Part 2

The inner sanctum was usually a place of silent worship and responsible but also secretive conduct. The place was practically a giant hidden temple beneath the capital, with its corridors and halls encompassing most of the capital's underground. A veritable maze that secretly linked the six great cathedrals placed throughout the capital with pathways that even the paladins and workers* that guarded and maintained it could easily get lost in without a map or thorough knowledge of its inner structure.

Now, this place had become noisy as voices echoed throughout most of the sanctum while men were dispatched left and right to deal with the situation above ground. The wraiths that Ainz had summoned were still flying above the city as they kept endlessly repeating the same phrase over and over.

The entire populace was naturally still in chaos, their entire lives they had been praying faithfully, making sacrifices and donations to their respective churches; they had said the words and lived by their codes only to be threatened with destruction by a creature who actually had proven that he possessed godlike powers.

Knights and priests all over the city were scrambling to regain control over the capital that had fallen into chaos. Despite that, security in the inner sanctum had not decreased, quite the opposite.

The inner sanctum contained three vaults that the paladin guardians had to protect with their life: one was the treasury where the weapons of the Six Gods were kept; the second vault contained the secret transcripts of the Slane Theocracy, some of which were said to have been written by the Six Great Gods themselves; and the third vault contained confiscated relics of darker times, things that the Theocracy couldn't destroy or was too afraid to disturb, they locked away inside that vault. Of those, it was rumored that whoever entered had to swear a magic pledge that forbade them from speaking about its contents. But still, there were rumors that inside that vault were relics from the time before the Thirteen Heroes defeated the Demon Gods, the so called Age of Calamity.

Now that the capital was under threat, all of the capital's elite of the elite rushed towards their respective posts as their first and foremost duty was to protect these relics with their lives. Even so, none would think that the enemy would make it to the inner sanctum any time soon. After all, the entrances to the inner sanctum were carefully concealed and would be hard to locate even if one were to burn down the entire capital.

Considering this, it was all the more surprising when in one of the large halls where lots of guards and paladins gathered to prepare to move out to the surface and destroy the annoying wraiths that had been terrorizing the citizens when suddenly…

"So this is their hidden base? It's quite a poorly lit and grim place for a nation that claims to be protected by the light of their gods or whatever."

A cold voice rang out through the hall as all the soldiers stared in shock at a veritable black gap in space that had appeared out of nowhere as four peculiar and yet clearly menacing figures appeared from it.

"It is as you say, Ainz-sama, these lower life forms are clearly closer to worms than intelligent beings if they choose to hide in a dark underground place like this. Although we also have our base underground, it would be quite foolish to say that Nazarick is anything like this rat-infested cave."

"Yes, this place is truly incomparable to the beauty and splendor of the Tomb of Nazarick."

From the gap in space, emerged a skeleton wearing a robe that looked like it was sown from darkness itself. With a glaring pair of red eyes glowing in his skull and a red orb floating in its rib cage that completed his nefarious appearance he gave off a menacing and deadly aura that made the soldiers shudder.

Behind him, stood on both sides two upright creatures that looked human until you took a closer look. On the left of him stood a bipedal figure that wore something found in the south called a suit with round glasses covering his eyes. His spiky hair complemented the equally pointy ears on his head and the monstrous spiked tail growing from behind.

On the left stood an elderly man that one guessed was in his late fifties or even sixties, but despite that had a fresh look on his face. A stout and sleek figure that betrayed a well-built body beneath his clothes which seemed to belong to a butler that served high nobility. It would be extremely unlikely that this man was really human as it would be too out of place for a human to be standing next to these monsters unfazed.

Behind the three, all the way in the back stood a youth with an eager and clearly excited face. He had dark-tanned skin and red hair, combined with his well-shaped face and pearly white teeth he would be quite the looker and would charm more than one lady…

Were it not for those white teeth clearly not belonging to humans as the canines that were shown were at least several centimeters long and were abnormally sharp. They reminded one of what you would see if you pried open the mouth of a beast instead.

It took a while for the guards to put two and two together as this situation was unimaginable to them, but when they finally snapped out of it…

"Intruders! Sound the central alert! Inform Archon-sama that the enemy has invaded the inner sanctum!"

"Paladins, step forth, we need divine magic against undead! Priests, prepare wards and heal spells immediately!"

"How in the name of the God of Life did they get in here?"

"Oi, don't use my god's name to curse, you bastard!"

A mixture of frantic orders and hysterical shouting filled the grand hall as the sounds echoed and reverberated throughout the sanctum. Soon, the entire place erupted with even more noise as the soldiers were preparing to use message spells and inform the higher ups as well as request reinforcements.

