Chapter 488: Recording |
“BAM!” The dungeon’s door opened, startling the three inmates, Nova, Jane, and Nightshade, who were staying in the dark.
A tied-up girl was tossed inside. On her body, all kinds of torture marks.
“What the…”
“Her name is Morrisa… Take care of her… If she dies, you will be punished!” the sadist guard chuckled like a bitch before closing the door.
Nova and the others quickly hurried toward the girl to check on her. Her body was in a very bad shape, and it was clear that she must have suffered some unspeakable things.
“Are you ok?” Nova, naked, worriedly.
“.....ba.b…b….” The girl could only drool like an idiot.
“What’s wrong with her?” Nova asked.
“Probably lost her mind…” Jane sighed. “The monsters…”
“Do you want her to join us in our escape?” Nightshade asked with a frown.
“Do we have any other choice? We can’t leave her here…” Nova said, brushing the girl’s shirt boyish hair. She felt very sorry for her.
“You will be the one carrying her then…” Nightshade sighed.
“Fine…” Nova said. “When are we leaving?”
“Tonight! I overheard the guards talking, and it would be our chance!” Nightshade said, feeling a little uncertain. Why did Alpha hasten their plan all of a sudden? She had no idea, but she was at least glad to be finally able to leave this shithole!
***
Two…Oops… No… Three men sat on the stone chairs around a marble table at the center of the grand, decorated hall. One was sitting in a funny way with a donut-shaped cushion underneath him, one was naked, and the last seemed perfectly normal except for the fact that everyone kept forgetting that he was there. They couldn’t even remember his facial features the moment they looked away from him!
In front of them, two rings lay flat on the table.
“So… What do you think?” the naked asked nervously, taking one of the rings to try to check it again. Still the same message… NOT ENOUGH AUTHORITY! “Could it be them?” he asked.
“Impossible… If the Dark Chamber found the legacy or had someone with that much Authority, they would definitely choose to just keep law, hide in that hole of theirs to wait for the Tower to open and try their luck!” the guy who sat on the cushion spat.
“Then who?” the naked guy asked, “It is definitely not a coincidence for two rings with the same restriction to show up at the same time!” He added, turning to the last guy who he almost forgot was there with them.
“Let’s look at things from another perspective…” The last guy finally spoke. “What do you know about each of the rings?”
“The one I got was brought by my daughter, April. She entered the blood moon dungeon under my command to search for it after I traced it back to some demon who hid there,” the guy with the cushion, or as others called him, the Blood lord, stated. “She told me that an egomaniac guy named Vic Volt, who claimed to be the emperor, took control of that dungeon and gave it to her with the spark in it… She checked it before leaving, but once out, the ring no longer opened!”
“Oh… Emperor? That’s all you know?”
“I sent a few men to check a few of the others who were confirmed to be dungeon survivors, but their narrative was similar!” he shrugged. “I don’t have info about that guy!”
“What about you?” He turned to the naked guy.
“This one was gotten by one of my assistants who went to check a fatal disturbance. There she met a priest who seemed to be working for some hidden organization and sowing deceit between the surviving noble families. After killing him, she took his ring!” the naked guy sighed. “At first, I presumed he was working for Dark Chamber, but I might have been wrong!”
“What Fate disturbance?” the blood lord asked.
“Ah… Well, I was meaning to tell you…” The naked guy, who was clearly the fate lord, sighed. “Do you remember the Fate Markers?” he asked.
“The ones that bitch milked you out of your energy to create?” the Blood lord asked, clearly making fun of his friend.
“Yes…” the fate lord clenches his teeth, remembering that humiliation. “She used them in several batches to hold a ritual, and I managed to secretly get hold of a few before they were incinerated!” he said sneakily.
“Oh… a ritual? What were those for?” the blood lord asked.
“At that time, I had no idea, as they are usually used to bring about a potential future, yet she was using them to target ‘potential’ people,” the fate lord said. “After we confirmed that she was a time traveler, I promptly realized that she was using them to make sure certain people pass the temporal disturbance she created and get born, probably her lovers or trusted aides from the other timeline!” the Fate Lord said. “So, I promptly created a ritual to siphon their Fate in an attempt to create a new spark!”
“The fate disturbance you spoke about is about them?” the last guy asked out of nowhere, startling his two friends before they remembered he was there.
