Demon Lords (World-Tree Trilogy Book 2)

by EA Hooper

  A smile formed on Vincent’s face, and his eyes filled with tears at the thought of rescuing Jim and Quinn after so many years. Preparation had taken much longer than anyone wanted, but surprisingly, Quinn had sent them messages saying not to worry if they needed more time. Isaac had dropped her and the few remaining unpossessed players into massive pits lined with restoration and anti-magic runes, where they fought endlessly. To Quinn, it was almost a dream come true.

  Most of Risegard’s population had given in after years of torture, accepting any deal the Demon Lord offered them, but a few like Quinn and Fynn had never given themselves over to the devils. They’d caused Isaac as much trouble as possible over the years, even demolishing restoration runes in several sections of the city before getting forced into anti-magic pits.

  Vincent shattered his Debuff Chains, and the shockwave slammed all three ants against the wall of the Kill Chamber. The monsters regained their balance and rushed him, but in that time, Vincent spent most of his mana to recharge his shield. Their blades bounced off him, barely leaving scratches thanks to the spell he’d developed by combining Density Field and Gravity Shield.

  Density Shield (Requires Gravity Shield | Requires Density Field) – Mana Usage: Very High | Creates a powerful density field throughout the user’s body, giving their flesh a 500 rating and their bones a 600 rating. The user’s natural healing process is halted while this shield is active, and the effects of healing items and spells are diminished by 30%. The user’s Agility and Resolve are also reduced by 30%. Equipping heavy clothing, including most kinds of armor, will automatically disable this shield.

  While the ants slashed at him, Vincent calmly drank enough ethers to restore his mana. He gestured at the monsters, and pitch-black flames appeared around his hand.

  Voidfire (Requires Impact Blaze) – Mana Usage: High+ | Unleashes a wave of negative energy that imitates a fireball that explodes on impact.

  Vincent struck the middle ant with the spell, incinerating its upper body before the explosion spread outward and consumed the other two. All three ants died in an instant, but using it at close range burned Vincent’s flesh, even with a negative energy shield diminishing the effects.

  A flash of white light restored his body, and he equipped a casual outfit made of 300-rated zenfabric that had been enchanted with Self-Resew to mend itself after taking damage. Juniper and Keith had used a lot of soma in the last few years to alchemize the fabric just so Vincent would have several sets of clothes that actually lasted to the end of a battle.

  Feeling too excited to take the stairs, Vincent opened a hole in the ceiling with Builder’s Tome and lifted himself out of the Kill Chamber with Zero Field. He’d long ago upgraded that spell with Lightweight, which meant he could use it on players for less mana. Despite Density Shield making his body heavier, it didn’t seem to affect how easily Zero Field could move him, making the spell even more useful with his reduced mobility.

  Vincent floated to the next floor, finding himself in the refinery they’d built next to Juniper’s forge. Xan’s developments with world magic had eventually led to her finding an underground vein, and thanks to a lot of Builder Points they’d built a pipeline that Juniper could use to make the rest of the skyglass weapons they’d asked for decades ago.

  Vincent hovered in the air for a moment, looking around the refinery he’d helped build. His Stationary upgrade to Zero Field reduced the cost of holding objects in place, so his mana barely trickled away while he stayed there.

  After sealing the hole he’d made between floors, he floated over to the forge in the next chamber. Vincent had learned a lot working with Juniper as she designed weapons and armor. The upgrades she’d added to the chamber, like the ones at her old forge on Risegard, had been pivotal to developing his powers further. Last he checked, Vincent’s tuning fork showed him at 74% with Fire Frequency and an impressive 92% with Zero Frequency.

  Vincent looked around, surprised to find no one in the forge. Once they’d gotten a large group of players onto Lavrin, it seemed there were always people going to and from the forge and the mines they’d set up that branched off from the Darkhive. It felt strange to him to see the forge’s runes dimmed.

  Vincent made a new opening above him and rose to the ground floor of the outpost, which had been made into a recreational room. Most of the players they brought to Lavrin had not been prepared for the high level of difficulty, or even the high gravity, so it’d been common in the early days to see people resting and trying to mentally prepare themselves to tackle the hell ants once again.

