by A P Gore
Surprisingly, the lady assassin had agreed with a smile. Seemed like she too would enjoy it. Or it was common in this group?
Deathblade rubbed his right buttock. Right now, he regretted calling this man for help. Now he understood why, despite being an elite member of the Death Hounds, Ashima never rose in the ranks and only remained a caption of a small team. Yet, he was more respected than Deathblade ever was.
Turning his eyes back to the fight, he waited patiently. Their plan was to attack the village once the monsters entered it. They didn't fear anyone from the village, but they wanted to watch some fun.
He shook his head as a moan slipped out of the tent. Everyone else kept their eyes on the battle. This must have been a regular thing, since no one seemed to be bothered by it.
In the distance, the elite ape dropped to the ground, dead, and the small black rope that had strangled it latched onto two other monsters.
Deathblade almost jumped from his horse. "What's going on?" he asked the man sitting on a horse next to him.
"The village lord used some darkness-related spell. It's impressive. The spell knocked 2000 HP out of the elite in less than ten seconds. But don't worry, he’ll be no match for us." The man sneered.
A few more seconds passed. The black rope kept killing monsters in groups. Soon, the ground was littered with dozens of monster corpses.
"This is bad. That thing is not stopping at all." The same man who had mocked the village lord now expressed his concern. He glanced at the tent. "Boss, I think the village isn’t going to fall."
"You asshole,” Ashima shouted from inside the tent. “Do I need to repeat myself? If it doesn't fall, we’ll just sneak in. Aren't you an elite assassin in our guild? Do we pay you for being a scared shit?" The moans coming out of the tent increased.
Deathblade shook his head in disappointment. The rumors were true. Ashima focused more on lust than gameplay, and that had doomed his career. Deathblade was much better than Ashima. At least he had set his sights on only one woman, one who was about to slip out of his hands. But what could he do?
He was about to get down from the horse and relieve himself when the man on his left shouted, "Boss, you’d better get out here. The spell just attacked a player from the village. It's a soul devourer."
A soul devourer? Deathblade's knees would’ve buckled if he weren’t already sitting. That was bad. If a soul devourer attacked him, the least he would be out of the game for was ten game days, and anything could happen in those ten game days.
Another shout came out of the tent. "Why the fuck are you worrying? Aren't we, like, far away from there? They don't even know we’re here."
Something appeared next to the tent, a three-meter-long thick black rope with hundreds of tendrils shooting out of one end. It had one red eye that blinked rapidly at everyone. Before anyone could do anything, the tendrils shot toward everyone in the group, including the two in the tent.
Before Deathblade could react, he was gasping for breath in his room. Pushing the VR helmet off his head, he glanced at the message on his PC.
Blackflame Online: You've been logged off for the next 10 days.
Ten days in real life meant the loss of one hundred twenty days in Blackflame Online.
"Damn you, village lord! I'll kill you with my own hands when I get back." Deathblade's shouts rang out from the tenth bedroom of the fifty-bedroom villa.
Chapter 51
Maggie waved her hand, and a sword and a shield appeared in her hands. Stabbing the sword into the wooden guard tower, she chanted a few words, and a golden shield appeared around them, encapsulating the whole tower. It was like seeing an angel cover them in an angelic shield. In that moment, Maggie looked like no less than an angel—not that Jon knew how angels looked, but they couldn’t look better than the stunning blue-eyed beauty in front of him.
"What did you do with your plant?" Maggie asked, her eyes shooting fire at him while sweat beaded her forehead.
"Me?" Jon touched his chest, glancing in the direction his vine had disappeared after killing two of his villagers. On the mini map, he spotted it heading east. But why? There was nothing there but a small patch of thick forest.
"Yes, you. Did you set that thing lose? How did it attack the players?" She wiped sweat away with the back of her shield hand, holding the hilt of the sword tightly.
