In Ulbert's professional opinion, Orphea's group should've been better at the whole not being caught thing.

They were dropped off at the borders of the Dragon Kingdom, which was apparently totally unmanned for some reason. But apparently the distance from the border to the next biggest city, Iridis, was ungodly long. And then the distance to Iridis to the capital of the Dragon Kingdom, Triumph, was somehow even longer than that.

They were actually just a stone's throw away from Iridis, but they decided to wait until Vagisilious was done dealing with whatever the hell was happening in the wilderness.

But now that the situation is over and Vaggy was free again, they could continue.

"Yeah, sorry about that!" Vagisilious apologized to the group, "We can keep going now."

"Yeah, no problem," Ulbert responded, getting up from the rock he was sitting on, "C'mon boys, let's go."

BigStall nodded, "Right. I'm pretty excited to see real, actual people."

"Yeah, I'm also pretty excited for that," Agreed Otanabetabeki, who was simply lying on the ground enjoying the feeling of real grass.

Takemikazuchi and Cocytus finished up comparing swords with each other, standing up to stretch their legs.

Amanomahitotsu and Yoipesuto finished their lunch, the two complimenting each other on their work which was entirely made using ingredients sourced from nearby.

Liberta Prime was done looking ominously in the direction of Iridis, as he turned to his masters, ready to continue.

And once they had gotten the signal that Punitto allowed for splitting up in the cities, they started to enter the first city of the Dragon Kingdom, Iridis.

Talking to the guards at the gate was, to Ulbert at the very least, very uncomfortable as they were very particular in getting as much information about the group as possible.

"Hm, you really have no documents?" Thelsea, the human woman who was responsible for admitting them into the city, asked.

Ulbert nodded, pushing down his thoughts of absolutely ravaging this entire city for inconveniencing them for the past 20 minutes, "Yes, that's what we told you 20 minutes ago. We're just wanderers, looking to just enjoy the world."

"Hmm…" Thelsea obviously didn't believe them, like she was 20 minutes ago, and then she finally decided to do something new, shouting to a nearby house, "Hey! Muller! Can you take a look at this?!"

A male dark elf exited the building, walking slowly up to them. But just as Ulbert was about to praise him for not being Thelsea, Vagisilious messaged them with damning news, "Guys, I don't want you to panic, but that Muller guy is level 60. I have no idea why he wasn't visible to me while he was inside the house, but just be careful, alright?"

Ulbert didn't think much of it. Level 60 wasn't that high, it was just the gear level cap for vanilla Yggdrasil. But apparently, the rest of the players behind him were a bunch of scaredy cats and were standing slightly taller than they were before.

Muller casually walked up to them, observed their faces for just a few moments before turning to Thelsea, "They can come in."

Thelsea blinked, "Huh? But you didn't even ask anything-"

"They can come in," Muller repeated, turning back to the group, "Welcome to Iridis."

"Thanks, dude," Ulbert earnestly thanked Muller, extending his hand for a handshake. It's good to see that this entire city wasn't populated with idiots!

Muller took his hand and lightly remarked, "What a wonderful feeling, is it not? I hope to see you again very soon, if he wills it, of course."

Ulbert thought that was a very strange way to talk to someone, but hey, who was Ulbert to judge people based on religion? At least this guy got things done fast.

So, Ulbert just nodded, "I hope we see you again too, dude."

And so, the entire group got into Iridis, and they quickly went to find a relatively isolated spot to have a quick chat on what's next.

"First of all, that guy was level 60?" Ulbert asked Vagisilious.

"Yeah, a real genuine level 60. A ranger, actually." Vagisilious confirmed, "I checked through this entire city again with the fact that I couldn't see him in a building in mind, and now that I can pick things apart like that, I think there are just some buildings that are etched with anti-divination wards."

"It has to be placed by a level 100 player or NPC to be enough to guard against you, right?" BigStall asked for the group.

"Well, let me see how tough these wards are first of all," Vagisilious said, disconnecting the message for a few moments.

Somehow, Ulbert got a sixth sense that Vagisilious did something stupid.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" Vagisilious decided to ask when she came back.

Ulbert, however, already knew what had happened, "The good news is that you can bypass it. The bad news is that it blew you guys up when you tried."

"...Yeah that's exactly what happened." Vagisilious guiltily confirmed.

"Yeah, don't do that again."

"I won't."

Yoipesuto then changed the subject, "Hey, that's great and all, but is it actually safe to split up here if there are houses with anti-divination wards all over the place?"

Vagisilious hummed a bit before answering, "Well, you guys are only a city away from each other, if something happens you guys can easily just teleport over. I think it should be fine."

Then, Liberta suddenly spoke up, "Lady Vagisilious, if I may be so bold to ask…"

Vagisilious sounded somewhat surprised that Liberta spoke up, but encouragingly said, "Oh! Yeah, go ahead and ask your question, Liberta!"

"Perhaps, since this is just a 'normal' city instead of the capital of the Dragon Kingdom, it should be somewhat safe to leave a small force behind here while the rest continue the journey to the capital of the Dragon Kingdom?" Liberta proposed, bowing to the players in the hopes of perhaps influencing their decision.

"Splitting up?" Takemikazuchi repeated, sounding unsure, "That… Doesn't seem smart."

"Well, we are all level 100 here," Otanabetabeki said, "If some of you guys decide to teleport to the capital so we can get double the info, that wouldn't be so bad, right?"

Amanomahitotsu spoke up, "Well, we don't even know what information is here. I don't think doubling up cities is that good of an idea…"

Ulbert threw his two cents into the mix, "We're stronger than anyone here. I bet I could burn this entire city to the ground if I felt like it. Besides, I want to see what's so special about the capital too."

Then, Vagisilious came back with some news, "Punitto says that if you guys think you can handle it, you can try it. But, and I quote, "Do not try to fight anything, you morons.""

Ulbert smiled, "Good! Alright, I'm just going to teleport over, is that good?"

"What? If you're just teleporting over, what was the whole point of walking all this way?" BigStall protested.

Ulbert waved his hand as if it were obvious, "The walking was to just avoid anti-teleportation traps from detecting us. And, well, Vaggy just activated a trap, didn't she? And guess what? Nothing happened to us. Nobody is watching."

It was a fairly good point. Though in BigStall's opinion that was basically inviting disaster upon themselves for saying nothing happened.

"Well, Punitto is calling you guys stupid, do with that as you will," Vagisilious unhelpfully mentioned.

"I'll believe it when I see it," Ulbert dismissed, "So, anyone wanna check out Triumph with me?"

Liberta quickly volunteered himself, unsurprisingly.

BigStall raised his hand, "Yeah, I can go, even though I think this is stupid."

Takemikazuchi nodded, "I'm going to, then."

Cocytus then said, "I. Shall. Follow. Lord. Warrior. Takemikazuchi."

It was just Otanabetabeki, Amanomahitotsu, and Yoipesuto who had wanted to stay behind to comb through the city.

"Sweet, Vaggy, can you open the portal, then?" Ulbert asked, leaning on the wall.

Vagisilious sighed, "Yeah, I can do that. Don't do anything stupid while you're split up like this, alright?"

Ulbert scoffed, "Who do you think we are?"

Vagisilious did not reply back.

Ulbert frowned, "Dang."

"Well, I want to take a look at the gear around here," Amanomahitotsu said, trying to get the group to focus, "So, I got that."

"Oh, I actually wanted to do that…" Takemikazuchi brought up, slightly saddened that he was beaten to the punch.

"You can just join me, you know," Amanomahitotsu said.

Takemikazuchi pondered the offer a bit, then accepting, "Yeah, I guess I could. Cocytus, why don't you uh… Hang around Liberta?"

Cocytus dutifully bowed, "Yes, Lord Warrior Takemikazuchi."

Though, everyone could tell that Cocytus was mildly disappointed with the decision. But no one gave that thought a voice.

BigStall hummed, considering what he wanted to find, "I wanna see if there's an adventurer's guild in this country. Like, an actual one where we fight monsters and stuff like that."

"Ooh! But that's such an interesting thing I want to do too!" Takemikazuchi whined, split between two options.

"Er, why not just do both?" Suggested Yoipesuto, "Checking out the gear won't take forever, right? And getting the perspectives of 2 different adventurer's guilds probably helps."

Takemikazuchi patted Yoipesuto on the back, "Yoipesuto, you cooked. Great idea!"

Yoipesuto was a jellyfish monster, however, so Takemikazuchi's pats ended up just going through Yoipesuto, who had shivered a bit as he had to taste Takemikazuchi's hand from his back, "Don't do that, dude."

"Whoops, my bad."

A moment later, Vagisilious came back, "Okay, I got the coordinates. Are you guys ready to find out whether or not there are anti-teleportation traps around here? And are you guys ready to find out if the people who set these traps are paying any attention at all?"

Ulbert nodded, speaking for the group, "Hell yeah we are, send that gate right here right now."

A gate opened, and so half the group decided to jump inside, risking their anonymity.

Athalia was going to kill this fucking dumbass in front of her.

Athalia's eyes twitched as the newly crowned "King of The Dragon Kingdom" went on and on about how old he was getting, he couldn't sleep as well as he'd used to, and he was sick of waiting for the last of his friends to finally show up.

The King's age was clearly getting to him, and the absolute mess that was his facial hair was definitely visibly aging him by leaps and bounds. If he bothered to cut his hair, Athalia figured that he might actually look somewhat decent and kingly, even though he was wrinkled beyond belief.

At the very least, the world item on his head that acted as his crown still gave him an aura of nobility. If not for that, he would just be an old man in a very elaborate suit of golden armor.

"-And you know they probably have something to cure my old age, unlike you ungrateful bastards who keep saying, 'oh! Oh! You know The World or whatever dumb thing you named him is super busy! He can't help!' even though I know you're lying 100%," The King nagged, knowing fully well that Athalia didn't give a damn about anything he was saying.

Athalia groaned, trying her best not to start a fight, "Za Warudo can't reverse your aging, dumbass. Stop asking about him. If we could've, we would have."

The King threw out his tongue like a child, "Bleeh, liar liar fire pants. Seriously, if Bless could see you now-"

"Do not bring up his name," Athalia coldly interrupted, "Now if you will, could you please for the love of all things holy, allow us to comb through your kingdom looking for Lucamal?"

The King chuckled, picking up another apple from his bowl of fruits, "Why would I let all of you look for someone who doesn't even wanna be with you?"

Athalia's eyes twitched, "Star Mantle is quite the important world item to Seraphim. I'm sure that you can just verbally say, "okay, come in," and we won't have any more problems with you."

"Can I turn back to my young self? I'm kind of not looking forward to dying," The King said instead, completely ignoring everything Athalia was saying, "You know, I know a few of my human NPCs are about to kick the bucket, I think they'd be really grateful if you-"

"Please just shut the fuck up about the whole aging thing," Athalia rudely interrupted, "It's not happening."

The King threw out the middle finger, "Boo! You stink! You know, this would've never happened if-"

Suddenly, one of The King's underlings, a troll woman wearing what Athalia recognized to be the Yggdrasillian Sage set, came into the room, pushing past the honorary princess of the Dragon Kingdom, Draullidon, to tell The King, "My King, one of our anti-teleportation traps have gone off."

Athalia raised an eyebrow with slight curiosity. That was probably the most interesting thing that's happened since the start of the conversation.

The King raised an eyebrow, "And why should I care about that, Plemis?"

Plemis's face scrunched in worry as she held out her hand, which held an orb that was completely red, "This is a very strong being, or group of enemies that just entered the range of our city! Please, you must-"

The King interrupted Plemis, "Shh, Plemis. I'm old now, don't you remember? If I exert myself to go deal with a bunch of guys, I'm going to die faster. Go get Gavus on that. Actually, Athalia, you seem a bit pissy, maybe you can have a forcible conversation with whatever her wards picked up."

Athalia scowled, "So you reject us yet again."

The King shrugged, completely unconcerned about Athalia's sharp words, "Your words, babe. Not mine."

Athalia was going to kill him one of these days. If he were at his peak, she wouldn't dare try to attack him, but with how old he was, she could probably beat him quite easily…

Though, now wasn't the most opportune time.

Athalia stood up, "Fine. I shall be telling everyone that you are in league with the traitor, then."

"You're literally too pussy to fight me," The King countered back, "I'll be scared whenever you guys actually get the balls to fight me."

Athalia stormed out of the room without another word, her aides rushing to follow her.

The King chuckled, watching Athalia storm out of the castle, "Idiot."

Draudillion watched all of this with a frown on her face. Draudillion was the last remaining member of the royal family, so she could be considered 'equals' with him, who was the king of the country based solely on his strength and his deal with her great-great grandfather 100 years ago, which placed him as the king, and the royal family as the princes and princesses.

And since it was very clear The King was going to kick the bucket very soon, Draudillion was very aware of the nature of the political scene in her soon-to-be kingdom, and how he was utterly destroying her chances of cooperation with the Seraphim.

Draudillion gulped as she asked him, "Ah, was that truly the wisest thing to do?"

The King laughed, "Look! Seraphim isn't going to do anything, they're just waiting until I die of old age because they think they'll lose if I fight them now."

