by John Gold
Midal the dragon doesn’t even get up when we meet for the first time. He just looks me over, lies back down, and closes his eyes.
“Ah, there’s the one who ruined the balance of power. Don’t expect the same from me.”
“So, you aren’t going to attack me? I can travel through your lands and get to the center of Tanatos?”
“Strange… I feel unfounded rage toward you. But only toward you, not to all humans. Yes, Margul was a great leader, though you beat him in battle. He fell. And I was one of the ones who accompanied him on his final journey.” Midal falls silent, and I can sense the thoughts following each other through his head. But surprisingly enough, his mind isn’t succumbing to the emotions inspired in him. He can push back against that thing in the astral?
The dragon collects himself before continuing.
“Our entire race things that rage and hatred are unfounded. We will let you through and continue to observe, especially since you are the first since Akashi who can answer our growing questions.”
I’ve come across two mentions of that name in books from the previous era. He was called a hero both for his feats of war and his outstanding leadership qualities, though I couldn’t find out anything else about him.
“Who is Akashi? And why am I the first since him?”
The dragon falls silent again. He’s listlessly fighting the rage, though more just declining to engage in it and going back to his regular way of thinking.
“In the last era, when the demons invaded our world, Akashi and his group appeared: dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, trolls, and even giants. Wanderers from around the world followed him here to Tanatos as the one true leader. You’re following that same path, only your methods are very different. The angels, the demons, and the other ancient races reached a ceasefire based on a balance of power, but you shook it to its foundation. Then, however, instead of letting them just boil away in the cauldron of war, you stepped in and restored a fragile balance. In that, you’re similar to Akashi.”
“I took responsibility for my actions.”
“In that case, I was mistaken. Akashi entered the war in order to form an alliance with the angels and the giants, and they all headed to the center of Tanatos when the war was over. His allies suffered heavy casualties; his group of wanderers was lost. But what do you want, Bloody Sagie?”
“I just want to head in to the center of Tanatos. I’ve already progressed as far as I can, so there’s no sense getting involved in another war. How strong was Akashi? Why am I the first since him?”
Midal looks me over. Then, he activates some kind of ability that contrasts his aura with mine before giving his verdict.
“You’re simply strong, devious, and cruel. You don’t have the nobility that Akashi had. He understood the heart of battle, its weaknesses, its tactics, and how to build a strategy that counters strong opponents. He never missed when he threw a spear. When it came to close combat, he could beat anyone. The alliance with the Northern Negara Mountain giants was formed after he won a bet, stepping into a ring completely naked and still beating their leader. He demonstrated to the angels his superiority in negotiations and fighting overwhelming forces. The three-on-three battle was won when he artfully managed his group to combine their unique battle abilities. In the end, he earned himself a clean win, an alliance, the right to be reborn as an angel, and victory in the war with the demons. You hate the gods, people, and anyone who positions themselves as your enemy. He didn’t like them, but he was willing to use them in order to achieve his goals. The difference between your thought processes is like the hatred of a child and the wisdom of an adult.”
“And that’s why you think I’m the first since Akashi. Yes, I’d have to agree. His actions showed the experience he had in making such decisions, and he had leadership qualities, practice in management, and diplomacy skills. Akashi thought very differently.”
Over the past year, I’ve been able to get up to Level 10000, the maximum. Femida and Ekron have spent that time fighting battles across the four continents, winning the first couple hundred only thanks to the seven remaining young gods. The loot all went to the players; the gold was spent building temporary housing for the refugees. Hundreds of cities are in ruins and the locals pray several times a day. Really, the whole world is a combat theater. The average player level has breached 4000, and they’re theoretically ready for a trip to Tanatos. The monsters they’ve been fighting have given them the equipment they need, and the gods, guilds, and battle groups spend their days honing their teamwork. I can now say with confidence that the invasion of the ancient monsters was preparation for what’s here on the island of the gods.
It’s the eleventh month by the time I finally get to the center of the island. The lands of the dragons and dargonids were the final step in the long journey, and I step out into the middle to find an even area made out of gray stone as hard as diamonds. Indestructible. The perfect circle is a kilometer in diameter with a cube in the center. There’s no cover in case I get into a fight, and there aren’t even any birds flying overhead. As soon as I take a step into the circle, a message pops up in my local chat.
Sealed interworldly portal
Minimum requirement for unblocking it: 500 players at Level 9000 or higher and victory over the portal keeper
Passive ability unlocked: Demon possession, complete
You can strengthen your entire body by 100%. Using this ability will cost an equal amount of mana and stamina, the amount itself determined by the ability’s strength of use.
Tiamat certainly didn’t tell me about that. I’m not sure where I’m supposed to find five hundred volunteers, especially when the strongest players in the world have barely crested Level 4500. Can I try and take the keeper on myself? It’s certainly a good thing my demon possession ability was unlocked.
I need to assess how strong my opponent is. Even if I’m killed, that would be better than waiting around for other players to show up. What would I lose by being sent back to the respawn? Experience? I can get more of that.
