I stared at him. “What…are you?”
“Ah, so you used your Analyze skill on me,” he said. “I was wondering when that would happen.”
I stood back, with my body shivering a little. I felt fear in this situation. With one strike that man had sent me down to just a fourth of my health.
He’s a monster, I thought.
And without Nyx here I had no one to automatically hand me potions and equip my armor, meaning I was going to have to do it on my own — manually, by finding time away from battle.
I can’t do that. I grit my teeth.
“You seem deflated, Zoran,” the Time Lord chuckled. “Do not worry. I usually give my victims some time to run around. It’s more fun that way.”
“Damn you.” I held Dawnbreaker in front of me. I was utterly powerless in this fight, and I knew it.
If only I could get time running again, I thought. As long as it was in frozen, I wouldn’t be able to use my teleportation skills on the ones who had been affected, and that meant even if I left, this man would still take everyone else as his hostages.
And something told me he wouldn’t hesitate to kill them off immediately.
“What are you thinking about, Eternal?” Horace leapt toward me.
I dived out the way, but a rush of wind surged past my body and struck me against the wall, just from the speed of the missed attack.
This guy is too strong. Panic rose within me, and I breathed heavy. I need to find a way out of this.
And right then, a thought struck my mind.
When Horace had cast his time pause he’d been intensely concentrating on the spell. It also didn’t seem like this was a spell that he could just cast and then forget about. He probably needed to keep his concentration going in order to keep everything paused.
So I should break his concentration. And I knew exactly how to do that. I jumped back, sliding away about a hundred yards from the man. He looked at me, the way a man looks at a baby animal, with amusement over his face.
“What are you doing, Diablo?” he chuckled.
I kept my eyes open and concentrated. I felt a tingle of power at my fingertips, and I saw sparks fly from one of my fingers. I focused harder, imagining my powers swirl through the castle, and head down to a chamber.
The chamber of dead Dragons.
Pain struck my chest as I unloaded my energy, and I dropped to the floor, breathing heavily.
“What did you just do?” the Time Lord looked around. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to have worked.”
That’s what you think, I thought. I lifted myself up, and my body was completely weary. The damage I’d taken, plus the mana depletion, had caused me to feel pretty exhausted at the moment. But I stood strong, hopeful that the change in tides was just around the corner.
“Mysteries are very entertaining,” Horace said. “Maybe I will keep you alive a little longer.”
And right then, a thunderous roar surged through the halls. The walls collapsed, and an army of skeletal dragons broke into the chamber, heading straight for the Time Lord.
He stepped back, and I could tell the sudden intrusion had broken his concentration. The unanimated forms of Freya and everyone else came to life once more and I quickly ran over to them, unwilling to let this man take them away once again.
“Holy hell,” Nyx exclaimed. “You did all this with your Re-animator skill?”
Yup. My voice beamed.
And then everything went wrong.
A massive boom sounded and a shock wave passed through us all. The next thing I knew, the army of Dragons had all dropped to the floor — no longer one hundred undead dragons, but a large pile of bones and powder on the ground.
The Time Lord turned to me, and his demeanor changed once again.
Uh oh. I stepped back.
“That was quite entertaining Eternal,” he said. “I must give you that. However, I believe playtime will have to end here.”
I grit my teeth, and held my blade out as I stared right at him.
“Kalia Urr Tal,” a voice yelled behind me.
Two slabs of stone rose up on either side of me and slammed inward. I slashed at them with Dawnbreaker, and caused enough of a pressure wave to slice through the rock and dismantle the attack.
However, I knew who’s attack this was.
And I could not believe it.
“Oh, I almost forgot to mention,” the Time Lord chuckled, and a dark-skinned Eternal now stood beside him, glancing at me with cold, hateful eyes. “This is Irmeia,” he said. “And the one thing we both have in common is that we want you dead.”
“What?” I gasped, disbelief all over my existence, pain anguishing my heart. “What did you do to her?! What kind of brainwashing is this?!”
“You are entertaining, Eternal,” the Time Lord laughed.
“What the hell did you do to her?!” I yelled.
“I did absolutely nothing,” he said. “Say, don’t you think it was odd? That you conveniently found an Eternal in a cave on an island. That merely hours after you came back some light radiated from her and took you to the past?”
My eyes widened. “No way.”
“You see, there are certain rules I am forced to follow, and one of them is that I cannot go meddle with events in the future, and that includes bringing someone back to the past. Irmeia is my loophole for this — my piñata to the future”
He chuckled. “I sent her to the future with a time travel rune embedded into her. The moment you found her in that cave, the spell I had hidden within her began activating. And when it was ready, you all got brought back to this time. Sure, I’m evil and everything, but you wouldn’t even be here if Irmeia hadn’t volunteered to have brought you.”
I looked at Irmeia. “No…” My voice cracked.
“I was not brainwashing her, Diablo,” the Time Lord smiled. “She’s been lying to you this whole time. She was never who she said she was.”
The Eternal stared at me, and didn’t speak a single word.
