Off To Rio (2)

Arnold could barely sleep after what he saw. His mind was clouded with questions that he knew, no one could answer. He had tried to seek these answers from the system which had not been responsive ever since he regained consciousness after his fight with Bob, as of now Arnold was only able to access the interface and all of the other functions but he couldn't do anything apart from that. There were no reminders for tasks or the updates usually he got about his missions and stuff. Furthermore, he wasn't awarded any EXP for defeating Bob, but he wrote it off, thinking that technically it wasn't him who defeated Bob so he wasn't given any rewards or EXP.

Just as he was thinking about Bob, he got an idea. He had a lot of questions that Bob could've answered, the only issue was that Bob was already dead. He could let anyone among, Duke, Cerberus, or Talos to use their transformation ability to transform into Bob and use his appearance to fool the vice president who was secretly under the family's custody and get some information from him, but Arnold highly doubted that John would fall for the trick, and even if he did, most likely he wouldn't have much to share either way.

Furthermore, even if his summons could take Bob's form. They wouldn't have his memories with them as the transformation ability could only give them his physical form and not his mentality or memories, thus making it useless for Arnold to get answers to the questions which even John didn't know.

'Wait! I can still try that...' Arnold thought of a plan and quickly entered the void to carry his plans out.

The dark and endless void was as calm as before. He could see his summons doing a variety of things, while the automatons he had made along with Talos, we're stacked up in a corner and we're waiting for his command in standby mode.

The Undeads were busy in their own world while the golems were testing each others strength as they always did. Panzer¹ was showing off the armour Arnold had given him after they successfully defeated the [Bone Berserker] while Duke and Marshal were busy honing their skills. The lava hounds were happily chasing each other while Cerberus was quietly laying down, observing everyone else. The 'endless' void was slowly filling up with Arnold's summons.

The moment Arnold stepped into the void, all of his summons stopped whatever they were doing and quickly rushed up to him. They were confused about their master's sudden appearance as Arnold always called them out wherever he needed anything from them and had no reason whatsoever to do otherwise.

Arnold acknowledged their presence with a nod and moved towards the automatons. "Talos, we got work to do."

As soon as the words escaped from Arnold's mouth, Talos immediately bowed down to him like he usually did.

"Your command, master?"

"Transform into Jake and follow me."

"Yes master." Talos replied and immediately changed his form to look like Jake once again.

Arnold headed towards the corner where remains of both Jake and Bob were scattered, while all of his summons followed him around.

Arnold had stored both of their remains here because, even though the time inside the void was faster than the real world, the bodies won't decay inside the void as there were no microorganisms to do so, also using the void for this purpose was Arnold's intention since the beginning when he had bought the [VOID DOMAIN] skill from the shop.

"Who should I try to resurrect first?" Arnold mumbled as he tried to decide who he should resurrect first, as the number of beings that could be resurrected using [ANIMATE DEAD] ability was limited and he didn't want to waste any of the 20 precious slots provided to him.

After pondering for a while Arnold decided to resurrect Bob for now, because no one else could provide the answers that Arnold wanted. He had also wanted to resurrect Jake, wanting him to question about the origin of the systems and the ones they referred to as 'Higher existence' but then decided not to as he didn't felt a need to seek answers to those questions right now.

Arnold also thought that he got always ask the system once again when it is back online, and decided to resurrect Jake in the worst case when the system never comes online, though he doubted that even Jake would know much about these 'higher existence'.

In the end he gave the command to Talos who proceeded to do as he was told to. The moment Talos activated the ability, the darkness of the void covered up Bob's mangled corpse. Soon the body started to take form as the head got reattached to the body it was once a part of. Soon his monstrous limbs got adjusted to the body as well. Within a few moments the body of the monstrous Bob was standing before him.

Bob slowly opened his eyes, and saw Arnold in front of him, anger filled him once again. Without wasting a single moment, he jumped towards Arnold wanting to kill him once and for all, right before his attack was about to connect with Arnold's face, his body froze as if an unknown power was stopping him from doing so. Bob furiously looked around but nothing was holding him back. He tried to attack Arnold again but it yielded the same result.

"AHHHH! LET... ME... KILL YOU!" Bob shouted in agony.

"You haven't learned the lesson even after dying, have you?" Arnold smirked because he knew exactly why Bob wasn't able to harm him as numerous notifications kept informing him about what was happening, "I've turned you into one of my summons. You'll never be able to hurt me or disobey my orders anymore."

"I'LL NEVER GIVE UP...!" Bob shouted and tried once again to punch Arnold but the result remained unchanged.

Arnold massaged his head as it had started to pain once more and said, "Look it's really fun and all, seeing you desperately trying to do something you'll never be able to, but I can't waste my time trying to reconcile with you. So how about you yield to me and acknowledge me as your master, and in return, I'll try not to mistreat you. How does it sound?"

"NEVER!"

"I was hoping you'd say that. Now BOW DOWN TO ME!" Arnold yelled at the top of his voice.

"Humph, you think I'll do-"

Before Bob could even complete what he was trying to say, the mysterious power, forced him to kneel in front of Arnold. Bob tried with all his might to repel the force but in the end he couldn't do it and had to give in to the power.

"You actually thought, you, a lowly summon, could challenge my authority inside my domain? How foolish are you?" Arnold said with a sense of authority in his voice and placed his foot on top of Bob's kneeling figure. "Let me tell you this. You will obey me no matter what. If you do it willingly you'll be awarded and if you don't, I'll just kill you and resurrect you again and again till you do. Understand?"

"Y...Yes."

"I couldn't hear you."

"I said, YES MASTER."

"Good boy."

Arnold had bluffed a lot, when he said that he'd kill him and resurrect him again and again because if he resurrected him again using the [ANIMATE DEAD] ability, it would take another one of the limited 20 slots. He also lied that he could force Bob into submission if he desired to do so, as the power he had over his summons only remain inside the void and the void's authority couldn't be used outside into the real world until and unless a summon have into his authority and accepted him as his master.

In order to achieve this, Arnold could only try to bait Bob, and hope he would take it, which he did. The notification which just popped up on Arnold's interface confirmed that.

___

You've successfully obtained a new summon.

You've created 1/30 elite summons.

NAME : Bob Marcel

TYPE : unknown

LEVEL : 82

RANK : A

ROLE : Brawler

AFFINITY/ABILITIES :

• ABSORB ELEMENTS

• SHATTER

• HIDDEN STEP

• BURNING HANDS

<Expand to view 4 more>

HP : 6050/6050

Mana/Energy : 5000/5000

STRENGTH (STR) : 84

DEFENSE (DEF) : 65

STAMINA (STA) : 79

INTELLIGENCE (INT) : 45

AGILITY (AGI) : 68

ACCURACY (ACC) : 45

EVADE (EVD) : 57

CHARISMA (CHA) : 1

Would you like to rename your summon?

•Yes or •No

___

"Yes." An evil smile appeared on his face yet again as he renamed Bob.

"Bad-Breath..." Bad-breath's mouth twitched as he stood up to protest against his 'master'.

"You got a problem with that?" Arnold gave Bad-Breath, a soul piercing look and Bad-Breath immediately bowed down to him in fear and frustration.

"No... master." He mumbled, after all how could a mere summon go against his master?

"Now since that's been taken care of, I want you to answer my questions."

*****

1. Arnold gave the name (Panzer) to one of his frost golems, whom he had given the armour that he took from the [BONE BERSERKER] after he defeated it.