“Yes, I was venturing to check that Thunder Sect Dungeon that overflowed recently. It was to see if it could be used as an entry point, when an accident happened!” he sighed. “The markers caught fire and were all burnt along with the altar, it was probably caused by one of the markers going haywire… My men, using a fate compass, followed the disturbance to Wiren Principality’s Vein city, where they cast a massive misfortune curse to try and fish out the culprit, and during this, my servant attended a wedding of one of her friends, where she met that priest!”
“Oh…”
“I see… Vein city…” the last guy squinted his eyes. “I have a few questions for you… “
“Please ask!” the fate lord said. It was clear he respected and feared this guy to a certain degree.
“First of all…” the last guy paused as if he had forgotten. “Ah, right… Thunder sect, did you find anything in that dungeon?”
“It seemed to have merged with a ruin, creating a unique structure that allowed players and monsters to leave through a few cracks. I couldn’t pass and enter the world through it, though… It might have been possible during the overflow, but the world had since locked it up!” the fate lord sighed. “The only interesting thing about it is that it had a tunnel connecting to the old Fire temple where that sissy is locked…” he shook his head.
“Interesting… The next question is for the two of you: Did you try to trace the ring?” the last guy asked.
“Yes, but it was as if everything about it was erased… “The blood lord said, shaking his head. “There were traces of it being tossed into some kind of corrosive liquid, probably some supreme poison that dissolves everything!”
“The same here…” the fate lord added as he scratched his butt. His friends didn’t seem to mind.
“Did you try checking its fate or something?” the blood lord asked.
“Fate can only tell the future… The ring lost its fate the moment it reached my assistant's hand!”
“Ah… Sorry… I still don’t get fate stuff…” the blood lord sighed. “Ah, right… Can’t you reveal their memories or something?” he turned to the last guy and asked.
“For the hundredth time, I am the Oblivion Lord, not the memory Lord… My concept is forgetfulness!”
“Oh, right… I keep forgetting that…” the blood lord sighed.
“I have that effect on people…” the Oblivion lord chuckled.
“It is all that bitch’s fault for damaging our sparks causing our powers to be unstable!” the fate lord hissed.
“Relax… “the Oblivion lord said before pausing for a moment to remember what he wanted to say. “Then let me ask this… Did your assistant find the Disturbance’s origin?” he asked.
“No…” the fate lord shook his head. “She just presumed it had something to do with that priest, and that it might have been a lure to make her show herself!”
“Then do any of the names, Abe Ringer or Victor von Weise, ring a bell?” the Oblivion lord asked, squinting his eyes.
“Ah… Victor Von Weise was the name of the guy holding the wedding that the priest was attending, that guy even had a little fight with Caspian!”
“Caspian?”
“The sacrificial demon for the Tower…” the fate lord clarified.
“Oh… That idiot!” the blood lord nodded.
“I see… What about those two?” The fate lord asked.
“Abe Ringer is a time traveler…” the Oblivion said.
“WHAT?” both of the lords asked in shock. “You mean he is one of that bitch’s…”
“No, most likely they were brought along as a side effect, as the two of them are very minor characters. I just followed the sterilization protocol and neutralized him while removing any changes he might have made, just in case!” he said. “But he is that Guy, Victor’s, cousin-in-law or something… One of my guys seemed to hold a grudge against him, but he was miraculously saved… So, I just told my men to keep an eye on him from afar!”
“A Scion?”
“Most likely… So, your marker is probably him!” he told the fate lord.
“No, it can’t be. My assistant checked his fate and strength, and it was an A level!”
“Oh…” the other two paused.
“Let’s put this guy on our top priority list for now,” the oblivion lord said. “We wouldn’t be able to touch him before the inheritance is passed, anyway!”
“Damn it! That bitch and her schemes…” the fate lord struck the table angrily.
“Relax… We can get rid of those pests after we get our hands on the node!” the Oblivion lord said. “Investigate everything around him just in case… Those guys’ fates tend to intertwine in strange ways…”
“I know… I know….” the fate lord took a deep breath. “Then, what about the rings?”
“There are 3 possibilities…” the Oblivion lord said. “The first is that it is that poisonous snake trying to pull some prank…” he said, making the two lords push their chairs to keep away from the rings.
