Into Holiday Spirits

We finally entered through the portal and into the Snowland Festival, sending me and the Phantom Mutiny to different locations.

I was sent into some open land, filled with blood and snow across the ground, tainting the Christmas mood. It was a horrible sight, thousands of players were mutilated, their bodies unable to disappear into Data Particles.

That was odd, something must've been going on. Perhaps a bug.

<Notice. The system has acquired a new update>

"Oh!?" I lifted my brows, shocked to say the least.

The voice of the world spoke to every player, telling us the new update.

I couldn't believe my ears at first.

This was madness.

<Players who die will now have their Avatars remain inside the game, this is to benefit newly added mobs and bosses in Isekai World Online, allowing them get boosts after absorbing avatars' corpses.>

"What sort of sick joke is this?" Some player said, reading the new update across their field of vision on their hub.

<The game has acquired newly added mobs, and a new race. New mobs are Ghouls, Mind Flayers, Outer Gods, Elder Parasites. The race is Beastkin.>

"M-Mind Flayers? No freaking way… they really are trying to kill us!"

"Man, who cares about Mind Flayers? Didn't you hear those Outer Gods? We're screwed!!"

"I wanna go home!"

Players across all of Terra, and the Snowland Festival started to panic.

They had every right to be scared, even though I was a bit nervous, Emperor seemed to not care so much.

But still, with bodies permanently remaining after death, this will give Necromancy players an easier time to resurrect the dead and pick their favorites to control.

Whoever is behind all of this is gonna pay, I'll make sure of it.

"Ghuuuuooo…" A voice came from behind me, it was a ghoul.

Not just one, but two of them.

It slowly marched my way like a zombie, stumbling a few times, until it changed its posture.

Ghouls were known for deception, they could easily deceive their prey, and consume them before they could even know what happened.

Both ghouls dropped to the ground in a feline position, switching from slow to quick in the snap of a finger. This must be how the players died around me, by being tricked into thinking they were slow.

"You wanna go?" I turned around, grinning wide as ever.

Taunting the Ghouls, they both lunged at me, opening their gaping maws to consume my body as if it were a snack, but their movements were predictable.

I punched the first one in the face, before spinning around to elbow the second one. They were staggered from my hits, which gave me the opportunity to cast a spell, shouting, "Void Nebula."

I made a handgun, pointing at them to launch a powerful condensed ball of nothingness. This nothingness was created out of nonexistent matter that exists inside of oblivion. It could shred apart all matter, data, information, and concepts, tearing apart the enemy and turning them into void. Its effects are similar to Primeval Red, though Red is more potent.

The S-Tier Arcane Spell ripped through their bodies and destroyed them whole, preventing their resurrection.

"It's futile." I muttered under my breath, slowly turning around to face the horde of mobs behind me, "You'll end up just like them." The horde of creatures wasn't scared because of their numbers, I could easily tell.

These mobs were known as Mind Flayers, the newly created creatures implemented into the game after the recent update that happened a few minutes ago.

I questioned why there were so many, but I could only laugh.

"Fuhuhu… let's see what this new update has to offer, shall we?" I lifted my hand, "Time, Stop." And stopped time.

The creatures were all frozen, and unable to move a muscle.

Their Time Stop Resistance was weak, none of them could understand what was going on. I moved towards one of the creatures, slowly lifting my hand, "Authority, Unfold." I forced open their Personal Hubs, reading their resistances and personal traits.

Apparently interacting with one of them through touch can corrode your biological structure into their own, how fearsome.

Mind Flayers are unable to die, they're unbound by life and death and are reliant on the Hive Mind. As long as the hive mind is alive, they can continue to resurrect.

Interesting, it reminds me of the Ghouls, though, the Ghouls are only able to bring themselves alive once after death.

But it's nothing that Void Nebula and a few other spells couldn't handle. I should be fine.

"I see. Relying on some outside source for immortality is a tricky concept to defeat if you don't know what was keeping them alive, but luckily for me, I have what I need."

Time unfroze again, startling the Mind Flayers from my sudden movements.

Just a second ago, I was meters away, and now I was standing in front of them.

"What's wrong, are you afraid?" Smiling at their fear, I raised my index finger, summoning a swirling orb of nothingness above it, "You all joined as a team to defeat me, and now you're backing away?"

