Demon Lords (World-Tree Trilogy Book 2)

by EA Hooper

  As they crossed from the stem to the world, Vincent couldn’t help but open his guild page. He checked the local listing that showed the highest stat for any guild member on the same world.

  Local Power Ranking:

  #1: Old Man Vincent – 345

  #2: Firefly Amelia – 324

  #3: Pale Alexandria – 320

  #4: Ice Knight Zhang – 318

  #5: Spellslingin’ Antonio – 278

  #6: Bombardier Quinton – 267

  #7: Killer Sam – 265

  #8: Jake-Jake – 259

  #9: Pit Boss Quinn – 254

  #10: Leafblade Valery – 251

  #11: River Will Drown You – 250

  #12: Athena the Fair – 248

  #13: Hammer Queen Juniper – 246

  #14: Big Keanu – 245

  #15: Mayfield May – 244

  #16: Blade-Master Lloyd – 242

  After Lloyd, the ranking list had many people tied for their top stat. Most of their army had specialized stats in the 230s, but some that joined later barely scraped the 220s. Vincent knew from Quinn’s updates over the years that the average devil-possessed player had specialized stats around level 200, but they were also low on potions and good equipment. The devils themselves had been providing most of their weapons, but because of Vincent’s pact, Isaac’s forces no longer had access to those supplies.

  We’re still slightly outnumbered and in terms of fighting powers outmatched, since the devils are much weaker than the possessed players or the drone knights. However, we have superior equipment and supplies. Not to mention, our guild trained specifically to overcome the restoration runes with focused attacks. Just like in that final battle against Lucas all those years ago, we know the runes have a limit. Once we dwindle down Isaac’s army, we’ll break into the Inner Sanctum and deliver a final blow. Or rather, Xan will with those upgraded abilities of her.

  Vincent took a quick look at Xan’s two most important spells, rereading the new upgrades she’d developed in the last year. He knew those two abilities would be the deciding factor in defeating Isaac.

  All Field (Requires Light Conversion | Upgraded) – Mana Usage: Varies | The user generates a light field that manipulates nearby sources of world magic. | Upgrade – Explosive Reaction: The user can spend mana to destabilize nearby sources of world magic, causing them to crackle and then explode.

  All Shield (Requires All Field) – Mana Usage: High | Magic Rating: 999 | Replaces the user’s Mana Shield. | Creates a nearly invincible forcefield around the user. However, this forcefield dissipates upon taking damage over its threshold. To recharge this shield, the user must make skin-to-earth contact for five seconds while paying the mana cost. | Upgrades – Threshold (300) | World Root: The user can root themselves to a world if making skin-to-earth contact. While rooted, they can’t move from that position, but world magic spells cost less mana, activate faster, and have an extended range.

  He glanced at Xan, who was walking nearby without shoes. She’d made it a habit to stay barefooted so she’d always have the physical connection to use World Root. The only downside was that if her Paladin Armor activated, it automatically gave her a pair of boots.

  No matter what happens, we’ll need Xan if we want to win. She’ll be ready to kill herself with a Lotus Capsule if she’s thrown into an anti-magic pit, so I need to set up Jump Gates for her to get back if that happens.

  Vincent took a quick detour from his army to place two Jump Gates in hidden locations. Everyone in their army had Lotus Capsules underneath their tongues in case they were captured. Vincent knew having the extra gates meant they could bring in reinforcements if the war dragged on for several weeks. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but Archie had left him with one last warning before parting ways: even with the devil army, he shouldn’t underestimate Isaac.

  Xan followed him so they could hide the Checkpoint Crystals that Vince had gotten from Elfry. With four crystals, they’d both get two instant respawns during the war. They hid the first ones away from the Jump Gates in a safe-looking spot before rejoining their army. Then, the Crickets continued their march with Risegard in their sights.

  “Is this what it was like when you marched on Midrun?” Quinton asked.

  “No, there were a lot more explosions,” River replied.

