I can’t believe she’s actually that strong. Why did she hide it?
“People have reasons,” Nyx said.
I looked at Freya, and she had her eyes on the dark elf, staring at her with such intensity that one might think she believed she would obtain answers if she stared hard enough.
Personally however, I wasn’t bothered by this new development. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I wondered what kind of secrets Ijyela had borne in silence, the kinds of things she had to refrain from speaking of. Things also started to click in my head. This was probably why she had been reluctant to share anything about this region—because of her own connection to the place.
The few minutes that we walked, we walked in silence. I took the opportunity to go through my pending notifications.
DING!
Congratulations! You have defeated: Dark Elf Army (Lv 498)! Reward: 17,800,000 XP. Reward: Bow of the Dark Elf Archer (x231). Reward: Spear of the Dark Elf Warrior ((x166). Reward: Sword of the Dark Elf Archer (x201).
DING!
Congratulations! Your Wind Arts spell—Peona: Storm Gale—has increased to Level 7! Wind speeds will now be increased, and will cause greater damage. 5% chance of an enemy falling unconscious when they enter the winds due to breathlessness. Agility is increased by +4% for the first move performed right after the attack is over.
DING!
Congratulations! Your Fire Arts Spell—Oskis: Incineration Beam—has increased to level 12! +5% chance of inflicting burn status on target. +10% chance of causing bleed damage.
The lands soon sloped downwards, not by much, but enough to be noticed. I closed my screens, and we walked another minute until we came onto what seemed like some sort of path. About five different carriages stood there, and all of them made from dark wood befitting a witch’s house, with no adornments. I looked the head of the carriages, expecting horses, but all I saw were wolves.
Night wolves.
Nyx chuckled. “Well, how about that,” he said. “The very same thing that attacked us is what these elves use to pull their carriages.”
I smiled. Interesting
“Is this ours?” Ijyela asked, pointing to the coach in the middle.
“Sure,” Heslia said, sounding more like he was forced to say yes. Well, he kind of was.
“Very well.” The elven witch strode up to it. “Zoran, Freya. Come along.”
“Diablo, it is best I enter your Familiar Storage Space,” Acnologia said.
Got it. I nodded. Nyx, set that up please.
“On,” the spirit said.
“Come.” Ijyela opened the coach door for us. Freya stepped up first, and I followed her in. The Dragon burst into specks of light at that very moment and the dots all flew into the coach as well, passing through the walls and making their way to me. I could sense wonder and astoundment from the elves outside, and some of them even gasped in surprise.
DING!
Familiar Storage has been activated. ‘Acnologia, the Shadow Dragon’, has been retained within the familiar storage system. You cannot store any more familiars.
A whip cracked ahead of us and a series of howls summoned in unison. The carriage tugged forward and soon moved. The carriage we were in was simple, with cloth seats and two windows, one on the door and another on the wall opposite.
Freya and Ijyela sat one side while I was on the other. We all remained in silence for the first minute of the journey.
“So?” Ijyela raised an eyebrow at both of us. “No questions? Don’t tell me you were not curious about anything that went on back there.”
“Well, it’s also a question of where to even start asking you things,” I chuckled.
She smiled. “That is true.”
“First of all, I guess thanks are in order,” I said. “I don’t know what these elves would have done if you hadn’t showed up.”
“Yeah.” Freya touched her throat, and swallowed. “Thank you.”
“It is nothing,” Ijyela said. “I tried using my telescoping spell to see what was going on with you two, and when I saw these idiots had attacked you, I knew there was no way I could sit back like usual and wait for you to sort things out on your own.”
“Wait, you have a telescoping spell?” I blinked. “So, you’ve been seeing everything we’ve done on our adventures this entire time?”
“I only learned it after your escapade with the Time Lord,” she said. “Calm down, Zoran.”
“You know, I always thought you were from the Viridian Forest,” Freya said. “You said you lived there for centuries.”
“Freya, dear,” the elven witch said. “Surely, you are aware that I am much older than just a few centuries correct? The Viridian Forest is but a recent, adopted home of mine. In truth, I really am from the Hexel Ruins. I believe all Dark Elves currently in the Kingdom and the Empire are from these ruins.”
“So, you were raised here?” I asked. “With that army-leader guy?’
“Heslia, yes,” she said. “That annoying little brother of mine.”
“When did you even leave this place then?” Freya asked. “Wasn’t this your family?”
Her shoulder’s tightened. “Do you know why they call these the Hexel Ruins?” she asked.
We both looked out the windows, as if in answer for her question. I could see only black, desolate land for as far as the eye could look. Nothing else laid between me and the empty horizon.
“There was once a large Empire here,” Ijyela said. “The Hexel Empire, a stronghold of the Dark Elves.”
“Oh.” Freya blinked.
Wait she doesn’t know it either? That was surprising.
“What happened to it?” she asked.
