The arriving adventurers made short work of the boss minion. Soon they were whiting down the other spawn, giving the air nymphs proper time to attack the half sphere. Soon, the number of minions decreased and their respawn rate also reduced.

  Suddenly Marcus heard a crack and turned. The half sphere had cracked. It was time. Few attacks more. The air froze. The half sphere shattered, letting out a force of magic which knocked everyone down.

  Manalith spawn disappeared and everyone looked at each other. Had they done it? Then why was Manalith still alive? Marcus examined the demon lord.

  Manalith

  The Shadow who Engulfs the World

  Demon Lord

  Level 275

  Health ??? / ???

  There was no change in health. Wait. Marcus examined the health bar. It was at half of what it was earlier. It was still so large that it was showing up as question marks.

  Everyone regrouped. Marcus looked around. There were a few manalith spawn rising but the adventurers took care of them fast.

  “Where are the Ori brothers?” asked Marcus, “I thought they were leading.”

  The new adventurers looked uncomfortable. One of them said, “Their ship got swallowed by Manalith.”

  Marcus looked down. Swallowed by Manalith. That was not good.

  “What do we do now?” said Tamara pointing at the destroyed half sphere, “We destroyed that thing. Manalith is still alive.”

  “This was half a sphere”, said Marcus slowly, “There has got to be another half.”

  “Where?”

  Marcus looked down again.

  “You’ve got to be gorking with me”, said Tamara.

  “How do we get inside?” asked Kyrie.

  “We dig?”

  “This is not time for gorking jokes Marcus”, fumed Tamara.

  “Do you have any other bright ideas?”

  “How do we gorking digging in the first place?” asked one of the adventurers.

  It was at that moment Dragor stepped forwards. The other adventurers made way for him. Dragor brought his snout close to Tamara’s face and said, “You need to summon him.”

  “No”, hissed Tamara, “He is insufferable.”

  “He is the only one who can help us here and you know it.”

  “What are the two of you talking about?” interjected Marcus.

  Both Tamara and Dragor glared at him. Marcus raised his hands in defence and stepped back. Tamara sighed and looked back at Dragor. They seemed to be silently communicating for some time.

  Then Tamara huffed, “Fine. I will gorking summon him.”

  Tamara asked everyone to make room. She needed space for whomsoever she was going to summon. Marcus watched with curiosity. He wondered who it could be. Considering the space Tamara was making, Marcus hoped that this was another dragon.

  Marcus’ wish got fulfilled as Tamara shouted a name which Marcus could not hear and another dragon appeared in front of Tamara. This one was larger than Drogor and had golden scales. The dragon roared as he was summoned, stretching his wings to the full. He then rearranged himself and brought his snout close to Tamara.

  “There better be a good reason for you to summon me Tamara”, said the dragon with a threatening tone.

  Tamara gestured around, “Take a gorking look around Nalsifor. You are standing on a demon lord.”

  Nalsifor snorted and looked up. He gave a short nod to Dragor who nodded back. Then the dragon looked around. He turned his neck full one eighty on either side and then brought his snout back to Tamara.

  “Explain”, said Nalsifor simply.

  Tamara did just that. There was a lot of gesturing involved. Some Manalith spawn arose during that time but the adventurers made short work of them.

  After Tamara was done with her explanation, Nalsifor snorted. He raised his snout and tilted his neck back. He looked to be contemplating something to Marcus.

  “So, this is what you summon me for”, said Nalsifor slowly, “It is a worthy challenge, I admit it. However, there is a problem.”

  Tamara raised a brow, “And that would be?”

  “You are weaklings, the lot of you. So, why would I gorking help you?”

  Tamara gave an exasperated cry and said, “Just make us a way to get beneath, to that half sphere. Then you can have all the fun with the demon lord that you gorking want.”

  Nalsifor looked at Tamara thoughtfully. There was silence which was broken by no one. Everyone was waiting for Nalsifor’s decision.

  Finally the dragon shifted and stood up. He extended his wings, raised his snout to the highest and roared. It was definitely a battle cry.

