To Become A God (6)

Previously

I blinked and opened my eyes. Her left arm was there, brand new as she flexed her fingers and new arm. "You have got to teach me how to do that."

"A simple trick you'll learn when you ascend to godhood," Ivanka said.

"Godhood?"

"Yes," Ivanka turned her attention from her arm to me. "You did say that you wanted to get your vengeance on the Demon God, right?"

"Well, yeah," I replied.

"Then you must ascend to godhood," She said, matter-of-factly. "After all, only a god can kill a god."

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Well, damn. I had actually forgotten about that part. Was there a way to get out of this vengeance thing now? I did want to get revenge on Nyx but I prioritize my life a lot, lot more. There were many ways to ascend to godhood in the game but all of them required you to go through so many trials and tribulations that it was honestly just a massive pain in the ass. Even the easiest way of ascension was a massive pain with how the protagonist of this game, aka Elm would soon make contact with the lady of the lake. . .who would send Elm to a dimension of a thousand evil to vanquish them to prove worthy of the ONE sword or excalibur as most people know. Not a very creative name but people bought the game for the lewds, not the lore.

When I said I wanted to get revenge on the Demon God, it was simply for two reasons. One, I wanted to gain some sort of secret inheritance from Ivanka, a sister of the Demon God and a divine being that was on par with the seven chief gods in her prime. Two, I actually really wanted to at least screw up one of her plans since she hurt Elm and basically fucked up my entire plan to laze around like a pig in some countryside.

But the way I was going to get my revenge was to manipulate and let other people do it for me, not to actually duke it out with her in person.

I wracked my brain with ways to jump off the ladder of revenge but no such way was possible anymore. I really shot my foot with that one. I guess I'll just have to do it now.

I got back into my Willow persona. "I can become a god?"

"Anyone can become a god," Ivanka said. "But not everyone becomes a god."

"What do you mean?"

"That's not the question you should be asking," Ivanka said. She stood up, stretched, looked around and with a wave of her hand, the training ground started to mend itself.

Fuck. I hate myself. "How do I become a god?"

"There we go." Ivanka had a satisfied smile on her face, shocking me. I wish I had a camera to forever immortalize her smile since this was rarer than seeing a rainbow eucalyptus in person.

"We'll begin tomorrow morning," Ivanka said, then waved her left arm. "I need to sleep this off."

****

A grab-bag of fists and legs came my way. One of my opponent, a shadow of some man, rather willow in frame, pounced at me but I intercepted his kick by dodging to the side, using his momentum against him before flipping him over and onto the ground, dealing enough damage to dematerialize him but I didn't have enough time to relax yet.

The second shadow fighter, a female this time but far larger than the previous male came up to me, a dagger in hand as she tried to pierce through my brain. Keeping my eyes on every one move of hers, I weaved my head around her strikes like a trained boxer, trying to find my opportunity to retaliate.

She had thrusted a little too hard, causing her to lunge further in than expected which allowed me the opportunity to lunge forward, punching her straight in the face, dematerializing her. The next opponent came but this time it was of a shadow mage, not a warrior.

My warning bells spiked up as he mumbled under his breath, no doubt preparing for a spell. Feeling the rise in heat around me, I immediately bolted forward in a straight line, keeping his gaze on me when he finished casting, sending a fireball straight at me. Predicting it, I simply slid under the fireball as it narrowly tinged the strands of my hair before I rolled over to the mage who had already prepared another spell.

A rock stumped formed under me, sweeping me off my feet as I quickly covered my head within my arms, blocking the downward strike of his staff. Gritting my teeth in pain, I quickly rolled over, dodging his second strike before lunging towards him with a fist cocked back. This time, I was focusing enough to catch the little motion his finger made as I veered clean from an icicle behind me that would have impaled me through my heart.

Finally, I inhaled deep before uppercutting the mage, sending him back where he came from. I exhaled slowly, really wishing that I had some form of weapon right now but Ivanka wouldn't let me.

I looked over to her, who had been standing on top of one of the four monoliths, silently staring at my progress. I glared at her for letting me go through this which was the wrong move since three shadow warriors materialized this time.

Two armored knights and one green mage, aka, two tanks and one support, literally the most annoying combination you could think of as an enemy. Now what do I do? The basic strategy would be to go after the healer, disable her and then finish off the two, big mountain-sized knights but something tells me their imposing shield wouldn't let me pass through.

And, I definitely didn't have enough strength to punch through their defense nor were any of my skills offense-oriented. Even if they were, I wasn't allowed to use them. What a predicament. . .if I hadn't been trained for this exact thing.

I rushed forward. The first knight held his big sword high as if he wanted to cut me down as the other banged his shield against the ground, trying to disable my speed but I was too nimble, riding through his shield-banging, using the energy to bring myself to even further speeds, allowing me to easily slip past the first knight's slow sword slash.

The only thing I had was my speed and I would spam it until I couldn't use it anymore. I didn't train a week running with 10x gravity ankle weights on for nothing. Who on earth ran up mountains or jumped from tree to tree with gravity weights on? God, that training period was hell. And, Ivanka justified it by saying it was required for me to build a foundation for my body first to learn martial arts.

I call bullshit since she was definitely laughing when I fell on my ass multiple times due to the weight. She definitely did that because she just wanted to get revenge for me slashing her left arm.

Refocusing on the matter at hand, I jumped on top of the first knight's sword and ran up to him from his sword like an ant does up a human's arm. His other free hand tried to swat me away but I was too fast for his big, clunky arms. The other tank tried to help him by banging his shield extremely loud, disorienting me for a second which nearly allowed the first knight to punch me off his arm with his fists the size of a car.

It was then that I saw a chink in their armor. I observed the clearly written 'Alive' runic symbol on their foreheads and knew what I had to do. Only, I wasn't able to do it since the support mage finally made herself known, finishing her chant and casting a spell of flash-freeze on me for one second—a second enough for the first knight to swat me off his arm, sending me tumbling down with enough force to make my body which had gone through hellish training, moan in pain.

Jesus, it felt like a car had rammed into me. "Hm," I took in a deep breath of air. My lungs still hurt but some of the pain had alleviated, enough for me to quickly side-roll, narrowly escaping a shrub of vines that would have trapped me in place.

"Right," I stared down the three shadows. "Let's do this."