It’s just normal stone underfoot, though it’s indestructible. I can feel that with each step I take. It’s almost like I’m a child, walking across the stone and realizing that its durability exceeds the 50-million limit. But the cube in the center is much more interesting. Each side features a scheme of our solar system with the current layout of the planets. I even check to make sure by logging into the infonet, and I find out a week later that it changes in real time. But for now, getting within fifty meters of it triggers four portals opening up around it to release hundreds of monsters, each stronger than the last. They’re five meters tall, the portals are six meters tall, and so I can’t see the cube behind them.
I don’t see anything common to all the creatures pouring out. It’s a motley crew of beasts from the ninth astral level, with giants, ogres, dragons, liches, and other undead receiving flesh and being sent into battle.
On the second day, I’m able to figure out that there are never more than eighty of the creatures, no matter how many I destroy. The portals themselves are one-way, probably for show. And I’m definitely facing astral monsters.
On the fourth day, I realize that the portals serve as a kind of protection for the cube and there is an unlimited number of spirits. Its only open side is the top, though some beast always throws up a shield when I try to jump onto it. The only way to get there is to leap over in one fell swoop before the portals to the astral can open. I could grow a tree and jump down from there. I would only need about one second in free fall to jump down, though nothing grows in the circle.
I have plenty of time to spend creating a combat advantage, and so I leave the circle to start growing a tree. An hour later, I’ve proven that the crown does spread over the circle. All it’s going to take is time. Once the tree’s crown spreads from the edge of the circle to the middle, I’ll have my shot at the top of the cube.
I’m never bored. Like Azami said, peace cannot be won by force.
It can only be won by understanding. Once I reached the maximum level, I figured out that I can continue progressing my attributes using achievements. Still, this isn’t about achievements; it’s about understanding. First, I started physically sensing that I’ve gotten to the limit of where I can go. It’s almost like my body is pressed up against a ceiling that prevents it from growing any further. The light graying is still exactly the same as it used to be. My advanced intellect has made me a very attractive young man with a cultured appearance. My strength, agility, and stamina attributes, thanks to the work I’ve continually put in to improve myself, have made me look muscular and wiry. Just clenching my fist makes the muscles and veins stand out. It’s pretty impressive. When I use my amplification, it’s terrifying, and activating my demon shape blends my bone armor with my body to make my skin even and white. My hair, ears, nose, and mouth all disappear. Even the normal sexual markers become far less pronounced, while the bone mask that appears has just one slit for my eyes. It turns out that the amplification my skill gives me is the same as what my demon appearance does. Unfortunately, that means I can’t doubly amplify the same muscles.
In my demon shape, my hands are once again covered in blood. The bone blade and chimeric shield have the same color, the picture enough to make anyone who sees me turn and run.
I grow the tree for four months, feeding its root system every day with load after load of dead bodies. Each day, I fight the monsters popping out of the portals around the cube to make sure I maintain my edge. The demon look improves and modifies my coordination, and even enables me to move through space differently. For instance, jumping into the air in front of someone faster than you is a terrible idea. As you fly upward, they get a guaranteed shot at your center of gravity—the lower half of your stomach or your hip bones.
When I tell Femida about my discovery, she just laughs.
“Sagie, that’s just the basics of close combat. But still, good job getting there.”
I start predicting how my opponents are going to move the next day, following their center of gravity to see what they plan to do next. For snakes, that’s the head; for arachnids, it’s the body; for shapeshifters, it’s the shoulder girdle. But they’re all slower than me when I’m in my demon look. It helps me think faster, and merging all my streams of consciousness makes it feel like I’m controlling the entire field of battle. It’s like I’ve graduated to next-level thinking where every action I take is the perfect solution to bring about victory. I realize that I’m almost always able to push up off the ground again after jumping to change my direction. I’m moving faster than my speed attribute says I can, though that’s only here in the portal circle with its indestructible rock. Normal soil slips underfoot, preventing you from moving with complete precision.
After every battle, I drag the bodies of the creatures I’ve killed over to a special spot right next to the roots of the tree. They wrap themselves around their “fertilizer” and drag it underground. I don’t think my tree is normal, in that it’s becoming quite the gourmet. Every morning, I feel it watching me as I step past the field underneath it. Its mobile roots gently brush against me as if hinting that it’s waiting for guests.
“Gardening” and fighting in the portal ring take up about six hours every day. Another six hours is spent charging my astral source and chimeric shield. In astral time, that’s two days, so each actual day feels like three to me. I’ve gotten away from working on my frontier ship production project, spending all my free time developing Ledge’s main and secondary functions as needed. The more I try to envisage, the more complex its mechanism gets, and the more it changes from what I first pictured. It needs a primary goal to serve as the reason for its existence, and I give it that goal. Understanding the problem lets me see unlimited ways of directing it, and I give my ArtIn self-recognition to keep the system from falling apart. The point of human life is to find a mission and then live for it. The point of my ArtIn’s life is to do what I ask it to do and try to rethink my assignments. The main job will be done regardless, but the way it’s done will depend on how far along the process of self-recognition Ledge goes.