  “Very well”, said Nalsifor, “I will grant you your wish.”

  And he snapped his fingers. Marcus’ world shifted. One moment he was on top of Manalith. The next he was in complete darkness.

  “What the fuck!” exclaimed Marcus as he brought out a torch from his inventory and lit it.

  They were all lined up in a passage; all those who had been fighting on top of Manalith. Dragor was absent though. Marcus could not see him. The passage was surrounded in darkness. Marcus could hear sounds of fighting from one of the ends. All of the adventurers and nymphs started moving towards the sounds of fight.

  The passage led to a large cavern. The roof of that cavern was slightly illuminated with a giant half sphere. The other half of the sphere that they had destroyed up top. It seemed that Nalsifor had kept his promise. However, the cavern seemed to be swarming with spawn, making their way towards the centre where a group of adventurers were fighting.

  “Charge!” came the shout. Marcus did not know from whom, but it did not matter. All of them charged towards the spawn. It was time to take down Manalith once and for all.

  ***

  Dragor looked at Nalsifor, “You did not have to help them.”

  Nalsifor glared at Dragor, “I am pretty sure you asked Tamara to summon me.”

  Dragor shrugged with his wings, “I was getting bored. I needed company. And killing the spawn seemed boring. I wanted to take on the demon lord. But I do need help for that.”

  Nalsifor snorted a short flame out of his nose. Then he said, “Good call then.”

  Nalsifor and Drogor looked at each other for a moment. Then as one they spread their wings and shot up. They started making their way towards Manalith’s head. The dragons were going to fight the demon lord directly.

  They both roared in challenge as they approached Manalith’s head. The dragons had come to fight and they were going to get their pound of flesh.

  ***

  Kyrie did not charge in with other adventurers but slowly proceeded forwards. She shot Manalith spawn as she made her way forwards, taking proper aim and killing them strategically. To her surprise, she found Marcus killing spawns near her. He moved around a lot but was within fifteen feet of her.

  Then she wondered why she was surprised. Marcus always thought strategically. There were few other ranged adventurers who were also making their way towards the surviving adventurers, killing all Manalith spawns that came in their way.

  Soon the groups united. However, the number of spawns did not reduce by that much. It seemed that Manalith was now producing spawns at a faster rate to stop the adventurers from hitting the half sphere.

  Kyrie looked up at the half sphere which was illuminating the innards of Manalith with mana swirling inside it. It was easily about a hundred feet high. She wondered how they would attack it. She looked around at the air nymphs. They seemed tired. They were attacking the spawn and not the half sphere. Kyrie wondered how long they would be able to continue the attack. They would have to be tired after spending a considerable amount of energy on destroying the half sphere above Manalith.

  Kyrie grabbed Marcus and said, “We need a plan.”

  “Give me a minute”, said Marcus and disappeared into the group of spawns and adventurers.

  A few moments later, he was back with a couple of dwarves.

  “Orin. Orik”, Kyrie acknowledged them as she killed another one of the spawns near her.

  Some other adventurers also closed in.

  Kyrie repeated herself, now to everybody, “We need a plan.”

  “No gorking shit”, said Orin.

  Everyone glared at Orin and he looked chastised.

  Marcus said to one of the air nymphs, “Can you focus on attacking the half sphere instead of the spawns?”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The air nymph replied, “Our mana is greatly depleted. We can help you kill the spawns but destroying another half sphere is beyond our capacity currently.”

  Everyone swore at that. One of the adventurers said, “And we also lost the gorking dragon. How the gork are we going to attack that half sphere with natural magic?”

  Everyone started to debate regarding what to do. The gathered adventurers did not have natural magic. And the air nymphs were out of mana. They were in a bad situation and the Manalith spawns showed no signs of stopping. They had to do something fast or all their efforts till now would be a waste.

