Overlord: The rise of Athex

Gnarl: "Good to see you again mylord/mylady. We appreciate your dark devotion to this story. But… if I may… Geroar has several other stories running as well like "Menmaverse" and "Agni's disease". So if you are fans of… hold on. Lord Geroar how do you pronounce these words here?"

A voice from far away yells something back to gnarl.

Gnarl: "Naruto?! What kind of ridiculous name is that? Oh well on to the other… so if you're a fan of Naruto and… Ava-avatar... the last airbender? My lord come quick! These airbender thingies are only one bashing away of being extinct, we must hurry before someone else steals all the glory of committing genocide on all them air methingies!"

Gnarl starts running around the tower.

"Giblet prepare the masters armor, Chew! Grubby! Bone! Crash! Slash! Twinkleberry! Get yourself some armor! You'll be going with the master to kill this last air whatever it is!"

Geroar: "Yes one of the brown minions is called Twinkleberry! Why? Let's just say you should never swallow a fairy whole."

Geroar continues to whisper: "It makes your skin turn pink." "anyway enjoy the next chapter!"

Chapter 3: Rescue and escape!

Dark tower.

From next to the pool of water, Gnarl watched the flickering images being shown to him. 'The tower is running on fumes!' he thought to himself. "Oh! The suffering this tower endures to make sure its master will walk amongst its halls once more!" Gnarl cried as he stroked the remains of a pillar that once stood strong in this hall. "there, there, everything will be fine. We'll get our final candidate, don't you worry." Gnarl whispered to the piece of rubble underneath his clawed hands.

As if the tower had understood every word of the old grey minion the pool of water seemed to become clearer, having gained a boost of mana from the tower. Gnarl quickly scuffled to the edge of the water whispering "good boy." To which the water gave off a happy glow, like a dog being praised by its owner.

What Gnarl saw there didn't make him very happy. An execution! Now normally Gnarl enjoyed a nice execution, he'd sit back with a bucket of dead rats and a mug of dwarf mead. But not when a potential overlord was the one being executed.

"Aria! What are you doing? You need to hurry up, time is running out for our candidate and we don't want him to die!" Gnarl shouted through the pool to Aria.

Therios execution platform.

Aria watched as the head-cutters axe was lifted into the air. Her eyes widened and she sprang into action. Bending down she grabbed one of the four brown minions by his shoulders and said "I'm going to make diversion! You three! Take care of those sentinel monks! And you get him out of his bindings!"

The four minions nodded and ran as fast as they could in between the legs of the crowd towards the platform. Aria stood up straight while whispering a short incantation. Turning around, facing towards the platform she raised her right arm and aimed towards the executioner.

Finishing her incantation a ball of fire shot from her hand and struck the executioner in his side only moments before the axe would have found its target.

Athex watched as the fireball struck the large bulky man in his side and was sent flying out of his field of vision. He stared at the girl he'd seen earlier before the axe buried itself into the wooden planks in front of his face, obscuring his vision of the girl. Now he found himself looking at his reflection in the axe, at least the parts that weren't covered in rust or dried up blood.

For a several moments it was silent as the crowd tried to wrap their undeveloped brains around what just happened.

…

Then the panic kicked in as a woman screamed.

*screaming*

People started running around like a chicken without a head, people bumping in to each other. In the chaos the guards that had been on the walls or behind the crowd started to push people aside to get to the girl that had thrown the fireball.

*more screaming*

"she's a witch!" "Mother goddess! Help us!" "She'll turn our children into halflings!" "Every man for himself!" "She's come to make the demon her servant!"

While all of this had been going on the four minions had reached the platform. As soon as they had climbed their way up two had jumped the sentinel on the right of Athex and one had jumped the other on his left. The fourth had run up to the large head-cutters axe and with a strength that didn't seem possible for a creature that small, pulled it out of the platform and raised with great difficulty above his head.