“Razed to the ground,” the elven witch said. “A combination of enemy forces and insider politics. The empire was destroyed from both outside and within. And as if that were not enough, mere weeks after the decline, a thunderous earthquake struck the lands, eating up anything left of the place.”
“Oh,” I said, and the footsteps of the wolves filled the silence that followed.
“Were you…there when the Empire went down?” Freya asked.
She nodded. “I was one of the first people that realized everything was going to hell. We were completely in disarray and the enemy was on our doorstep.”
“Who was the enemy?” I asked.
“A variety of people,” she said. “The Dark Elves were not looked upon favorably by many forces.”
“Why?”
“Because of the darkness,” she said. “Surely you understand this, Diablo. One from the Dark Arts does not have a favorable opinion with anyone.”
“I guess I can see that.”
“Once the empire fell people were left to fend for themselves,” she said. “Many chose to head further east, to lands I do not know off. Many others decided to head to the Dargonian Empire and the Kingdom of Aingard, hoping to find homes.”
“That’s odd,” Freya said. “I don’t see that many Dark Elves in the Kingdom.”
“That is because most only reached the Kingdom. Almost all of them did not survive. Specifically, they were not allowed to survive.”
We didn’t reply.
“It was not all bad news,” Ijyela went on, filling the silence with her voice. “A smaller group of the elves decided to stay here in the ruins of the Empire and find a way to live. I was part of this group, and so was Heslia.”
“So that’s how this army of mercenaries began?” I asked.
She nodded. “We started off with only a thousand soldiers, but populations grow quickly. The army we started with was not even half the size of the group we have now. We began well, with many quests and requests coming our way. But soon these events changed our lives, turning us into darker and darker beings. We began to descend into chaos, motivated by money and pleasure, and turning a blind eye to the sight of innocent blood.”
She sighed and looked out the window, her eyes gazing at the flat scenery as though she could recall it
all, everything down to the last shattered pebble in the ground.
“That was when I decided to leave.” She turned to us. “My little brother threw quite a fit of course, as did a lot of other people, but that didn’t change my mind. This was not the place for me, and so I left. That was when I went to the Viridian Forest, and set up the house Freya found later.”
The weird witch-house. I remembered.
“Don’t be rude,” Nyx sighed.
“So that is the story,” she said. “Or at least the gist of the story, of who I am and why I have roots to this place.”
Freya and I both looked at her, and I could tell neither of us had any clue what we could say in this situation. It certainly sounded like a harsh thing to experience—to leave a place you had called home for who knew how many years. But at the same time, it had been many centuries since Ijyela had left this place, and so if she had ever had sorrowful tears to shed for this decision of hers, she had probably finished shedding them long before I or Freya had even met her.
She chuckled. “What is with the serious faces?” she asked. “Calm down, you two.”
I smiled. “It’s a lot to process.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry about that. Anyway, how much progress have you made?”
“Close to none.”
“What happened?”
“Turns out, it’s extremely hard to find a Spectral Spirit.”
“As if we didn’t know that already. What of the oddity here?”
“We’ve found no traces of anything so far,” Freya said. “Although, we were planning on heading to this weird trace of light we had seen before.”
“Did it happen before the Blood Rain started?”
We blinked. “Yeah,” I said.
“That’s a natural phenomenon. It’s a normal occurrence around this time of year.”
Great. I sighed. “Well, that was our only lead.”
“Do not get your hopes down,” she said. “Once we get to the Dark elf camp, I should be able to find someone who can direct you forward.”
“You could?” I blinked. “Wait, so you had resources like this and you still chose not to tell us about anything?”
Freya glared at me, while Ijyela just sighed. “You were touching with a past I had not acknowledged in many centuries, Eternal,” she said. “I know I am a creature of age, but even things that I have spent centuries dealing with bother me if left alone for long enough.”
But there was so much at stake here. I frowned. And you still hid it from us.
“Let it go, Zoran.”
I don’t think I can.
“So,” Freya said. “Where exactly is this camp of yours?”
“I do not recall,” she chuckled. “It’s been a very long time since I visited. Who knows if it is even in the same place anymore.”
I blinked. “Are you sure they’re taking us the right way then? What if they try to trick us?”
“Heslia may be stronger than me in levels, but that is the only thing he is stronger in, do not worry.” She smirked.
Poor little brother.
“Seems like Ijyela is a hell of a fighter,” Nyx said.
“It would have been good to know that before,” I sighed, and then clasped my mouth. Uh oh.
Ijyela eyed me, and her eyebrow raised. “Good to know what?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I was just talking to Nyx.”
“Good to know I was this strong before?”
Damn it. I blinked. “No.”
“There are reasons I do not tell you such things, Eternal,” Ijyela said anyway. “In fact, even if you used your Analyze screen on me before this, you would not have seen my actual level.”
“I know. I didn’t.”
“Higher leveled Dark Elves are known to be practitioners of the Dark Arts, and that bothers many people, including the Dark Alliance, which I find quite hilarious. I am just like Freya. I had an identity that I needed to keep hidden, but unlike her, I also wished to keep it hidden from you.”
