A Side Villain…

The next morning both of them decided to leave the cave early and search for the rest of their group which they had no idea of where they could be and since the place was a freaking dimension in itself it didn’t help in any way.

 

“Brian I think it’s hopeless to search for them like this.” Akira said while walking.

 

“I know, they could be anywhere in this goddamn place.” 

 

“Exactly and that’s why I want to suggest something.”

 

“What?” He said while stopping in his tracks.

 

“We should head towards the center of this place.”

 

“Why the center and not somewhere else?” Brian didn’t have much information about the alternate dimensions.

 

“You see the artefact required for keeping this dimension stable must be placed in the center of it and if we are able to switch it off or destroy it then we should be able to get out of this place.” 

 

Akira explained to him while showing him the mechanics behind the artefact using his mana to make pictures of it which fascinated Brian.

 

“And where do you think is the center of this place when we don’t know anything about this place.”

 

“Easy, you see those two sun up in the sky? One of those should be in the east and the second should be somewhere in the west meaning that the artefact must be between them which is the center of this place.” 

 

“Not that I doubt you or anything but how do you know so much? When I was in my first year I didn’t know much about dungeons and here you are a walking encyclopedia.” Brain said.

 

“I..uhh.. Have read books, yeah a lot of books, books on topics that I don’t even remember now.” He replied while making a stupid smile.

 

“Ben used to say that knowledge is true power but I never believed him but after being stuck here, a book or two won’t be that bad right?” Brain asked while smiling.

 

“You know that your musclehead-” Akira couldn’t complete his sentence as he was punched in the face by an angry Brian which made him hurl like a missile.

 

“Stupid Kid.” He mumbled and went on his way.

 

Back with the rest of the group

 

Earlier the three members of the Dark Swords were fighting against the cultists and from the looks of it this was an evenly matched one with both sides having sustained damages.

 

Calvin was fighting the psycho lady who apparently took pleasure in getting hurt by him as whenever he inflicted a wound on her she would get more fired up and say,

 

“More..more. I want M-O-R-E….” 

 

And that was disturbing to hear when you are the one she is yelling all this at, Calvin with his kusanagi had an edge over her but her maniac like tendencies were making him a bit troubled.

 

“Enough of this, Kirschblüten style, eleventh stance.” He shouted and at that very moment the entire space around him and the lady dyed white.

 

It was like they were put inside a painting which had nothing but white painted all over it and those two were two small impurities waiting to be erased by a stroke of brush. The lady which upto now had a funny face was now shivering with the anticipation of the coming blow.

 

“Die.” Calvin said with a cold voice and slashed his sword which looked like it would devour everything that was present there.

 

The lady, visibly scared at this point tries running off but to no use as the sword slash comes near her and a huge explosion takes off attracting the attraction of nearby people who were earlier engaged in their own battles.

 

Ben and Kazuya who were engaged decided to group near their leader and take advantage of this situation which they did by first coming near Calvin, Kazuya healed him after seeing a few injuries on his body.

 

“Woah! Cap, when was the last time you used the eleventh stance?” Ben asked, clearly ecstatic with his cap’s performance.

 

“Well she definitely is a strong one, kinda makes me think how strong are the other members in the Apocalypse.”

The explosion from his attack had triggered a huge mushroom cloud which was now scattering away and when all of them expected a dead body to be there it was not, instead a horde of puppets were protecting her.

 

The very same puppets that were fighting against Akira.

 

Amelia after seeing the condition of the now unconscious female member decides to retreat away from the current situation.

 

“Retreat.” She said and the two other members fighting the Dark Sword immediately accepted it, the old guy came forward and teleported all of them somewhere else.

 

Leaving the trio on the other side utterly shocked by the pace of the things.

 

“Did I really see someone use a puppet skill?” Ben asked with his eyes gawking out.

 

“Is that a problem?” Calvin asked not knowing the significance behind it.

“Dude, that's a puppet skill, a skill that the God of Darkness passed down in his own lineage.” He explained.

 

“So you mean to say that she is a descendent of a real god?” 

 

“Ofcourse she is the one of the God Kin.” Ben said.

 

“And she has the biggest tits I have ever seen.” Kazuya commented, getting stares from the rest of them.