The sentinel on the left was caught off guard by the brown skinned, sharp clawed creature and had fallen to the ground when it had jumped him. but it took him only a moment of struggling to throw the creature off of him and stand up. The brown was thrown off the platform back into the crowd having bought his fellow brown a single moment of time.

A moment was all he needed as the brown carrying the axe looked into the sentinel monks eyes as he swung the axe down destroying the lock, freeing Athex of his bindings.

Athex closed his eyes as the unknown creature swung the axe down. The next moment her heard the sound of metal breaking and felt his bindings springing loose. As he stood up his bindings fell to the floor, he looked at the creature as it suddenly stood up straight and saluted him. A corner of his lips twitched up slightly as he observed the silly creature.

*blatsh*

Athex stood frozen as he had just witnessed the creature exploding into tiny pieces leaving behind a black and red mist and a brownish yellowish light before it flickered and died like a candle.

Looking behind him he noticed the sentinel monk, his hood was down allowing Athex to see the satisfied smirk on the bald man's face. Noticing the scepter with the red crystal in his hand pointing at where moments ago the fun little creature had been a moment ago he gritted his teeth and growled at the monk.

The red crystals were used for identifying, syphoning and destroying magic in all of its forms. So it didn't take him long to figure out what had just happened. Before the sentinel monk could aim his scepter at him he grabbed hold of the axe with his right hand.

The monk was positioned in front of him to his left. With the axe in his hand he took a step forward with his left foot. Continuing by stepping with his right foot to the left behind his left foot and continuing further. Turning around clockwise he swung the axe backhanded from his left hip to his right shoulder, cutting the monks head off.

Aria watched had turned her back towards the platform and was now surrounded by a dozen guards and a single guard captain. The guards were all armed with a crossbow and a sword at their belt. Several arrows were shot at her. Ignoring most as they flew by harmlessly, well at least if you'd call hitting a fleeing citizen harmlessly that is. But others came to close for comfort and she was forced to deflect them using a simple barrier spell that she could do with one hand.

The guard captain noticed that he had to change tactics as the crossbow fire didn't seem to effect the witch at all. So he ordered several men to draw their swords and cut the woman down. As the men charged at the witch he watched carefully and was perplexed when the girl drew a long dagger from underneath her clothes, it didn't help that the spot she drew her weapon from was a very private area. 'how the hell do you hide a dagger there?' he thought for a moment as he grabbed hold of himself and was forced to watch as two of his men were cut down in an instant.

Aria held her ground as she waited for the men charging at her to come closer. The first man jumped in the air trying to act like a hero. As he came down so did his sword, however aria was no novice and blocked the sword strike. From the corner of her eye she caught a movement and she quickly rammed her shoulder into the man's chest forcing them to switch places. She smirked as the fool dropped like a sack of flour when the crossbow arrow that was intended for her hit him in the back.

The second man shouted "Jimmy! Nooo! You'll pay for that!" and started roaring as he ran towards her and thrust forward. Aria however merely ducked underneath the sword and used her dagger to puncture his hart. The blood trickling down her dagger and her hands. The guard dropped his sword and coughed up some blood. Before he fell down dead to the ground he uttered his last words "Mommy, make the pain go away! I don't want to die!" Aria allowed the man to fall down dead and glared up at the guard captain standing on the wall to her left.

The guard captain started to fume in anger and the others he had sent to kill the witch had started to hesitate in their advance. He glared at the witch who was glaring back at her. He was about to order the cowards to kill her or face execution for insubordination when he was distracted by what was happening on top of the execution platform.

When Aria noticed the captain and his men looking behind her, she turned her head to see her rescue target standing over a beheaded sentinel monk. All the natural mana that had been stored into the monk's scepter and body had been released the moment he died.

Now searching for a new host the natural mana started swirling around Athex. Not surprising considering that the natural mana recognizes him as a magical being and furthermore had been drained of his own magical powers during his imprisonment.

Athex stood there, frozen as the magical energy entered his body. And when all of that natural mana came into contact with what little mana he had of his own, a transformation took place inside of his body. All of the natural mana became corrupt, as the evil energy spread like a virus infecting the natural mana.