“Irmeia.” I trembled. “You couldn’t have…”
“Oh, but she did.” The Time Lord laughed uncontrollably now. “Ahhhh, how much I waited for this moment. Hard to get entertainment like this these days.”
Freya put her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get out of here, Zoran.”
Horace snapped his finger and immediately a blast of wind smashed into the elf, throwing her into the air and into everyone else standing behind me. Before I could even blink, a box of transparent light formed around them all, sealing them completely. One look and I knew that wasn’t a barrier I could take out on my own.
Dammit, I cursed and looked ahead. “What do you want with me?!”
“I thought I made this very clear before,” Horace said. “I brought you here to be my sacrifice.”
“What sacrifice?” I grit my teeth. “I have a Resurrection Ability. How do you think you’re going to use me as a sacrifice? I will never die. Every time you kill me I will come back over and over and over again.”
“Ahh, I see the problem,” the Time Lord chuckled, and his tone turned sinister. “You actually think Eternals are immortal, don’t you?”
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Eternals can die?
The thought raced into my mind, and the words repeated over and again till they lost all meaning within my consciousness.
“Stunned?” the Time Lord chuckled. “Bet you didn't see that coming.”
“You’re bluffing,” I said. For all my time in this world, I had known one thing. My resurrection ability did not let me die. I would always resurrect into the world whenever my health went to zero.
And yet this man was making such a claim before me.
“I’m bluffing?” he laughed.
“Are you willing to bet your life on it, Diablo?” Irmeia asked, her tone cold. And that was when I started hesitating.
A lot.
The Time Lord smiled. “Come along then, Zoran,” he sai
d. “Time to be my—”
I thrust my hand into the air. “Hiestia!” I yelled.
Darkness surged into the air, covering me and everyone else. One moment we were in the throne room, and the next we had sunk into the black. I breathed a sigh of relief and looked around, making sure everyone was here.
Everyone but Irmeia.
Pangs of sorrow sunk into me, but I pushed them away, and ignored my aching heart. Everyone else seemed a little down too, but said nothing. I looked around the dark pathway we were on, and glanced at the portals of light around us. I had to find the right one to take.
“What do we do?” Freya asked.
“I’m not sure.” I spoke faster to hide my trembling voice. “We need to get away from here.”
She nodded, and I went to search for a portal to take. It seemed natural I would try to get as far away from here as possible, however I knew that was not the best of ideas. Either way the Time Lord and Irmeia were going to come after me.
The farthest place I knew from here was the cave we had been in before, and fighting a battle there was not the best idea. Instead I decided to teleport into one of the forest sections closer to the castle. That way I’d also get a direct view of the enemy lair.
It took me about a minute, but I finally found a portal that led directly to the place I had envisioned — a strip of forest land about five miles from the castle.
“Here.” I pointed at the portal. Everyone walked into the circular image, and disappeared over to the other side. I quickly followed after them, leaving the darkness and walking into the fresh bursts of wind before me.
Leaves and dust spread through the air as the breeze pushed through, and ceased an instant later. The small forest was not dense but had a good number of trees, for it was the exact same stretch of land we’d camped out in last night.
The last night Irmeia had still been my friend.
Nyx sighed. “Zoran, you need to let go of this,” the spirit said. “Any emotions you leave active inside you are only going to hinder your actions later.”
I said nothing, and focused on the task at hand. It was obvious that the Time Lord and Irmeia were going to come after us, and come after us fast at that. It was also obvious that we were hopelessly outmatched with the Time Lord — a man whose race the Analyze skill did not even understand.
“That’s never a good thing.” Acnologia’s voice was quiet
How on earth did my Analyze skill work on him while Polaris’ didn’t? I asked. Surely my skill wasn’t superior to the Star Dragon’s?
“I am unsure of why that was the case,” the Dragon said. “But either way, it has become very clear that there is something deeply mysterious about this man.”
I nodded. And yet I am unsure of how to deal with all of this.
“What are we going to do, Diablo?” Oris held his sword tight in his hands.
“I’m…not sure.”
“Well, we better have some kind of a plan. It’s obvious those two are going to come after us, and when they do, it isn’t in my intentions to stand here like slaughter meat.”
The word shook me, but the Knight was right. That was exactly how the Time Lord and Irmeia were going to treat us if we didn’t fight back.
But how are we supposed to fight back? I asked. We’re hopelessly outmatched.
“I have said this to you before, Diablo,” Nyx said. “What makes you the Phantom Lord are not those nifty skills and powers that you have, but your ability to use them in the face of the most overwhelming of opponents. You have faced enemies stronger than you before. Heck, we had to face one just a while back.”
Even that was nothing compared to what I’m going to have to fight against now, I said. You know that don’t you?
“I do.”
“Do not deter, Diablo,” Acnologia said. “We will fight against this Time Lord.”
The wind howled past us, with the lone breeze carrying nothing within itself. A hand grasped my wrist, and I turned around. Freya stood there, glancing down at the floor. “Are you…okay?” Her voice was soft.