That didn't cease Draudillion's worries, "But one day, you will die…"

"Draully, don't worry, I'll make it," The King waved it off, "Besides, you have better things to worry about. Don't you need to find a husband by this point? Like, everyone else in your family died because of what's his face- Oh right, that pissy colored brightness dragon lord. You should probably continue the bloodline. You're what, 40? You're lucky you can change your appearance with that wild magic voodoo crap, otherwise you might stay single forever."

Draudillion sighed, used to his antics, "I'm working on it."

"Not hard enough, apparently," he countered, "You can literally change yourself into a man's ideal woman, and you're still single. Absolutely no skill in dating."

Draudillion puts on an extremely forced smile, "Yes, yes, I'll get to it…"

"Man, I know that- Oh, what's his name…" The King tapped his chin to try and remember who was the first king of the Dragon Kingdom, the guy who ended up giving his title over to him because he was kind of an ass back in the day and wanted to rule a kingdom to see what it was like, "Hm… Ah! Right! Harandal! Yeah, he would be super disappointed if he could see you now."

"Shut it."

"Look, I'm sure we can find someone into femdom."

"Shut up."

Yoipesuto blinked at the colors of the potions in the potion store.

They were all blue, for some reason. But for some reason, they were all labeled as health potions.

In Yggdrasil, health potions were always red, and the amount of healing you got from them was indicated by how fancy the potion bottle was.

There were other potions as well, but Yoipesuto doesn't really know much about the nitty gritty details of how it all worked. Ainz Ooal Gown's potion master was Denshosho, and before Denshosho, Tabula before he decided to switch trees into abyssal and shadow priest. They would probably know a lot more than Yoipesuto's bare minimum.

But usually, blue was reserved for mana, but the issue was that there were no mana potions in Yggdrasil, so the only blue potions were just because the developers wanted to be a bit trolly.

So, this blue health potion was probably of interest to somebody in Nazarick. Probably Tabula, depending on how much of his esoteric roleplay was him being genuinely a bit crazy or if he was just screwing around. And Yoipesuto had a lot of money on him screwing around.

And Denshosho would obviously be interested for some inane lore reason, no doubt. Some of his guildmates, you never bet against.

Now, the question Yoipesuto had was; how the hell was he going to scrounge up the silver and copper coins needed to pay for it?

Checking inside his inventory, Yoipesuto took out some low level things that might be useful enough to barter with.

Like, say, a level 50 healing potion. Sure, totally worthless to him, but someone here will probably find it interesting.

Entering the potion store, he finds an oddly cute looking purple spider girl in a dress manning the counter. So, Yoipesuto calls out to him, "Hello ma'am. I'm interested in buying some of your potions."

The spider girl gave Yoipesuto a polite smile, "Alright, my name is Kalwara, what can I get you today?"

"Well, I'm running a bit low on coins, so I was hoping to barter a bit," Yoipesuto explained as he took out his healing potion, "I was hoping to exchange this?"

Placing the potion on the counter, Kalwara's jaw fell as she stared at the potion Yoipesuto brought out.

Yoipesuto was slightly worried at Kalwar's expression, but it was quickly dissipated as Kalwara exclaimed, "This is a Red Potion! Don't you know how rare these are?! Where did you find this?!"

Level 50 potions were rare? That… Doesn't sound right, in Yoipesuto's brain. Though, Kalwara was clearly talking about the color of the potion instead of the container, which was how they used to figure out the power of the potion.

Though, Yoipesuto had to admit that it would probably be weird if a real world used the containers to figure out the strength of a potion, so it was probably just something that translated realistically.

"I found it in… A ruin," Yoipesuto said.

Nazarick was kind of a ruin if you squint hard enough, so the explanation probably sufficed.

It obviously worked as Kalwara didn't question it as she asked, "How much do you want for it? Name anything!"

Yoipesuto didn't really expect a level 50 potion to be that big of a deal, but hey, if it works, it works.

Yoipesuto pointed at a wall filled with potions, "I want that entire wall."

Yoipesuto wasn't expecting Kalwar to accept that offer, which meant he was caught by surprise when Kalwara nodded, "Of course! Let me pack it all for you!"

"Uhh…" Yoipesuto hesitated. He really didn't need all those potions, so he tried to get her to reconsider by upping the deal, "Also, I want them all labeled."

"Of course!"

"And I want that other wall too!"

"You can have it!"

"Actually, I think I want this whole store!"

"I can get my friend to sell his store too!"

Damn it, was this level 50 health potion really worth that much?!

Amanomahitotsu & Takemikazuchi stared blankly at the sword with 3 runes they've never seen before on it.

Runes were a mechanic that were in Yggdrasil, to be specific they were an expansion gimmick in Dawn of Ancients.

Because of the fact that Yggdrasil was a live service game, the developers at Yggdrasil were notorious for basically throwing shit at the wall and hoping a few of them stuck. Runes were one of those shits that they threw.

Basically, for the entire expansion, players could obtain "Runecraft Materials" that they could use to imbue their gear with, basically getting special effects. There were a variable number of slots, but usually there were a couple of "Stat boost" slots, where runes just gave a basic stat boost, and then either one or two special slots where the runes actually did something unique and interesting. So basically every gear in that expansion had a minimum of 3 runes and the top tier items had about 15 because the stats on the gear in that expansion were slightly lowered to take into account for the runes.

The issue was, the effects that the runes gave were too overcentralizing, and nobody actually enjoyed being forced to farm specific runes because they were too good. The developers weren't even nice enough to let you 'save' runes, because if you wanted to put a specific rune on all your items, you would have to farm that same rune a million times.

The Dawn of Ancients expansion was also a golden age for hyperspecialization and min-maxers, because runes basically allowed for people to put all their rune slots into specific stats. So joke builds like "Pure Attack" or "Dumping all my life savings into HP" actually became viable builds because of the amount of extra stats they got from runes. Amanomahitotsu knows that Dawn of Ancients was Orphea's favorite expansion specifically for this reason.

The developers did give nerfs, but usually that just meant a different rune became the best rune. And sometimes it didn't even work because the "Cheat Death" Rune was good no matter if it lasted 3 seconds or 5 seconds. Per rune.

For the entire Dawn of Ancients expansion, there was a cat and mouse game going on between the players and developers to abuse overpowered runes as much as possible and the developers to nerf those runes as quickly as they could.

So, after the expansion ended, the developers just scrapped runes as a mechanic and now they only appear on gear in the 85-90 range, plus you could put vanity runes on items for real life money because the developers recognized some people loved the designs of runes because they looked cool.

The vast majority of the playerbase just used illusion items to hide the runes during that expansion because they were objectively ugly on 90% of the gear they were on.

But that wasn't the end of the rune problem, because those same runes were still powerful, so even a player in level 100 divine gear at the end of the game could have a tough time going up against a player in level 90 divine rune gear because there were still some runes that were just that grossly overtuned.

All in all, one of the worst gimmicks in Yggdrasil history, done at quite possibly the worst time possible, because that was when gear strength was being squished, so the problem would have to stay around for a lot longer.

And something like them were on the sword in front of the two.

"That… Isn't a rune I know," Takemikazuchi pointed out the obvious, "Amano, is it a high level sword?"

Amanomahitotsu scratched his chin, "It's level 14."
"Level 14?" Takemikazuchi confusedly repeated, "Is this not a rune?"

Amanomahitotsu looked at the owner of the store, the dwarf who was currently conversing with a human attempting to barter with him.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Amanomahitotsu subtly picked up the sword to inspect it further.

"It definitely shows up as a rune on my end," Amanomahitotsu said, "But, well, it looks like the runes aren't the ones we have, but it basically works on the same system."

From what Amanomahitotsu could tell, the runes were just the stat boosts type and not the unique types. Mostly just strengthening the weapon and maybe increasing the defense of the wielder.

Though, just holding the weapon…

"Is this a percentage increase?" Amanomahitotsu questioned as he felt his defense and strength increase by a small, but still considerable amount. Something that shouldn't have been possible for a level 14 weapon.

Amanomahitotsu's strength stat was fairly low because he was a tank, but his defense felt a bit stronger when he held the sword.

And since this rune was obviously so weak in all other aspects, the only reasonable explanation he had was it was a percentage increase.

There were a few percentage increasing runes back in Yggdrasil, but those were usually reserved for the unique slots, or the flat boosts were just better numerical-wise on some items.

Amanomahitotsu's first thought was that this world just works on different systems, so maybe runes were just a universal ability instead of an expansion gimmick. His second thought was that maybe the native system worked on percentages instead of flat numbers.

So, if they got this dwarf to maybe try putting a rune onto their level 100 items…

"Warrior Takemikazuchi, we're kidnapping the dwarf," Amanomahitotsu quietly declared, getting a shocked noise from Takemikazuchi.

Takemikazuchi pulled Amanomahitotsu closer and whisper-shouted, "What the hell? I let you think for like 10 seconds! How did you get to that conclusion?!"

"This is a rune on an item that shouldn't have a rune, we might be able to put runes on our level 100 gear," Amanomahitotsu explained, "Plus, if this gives percentage boosts like I think it does, that'll be massive!"

Takemikazuchi paused.

Then, Takemikazuchi agreed, "Amanomahitotsu, we're kidnapping the dwarf."

The dwarf finished up his conversation with his customer, ending in the customer leaving a very happy man and the dwarf a few coins richer.

The dwarf turned to the two players, "Ay! Hello there! If you haven't heard, my name is Garud! I see you're inspecting some of my rune gear! If you want to buy that, I remind everyone interested that enchants can't be applied to rune gear, or runes onto enchanted gear! So don't waste money trying!"

Annnnd the value of runes just dropped considerably. Enchants are basically the main boosts for gear. Ainz Ooal Gown had Shizyuutensuzaku as its main enchanter, so there wasn't any reason to use runes because Shizyuutensuzaku's enchants were no doubt better than whatever Garud could do.

Takemikazuchi tried to salvage the situation, "Well, what happens if you do try to put runes on enchanted gear?"

Garud shrugged, "Well, if the rune is strong enough, it'll disenchant the gear and put the rune on it. Otherwise, it does nothing. It goes the other way around too."

"Well, but are runes better than enchants?" Amanomahitotsu tried to figure out a way to continue with the operation, because stopping now would be mildly embarrassing.

Garud shrugged, "Well, runes take less resources to make. But it's more time consuming. And the effects of runes are all pretty minor in comparison to what enchants can do. But if you can fit 4 runes on something, it might end up being better than an enchant. But I can only get 3 on something."

Amanomahitotsu's ears perked up at the number, "4? How many runes can you put on something?"

"Well, the record for the number of runes put on a weapon is 6, but that was made by a legendary runesmith hundreds of years ago," Garud answered, "Most runesmiths can put 2, some are lucky to get 3. And getting 4 runes on something makes you famous."

Amanomahitotsu really tried to think of ways to justify their continuation, but it really didn't sound like runecrafting was big enough for them to kidnap Garud to force him to craft runes on everything.

Takemikazuchi sighed, feeling a bit defeatist but wanting to try one last thing, "Well, hey, I just want to know if you could maybe find out if you could tell if putting runes on my sword here is better than the enchants on it."

Takemikazuchi pulled out his sword and held it out for Garud to inspect.

Garud raised an eyebrow as he slightly fiddled with the sword, "Huh? This doesn't look like it has any enchants at all… Well actually, it does now that I look closer. I think it's just that your enchantment takes up so little space, I can maybe squeeze in a rune in there. That's quite interesting!"

And the value of rune shot up considerably at that moment.

Amanomahitotsu & Takemikazuchi immediately knew that they were kidnapping Garud.

"Hey, Garud, are you interested in a new job?" Amanomahitotsu asked, Takemikazuchi silently messaging Punitto that they had something that they might be interested in.

Garud raised an eyebrow, not quite understanding, "What?"

"You are being kidnapped, please do not resist," Amanomahitotsu picked up Garud by the pack of Garud's shirt, a gate opening right behind Amanomahitotsu.

Otanabetabeki had somehow ended up in a school.

He doesn't know quite how this happened, but when someone offered him to listen to the history of the Dragon Kingdom, he decided "Hey, this is a great opportunity to figure out the backstory of this world," and accepted the offer.

Which was how he ended up sitting amongst a bunch of weirdo teenagers learning about how some weird dragon fucked a girl, leading to the creation of the kingdom.

So far, Otanabetabeki learnt about someone called the Brightness Dragon Lord who apparently had kids and founded his own kingdom, decided to ditch said kingdom, then when he left all of the bad guys in the east decided to attack the Dragon Kingdom. Then after like 100 years of losing, a really powerful guy appeared and curb stomped all of the bad guys in like, a day. And that's where the story is at now.

"Of course, since 200 years ago, things have changed in our kingdom, for one, demi-humans and heteromorphs are no longer seen negatively in this wonderful kingdom," the human lecturer, Yaful, said, "Because of our king, Gojo, 100 years ago, personally put an end to all conflict and integrated these other races into our society. We may have problems today, but it is nothing close to the wars we've had in our history."

Otanabetabeki raised his hand.

Yaful called on Otanabetabeki, "Yes! Do you have a question?"

"Why is he called Gojo?" Otanabetabeki genuinely asked.

That was a Japanese name. Not just any Japanese name, but a pretty popular one too. Otanabetabeki was pretty certain that Gojo was a player, but he just wanted to be sure.

Yaful tilted his head, "He is called Gojo… Because his name is Gojo. There's nothing more to it."