During these moments everything had gone quiet as if time had simply stopped. You could still hear the citizens screaming in the distance as they fled as far as they could. But Aria, the city guards, and the minions had all gone quiet as they stared at the phenomenon happening before their very eyes.

The silence was breached when the last sentinel monk finally threw the two distracted browns off of him. At the same time one of the guards was able to recover faster than the others and took the opening created to fire his crossbow at the black-haired witch. The sound of the crossbow firing brought the rest back to reality. They prepared themselves to fire as well when they were ambushed from behind by the other six minions, who had just arrived.

Aria quickly turned around when she heard the sound of a crossbow firing. Her eyes growing wide as she watched the arrow coming straight at her head.

*slowmotion*

The arrow flying down inch by inch. Aria reacts and throws her left hand up trying to cast a shield spell without incantation. There was no time for even the shortest and simplest incantation. Her hand and the arrow inching closer and closer towards each other. A yellow light started to spread out across her palm and then…

*end slowmotion*

The arrowhead hit the unfinished shield spell and was redirected downwards. Aria had stopped the arrow from killing her but not from hitting her as the arrow had now buried itself into her leg. Halfway between her waist and her knee. Blood flowing out of the wound, coloring her pants dark brown. She screamed at the pain and dropped down to the ground. Sitting on her butt, she cried and screamed while her hands hovered around the arrow, not daring to touch it.

Among her screaming and crying and cursing, she managed to utter an incantation and was surrounded by a yellow force-field creating a dome with a diameter of 1,5 meters.

Athex who had noticed the minions being thrown off of the last sentinel monk quickly jumped over and punched him in the face before he could fully stand up. The punch sent him flying and in seconds Athex stood over him. Holding the head-cutters axe with both hands, he placed the blade against the mans chest. Then he moved the axe in an arc from the chest to his hip and from there above his own head.

Looking the monk in the eyes where he saw panic and fear. A tingling sensation went up and down his spine as he swung the axe down. Cutting into the man's flesh, ribs, lungs and then his ribs again.

Lifting the axe he turned around. Looking across the square he saw his rescuer fallen to the ground in pain underneath a yellow dome of energy. The arrow still sticking out of her leg. From the corner of his eye he noticed movement. Looking over he saw enemy reinforcements coming from the streets.

'F*ck! That's not good!' he thought and he jumped off of the platform and ran towards her as fast as he could. Holding the axe closer to the blade so that he could carry it with one hand, Athex arrived at the dome but couldn't get in. The three remaining browns had followed right behind him and now stood still and watched as their final candidate focused his mana into his fist and punched the barrier as hard as he could.

*Thunk! Crrrk!*

A small crack appeared in the barrier. Athex shook his arm and cocked his fist back again.

*Thunk! Crrraaaack!*

The small crack had spread out creating a giant star. Once more Athex cocked his fist back.

*Crash!*

The barrier shattered and Athex fell to his knees beside Aria. Dropping the axe to the side he grabbed Aria's left arm and threw it around his neck as he grabbed her underneath her legs and below her armpits and lifted her up. In the meantime one of the three brown minions had grabbed his axe.

As he saw the minion carrying the giant axe he was once again amazed by the unnatural strength of these creatures. Shaking his head he followed his instincts and jumped into action. "Hey! You two!" he said looking at the other two minions. "grab a sword and create an opening for us! We're going to run away!" immediately after he had said it the two creatures had followed his orders. Each one picking up a sword from one of the two guards Aria had killed earlier.

Now armed and pumped about the knowledge that they had someone to do the thinking for them they rushed at the line of guards that had surrounded the square. The guards themselves were still trying to get the other 6 minions off of their heads as they tried to claw their eyes out. The armed minions quickly killed three guards and broke through. Now armed with crossbows the three minions freed the other remaining two, one had died in the struggle. With 8 minions left they followed Athex towards the city gates but the drawbridge had already been raised preventing their escape.