"I activated its freedom trait." Jon rubbed his jaw. Was it the freedom seal? Damn, although he didn't care about the seal and monsters, the vine had attacked his own village members. That was not acceptable.
Maggie shook her head, disappointment showing in her curled-down lips. "I can't believe I signed a contract with you. Get out of the light dome and recall vine. Now!”
Jon gazed in the direction the vine went. "I can't. It will come back eventually, but I’m not sure when."
She rubbed her forehead, pacing inside the light dome, holding her shield tightly. "This spell will only work for two hours. Call the other players inside. Once it expires, I'll log out. Then it's up to you and your faith."
Glancing at the mini map, he spotted the vine vanishing inside Abomination Forest after spending about fifteen seconds in the patch of forest east of the village. Why did it stop there? Did it face a monster?
He had no way of knowing, so he cast couple of Call Lightning spells and finished off the few remaining monsters who were trying to make a dent in his wall.
System: Congratulations, you have defeated the first beast tide attack on your village.
Quest: Save the Village I is complete.
Reward: One building will be auto-finished instantly. Resources and BP will be taken from the village's storage.
10 gold
100 wood
100 iron
100 stone.
That's it? Was the system stupid or greedy? After he killed 1000 monsters, all he received was one insta-completion of a building, and a few resources taken away?
System: Congratulations, you have reached level 6.
Congratulations, you have reached level 7... 8... 9... 10... 11.
Instantly he shot to level 11 and had a plethora of stat points and a bunch of skills to choose from.
System: Divine punishment received from the god of light. User Jonathan is cursed with death aura, reducing 25% of Health/Spirit/Mana/Stamina. Experience gain reduced by 25%.
System: Divine punishment received from the god of darkness. User Jonathan is cursed with death aura, reducing 25% of Health/Spirit/Mana/Stamina. Experience gain reduced by 25%.
System: Due to Divine Punishment, your level up has been halved. Your character has been reset to level 8. Your stats and experience gain have been set to 50% of the level value.
What?
"This is insane," he shouted as the level up light hit him, pumping his stats up but then reducing them back by half. This was insane. Why did he lose so much for casting one single forbidden spell, and that too from 2 different gods? Why the heck did they hate him so much?
Maggie smirked. "How much did you lose?"
Jon dropped to the ground, feeling weak all over. This was totally crazy. "Fifty percent of everything along with 4 levels." All he wanted to do was lock himself up and cry in a corner. The punishment was too severe.
A glance at his character sheet shrank his heart into a molecule. Even his Water of Darkness effect had ended because of the Divine Punishment, and it had a cooldown of 23 hours next to it.
Name: Jon (Level 8)
Class: Arch Druid
Second Class: Formationist
Stats:
Strength 23
Dexterity 7
Constitution 23
Intelligence 4
Wisdom 34
Chance 2
Charisma 4
Health 285/570 (285 reserved)
Stamina 190/380 (7.89/S) (190 reserved)
Mana 20/40 (5.16/S) (20 reserved)
Spirit 170/340 (14.61/S) (170 reserved)
Stat points available: 15
<
br /> Skill points available: 12
Experience: 34000/34000
“Damn, this is f-ing insane,” Jon shouted in agony. On top of it all was a fifty percent experience penalty. So, he would take at least twice as long to level up.
"I told you, there's no free lunch. At least you saved your village. Now pray that your plant won't come back to kill others. That would be worse than this.”
Jon glanced at the current location of the vine, which was in the outer region of the forest, stalled by something. Did it meet its match?
Global System announcement: Player Jonathan has triggered a new expansion. Abomination Continent.
Abomination Continent is now open to explore. In the next three hours, everyone will receive a generic map to the continent. In three months, a teleportation portal will open to the nearest town, Chinari. Prepare your armies and march on the new continent to rule the unknown lands.
Player Jonathan receives 200 gold for his achievement, +500 reputation points with all player towns, and +100 fame points with all human NPC cities.
"Now, did you..." Maggie shot him a disdainful look.
