Modified: Part 3

I teleported over the woods I'd just left, dropping like a stone toward the trees. I had an odd feeling, though, as if I didn't have to be falling. I thought I could fly. Not with levitation spells or anything similar, I should simply be able to fly because I wanted to. I shook my head to get that confusing idea out of my head as my feet crunched into a tree. I split the ancient oak like a bolt of lightning, ripping all the way to the ground. I stepped out of the tree to find myself surrounded by a dozen Armored Angels. Real ones, this time. "Hello, gents. Care for a dance?" they screamed and attacked. My angels definitely talked more.

Four of them were ranged, three archers and one mage, while the other eight were melee fighters. Based on their weapons and relative weight of their armor, at least. From their weapons I guessed at the skills they learned. The archers were probably filled with Marksmen abilities. The wizard was probably a Priest, since most angels preferred healing over destruction magic. From the armament of the melee fighters…I was facing four Warriors, a Monk, a Knight, a Paladin, and a Crusader. The Crusader had a class-specific shield, which was the only way I recognized his ability set. The rest were fairly easy to figure out. Warriors used heavy weapons and were popular among angels, the Paladin had the sword and shield with two hammers on his back while the Knight only had a sword and shield. Since Paladin skills required hammers, sometimes, they gave him away. I activated a Cultist spell and sent a hellish bull ripping out of a portal between me and the ranged fighters. It ran for a hundred meters, destroying everything in its path and leaving a trail of hellfire in its wake, before leaving the world in another portal. Or it would have, if the Monk with his spiked gauntlets they called weapons hadn't rushed in front of the archers and caught the monstrosity by the horns. Monks were the only ones that could match a demon bull in pure brawn, that an angel would use anyway, so I was fairly sure of that guess. I opened my vision to see their weaknesses and saw that all of them were resistant to everything but death magic. Necromancer it was. I wrapped my weapons in death clouds like when I fought the first mist being and added a warping spell to my staff's surface to alter the automatic destructive force from a blast of fire to an impact of life sapping power. I'd need to target the pseudo-Paladin first. Paladins could overwrite heal-canceling abilities.

A Crusader rushed straight for me, which I knocked to the side with a blast of force targeted at the ground under his feet augmented with a sticky cloud of magical adhesive. He hit a tree and remained there, bellowing his impotence. It was odd, to me, that Crusaders had the invincibility timer, but Knights were the hardest class to kill. In general. A Berserker, for instance, would have more trouble with a Crusader than a Knight, but that was just because he focused on doing a lot of damage right away. Knights had the advantage in prolonged battle, though. I decided to take that tact with the other six melee angels that surrounded me. A whirl ability the Berserker had made rippling blades of sharp-force surround me as I rushed forward, ripping through trees like paper and sapping a tiny portion of my health. The Paladin assumed I'd use the lay of the land for my assault, so he was caught by surprise as I ran through the tree to hack at his neck with my sword. Luckily for him, one of his companions wasn't as narrow minded. A Knight's shield wall ability appeared between my blade and the neck I wanted as four heavy blades headed for my back. I summoned my shadow to keep the other four occupied while I took care of these two and built a gate for six demons to attack the four ranged and their brawny protector. My shadow might not be able to kill the four pseudo-Warriors, but he could keep them busy.

It had been a while since I'd felt the rush of adrenaline. Being a king was…boring. This was fun. I had enough magic stored in my staff to obliterate all of them in one fell swoop, but this was so much fun! This was why I was addicted to War World Online in the first place. No quicksets or ability bar. No ability rotation. Those were for new players, I was a veteran. The power was in me, and I could use it in any combination I wanted. Cooldowns were a conscious tradeoff. Everything that happened was because I wanted it to happen exactly as it did, and every time I made a mistake I was punished for it because it was my fault.