Looking down Athex noticed that the girl had lost consciousness due to losing too much blood. Quickly scanning the area for a way out he ran to his left up the stairs that would bring him on top of the now unguarded walls.

*fwiiiish! Tock!*

An arrow flew right by his face as he ran up the stairs. Glancing back he saw the city guards were in hot pursuit. Looking back towards the front he started running again the minions right behind him firing arrows back towards the guards.

*fwiiiish! Splatsh! Gaaaah!*

One of the minions got hit by an arrow. The minion next to him crouched down and shook his buddy's corpse, realizing his friend wasn't going to get up, (then turn around and spank his ass while sticking out his tongue and going nah, nah, nah-nah, nah, then give the filthy humans the middle finger and shoot an arrow through one of their heads) he started to tremble in rage as he picked up his friends crossbow, now with a crossbow in each hand he went and started shooting, taking all of the arrows into his mouth and reloading his crossbows with his tongue. It took three seconds to reload both crossbows, but the guards where now dropping like flies. After killing 6 and injuring another 8 he dropped one of the crossbows and followed behind the rest.

Athex had seen the little creature handle the crossbow and had decided to make sure he could tell the difference between him and the rest by taking a good look at the guys ears. The creatures looked almost exactly the same except for the cuts and missing bits in their ears.

Arriving at the top of the wall he looked over the edge. There was a moat right beneath him, a moment of hesitation and he jumped off of the wall landing feet first into the water. When he came back up for air he made sure to keep Aria's head above the water. Looking back up he realized none of the browns had followed him. "What are you waiting for come on!" he yelled.

The minion carrying the axe couldn't help but follow orders, they were minions after all and would gladly rush towards their deaths for their master. Jumping off he landed into the water, the weight of the axe dragging him to the bottom. Then he let go and struggled his way to the surface, there he struggled some more and then drowned. Only 6 minions remained.

"Seriously?! You guys can't swim?! Mother of a *^%$! Useless as an ogre's $[*%^]$!" Looking around he noticed a fallen pillar that reached over the wall and the water and connected to a tall tree on the other side. "There is a pillar to your left! Try to cross over there!" he yelled back and started swimming to the shore.

In their hesitation to jump, the guards had almost made it to the top of the stairs. Some had stopped to take aim and fire their crossbows and succeeding in killing another minion, leaving 5 minions in total. Half of their forces had already died.

They quickly ran over the wall and crossed the river over the pillar and then the tree, however as they crossed they had nothing to shield them from the arrows and one more minion fell dead into the river. 4 minions remaining.

Athex arrived at the tree and was joined by the remaining minions. "Do you have a plan?! Some place we can hide?! Some place we are safe?!" he asked them. They had come to save him, so it would be logical that they had a hideout or reinforcements nearby. The minions now knew it was up to them. Aria had led them into the city, the candidate had led them out of the city, so now it was their turn to lead them home. The minions took point and gestured Athex to follow, "come, come, follow! This way! Master follow!" they yelled with their hoarse voices.

And so Athex followed them into the woods until they came upon a hill hidden from view by anyone unless you looked at it from above like a bird flying overhead. On the hill stood a couple of stones, the ruins of some ancient temple, the stones forming a half circle 5 meters wide.

'is this where they are supposed to meet up with someone?' Athex thought, but as he got to the top of the hill the teleport gate reacted to his presence and dug itself up out of the ground. Together with four small pits one of which glowed yellowish brown. "Quickly, quickly!" one of the minions shouted as he pointed towards the teleportation gate. It was clear that the creature wanted him to step onto the small circle, he hesitated but then realized they wouldn't free him just to kill him and he had no reason to distrust the creature. Stepping onto the circle he felt a strange pulling at his magical energy and disappeared.

End chapter 3: Rescue and escape!

Oh my god that took a long time to write. I really tried to get all the action and excitement in there.

Were you able to feel it? could you feel your blood flowing? Please let me know by leaving a review.

Follow and favorite, see you in the next chapter.