"Does his name mean anything? Or like, does it have an origin somewhere?" Otanabetabeki asked.

"...Well, Gojo is a very popular name inside the Dragon Kingdom because, well, he is our king," Yaful explained as if he were explaining something to a child, "He is the first recorded human with the name Gojo. And because he was the first to hold the name, he made the name symbolize royalty and strength."

Otanabetabeki couldn't resist the urge to make a small inside joke, so he asked, "Is he named Gojo because he's the strongest? Or is he the strongest because he's Gojo?"

"That… Doesn't make any sense," Yaful blankly said.

Otanabetabeki shrugged, "Well, it did to me."

Yaful sighed, "Very well. Moving on, I shall now continue to the part where the Holy Kingdom deported a mass exodus of demi-human and heteromorph population to our kingdom and how it currently affects our kingdom today…"

Seraphim did what?

Exiting the gate held absolutely no consequences for the group. They made it inside Triumph with nothing interfering with them.

Triumph, on all of their first impressions, seemed to be a pretty good looking city that definitely deserved the title of "the capital of the Dragon Kingdom."

Practically all the houses here were made out of stone or marble, instead of the majority wood city of Iridis. The architecture was also eye-pleasing, and there were a lot of random engravings on many of the houses which were obviously there for decoration. And everything also was labeled, but of course they couldn't read those.

After it was clear they weren't being ambushed, Ulbert smugly asked everyone, "And guess who's right again?"

"Haha, Fuck you, Ulbert," BigStall dryly replied, "Now, c'mon, let's go find an adventurer's guild."

Ulbert nodded, "Right. Liberta, Cocytus, do you have any objections?"

Ulbert was fairly certain in his assumption that they wouldn't have, but Liberta surprised him by raising his hand.

So, Ulbert respected Liberta's gusto and said, "Alright Liberta, voice those objections."

"If you may allow my selfishness, I would like to explore this city beyond the confines of an adventurer's guild," Liberta said, "If I take Cocytus with me, we shall have the firepower necessary to defend ourselves. And you two will no doubt annihilate any fool standing in your way, so allowing us to split isn't a foolish decision, yes?"

Ah, so Liberta wanted to have a bit more freedom. Ulbert could respect that.

Ulbert looked to BigStall, who had simply shrugged in return, so he decided, "Yeah, go ahead. Don't get into trouble now, you hear?"

Liberta smiled, "I would not dream of it, my lord."

Which was when Vagisilious reconvened with them, "Alrighty, I just finished looking around this city. The main thing you guys should be aware of is that the castle is covered in level 100 wards. So, you know, don't try entering it because I have no idea what's inside. Also, there are some people who have anti-detection auras on them in this city, and I don't feel like risking alerting them. So, just be aware of that."

"So, is it actually dangerous for us to be here?" BigStall asked.

Vagisilious hummed a bit before answering, "Well, all the people I found with anti-detection auras weren't human. They're all wearing Yggdrasil sets as well. Maybe they're players, maybe they're NPCs, maybe they're natives that somehow got their hands on full sets, but I would still be careful. We're still trying to be somewhat hidden here. We can make contact once we figure out what their whole deal is."

So, there are possible Yggdrasil enemies in this city, that was absolutely wonderful to hear. If they were trying to not get caught, they should probably leave this city now.

But that's how loser's think, in Ulbert's unbiased opinion. They were going to stay in this city and not get caught because that's just how they were.

"Alright, thanks, Control," Ulbert thanked, then he turned to the group, "We can split up for now. If anything happens, message one of us, alright?"

Liberta nodded, "Of course, my lord."

And so, Liberta turned around to go explore, and Cocytus briefly bowed before their two masters to go follow Liberta.

Then, the two players went out to explore on their own.

The Adventurer's Guild in Iridis was pretty packed, with a bunch of adventurers of all different races and sizes hanging out with each other talking about their various adventures.

They were also whispering about other topics, such as some party named the Blue Roses taking down some legendary undead, a dragon being sighted in the southern region, and some rumors of the king showing up to showcase his might soon. But Takemikazuchi wasn't really here for the banter just yet.

Takemikazuchi had arrived alone as Amanomahitotsu was dealing with the whole 'kidnapping a dwarf' thing, so that's what mission control was busy handling right now. But since Takemikazuchi had wanted to become an adventurer so badly, they had just let him go alone.

Takemikazuchi was a massive fan of the fantasy genre, and standing in a real adventurer's dream was like a dream come true for him. So, he eagerly went up to an open counter and boldly asked, "I would like to sign up as an adventurer, please!"

The person manning the counter seemed to be some kind of kitsune girl, who was wearing a pretty cute uniform. It was totally Takemikazuchi's type.

The personality of the girl left a lot to be desired though, as the girl dryly told Takemikazuchi, "If you want to become an adventurer, you first must take an aptitude test. Please enter the room on your right."

Takemikazuchi excitedly nodded as he headed in that direction.

Entering the room, Takemikazuchi found a pretty old man sitting at a desk with a heavy book.

The man noticed him and asked, "Are you here for your aptitude test?"

Takemikazuchi nodded, "Yeah, I am!"

The man wryly smiled, "Very well. In that case, let's begin right away with the legal stuff."

Ah, so the rules and things like that? Takemikazuchi understands, so he sits down and gets ready.

The man clears his throat, "My name is Dyle, and I am here to inform you of the rules and regulations of this adventurer's guild. The first and most obvious rule is that you can't kill sentient creatures. We do not hunt most heteromorphs like they do in the Holy Kingdom because they are recognized as Draconic Citizens. That does not apply if they attack you first, however. In order to enforce these rules, you must take an observer with your party on every quest and if they do not return alive you do not get the rewards…"

So, Ulbert ended up not doing the whole adventurer's crap. BigStall might like listening to rules and regulations, but Ulbert doesn't.

Apparently, Vaggy was busy with something that Amanomahitotsu did, so Ulbert didn't have a guide at his beck and call to explore this city with. But that's fine, he'll just walk around until he finds something interesting.

Maybe he'll find Liberta and find out what he wanted to do.

So, Ulbert began to explore the city on his own.

Liberta didn't give away any sign that he knew he was being followed as he quietly messaged Cocytus, "Do not look back. We are being followed by someone. We shall split up to figure out which one of us is being followed. If they follow me, simply keep an open ear to the conversation that'll ensue and don't interfere. I shall do the same if they follow you."

Cocytus didn't show any sign that he got the message, but Liberta knew he had received it once Cocytus moved to the right of the street so that he could make a right turn on the nearest alleyway.

So, Liberta & Cocytus split ways.

Liberta kept walking, but he could still feel a presence behind him.

It was almost nostalgic to feel that presence, but Liberta couldn't quite pin down why. He wanted to turn back, he wanted to know what this feeling was, but he knew that if they tried to converse in this open street, it would invite far more trouble than necessary.

The thought of perhaps messaging one of the Supreme Beings for aid crossed his mind, but if he could not deal with a stalker on his own, is he truly capable of being a servant of the Supreme Beings?

The Supreme Beings demand perfection out of their loyal subjects, and Liberta will grant it to them.

Eventually, Liberta found a deserted alleyway to enter, and he casted a zone of privacy around the area to ensure the conversation couldn't be heard by a third party. It wouldn't interfere with Cocytus because Liberta had been able to manipulate spells to ignore or to not harm those he did not wish to affect. Something that Lady Orphea Scarlet had taught him years ago on the anniversary of his creation.

Liberta did not look at the stalker as he sensed them entering his zone of privacy.

"You must realize who you dare follow, do you not?" Liberta said, not sensing an intent to harm just yet, so he allowed his back to be turned.

The stalker chuckled in a sickeningly familiar voice.

Liberta's eyes widened as he recognized who that voice belonged to. Not a single one of his perspectives could imagine that voice belonging to anyone else.

It couldn't be him, could it? It's been years since Liberta had last seen him, but it feels just like yesterday that Liberta said his last farewells to everyone…

Liberta swiftly turned around, and the gentle smile of Secretary met his eyes.

"Yo," Secretary greeted, waving as if they were friends, "Long time no see."

Liberta was speechless. How could he be standing in front of him? This shouldn't be a possibility…

Secretary was unchanged since the day they last saw each other. He was still a dark-skinned angel with the guise of a human male. Short, wavy white hair. His white robes covering his entire body but leaving his arms out. His wings were hidden, instead a floating circlet surrounded his body, a signal of his angelic form. The passive effect of the sun always shining on him the right way despite the shadow of the alley.

"For real?" Liberta quietly asked, not believing his eyes despite all the evidence saying that Secretary was in front of him.

"For real for real," Secretary smiled, cheekily touching his cheek with his right pointer finger, "Though, my name is Gavus now. I suppose you don't have a new name either, Liberta?"

"I…" Liberta couldn't respond. How could he have anything substantial to say to one of his few truest friends? The one that was guarding the treasury with him in Triumvirate's guild base, Stormwind?

They spoke on so many topics over the years. Liberta spoke of each and every single one of his distasteful thoughts for the members of Triumvirate, and Secretary had listened to each and every single word he had spoken.

"Gavus…" Liberta tasted the name on his tongue, but somehow, he couldn't imagine him named anything other than Secretary, "My name is still Liberta, but… Why is your name now Gavus?"

Gavus chuckled, "Well, as it turned out, there are other secretaries out in this world. And I figured that I needed to differentiate myself from them. So I just chose Gavus because it sounded right."

"But… Lor- Ah-" Liberta had once again nearly called Principality one of his lords. A shameful display, "...Principality, he named you Secretary, did he not? Why would you go against his will?"

Gavus shrugged, "Well, sometimes you have to take your fate into your own hand. I'm sure you learnt that from Orphea, didn't you?"

"Lady Orphea Scarlet," Liberta corrected, but his words did not hold any bite within them, "But… Yes, I suppose that is something I've learned from her."

Just as Lady Orphea Scarlet took her own fate into her hands, Liberta could very well do the same.

Gavus curiously asked, "So, how's Orphea doing these days? Still with Ainz Ooal Gown?"

"Officially, I'm afraid I'm under strict orders not to say anything," Liberta apologetically said, "However…"

Cocytus was listening to the conversation, and Liberta knew he would be a stickler for the rules. But Cocytus could be a very understanding person at times, and Liberta knew that he would likely allow a small exchange between old friends.

"Unofficially, she is quite happy," Liberta revealed.

Gavus seemed pleased, "That's good to hear. When did you arrive, by the way? We've been here for a hundred years. You seem quite young by comparison."

Liberta nodded with agreement and mild surprise, "100 years? Yes, we are quite late in comparison to you. By chance, have any of your masters arrived alongside you?"

Gavus frowned, "Only one. Though he's grown so old, he hardly resembles his young self anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if he had died during our conversation, that is how close he is to death."

"You don't seem too fond of him," Liberta called him out, getting a huff from Gavus.

Quite frankly, Gavus's downplay of his master somewhat frightened Liberta. Would there ever be a time where Liberta would see the 41 as lesser, just as Gavus does not properly respect his master?

"You'll understand when you see him," Gavus cryptically said, "I wouldn't want to rob you of the surprise when you meet him. And when that moment comes, I'm sure you'll understand why I don't rate him very highly anymore."

"Is that so? Then I'll take your word for it," Liberta conceded.

Liberta briefly attempted to analyze who Gavus might've been talking about. Liberta wouldn't talk badly about Lady Orphea Scarlet under any circumstances, and so Liberta doubted Principality was here. And because of the aging, he knew it wasn't EmpireofWar because he was an angel.

However, the list of Triumvirate members changed far too often for him to decipher who could've possibly fallen so far despite being the only one remaining. So, Liberta had instead dropped the topic and moved on.

"By the way, how is everyone in Stormwind?" Liberta questioned, "Still as insufferable as ever?"

"Well, all 30 of the business girls got old and died, along with all of the other human creations," Gavus casually mentioned, somewhat surprising Liberta with his callousness, "And everyone else only sometimes visits Stormwind every once in a while."

Liberta frowned, "Truly? Is your remaining master so detested that their creations can't bear to stay within Stormwind?"

Would Nazarick end up as such one day? That was the question on Liberta's mind. But Liberta could not fathom such a scenario ever happening to the 41 Supreme Beings.

Gavus shook his head, "No, we still, at least in some form, respect our masters. But it's been 100 years, and we all had to eventually fly out of our nest eventually. We've accepted that they'll never return."

Liberta's mind focused in on Gavus's nest analogy. Could Nazarick be a nest, and the 41 Supreme Beings be the mothers? Is it the inevitable fate that Liberta would one day outgrow the Supreme Beings and never return to Nazarick?

It does not frighten Liberta to change. However, without the proper experience in hand, the unknown of change still has enough power to make him hesitate in fear of the future.

Experience…

That is what his perspectives are. Experience given form to help him better understand the world, but are they truly so different from each other? Those perspectives have never stood outside of Nazarick until now. They are just as foolish as he in his prime.

Yes, Liberta knew what needed to be done for his goals.

Liberta very much wishes to visit Stormwind. Not just for nostalgia's sake, but also because there are secrets within that treasury that Liberta could take for his own sake in the creation of his new perspective in this world.

But not just that. He's missing the crucial part of the creation of a new perspective. "Experience."