 

“What? Come on, can't you see those gravity defying curves?” He argued.

 

“Anyway we have two tasks here, first is finding the rest of our people that we came inside with, meaning Mr.Ivan, Brian and Akira. Second, we need to find a way to get out of this alternate dimension.”

 

“I do know a way but I don’t know what’s waiting for us there.” Ben said.

 

Being a ranger he was the eyes and ears of this group and now that they were in an alternate dimension it was more necessary than ever.

 

“I knew that you could guide us anywhere.” Kazuya says with a lot of happiness.

 

“Well he’s the best.” Calvin too adds.

 

With the cultists group who were now teleported to the center of this dimension where the artefact ‘Osix’ was kept, it was a large grassland with nothing except ground covered with grass.

 

The Osix was managed by an elderly member of the group who by the looks on his face was not a fighter and when he saw Amelia and the others coming here he quickly got up and bowed to them.

 

“This one greets the princess.” He said to Amelia.

 

“There are no princes or princesses under our rule, Zephyr.”  She says.

 

“Yes my lady.”

 

The eldest guy from the group who was a relative of Amelia said,

 

“Amelia, you shouldn’t have told us to retreat, we would have killed them by now.” He was clearly not happy with her decision.

 

“Uncle Jin, your wife was on the verge of death.” The lady Amelia saved at the last moment was his wife.

 

“A small price to pay for our dreams.” He mumbled under his breath.

 

“Arata and I will go to clean up the remaining two members while the rest of you find Ivan Feodor and bring him here.” She ordered and all of them left the place.

 

“Hehe, are you finally taking some interest in my love?” Arata asked.

 

Arata was the son of someone important back in her organization and since they were somewhat of the same age it was decided unanimously that they would be each other’s partners which irritated her but since her father decided it nothing could be done.

 

“It’s work.” She said, her voice was still apathetic.

 

“Very well.” He knew that she would be hers sometime sooner or later.

 

Then began their fight against Akira and Brian where unexpectedly her puppets were razed to the ground, it was the first time something like that has ever happened to her puppets who had the blessing of the God of Darkness himself.

 

Even Calvin’s eleventh stance of Kirschblüten style could only hurt her puppets not scatter them but Akira’s fire even though was not the true fire had enough potent damage in it to hurt them and the reason behind it was very simple.

 

True fire was a spell of the Light God who was the arch nemesis for the Darkness God.

 

So when she came back at the center of the dimension empty handed she wanted some answers and had expectations from the other party which too failed in their mission as Ivan Feodor was nowhere to be found.

 

“I am sorry Amelia.” Her uncle Jin said.

 

“It’s okay he will be coming to us sooner or later.” 

 

“Ahh yes, you are an absolutely genius my child. The thing he so desperately wants, Ambrosia will pull him out of the rabbit hole he is hiding into.” Jin said and started laughing like a maniac.

 

Her wife was also getting healed by Zephyr and the rest of them were directed by Amelia to keep a watch for other things and like that the night passed away. In the morning they were greeted by the two magnificent Sun adorning the seemingly endless sky.

 

“My lady, do you really think they will come here?” Zephyr, who had woken up quite early, asked Amelia who didn’t sleep much last night.

 

“I don’t know for the Dark Swords but Ivan would be here, he has to.” She replied while watching the twin sunrise.

 

“You know my lady that we can’t be here for prolonged periods otherwise the miasma would start-” He couldn’t continue as Amelia interrupted him and said,

 

“That’s why we are sure to benefit either way, it’s just that we won’t have any proof to show it.”

 

“Right but what about Ivan’s pendant?” Zephyr asked.

 

Ivan was once gifted a pendant from a far away kingdom whose King he had helped in some way, the pendant was a peculiar teleportation device. Peculiar in the sense that it could teleport its user to a safe location once in his lifetime without having the effect of anything.

 

That being the alternate dimension here, Osix doesn’t allow anyone but its user to teleport and since Ivan had told the Dark Swords about his pendant they were relatively laid back on his safety.

 

Zephyr knew about the pendant as he was once a minister in the same small kingdom before joining the cultists, he was also the mastermind behind this mission of abducting and killing Ivan Feodor without leaving any bread crumbs to follow upon.

