BOOK 4: CHAPTER 13: DOMINANCE

Max couldn’t quite believe his eyes. He had never been a believer in the supernatural. In fact, he didn’t even like shows about mythical creatures and impossible powers. Reality had been fucked up enough without believing there was something else beyond the Earthen Union.

But he accepted the appearance of the System and the monsters he’d only occasionally seen in movie advertisements and the like. Ever since that man arrived, things had changed. David, if that was even his real name, was anything but normal. He was a monster in human skin. No, he was an abomination, and most definitely not human. Not from the Earthen Union, at least.

Were there other human races in the cosmos? Max didn’t think so, but who was he to know for sure? He was the one who’d ridiculed those who believed that elves, dwarves, dragons, and all that nonsense existed—before the integration, that is.

Things had changed, but that didn’t mean he could accept everything. First, he hadn’t seen any dragons, elves, or dwarves. David had told them about other races, and he wanted to show them the world outside Kamia in the future, but could they really believe him?

Is it too late to contemplate my actions? he cursed himself, releasing a glistening-white bolt at a Silver-ranked Infected, piercing its skull and brain in one go. The Infected collapsed, yet its corpse never hit the ground. The concrete underfoot burst apart, revealing the eternal darkness that slumbered beneath. Max’s hair stood on end, and he backed off as the darkness surged toward the Infected. It consumed the corpse and retreated once again, never even getting close to Max, but he couldn’t help himself.

He was afraid. Of death, of the all-consuming darkness, and of David. Especially David.

His head flicked to the man clad in dark-violet scale armor that covered him from head to toe. At least, that was the last thing Max saw before layers of vibrant crimson armor shrouded him further. He stood there, unmoving, looking like one of the kings Max had seen in medieval documentaries. A king of war hovered in the air, coated in vibrant crimson armor that somehow resembled blood. And a pitch-black cape fluttered behind him, shifting and twisting as it released bolts of eternal darkness into the surroundings, killing several undead that had been about to overwhelm Jasmine and Samuel.

He’s protecting us while facing those monstrosities. Max grimaced, his hair standing on end again as the pristine-white currents slithering across David’s armor surged forward, toward his adversaries, the Rulers, or whatever they were called.

Max couldn’t suppress his shudder as he looked at the first massive being. Its bony fingers, yellow with tinges of black, whipped down and scattered the white lightning as if it wasn’t anything special. Then again, for a being like that, it might not be anything special. The skeleton, a towering and gaunt figure, was taller than a six-story building. It was a gargantuan creature, and its hollow eye sockets burned with a cold, ghostly light that made him shudder.

A faint miasma, filled to the brim with death, coiled around the colossal creature’s skeletal frame, as well as its long, ancient sword. The blade was etched with runes Max had never seen before, which was hardly a surprise, but it wasn’t the oversized weapon that bothered him. Neither were the Skeletal King’s movements. They were wrong, silent, slow, and heavy with death, but the real problem was the other creatures. The remaining Rulers.

A man clad in blackened, battle-scarred armor loomed atop the ruins of a university building, emitting an aura of cold malice. The helm concealed his face, but Max was certain he saw a faint blue light seeping through a small opening. The man was also undead. A Death Knight.

Tattered crimson cloth hung from his pauldrons like dried blood, and his massive blade, chipped and damaged beyond repair, dripped with unnatural animosity. The Death Knight’s steps echoed with a similar weight of death, like the Skeletal King’s, as if the ground itself recoiled from his presence.

Last but not least was an odd pair; A cloaked being shrouded in darkness, and a ghostly woman draped in tattered, flowing shrouds. Her hair drifted in the air as if underwater, her face pale and gaunt, her lips parted into a scream that seemed to rip through his soul.

This can’t be real… How is he supposed to defeat them?!

The presence of death—overwhelming and overbearing—crashed down upon him. Even though David mentioned that the Rulers were likely at the Platinum Rank, as if it wasn’t anything special, Max highly doubted it would be easy. Everyone said David was a demi-god, and some even treated him as a deity who’d come to rescue them. They truly believed he was their Saint, the solution to all their problems.

But Max didn’t think so. Sure, David was powerful. He was stronger than any of them, even though Frey and Lilia were rapidly advancing to the Gold Rank, and he could easily defeat Gold-ranked undead. And they owed David a massive debt. Still, the Rulers were too much to deal with. Their presence was overbearing and threatened to crush David. Max was sure of that.

But just as doubts about their survival crept into the back of his mind, David moved.

Loud crackles resounded through the campus, muffling all other noises, as he kicked off the empty air underfoot. The space around him distorted, and he vanished.

Afterimages, emitting a vibrant crimson glow, appeared before the Skeletal King, and a thunderous hum reverberated. One moment, Max caught a glimpse of the Skeletal King and David facing each other, and in the next, their sword-arms flashed. The ground beneath the Skeletal King burst apart as the bony feet dug deep into the concrete, so deep they vanished from sight.

The Death Knight’s ominous presence erupted, and he joined the fight. However, the undead, clad in heavy plated armor, was hurled back to his initial position as a glistening-white, crescent-shaped blade flickered through the air. The Death Knight’s cursed sword whipped through the air, yet the crackling crescent blade pushed forward, forcing the Death Knight back to his original position.

And as the Death Knight slammed into the ground, a geyser of all-consuming darkness erupted nearby. Max’s hair stood on end as a defiant roar echoed from within the pitch-black geyser, but he couldn’t see much more as his attention flicked back to the other undead. The Lich and Wailing Banshee, as [Superior Inspection] determined, made their move. So did David.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Seemingly lifelike crimson projectiles materialized all around David, and they surged in all directions in colorful flashes. They struck the Rulers and exploded. Max flinched involuntarily at the force of the impact, but it was more surprising to see the Rulers unscathed. The attack didn’t even scratch the Rulers’ defenses. All the projectiles did was engrave a blood-red rune onto their bodies. But that didn’t look any special.