  “I actually feel more relaxed about this war,” Lloyd admitted. “Last time, we had to worry about getting frozen by a moderator. This time, the worst-case scenario means we’re back to level-grinding, only in a pit.”

  “I’d rather not get captured again, even if it’s a pit and not a dungeon,” Valery said. “I’m not letting anyone hold me hostage like that ever again.”

  Sam placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll win this.”

  “I’m freezing Isaac if I see him,” Valery told her husband. “I won’t hesitate just because he’s a dev.”

  “This time, the old man better not remove our enemy from the game,” River said. “I really missed out on beating up Lucas.”

  “I wouldn’t be too upset if Vince wanted to remove Isaac from the game,” Valery admitted. “Even if there’s a risk that he’s trapped in darkness for two hundred years.”

  “I’d rather not,” Vincent said. “I only tried to remove Lucas because there was always a possibility his followers would free him. Once Isaac loses his Foundry and those possessed players, he’ll be mostly powerless. I don’t care about revenge or making him suffer. I just want Jim, Quinn, and the others freed.”

  Vincent continued toward the wall around the city, and the rest of his guild followed. Everyone equipped weapons and armor as they neared, and some chugged various potions to give them buffs.

  Antonio held up the Pitchfork of Smiting, which Vincent had given him to finish the Bounty Quest from all those years ago. The southern man had tested it before leaving Lavrin, and he’d quickly fallen in love with the weapon. “Oh, I can’t wait to blast people with this thing!” he said.

  “I can’t wait to punch my possessed grandpa in the face,” River said, cracking her knuckles.

  “That’s so mean,” Athena told her girlfriend.

  “Well, he has it coming after getting himself captured,” River replied.

  Vincent equipped his Builder’s Tome and imagined a long road stretching left and right. He used the lease-expensive material he had available and paid the cost. The paved road started in front of him, then extended in both directions.

  Okay, so how do I summon these devils? he wondered.

  Vincent tried to will the devils to appear just like when using his tome or other abilities.

  Would you like to summon Izrid’s devil army? (Yes/No)

  “Yes,” Vincent said out loud.

  A hundred portals opened across the road, and swarms of snarling devils poured forth. Most looked armored in hardened-verasteel, but Vincent spotted a few in orosteel. It took several minutes for all five thousand to appear on the road.

  “I still can’t believe Izrid gave you an army just for finishing that quest,” Zhang said, staring in disbelief at the horde before him.

  “Yeah… Archie figured out at the last second how to tweak it so I’d get a big reward,” Vincent lied.

  “I still feel uneasy about working with devils,” Amelia said. “These things are responsible for turning my husband into that—that monster.”

  “I’m sure Vince knows what he’s doing,” Xan assured her. “Right, Vince?”

  “Yeah, there’s nothing to worry about,” Vincent replied. He felt guilty about lying to Xan, but he didn’t let it show in his voice. “I’ll bring down the wall, make a bridge, and we’ll send in the devils first.”

  Vincent approached the monster horde, and they parted to let him pass. With his Builder’s Tome in hand, he neared the wall and created a wide-enough opening that about twenty people could move through it at a time. The trench he’d built decades ago greeted him as the wall opened, but his sharp eyes caught anti-magic
runes lining the walls and ground below.

  Vincent stared across the city, and to his surprise, it looked as though Isaac’s forces had rebuilt all the destroyed buildings.

  So, this is what Risegard looked like before the Demon Lord started his war? I ought to thank Isaac for the renovation… once we have him imprisoned.

  His eyes followed the outline of the abandoned buildings and quiet streets, and he wondered where the enemies would be waiting. I don’t even see ants in the trench. Is Isaac really going to let us walk right into the city? Vincent paused, remembering Archie’s warning. No, he must have something prepared for us.

  He paid over 20,000 Builder Points to create a marstone bridge across the trench that stood as wide as the entrance before motioning at the devils. “Go in, but be careful!”

  The horde charged forward with toothy grins and bloodthirsty eyes. They crowded around the entrance as too many tried to squeeze through at once. The first devils to reach the bridge took off in a sprint, all too eager for the battle to begin. A few hundred were running across when a massive wall of negative energy, which Vincent had catalogued as Greater Flatten, slammed through the bridge.