At least that would happen if they not for…

"So noisy. Demiurge, deal with them quickly."

"Yes Ainz-sama! [Kill yourself!]"

Immediately, the sound of guards and warriors shouting orders and echoing cries of panic was replaced by the sound of metal violently shaking as, to the guards horror, they had drawn their swords, but not to protect themselves or to attack the intruders, but instead to silence themselves. As if a bunch of inhumanly strong hands were pulling their limbs, they saw the tip of their own blades placed against their necks. No matter how hard they struggled, the force that pulled them was too strong. They could not even issue a cry for help, as they felt that if they stopped resisting with full force for even a second it would spell their doom. Seconds later, shrieks of agonizing pain began to ring out throughout the halls as one by one the guards and paladins could no longer resist the force that manipulated them and fell to the ground as their own swords impaled their throats.

One by one they fell until the entire hall had become deadly quiet, and only the strong odor of fresh blood being spilled waffled through the place. As the blood continued quietly flowing out of the dozens, if not hundreds, of corpses, Ainz could but look around uninterested at the carnage that had been displayed before him. Right now, he was still fuming with rage about how he had to kill his friend's creation Shalltear due to the effects of brainwashing and was also in ecstasy over how he had finally managed to capture them. Right now, human suffering left him completely cold, and he had but one goal: find the remaining two World Class Items that were probably still in the capital.

One item in particular was a huge concern to Ainz; the Six Addicts possessed a WCI that was one of the fabled twenty. One that could, upon activation, kill all creatures with a high negative karma.

Ahura Mazda

Ainz could not help but recall his days in YGGDRASIL. Even in the game, it was a rare enough thing for a WCI that was one of the twenty to be activated. After all, the expense one usually had to go through to attain one of them was not something that even most of top twenty guilds undertook without careful consideration. But when it was activated, it could potentially turn the entire world upside down, and with some WCIs, that was true in the literal sense.

Ahura Mazda, however, was so annoying that guilds used another one of the twenty to adjust the rules on its use and items like it. The rule was that global items like Ahura Mazda could kill or influence all creatures with one exception. The NPCs and players inside a guild or clan base were exempt from its power. With this rule there would be no risk of clans or guilds bankrupting themselves after all the non-POP NPCs that they had painstakingly created were suddenly in need of being resurrected. Only so called game anarchist would try to oppose this rule, but besides them it was welcomed by the entire YGGDRASIL community and left that way until the very end. But now, in this world, there was no guarantee that those same rules still applied.

This was why Ainz wanted to quickly confiscate the WCI and end this headache that had been troubling him for so long once and for all. After the Slane Theocracy had been dealt with, there would no longer be any prominent threats to Nazarick or to him. There may be other enemies who possessed a comparable amount of power in this world, but they had yet to clash with Nazarick so for now that was none of his concern.

"Well then, let us go find where the maggots are hiding their valuables. Lycan, now is the time for you to make up for your behavior in the capital earlier."

"As you wish, Ainz-sam…"

"Hold it right there!"

Ainz and the trio looked, surprised, towards the direction from where the sound had come. As incredible as it seemed, there was still one soldier left who had not been influenced by Demiurge's mind control. The warrior wore a full body suit of armor with a green silk cape laced with gold threads fluttering behind him. This man's attire was visibly much more lavish than the rest of the men that lay dead, and evidently his position in the nation was not low. But whether he was just too high a level to be controlled or had some kind of item that protected him, Ainz could not tell.

The person that was still standing was none other than the captain of the Windflower Scripture, who had stayed behind in the sanctum while the rest of his men went above ground to try and restore order to the chaotic city.

"You fiends who dare to trespass on our sacred ground will face divine retribu…"

"Demiurge, kill him!"

"Yes. [Hellfire Burst]!"

After demiurge cast his spell, a crimson sigil appeared under the warrior's feet. An enormous pillar of fire erupted from it as a deafening explosion rang through the sanctum. The entire hall trembled from the power as the sound of the bang travelled deep into the inner sanctum.

After the fire of the spell had subsided, all that remained was the charred corpse of the unfortunate warrior who never even realised what it was that killed him.

"Well then, now that that's settled, let's continue where we left off."

Ainz looked towards Lycan, who still had a slightly frightened expression

"Lycan, the foolish creature that attacked you should be the secret reserve of this nation. Since it was not amongst the ones we have captured so far it is safe to assume that it is hiding in this place as a guard for their secret weapons. It should be easy for you to locate it, right?"