The reason why the means of creating new perspectives was still difficult to Liberta was because Liberta had not yet exited his nest. The reason why it was so easy for Lady Orphea Scarlet to create his own perspectives is because she has experienced everything the old world had to offer, and then she went beyond that.

If Liberta wanted to grow past his limits, he needed to conquer the old. And that means he needed to go back to the place of his birth.

"Gavus, could you guide me to where Stormwind is in this world?" Liberta asked, looking into Gavus's heterochromatic eyes of blue and gold.

"Liberta, you know that I know what you're going to do there," Gavus answered, smiling at the mischief that Liberta was sure to get up to in there.

Liberta chuckled, "Then you will guide me, yes?"

Nothing has really changed between them. They were still just the same two people, slightly annoyed at being left alone in the treasury with only themselves to talk to.

Gavus nodded, "Of course. Though, I do have to ask that you don't kill anyone there. I know you might be excited to use your new powers on some of those guys, but they've been through enough."

It was a fair deal for Liberta. While he didn't quite like his former co-workers, he also didn't truly hate them that much. They were just… Foolish.

Liberta reached out with his hand, "Of course. I shall not kill anyone while I'm there."

Gavus shook Liberta's hand, "Thank you. And by the way, after your departure there was one more creation that was made, and if he sees you, he might actually kill you."

"Hm, I doubt he has the capabilities to actually kill me," Liberta waved his concerns off, secure in his power, "Though, what's his name?"

"Imperious, the traitor-hunter," Gavus said, making his name sound somewhat menacing, though it obviously didn't have any effect on Liberta, "He's a menace, that's what he is. Though, as long as you don't try to enter through the front doors, you shouldn't see him."

Someone whose sole purpose was to hunt traitors, of which Liberta most definitely fit the definition of…

Yes, he shall be the perfect stepping stone.

"Then in that case… Cocytus, will you give your thoughts?" Liberta called, knowing he was just nearby, listening to the conversation.

Cocytus turned the corner, showing himself, his large form casting a shadow on them and filling their bodies with a chill, "You. Are. Making. A. Mistake. Liberta. Your. Desire. To. Visit. Your. Past. Is. An. Act. Of. Defiance. Of. Our. Lord's. Commands."

"Ultimately, this is still an expedition meant for gathering information," Liberta refuted, "And do you truly believe me to be incapable of surviving my old home?"

Gavus decided to be a nuisance and chip in, "If Zenith saw you, she would also kill you."

Liberta frowned at the mention of the caloric golem, "Yes, aside from Zenith. I know my place in the hierarchy of strength."

Cocytus pulled out weapons for all 4 of his arms, then he brandished them against the two, "Then. You. Understand. I. Have. The. Power. To. Forcibly. Stop. You."

Liberta had to admit, Cocytus was being quite stubborn. And while he did just speak of having to fly out of his nest eventually, this was still far too early to cut ties for the sake of his growth.

"Then let us go together, yes?" Liberta offered, "If we are in any trouble, I can still send a message out to control. However, we don't wish to crawl to him empty handed, yes? I imagine the Supreme Beings would be disappointed if we were to return with nothing to show…"

Liberta knew that all creations of the Supreme Beings would be terrified of failure, of disappointing their masters, and so fortunately, Cocytus was no different.

After a moment of deliberation, Cocytus conceded, "...Fine." Then, he pointed a blade at Gavus, "However. You. Must. Come. With. Us. To. Our. Masters."

Gavus shrugged, "Sure, I don't mind, I have nothing better to do anyways. Though, I'll have to inform someone that I'm leaving, just to make sure they know I'm not dead."

Liberta nodded, "That is agreeable-"

"Unacceptable." Cocytus interrupted, "You. Will. Come. With. Us. Now."

Liberta sighed, mildly irritated at the stubbornness of Cocytus, and looked over to Gavus.

Gavus seemingly agreed, "Sure, I'll come with you now."

But Liberta could see the hidden amusement in Gavus's eyes. He completely intends on doing his own thing later. But he will likely honor the deal of coming with them to Nazarick, so Liberta did not feel the need to point it out.

With that settled, Gavus snaps his fingers and a gate opens, "Well, are you ready to visit the pride of Triumvirate, Stormwind?"

Liberta entered the gate without a single word.

Entering the carriage meant to take them outside of the city so that she could gate home instead of having to slowly sit in a slow box for 3 days straight, Athalia loudly shouted, knowing that the carriage was soundproofed.

Athalia's aide, one of the 50 nuns that Pontius Pilate and his gang of perverts made back in the early days of Seraphim, worriedly asked Athalia, "My Lady, are you alright?"

"Do I sound alright to you?!" Athalia snapped back, the nun whose name she couldn't remember recoiling back at the harshness of her voice.

The inside of the carriage was bigger than it was on the outside due to some weird dimensional magic she didn't really care for, so she took all of the space in the carriage by lying down and spreading her bladed wings out, forcing the maid into a corner.

"Ahh… Now that's nice," Athalia stretched herself across the entire carriage, dreaming of her bed in Kami No Toshokan.

Though, considering this carriage will keep going for another 30 minutes, maybe she'll actually take a look at the outside. BlessThyHearts always nagged all of them to appreciate this new world.

Athalia sighed as she moved her head to the window of the carriage, "Bless, you moron, why did you have to leave Mond in charge?"

Unsurprisingly, the moment Cocytus stepped through the gate, Gavus popped his head out and announced, "Right, I'll be with you in a few minutes! You guys feel free to visit anything you want, alright?"

Then, without fanfare, he took his head back to the other side and closed the gate, leaving them technically 'stranded.'

Cocytus's immediate reaction was to point his weapons toward Liberta and accuse, "You. Knew. Of. This!"

Liberta shrugged, unconcerned of Gavus's actions, "He'll be back. It's not as if I need a guide to travel through the place I was born."

The location of Stormwind was different, for it was no longer sitting by the ocean side, and instead it was now sitting in the middle of a plains biome-

Looking around, Liberta corrected himself. This was a forest that was completely and utterly decimated into becoming a plains biome.

Stormwind itself was not so different, however. The gate was still massive and the walls of Stormwind were still built by white stone. The gate was closed, but Liberta doubted that the city inside would be any different. Perhaps the canals of water may have dried up due to the location change, but he doubts that the castle inside of Stormwind went through any change.

Cocytus wasn't placated yet, however, "Liberta. You. Shall. Make. A. Gate. Back. To. Nazarick. Now."

Liberta frowned at the command. Cocytus was a pure warrior, so he didn't have even the beginner spells in his arsenal, causing him to rely on scrolls for everything, thus the command to create a gate back to safer waters. But even so, it did show that Cocytus has a level of pride and arrogance instilled into him as the Floor Guardian of the 5th floor of Nazarick to attempt to command him like so.

Liberta, in comparison, wasn't even an area guardian. He was simply a very strong creation that happened to live on the 6th floor inside of the arena.

Liberta sighed and pointed his wand, Gemini Equilus, out to the open field nearby and opened a gate to Nazarick, "There you go, Cocytus. One trip to Nazarick. However, I'll be on my own for the time being."

Without even listening to what Cocytus was about to say, Liberta teleported himself into Stormwind.

Teleportation worked a bit differently inside of guild bases than in the outside world. If the world were a set of coordinates, then guild bases acted as "holes" in that coordinate plane. However, all that meant was that there was a separate coordinate plane inside of the guild base.

While there were a variety of teleportation traps one could fall into while attempting to teleport inside a guild base, there was nothing truly threatening death that the traps alone could do. Perhaps the most dangerous trap was when they attempted to put you in the middle of another trap room surrounded by the creations of that guild base.

Of course, this only counted if the guild base was actively being defended, of which Stormwind is not.

Stormwind was virtually unchanged since the last time he was here, so he was able to teleport into the correct section of the treasury room that was within the main castle in Stormwind.

The treasury was just as he remembered. A simple room filled with a few tables and other low level knick knacks to fill the walls.

Liberta looked at a nearby wall, and noted that they had removed the portrait with the picture of him and Gavus standing next to each other from here. A slight shame.

An archaic 6th tier fire trap activated, but due to Lady Orphea Scarlet granting him magic immunity to the 6th tier, Liberta was completely unaffected as he walked towards the vault door that held the remaining treasures of Triumvirate.

The vault door had a password, and when he was here, the password was "Midgard, Asgard, Muspellheim," in honor of the 3 world champions that made up the Triumvirate.

After the betrayal, however, it's almost certain that they've since changed the password to open the vault door, however.

But Liberta had a feeling that the password wasn't very elaborate afterwards anyway. The three world champions of Triumvirate were very simple people, after all. Not to mention all the other members of Triumvirate were also foolish enough to require a simple password to remember.

With full confidence, Liberta spoke out what he believed to be the password, "Principality, Crackaslama, EmpireofWar."

Instead of the realms that they were the champions of, Liberta believed that they had simply switched it to their names, as the two other world champions were quite arrogant in how they behaved in their realm.

The vault door opened, and Liberta chuckled at the simplicity of Triumvirate's design.

While he had no access to the treasury in Nazarick, he had a feeling it was more complicated than what was here.

Entering Triumvirate's treasury, he took a look around the room filled with goods, his interest, however, was focused on only finding a few things.

The first was, of course, any world items Triumvirate may have left behind. But it seems as though they had taken them all out of the treasury. The next thing Liberta was looking for was a more personal matter.

Back when Lady Orphea Scarlet had prepared him for the betrayal, she had left behind some of their old items so that when they returned, they could proudly look upon their past and recognize they grew past it.

Of course, that day never came in the old world, for the Supreme Beings never did end up invading Stormwind for reasons Liberta was not privy to. But the sentiment still remained in his soul.

Finally, his eyes spotted what he was looking for. In a neat, tidy pile there were a few items of interest.

The first was Lady Orphea Scarlet's old guild tabard, the symbol of the guild, the 3 swords of the Triumvirate placed on a green background, the one she had gained for joining Triumvirate.

The second was his own staff back when he was at level 80, a level 68 staff called Hikari. It was nothing remarkable, Lady Orphea Scarlet had said so herself that she had gotten Hikari from a random monster in Alfheim, but it was aesthetically pleasing to her, so she had given it to him.

Moving over to the precious artifacts, Liberta first gently picked up the tabard, neatly folding it and placing it into his inventory with respect.

Then, Liberta picked up Hikari with his left hand, inspecting his old weapon. The staff was quite short in comparison to other staves, but the red orb on the top along with the black encryptions and pink flowers along the redwood was indeed quite nice to see. Even if its style was nothing close to what Liberta wore today.

Hikari was the symbolization of all the memories that Liberta had in Triumvirate. And seeing it once more felt as if he had gotten a conclusion to the past.

Liberta took his two hands and held out Hikari as if showing it off to someone.

Then, Liberta entoned, "[Disenchant Item]."

The past is merely a tool to guide his future. There is nothing worthwhile in this place.

Hikari crumbled to dust in his hands, but Liberta didn't need most of the things that were inside Hikari, so Liberta concentrated his mana to separate the living memory apart from the materials, materializing it into a small ball of energy, perfectly trapped inside of his mana.

The most important part of creating a perspective is, of course, the manifestation of the self. While this fragment of memory may be young, it is still Liberta.

Liberta stores the living memory inside of his inventory for safe keeping, and Liberta creates a gate to exit-

Only to find that an anti-teleportation barrier had been set upon him.

Only a moment later, the entire treasury burst into flames.

"Amano literally kidnapped a whole person! Can you believe that, Ulbert?! Now I'm the one that has to make sure nobody noticed it!" Vagisilious whined to Ulbert, who was kind of only mildly interested in what Amanomahitotsu was doing.

Vagisilious had nothing better to do, since Punitto had decided he would be dealing with the whole kidnapping situation, of which Punitto was only mad for about 30 seconds.

Then he heard about the rune stuff, and apparently Punitto was all on board for kidnapping.

And now, Vagisilious was in charge of destroying the evidence to hide their tracks.

Vagisilious wanted to just burn down the smithery and be done with it, but she knew that it would cause a lot of attention if a place made of stone would suddenly burn, so she wanted Ulbert to send down some sort of earthquake or something in that area.

Of course, all Ulbert had replied with was that she should just get Mare to do it.

Ulbert had to pick Mare's classes for Bukubukuchagama because she didn't have the Disciple of Disaster job class unlocked, while he did. So he knew fully well that Mare had the destructive capabilities to destroy a small smithery. And he hasn't heard anything from Momonga's group, so Mare obviously wasn't doing anything important. But apparently, Vagisilious just wants Ulbert to do it.

And all of this was being beamed directly into Ulbert's brain.

"Vaggy, chill out, girl," Ulbert said, rolling his eyes, "It usually took a few days for someone to realize that whoever was living in their apartment was dead. It probably works the same way here. I can do that for you tomorrow."

Of course, Vagisilious seemed to have expected this outcome so all she said was, "Yeah of course you'll do it tomorrow, thanks Ulbert, but you're seriously doing nothing right now. Can't you just go into an alleyway and gate over?"

Ulbert groaned, getting tired of the nagging, "No, I just wanna walk around. Can you blame a man for wanting to see a world that isn't totally ruined by big megacorps?"

"Yes, I can," Vagisilious replied, "Job comes first, you know."