  Shouts and cheers called from outside, and Vincent realized right away why the outpost looked abandoned. He stepped out to find of a couple hundred players gathered in a circle to watch something. The clanking of chitin blades became louder as he approached the group where Juniper stood in the back, jumping up and down to get a view of the fight.

  Vincent cast Zero Field on himself and Juniper and raised them above the crowd so they could watch Xan and Zhang spar. Their chitin blades clashed so fast, it almost reminded Vincent of a heavy-metal drum beat from bands he used to listen to in his youth.

  “What’s their record this year?” Vincent asked Juniper.

  “Fifty and fifty,” she replied.

  With the two combatant’s superhuman movements, Vincent wondered if even half the crowd saw more than a blur. However, with his high Perception, he could focus on the battle and watch all of their intricate steps and strikes.

  Zhang’s normally calm face looked tense, and Vincent could tell he was struggling against the girl’s style, which seemed to have grown more aggressive over the years. Xan’s face, however, looked almost blank.

  “Does Xan seem out of it to you?” Juniper asked. “If she’s not paying attention, she’ll lose this for sure.”

  “No, she’s in the zone,” Vincent replied. “I know that look well from all my years of gaming. It’s when instinct meets perfect concentration. She’s got this.”

  Vincent caught the slightest movement of Zhang’s foot sliding back an inch. His guard is slipping, he realized. Zhang’s next swipe looked a little off, and Xan knocked his blade away with ease. His moves are getting sloppier the longer the fight goes on.

  No one else in the crowd seemed to have caught the minor change in Zhang’s movement, and people that had bet on him continued to cheer and shout that they thought he would win. As seconds passed, the Ice Knight grew more defensive, then ferocious, and then desperate.

  The fight suddenly ended with a single misstep from Zhang that led to Xan holding her blade against his throat. Her side cheered in victory, but most of the Ice Knight’s fans looked at each other in confusion at what had happened.

  Juniper cheered, shouting into Vincent’s ear. “Woo! It was hard to see what happened, but I’m happy Xan won!”

  Xan smiled as she lowered her blade, but she reached out to high-five Zhang. “Great fight.”

  The Ice Knight looked disappointed, but he smiled as well and returned her high-five. “Yeah, you were amazing. Didn’t make a single misstep or give me any openings.”

  The rest of the cheering died down, but a single person continued to clap obnoxiously loud. “What a show!” a familiar voice called. “Madam and sir, you two are really something else!”

  A man with a straw hat pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He approached Xan and Zhang, reaching out to shake their hands. Both players paused before accepting the gesture. After getting them both to shake, the man looked up at Vincent and Juniper hovering over the crowd.

  “Hello, Mr. Vince!” Archie shouted.

  “You know this guy?” Juniper asked.

  “That’s Archie,” Vincent said, moving them toward the NPC.

  Juniper looked at Archie. “Oh, you’re that traveling trader guy?”

  “Yep, that’s me,” Archie said, shaking Juniper’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you, miss. Oh, I see you’re from the Critical Illness Server? You know, I thought about hopping
over there and becoming a clown for the kids, but ARKUS wouldn’t let me.”

  “There’s enough clowns over there already,” Juniper replied. “Trust me, those kids probably got tired of clowns a century ago.”

  “Are you here to trade for tokens?” Xan asked the NPC. “Zhang and Amelia have a bunch.”

  “No, that’s not actually why I’m here,” Archie said. “I’ve been keeping an eye out on your camp—war camp? War outpost? Anyways, I can’t help but notice you’re all getting ready to go fight the big fight, am I right?”

  “Yeah, I have the spells I need to destroy the Foundry,” Xan said. “We’ve been away from our friends on Risegard long enough. It’s time to stop Isaac.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Archie said nervously. “I actually don’t think you’re ready yet.”

  “It’s been four decades,” Xan said. “We can’t leave our friends there any longer.”