Hearing this, Lycan snapped out of his trance as he brought his nose to the ground and made it twitch slightly as he searched for scents in the sanctum, before he finally halted as he seemed to have found something.

"Ainz-sama, that bastard's scent really is all over the place in here. I'm completely certain that this is pretty much her home. Finding her should be a small effort."

Ainz nodded his bony head in satisfaction. The shadow demon shinobi had scouted out this entire place, but providing a map was simply too intricate a task for the mindless creatures.

"Good. I'll leave it to you then."

Lycan wasted no time as he transformed himself to his werewolf form so his senses were even better as he got on all fours and, like a sleuthhound, started sniffing the ground for traces of a scent. Before long, he seemed to have picked up the direction to go as he started crawling forward towards where the scent was strongest. Looking at this spectacle, Ainz could not help but find the sight of a giant crimson werewolf sniffing the ground like a hound looking for the hunter's prey slightly amusing.

Not a moment later, the entire underground sanctum seemed to come to life as mysterious markings on the walls and on the ceiling began to give of a faint but divine light as throughout the halls echoed the sounds of men screaming and rumblings of various kinds.

"Huhu, seems like they know we're here. This should be some kind of divine array to ward off evil. Interesting, there was no such thing in YGGDRASIL; Demiurge are you alright? I know you also have a high resistance to magic like me but I still have to ask."

"Yes, Ainz-sama, I am completely fine. Something of this level can't deter me. If anything, I'm just slightly uncomfortable due to the holy aura in the air. Please, don't worry about me."

Not detecting any signs that Demiurge was putting up a brave front, Ainz seemed to give off the impression to be slightly smiling even though with his skeleton face that was impossible. He then turned around again and started walking behind Lycan who seemed to have caught the trail of his prey.

"Well then, let us be off you two. We have little time to waste; dispose of any nuisances along the way as quickly as you can; we do not have the time today to waste on petty squabbles"

""Yes, Ainz-sama!""

Demiurge and Sebas understood that that last part was aimed at their incessant arguing. Though it was quite different from Aura and Shalltear's mostly loud whining or Albedo and Shalltear's fights over who should be Ainz's queen, the two of them had a much more beneath the surface hatred of each other. It also ran much deeper than the girls' petty conflicts, though neither of them really could understand why they hated each other so much in particular. If it was about character or fetishes, there were plenty of people in Nazarick like Demiurge that Sebas got along with, and likewise Sebas was not the only one in Nazarick that possessed a dislike for tormenting innocent humans, but Demiurge had no problem conversing with those types. It was as if something stronger than themselves pushed them to hate each other.

"I'll be frank with you two. Today, I have brought you here because you two need to both understand your aversion for each other and overcome it. In the past, I have overlooked it and even found it amusing, but it will be detrimental for the future of Nazarick to have comrades that can't stand the sight of each other, especially since the issue can be easily resolved."

The two looked at Ainz surprisedly. Could it be that their leader already had the answer to the question that they had been pondering over for so long? The trio kept walking behind the still searching Lycan for awhile before Ainz spoke again.

"The reason that you two of you despise each other so much is because Touch Me-san and Ulbert-san really could not stand the sight of each other back in YGGDRASIL."

Sebas' eyes widened in shock as he looked out of reflex at Demiurge, who likewise showed signs of surprise on his face. He had hypothesized that this matter was somehow related to the Supreme Beings, but never would he have guessed that the matter between the two was so serious.

Sensing their distress, Ainz raised his hand to stop them from asking any questions before he finished his full story.

"Don't misunderstand; the two of them might have quarreled, but they were companions and guild members despite their differences. The reason was because in the end their loathing for each other came from one tragic mistake from Touch Me and Ulbert's inadequate handling of the matter. All it would have taken was for both of them to apologize to the other for the matter to be resolved, but neither wanted to be the first to do so out of stubbornness."

The two continued listening as they gave off an aura of being shell-shocked from sheer amazement that there actually was such a story. If the other guardians heard this, most of their mouths would fall open from surprise, but since it was about their creators, Sebas and Demiurge could understand it.

"Their conflict is something that never hindered the Nazarick in YGGDRASIL as we mostly just voted whenever there was an impasse. Don't let your creators' unresolved problems become the bane of the current Nazarick."

The two both responded to their master immediately by deeply bowing and sincerely apologizing, "We understand Ainz-sama, please forgive our negligence!"

"Alright, alright, since you understand I look forward to your performance today."

As the group kept following Lycan, they suddenly stopped as Lycan led them to a corridor which seemingly led to a dead end as Lycan stopped before the wall at its end.