"I didn't realize that cleaning up other people's mess was a job," Ulbert snarked, turning the corner and spotting a bunch of mid-tier angels running a small caravan of carriages heading his way.

Now, normally, these mid-tier angels wouldn't be worth batting an eye to Ulbert, maybe unless if those mid-tier angels had some sort of special skin on that Ulbert liked, such as the one april-fools trinket where it turned all of your angel summons into anime waifus. However, these were decidedly not those.

However, with the knowledge of Seraphim being around in this world, Ulbert messaged Vagisilious, "Hey, can you check these angels for me?"

As Ulbert ducked into a nearby alley to avoid eye contact with the angels, Vagisilious replied, "Huh? Oh, woah, yeah sure I can do that… Hm, the first and last carriages are first empty, and the other has some kind of human nun inside… Then the middle one, there's anti-divination in it, so I can't check. Maybe there's a Seraphim player inside?"

Oh, damn, a Seraphim player? Ulbert absolutely did not want to be the guy who gets caught first.

Before Ulbert could reply, however, Vagisilious sent another message, "Hold on, Nubo wants me to check something for Momonga, give me a few minutes and don't do anything stupid."

Vagisilious disconnected, and Ulbert was left alone.

Ulbert sighed and turned around to walk away from the caravan with the mystery carriage, "Dang, Vaggy, why the hell did you decide to play a divination class if you wanted to be out here?"

Absolutely 0 common sense inside of that girl. Vagisilious really didn't leverage her whole isekai knowledge correctly at all. If it wasn't for Vagisilious being Vagisilious, Ulbert would be a lot more pissed off at her. But he had to admit that Vagisilious was probably his best friend, so he couldn't stay too mad at her for long.

The sounds of iron wheels caught up to Ulbert's ears, and Ulbert realized that he was on the same path that the carriage was taking.

Well, in Ulbert's mind, it was probably fine. His Ring of Human Deception should, despite being only of the 6th tier, hide him suitably from anyone who could recognize him. And he did see other heteromorphs and demi-humans here, so he could reasonably pass as just a citizen wearing fancy clothing.

As the carriages rolled past Ulbert, he noticed that the middle carriage had a window, so he decided to take a look inside to see if he could find someone in there.

His eyes met an angel, decked out in what he recognized to be the personally crafted set of the 10th best PvPer in the game, Athalia.

No, it wasn't just the armor. That was Athalia.

Then, he realizes that the clothes he was wearing was also easily recognizable because his particular set could only be worn by Disciples of Disasters or World Disasters. Something that any decent PvPer would know as they were the most threatening spell casters to appear on the battlefield.

The door of the carriage practically flew off as Athalia threw herself at Ulbert, her swords stabbing into his chest, dealing far too much damage for Ulbert to be comfortable.

[Silent Magic: Greater Teleportation].

Ulbert managed to get into the air, shouting at his attacker, "What the hell was that for?!"

Athalia shouted out, "[Widen Magic: Veil of Isolation]! [Widen Magic: Dimensional Block]!"

And that was his message and teleportation spells gone, Ulbert should've used his message before his teleportation, but he didn't actually expect the attack.

Ulbert's eyes flickered down to his wounds. It hurt a lot less than what he expected to feel from two stab wounds, but it still definitely stung.

Though, he could feel some sort of third sense of how much "damage" he took from that attack, and it was definitely far too much to be normal. An attack like that, even taking advantage of his holy weakness, shouldn't have taken so much of his health…

"Seriously, I didn't come here to pick a fight!" Ulbert shouted as he mentally prepared to fight, "What's your deal?!"

Athalia's eyes met Ulbert's once more, "You shouldn't be here, Ainz Ooal Gown," She said with poison in her mouth, "You're far too early."

Ulbert had absolutely no idea what that meant, or how it related to Athalia attacking him, but it's pretty obvious that Athalia was looking for a fight.

And Ulbert wasn't just going to let that slide.

"So, are we fighting or not?" Ulbert asked as he went through the potential strategies that he would have to use to beat what seemed to be a fully buffed-up Athalia.

Athalia responded by charging straight towards Ulbert.

"So you are the traitor that stained the name of Triumvirate so long ago," An fiery, angelic voice sounded out from beyond the smoke.

Liberta had managed to cast a silent protection spell before the attack had landed due to the fact that silent spells were faster to cast than saying the spell out loud. But that was still a 10th tier attack, and it was definitely bothersome that he had to be caught by the one person he was supposed to not be caught by.

As the smoke cleared, Liberta's eyes found Imperius, whose orange armor that symbolized his closeness to the sun was quite easy to spot. He looked extremely upset, which made Liberta's face lift up a bit in amusement.

"I suppose I am," Liberta answered Imperius's accusations, "But you must understand, I'm afraid I shouldn't stay here for long. Perhaps we can shelve this feud for another day?"

Imperius's body started to glow with the sun's wrath, and Liberta sighed in mild disappointment, his question non-verbally answered, "I suppose not."

Imperius lunged towards Liberta with his spear, shouting out one of his skills, "[Charge]!"

The skill Charge would guarantee that the user would be able to catch up to the enemy. But it didn't work on flying enemies, so Liberta simply incants, "[Fly]."

Climbing into the air, Imperius's charge falters, but Imperius simply reveals his wings and starts to climb into the air after Liberta.

Liberta conjures his first spell to attempt to get Imperius out of the sky, "[Heavenly Restriction]!"

Chains ensnares the wings of Imperius, but Imperius maintains enough momentum to still be launched high enough into the air to catch Liberta's foot.

Liberta's eyes widened in surprise as Imperius twists his body around to send Liberta flying back down to the Earth as Imperius sends a spell down with him, "[Sun's Ray]!"

[Silent Magic: Midgard's Shield]

A shield of magic appears in front of Liberta, taking the brunt of the damage Imperius's spell could have done to him.

Liberta lands on his feet as he fires off a spell against the falling Imperius, "[Triplet Magic: Inescapable Darkness]!"

Inescapable Light homed into Imperius, all three rays of darkness landing against Imperius. However, it didn't do much damage, confirming to Liberta that Imperius was on his level and he would have to increase his output to win the fight.

Imperius threw his hand in Liberta's direction, "[Gravity]!"

And now, Liberta was restricted to the ground as well.

Liberta rolled his eyes as he pointed Equilus Gemini towards Imperius.

[Silent Magic: Dimensional Block]

[Silent Magic: Veil of Isolation]

"[Maximize Magic: Oceanic Rend]."

As a massive wave of water barreled through the surrounding areas to reach Imperius, Liberta briefly attempted to message Lord Punitto Moe. However, it seemed as though Imperius had also used Veil of Isolation against him before the fight began.

So, Liberta would instead go find Cocytus. Liberta knew fully well that the honor-bound warrior wouldn't have actually gone through his gate, leaving his ally behind. And this is the most perfect moment to go find him.

Of course, it was likely that Cocytus was already on his way-

Imperius's spear suddenly burst through the water, striking through Liberta's chest and pinning him onto the floor.

Liberta was caught completely off-guard as Imperius somehow had enough power to completely walk through Liberta's Oceanic Rend, as Imperius ran towards Liberta.

Erasing his hesitation, Liberta prys the spear out of his chest, but was caught off-guard once more as the spear suddenly flew out of his hands and into Imperius's, as he shouted out, "[Nebula Arms]!"

The spear was engulfed in flames as Liberta casted, "[Force Repel]!"

Imperius's right hand shined as he completely negated the Force Repel, landing a devastating attack on Liberta's throat.

"You fucking suck! Do you know that?!" Ulbert shouted out as he casted another spell, "[Gift of Flame]!"

So far, the two of them had blocked both of their messaging and teleportation spells. But flying was still on the table as it seemed Athalia was unconcerned about the possibility of Ulbert being able to escape by flight. Then the two of them got into a quick scuffle which ended in Ulbert nearly losing a limb, only barely avoiding her lightning quick strikes by just a hair.

Ulbert's spell rained down on the city of Triumph in a vain attempt at hitting Athalia, but Athalia flew far too fast to be caught by such slow spells.

Athalia grabbed another sword out from her circlet arsenal flying behind her. Ulbert recognized it as a level 97 sword from some raid Ulbert couldn't remember the name of. But the sword was relatively popular for being able to proc a 20% chance to use Reality Slash every hit.

"[Swiftness]!" Athalia's speed increased, catching up to Ulbert and slashing at his arm again.

The effect of the first sword didn't work, but the second sword in her hand did holy damage, which was massively painful to Ulbert as he used a spell to get her off of him.

[Silent Magic: Lucifer's Disaster]

Ulbert and Athalia burst into flames, forcing Athalia back to avoid being burnt by Ulbert's aura.

Disabling the aura to conserve mana, Ulbert shouted out, "[Triplet Magic: Stream of Lava]!"

Waves of lava erupted from the floor, all aimed towards Athalia in three separate directions.

Athalia jumped forwards to attempt to dodge, but she was still hit by one stream of lava, causing her to scream in brief pain.

The lava just didn't disappear, however, as the heat of the lava caused the surrounding houses to start melting.

Athalia's eyes caught sight of the civillians being forced to flee because of the fight, and she loudly reprimanded Ulbert, "Pay attention to your surroundings!"

Ulbert had to admit, he really should pay attention to his surroundings, because he was being too focused on Athalia.

The second part of Ulbert's build was a warlock. There was a time that he went fully in on the destruction mage role. However, after he had gotten his World Disaster job class, Punitto did the math for him and he figured out that he was getting diminishing returns from all of the extra damage he was getting from both his World Disaster job class and his Mage of Destruction job class, and he needed to stop hyper-specializing into firepower.

And so, Ulbert became a demonology warlock.

Now, most of his higher tiered demons required experience to summon, but Ulbert could also summon them through soul sacrifices. Ulbert was gaining souls through just damaging Athalia, but he was saving his souls to exchange it for healing later on in the fight.

However, an almost useless passive talent was that Ulbert could gain souls through getting the last hit on other creatures. The reason why it was useless was that the type of content that Ulbert participated in, PvP, had no creatures for Ulbert to feast on. And in dungeons and raids, the trash mobs were all strong enough to the point where Ulbert would just get more souls from participating in the fight than actually killing them.

But the exchange was always one kill for one soul, and Ulbert could hold up to 1,000 of them. A limit that could only be reached through a long, drawn out fight.

And now, he could reach that limit if he simply abandons his connection to the mortal world.

For a brief moment, Ulbert pondered on whether it was truly right for him to simply kill all of these poor civilians that had done absolutely nothing wrong. But that line of thought vanished when he determined that it was either his life, or theirs.

There was nothing in the world more important than him, and any opportunity that extends his success was an opportunity to be taken.

"[Gate to Muspelheim]!"

The skies turned dark as everyone in Triumph suddenly felt the air heat up. Everyone on guard was validated as the skies rained fire, demons dropping from the sky.

As soon as the demons hit the floor, they began to indiscriminately kill anyone within their sights.

Athalia's eyes widened in shock as she shouted at Ulbert, "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Winning," Ulbert curtly replied as he casted his healing spell, "[Full Consume Souls]."

And in just a moment, Ulbert had healed all of the damage he took, as he taunted Athalia, "Man, I love out of the box thinking. Thanks for reminding me that the world is living and breathing, Athalia."

[Silent Magic: Hellborn]

All of Ulbert's demonic elements, his claws, eyes, horns, became more pronounced as Ulbert became a monster focused only on destruction. Wings sprouted on his back as it spewed hell's undying flames over the city, burning anything unfortunate enough to come in contact with it.
Smiling, Ulbert declared to Athalia, "I shall tear your soul apart."

Athalia's eyes narrowed as she sent her own declaration, "Your karma is showing. But I'll still win this fight."

Athalia dashed towards the demons rampaging through Triumph, intent on cutting the strings holding up Ulbert.

And Ulbert gave chase, knowing fully well that if his demons were disabled, he would not stand a chance.

Draudillion gasped as she saw her city being overrun by powerful demons she had never even seen or heard about in her life before.

She panickedly turned to the king, "Gojo! We're under attack! Help us!"

The King woke up from his nap, and his eyes turned towards the window, "Hm?" The King's face lightened up with a sense of familiarity, "Oh! That's something I haven't seen in a while! Man, those warlocks sucked to fight against."

Then, he shrugged, "Not my problem."

Draudillion's jaw fell at the complete lack of interest, "WHAT?! There are demons attacking us! Please help! This is the one reason why you're king!"

The King sighed, "Look, Athalia probably has it handled. Gavus probably has it handled. Plemis probably has it handled. Zenith probably has it handled. Eugene probably has it handled. Azmar probably has it handled. Himmichan probably has it handled. Even Grail probably has it handled. There's no reason for me to join the fight."

Draudillion was completely outraged at his words, this was his kingdom, wasn't it? Why was he so uninterested in doing anything for it?!

Draudillion has not once in her life seen him do anything of substance! He's always just been there on his throne nagging on the entire family line about things that don't matter! The one person she knew he fought was the Brightness Dragon Lord almost 30 years ago, and that happened somewhere in the middle of nowhere!

And at the moment where everyone needs him, he doesn't want to do anything?!

"Then what's the point of you being king, Gojo?!" Draudillion shouted in rage.

To an outside viewer, The King's eyes lazily flickered to meet Draudillon's, as if he didn't take any of this seriously.

