Bruce_Sentar

RD 3 Ch 44

Chapter 44

The fight began in earnest. It quickly devolved into a chaotic battlefield where allies and enemies were uncertain. Magic and muscle clashed as I dodged backwards, grabbing Merlin by the cloak while fending off my latest attacker. 

"'Merlin, do me a favor,” I said, noticing a lull in the combat around her. Amongst the Free Players' Alliance, no one wanted to mess with Merlin, which was duly noted.

"'I'm not going to help you, Bran,” she r...

RD 3 Ch 43

Chapter 43

"General," the boss asked, "is it complete?"

The boss watched the demon general's face change, hoping this abysmal post would be over soon. The general had sent most of himself inside and had split off a small section to keep command of the vault outside.

It wasn't something most demons would do, but then again, a demon had to be extraordinarily powerful to become a general. 

The boss aspired to reach such heights. However, he came from...

RD 3 Ch 42

Chapter 42

The time for talking seemed to be over as General Zaydelin lunged at me. The demon general’s hand morphed into a massive claw with shadows twisting off the tips as he took a swipe at me.

I blocked his attack with my sword, sidestepping and swinging his hand away. Spinning back, I attempted to chop him with my blade.

But the General scattered into thousands of shadows like a swarm of insects. They parted before my blade, spilling out to the side ...

RD 3 Ch 41

Chapter 41

Slowly but surely, I found myself in nearly everyone's soul, defeating all of the demons and teaching my people the art of soul absorption. Those on the outside were freed after being ‘possessed’ and using their access to project their ability into others. Despite being in stasis, I was working to clear this whole situation. Meanwhile, those not part of my entourage had their demons defeated and sealed away into my own soul. Like a squirrel hiding nuts fo...

RD 3 Ch 40

Chapter 40

Now that I had something to do besides staring out at the empty white expanse, I realized how much time was passing by.

As the different Mul Branova summoned me into their souls, I realized that I was sitting on the shelf about six hours between members of the Mul Branova finishing and the next starting. The demons were only doing two or possibly three of the Mul Branova possessions a day. 

Thankfully for me, they were doing them one at a tim...

RD 3 Ch 39

Chapter 39

The time continued to pass while my body was frozen, and I was going a little stir-crazy. There was nothing but the empty white room and the occasional demonic grunt.

The demons were working for the boss, walking through and commenting on various parts of whatever trials were happening. I was able to glean several key pieces of information from their conversations. 

First, wherever we were at the moment broke the system rules with a set of ru...

RD 3 Ch 38

Chapter 38

Amanda groaned, shaking out her hair and running her fingers through her long, golden mane.

Her brain attempted to play back what had just happened to orient herself.

There was the trial, the forest, after Bran announced everything within as his enemies they started feasting on the blood of monsters and growing stronger to trample everything they could in the forest. After they finished, the Saintess had them wait by the exit and she called for Sa...

RD 3 Ch 37

Chapter 37

The dracoon bellowed behind me, reminding me why I needed to hurry. That breath would bake the quicksand and it would be able to break free.

Movement ahead caught my attention. It didn't seem that large, but I had to remember I was now 16 feet tall, and something twice my height was peeling itself away from the trees.

The T-Rex looked familiar, and the sudden anger in its eyes when it scented me on the air told me this was most certainly the one I...

RD 3 Ch 36

Chapter 36

"Merlin, can you teleport to the limit of this space?" I asked quickly as the dracoon swooped down towards us.

"Already on it," Merlin replied, chugging back one of the mana potions. She held her staff with both hands and began to chant. From what I understood of here teleportation ability, she slowly raised the radius she had access to before activating the ability anywhere in the radius.

"What do we do?" Antonio asked, turning to me for help. 2025-01-05 13:56:55 +0000 UTC View Post

RD 3 Ch 35

Chapter 35

"Nyx is near that thing, so whether it's cute or not doesn't matter. We have to go save her." I told Gloria and Simone.

"Wait, what?" Gloria peeled the talisman off her forehead. "We're going to go to that thing?" she sounded surprised. “In that case, it’s not cute at all, it is terrifying!”

"While I'm not a coward, I have to agree with Gloria's sentiment. Going for the thing seems like it entails a high degree of risk," Merlin deadpanned.&n...