  “I know you’re all very powerful,” Archie replied, “but I don’t think you fully know what you’re up against. Isaac was quite devilish with his plan. He finished that big trench around the city and filled it with anti-magic runes, then he put up a big wall around the entire thing.”

  “We heard about that from our friends,” Vincent said. “I can use my Builder’s Tome to bypass the trench.”

  “Not if there’s an army of devils attacking you while you cross,” Archie said. “I’ve been doing a little snooping into Isaac’s forces. He has about five thousand devils and three thousand drone knights. Oh, and almost three thousand possessed players.”

  “We have higher levels and better gear,” Juniper replied.

  Archie glanced around. “How many people do you have?” he asked. “Actually, no need to answer, I have the data right here. Five hundred fifty-six players. All with at least one stat over two hundred. That’s impressive, don’t get me wrong, but you’re talking about five hundred versus eleven thousand. You’re going up against enemies whose only goal is to knock you into anti-magic pits. With odds like those, you might as well wait for Isaac’s Devil Quest to complete itself. At this rate, it should only take about sixty more years.”

  “We’re not leaving our friends to suffer for sixty more years,” Xan said, anger rising in her voice.

  “That’s not what I’m suggesting,” Archie replied, holding his hands up in feigned fear. “I have a solution that will make the numbers a little fairer. However, it requires that I borrow Vincent for a quest to Elfry.”

  “Just Vincent?” Zhang asked. “Maybe a few of us should go with him.”

  “Sorry, this is a modification of a quest Vincent already possesses,” Archie said. “He won’t be able to bring friends into the instance without disabling the quest. That was a trigger I couldn’t take out without breaking the quest, but I can go with him as an NPC, and it won’t affect it.”

  “A modification of what quest?” Vincent asked.

  “The one with this fellow here,” Archie said.

  The NPC waved at the air, and the apparition of Izrid, First King of the Devils, appeared before Vincent. In the past, only he had been able to see the ghost, but this time the nearby players all reacted, drawing and pointing their weapons at the figure.

  “What is that?” Zhang asked.

  “It’s just a quest ghost Vincent picked up during his journeys,” Archie explained. “Its presence has been tied to his character this entire time, but it only appears under the right conditions. Normally the quest would have Vincent and his teammates go to Elfry and work their way to Nightmare Castle. Vincent would enter an instance that’s set in a copy of the castle’s past. The ghost would become a monster again, and Vincent would aid him in defeating the Nightmare Court in a previous time period.”

  “Way to ruin the surprise,” Vincent joked, “but how does that help us?”

  “Certain quests trigger permanent changes to the game’s setting,” Archie said. “There was a scrapped global questline that would allow an army of players to fight alongside Izrid to have him permanently replace the Nightmare Court. Then, Sinners’ City would become more accessible to players, opening new quests and special shops. ARKUS scrapped it, and the remnants became A Cold, Old Revenge. I can modify it with scraps from its predecessor, which would allow you to overthrow the Nightmare Court. However, it would be more difficult since adding this modification places us in a war. If you win, all the Nightmare Court’s henchmen would change their loyalty back to Izrid, and Isaac would lose control of his five thousand devils.”

  “What about the possessed players?” Vincent asked.

  “They’d still be possessed, and he’d still have his drone knights,” Archie noted. “So even then, the odds are pretty bad. Just not impossibly bad like they are currently.”

  Archie reached out his hand. “So, how’s about it, Vince?”

  A Cold, Old Revenge ~Alternate Route~ (Devil Quest) – Turn back the wheel of time to help Izrid reclaim Sinners’ City from the Nightmare Court. | Quest Condition: You’ll be placed in the middle of a war, raising the difficulty level of the quest tremendously. Do You Accept? (Yes/No)

  Vincent shook Archie’s hand and accepted the quest. “So, how’re we getting to Elfry?” he asked. “I guess I could line up a Jump Gate at the right spot.”

  “I know just the place,” Archie said. “Also, I worked out the quest data to give you Reward Points for accepting the higher difficulty route. I’ll use them to open a portal to the right spot.”

  A swirling vortex appeared below Vincent, and the two men dropped into it.

  “Good luck!” Xan shouted.

