Chapter 19
Berethur watched the armored figure, while the earth underneath them shook from the distant battle. Mysterious knight did not exude any sort of malicious aura. On the contrary, Berethur could sense the honor and regality of the person. Knight gestured him to sit.
Naturally, the sorcerer had become quite curious to how such a proper knight had come to this decrepit city. The easiest way to find out was to ask the man. Although the very ground shook violently with tremors, and inhuman screams came from the distance; they sat around the fire in the centuries-old room.
"I am Berethur Konigen of Roble. May I know your name?" Berethur had opted to introduce himself as a countrymen of Roble. After all, he did not feel comfortable with introducing himself as a member of an insignificant and ignorant village. The young sorcerer had never liked the village whom he was born in.
The knight reclined backwards slowly, putting his hands behind to balance himself. He replied calmly, like their current predicament was nothing out of the ordinary.
"I am Salazar of Pluto, the watcher." His voice was mechanized as it resonated within his helmet. Giving it a robotic tone.
Berethur mused upon the knight's response.
"My apologies Salazar-san, but would you tell me where Pluto is located? Although I have looked at some world maps, I have never heard of a country or city by that name."
The knight laughed without diminishing his composure. It was deep and genuine, but also calculating and restrained. It gave a hint to the knight's personality.
"It is the name of the city above you, young man. The long-forgotten name of the floating city. The name by which the Eight Greed Kings called it. The origins of the name however, is unknown."
Berethur looked at the man with unbelieving eyes. Were there still lineages living within the floating city? It made no sense otherwise for a human to be here. Centuries had passed since the short-lived days of splendor of the Greed Kings. The other option was that the knight was not human, but from a long living race.
'An elf maybe? Or maybe someone like lady Joann. Nymph as Blue Planet called wasn't it?' In any case, Berethur was extremely curious.
"Does that mean you live up there? Is the flying ci- Pluto not deserted?"
Knight shook his head as a negative.
"It is still the home for me as well as many others. It is quite a unique city, but it is a city regardless. It is not what it once was during the rain of the Greed Kings, but life still perseveres."
"I see…" Berethur muttered.
Salazar gave him a nod, "You have come to visit Pluto, haven't you. The legendary city of myths and legends. If you wish, I will take you there. It is my home after all. This way you would not have to pass over the Graveyard of the Damned."
Berethur was split between being cautious and curious. A golden opportunity was given to him but every rose has its thorns. It was vague whether this offer would end up biting him in the future or not. Thus, his first instinct was to turn Salazar down and wait for Blue Planet and Edward to do the heavy lifting. But he immediately vanished those thoughts. 'This is my journey. I can't always depend on the mighty. I may not be strong enough to make my own fate, but I am not petty enough to expect others to make it for me. I can come back for them after seeing what this opportunity has to offer.'
"Thank you for your kind offer Salazar, I graciously accept. Lead the way."
"Think nothing of it." Said the knight dismissively. Salazar stood up and the duo moved out. They moved back out to the entrée, from there they proceeded deeper into the building. As previously said, closer to the heart of the city, buildings had started piling over each other, so there were roads over rooms and buildings were connected through small hallways like a human ant hill.
As they walked Berethur asked about the horrific presence in the black pit which Salazar had called the Graveyard of the Damned. So the knight spoke.
"Well, might as well give you a brief history lesson. After the descent of the Eight Greed Kings, they conquered the known world in its entirety. Even I do not know the true extent of their influence. At some point of their campaign, their invasive policies took the attention of the dragon lords. Or rather, they no longer could ignore it. Dragon lords were a number of elder dragons that were bestowed magnificent power ages ago. However, their might made them disattached and ignorant to worldly affairs. When they intervened, it was already too late. Out of the legendary twelve, only four of them remained after they were hunted down one by one by the Greed Kings." Salazar gave a long sigh, but continued on.
"Dragon lords thought they were powerful, but ten of them were barely able to take down a single Greed King. What broke their fighting spirit was the fact that the defeated Greed King came back from the dead. There was no sure way to totally annihilate the kings. So the dragon lords decided to destroy the source of their control, the Flying City as a final desperate attempt… that ended in utter defeat. For some time, Greed Kings held the world in their palms, and squeezed it to their satisfaction." Salazar paused again before continuing.
"But things changed after something that they did not expect happen. The last of the so called Six Gods, Shurshana stood against them. For reasons unknown, although she was utterly defeated under Pluto, the relations between the Kings were irreversibly severed. The forces of each group clashed until they grew week and weary. At the final battle, the one called the "Guild Leader" by the Kings fell on to the very soil where Shurshana was defeated. This however, was not the end of him. The leader of the Kings rose back as an abomination, slaying the other weakened Greed Kings. So the Greed Kings fell next to Shurshana one by one. At the end only the abomination remained. I call him the undertaker. He watches over the Graveyard of the Damned."