 

“He has to come here for Ambrosia.” Amelia said and concluded their conversation.

 

Back with Ivan Feodor

 

The very moment Ivan Feodor stepped into this new place he knew that something was different, they were supposed to be in the Bretton woods inside the human kingdom of Von Astrom searching for Ambrosia.

 

But the mana density here was similar to that of the Elven kingdom to which he has been a lot of times, but it was impossible right? The fact that the team he had paid to keep him safe was not there also added to that fact.

 

He didn’t knew where he was but one thing was certain this simple looking escort mission had turned into a big fiasco, a fiasco which could potentially kill him if he acted carelessly. 

 

Being a merchant he has been into difficult conditions, conditions where if he didn’t think fast and think the right thing he would be put to a disadvantage and that’s why he always takes precautions because we all know that it is better than cure.

 

And even for the current situation he has a way out in the form of his pendant, an artefact which could teleport him to a ‘safe location’ but could he afford to go after doing all this? What about the people that wanted Ambrosia for? Could he just leave them to die?

 

There was a secret in his heart known only to him and the maids in the manor and because of that secret he had been searching for the Ambrosia all these years and now that he was so close to it how could he let it go? So he geared up and used the detection device to go near the flowers.

 

It might cost him his life but the rewards were much much better than the risks and Ivan had been an adventurous man never failing to take a step forward if it profits him.

 

At the center of the Alternate Dimension

 

Amelia and the rest of the cultists have been preparing for the ‘welcome’ of the Dark Swords and Ivan Feodor, the first one they had already seen coming but the latter they were not so sure about.

 

Ivan has been hiding his presence from them too well and they still didn’t have an iota of information about his whereabouts so they focused on the next best thing, killing the members of the entire Dark Swords.

 

Akira and Brian had been closing on the center of the place for the last three hours and if not for Brian's superpowered jumps which crossed tens of kilometers in one go it would have taken them more than a day to reach here. 

 

Calvin and the others too were reaching there, both the parties recognized each other’s mana flow and immediately headed towards the other. Brain couldn’t contain his excited nature to meet his crew so he jumped with even much vigor.

 

“Good to see you guys haven’t been dead yet.” Kazuya jibed on the duo.

 

“I could say the same thing about you.” Brian responded in the best way he could think of.

 

“Jeez, stop fighting for once.” Ben said.

 

“It’s him.” Both of them said at the same time.

 

“I think that’s enough, so how did you guys reach here?” Calvin asked.

 

“Oh that’s his doing, he apparently knew that the center of this place must be in between the two Sun.” Brain shrugged.

 

“Damn and here I thought that only Ben knew about this thing.” Kazuya exclaimed while patting Akira’s shoulder.

 

“That’s right Akira, how did you know about it?” Ben asked.

 

“The book on spatial magic-” Before he could continue the answers a large explosion occurred in front of them gaining their attention 

 

“I am happy that you guys are safe but now we need to kill some cultists and get out of here.” Calvin said and took out the Kusanagi from his storage ring.

 

“These guys don’t understand, do they?” Kazuya chuckled while bringing out his mana.

 

“Umm guys I’m not so sure about my role.” Akira told the group as everyone in the cultists excluding one or two were above the tier 1 making it suicidal for him to even think fighting him.

 

“Brian protect him.” Calvin said and ran ahead to fight the cultists.

 

“Sure.” He replied.

 

Amelia was watching all this and it was totally under control, while Jin, his wife and the other guy fought the Dark Sword members she would go along with Arata to deal with the big muscle guy and the boy who had irritated her. She left one of her tier one puppets with Zephyr to protect him and proceeded towards her target.

 

Akira did notice the oncoming attack and jumped backwards, the puppets that were hurled at him blasted upon contacting the ground making him click his tongue in annoyance as Amelia had started using explosive puppets against him.

 

He searched for Brian but to his bad luck he was currently engaged in a classic hand to hand duel against Arata who too was happy to fight someone solely on the basis of raw strength, two muscle heads going at each other, romantic isn’t it?

 

Well not for Akira as he was subjected to fight the hordes of puppets many of which were explosive ones meaning that they will explode on contact, a pretty useful skill he has to say.