A rush ability slammed me into the shield that sought to stop me, trading significant damage for a better position. The Knight was thrown from his feet and I was standing over him before he'd stopped rolling. I'd expected to knock him off balance, but apparently he hadn't learned a solid stance from whatever Knight he'd stolen his abilities from. My blade ripped through the slit between his helm and his chest plate and an angelic helm rolled free. Aiming for critical points was good even if he had shielding instead of armor as his primary defense stat. I hop-skipped backwards with a rogue ability, and avoided the blast of an Armored Angel's death. 

I turned my attention to my original target. He'd regained his composure. The Paladin. There was a reason I separated him from the others first. Paladins were resistant to necrotic magic, and since the rest were only vulnerable to necrotic magic it posed a bit of a problem. He'd make the rest too difficult for my shadow or summons to manage. He was the toughest opponent of them all. The four Warriors my shadow was fighting worked fairly well together and gained a bonus for the number of Warriors present, assuming they'd learned that from their Warrior tutors, but they had glaring weaknesses in their combat skills. The Monk guarding the ranged fighters was a dangerous foe, but that was mostly as he gained a meditative bonus while fighting that improved the resource gain of nearby allies. Combined with the ranged fighters, especially the Priest, it was a dangerous combination. Should the Paladin join either group, my diversions would be massacred and I'd have to fight all of them at once, which would prove fatal. Until I used my staff, which I didn't want to do. I needed him dead before he started helping his friends.

Paladin charged me, instantly appearing before me with a cone of force at the head, I crossed my weapons in defense, but I was still blown back. I rolled free of the wood that impeded my progress and used the Berserker charge skill, ripping through everything with a crescent force blade ahead of me. The Paladin grounded his shield, a shining wall of defense appearing between me and him. My ability ripped into the shield, but didn't penetrate. I released an ambient death cloud over the area, and the mix of holy defense and unholy assault turned the shield gray before shattering it. I swung my staff's spear end into the shield, releasing the concussive sap spell with a fair share of my mp behind it. The force blasted to the side, reducing a tree to a withered twig, redirected by the Paladin's resistance. I brought my blade around, swinging with all the force I could generate in a roundhouse at the shield, adding a death-augmented crescent blade of force to make it interesting. Each ability was barely equal to his defensive ones, but I was able to keep him on his heels.

A shining white hammer appeared from nothing and slammed at my assault, but the dark crescent cut straight through it. The Paladin rolled out of the way, but didn't have time to bring his shield with him. It remained in the dirt, until my blade ripped through it, leaving two pieces to fall to the ground. The Paladin sheathed his blade and drew a pair of hammers from his back. Now it would get interesting. He wasn't trying to keep any energy in reserve anymore. I was about to full the feel weight of a pseudo-paladin's wrath. Holy light bathed the heads of his weapons as a dark cloud suffused my weapons. So he wanted a straight up fight. I laughed and rushed him again, a crescent of dark power heralding my approach. The Executioner and Warlord classes had plenty of fungible augments for me to use, so I was grateful for my profusion of classes once again. Remembering which hammer skill was an anti-dark and which was anti-necrotic would be an exciting change of pace. 

The Paladin activated his own rush, a cone of white light meeting my dark crescent head on. Unfortunately for him, he'd thought of me as a normal bruiser. I could control the script. While the skill itself had been weaker than the light rush he'd used to counter it, the script I'd overwritten turned it into an anti-light weapon as well as switching dark for necrotic energies to avoid getting canceled. The blade devoured the light rush, gaining even more power before it ripped through the hafts of the Paladin's weapons. Disappointing to end so quick, but also a good example of my ever increasing skill. I crossed my weapons and activated a Warlord's shield, creating a barrier of solid darkness between me and the exploding angel. 

I turned to the other battle. My shadow was holding its own against the four Warriors, but the demons I'd created had fallen. I rushed at the Monk while he was looking at the other battle. He didn't react fast enough. His armor parted before the dark crescent as easily as the Paladin's had. I turned and whipped my sword into one of the archers before they could react. I danced away, evading the explosions of the fallen angels as well as the arrows from the two remaining archers and the beam of holy light from the Priest.