To Draudillion, The King was the most serious she's ever seen him.

All he said was, "I'm waiting for my friends. This kingdom is only a means to an end. Don't think too highly of yourself."

Defeated, Draudillion limped back towards the window, watching demons tear apart her citizens, knowing they died meaningless deaths.

BigStall's initial reaction to watching a Colossal Inferno dropping right outside the Adventurer's Guild and killing basically everything around it with its flame aura was "Oh, that's weird."

Then, BigStall realized something when that same Colossal Inferno began to attack everyone but him.

This was Ulbert's summon.

Now, he knew Ulbert was, on some level, stupid. You don't drink lead water straight from Hokkaido for your entire life without dropping a few IQ points. But even so, BigStall had some faith in Ulbert to not just decide to summon a bunch of demons for funsies.

So, Ulbert was clearly in some amount of danger.

He tried to message Vagisilious, but obviously someone threw up anti-messaging and anti-teleportation spells already. So, BigStall was now given two options.

Help Ulbert, or tell whoever was in Nazarick about the shitshow happening here.

Ulbert was the strongest spell caster in Ainz Ooal Gown, and BigStall is pretty sure he knows why he decided to summon the demons to start killing civilians. But the fact that Ulbert had to be pushed to that point was worrying.

On the other hand, if Ulbert is losing the fight and BigStall tries to help, he isn't sure if whatever enemy Ulbert is fighting against can be beaten just by the two of them.

But he knows that if Vagisilious had the Mianguan on, the combination of her and Ulbert wins against literally anything.

And so, BigStall trusts in Ulbert's skills and gins his mad dash outside of the veil of to move away from the center of the storm.

Liberta, in the Prime of His Life, was dying.

Imperius had pierced directly through his neck, and though he is no longer human, the blow was still inviting death onto him.

And…

It was so enlightening!

Lying prone on the floor before an enemy, he feels more vibrant than he felt ever before. He had died once, back when Nazarick was invaded, but that was a death for duty, not to mention it was a relatively quick death where he was only on the "verge of death" for a few moments before the valkyries took him.

But this…

Liberta's eyes honed in on Imperius, who was watching him bleed out above him.

Imperius was deliberately making this slow, ensuring that Liberta felt every sense in his body flare with pain.

And it felt Glorious.

He had never felt so clearly before! This was the aspect of life he was missing all this time! The aspect of living!

And so close to death, he wants to live more than anything else in the world.

The spear in his neck was yanked out as Imperius mocked Liberta, "You have been granted the gift of life here. Now, we shall take it back as we send your soul to suffer for eternity."

Imperius picked up Liberta by his head, looking him straight in the eyes, "In the end, you are still a traitor. You cannot hide from the purity of the sun. I still see the taint of deceit within your soul. One day, the entire world will hear of your treachery, and cast you out of memory for it."

Liberta laughed in his face, "Treachery? You flatter me, however, my creator has already ensured that her grand design will bloom."

Using amateur telekinesis, he forced Gemini Equilis back into his hands.

[Silent Magic: Forced Equilibrium]

A link of light formed between the heart of Liberta and the heart of Imperius, evening out their health.

Imperius threw his spear into the body of Liberta, but Liberta managed to deflect the blow away from his body using the steel of Gemini Equilis. At the same time, he incants the signature spells of his wand, "[Orb of Blessing]! [Orb of Punishment]!"

Two orbs formed from Gemini Equilis, one staying by Liberta's side while the other slammed into Imperius, causing him to lose his grip on Liberta.

As Liberta's feet touched the ground, Liberta loudly challenged Imperius with a mad grin on his face, "IMPERIUS! COME! LET'S ENJOY OURSELVES NOW! SHOW ME HOW IT FEELS TO FIGHT TO THE DEATH!"

Forced Equilibrium had finished the part where it healed Liberta, and now Liberta wanted to sense the feeling of being so close to death once more.

Yanking on the chain of Forced Equilibrium, Liberta forced Imperius to come closer as Liberta used another spell, "[Boost Magic: Beelzebub's Swarm]!"

Imperius responded by showing off his flame wings, causing the swarm to burn away, "I am the creation of the Conqueror of The Demon Realm! Your kind has no chance! [Solarion's Fire]!"

A wave of fire comes for Liberta, and he gladly welcomes it.

Cocytus deflected another wave of dark energies with his Ghenna's Axe as he lunged towards Eugene, another defender of this city.

The demon dressed in black and red chuckled as he created a wall made of red cubes to defend from Cocytus's strikes, floating in the air, "Careful, buddy! You might hurt yourself!"

The wall suddenly burst back onto Cocytus with the same force he attacked it with.

Cocytus looked up at Eugene, who was looking down on him as if he was nothing, "How. Annoying."

All Cocytus needed to do was extract Liberta out of Stormwind. However, this city was more defended than what Gavus had led them to believe.

Already, the pop monsters Cocytus had to cut through to get here were all rather annoying to get through. Especially considering the amount of spells they had to get through his immunities.

And now, this level 100 demon was standing in his way to completing his objective.

Reaching into his inventory, he exchanged his Primordial Hammer in exchange for his Chained Sword.

Eugene raised an eyebrow at the change in weaponry, "Ooh, a chained weapon! How scary! But that chain looks a bit too short there my friend-"

Eugene suddenly found his leg wrapped in chains and was sent falling back to the ground.

As Eugene hit the floor, Cocytus pinned Eugene down to the floor with all of his weapons, "You. Are. Defeated. This. Is. Your. One. Chance. To. Surrender."

Eugene scoffed, "I never knew bugs were this delusional. [Chao's End]."

Cocytus was rendered immobile as he was suddenly encased inside a multitude of small cubes.

Eugene teleported outside of Cocytus's pin, dusting himself off, "You don't have any spells, do you? You have no way of doing enough magic damage to break that case. Of course, if I'm not interested in fighting you right now. Maybe I'll find Zenith to help me kill you."

"[Hell Frozen Over]."

Eugene protected his face as the entire area became frozen in ice, including the cubes that trapped Cocytus.

Then, using his own strength, Cocytus broke outside of the cage he was stuck in.

Eugene sighed, "Of course I should've expected a bug like you to keep something like that in handy."

And so, Cocytus & Eugene went in for another brawl.

A mother protected her child within her grasp as she tried to protect his innocence from the demons outside.

They were the lucky ones. They were still inside when the commotion began and the demons just so happened to choose a direction opposite of their house.

But there were just so many demons, one was bound to find them eventually.

An entire side of their house fell as a colossal demon's eyes laid their eyes upon the two.

"Mom…" Her son tearfully grasped her skin.

"I'm so sorry…" She apologized, knowing it would likely be their last words.

"[Ripping Slash]!"

In an instant, a blur of light slashes the demon five times, causing the demon to be thrown back.

"[Dancing Blades]!"

A whirlwind of holy attacks revealed an absolutely gorgeous angel saving them from the demon, successfully turning it into ashes.

The angel briefly turned to them to tell them, "Hide!"

Then, the angel quickly left the area to continue the fight.

Knowing a miracle had just occurred, the two quickly ran through the back door, knowing it was safer within the alleyway.

They escaped just before the Primal Demon Lord Ulbert Alain Odle arrived to harvest their souls through his aura and his haunting laughs.

Through the screams and destruction, Ulbert Alain Odle was laughing.

The ecstasy of feeling the terror and fear within each citizen in the city was like dopamine ingested directly into his brain. It was absolutely delightful to his ears to feel the screaming of the weak and defenseless.

Which was why it was so utterly infuriating that Athalia was just cleaving through all of his minions!

He could feel his minions dying out by the second as Athalia and it seemed to be other powerful defenders of Triumph were rallying to defeat Ulbert's army.

Quite honestly, Ulbert was surprised that they were managing to defeat the minions from Gate to Muspelheim. Those particular summons were no slouches.

Thankfully, Ulbert has many more summoning spells he can use.

"[Maximize Magic: Armageddon Evil]! [Maximize Magic: Hell's Revolution]! [Maximize Magic: Demonic Invasion]!"

Ulbert knew that he had spent most of his mana just on summoning demons that ultimately did nothing to help his goal in eliminating Athalia for her arrogance. But who cared?

The goalpost had shifted, and destruction was the only thing he sought in this fight anymore.

Demons started to appear in every corner of the city, all of them laughing in the destruction they were partaking in.

Not a single living creature was spared as they rampaged through Triumph, funneling souls towards their master.

Ulbert traversed through the city, gleefully burning anyone who dared to look upon him. Eventually, he found Athalia briefly speaking to what seemed to be another angel, who left when they had seen Ulbert.

Athalia turned back to Ulbert, a cold look on her face, "They will handle this affront to nature. And I will be the one killing you, monster."
Ulbert chuckled, picking up on how Athalia had yet to refer to his name, "You don't even know my name yet, don't you?"

"I don't remember the names of the insignificant," Athalia shot back as she dashed towards Ulbert with frightening speed.

Ulbert's eyes widened as Athalia suddenly burst towards his throat, slicing through it with all of her weapons, then without him even having the time to react to the pain surging through his body, Athalia had switched weapons once more and with several more strikes to his back, completely disabled his ability to gain souls from his minions. And to make it even worse, one of Athalia's weapons had chained him from being able to move.

Ulbert was finally able to scream in pain as everything caught up to his brain.

[Silent Magic: Lucifer's Rebellion]

The chains on Ulbert broke and Athalia was repelled away with flames.

Ulbert glared towards Athalia, knowing that he had completely overestimated his fighting capabilities at the current moment.

Ulbert could heal now, but his ability to gain souls from his demons were still completely restricted because of one of Athalia's swords. No doubt one made solely to counter summoners like him.

Not to mention, all of the summoning magic he used cost mana to cast. And Ulbert was getting dangerously low on mana. If he healed now, the fight would be over because Ulbert's melee capabilities were absolutely nowhere close to being able to take on Athalia in a fight.

Even within his hellborne state, Ulbert was able to see the reality of the situation, which was why his next spell he casted was, "[Create Fortress]!"

A massive tower sprouted from the ground, causing Athalia to hesitate for a moment.

Ulbert quickly made his way inside as his demons followed his commands to switch targets from the city to Athalia.

"You're running?!" Athalia shouted out in genuine surprise, trying to move forwards before a Baphomet General blocked her path.

Ulbert ignored her, however, as he quickly closed the door of his fortress and opened his inventory to take out a quick-change item.

For the low price of 200 yen, you could instantly change all of your gear in a fight without having to go through the changing gear animation.

Snapping the small wooden bar, Ulbert's clothing changed into something that signified more of a priestly tone than a warlock.

While his previous set, Flames of The First Disaster, was a raid set focused on firepower, his other set was a personally crafted set built to stall out fights and regain mana.

Unfortunately, the set was slightly outdated as it was only a level 99 mythic set, however, it was still good in its job of having a high defense and upping his mana regeneration.

And since Amanomahitotsu created it for Ulbert, Amano got the naming rights to this set, so he named it the "I'm getting my ass beat," set. Which was basically right. He only ever pulled this set out whenever he was losing the fight.

Flying up the stairs, Ulbert mentally checked the timings of Veil of Isolation to figure out the timing of when he could get his message to Vagisilious.

Ulbert knew that BigStall was probably smart enough to try to go get her too, but Ulbert needed a backup plan if BigStall was unable to get out of the radius of a widened Veil of Isolation.

Athalia also probably knew that he would be trying to contact his guildmates, so it's likely that the moment that Veil of Isolation goes down, she'll reapply it immediately. But there'll be a moment where there's nothing stopping a short message from going through.

If he gets to Vagisilious with a single syllable, she'll come for him with the Mianguan on her head, and he'll win the fight. And if BigStall figures out that Ulbert is getting his ass kicked, BigStall will get Vagisilious too and Ulbert will win the fight.

The only way for Ulbert to lose the fight was to completely eat shit and die within the next 2 minutes that the Veil of Isolation was active.

Athalia burst through the doors, the blood of his demons on her armor.

Ulbert smiled as Athalia glared straight at him, knowing fully well that 2 minutes was completely doable against the Harbinger of Justice.

Athalia flew towards him without another word, and Ulbert responded by using, "[Psychic Scream]!"

Athalia briefly stalled in the air for a few seconds as Ulbert kept moving up his tower, his minions continuing to pour in from every entrance they could find into his fortress.

As Athalia recovered from her stun, several more of his minions attempted to attack her, but she shrugged off their attacks as she used a spell to disable Ulbert's flight, "[Weight of Sin]!"

Ulbert immediately grappled onto the stairs and recovered into running. Weight of Sin, with his -500 karma, would leave him grounded for the rest of the fight. But that was still manageable.

However, it did mean that gentlemen's rules were off, so he immediately countered with, "[Gravity]!"

Athalia had no trouble in landing, and she immediately dashed towards him, keeping up her speed.

Ulbert clicked his tongue as he pulled out a scroll imbued with [Push].

He immediately used the scroll, and Athalia was pushed back into the waiting arms of his demons, and Ulbert immediately kept moving forward knowing fully well that those demons were only going to hold her for a few seconds.

He didn't know until now that his demons could scream in pain.

He was still holding onto his souls for an actual emergency, so Ulbert pulled out a healing potion and started drinking in preparation for the next hit that Athalia lands.