  Kyrie wondered about her natural magic. She was a nymph after all, albeit a water nymph with no water. Wait. Was she not in the body of a demon lord? Manalith should need water to survive. Kyrie asked Marcus, Orin and Orik to cover her as she leaned down. She touched the ground, which was flat, tough but slightly membrane like. Were they in Manalith’s stomach? It did not feel like it. This was no time to wonder about that.

  Kyrie closed her eyes and focused. Soon she felt it. Water. Blessed water. It was there. It was in such a large quantity. Water flowing in the body of the demon lord.

  But what could she do with it? Just flood the cavern like organ that they were present in? She needed a good idea. She needed…

  “Marcus”, said Kyrie, “I can feel water in the body of Manalith.”

  “Can you summon it?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know what to do with it.”

  “Give me the list of spells that you know.”

  Kyrie complied. Both Marcus and Kyrie looked at her known spells.

  [Water Shot] [Fade] [Enchant Weapon: Poison] [Summon Water Elemental] [Detect Magic] [Curve Shot] [Multi Shot] [Water Whip] [Enchant Weapon: Ice] [Field of Ice] [Summon Water]

  Marcus looked at Kyrie and said, “When did you learn all these spells?”

  “The tournament”, explained Kyrie.

  “Makes sense”, then Marcus frowned, “What is [Water Shot]? I have not seen that before. And what happened to [Power Shot]?”

  Kyrie froze at Marcus’ statement. She looked at the list of her spells and read the first one again. She was so used to seeing [Power Shot] that she had read [Water Shot] as [Power Shot]. Could it be? Had she gotten her skill back for this fight or was this a permanent change?

  Kyrie looked up to see Marcus looking at her thoughtfully.

  “I am assuming [Water Shot] is the final form of [Power Shot]?” he mused.

  Kyrie nodded, “When I first came to Una, [Water Shot] was the only spell I came with, along with my bow. NAIF told me that [Water Shot] was very powerful at my level and they would lock it, allowing it to evolve only at a later stage of my adventuring.”

  “Did they tell when [Power Shot] was going to evolve to [Water Shot]?”

  Kyrie shook her head, “No, but I thought it would be when I reach higher levels and would have to defeat strong enemies.”

  “A scenario not dissimilar to this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait a fucking minute! Does that mean… Is [Water Shot] your natural magic?” Marcus asked excitedly.

  “Perhaps”, said Kyrie with a frown, “I am not sure. I mean it is not magic. I just focus the water in the form of an arrow. The more water it takes, the more destructive the arrow becomes. However, it takes a lot of my energy, which in case of Una, would be Mana.”

  “Kyrie”, said Marcus with an incredulous tone, “You did say we are surrounded by large quantities of water.”

  “Yes, but mana requirements-”

  “And you are max level and I am assuming with all mana and health blessings unlocked.”

  “Yes”, said Kyrie slowly.

  “How much mana would you require to focus all the water into an arrow to shoot at that?” Marcus pointed at the half sphere.

  And Kyrie could see it in his eyes. A plan was taking shape in Marcus’ mind. A plan with Kyrie in the centre.

  “A lot more than I have currently, even at max level and mana.”

  Marcus turned to the adventurers, “How many mana potions do we have?”

  The air nymph said, “I have a better idea than feeding Kyrie potions if that’s what you are thinking Marcus.”

  Marcus gestured for the air nymph to continue and she did, “We air nymphs can share our mana with Kyrie. If it is still insufficient, then we can feed mana potions to her.”

  “That is excellent”, said Marcus.

  “But we will be out of the fight.”

  “We, adventurers, can take care of that.”

  The few adventurers who were part of the meeting nodded. The rest were still fighting mana spawn who seemed to be finally reducing in numbers.

  Marcus said, “Then let’s fucking do that. Provided you are okay with that, Kyrie.”

  Kyrie was thinking. Will this really work? Was [Water Shot] really her natural magic? Kyrie looked up to find Marcus, an air nymph and a few adventurers looking at her expectantly.

  “We get only one shot at this”, said Kyrie, “And that too on a hunch.”

  Marcus waved his hand, “Ah! It’s not a hunch. It’s an educated guess.”