RD 3 Ch 34

Chapter 34

The serpent’s role couldn’t be understated after that. I continued through the forest as the lashers dropped fruits. I suspected that the whole drop function in the vault was actually being controlled by the demons. Despite that, I focused on sweeping up as many fruits as I could, clearing my quadrant.

There was no reason to abandon these fruits. Once I was out of the vault and had time to experiment I was sure I could remove the detrimental debuff,...

RD 3 Ch 33

Chapter 33

The tank gave a confused, "Huh?" as he stared at his shield, and the inscription I had placed upon it.

Suddenly, lightning slammed down at me as I stepped away from his shield. The lightning bent, drawn to his shield as a conduit and fried the tank, giving me just enough time to spin around on the lightning mage. I slashed her thighs, painting the light blue robes crimson, before grabbing her arm and slamming her to the ground. 

She was caugh...

RD 3 Ch 32

Chapter 32

As if the garrotes and the lashers were not enough, I felt a new danger almost like a sixth sense.

Spinning out of the way and swinging my sword behind me, my strike barely bit into the new beast before it bounced off a hard-scaled serpent.

Its colors indeterminate, soul gaze only gave me outlines as I dodged back, slashing at the clearly serpent form to keep it at bay. It hissed and drew back, coiling for another strike.

[Obsidian Serpent 2025-01-01 07:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

RD 3 Ch 31

Chapter 31

"I'm so sleepy," Linda, one of Antonio's guild members, yawned and fanned her face. She was a petite woman with long black hair and a penchant to complain about the quality of my olive oil when I cooked.

I was gathered with his group, Merlin, Simone, and Gloria, leaning on pine trees near a fruit outside the main castle as we waited to see what would happen next.

As it turned out, our predictions of the eclipse had been about a day off. So, for th...

RD 3 Ch 30

Chapter 30

Circe leaned back in her chair, fresh from overseeing the installation of the Hellgate anchor into Bran's demon trap. She was not an impatient woman, but she was feeling a little bitter at the moment as she played with her long blue hair and stared out the window for a moment.

Four months had passed with no sign of Bran.

Almost as if she could see through walls, she glanced in the direction of the Vault. Bran had left behind a number of his crafte...

RD 3 Ch 29

Chapter 29

The next week and a half passed agonizingly slowly. The sun continued to shrink in the sky above and the days grew darker by the hour.

I turned to Merlin, who had finished constructing our newest castle using everything we had learned from the Mul Branova and our own explorations of the vault.

Many of my assumptions were correct. This place indeed operated on a sliding scale of difficulty. The stronger monsters were to the west, and the stronger t...

RD 3 Ch 28

Chapter 28

Jenny held one of the rockie-talkies while the other leaders of the Mul Branova circled around her. Also present were the three servants of Lord Bran, as well as Amanda and Helena. The six of them would be in charge of the larger Mul Branova, they had dozens of women to look after in the vault.

They were here to grow stronger as fast as they could. 

Jenny felt an odd sense of exasperation towards the three servants.

Each of them had eas...

RD 3 Ch 27

Chapter 27

Our newly formed group continued to map out the region like a giant rectangle. Every time we found a fruit, I marked it with a talisman high in a nearby tree. That way, even if people forgot, I would be able to hand out locator talismans and send everybody out to gather them rapidly.

Thankfully, I had come in prepared with plenty of ranked paper for inscription. Gloria had worked her magic in that market of the FPA.

By the end of the day, the weak...

RD 3 Ch 26

Chapter 26

Antonio and the others from his guild were all sitting in front of me, their legs folded under them, heads bowed, and hands resting on their laps. More than a few were now wearing bruises and bloody lips. They’d managed to come out of the quelled forest fire and tried to stop me from murdering Antonio.

I stood nearby, leaning on a Blood Blade, staring at them. "Well, now that you've all stopped fighting, it's time to talk about the consequences," I sa...

RD 3 Ch 25

Nyx walked through the mist, waving it out of her vision as colorful lights flashed all around her.

An announcer's voice echoed from overhead, "B-b-bonus round!" Suddenly, a giant sign with a few faded lights fell from the empty air and suspended itself above her. The edges of the sign had a ring of lights that swirled just to get attention.

Nyx blinked slowly at the sudden shift. "What?" she asked.