"Lycan, what is this about? Don't tell me you are unable to locate a single creature even if Ainz-sama was kind enough to give you a second chance to redeem yourself!"

Demiurge was visibly annoyed by the incompetence of the subordinate that he himself had suggested to Ainz as Yuri and Shizu's guard. The bad choice that demiurge had made also affected Nazarick, so he would be extra critical of Lycan now.

"No, it's not that, Demiurge-sama!"

Lycan hurriedly tried to explain as Demiurge was one of the only creatures besides Ainz that really scared him to death. He would much rather prefer not being in his crosshairs.

"I can clearly sense that the scent is stronger here, but the trail ends at this damn wall."

"A hidden doorway then?"

Ainz casually remarked as he took another look at the wall; truly, it was too unnatural for a corridor to just end without a reason like this. The shadow demon shinobi had provided a general layout of the sanctum as well as a description of how powerful the guards inside it were, but things like hidden pathways or fake walls were obviously not in their report as they were never made to scout out such things. Therefore, it could be said that it was a good thing that Ainz brought Lycan along to scout out the scent of where the strongest person should be. If he guessed correctly, it should be at the same place where their most valuable treasures were stored.

"Well, we've already made so much noise so there's not much of a problem to make a little more. Demiurge, could you open a path for us? Ah, but please not too much force as we don't want this place to collapse on us unnecessarily. "

"Yes, no problem at all, Ainz-sama. I won't use more force than is needed to make a hole in that wall."

Demiurge swiftly raised his palm as he gathered a malignant dark energy and concentrated it into a tiny black ball. What he held in his hand was a Hell Womb. This was one of his racial traits thanks to one of his classes called Creator of Evil. It was a summoning skill that required no mana and could summon creatures that were weak in level but often had very nasty and dangerous abilities that would cause no small amount of trouble if one got affected by them unprepared.

Inside the ball quickly materialized strange gray objects that appeared to squirm about violently. The gray creatures were barely the size of beans and only had an oval body and a small tail, but at the same time kept violently trying to break out of the ball as if just waiting to unleash their evil upon the world. Seeing this, Demiurge smiled slightly as he took out one of the creatures with his fingers and promptly threw it at the wall. At the same time, he nonchalantly gestured to Lycan that he'd best get out of the way.

Miraculously, the tiny gray creature was capable of simply floating through air as if swimming through water. As it got close to the wall, it suddenly started twitching violently as it visibly began to swell up and drastically began to expand.

Finally, that little gray bean-sized creature had inflated all the way up to the point that it was now as big as a regular sized balloon and just as round. Seeing this, Demiurge smirked as he snapped his fingers as if pulling the trigger on a bomb.

This was not far from the truth as the creature as soon as Demiurge had snapped his fingers it burst open like a chewing gum bubble.

A heavy explosion rang through the halls of the sanctum once more. This time though, a lot less strongly as to Ainz and Sebas it only looked like a small burst compared to before. As the smoke cleared, a small hole in the wall appeared that revealed that there was in fact a space hidden behind it. Lycan's sense of smell was spot on as a werewolf after all.

Seeing the hole, Demiurge nodded as he analyzed how many more of the grayish creatures he would need to use to make a big enough hole for Ainz to casually walk through.

"Four more should do the trick."

Repeating the process, he threw four more of the small gray creatures towards the wall and they likewise swelled up until they finally burst open and caused another series of explosions that rang through the sanctum.

Seeing this, Ainz nodded his head approvingly. Demiurge had made the right choice by spawning a couple of Stix Tadpoles. With no idea when one might need to fight later on, it was reasonable to conserve mana and instead use spawns like these who consumed charges instead of mana.

As the dust from the rubble cleared, a decent sized hole in the wall became visible behind which was, as expected, more guards clad in shining armor that gave off a holy aura. Evidently frightened by the fact that their secret passage was discovered and broken through so easily, they still stood their ground as their armor audibly shook from their quivering.

"More pests. Sebas, you deal with these vermin, but do it quickly; we don't have much time."

Sebas promptly walked forward as he raised his fist whilst giving off a violent killing aura that made the paladins retreat several steps back.

"As you wish, Ainz-sama. Well then everyone, please excuse my haste."

Not even ten seconds later, the path was cleared as the bodies of the guards and paladins lay on the floor, each with their heads lopped off with a clean and lightning fast cut from Sebas. Having dealt with all the hindrances, Lycan continued his tracking as Ainz, Sebas, and Demiurge closely followed behind.