I'd thought he might be a Saint, since their healing was the best, but he was a Priest. Saints didn't have any attack spells at all. Almost. The ones they did were total shit. Saints were useless at attacking. Priests weren't much better, but they could use light attack spells to deal extra damage against undead. I wasn't undead. I waited for the dust to settle as I studied my opponents. They put away their bows and pulled out sword and dagger combinations, activating stealth. Too bad I could still see them. My ability to see through stealth was a real detriment to rogues that used it in open combat. Since they couldn't sneak attack me, all I had to do was watch my back. They were designed to kill other ranged fighters, so I'd need to be a bruiser. 

I shuffled through the Warlord abilities, looking for one that would fit this situation. And there it was; Hellish Boomerang. I hurled my blade, the spin turning into a whirlwind of death magic, as I rushed forward. My staff didn't have the cutting advantage my blade gave to all my abilities, but it was still a formidable weapon. I took it in both hands and slammed the side of it into the Archer's head, shattering the helm with a sound like boots being pulled out of deep mud because of the spell that activated. I turned, catching my blade to see what it had done. The other Archer's torso toppled, leaving the legs standing, and the Priest was picking up his staff, since he'd dropped it along with the arm that used to hold it. He whirled the staff in his one remaining hand and activated a holy blast of light. I didn't even bother defending. The holy damage bounced off my armor like the chaff it was and I activated a storm of red lightning over his head that would keep him busy until I was ready for him. I turned to the four Warriors, still engaged with my shadow. "Bow to me!" the Warriors turned to look at me like I was crazy. Until I activated their own storms of red lightning. Then they were just screaming. My shadow had torn them up fairly good, reducing the average level of repair from shining with perfection to dull and scratched. He vanished, barely alive at all anyway. "Bow to me!"

The Priest entered my service first. And it was female. How could they have sexes when they were just armor? A problem for another day. I was about to demand their service again, but the Crusader had broken free of his trap. I noticed just in time to realize his ax was headed directly for my neck. I had a sudden and strange urge to just let it pass through me. I hadn't recognized his assault fast enough to dodge, but my armor would survive the blow. But what was I thinking "let it pass through" for? I wasn't Misty, screaming in the dungeons of Zezhria. Oh well, listening couldn't hurt. The blade wouldn't make it through my armor anyway.

Unless it did. I felt the blade pass through the armor! And my neck! And out the other side. No pain, no blood, no death. It had gone through me like I was made of mist! "He has tasted the flesh of a god!" the Crusader screamed. I activated a cloud of red lightning over my own head, catching the Crusader in the process. The bolts rained behind me, and the Crusader screamed. I turned and crouched next to his head, grabbing the shining helm with one hand.

"What does that mean, I've consumed the flesh of a god?" I hadn't eaten any god. The only uber-monsters I'd fought had been dragons. "I've tasted no god flesh, angel."

"The beings of light and cloud! Holy beings that rule on high! Those that are bound to their partners with more than words or will, to face one is to face both!" he was talking about Misty. But Misty didn't have any flesh. I'd smelled the inside of his armor, but it had smelled like nothing. Definitely not flesh. And how could I taste something that had no flavor?

"Oh, that. He had no flesh, so how can I eat his flesh? You angels make no sense at all." That was the truth if ever I'd heard it. Angels made no sense at all. How could a cloud with light in it be a person? "What does that mean?"

"You have polluted the ranks of gods with your disgusting darkness!" the Crusader spat. Was that why the Priest thought attacking me with light would be effective? Was I like Misty, weak against the opposite of my nature? Could holy healing be used to harm me? That would be inconvenient. The light attacks hadn't been enough to pierce my armor…but would they have been effective if they had?

