A Villain's Rage, The Start Of A Fall

...

Khan stepped up to the altar. He waited for the blessing that he would receive. Eventually, a huge beam of light shot down from the twin suns. The light hit a massive formation and was split into many beams that travelled all over the world. A beam came down on Khan's location and the light fused with him. Khan could feel the power flowing through him, the power to crush cities and rip holes in empires. His affinity with light increased rapidly, he could create illusions so detailed that no man could tell the difference between them and the real thing. He felt the light bend to his actions, his movement produced waves of light that mirrored those of his white guards.

And then it was all ripped away, the light flew away from him and ripped holes in his flesh. He could see other beams returning to their original position from all across the world. He could hear the screams of his priests but he was feeling so much pain that it didn't matter to him. He gritted his teeth and stood up. Looking around, he could see that many of his priests were doubled over, screaming in pain. The beam of light continued to flow back into the twin suns and suddenly... the god in Khan's mind was screaming, screams filled with pain and rage. As the entire world shook around him, the suns exploding outwards in the sky and god himself screaming in uncontrollable agony... a man walked up beside Khan. The man looked at the screaming priests and the massive sun that fell towards the sea "Beautiful, I really must meet this villain." Elden said, his casual smile spread across his face.

"You... speak... treason... in front... of your liege!" Khan angrily spat through his gritted teeth.

Elden looked at him with distaste. "I am not bound to you or your god. I'm just looking for someone who can help me, you don't measure up." Elden walked off.

Khan sat there and looked at his priests, in the end only some of the older priests had perished. The priests had stopped advancing in power and were slowly deteriorating. Unfortunately, since this decades group of minor light elementalists were nonexistent, he was going to have to rein in the church's more zealous tendencies.

The god of light had reappeared in Khan's head soon after 'the day of light', he warned Khan of the fact that the thorn had gained some sort of psychic power. The god of light told Khan that he would teach him a technique to defend against mental assaults, but Khan needed to meditate and enter his mind. After a day of meditation, Khan opened his eyes and found himself in an empty void with the ball of light that he had been brought to this world by. The ball of light pointed to tiny spikes that looked to be embedded in the ground of his mind. The spikes were made of light, as Khan concentrated on imagining the spikes grow -at the god's discretion-, the spikes rose out of the ground. Massive walls of light rose inside of his mind, with Gothic spikes that stretched into the sky.

The god of light told Khan that he needed to continue to imagine the spikes growing together into a massive, impenetrable dome of light. Khan began to, not knowing how long it would take.

...

Robert rushed through the halls, eventually reaching the entrance of the forge. The other apprentices looked at him with confusion. Robert reached the door, where Anders was sitting and watching. Anders looked at Robert "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What has you in such a rush?"

Robert looked at the door, confused. "Stella was meant to meet me today?" he told Anders.

A look of realisation came over Anders face. "Ah, I have some formations set up. Time is twice as fast in my forge." Anders said casually.

Robert remembered that there were a lot of time elementals in this place. He got lucky this time, next time he would have to be ready for his meet up with Stella.

Anders waited for a second and then called his three apprentices to his office. His new desk seemed far more formal now, with a carved pattern in the stone that looked like a castle wall and some basic office supplies. Ignatius presented his spear to Anders, Anders looked over the spear and eventually looked at Robert with a slight smirk and accepted it as exceptional work. The third apprentice -Adrian- presented a gauntlet. The gauntlet pulsed with a weak, brown light and had what looked like a crossbow attached to it. Anders looked at it and seemed unimpressed. "Adrian, you were meant to finish the void enchantments." Anders said gruffly.

Adrian looked down at the ground, unwilling to meet Anders gaze. Anders turned away, "Ignatius, complete the void enchantments on Adrian's piece. Adrian, complete three of the folding swords. Robert, I need you to create ten rounds of folding ballista ammunition." Anders used a mana hand to carry the required documents over to all three of them. It turned out that the folding ammunition were just arrows. The arrows were enchanted so that they would expand using void magic and increase in heft and strength using earth magic. The end result was an arrow that could become a ballista bolt.

Robert got to work immediately. He used an ice hand to carve some runes onto the arrow that would allow it to perform it's growth function. After filling the arrow with mana he had managed to create a flawless rune formation that would have the arrow activate when enough mana was poured into it. The arrow was easy to make since it was just an early predator tier artifact. But it had taken a few hours. It was at this point that Robert thought of a way to cheat his requirements.

"App, show me the shop." Robert said. After perusing his options Robert chose to upgrade two things, Item Duplication for 100 points and an upgrade to the ancient lich sub race for 1000 points.

Now he could duplicate items that were peak predator tier or below, and he gained a new ability from his ancient lich sub race. The new ability was called 'Mind Palace'. Robert sat down to meditate and enter his mind.

In his mind, Robert saw a huge building. It was built in a Gothic style with sharp spires that stretched out of view. Walking up to the buildings door, Robert tried to recall what he knew about mind palaces from his previous world: they were a memory technique that linked some form of memory to a vivid image. This was a technique used by many gamblers that wanted to count cards. The problem with this kind of memory was that it would stay in a separate section of the brain, this meant that the information wouldn't come to the person using this technique if they were in a conversation about the topic, only if they specifically looked for that information within their mind.

As Robert wandered up to the building, he saw a huge gate that barred his path. Suddenly, the gates were flung open and a man in a suit -holding a cup of tea and a saucer- walked out.

[Robert! Look at this wonderful place! It's so brilliant.]