Breaking through several groups of guards and doors, the four finally made it to a large glowing metal door. Evidently, this one was different from the others as it seemed to be reinforced with anti-magic seals and spells.

Lycan restlessly smelled the ground around it before finally twitching his eyes as he looked up and stared towards the door. Anger boiled inside his heart, causing him to lightly growl like the ferocious beast he was deep inside as he bared his razor sharp canines towards the door.

"Ainz-sama, that bastard should be just on the other side of the door. I can smell her scent like she was standing right in front of me."

"I see, well done, Lycan, you've made our mission that much easier. Consider your blunder from before forgotten. If there's anything you want feel free to ask as well."

Hearing his master's compassionate words, Lycan quickly knelt as he pleaded.

"No Ainz-sama, already allowing me to serve someone as powerful as you once more is already a great privilege. If there's something I want, it would be to continue to serve you and to see that bastard that made me stain your reputation by losing to her in battle suffer a hundred times more than I did."

"Huhu, well said. Well, I certainly won't allow anyone who hurt one of my comrades' creations to go unpunished. If she turns out to be an uninteresting specimen, then I'll let you have her for lunch, but if she has some sort of special power, then I'm afraid you'll have to wait until I or Demiurge are done with her."

Understanding his lord's reasoning, Lycan bowed his head deeply as he thanked Ainz.

"Well the,n now that that's settled, let's crack open this gate and finish this matter for good. Sebas, if you would."

"No problem, Ainz-sama, it should not be too hard to open the door."

Sebas grinned ever so slightly as he approached the door and softly knocked on it using his fist to ascertain just how dense the gate was. After confirming the degree of sturdiness, he got into position as he prepared to strike.

Steadying his footing, he assumed a balanced stance with his left foot out and his right fist behind him. This was the same stance he had taken when he tested the young knight Climb in the capital not too long ago, only the difference between how much strength he used then and how much strength he would use now was akin to heaven and earth. As he readied his strike, a violent surge of energy started streaming from his body as this was obviously not going to be a mere punch. Even Sebas would be unable to break through a solid metal gate like this one with punch. This would require a Ki strike to penetrate in one move.

Like a cannon ready to fire, Sebas balled his fist and retracted it as his fist glowed with a powerful pure white light.

Having prepared his strike, Sebas steadied his footing as he finally launched a punch that contained a hint of his true strength.

"Skill activate [Tenryu first strike]!"

As the fist of light collided with the door, a deafening explosion combined with an intense creaking of metal resounded throughout the sanctum, as not just the gate, but even a large chunk of the wall that the gate was attached to was easily blown away by the strength of one of Sebas' serious punches.

The rubble from the wall that had been obliterated caused a little dust cloud that obscured vision of what was on the other side. Not wanting to risk his master walking into a trap, Sebas entered through the breach as he had to inspect that everything was safe.

Normal people would wait before going into a dust cloud as the polluted air would cause quite a bit of stress on the lungs, but for Sebas this was nothing as he could withstand even poisonous gas to a certain degree.

As he walked out from the dust cloud on the other side of where the door had been, his eyes fell upon a young lady that wore a large black robe that covered most of her body. In her tiny white hands, she held a ridiculously long war scythe that was clearly mismatched for her. Her face was equally peculiar, as her eyes displayed heterochromia with one iris and even her pupil being completely white and the other one pitch-black with black veins extending to it from her sclera. Her hair was apparently dyed to match this discrepancy as one side of it was likewise black and the other one was silvery white.

Exactly as Lycan described.

Looking at this girl that was from the look of her face was barely a teenager, Sebas could not help but slightly pity her. Even though he would not hesitate to crush any enemy of Nazarick even without his master's orders, something about seeing this young girl made his heart uneasy. Maybe it was due to him now being responsible not only for himself but also for the young girl Tsuare.

"Forgive the rude intrusion, but we were unable to find the key to the door."

"What the…? Where the hell is my dragon?!"

Author's afterword: part 2 for your pleasure! No major fights yet, patience young padawans. Sometimes I think whether I should just stop writing this fanfic as it is a little difficult to manage with my studies (╯°□°）╯︵┻━┻

, then I reread your reviews and I'm all better so keep them coming. Anyways should have most follows and second most favorites by the time this comes up. Look forward to next part as well and thanks for the continued support!

And as always

Burn in hell yen press and

GLORY TO AINZ OOAL GOWN!

PS: to the guy who commented he would like to translate this story to Chinese but forgot to place that review with an account to respond to. Yes feel free to translate it on the condition that you don't try to sell it off as the real volume 10, besides that I am absolutely Ok with any and all translations.