As the speech ended, Salazar and Berethur arrived to a long hallway. The floor and the walls were empty aside from the discoloration remained after the moved furniture and pictures. At the end of the hallway stood a metallic mirror. It covered the entire length and width of the corridor.
The knight walked down the hallway like it had no end. Berethur could not help but flinch as Salazar walked into the mirror. Instead of bouncing back from the hard surface, Salazar walked straight through it, gesturing Berethur to do the same just before completely disappearing.
Berethur inspected his stupefied expression on his reflection. He walked into the mirror more as a self-punishment for looking so stupid, rather than his trust to Salazar. The young sorcerer expected a painful collusion, but Berethur was instead met a feeling similar to taking a cold shower, as he moved through the mirror to the other side.
Pillars, shards, spiky protrusion of metal were coming out from everywhere around him. The mirror of which they had arrived was just a face of one of the gigantic pillars of platinum coming out of the ground. It was magical but also scary. As he slowly moved around, large, small, bloated and scrawny reflections of him moved to various direction on the surfaces of the metal protrusions. The way Berethur took in between the pillars led him to an opening, which led him to stairs, which led him to one of the eldest of this world.
White scales that scattered light into thousand directions covered the entirety of the huge dragon. Under the glittering cloak of light one could barely perceive the form of it. As Berethur's eyes got used to its image, the sorcerer discerned the two blue eyes observing him under heavy lids to his far left. Berethur was standing thirty meters away from the dragon, but he still had to turn his face to see the head of the beautiful beast. Just in front of his feet, an empty suit of armor laid.
"Welcome Berethur, to Pluto. I am the Platinum Dragon Lord. Some humans, the few of the few, know me as the wandering knight Salazar. Even fewer know that those two identities are one and the same."
'Elf?… no, nymph?...no, dragon?...close but no…it just had to be a dragon lord.'
The sorcerer went pale. It was understandably hard to discern what were to come next.
"Do you remember what I have told you about the Greed Kings Berehur?"
"Yes…" Berethur replied weakly.
The dragon lord exhaled slowly. A mysterious mist came out of its nose trills, covering one of the platinum pillars present in the room. The surface of the pillar came alive, showing an intense battle between two figures and a terrifying colossus.
"That Titan is the undead husk of the Guild Leader, the head of the Eight Greed Kings. In my time within their deserted domain, I have learned much about the machinations of Pluto. His existence is crucial."
Berethur was entranced by the intense battle. It took a while for him to realize this was the ongoing battle underneath them. His only clue was the presence of the abyssal pit and the burning remains of a large chunk of Eryuentiu. A heavily damaged titan was fighting a smaller blue giant and a fat figure dressed in red.
The dragon lord watched along with Berethur.
"Your friends are winning. They have made their choice to kill the last King. However, that husk's presence is the only thing keeping this guild functioning." Dragons eyes descended on the sorcerer.
"As a consequence you have to make a choice too. When the last king truly dies, and the guild dissolves; magic of Pluto will cease to exist. And when it does, it will fall down with everything within it. Your journey will end in failure and death. Even if I had not brought you here, this entire city will be no more when Pluto falls down, resulting in unavoidable death for you. Even your friends can not survive death when the guild leader falls along with the entirety of the city."
'What the fuck have I gotten myself into again. No actually, for the first time in my life, it was not my luck that ploughed me. Blue Planet-san, what the fuck did you got me into?'
The Platinum Dragon Lord hardened his gaze on the human. "You travel with the same kind of the Eight Greed Kings and a demon. Berethur, it pains me to take such action more than it should pain you. As the only way for me to save this city is to stop the guild from dying out. That means I will have to give the most powerful magical item of the Eight Greed Kings to an undeserving, ignorant human."
"You cannot possibly mean… Am I supposed to be a Greed King?!"
"Bwahahahaha!" The dragon had to take half a minute of silence to get back its composure.
"Haah, humans never cease to surprise me. No little man, you cannot possibly be one of them. But you can be a guild member, or specifically, the guild leader of a one-man guild so that my home and many others is not utterly destroyed. You have to."
Berethur gulped. What did this mean? What was to happen to him when he took this title? What were to happen to Edward and Blue Planet. How much will his new forced responsibility complicate their relationship?"
"I guess I do not have a choice?" He spoke while trying to meet the dragon lord's glare and miserably failing.
"No."
"All right, I will do my part."
"You are concerned for nothing Berethur, one who should be concerned is me."
The inanimate armor rose from the ground, coming together yet again.
"Follow Salazar, he will lead you to your new responsibility."