  “Still guesswork.”

  “So, are we fucking doing this or not?”

  Kyrie finally nodded, “Let’s do this.”

  And just liked that Marcus sprang into action, giving instructions to everyone present. He had it handled. Kyrie smiled. Then she closed her eyes and focused. She had lots and lots of water to bring into the cavern. It was time to shoot an arrow.

  ***

  Marcus killed one of the spawn and looked at Kyrie. He could see water swirling at her feet. She drew her bow and extended it. Water flowed from her feet to her hand and started to form the shape of an arrow.

  The arrow made a wavy motion like water. Marcus could see Kyrie pouring water into it. However, the arrow did not change shape or size. Marcus was impressed with Kyrie’s control.

  Marcus focused on the spawn charging towards him. He readied himself to dodge and attack the spawn. However, mid charge it disappeared. Marcus looked with the confusing expression at the ground where the spawn had disappeared.

  “What the fuck!” exclaimed Marcus and looked around. Everywhere, the spawns were disappearing.

  Suddenly, there was a loud roar. It sounded more like a wail and it resonated within Manalith. Marcus gritted his teeth and looked at Kyrie. She was still focused, even though she had been affected by the large sound. She was now flocked by air nymphs who were holding hands forming a large circle with one air nymph putting her hand on Kyrie’s back. She would be transferring their mana into Kyrie.

  Marcus looked around the innards? cave? He decided it would be simple to consider it as a cave inside Manalith. It was empty except for the presence of the air nymphs and adventurers. The half sphere was still emitting a glow but it did not illuminate the cave properly.

  Someone cast the [Daylight] spell and a sphere of light rose about thirty feet above the adventurers, illuminating an area of about thirty feet around the light sphere. It did make things better for the adventurers in terms of visibility.

  Marcus suddenly noticed something odd. There were no Manalith spawn coming at them. All the adventurers were on alert but there was nothing to kill. Water was still gathering near Kyrie, slowly and steadily and she was still focusing on her [Water Shot]. There was no disturbance of any sort.

  Another wail from Manalith echoed, this one louder than the first one. Marcus wondered what was causing Manalith to wail like this. Then he remembered the two dragons. Was this their doing? How strong were they to cause Manalith harm? Would they be easily able to destroy the demon lord?

  Marcus suddenly felt a shift in the air and a swirling darkness started to gather near him. All the adventurers reacted instinctively. The tanks got up in the front while the ranged attackers readied their attack while melee attackers waited, their weapons ready.

  The swirling darkness took a full minute before it materialized into a humanoid shape. The spawn standing before them was about seven feet tall with darkness covering its entire body. Horns jutted out of its head and wings spread from its back, large, leathery and sharp. The face looked like that of many demons that Marcus had seen on Twarftha and it was grinning at the adventurers, the sharp black teeth on full display.

  “Adventurers of Una”, said the spawn, “I am Manalith. I wish to talk with the one in charge.”

  Everyone looked at Orin who looked at Marcus. Marcus sighed and stepped forward.

  “Yes?” inquired Marcus.

  “You do not seem in charge”, said the spawn.

  “Yes, but you are not Manalith. Our leader will talk with Manalith if she wants to talk. Otherwise, you get me.”

  The spawn threw its head back and let out a loud guttural laugh. The adventurers readied themselves for an attack but none came.

  “I am the voice of Manalith”, said the spawn.

  “And I am the voice of the present adventurers”, replied Marcus.

  That elicited another guttural laugh from the spawn.

  “Fine”, said the spawn, “I will humor you.”

  They stared at each other for some time. No one spoke. Kyrie was still continuing to do her thing. The voice of Manalith glanced at her and then glanced back at Marcus.

  “I am presuming she is trying to destroy my half sphere”, said the voice in a bored voice.

  “Yes”, said Marcus.

  “Good. Finally, it will end.”

  Marcus felt confused, “Do you want to die?”

  “Obviously”, said the voice in an exasperated tone, “I did not want to come to this gorking planet in the first place. Gorking Lucifer forcefully pushed me into the portal. I want to die so that I could respawn on Twarftha and go after Lucifer again. This is just a mere distraction.”