I nodded, looking over her shoulder and noticing that Raffyr and Viola wore similar expressions on their faces — ones of utter worry. I sighed, and then flashed a smile at them. It was time to go instill confidence in these people, and I couldn’t do that unless I myself was clear on the situation.
I calmed my mind, and focused on my thoughts. I leaned into the elf. “Thank you,” I said.
“Listen up everyone.” I walked to the middle, and looked at everyone around before continuing. “It’s become pretty clear that the Time Lord has a power advantage over us, and that was expected”
“Calling it a power advantage isn’t the half of it,” Oris smirked.
“Either way, we need to defeat him,” I said. “The easiest way I can think of is attempting to land a critical hit on him and Irmeia.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And kill them?”
“Immobilizing them is preferred, but if it comes to death, no hesitation on doing so.”
“Won’t they just resurrect if we do that?” Freya asked.
“They indeed will,” I said. “But in a random location. And even if they have a teleportation skill they should have a limit on how often it can be used. We’ll just have to depend on exploiting that cooldown time.”
“Wait,” Viola said. “Wasn’t the Time Lord our only way back to the future?”
“We’re not certain of that,” I said. “He’s one of the ways. But we can’t be sure he’s the only one.”
The faces around me turned uneasy. “Look, this is a pretty complex situation,” I said. “But what seems to have been made painfully clear is that the Time Lord will not hesitate to kill us. Actually, he’s doing all this just so he can kill me.”
“What was that about anyway?” Freya asked. “An Eternal can die?”
“I’m not sure.” I hesitated. “Maybe he was bluffing.”
“I have not heard of any methods to kill an Eternal off, Diablo,” Acnologia said. “The very thought seems quite absurd to me.”
“I feel the same,” Nyx said. “However, something about the whole situation makes me feel like it wasn’t a simple bluff. Moreover, the Time Lord is not in a position where he needs to be bluffing to get things done. He could have just wrecked us all with his strength if he wanted to.”
Thanks for the confidence, Nyx, I sighed.
“Hey, you know it’s true,” he said. “We’re can’t run away from the fact.”
I froze as my senses picked up something.
Something dropped from the sky, and mud flew everywhere. I shielded my face, looking through the gaps between my fingers at what was before me.
A dark-skinned lady stood there, and green eyes looked at me. “Hello, Phantom Lord.” Her tone was bewitching.
“Irmeia,” I said, and glanced around, looking for her companion.
“Horace is not here,” she chuckled. “He granted me a few moments for myself.”
“How nice of him.”
“Well, at least we have a time scale of when he will show up now,” Nyx said.
“You pulled off quite the escape, Diablo,” Irmeia smiled. “I am impressed. I have never seen the Shadow Travel skill up close before.”
“She knows its name?” Nyx blinked.
However, I did not get hung up on that one detail. I kept my gaze on this woman, and tried to discern what she was going to do.
“Why?” I asked. “Why did you betray us?”
“It’s only betrayal if I tried to win your trust in the first place.”
“Which you did.”
“You’re right. I guess it was betrayal then,” she smiled. “Although, I must say, the elf was pretty much onto me immediately. Good thing you didn’t listen to her that much.”
Damn you, I averted my gaze from Freya.
“Why are you on his side, Irmeia?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?”
“You wouldn’t understand, Eternal,” she sa
id. “You are not the type.”
“I am not the type?” I asked. “What do you mean I’m not the type?”
“Enough chit-chat,” she said. “Horace only gave me a few minutes to take out my anger. Let’s not waste it, shall we?”
She shot forward, and sunk her fist right into my stomach, sending me surging across the ground. I bounced off the forest floor and thudded to a stop against a wide tree trunk.
What the heck? I thought as I pulled myself back onto my feet. I gazed at her, and used my Analyze skill immediately.
DING!
Name
Irmeia
Health
12750
Race
Eternal
Mana
9880
Level
831
Stamina
11270
She’s much stronger now, I blinked.
“Surprised?” the Eternal walked up to me, and her white robes swayed in the wind as she did. “There are secrets to strength that you do not know, Diablo.”
My eyes widened. “No,” I gasped. “You didn’t.”
She chuckled. “Oh yes.” Her voice was cooled.
Rage surged through me as I realized what she meant. In a moment my mind snapped, going from feeling sorrow to feeling anger. This woman was no different from the Time Lord. She would do anything to gain power.
“Even if it meant absorbing a couple of Dragons,” I muttered.
“Those things you raised from the dead proved to be very useful energy resources,” Irmeia said. “Thank you for that.”
“I did no such thing for you.” My voice was quiet.
“Diablo,” Acnologia said.
I nodded. Let’s do it.
“Ready.”
Nyx, do your thing too, I said. No helmet.
“Got it,” the spirit said.
I put my hand into the air. “Dragon Fusion!” I yelled.
A dark beam surged from the ground, and consumed me. I twisted Dawnbreaker in my hands, and gripped the hilt tight. A moment later the darkness shut off and I felt electricity surge through me, my additional strength coursing through my blood.
The Eternal: Transcend - A LitRPG Saga (World of Ga'em Book 3) Page 23