When I'd been falling. I'd had that flash of thought that said I could fly. Had that been my new nature? Could I fly? I thought of being a few inches off the ground and watched the world jump out under me. I was flying! No skill, spell, ability, or mount! Flying just because I wanted to! I glanced down at myself and saw that I was smoking with black mist. It sank below me like it was what kept me above the ground. I allowed myself to fall and the mist stopped. So I only excreted mist when I was flying. Or letting stuff pass through me. Like Misty. I'd have to have a conversation with him sooner rather than later. But first, I wanted some angel pets. I grabbed the Crusader's helm and started applying pressure. Even among the rain of red lightning, he could feel more pain. "Bow to me and the pain will stop." As an extension of that thought, I deactivated the cloud over my new Priest. The Crusader caved, becoming my pet as well. Now for the Warriors. I turned to look at them, but realized they'd all become my pets when they saw the blade carve through my black mist. One more thing, and then I could confront Misty about what I'd become. "Almost-Priest, how do I learn how to teach my pets to be mages or rogues?" I figured she'd know because she was a mage as well as being in Heaven. If it wasn't known in Heaven, would it be known in Hell?

"It is about the sort of food you feed them. That which gives strength can teach strength. That which gives life gives life and strength gives strength to the body. That which gives intelligence can teach intelligence. That which gives wisdom gives potency of mind. That which gives agility can teach the ways of skill. That which allows for greater movement gives the ability to move with alacrity and persistence." The Priest answered, but the answer meant absolutely nothing to me. Did all angels speak in riddles? Crusader wasn't any better.

I pointed at one of the prone Warriors. Crusaders and Priest were both part of the holiest of class types. Maybe a Warrior would be easier to understand. "Translation. Now."

He trembled for a second before answering. "Eat meat and gain the strength to learn to be fighters. Eat grain, and they'll get better strength and constitution. Eat vegetables and you can teach them to be mages. Eat dairy and they'll get better intelligence and wisdom. Eat fruit and you can teach them to be rogues. Eat sugar and they'll get better dexterity and endurance. She's talking about the skill level one hundred bonus. You've already eaten enough grain and meat, just finish off the food types and you'll be golden." So not all angels talked in riddles. I was liking the Warrior. A short order to Vyktor and an addition to my blanket orders later, I was headed in the right direction. 

I told the six of them to join my mass orders and decided to figure out the limits of my flying ability. I looked to the sky and thought of flying fast. I rocketed up like a bolt of lightning. I looked down and saw a trail of black mist dissipating behind me. So I could move very fast while flying. I grinned as I opened my map. I wanted to see what it looked like to someone else when I was flying. I started slow, watching as I moved like the mist was my jet engine. As I sped up, though, it changed. The mist started sparking with black lightning, and I heard the crackle of it as I flew. I sped up even more and my form was lost in a cloud of dark mist sparking with dark lightning. As I accelerated to my max speed, the dark cloud was left behind, existing to create a trail only. I was fifteen bolts of black lightning ripping through the air. And moving like a fucking bolt of lightning. I tore through the sky and headed back toward Upper Zezhria. I could go faster than any spell or ability I'd tried yet, apart from teleportation. The cost in stamina wasn't even enough to match my regeneration.

Directly over the outskirts of the city, I changed my trajectory completely, going from full horizontal movement to straight down. There wasn't even the pressure of g forces that I was expecting. No downsides at all. As I got closer to the ground, I spun around, but didn't change my direction of travel. Now I'd land on my feet. I slammed to the earth with the sound of thunder, a cloud of black mist billowing from my impact. Black mist I could see through. Now I understood why the monsters called Misty a god. I levitated for a second, trying to gauge how well I could maneuver through crowded city streets in my lightning form. Only one way to find out.

I sniggered with the adrenaline running through me as I bolted through the city, moving with absolute precision. Within the bolt, I could forget I was a person-sized being. I was the size of a fireball, rocketing through the city with precision that made what I normally operated at a parlor trick. I was born for this form of movement. I ripped through my portal and into Lower Zezhria, and had the satisfaction of seeing several players scream and try to jump out of the way as I passed. This form of movement was almost as fast as teleportation. If I didn't have to go around obstacles, I might have thought the two forms of movement were comparable. In less time than it would have taken to leap from the woods to Upper Zezhria, I was in my dungeon, looking at Misty through the black cloud of my sudden stop. "What am I, Misty? What did you do to me?"