  Vincent stepped back, staring at the wall above as a few of his strongest guild members joined him to find out what had happened. “Noah smashed the bridge,” he told them. “I think they have a walkway on the inside of the wall that they can attack from.”

  “Can you bring down a big section of it?” Lloyd asked.

  “It’ll cost a lot, but I should be able to,” he replied, holding up his tome.

  Vincent paid over fifty thousand Builder Points, and then a section of the wall started to dematerialize. However, flashes of light detonated at the base of the wall, and Vincent realized too late that Isaac must’ve planted rune bombs to knock sections over on an approaching army.

  Xan saw the detonations and rooted herself to the ground, causing her All Shield to glow white. She summoned a World Wall at an angle so it protected their guildsmen and part of the devil army as the marstone crumbled. When the dust cleared, they found a few hundred devils had still been crushed under piles of stone.

  Everyone turned their attention back to the city. With a huge section of the wall gone, the army had a clearer view. The Demon Lord, Lemm, and the other three devils he was known to summon ran across a barrier walkway he’d created. They landed on the other side of the devils across the trench, but the before the monsters could attack, the Demon Lord knocked them off the side with Greater Flatten.

  “Those four devils are still with him?” Antonio questioned, readying his pitchfork. “I was kind of hoping they’d be part of our army. That Lemm was always a real nuisance.”

  “They have names, so I’m sure they work for the Nightmare Court,” Vincent said. “The rest of these devils only have an allegiance to whomever is in power.”

  The Demon Lord snapped his fingers, opening a portal. Jim and a few other possessed people stepped out and then helped make additional vortexes. More devil-controlled players poured out as more portals appeared, and they were followed by drone knights. A wall of ants formed a line in front of the possessed players, shielding them from possible attacks.

  “They’ll try to keep the ants in front,” Vincent noted. “They know we’ll be trying to kill anyone that’s possessed to get them back to our side.”

  “Then clear them out!” Juniper shouted. “You’re the one with the crazy attack.”

  Vincent nodded then drank one of Keith’s best potions, which the developer had named K-Man’s Drink. It gave Vincent a twenty-level boost in all stats for five hours. They had enough of those potions that their top twenty guildsmen each carried one and had another in storage.

  Members of the guild lined up to cast other buffs on Vincent. They tried to use a combination of spells that would stack without removing one another. Mana Regen Aura and Mana Tethers by several players allowed him to recover mana at a lightning-fast rate. Speed Blitz Aura and Airjump Aura gave him increased momentum and a second in-air jump. Reduced-Cost Aura and Repeat-Spell Aura would let him cast repeated Voidfires for a cheap mana cost. They also stacked a series of extra shields on top of his Density Shield.

  Vincent readied a Voidfire in each hand and hurled them across the trench. The Demon Lord raised a Greater Flatten to protect his army, but the combined attacks shattered the wall of negative energy. Across the enemy army, Vincent spotted possessed players using spells to restore Noah’s mana. By the time Vincent unleashed a second wave of Voidfires, another Greater Flatten appeared to stop it midway. Their spells collided several more times, but they always seemed to cancel out each other.

  Three Void Crows flew across the gap, but Xan raised a narrow World Wall to stop them. The bird struck the wall and evaporated, unable to cut through Xan’s defense.

  Athena the Fair stepped beside Vincent. Within the last forty years, she’d finished three negative energy spells, including a copy of Vincent’s Zero Field and Gravity Shield. However, she focused on hurling her unique spell, Void Ball, across the gap. It moved slower than Void Gun, but when it struck a drone knight in the head, it expanded and took off the top third of its body. Even the runes couldn’t restore it, and the monster crumbled into dust.

  “Our first kill!” River cheered. “Babe, you got this!”

  “We need to speed this up,” Amelia said, readying and casting Mana Overcharge on Vincent. The spell doubled Vincent’s mana reserve for one minute, but after that it’d get cut in half for thirty seconds.