 

Amelia’s puppets this time were more dangerous, they not only had a weapon in their hands but they were faster, stronger and had a little intelligence which only meant that their tier level must have increased and if he had to guess it would be somewhere near the upper fourth level closing on third.

 

“Don’t resist boy, it's useless.” Amelia said while standing from afar.

 

“Aww come on, we are the same age.” He retorted while slashing another of those puppets coming for him.

 

“That won’t help you.” She said, her tone still oozing every bit of that coldness and apathy.

 

Akira was actually afraid of Amelia for two reasons, first her two special puppets which were of the first tier and second was her weird nature. In the game she fell for the protagonist after fighting against him, during the fight she was fascinated by the strong will of Richard.

 

And her emotions triggered some sort of love inside her heart, a type of love which proved detrimental to the protagonist in his journey.

 

“Elemental puppets.” She used a new skill and two giant puppets, one who had a darkness element and a mace in his hands and the other was an earth elemental, his body made out of solid rocks.

 

“Kill him.” She ordered and two elementals began making their way towards him.

 

Akira first looked at the two giant elementals coming at him then looked at his seniors if they could provide any help which they couldn’t as all of them were engrossed in their own battles leaving him to his own.

 

“And here I thought that they are somewhat responsible.” He said and sighed.

 

Actually Brian was keeping an eye on him and would jump in if things went south but he didn’t wanted to interfere in his fight as for him a duel was quite a righteous act and a third person should stay away from it as much as possible.

 

Akira started running backwards killing every smaller puppet that headed in his way and once he got away from the main area he stopped and turned back to face the oncoming elemental puppets.

 

“Running is useless, your sacrifice is for a greater good.” Amelia said hesitatingly.

 

“Yeah sorry but I am not in the mood to be ‘sacrificed’ you know.” He retorted.

 

The Dark elemental swung his mace with a great force trying to end Akira’s life in one blow and even Amelia had accepted the things for now as there was no chance he would be able to stop that attack. Somewhere in her heart she was feeling guilty for killing such a young person but in the end it was to be done.

 

But neither did she nor the elemental with its limited intelligence expected the boy to not only stop its attack but only counter with one of his own. Akira was now utilizing the blue fire skill which was anti-darkness and a sure shot kill for the elemental.

 

He focused his mind and conjured a katana made out solely of blue fire which in a single aura burst attack killed the dark elemental, not trying to give the earth elemental any chance he took a step forward and tried to do the same attack on him but that failed.

 

As not only the earth elemental was somewhat fire resistant it had also had better perception than its counterpart. Amelia’s mouth was hung wide open on seeing the blue fire incinerate her creations, she had learnt about this blue fire skill as it was also something available to a Godkin.

 

“A-a god..godkin?” Amelia stammered after seeing that.

 

Actually Akira was no Godkin it just happened that the true fire skill was developed by the God of Light and only a few people after his demise have been able to use that and among those few people the majority was of Godkin hence making her believe that he too was one of them.

 

Akira on the other hand was having trouble killing the big piece of rock because the rock attribute was limiting the damage of his fire attribute. 

 

“Okay let’s see if you survive this, Water shield.” He pointed the water shield towards the giant which couldn’t understand how simple water would affect him.

 

Amelia who had calmed down by this was approached by one of her top puppets,

 

“Shall I kill him?” 

 

She didn’t reply and watched the battle between the elemental and the boy.

 

Akira repeated the process of using a water shield and slow burning of rock elemental for some time until the elemental began noticing the anomaly in his body, his rock solid body has begun to become brittle the continuous application of water and fire has made its constitution weak.

 

“And it’s time.” Akira smiled and used his bow to shoot multiple fire arrows at elemental making him crumble into dust.

 

“Should I kill him?” The puppet again asked.

 

“Huh? Ah yes, do it.” She replied absentmindedly, a weird sensation was going in her heart making her feel giddy.

 

“Yes.” He said and vanished from there.

 

Akira who had barely calmed down after killing the two elementals sensed a killing blow coming towards him at rapid pace he quickly tried to move out of the way but before he could a black spear impaled him in the stomach.

 

“Aarghh…” He grunted in pain and looked at the tier first puppet standing in front of him.

 

He knew the situation was different, different from anything he had ever faced so he decided to unleash everything he got.

 

“Initiate Last Day.”