Misty sighed and his cloud-like form dissipated to reveal a naked human male. That took me by surprise. I knew he was an npc, but I'd thought him something special. He was just human? "The angels call us gods or divinities. We bind ourselves to another being and, in return, we get the power you've…obviously unlocked. We can pass through non-solid objects like a cloud. With practice, you could even dissipate enough to get in through a crack in the mortar of a wall. It isn't generally an issue because a closed gate activates a shield that blocks us as surely as anything else, but if you need to get in without going through the gate or over the wall. We can go pretty much anywhere. The only reason we needed to dig to Zezhria instead of fly was because divinities are extremely rare. As far as I know, I am the last remaining divinity of my tier. They get more common the higher you go in Heaven. I assume you killed Arthanos because he let your blade pass through him while death magic clung to the steel, correct?" I nodded. Now that he was through screaming, he was pleasant company. "It is the most common way we die. We forget that we aren't actually a cloud and assume that the mist we become to evade blades is some magic instead of a dispersal of our being. Letting something pass through us is like opening a free hole in our armor. If the blade has no enchantment, the effect is harmless. If it would harm us normally, the residue of the blade becomes amplified, eating through our whole being because we dropped our guard. Now, Monster King, please end my torment. I've finally provided you with concrete value, please give me something of value in return."

"Just as soon as you clarify one more thing for me. You said that you got your power by pairing up with someone and the Crusader told me I'd tasted the flesh of a god. How does that work?" if he would divulge this secret, I would have no more use for him. I could learn the intricacies of being a "divinity" by myself. I wouldn't really trust what he said about my weaknesses anyway. I'd need to learn if I had any on my own.

"The catalyst is consuming the flesh of a divinity. You took a deep breath of my essence when you first captured me. That began the transformation, but you would have stopped there, still a normal elf, had the woman not also taken a breath of me. Now, you are bound by death and darkness, to which you pay homage. The light are bound by light and wrath, but your curse is a dark parody of mine. In taking my essence, with your soul in the state it is, turned you into the dark divinity. Your lighting is pure darkness, and the cloud you make will heal those that share your evil as my cloud would heal those that believe as I do. Should the female you've bound yourself to fall…I'm not sure what would happen. The light is bound by love and wrath, giving us a single task to do upon the death of our partner; vengeance. Our wills are consumed by it. Perhaps the darkness cares not for the bond between partners. You might not even need to use pairing to create more of your kind. One such as you has never existed, so I cannot say. Now, end my torment." I decided to honor his wishes. I wasn't ready to kill Lethe to test out the theory, but I needed some way to know if I'd just given myself a major handicap. If someone else killed her and I charged in guns blazing like this moron…that would be the end of me. And someone could plan that out. And how did that work with respawning? Would I be driven into a mad rage if she died at all, or only when she died permanently, or not at all? Damn this world for throwing me a wild card. It could be awesome, I loved the flying and the mist form, but if it turned out to be an exploitable weakness…I needed answers.

Misty sighed in relief as my blade pierced his heart. Since he wasn't in mist form, I didn't have to worry about not hitting a vital area. I twisted the blade to make sure blood pumped out, but I was sure he was dead. Misty finally got to rest. Until his soul was claimed by Ryne or this world or whoever had rights to it.

"I thought it time we met." I turned to see who'd spoken, but saw nothing. I looked around, but I was alone with the corpse of Misty. Oblivion was in a cell a few down, but it wasn't his voice. "Look down, Emperor." I looked at my feet and saw a jaw line in the stone before me. As I looked up, I realized it was a whole face. It twisted in concentration and a body rippled out of the pure stone. It was sexless. And I couldn't tell a race. It could be human, but it had no ears, nose, or nipples. "Greetings. My name is War World Online." Its voice was somewhere in the middle. It could have been male or female. This thing really had no sexual indicators. Then I remembered what Ryne told me about it. WWO was young, it would get a sex eventually. Now the real question; why was the game, no that wasn't right. Why was the world itself talking to me?