All of her serpents were active, swishing from side to side, but she detecte...

RD 3 Ch 24

Before I could crush Antonio's spirit any further, he exploded into an expanding mist that reformed twenty feet away. His sword was at the ready as he stared at me and drank a potion. "Who are you?" he asked, his gaze fixed on me down the edge of his rapier. 

Meanwhile, as he tried to inspect me, I brushed the inspect aside and got a quick look at his stats. The truth was, he was a smidge faster than me, while I was a fair bit stronger and tougher than he was. But it was fair to sa...

RD 3 Ch 23

Chapter 23

"I was walking through the forest with Merlin using her incredible ability. She had termed it 'League Step,' and surprisingly, it was one I had not heard of before. 

"Pause for a minute, Merlin," I said, frowning. We were two days into our journey and something had started to bother me. I began fishing around my spatial ring before squinting back up at the sun. 

"What's wrong?" she asked. 

"The sun. Something's wrong with the ...

RD 3 Ch 22

Chapter 22

Simone and Gloria never did find the ninja. The woman had likely slunk away after her two compatriots had been downed. Simone respected the move. Gloria would have trounced the ninja on her own.

Gloria had taken the two spatial rings and then put out the fires before they became a full blown forest fire. 

"You know, if you exercised a little restraint, you wouldn’t be having to put out forest fires," Simone added. 

"I did exercis...

RD 3 Ch 21

Chapter 21

After stepping out of the mist, Simone waved a hand in front of her, clearing it away. She turned to Gloria, surprised to find that the woman was not beside her. They had walked through holding hands, thinking that might help, but it seemed there was no such luck.

Nyx and Gloria were both gone, and Simone was left alone in an old pine forest. 

Rather than worry, she quickly scanned through her spatial ring, pulling out a talisman that Bran ha...

RD 3 Ch 20

Chapter 20

The fruits appeared one after the other up the stairs. Simone took only a moment to inspect them before realizing their incredible value. Bran had emphasized several times how difficult it could be to raise stats once leveling slowed down.

But realizing the opportunity these presented, Simone suddenly had a very bad feeling about what was going to happen next.

Gloria leaned down and picked up her fruit, pocketing it into her spatial ring with a sm...

RD 3 Ch 19

Chapter 19

I threw myself to the side, rolling out of the way, only for another foot to try and catch me off balance. I scrambled only for one of its talons to catch my thigh and cleave my leg clean off.

The pain was excruciating, but I had experienced worse. 

Scrambling to my hands and knee, I threw myself forward into a tumble that rolled me onto my single leg and then launched myself as high as I could in the air. It seemed being directly under the T...

RD 3 Ch 18

As it turned out, Merlin could keep up quite easily. Having challenged her, I shot forward, flying over the detritus on the forest floor, only for Merlin to keep pace, walking as if she were strolling in the park. Yet with every step she took, she teleported right next to my side, no matter how fast I was going.

I paused after a few miles and she stepped up next to me.

"What, am I making it look too easy?" she smirked. "To be honest, the way you run looks exhausting." She then co...

RD 3 Ch 17

Chapter 17

I was currently sharing the highest step with this ignoramus of an inscription master, rubbing my temples as I stared down at the hourglass that was slowly draining away. "So, Leonardo," I stared at the inscriptionist, "given that we're both at the top, I say we split whatever rewards we can take." 

The old man stroked his beard. "We'll get whatever we can. Who knows, maybe it's just an early start on the next section."

However, as the last f...

RD 3 Ch 16

Somewhere in the strange expanse of the vault, there was a room filled with demons. In it, a demon named Bart back on a chair, observing a myriad of screens.

Each of them showed a very similar situation: a set of stairs and a group of initiates taking their steps. The first stage of the selection process had ten levels and all of them were currently being utilized.

The demon looked bored, glancing to the side where his many subordinates were all taking notes while watching the scr...

RD 3 Ch 15

Chapter 15

I blinked away the blinding light as I stepped into a new area, completely alone. There was no door or anything behind me, just a black void that I had emerged from. I put my hands in my pockets and ventured further into the room. Giant, plain columns connected the ceiling to the floor in an otherwise monstrous space. 

"Where are we?" someone shouted.

I glanced to the side to see one of the stronger Initiates that Vincent had recruited enteri...