Of course, a moment later, Athalia somehow managed to catch up to him and cut through his legs, catching him off-guard.

Kicking Athalia with his other leg, pushing her back slightly, Ulbert decides the best course of action was to just jump down the stairs to the bottom of the fortress and use levitate to negate the fall damage.

As he jumped down into the waiting arms of his few remaining minions, Athalia jumped as well, intent on striking at his heart.

Ulbert quickly turned around to attempt to redirect her attacks, but Athalia was absolutely ruthless in her strikes, managing to stab through his arm and into his chest.

One of his demons had a healing spell that was used for him, at the same time Ulbert casted, "[Hell Aura V]!"

Athalia began to burn, but she didn't give up as she used one arm to keep herself onto Ulbert and the other arm to pull another sword from her circlet.

[Silent Magic: Lucifer's Rebellion]

Athalia was forcibly pushed off of Ulbert and back into a wall.

Ulbert fell onto his minions, unable to pull off a levitate in time.

The minions immediately fulfilled his subconscious desire to escape Athalia, and so they quickly ran outside the fortress, closing the door.

Knowing he had just taken more damage, Ulbert pulls out another healing potion knowing that the cooldown hadn't finished yet and gulps it down-

He throws up the contents of his stomach almost immediately after, the healing potion tasting like bile.

In Ulbert's opinion, a fucking vile way of enforcing a cooldown.

By now, the timer for Veil of Isolation was about to come off cooldown, and all he needed to do was be ready for that moment.

Athalia kicked the door down, ready for her last chance of victory.

Liberta, in the Prime of His Life, was more alive than ever.

There were countless stab wounds all over his body. His face was almost burnt off. He was dangerously close to losing his limbs.

He should've died countless times over, but he was still fighting for the opportunity to feel alive.

Laughing, Liberta shouted out another spell, "[Precipice Blades]!"

Stone spikes emerged from the ground, impaling Imperius who looked only slightly better than Liberta at this point.

Imperius broke the spikes with his bare hands as he returned the favor by using, "[Angelic Armaments]!"

A shield of swords appeared around Imperius, protecting him from harm. If the shield lasts for 10 seconds, he can send all of the swords towards a target.

Liberta chuckled, snapping his fingers, "[Piercing Magic: Twilight]!"

A wave of darkness hits Imperius, breaking through his shield.

Closing the distance, Imperius threw his spear at Liberta and rushed towards him.

Liberta caught the spear with his hands and threw it back to Imperius with his own spell, "[Return to Sender]!"

The loyalty enchant on Imperius's spear was disabled as the spear found its way directly into his chest.

Using that moment of hesitation, Liberta uses another spell, "[Maximize Magic: Shadow Waltz]!"

His left arm grows into a massive tentacle, and he slams it onto Imperius, allowing Liberta dash forwards to use another spell, something Imperius had tried to use several times this fight, "[Wrath of Angiris]!"

Imperius twisted his body, and Liberta missed.

Liberta's eyes widened as Imperius shouted out with his hand wide open, "[Wrath of Angiris]!"

Liberta was grabbed by the throat as they were both suddenly launched high into the air, and before they were launched down, Imperius told Liberta, "You are no equal!"

They were rapidly sent down to the Earth, Imperius smashing Liberta onto the cold floor causing a massive crater to form.

For a moment, Liberta thought he had died.

Then, his mind connected the dots, and he began to laugh.

Imperius scoffed, "Are those truly your last words?"

"I can feel it! The secrets behind that final tier of magic!" Liberta manically told Imperius, laughing even harder, "If I just-"

Liberta could not finish the sentence, as a massive wave of frost blanketed over the two fighters.

Liberta's eyes caught Cocytus running on fours as he slammed into Imperius, knocking him off Liberta, and one of Cocytus's free arms grabbed Liberta by the waist. Then, Cocytus started to move away from Imperius.

Liberta couldn't help but gasp when he realized that they were retreating, "Cocytus! What do you think you're doing?!"

"We. Have. Been. Given. Orders. To. Retreat." Cocytus blandly said, "And. You. Will. Be. Given. Punishment. For. Your. Disregard. Of. Lord. Punitto. Moe's. Orders."

Liberta tried to get himself out of Cocytus's grasp, "I was so close! The secrets behind their divinity were right within my grasp! Release me!"

Cocytus simply hummed as he checked to ensure nobody was following them, "Demiurge. Was. Right. You. Truly. Are. The. Most. Arrogant. Of. Your. Perspectives."

Liberta glared at Cocytus, "You don't know what you're doing!"

"I. Am. The. Weapon. Of. The. 41. Supreme. Beings. I. Do. Not. Need. To. Know." Cocytus said.

Liberta went limp as he recognized the futility of the situation.

Still, this was a productive trip. Though he may not have been able to achieve it today, with the experience of the heat of battle in his heart, he now knows that his other perspectives cannot stay in Nazarick for any longer.

If they wanted to know the secrets of the world, they would have to go out and find the answers themselves.

That was what it meant to be alive.

Vagisilious was looking over Re-Estisize City with a worried look on her face.

She thought that all this was going to be was a quick routine check over the levels of everyone she could find inside the city, but instead they were all suddenly split up and because of an massive anti-divination spell that someone used, she was suddenly blinded and was now just waiting for someone to get out of the anti-divination to tell them what was going on.

And apparently things were going wrong everywhere else too, because apparently

The group in Slane, their actual emergency response team, was fighting something like a dungeon boss and they were currently scrambling for a response when that dungeon boss turned into a world enemy from Nubo's perspective.

So now they had to get the wilderness group to be their emergency response team because they were just chilling. And they basically immediately sent the entire group aside from a couple to get into Re-Estisize City to figure out what the hell was going on.
Which was where they were at right now.

"I hate this," She openly announced to everyone in the room, which was only Punitto, Nubo, and Nigredo.

"Facts," Nubo agreed, poking around the unseeable shield that the newly named Zenith put up.

Then, Punitto took the time to check in on everyone else, but then he realized, "Wait, Vaggy, what's up with your Dragon Kingdom monitor?"

She was a bit tunnel-visioned, so she didn't actually pay attention to anything other than Re-Estisize. So she apologized, "Sorry, tunnel vision, maybe I disabled it accidentally-"

She tried to look back at the Dragon Kingdom.

Nothing happened.

A sinking feeling appeared in her gut, which was almost immediately validated as she suddenly got a message from Ulbert, "Hel-"

Ulbert's message was immediately cut off.

Then, it was replaced by BigStall, "Vaggy! Ulbert is fighting something or someone that caused him to summon his demon armies in the middle of the city to farm for souls! Go help him!"

"ULBERT'S IN TROUBLE!" She immediately shouted out as she created a gate to Triumph and jumped in.

"WAIT!" Punitto tried to call out, but it was too late as the gate closed behind her.

Immediately, she could tell that Dimensional Block was online, and she was stuck without any way of teleporting.

But Ulbert made it extremely obvious where he was, because the moment she arrived, a massive pillar of fire burst forth from a section of the city.

Immediately, she quickly flew her way to the destination of the battle.

And there, she spotted Ulbert being attacked by someone she didn't recognize the name of, but knew that it was a Seraphim member.

"ULBERT YOU IDIOT!" She shouted out as she sent several healing spells his way, "[Triplet Maximize Magic: Sovereign's Blessing]! [Triplet Maximize Magic: Sovereign's Blessing]! [Boost Maximize Magic: Mercy of The Sovereign]!"

And with that, the entire previous fight became totally irrelevant as Ulbert was restored back to full health and mana.

The Seraphim member's eyes widened in shock as she spotted her.

Ulbert laughed, taking out another quick-change item to change back into his main gear set, "Hahaha! I win! It's over for you, Athalia!"

Athalia quickly flew back, jumping onto a nearby building to reassess the situation.

At the same time, she flew to Ulbert's side, gently hitting his head, "You stupid idiot! I told you to not do something stupid and now you're fighting whoever this is?!"

"She attacked first," Ulbert said, slowly getting up from the floor, "Not my fault."

"And also, get out of your hellborne form!" She commanded, remembering the flavor text on that particular spell.

Ulbert complies, as he shrinks down, he blinks and remarks, "I should've just ran outside of her Veil of Isolation, I have like a million speed buffs in my inventory."

"Yeah! Idiot!" She chastised, "Now c'mon, we have to beat her now."

Athalia took a deep breath, then, she crouched into a running position, exchanging no words.

"Ulbert, you know what to do," She said, knowing fully well that this city block was about to be entirely destroyed. But seeing how Athalia was just beating the hell out of her best friend, she couldn't really spare any care for the poor civilians.

Ulbert nodded, "I know. I'm going to save Grand Catastrophe for later, though."

Grand Catastrophe's main counter was those once a day one-hit invincibility spells and skills. If Athalia hadn't used those yet, she could understand why Ulbert is saving Grand Catastrophe.

"Alright, kick her ass, Ulbert," She gave her seal of approval.

Ulbert smirked, "[Triplet Twin Boost Maximize Magic: Volcano]!"

Six bursts of lava erupted from the floor, burning anything it touched.

At the same time, Athalia made her move as she immediately attempted to strike Vagisilious off the board, "[Maximize Skill: Ripping Strikes]!"

[Silent Triplet Twin Boost Maximize Magic: Gate to Muspelheim]

[Silent Triplet Twin Boost Maximize Magic: Armageddon Evil]

[Silent Boost Maximize Magic: Spires of Hell]

[Silent Magic: Shield of The Sovereign].

Athalia's attacks were immediately blocked, and hundreds of demons suddenly appeared around them. Additionally, Athalia was covered in flames.

Immediately retreating, Athalia shouted out another skill, "[Widen Skill: Dancing Blades]!"

Many of Ulbert's summons were instantly annihilated, but all three participants knew that he could just summon more as the demons that split off from the fight were back to funneling souls to Ulbert by slaughtering through the city.

[Silent Triplet Twin Boost Maximize Magic: Fire Ballista]

[Silent Triplet Twin Boost Maximize Magic: Mercy's End]

Vagisilious and Ulbert's attacks went straight to Athalia, and in a moment of weakness she shouted out, "[God's Protection]!"

For 1 whole second, she was immune to any damage.

In return, Ulbert immediately took advantage of her lack of protection from anything else as he activated the conditions for Grand Catastrophe.

"Hey, I got this spell nerfed so many times, you know?" Ulbert called out as everyone knew what those words meant.

Because of the combination of Vagisilious's Mianguan and Ulbert's firepower, basically anything that had a health bar was deleted near instantly whenever they were combined. This meant that for a while, Ainz Ooal Gown consistently got world firsts in raiding because Grand Catastrophe and Petit Catastrophe ate up raid bosses for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

However, the cold, hard hands of the developers nerfed World Disasters after enough people complained about it.

However, these nerfs weren't really for other World Disasters. It was for Ulbert.

First of all, Grand Catastrophe and Petit Catastrophe shared a cooldown. Then, Grand Catastrophe could no longer be affected by metamagic. After that, they increased the cooldown of Grand Catastrophe from 24 hours to 1 week. Then to cap it off, Grand Catastrophe would take up the cooldown of a super-tier spell.

Even so, Grand Catastrophe was still an insta-win for Ainz Ooal Gown. The developers tried nerfing Petit Catastrophe, but all that did was make it so that other World Disasters suffered for Ulbert's actions with the Mianguan.

And they couldn't nerf the Mianguan either, because that was a world item, and those were, by the books, never nerfed, only buffed.

So, for the first time in Yggdrasil history, they nerfed a player, Ulbert Alain Odle, specifically. And nobody else.

If Ulbert wanted to use Petit or Grand Catastrophe, he would have to announce it to everyone in a 20 kilometer radius. And the skies would turn blood red. Then Ulbert would begin to glow and start floating up into the sky just to make sure nobody could miss him.

And also, he'll take 500% increased damage while casting the spell.

For any other player, this would successfully dissuade them from using the Catastrophes forever.

For Ulbert Alain Odle, this was a dream come true.

4 things happened very quickly.

First was Ulbert starting the ritual for Grand Catastrophe, "I AM THE PRIMAL DEMON LORD, ULBERT ALAIN ODLE!"

Before that, Athalia began to use a super-tier spell intent on eliminating Ulbert before he could finish his chanting.

Even faster than that, Vagisilious used a silent spell to create a barrier for both her and Ulbert to ensure that Grand Catastrophe wouldn't kill them both in a friendly fire incident.

"I AM THE PRIMAL DEMON LORD, ULBERT ALAIN ODLE!"

The indomitable mortal spirit faltered upon the words of the godslayer descending upon Triumph. For how could they fight off against someone even the gods couldn't defeat?

"I AM THE PRIMAL DEMON LORD, ULBERT ALAIN ODLE!"

The defenders of the city cried out as the demons regained their momentum upon the Demon Lord's return.

"I AM THE PRIMAL DEMON LORD, ULBERT ALAIN ODLE!"

Draudillion couldn't even gasp upon the manifestation of legends.

Because The King of The Dragon Kingdom, Principality, moved faster than all of them.

"[Widen Skill: Interrupt 10]!"

All of their spells were suddenly stopped.

Principality's laurels glowed with light, and every single minion became under his control.

And lastly, Principality threw a cube at Athalia, "[Activate Sealing]!"