“Relax, if he poisoned them, he wouldn’t have to lock them this much!” the Oblivion lord spat. “The other option is it might be one of the old hidden fogies trying to intimate date us…”
“And the last option?”
“A newcomer!” the Oblivion lord proposed.
“Impossible, how would a new guy learn about us… Didn’t that bitch command you to erase almost everything about us from the public memory!” the blood lord asked.
“Adding to that, the curse she placed just in case!” the fate lord added. “It can’t be unless…” he paused.
“Yes, someone from another world…”
“But this wouldn’t work, Lords can’t enter grounded domains!” the blood lord said. “And even if he managed to recruit a few players to do his bidding, he wouldn’t have a chance to learn about us….”
“Unless he met one of the others…”
“Ah… Right… But…” the blood lord hesitated. “What if it was one of the ‘Invaders’ the bitch warned us about?”
“Most likely not… And even if it was, it changed nothing. Queeval had already fixed the flaws they would use!” The Oblivion lord sighed again, as if regretting a few things. “Those are all just presumptions for now, so I can’t be sure though…”
“Damn it!” The blood lord struck that table. “We can’t let a random variable ruin years of planning! What should we do?” He didn't like being in the dark.
The Oblivion lord slowly knocked his fingers on the table. “Nothing…”
“What do you mean?” both men asked.
“That guy wouldn’t have thrown us those rings if he were 100% sure of his plan; he would have waited in the shadows… By revealing the rings and his authority, he clearly wanted to demonstrate his Authority level, wanting us to reveal some of our cards or even make a change on the board!” he analyzed. “He wants us to come into the light while he remains in the dark, and that won’t do, so we do nothing for now… Our pieces are in place, and we are already at the endgame. We will only need to be more careful and prepare to go into our backup if anything goes wrong! This is the best course of action!”
“Makes sense…”
“Just make sure to keep an eye on the Tournament… Our hidden enemy might show himself there!”
“Affirmative!... And the rings?”
“It might all be smoke and mirrors… Locking things with great fate is doable using certain artifacts….”
“Then, his target is to only scare us?”
“Possible…”
“Oh… Then…”
“Let me solve them for you…” The Oblivion lord said as he grabbed both of them and activated a strange power that made the rings shine in gray light.
“What are you going to do?” the fate lord asked.
“Make them forget that they have an owner…” the Oblivion lord said, squinting his eyes, due to the ring's high authority, it was a little difficult with the world going against him, but it was doable. Instead of finding the key or breaking the lock, he was removing the entire door.
PAM!
A small explosion happened in his hand, and the two rings fell onto the table.
“What now?”
“Feel free to check them….”
“What if it was that poison guy playing tricks…”
“...” The Oblivion lord looked at the Fate lord.
“I don’t see anything dangerous…” he shook his head.
The Oblivion lord nodded, then grabbed one of the rings and opened it…
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
The entire hall shook as an explosion rocked it all, breaking the table into pieces as the three lords were engulfed in a ball of flame.
“DAMN IT NEVOI THOUGHT YOU SAID THERE WAS NO DANGER…”
“I MEANT FOR US…”
“...”
“...”
“Did you feel that?” the oblivion lord asked as the flame subsided, revealing a ruined hall where three men stood unscathed.
“What?”
“That ring… It had a recording talisman in it…” the oblivion lord replied, his face turning serious. This was something only those old artificers could make.
“Oh…. Someone was recording us?”
“Shit…”
“No, that is good news, we only have to trace it!” the fate lord said, closing his eyes and raising his hand and casting a great light that vanished for a moment before returning to him.
He slowly opened his eyes with a frown.
“What?”
“The light couldn’t reach its target… It was as if fate itself was shielding it…” he said. “But… at the last moment I felt it split into two parts, one headed outside of this world, and the other headed inside…”
“...” The three lords looked at each other. They could deal with enemies from this world, but the outer ones were troublesome.
“Try the other ring…”
“...”
The oblivion lord hesitated for a moment, then, as his friends stepped away, he unlocked it and looked inside.
It was only one piece of paper with two lines.
“Be warned, 'you maggots', if you interfere with this Emperor’s business, This, Emperor, would come and get you in your sleep!”
“P.S. The blood spark is hidden in the Von Zwei’s inner yard.”
It was signed by “His Majesty, the Emperor, VIC VOLT!”
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