Chapter 52
Jon lifted his chin, wondering what he’d done wrong now by triggering the expansion. Wasn’t it a good thing for players? New continent, more monsters, and the game would definitely throw in some new skills and classes to grab.
“Now what?” He asked, spoiling for a fight. Fifty percent of everything. He now had f-ing 285 HP.
Maggie smacked her forehead. “Meeting you was the worst day of my life. If I’d known you’d do this, I would’ve killed you until you deleted your character.” She paced around with a storm in her eyes.
Grimish stepped forward. He looked like he had bathed in monster blood and smelled like a four-day dead raccoon. “Master...”
Maggie stopped and blurted, “Do you even know how much of a pain it will be when the super guilds and clans starts arriving here? This is the closest village to the Abomination Forest, and they’ll treat this town as fodder for their bases. Even Chinari is in trouble because of you. When a new expansion opens up, the nearest point becomes a battleground for all the guilds and clans that rule this game.” She rubbed her forehead frantically. “I’ll bet within three months there will be no Epic village anymore.”
Something heavy settled on Jon’s chest. She made sense. The announcement mentioned Chinari, so the influx of players would flood it soon. If he had known this, he wouldn’t have triggered the expansion until he’d moved his village away—if that was even possible.
God, all he’d wanted was to farm in solitude, and instead he’d ended up here. And those damn f-ing gods of light and darkness. Did they conspire against him? This way, he would lose the village in no time and go back being a slave to Laxania for the next six hundred years.
But how had he triggered the expansion?
Suddenly something dropped atop the light dome and everyone’s eyes turned up.
A lady in white hovered above their heads. A long beautiful dress wrapped around her ample chest. A long staff shone with a glittering light in her right hand, and a strange cube exuded a weak aura in her left.
She looked like nothing less than a goddess of life.
“Is that your toy?” She asked, her clear green eyes emitting a bluish white light.
Jon glanced at the thing lying next to him, it was his vine, tied up with red ropes. How did this happen?
Vine of Darkness
Incapacitated by Miraha the Druid Priestess.
Release Cost: 1000 souls.
What the heck was this, and why did it require souls to release? This vine had already caused him enough trouble, and now if he wanted to use it again, he would have to feed it souls. Why didn’t it just say go f-k yourself instead?
Shooting a glare at the woman hovering in the air, he picked up the vine and shoved it in his bag. That vine had cost him a lot, and the woman had made it useless.
The woman dropped down, landing lightly on the ground. As she touched the white dome of Maggie’s shield, it disappeared instantly.
“God, who is she? I can’t even cast perception on her. And this pressure...” Maggie dropped to her knees, and so did everyone else. Everyone except Jon. He didn’t feel anything.
He stared at the woman’s face. It looked familiar. Where had he seen her?
“It’s you.” The woman smiled at him. “When I saw you from the sky, I couldn’t believe it for a moment. I never got a chance to offer my thanks.” She again smiled, flashing her perfect white teeth.
“Do I know you?” Jon asked, feeling flustered. How couldn’t he? Suddenly a stunning beauty was thanking him for no reason. Wasn’t he too handsome for ladies in the game?
The woman giggled. A dimple appeared on her right cheek, instantly increasing her beauty one hundredfold. She was a pleasure to watch... and smell. An exquisite aroma wafted over the air as she stepped forward.
“I guess it was a very brief encounter. But back in the Abomination Forest, you saved me from the evil druid clan’s arch priest.”
Jon suddenly remembered the transformation ritual and the lady in white. Now he knew where he’d seen this beautiful woman before. “Oh! The lady in white.”
“Call me Miraha. Actually, now I have to offer my double gratitude to you. One for saving me back then, and another for wiping out fifty percent of the evil druid faction.”
Jon rubbed his chin. When did he do that? “Did I? I don’t even remember when I do things these days.” He chuckled.