  Vincent unleashed wave after wave of twin Voidfires, smashing Noah’s Greater Flattens as fast as he could make them. Eventually, Vincent’s attack struck first, vaporizing several drone knights. The other possessed players raised layers of forcefields, but Athena’s Void Ball smashed through them. The next Voidfire combo hit another Greater Flatten, but the one after that took out several more drones.

  Vincent knew his enemies wouldn’t give him the opportunity to kill any possessed players just yet, but what he really wanted was an opening to send in their devils. He switched to party chat, which included their top six guildsmen, Juniper, and then the team that had come from Eramar.

  >Vincent: Xan, with your extended range, can you place a World Wall on the other side of the trench? I want to make another bridge for the devils to cross once I’ve pushed the enemies back with Voidfire.

  >Alexandria: Yeah, I can do that.

  Vincent spotted Jim as the Rogue used several Gravity Webs to launch himself high above. Jim launched crow after crow, only stopping to drink mega-ethers. The Void Crows flew circles over the army of players, waiting for an opportunity to strike. A few players had readied basteel shields, since Vincent had warned them that Jim would be their second biggest threat after Noah.

  Vincent trusted his guildsmen to deal with the crows, so he concentrated on bombarding the enemies with Voidfire. The Demon Lord’s forces had backed away as Noah struggled to hold off the black flames. Hundreds of forcefields rose, only for Voidfire to burn through them like they were nothing. The attacks even ate away the top of the trench wall and left gaping craters in the ground where they exploded.

  “I think you got a couple of players with that one!” Zhang cheered, watching the explosions of black flames.

  The Ice Knight had been so focused on Vincent’s attack that he hadn’t noticed the Void Crows splitting up and diving at the crowd. Luckily, Xan batted one away before it reached Zhang. She and Vincent had discovered in training that most void attacks would cut through her shield with ease, just like with the mod shields, but while rooted in the ground, the world magic she was channeling offered her greater protection. She didn’t even bother to heal the gash in her hand where the crow had struck her.

  Vincent noticed Mana Cannons flying overhead, probably targeting Jim, but he kept his eyes on the opposing army as he hurled more Voidfires over the trench. He felt his mana reserve drop to half its normal size as Mana Overcharge wore off, but by that point, the enemies
had withdrawn halfway down the street.

  >Lloyd: Jim retreated, and his crows are gone. However, that spatial-warping shield of his is a real problem. I didn’t see a single direct hit on him. Just a couple of glancing blows.

  >Vincent: We’ll worry about that later. Xan, the enemies are down the road, so put up your wall.

  Vincent equipped his Builder’s Tome and raised another bridge as Xan’s next World Wall appeared between Isaac’s army and the trench.

  “Devils, hurry and cross!” Vincent shouted.

  The devils gleefully raced across the bridge and into the city. By the time the World Wall came down, half the monster army had crossed and started their attack against the possessed players. As the rest of the monsters hurried along the bridge, Vincent saw walls of negative energy rising and falling onto the first wave of devils.

  This is perfect, he realized. Noah’s too busy crushing devils to stop us from crossing.

  “This is our chance!” Vincent shouted.

  The Jiminy World Crickets stormed across the trench with Vincent leading the way. His mana reserve had already returned to normal, and he swapped his Builder’s Tome for Greenkill. As he rushed toward the battle down the street, he noticed portals opening as all the possessed players retreated, leaving their army of drone knights behind.

  >Juniper: They’re running! This’ll give us plenty of time to clear out the drones.

  As the Crickets neared, they found the devils and drones locked in close-range combat. The ants slaughtered their opponents with ease, but Isaac’s own runes worked against them, healing the devils so they could try again and again. Vincent approached and incinerated two drones with Voidfire. Teams of Crickets spammed powerful spells in unison to destroy the ants just like they had in practice on Lavrun.

  Vincent felt uneasy about how well things seemed to be going, and just as he was about to say something over team chat, Quinton beat him to it.