As the sorcerer went through another pillar with part of the dragon lord's consciousness, Platinum Dragon Lord silently watched the battle. Especially tracking the movements of Blue Planet's avatar state.
'So the ruthless force of nature returns to the world. A new master of death, Ainz Ooal Gown rises to power in the North, Theocracy fully functionalizes the Black Scripture. Is it time for us old fools to act? In any case, it is time to visit some old friends.'
…
Rows and rows of armed man stretched to the horizon. Behind these lines were large war machines, archers, strategically positioned knights and horse archers. Even further, on a heavily defended hill stood silver clad knights mounted on elephant-sized winged horses in a circle. Within the circle wasa group of armed and armored elites standing before a golden clad man. The God Emperor Thull.
Everyone on the hill was looking at the unorganized army of tens of thousands of beastmen. Creatures of all kind of shapes of sizes, bipedal like man but all carrying varying resemblances to different one or multiple animals. Just like Thull's army, the beastmen army was armed to the teeth. Instead of siege engines and war machines, beastmen had giants and massive bipedal elephant-like creatures standing next to hills of boulders.
The only reason the beastmen waves had not yet clashed to Roble forces was a gigantic minotaur singularly facing the Roble forces. It occasionally roared and yelled in a primitive language towards the ranks of men. Pacing side to side in the middle of the two armies.
The battalion commanders awaited the command of the generals, and the generals awaited the command from the elites. The elites looked expectantly at Thull.
"What is that overgrown-cow doing?" The God-Emperor was bored with the lack of action.
One of the elites bowed respectfully and spoke.
"This is beastmen tradition Thull-sama. Before battle, beastmen bring forth one of their strongest warriors to taunt the opponent leader into a one on one fight. Usually the challenger is not a general. By taunting the general into battle, they seek to both show their dominance and kill of the commander of the enemy army. In beastmen culture, refusing such challenge is cowardice which would lower respect to the leader and boosts the moral of the challenger side. As a result, it is a win-win for the challenger party."
The elite quickly added, "We are not savages of course Thull-sama. Such primitive notions mean nothing to us nor the man. You need not raise a finger." He bowed even lower as he concluded.
Thull exhaled roughly, flapping his lips as doing so. "What a bunch of circus animals. Even their Jotunn's look like scrawny little toddlers."
The elites looked each other questioningly, trying to see if anyone else had extracted the secret wisdom within their God's words. No one had any clue.
"Tell men to stay put." And so, The God-Emperor vanished before the very eyes of twenty or so nobles and thirty Lloyd knights.
The golden clad God reappeared over the ranks of men. Slowly cheering voices rose amongst the ranks as men noticed Thull flying in the air, steadily rising up until the whole army began to shook the ground with their deafening roar.
Eggy landed right in front of the army line and looked at the overgrown minotaur. 'Hm, give or take around level 27. A bug. A rather large bug. A rather large and ugly bug.'
The minotaur met his arrival with a throaty roar. While Thull was tall by human standards, God-Emperor looked like a toy soldier in front of the fifteen-foot mountain of muscle. This beast neither had the control Gallahad had over his body nor had a comparable mastery over his weapon.
Both sides watched silently except for the elites who were excitedly discussing what Thull was going to do next.
The minotaur stomped the ground couple of times, creating a solid base to launch off its charge. It wielded two hatched on both hands, raised imposingly on both sides. Without delay, the beast charged. It rapidly covered the distance accelerating so fast that it became a blur ten feet away from the God-Emperor.
On the hill excited elites were yelling things like "dodge!", "smite him!", "build a wall!" on the top of their lungs.
Eggy lifted his thumb to aim at the enemy army. There it was. A massive beastmen with a lion mane sitting on a platform. That was the leader. He relaxed his shoulders for the swing. 'I have to be precise. This is going to be hard.'
Thull swung the flat of his sword as the beast charged in. Where he aimed at was not the body of the minatour, but the tip of its horn. The blade easily shattered the horn sending part of the projectile in to the beastmen ranks. Previously cheering and roaring ranks of beastmen slowly became silent.
Their champion had charged full force into Thull. The proof was the twitching body beneath the golden warior's feet, shattered upon impact. The second fold to the beastmen's surprise was the large hole in the shoulder of their leader. The distraught lion-men held its shoulder with one of his paws.
'Tsk, I missed.'
Slowly angry roars began to come from the beastmen side while the Roble side was still appalled. Many people did not even notice the commotion in the beastmen ranks and the ending to the battle was less than heroic. The beast was simply broken as it struck full force into something harder than its own bones.
"Well?" Thull yelled at the men. "ADVANCE!"
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Thanks for reading! I apologize to the people who have read it before I made some fixes. Sadly I do not have the time to polish or check my writing. Regards~~