A shield stabbed his toe. Glancing down, he found Maggie had dropped her shield on his foot. A hundred-pound shield. Not only was his foot screaming, the blow had taken 10 HP from him. Was she mad? He shot an angry gaze at her. How could she become so jealous about the new woman in less than two minutes?
Miraha giggled, exposing her mesmerizing dimple once again. “No, it was your toy. The darkness vine. Where did you get that thing? If I didn’t possess the Staff of Light gifted by the Druid Goddess, I wouldn’t have been able to defeat it after it devoured three hundred evil druids. It nearly took my full power to tie that thing up.” A pained look flashed through her eyes.
“Did it?” Jon felt proud of his vine. After all, he had set it lose. And he felt nothing, crickets, about the dead druids. Why would he care for a bunch of monsters, anyway?
“Tell me, how can I help you?” she asked, her green eyes focused on his face.
Asking her to go on date would be too much, wouldn’t it? “Can you undo this Divine Punishment?” he asked, without having any hope in his heart. He knew she wouldn’t be able to, but he could ask. What did he have to lose?
She smiled, another breathtaking smile.
“No, I can’t. But I know one god who can. Actually, he would be quite interested in you.”
Chapter 53
“And who would that be? Can you shed some light?” Jon asked, his eyes still lingering on the dimple on her cheek. Why was she so beautiful?
“It’s Morpheus, the lesser god of light and darkness.”
Jon frowned, his mouth twisted in disappointment. “Didn’t they just punish me?”
Miraha shook her head. “Actually, no. They are different gods. Abraha is the god of light, while Erith is the god of darkness. Morpheus is the lesser god of light and darkness.” She seized her chin, like she was gathering words. “A lesser god is a god but doesn’t have influence to become a god.” She shook her head. “No, I can’t put it like this. Just consider him another god who controls light and darkness both. Only he can help you to remove this Divine Punishment.”
“A god who controls two elements? Isn’t he stronger than each of these?” Jon scratched his head. This was getting complicated. He really needed that primer on the game.
Someone tugged at his pantleg. It was Maggie, glaring up at him with two angry eyes. “I’ll tell you later. Ask her to finish and go, we’re on the verge of death here,” she growled under her breath.
“Oh,
that.” Miraha slanted her brows and waved her staff.
Everyone except Jon sighed in relief and dropped on their butts like someone had just lifted mountains from their shoulders.
“Anyway, pray to him and see if he wants to help you,” Miraha said.
“Can’t you introduce me?” Jon asked. This praying was something he didn’t want to do.
Miraha’s solemn expression changed into a darkened one, like someone fed her a frog. “Are you naïve? Do you think gods visit us mortals like friends? If the god Morpheus wasn’t the friend of my druid goddess, how would I even know him? If you want a solution, pray. And if you need help, contact me using this.” She threw a blue crystal at him and flew away.
Once she flew from the scene, everyone stood up. “Master fella, what should we do now?”
“Pray, what else?”
Dropping to his knees, Jon closed his eyes and called upon the god Morpheus.
“Hey god of light and darkness, Morpheus, please listen to me and answer my prayer and grant me a solution to remove these Divine Punishments.”
“Are you nuts?” A voice boomed in his ears. “Are you really trying to pray on top of a guard tower? Build a temple and dedicate it to me. Then we will talk.”
System:
A divine quest is assigned to you.
Path of Darkness and Light I
Class: Divine.
Quest: Build a temple and dedicate it to the god of light and darkness, Morpheus, in ten days.
Reward: A conversation with Morpheus.
Do you want to accept? Yes/No.
Jon chose yes. What other option did he have?
“Miss Maggie, can you tell me how to build a temple?” Jon asked, standing up. Though his stats were reduced, he at least had a path forward.
Maggie sized him up. “Yes, I can.”
Epilogue
Jon glanced at the field of weed crop in front of him. This was the fourth crop in the last three days. Everything had grown to be Excellent in quality, and a buyer was waiting in Chinari to buy every single plant for 95 copper each.