It’s the fifth month when the crown of my tree finally overhangs the cube in the center of the portal ring. Just a week ago, it hit a kilometer in diameter, though it’s only now that there are branches strong enough for me to put my plan into action. After switching over to my demon look, I push off from one of those branches, reach speeds exceeding fifty meters a second, and land on top of the cube. I end up with broken legs, ribs, spine, and hip bones, I’m stunned, I lose my vision, there’s blood everywhere, and just about every bone in my body is fractured, but I’m alive and on top of the portal.
Even feeling just 10% of the pain makes it a terribly unpleasant experience. Basically, I smeared myself across the top of the portal cube, and I lie there unable to move, most of my body paralyzed. But the most important thing is that the portals on the four sides didn’t open. I feel the thing in the astral watching me, though I catch just an echo of its emotions. It’s something like when someone is unhappy with you but doesn’t show it.
Ten seconds later, I’m as good as new thanks to the panacea I had ready, though I would’ve been fine without it in just two minutes. The post-injury debuffs would be gone in ten minutes. Still, I wanted to make sure I had my panacea just in case the portals opened, and I was lying here injured.
Still lying on the cube, I cough and get my breathing back. My last few broken ribs seal up. I lift my head, and the portals open. That’s weird. I put it back down, and the portals close. So, the perimeter starts fifty meters away from the cube and stops forty centimeters from it. Once you’re in that area for more than a second, the portals are triggered.
I lie there for at least an hour before I figure out what’s bothering me. When my perception hit the limit and I got synesthesia, I started being able to get a better feel for my opponents’ strength. Then, I hit Level 10000 and began to feel my own body’s physical limits. It was at that point that my perception of magic, auras, and places of strength went to another level. Sagie, I can’t explain this, but I started sensing absolutely everything. When I step on the stone, I feel its weaknesses and cracks. I know how far I can push my own bones. I sense the sap in the tree. I hear the roots venturing deeper into the earth. Something like a fathometer, I can detect where magic and life force are flowing through anything. My head has an X-ray machine that can see through all matter, and right now, I can feel that some kind of magic energy I don’t recognize is pouring out of the cube. It doesn’t show up in my magic vision, though I can still sense it. Actually, it was the same where I met Azami, Rogue, and Diran, the eagle. But that sensation was gone the next day. Just to test out a theory, I pull a piece of wood out of my inventory and cast Life Magic on it. Instead of a tropical maple, a dwarf tree grows before dying ten minutes later. The energy being released from the cube inhibited its life force and distorted the initial essence. But the most surprising thing is that it has a positive effect on me. I’m thinking more clearly, my streams of consciousness work mistake-free, and my in-game body feels real. It’s almost like my in-game and real bodies have fused slightly, giving me a higher-than-usual sensitivity to pain.
I spend quite a while just lying on the cube and working on Ledge via the neuronet. My productivity is way better there than in the astral with its distorted concept of time, and my mind has taken thinking to the next level.
My real body starts to change, my appetite increases, and I can swim farther than Claude for the first time, twelve kilometers in four hours.
A month goes by, and I’m still working in the infonet from my perch on top of the cube. I’ve learned how to manipulate my own aura, matching its density to what the cube is giving off. It starts inhibiting the life force within other living creatures, too. But even as I learn how to increase the radius and density of my aura, I start feeling mentally tired. The life is leaking out of me even though my mana and health bars haven’
t budged. In real life, however, my skin is tougher, my hair is growing faster, and I’m enjoying more stamina. Even Claude notices a difference.
We’re sitting in the cafeteria. My diet is modified yet again, and the nurse sits down next to me for the first time.
“I’m not sure what experiment you’re part of or how you got permission to stay here so long, but I’d like to participate if I can get the same results.”
“What are you talking about? Isn’t this all thanks to you? Who’s made me swim two kilometers a day for the past three years? Who’s kept an eye on my diet, explained how my body works, given me massages, and picked out the right vitamins?”
Claude looks at me carefully before shaking his head. He’s disappointed.
“Apparently, I’m not talking to the right person. You’re smart, too smart, but you aren’t experienced enough to realize how different you are from other people. I’m an Olympic triathlon champion, while you’re just some guy training once a day and lying around in your capsule the rest of the time, and you were still able to outpace me both in speed and distance. And that’s not to mention the data the med capsule has been feeding me. Are you even human?”
“What else would I be? A dolphin? What data is the med capsule giving you?”
The nurse shakes his head once again.
“I’m not talking to the right person.”
Claude gets up and leaves, and there’s a new nurse the next day. He’s more like a taciturn prison guard than an attendant at a health resort though. Every movement he makes speaks of his military training, and he spends all his time working out.
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There isn’t anyone in the portal ring. The locals, not to mention the monsters, give it a wide berth, and even the dragons with their mental immunity are afraid of it. That thing in the astral may have other ways of influencing things besides infusing them with emotion.