse, but the masked man leapt away.

  Vincent landed and rolled on the other side of the arena. Before Quinn could turn, he had his gun aimed at her. She sprinted toward him, but Vincent waited to take his shot. Several copies of the Fighter appeared, sparking with Breaker magic.

  The masked man swapped his gun for Guardian’s Blade. With a horizontal swing, he sent a wave of ghostfire across the battlefield. The change of weaponr
y seemed to have caught Quinn off guard, and the ghostfire ate through her doppelgangers. She held up her arms, blocking the attack with armguards that warped and melted.

  Vincent swapped back to Song of Peace and pulled the trigger. A shockwave hit Quinn in the chest. Even with her Gravity Shield, the blast knocked her off her feet. Vincent switched once more to Guardian’s Blade and released another wave of ghostfire while the woman was down. At the same time, he used his tome to raise walls behind and to the sides of Quinn to make it difficult to escape.

  Quinn raised her hand, casting a Gravity Wave that batted away the ghostfire and tossed Vincent against the pit wall. She took off in another sprint, a bloodthirsty look on her face.

  Vincent equipped his Specter’s Pendant and used its once-a-day ability. A ghostly, green knight appeared between the two players.

  Quinn must’ve been too low on mana for another Gravity Fist, because instead she charged her fists with Breaker. The knight slashed her once, cutting her chest, but the woman struck the ghostly figure with a flurry of blows. Its green armor cracked and shattered, and after six quick hits, the specter dissolved.

  The masked man fired off another shockwave. This time, Quinn didn’t have the mana for Gravity Shield to slow it. It blasted her backward, shattering the undamaged part of her light armor. Vincent strolled across the arena to find Quinn lying on the ground. The restoration runes had repaired her injuries, but she still looked tired and defeated.

  He aimed Song of Peace at her head.

  “Do it,” she growled.

  “Pit Boss Quinn?” Vincent questioned with a mocking tone. “Are you some kind of boss battle now?”

  Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “What the—Vince?”

  Vincent pulled off the mask, letting his equipment vanish. Before he could speak again, the pit-fighter had jumped to her feet and embraced him in a rib-crushing hug.

  “You old son of a bitch!” Quinn shouted. “I should’ve known you’re the only person on the World-Tree crazy enough to fight me by yourself.”

  When she finally let him go, Vincent added her to the party.

  “Well, this is one amazing turn of events!” the announcer shouted. “Our Rangers say the masked man was none other than Vincent the Eldritch himself.”

  Only then did Vincent notice the crowd cheering and screaming in delight. He peered around at the masses, watching as Xan leapt into the pit to run over and hug Quinn.

  “My god, and now Alexandria has joined them!” the announcer shouted, sounding like he might faint. “What a reunion we’re witnessing, people. From what Quinn has said in interviews, she hasn’t seen these two in a long time. Unfortunately, this likely means the end of an era here at the Redshield Pits. Quinn has said for years she was waiting on her friends to climb again. I just want to take this opportunity to thank Quinn for all her exciting battles. Quinn, you inspired me and many others to make it this far up the World-Tree. I wish you and your friends the greatest of luck—but I don’t think you’ll need it!”

  The crowd roared even louder, and Vincent heard shouts of goodwill from Quinn’s many fans. He thought he saw tears in her eyes, but he lost sight of her face when she turned for the exit. At the tunnel beyond, they found rows of teary-eyed warriors. Men and women stopped the trio to shake Quinn’s hand. They thanked her for her battles, for inspiring them, and for challenging them to grow stronger. A few even hugged her, saying they’d meet her again higher on the World-Tree when they were better prepared.

  “Do you need more time here?” Vincent asked. “We don’t have to leave right away if these people need you.”

  “It’s fine,” Quinn replied. “They knew this was coming.”

  As they tried to leave the Pits, they found a horde of fans stopping them to talk to Quinn one last time. She got hundreds of handshakes and dozens of hugs. The famous pit-fighter tried to keep a stoic look on her face as they worked through the crowd, but Vincent knew her well enough to see how much emotion she was holding back.

  It took almost an hour for their team to make it to the city’s Daiglass Tower with the crowd following them, and a couple hours passed before they finally reached the Jump Gate. Thirty or so players had stayed with them the entire way, talking to Quinn like old friends.

  “I’ll keep in touch,” Quinn told them as she stepped onto the Jump Gate. “You all better get strong enough to find me again on the high-tier worlds.”

  Quinn’s friends waved and shouted goodbye as the three teammates activated their Jump Crystals and floated to the sky. Soon, the group looked like ants in the distance.

  >Alexandria: Aw, Quinn. I didn’t know you were so beloved on this world.

  >Vincent: Yeah, you didn’t tell me you had so many friends there.