“Wow,” I said. “You didn’t even mention this when we had that assault on Ikarius before.”
“For the reasons I just mentioned. And also because I doubt I could have helped you when only a Dragon could actually get the job done.”
“She’s right,” Acnologia said.
I rolled my eyes. You’re only speaking up because she mentioned you.
“Stop being so shallow minded, Diablo,” Nyx chuckled.
Noises came from outside. Elves yelled out, in a tongue that I didn’t understand, and the carriage we were in swerved away. In a few minutes, the scenery in one of the windows changed, no longer a desolate, wasteland, but the side of a dark cliff.
What’s happening? I put my head out the open window.
Dust and sand hit my face as I looked up, glancing at the massive cliff. It was nearly a mile and a half high and was made of black stone that was darker than the ground.
“That’s impressive.”
A terrifying screech cut through the air, and I heard the yells of elves and the howls of wolves echo into the skies. The carriage we were in shook, and I looked out the window to our left, just in time to see a blast of white shoot right at us.
I pulled out Dawnbreaker and sliced through the cabin, cutting it in two. The section Freya and Ijyela were in rode away, pulled by the rabid wolves, and missed the attack.
I on the other was not as lucky.
Damn it.
The blast struck right into my section of the carriage, tearing through the wood and throwing me against the cliff wall. I stuck to the surface for a moment, the sheer force keeping me pinned there, and then dropped to the ground, with the wind blown out from my lungs.
I gasped, hunching down, and listened to the sound of elves and wolves yelping out. I heard the terrifying screech yet again, and this time I looked up.
A grin curled onto my face, amused at the sea of white that stood a few hundred yards away from the cliffside. I’d seen this kind of sight before, and even from this far off, I knew exactly what we were dealing against.
Skeletons.
***
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When one saw something like an army of skeletons before them, there was honestly only one thing they could do.
Attack.
And so that’s what we did.
The wind blew against me as I held Dawnbreaker in my hands. The rattling of bones echoed through the skies, filling the silence from our side. The elves around me trembled and shook, with many dropping their bows and swords as the army of the undead charged to us.
Ugh. Didn’t think they’d be this afraid. I turned to the surge of white. “Freya, let’s go.”
The elf jumped out of the cut section of the carriage and slid to a stop beside me. Acnologia, are you ready? I asked.
“Yes,” the Dragon said.
A surge of lights curled around me, swirling twice before collecting on the ground and drawing the shape of a Dragon’s head. A bright white flashed out and the next second, a majestic beast of shadow-black stood there. His eyes of blood-red glared at the enemy ahead, and a low growl resonated from his throat.
Some elves around us shivered less in his presence, and other shivered more, but it seemed from a glance that the Dragon was enticing more of them into stepping forward and facing the enemy. I looked at the sea of white rushing up to us. They were only a hundred yards away now. The perfect distance for a long-range attack—not too far that I couldn’t pinpoint my strike, and not so close that I didn’t have the time to launch one.
Well, if they get too close I’d just have to make time.
“Exactly,” Nyx chuckled.
“What do we do?” Freya asked.
“Keep it simple,” I said. “Just go in, strike, fall back, and repeat.”
She nodded. “Got it.”
By now the skeletons were close enough for me to use my Analyze skill and so I did, casting it on ten of the closest ones.
DING!
Race
Skeletons
Level
422
Health
11790
Mana
8510
Stamina
9370
Not too bad. Their level was definitely higher than what I’d seen before. But that didn’t mean this would be a problem. Overall, they were still hell of a lot weaker than we were. Numbers-wise though there seemed to be plenty of them—upwards of four thousand for sure—meaning there were more skeletons than elves at the moment.
“Well, we might have had enough elves if you hadn’t gone ahead and killed so many of them,” Nyx said.
I did what was necessary.
“Then do what’s necessary here as well.”
I held Dawnbreaker up, and with my free hand pointed to the enemy, to the skeletons now only half-a-hundred yards away. Heslia stood before us, yelling in a tongue I didn’t understand. The elves opened fire, launching a plethora of arrows at the enemy.
I couldn’t tell how many ballistics flew into the skies, but there were a lot. Enough to block a part of the clouds from my vision. I, however, still didn’t attack, and scanned the enemy. They were weak, they were large in numbers, but the thing that bothered me most was the attack they had launched before, the attack that had ripped through the carriage and pushed me back.
If that happens again we might be in trouble. And I was yet to understand where it had even come from. Or even how it had been summoned.
From a quick glance, and a few uses of my Analyze skill, I could tell there were no mages up at the closer ranks of the skeletons.
That’s expected, I sighed. Long range magic users wouldn’t be leading an attack. That certainly wasn’t a normal, or a smart thing to do.
But these were skeletons, so I’d hoped the smart part fell through to give me a chance here.
The Eternal: Infinity - A LitRPG Saga (The World of Ga'em Book 4) Page 11