Athalia was suddenly confined by the flesh of Final Destination, and her final words to the world were, "YOU'RE ON THEIR SIDE?!"

Then, Athalia was sealed away inside of the world item.

Finally, Principality landed on the ground, looking at the two players, "It's been a while, Vaggy, Ulbert."

Recognition finally flew into their two brains.

"Principality?! You're here too!" Vagisilious shouted with glee, before realizing age had caught up to their friend.

Ulbert recognized it too and he asked, "Principality! We gotta reverse your aging right now!"

Principality laughed, "Yeah, yeah, I know. By the way, we need to stop meeting like this."

Then, Principality turned deadly serious, "Now, about Triumph."

To be frankly honest, though their chances of winning against Principality right now were high, it wasn't 100%.

Ulbert gulped, "Uh, sorry?"

Principality sighed, seemingly undisturbed by the death of his civilians, "I can see that your karma's affecting you pretty badly, my dude. You should probably get that looked at. I'm sure my NPCs have the whole repairing part handled now that I disabled your minions from attacking."

Ulbert nodded in agreement, though he wasn't sure if it was because he actually agreed or because he wanted to avoid a fight, "Uh, yeah, I really should."

Principality picked up the world item that Athalia was trapped in and put it back on his waist, "I'll keep her for now. I'll probably give her back to Seraphim whenever they realize that I have her. Now, can I assume you guys have Nazarick?"

Vagisilious nodded, "Yeah we do-" Then, she realizes the situation back home, "Oh crap! There's an emergency happening right now! We need to get everyone back to Nazarick!"

But despite her worry, she turned back to Principality to ask, "Wait, before that! Do you know what happened to PopStarry and Theadul?"

Principality sighed, "I know where their graves are, if you wanted to try and revive them. But they died of old age. Now, about Nazarick?"

She frowned. She knew that, according to what they found, the Greed Kings arrived hundreds of years ago. But to hear it like that...

She shook her head. They'll get there later. Vagisilious moved on, "Right, we can find them later. Let me just message everyone here…"

After a few minutes, they had gotten everyone in the Dragon Kingdom back to Nazarick.

Just a few minutes too late.

NPC Bios and World Item Stories.

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Imperius

Level: 100

Racial Classes:

Archangel Flame (15)

Seraphic Guardian (10)

Sacred Sentinel (10)

Seraph Aesphere (5)

Job Classes:

Paladin (15)

Holy Knight (15)

Nebula Squire (10)

Spear of Justice (10)

Ethereal Paragon (5)

Luminous Lancer (5)

Karma: 150, Good

Approximate Status:

HP 80

MP 50

Phy. Atk. 100

Phy. Def. 60

Agility 85

Mag. Atk. 100

Mag. Def. 40

Resistance. 50

Special Ability. 100

Total: 665

Imperius's Bio:

Created after Orphea's betrayal, Imperious's creation symbolized the rebirth of Triumvirate after its defeat at Nazarick's hand. With flaming wings and unyielding valor, Imperius was created as Triumvirate's "Traitor Hunter."

Imperius has unmatched fighting ability, and he has a keen sense for snakes who plan to betray their masters. And he hates snakes. The person Imperius hates most is Orphea, because she's a fucking bitch.

Imperius's personality is that of a fiery storm. His arrogance and boldness is contagious and seeps through to others, emboldening them in battle. Even his enemies admire Imperius's spirit. And at the end of battles, Imperius allows for his enemies' ashes to be carried by the wind to the afterlife. Except for traitors. Imperius turns them into nothingness.

Imperius's role in Stormwind that isn't just hunting traitors is being the gatekeeper of Stormwind. Imperius judges all who enter Stormwind, and those found unworthy are kept out.

Also because Imperius's angel customizations are shit, Imperius doesn't have an appearance underneath his armor. He's like a ghost or something. Just imagine it like that.

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Secretary

Level: 100

Racial Classes:

Cherub (15)

Angel (10)

Gatekeeper (10)

Peacekeeper (5)

Job Classes:

Priest (15)

Sorcerer (15)

Keeper of Order (10)

Lightblessed (10)

Paragon of Cycles (5)

Eternal Law (5)

Karma: 100, Neutral-Good

Approximate Status:

HP 70

MP 100

Phy. Atk. 30

Phy. Def. 80

Agility 35

Mag. Atk. 100

Mag. Def. 85

Resistance. 60

Special Ability. 100

Total: 660

Secretary's Bio:

He's the defender of the treasury. He's pretty orderly, likes to keep things tidy. He also has a fun side to him.

Friends with Liberta.

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Eugene

Level: 100

Racial Classes:

Imp (15)

Mischief (10)

Spawn of Chaos (10)

Trickster Demon (5)

Job Classes:

Dark Arts Student (15)

Arcanist (15)

Illusionist (10)

Fool of Chaos (10)

Master of Chains (5)

Deceptionist (5)

Karma: -100, Neutral-Evil

Approximate Status:

HP 65

MP 95

Phy. Atk. 40

Phy. Def. 70

Agility 55

Mag. Atk. 100

Mag. Def. 75

Resistance. 80

Special Ability. 100

Total: 680

Eugene's Bio:

A trickster at heart, Eugene absolutely loves having fun with people. He's responsible for making sure everyone in Stormwind has fun while Stormwind isn't being invaded.

He's also a very snarky person in combat. He just can't resist joking around with his enemies, which sometimes annoy them a lot.

Eugene dreams of one day being able to visit the realm that players come from because I lost a bet with Tymin. I don't know why, maybe he just likes humans a lot.

Or he wants to prank humanity. Could go either way. Maybe both.

Eugene loves cats and kicks puppies.

Eugene has a fursona.

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[Final Destination - World Class Item - When activated, Fate's Last Resorts traps the target inside of it. The trapped cannot get out unless Final Destination is reactivated again from the outside.]

Final Destination Lore

An elaborate wooden box, carved with ornate eyes on each side. Seemingly otherworldly.

During the Golden Age of Demons, the Demon King Galhuntalel was beset by enemies on every side, and yet in every battle he came on top.
The Ancient Sages tossed and turned, but they could not devise a feasible plan to defeat Galhuntalel. His might too strong, his intellect too cunning, and his wrath too unescapable. Galhuntalel was the undisputed Demon King of the era, and none could oppose him.

Yet, Galhuntalel had a son named Valantalel. Valantalel was the Silver Prince due to being more of a pacifist than his father. And so, the two resented each other for their opposing ideologies.

Sensing an opportunity, the Ancient Sages came to Valantalel with an opportunity. If Valantal agreed to help put an end to his father's reign, then the Ancient Sages and their bloodlines will serve Valantal for all eternity.

Knowing this may be the only chance to put an end to his father's reign of terror, Valantalel readily agreed to the Ancient Sage's deal.

And so, they crafted a seal great enough to contain Galhuntalel's immeasurable strength.

On the night before the attack, Valantal asked his father why he had created so many enemies, who all aimed to be the one to put the dagger in his back.

Galhuntalel simply cited the history of the demonic race. It was either that he will take control to ensure his prosperity, or someone else will become king and chain them. Any other notion was foolish.

So, with a heavy heart, Valantalel said goodnight to his father.

The day after, the seal activated in the middle of combat, attempting to restrain Galhuntalel.

Yet, the Ancient Sages had betrayed the demons, intending to seal the entirety of the demon race.

But Valantalel could not accept such a fate. And so, using his own power, he overwhelmed the great seal with his own power. But the Ancient Sages foresaw the possibility, and the seal simply consumed Valantalel's power.

But the Ancient Sages never could've predicted that instead of sealing away the demon race, the seal would seal away the world.

X

Denshosho's Notes: I wonder if the world inside Final Destination is the one that apparently sealed away the entire world?

Principality's Notes: Doppy's United, fuck you. I hope you enjoy leveling up your characters back from level 10 to 100 with no more guild.

X

[Pax Yggdrasillia - World Class Item - A pair of laurels that forces nearby minions, to come under the user's control. All minions gained this way will dissolve after 30 minutes.]

Pax Yggdrasillia Lore

A pair of golden laurels belonging to the Eternal Emperor of Reme.

Reme was an empire that spanned through multiple leaves of Yggdrasil. Through its benevolence, every world that Reme was on thrived.

Its emperor was a kind deity, ensuring that all roads ultimately lead to prosperity.

No child was left behind. No working man or woman were given scraps. And every leader leads from the front instead of on the backs of others.

For thousands of years, this was the status quo. Utopia.

But as the years passed, the king grew increasingly complacent of the state of his empire. And the shadows grew longer and longer as his subjects desired for something more.

So, his faithful advisor, Zul, came up to him one day with a solution for the growing unrest for glory, "My Emperor, if they wish for war, why not send them off against a fierce foe? I hear at the roots of Yggdrasil, there is a darkness slumbering. We are the greatest empire, are we not? I believe we can send them there to test their mettle."

The Emperor, wishing for the happiness of his own citizens, agreed. They would send an army to defeat the slumbering evil at the roots of Yggdrasil.

But when they had arrived, it was revealed that the slumbering darkness Zul had described was a massive, abyssal dragon known as Nidhoggr.

Zul had smiled, "The prophecy has told me that in the future, Yggdrasil will be no more! And I am the willing servant of Fate!"

And Zul forcibly awakened Nidhoggr, sacrificing the entire army and himself in the process.

Upon the news of Zul's betrayal reaching The Emperor's ears, he declared that they would fix their own mistakes.

But the citizens had grown too complacent. They did not want to fight.

So, when Nidhoggr arrived, The Emperor forced them to fight for the fate of Yggdrasil.

X

Denshosho's notes: Oh so they just straight up tell you that Zul woke up Nidhoggr. That was only ever alluded to in all of the other lore in other areas. Man, why do the devs keep hiding this stuff into world items?

TheHistorian's Notes: Thanks, Zul, very cool! I have never seen a prophet character that was actually good lmao.

Elyna's Notes: Why did the word Fate trigger a weird vision inside of my head? I definitely need to check my air vents…

AN:

If I had more time, I would've written a bit more for this chapter. But as it stands right now, it's Sunday, I have to get out a Manifest Destiny chapter for Saturday, and I needed this chapter to come out sooner rather than later so I could get my 3 chapters a month quota done.

So, Now that this is finished, I'll get to work on Manifest Destiny which should be like 2k words, then I'll probably do my April Fools chapters which shouldn't take too long because fight scenes don't last very long in comparison to other scenes (Or at least, that's how it feels writing them.) Then I'll work on the next chapter of Time Capsule.

My prediction to Doppel on Discord was that the next chapter of Time Capsule should theoretically be ready on like the 9-12th of March. But also keep in mind that I'm intending for chapter 18 to only be like 6-8k words, it's just that far away because my April Fools chapter needs like 2-3k words for both Manifest & Time Capsule, so I have to write 6k words in total for that.

We'll see, of course. I thought this was going to be a relatively short chapter, but this chapter ended up being ~18.5k words before all of the NPC bios and world item lore, which shot this chapter to like 20k words.

Anyways, if this chapter feels rushed, now you know why.

X

As for names, Iridis I made up but I remembered Iris from Konosuba and decided Iridis sounded good.

Imperius is from Diablo, he's like an angel guy.

Athalia is from AFK Arena, specifically the awakened version of her. She's my favorite character in that game. I wish I built her on my main instead of my alt.

Muller is a random "European sounding" name I picked off the top of my head.

Thelsea was the name I had for my human priest in World of Warcraft. But I switched accounts and she no longer exists anymore. Rip.

Stormwind is also from World of Warcraft.

Yaful I made up.

Gavus & Eugene are from AFK Arena.

Zul is from World of Warcraft but the name Zul is kind of just a generic troll name if I recall correctly.

Hikari is just a name I stole from the MC of another Overlord fic on Royal Road, A More Experienced Player. I didn't tell the author, Sleepywyn, about it though, so don't snitch on me. We're in the same discord, if he finds out, I'm finished.

Garud is a name I made up. Same with Kalwara.

Gojo is Jujutsu Kaisen obviously.

Anyways, that should be it.

X

I've been dragged by some friends to play World of Warcraft again. I've been enjoying myself, but that's like the main reason why this chapter is a bit late.

Anyways, this streak of mega-long chapters should theoretically end here. The events of Re-Estisize are being cut into two chapters, so they're both going to be somewhat short. Then because I'm no longer putting myself on a schedule of "Everything needs to wrap up in this chapter" I should be able to have short chapters again.

Theoretically, this means more chapters that are just shorter. In practice, I'll probably get lazy and go to 2 chapters a month starting from April.

Also, because of the deadlines I'm working with, I'll probably split the Nazarick filler from the epilogue on chapter 20, so chapter 21 is April Fools and chapter 22 is the Nazarick filler.

Anyhow, again, if you want to talk to me, I'm at the Grand Library of Ashurbanipal Discord Server. But if you want to stick to commenting, feel free. This is probably the last time I'll mention it because I assume anyone who wanted to be there is already there.

Speaking of discord, I got fan art! I didn't ask for permission to put them here, and I don't think any of them are awake because of timezones possibly, so I'll just make a thread for the fanart on the discord and you can see them there.

But anyways, I made my own MS Paint crap here, as is tradition.

(On AO3, obviously.)

Anyways, I've gotten to the end.

Feel free to comment.