In fact, Max recalled the letter. It was one of the few abilities David had used on his patients when he removed the aether-induced cancer from the non-Classers. The Healers had clarified that it was an ability to examine his patients. It was too complex for them to understand and superior to their own abilities, but their point stood: the blood-red rune couldn’t inflict any damage.

A pure white lightning bolt whipped through the air as the Wailing Banshee’s lips parted further. A scream ripped through the vicinity, but it lasted no more than a moment as the lightning bolt struck the Ruler in the face. It was more of a smack than actual damage. Still, the Wailing Banshee’s scream ceased momentarily.

Long enough for David to conjure a grayish sphere coated in a semi-translucent membrane of eternal darkness and vigorous blood. Max noticed a portion of the pitch-black cape morph into a thread of darkness, augmenting the sphere right before David released it.

Bones squeaked and cracked in Max’s ears as condensed chaos and destruction burst from David’s hand in the shape of a grayish beam. He barely caught the pitch-black tip right before it pierced through the Wailing Banshee’s chest, incinerating her upper body effortlessly. ⱤἈɴổʙЁŚ

Max gaped at the scene before him. The Banshee screamed at the top of her lungs, stirring and tearing his soul, yet his eyes flicked to David, whose arm whipped back into position as if nothing had happened. Max hadn’t even noticed that David’s arm broke, and he wouldn’t have noticed anything if not for the Lich and the Skeletal King attacking him.

The Skeletal King’s blade struck David’s crimson armor and pierced through several layers. It bypassed the outer layers and must have penetrated his inner armor, even the scaled armor he wore beneath, as blood poured from the wound. But rather than dripping to the ground, the blood surged toward the Skeletal King’s blade and coated it.

Max’s eyes narrowed, and he circulated sacred energy into his eyes to see the blood disappear, and it took a great deal of effort to see a minuscule crack in the old, worn-out blade. As ancient and powerful as the Skeletal King’s weapon was, it must have been damaged before.

Was that intentional? Did David allow the Ruler to injure him… to use his own fucking blood to seep into the weapon? Max felt like screaming, but he watched in silence as the crack in the blade, as wide as a hair’s breadth, expanded. Blood poured out of the weapon, to which the Skeletal King responded quickly. It retracted the blade, releasing David, who hadn’t moved, even as projectiles of condensed doom struck around him, and sent waves of death toward the blade.

But it was already too late. The crack had expanded, and David made a move. Max couldn’t even see what happened, but a flash of darkness, mixed with the pristine-white light of the lightning he’d seen earlier, shot through the air. One moment later, the Skeletal King’s ancient armament shattered.

“This guy is insane,” Max heard one of his friends mutter before the battles around him resumed.

He is insane. Max could only agree, yet the madness of the crimson knight—David or whatever he called himself—was probably exactly what they needed.

David stopped bleeding the instant the Skeletal King withdrew his weapon, and the crimson armor sealed itself back together. It rippled briefly, then was once again flawless and untarnished.

Undead near him snarled and growled as the eternal darkness consumed them, but not all were destroyed. Some headed toward him and the others.

I can’t avoid it, can I? Max asked himself, choosing to ignore the fact that he had volunteered to fight the undead alongside David.

His eyes snapped to the Gold-ranked undead heading his way, and he released a barrage of brilliantly glowing projectiles. They tore through the undead and harmed their very being, as expected from the perfect counter against the living dead, yet they failed to incinerate the shackles that confined these poor souls to their dead bodies, keeping them alive even though they had long since died.

They were weaker than Max expected, yet [Radiant Bolt] was still insufficient. He had to put in more effort to kill the undead, even after all David had done to empower him and his friends. He obliterated the undead up to the Silver Rank seemingly without any effort and left the stronger undead weakened for them to fight. And Max did what he had to do to be useful.

You may not be a Saint, a demigod, let alone a deity, but you are a good man, David. You are worth fighting for!

Max grit his teeth and drew sacred energy from the Holy Ocean to focus on the weaker undead. Since he was too weak to help David in the fight against the Rulers, the least he could do was avoid becoming a burden.

***

The Rulers were powerful. They were also old and had attained sentience quite a while ago. At least, that was what their armaments and behavior suggested. Nonetheless, the Rulers couldn’t compare to the Voidre. If they had been as powerful as the Voidre, he’d have been in trouble.

David would also have been in trouble if not for his Class Skills and Vitae. [Two of a Mind] was unleashed to the fullest, using a minuscule portion of his power to maintain [Herald’s Blessing] on the Classers. Another portion was used to inspect his Source and the effects of both Domain of Vitae and Beacon of Life.

The rest of his mental power remained on the fight ahead, analyzing his enemies via [Lifeweaver’s Bond], and resisting the Lich’s Curses, Banes, and myriad other methods used to weaken him.

[Curse of Arathia has been applied.]

[You have partially resisted the Curse due to Indomitable Willpower. The Curse failed to anchor and cannot unravel properly.]

[You have partially resisted the Curse’s attempts at corruption. Unyielding Vitality has protected your Vitality from greater harm.]

[Bane of Sacrifice has been cast on you.]

…

[Curse of the Reaper has been applied.]

…

A dozen similar messages popped up in his peripheral vision, but David ignored them as best he could, until he sensed something settle inside him, that is. He unleashed Vitae Nihilum and willed it to consume a portion of his body before casting [Radiant Expulsion], overclocked and directed at the other Curses and Banes.

Once the influence of the debuffs had been removed, David cast [True Restoration] and struck again.