  Vincent exited the portal, finding himself in a random section of Bloodrun Maze.

  “You’ll need to use a normal Jump Gate,” Archie told him. “These two worlds are too far apart for the miniature one.”

  Vincent equipped his Builder’s Tome and created the Jump Gate before checking his remaining points.

  Builder Points: 690,320

  He felt a little disappointed paying 200,000 Builder Points for the Jump Gate, especially since he had been close to purchasing Grade 3. That’d been a goal of his in the early years on Lavrin, but most of their soma farming had gone to making equipment in the later years.

  Oh well, this is far more important, he reminded himself.

  “I’ll meet you on Elfry,” Archie said, stepping away. He held on to his straw hat, and a gust of wind blew against his body, turning him into thousands of light particles that floated upward before fading.

  Vincent tried to Scan the light particles, but nothing showed up on his HUD. “Huh, weird,” he said as he stepped onto the Jump Gate.

  He stared up at the snaking clouds of red that he’d always thought looked like a great beast of some sort. Jump Crystals materialized in his hands one by one, and when the fourth appeared, he finally saw the blue dot revealing Elfry’s gate through the clouds. Vincent activated the crystals and flew toward the sky. Once he pierced through the red clouds, his eyes fell on Elfry. Like all Dead-Worlds, it was small and covered in clouds, but through the dark sky, he saw the subtle glow of lava rivers.

  Vincent passed through the gray wall that encompassed Elfry. The clouds didn’t have the aggressive swirling effect like the skies of other Dead-Worlds, but he still couldn’t make out more than the lava rivers until he passed through the atmosphere. With his high Perception, he caught the outline of Sinners’ City towering in the distance. His eyes traced the silhouettes of the buildings and the frightening castle at the heart of the nightmarish city.

  Vincent landed on the Jump Gate, hitting it at an angle that caused him to stumble forward. As he came to a stop, a gust of wind brought in light particles that rebuilt Archie’s body after a few seconds.

  “That’s a useful spell,” Vincent said.

  “Oh, that’s not magic,” Archie replied. “I’m using a backdoor command that tells the game to break me apart and rebuild me somewhere else.”

  “Sounds painful.”

  “Terribly so,
but boy is it convenient!”

  The ghost of Izrid appeared before them, and he pointed a spectral finger at the city in the distance before disappearing.

  “I thought you said he’d join us?” Vincent asked.

  “He will at the start of the instance,” Archie explained. “Normally, that would be the castle, but since I had to superglue quests together, the instance will start at the city’s boundary. Just so you know, it’ll be a hell of a fight. Luckily, we can retry this quest if we fail.”

  “You think we’ll need more than one attempt?” Vincent asked, smirking. “I don’t know if you’ve seen my build, but I can’t imagine this being too big a challenge.”

  Archie looked off into space, pointing his finger at invisible information. “If you could see what I see, you’d be a lot more worried,” the NPC said, nervously.

  Chapter 30 | Year 135

  Player: Old Man Vincent

  Location: Elfry (World) | Sinners’ City Boundaries (Region)

  Class: Ranger

  Subclass: Mage

  Vitality: Lv 330

  Spirit*: Lv 340

  Resolve: Lv 329

  Perception*: Lv 345

  Agility: Lv 330

  Strength: Lv 328

  Vincent and Archie didn’t encounter a single devil as they trekked across Elfry’s barren landscape. They crossed bridges without having to pay tolls and passed the entrances of ruins that looked abandoned. A few gargantuan monsters loomed in the distance, but Archie led Vincent in the other direction.

  “The behemoths out there sometimes drop Wayback Crystals,” Archie explained. “It’s only a one percent drop rate from beating them. Not exactly worth our time, and you might pick up a few from this quest, assuming I used the right parts. Those will come in handy when you reach the high-tier.”

  “I appreciate that,” Vincent said. “I appreciate all your help, actually. What made you want to get involved with this war?”

  “Trust me when I say I didn’t want to,” Archie said. “I’ve tried to look the other way, although I accidentally helped them by trading Noah a Demon Lord’s Helm.”