  “Then why in the blasted world would you fucking attack us?”

  “Oh! The system made me. The system of this gorking planet. Governed by the gorking Game Masters. I am still fighting it. That is why you are facing less spawn. That is why you have had it easy till now.”

  Marcus looked around and then gaped at the voice, “This is fucking easy!”

  “You have no idea what I am at my full power. The magic of the Game Masters has also limited my power. I am not happy.”

  “You are not happy? You are not happy! This is just… Fucking…”

  Marcus could not even finish his sentence. This was a disaster on a fucking level that Marcus could not even describe.

  “What do you want from us?” Marcus almost shouted, “Why have you suddenly appeared before us.”

  “Lucifer”, the voice’s eyes sharpened as it hissed the Demon King’s name, “I want Lucifer to suffer and I need allies for that.”

  “You are on the wrong planet on that”, said Marcus.

  “I know that”, said the voice with a wave of its hand, “I am not concerned about that right now. I am curious about one thing. How did Linguis and Harados escape the city? I know they did. Every powerful demon on Twarftha felt it. How did that happen?”

  Marcus did not reply immediately. He did not want to. He had been instrumental in Linguis and Harados’ escape but he definitely did not want to tell Manalith. That would not be good.

  Instead, he said, “I don’t know. They just stepped out.”

  “You were there.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they just stepped out.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are lying.”

  “And what benefit would I get from lying to you?”

  The voice did not reply. It was thoughtful.

  “You are interesting, Marcus Blank. Harados told me a lot about you. So is this Tasha. I interacted with her. Hmmm. I think the answer lies with you and Tasha. But what it is I don’t know. It seems that I need to take you back with me Marcus.”

  “Over our dead bodies”, shouted Orin.

  Marcus raised a hand to calm the adventurers, “She cannot just take me. She does not have the power. If she did, she would have teleported back to Twarftha by now. And killing her would not help her take me.”

  “Clever”, said the voice, “But not clever enough to sto-”

  Before she could finish, Marcus charged and attacked the voice. Marcus realized in an instant what the voice was going to do. It was going to attack Kyrie with a sneak attack. Marcus attacked the voice before it could even begin the attack.

  “You will die first”, snarled the voice but the other adventurers were already in action.

  Marcus was surrounded by the tanks while ranged attacks rained on the voice. The tanks charged forward, stunning the voice with their charge while the other melee attackers rushed in an out to attack the voice.

  The voice suddenly repelled them with a large wave. It pushed back the air nymphs connecting Kyrie too.

  “Enought”, shouted the voice, “It ends now.”

  Marcus rushed forwards to attack the voice. The voice raised a finger and shot a ray of darkness towards Kyrie. Kyrie did not break her concentration. She simply finished gathering water and energy.

  “[Water Shot]” muttered Kyrie. She did not say it loud, but the spell echoed across the cave.

  The ray hit Kyrie a second too late as the water arrow shot towards the half sphere. Kyrie was thrown back but she did not die. Her health was very low though. The arrow struck the half sphere. Manalith screamed, shattering everybody’s eardrums. There was a loud explosion which could not be heard but Marcus saw it.

  The half sphere exploded. Manalith’s health bar became zero. They had done it. They had killed Manalith. However, their joy was short-lived as everything around them disappeared and all of them started to fall.

  Marcus looked down to find they were just outside of Karzasham and were going to fall on flat ground. This was going to be a painful death.

  The air nymphs started to catch as many adventurers as they could. One of them caught Kyrie. The dragons were also catching the adventurers out of the air. Marcus thought of summoning Lara and he did.

  The wyrm was summoned and Marcus continued to plummet. The wyrm rushed and caught Marcus, enveloping him in a cocoon of safety as they plummeted for a few more moments before straightening out.

  They had done it. They had killed Manalith. A shout came from everyone as they landed. Manalith was dead. And now they needed to see how Karzasham fared.