They all tripped and fell, and some ran in the opposite direction, trying to escape my power.

"No, you can't kill us!!"

"Oh? So you creatures can talk. Hahaha, great! That'll make hearing your screams even better!"

"Run away, I will hold him off!" One of the Mind Flayers stood in front of me, levitating in psychic energy, "R'thuum Voculos!" Chanting in some foreign language, the Mind Flayer lifted its arms and enshrouded my mind with its energy.

"There's no use trying to use mind spells, it'll only irritate me further- What?!" All of a sudden… my body stopped in its tracks, I couldn't… move.

"Hahahaha, what was that? I didn't hear you!"

My body had stopped. What was going on? I should have resistance to Mind Spells.

Wait, these creatures are new to the game, so could that mean they're using some foreign debuff that I'm aware of which was recently added to Isekai Online? If that's the case, I screwed up.

"This is fear, mortal." The Mind Flayer slowly levitated towards my body, keeping me trapped in its mind spell, "It is what your people use to rule the world, so tell me… how does it feel being on the receiving end, Great King?"

"Kukuku…Kuhahahahaha!" I laughed.

"What?"

I laughed harder than ever, enjoying this creature and its words.

"So you do know that I am a Great King, that could only mean one thing…"

"Quiet!" The Mind Flayer poured more of its psychic energy into my brain, forcing me to kneel, "We were created in this game to destroy you! We will not fail our creator, The Almighty!"

"How about you apologize to me, you insignificant worm."

"How are you… moving?"

I slowly rose from the ground, ignoring the spell commands.

"Kneel!!"

He tried making me kneel, but it failed.

"You vermin should apologize to me for being born into my world. That's unforgivable. This world doesn't deserve fools who don't know their place in the hierarchy, so I'll teach you what it means to be at the top of the food chain. I'll show you what it means to be the King of Humanity."

This Debuff was known as the Psychic Debuff, a brand-new debuff added to the game.

I managed to overlap it, and now… I gained resistance to it.

Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

My resistances continued to grow indefinitely over this debuff until it reached infinity.

The only people in this world who should bring me to such a position are the Great Kings, not scum like this.

"Monster, you shouldn't be able to do that!! That should be impossible!"

I slammed my fist underneath its tentacle jaw, blowing its head off with one strike.

Its brains and blood splattered on the ground while the others behind it would only watch in terror.

"He… managed to kill off Y'tacka!" Said one of the Mind Flayers in utter horror.

"That shouldn't be possible, Y'tacka can't die! The Hive Mind still exists!"

They're right, he shouldn't have died from that, but I covered my hand in Void Nebula, honing its traits.

"How pitiful, it's Christmas, and I'm dealing with a bunch of rodents who signed up for an early death."

"Y'tacka!!! Damn you!!"

They all screamed their heart out, expressing their rage.

Every one of them chanted in their foreign language, summoning forth their psychic spells, and blasting them towards me.

I used Spatial Warp to teleport behind one of them, putting them in a headlock before snapping their neck.

Another Mind Flayer tried stopping me with a blast of its psychic energy, but I vanished again, appearing behind him, "Hell Blaze." Placing my hand on its back, it went up in flames, burning it into a crisp.

"By Chkala!! Kill him!"

I vanished once more, evading their attacks, but this time I was in the air, lifting my arm into the sky, smiling as I muttered; "Void Nebula."

I summoned forth a massive sphere of nothingness as it swirled above my palm.

"He's above us! What's he doing?"

The Mind Flayer couldn't comprehend my spells.

This was the end for them.

"500%." I gathered more nonexistent matter from the realm of Oblivion, increasing the size of the attack, "Perish beneath my feet." Launching it from my hand, its shadow covered a radius of two kilometers, crashing into the terrain below.

The Mind Flayers were crushed by my attack, feeling their bodies being wiped away, leaving no trace of them to ever be seen again.

What was left was a giant hole.

The dead bodies from earlier were gone, but I didn't feel bad about it.

What I just did, needed to be done.

"A well-deserved death for vermin like you." I placed my hands against my hip, glancing to the side to hear someone in the distance, "I'll have to be careful. Now that I know that this "Almighty" being is after me, I'll have to be wary of everyone."