  >Quinn: Friends with those weaklings? Nah, I only want them to find me again when they’re stronger, so I can fight them when they’re more of a challenge.

  >Alexandria: Yeah, sure. You already miss them. I can hear it in your voice.

  >Quinn: We just reunited and you two are already grating my nerves. How about we focus on the worlds ahead?

  They flew toward a reddish world that Quinn had told Vincent about. He went ahead and True Scanned it to see if there was any information Quinn wouldn’t know about.

  Kardak – Classification: Nature-World | Size: Medium (size and composition statistics minimized by the user) | Fact #1: Kardak is a mostly barren world with little plant life. | Fact #2: Only 4% of players that try to cross this world succeed. | Fact #3: Most common enemies are golems.

  Kardak (Removed Information) – Note #1: The golems of this world are made by the World Boss, Eosin the Serene. | Note #2: The World Boss encounter is currently restricted. | Note #3: Eosin must remain hidden beneath the Clay Mountain, building golems that are transported across Kardak through portals in spots outside of players’ view.

  Vincent read the information as he landed on the Jump Gate. When he willed the HUD away, he found himself staring across a red flatland dotted by crystal structures. Out of curiosity, he approached the nearest crystal, which took an almost tree-like shape.

  “Don’t mind those things,” Quinn said. “Those crystals are worthless. Kardak is only dotted with them to hide the golems.”

  Maybe I should check it with True Scan. No telling what other players have missed without an ability like that.

  After filtering out the useless information, he found one thing about the crystal structure that intrigued him.

  Soft Crystal Tree – Alchemic Rating 30%

  “The alchemic rating is thirty,” Vincent noted. “That’s not too bad.”

  “Didn’t you say gild has ninety?” Xan questioned. “And that skyglass we found has ninety-nine.”

  “But look how much of this stuff there is,” Vincent said, staring at similar structures across the red landscape. “It’s perfect for feeding into my Builder’s Tome.”

  Quinn charged her fist with Breaker and hit the structure, shattering the crystal into a thousand pieces. Vincent quickly gathered all of it and sacrificed the items to his tome.

  Builder Points: 8,401

  “Not bad,” Vincent said, noticing it had gone up by a few hundred points. “A single piece of skyglass would give me more than that entire tree, but I don’t want to waste a material that’s so strong.”

  “Are we really about to farm for crystals to feed your book?” Quinn asked.

  “You saw how useful my tome was against you,” Vincent noted. “It doesn’t require mana, either, so this might be the most useful item I’ve ever come across. Imagine how helpful this would’ve been on Eramar? We could’ve made tunnels between dungeons. Blocked off enemies when we needed to rest. Built houses in minutes instead of months, although my tome doesn’t give me the option of marsto—”

  “Okay, I get it,” Quinn huffed. “I’ll help you farm crystals, but only because I haven’t seen you in so long and I know you love tinkering with boring stuff. We’ll have to keep up our guard, however. This wor
ld has strong golems that jump you out of nowhere. Barely anyone makes it across this world. I even got killed a couple times just trying to hit up dungeons.”

  “I saw with True Scan that the World Boss makes golems and teleports them around the planet,” Vincent said.

  “World Boss?” Quinn questioned. “No one’s ever seen Kardak’s World Boss. I tried to find it after one of the guilds in Redshield put out a bounty for it.” She held out a rune contract for her friends to accept.

  Missing World Boss (Bounty Quest) – The Caramel Huntsmen want to know about the World Boss on Kardak. If you find and kill the boss, this contract will tag its location and provide the guild with basic information, and the 20,000-gild reward will be split between teammates and sent to their storage inventory. | Do you accept? (Yes/No)

  “Did that upgraded Scan of yours tell you anything else?” Quinn asked as her friends accepted the quest.

  Vincent searched his HUD for the catalogue where everything he Scanned was saved. “Looks like the boss is under the Clay Mountain. The encounter is supposed to be restricted, but I might be able to use my tome to open a tunnel. See, Quinn, this item opens countless new doorways. It’s not boring.”

  Quinn shrugged, leading them to the next crystal tree. “So long as I get to fight a new boss, I’m happy.” She shattered it with a punch, and Vincent grabbed the shards.

  “We might even get another token,” Xan said, following them across the landscape. “I’m assuming no one else has found this World Boss.”

  “Who cares, those tokens are useless,” Quinn replied.

  “No, Vincent traded some he’d collected to an NPC for Soulbound items,” Xan explained.

  Quinn turned her head to Vincent. “Wait—what? Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “I was keeping it a secret so I could jump you at the arena,” Vincent said. “That’s where I got my mask and the power source to my hand cannon.”

  “Is that where you got your book and the pendant that summoned that green knight?” Quinn asked.