"It is? Can you explain why?" Robert asked App.

App looked at Robert and turned around, while gesturing for Robert to come inside. Robert followed App into the building, It reminded him of Anders's library but at least ten times the size.

[This place will store all the information that you come across from now on, from the tiniest detail to the greatest revelation. They will all be stored in the books here, and you will always know exactly where the book you need is. The information will be easy to access -even in the middle of battle- because of how fast time flows here, it will get faster the stronger you get.]

"How fast is it currently?" Robert asked, eager for the new knowledge that could help him throughout his journey in Relictaria.

[Approximately three thousand six hundred times as fast.]

"Already?" Robert wondered, if that was true then how fast could people of a higher power tier -or even time elementalists- process information?

[You are the villain, it's a title that comes with many benefits. Already that gives you the mental speed of a minor time elementalist, combine that with the increased cognition speed of an ancient lich and you can think almost as fast as an Eldritch tier being without time powers.]

"Okay, so I just need to come to this place whenever I need to remember something?" Robert asked.

[Yep, but only things that you learn from this point on. I'll even start putting some information about the general world in this place.]

"Why can't I remember things from before perfectly?" Robert said, disappointment filling his face.

[It's a memory technique, a magically enhanced memory technique, but it still isn't some strengthening of your mental capacity for the plot or something that alters your brain. It's just a memory technique with some magic convenience and a switch that is always on instead of requiring you to painstakingly embed the memorable imagery in your mind.]

"Alright, chill out. So... you're planning to put some generic world information into this library? Is it possible that you've grown to the point that you don't despise my existence?" Robert questioned curiously.

App scoffed loudly. [Don't ride your ego too high, you're just building up speed on the fall down. It's boring in here, excruciatingly boring, I'm only doing this as a way to pass the time. After all, you've only been here for a few months... I've been here for seventy five years... Even without counting how fast my mind is as a god, if the places were reversed... you would have been driven insane within the first hour. Of course, that is about the time that it would have taken me to rule this entire continent, so let's hope that it doesn't work backwards and you manage to complete the game before I'm driven insane.]

Robert felt guilty for App's suffering -probably the reason for his personal, hatred filled brand of nihilism-, but knew that the serpent god would appreciate progress and productivity more than sympathy and good intent.

"What are the abilities that I'm granted by my new sub race?" Robert asked, diverting the subject.

[You have the mind palace, more mana, stronger connections to the elements and a few new purchasable -or learnable- skills and new sub race options.]

[New skills: Ancient Knowledge (N/A) 1,000 points, Gain knowledge of old magic and how it was used in the past -Pertains mainly to the pseudo-magic used by the Imperium Noctem-

Evolved Innate Runic Combat (Level 1) Allows the user to act as a staff with power at the common rank.

New Sub Races: Phylactery lich: 5,000 points, A phylactery lich can possess a body for each phylactery it has and gathers knowledge through immortality.

Psylich: 3,500 points, A Psylich is an offshoot of the Ancient Lich that gathers knowledge from other creatures through psychic powers.

World Lich: 10,000 points, World Liches are powerful mutations of Ancient Liches that make use of Fae techniques to draw knowledge from the universe itself.]

"Wow, that's a lot of stuff. I'll think about it later." Robert said goodbye to App -rather redundantly App remarked, with a smile-.

As Robert returned to the regular world he began to duplicate the 'folded ammunition', he simply had to hold the item and imagine another one forming. This didn't tax Robert because he was constantly drawing in mana through his runes and the process took less mana than he was gaining.

After finishing his project, Robert went to see Ignatius. Ignatius was working on the crossbow gauntlet that Adrian had made and saw him coating the crossbow with a bluish-green substance.

"What are you doing?" Robert asked as he walked up to Ignatius.

"I am using Auctus blood to give the enlarging ballista its enlargement capabilities." Ignatius replied, without looking up from his task.

"What's an Auctus?" Robert inquired.

Ignatius looked up. "They're a wyrm, a dragonkin that has no limbs or wings. The Aucti start out at about the size of an earthworm, but they can grow indefinitely. They are a strange mix of earth, void and abyssal aspected creatures that trick people into feeding them with whispered promises. Often they are grateful to the one who feeds them and will obey their orders, but when their master dies they go on to consume wantonly and without regard for those weaker than it."

"Interesting. Wait, -did you say miniature ballista?" Robert suddenly blurted out.

"Yeah, Adrian designed it masterfully, but he doesn't have the mana to do enchanting. When the gauntlet is activated, the crossbow becomes a ballista and anchors itself to the ground. It will take a few days to soak in the blood, so I'm going to go see what Adrian is up to, wanna come?" Ignatius asked excitedly.

"Sure." Robert said, following Ignatius with a shrug.

Robert and Ignatius walked in on Adrian while he was testing the first folding sword. The sword was originally a metal rod with a handle that had what looked like a wax seal on it, but it the wax seal suddenly expanded, pushing a sharp tip out of the top of the rod. The expansion of the seal also pushed two extremely thin and flat sides of a cross guard away from the handle, the cross guards shot towards their required position with far more force than the push from the seals expansion should have caused. After reaching their normal position the cross guards were stopped by a a slight difference that made the handle smaller than the main rod in that place. As the cross guards hit the nearly invisible barrier, a concealed edge popped out of each side of the rod until they reached the edges of the cross guards. With this, the transformation was complete and Adrian held a sword.

Something about the process threw Robert off, apart from a tiny amount of mana at the start that was used to grow the seal... the entire process was completely mechanical.