The Saga of Eden

Chapter 2, part 14

In theory, if they were to fight, Fingers have no chance of winning against Lord Shar, who vastly out levels them, even with Nara on their team. In reality, however, the position Lord Shar just puts himself into isn’t that favorable either. The cruel mistress of Fate has given Fingers a crucial advantage that can allow them to all survive.

You see, God wrote in one of the Holy Texts that he found {Teleportation} to be a necessary evil for his world. Yes, it gives those capable of casting the spell a chance to escape dangers and convenient traveling in this vast world. But it also gives them the endless potential to cause mass destruction, with no real ways to stop them. Just imagine: an enemy army just appears out of nowhere in your Capital and pillages it to the ground, or an assassin just pops into existence in your bedroom during the night and kills you. 

As a result, God put A LOT of restrictions onto {Teleportation} spells and their variants to make sure they cannot be used for anything other than escaping from danger or supervised traveling. A few important rules that I know of are: Talented magic users can only use the spell to Teleport a bit further away, the longest I’ve seen is 100m or so. Legendary-tier {Teleportation} spells can extend the limit to a few hundred kilometers, just to show the huge gap between Legendary and the rest. {Teleportation} cannot be applied to non-consent targets. Destinations of {Teleportation} will create a loud, unique zapping sound to warn the surrounding people. During the Crisis War, Lord Shar used this spell to escape deep into the woods, his men were used as meat shields just so the Imperial force couldn’t chase after him like the coward he was.

There are a few other restrictions as well, the most important of all (not that I forgot the rest, not at all), anyone who experiences Teleportation will become severely weakened, both in attack and defence, for an entire day. This effect varies from person to person. Take Lord Shar here as an example. He’s a… Level 113 necromancer, and after going through the portal, his spells’ potency are somewhere around Level 80, quite a significant downgrade. 

Boring information aside, let’s get back to the fight, shall we?

After stepping through the portal he cast, appearing in front of Lord Shar are five unknown intruders in his chamber. He instinctively turns his neck around towards the portal, but it has already closed after the last Undead steps through.

Lord Shar briefly panics inside, they have caught him when his pants are down the most. Like Eden, he has learned to maintain a calm, cool, and collected face on the outside. Lord Shar looks back at the intruders and awkwardly stares at them.

On the other hand, Fingers are also panicking inside, except for Eden. They know who Lord Shar is, everyone who is not the son of a farmer knows him and his Legendary potential from the Crisis War; even MOST sons of farmers do, though obviously not ALL of them.

Fingers, except for Eden again, know how superior a Legendary can be, compared to the rest. They feel like death is coming to embrace them at any moment. And so, they awkwardly stare back at Lord Shar. Unfortunately, they don’t know the restrictions of {Teleportation} spells. It’s a rare piece of knowledge, even among wizards, so I guess that’s understandable. 

“It seems you know who I am...” Lord Shar breaks the silence by speaking first. He’s holding his bone staff cautiously, ready to strike. 

“Well, that makes things easier.” After he’s confident that he’s right, Lord Shar continues. “Killing you all now will be a great inconvenience, so I will allow you to leave. We can always fight another day.”

Astraka raises an eyebrow at this sudden change of event. He’s certainly surprised, but he isn’t going to waste this chance and risk Lord Shar having second thoughts. Astraka looks to his team and nudges his head towards the door, signaling them to leave. Slowly, they (except for Eden) move towards the door while maintaining eye contact with Lord Shar. The necromancer stands still and looks back at them with a friendly smile, he’s equally relieved that they’re accepting his offer. 

“Alright, we’re leaving. Don’t even think about following us!” Astraka says as he’s slowly moving back towards the door, his hands ready to cast a spell at any moment.

“Of course,” Lord Shar says while smiling, “you may all leave, but one day, you’ll all pay for your intrusion.”

They pay no heed to his threat, their priority right now is to get out of here as quickly as possible and report to the Empress right away. This is disastrous news. As the rest of Fingers are near the door, they finally notice Eden has not moved an inch. He’s still standing there, staring at Lord Shar, and frowning. 

“Eden, the f**k are you doing? Let’s go!” Lela quietly, but urgently hisses at him.

“He’s telling us to leave… because we can beat him.” Eden finally says after a long moment of thinking.

Lord Shar stops smiling and looks at Eden with anger. The young man has figured out the truth. Lord Shar considers casting a spell and burning him on the spot, but he’s patiently holding himself back, it isn’t the time to show his cards yet.

“Watch your mouth, boy! My patience is very thin.” 

“Just go, Eden, don’t be ridiculous!” Astraka shouts at him. “Shar has achieved his Legendary potential. It would take no less than an army, or perhaps another Legendary just to subdue him! You shouldn’t end your life here!”

[Legendary potential? What? What is Legendary?] Eden thinks. He’s confused but once again, he’s not showing it.

“But we can definitely beat him, he’s not as strong as he looks,” Eden argues. “Well... we can lose, but the situation is not hopeless. Whatever the case, I’m going to fight him until the end.”

Eden might not have noticed, but he has just used the skill {Evaluation} on Lord Shar, just as he had done so many times before. A rather unique variant of the skill, actually. Eden was just never exposed to the skill’s name, nor that skills have names, so he never noticed. 

“One more word, boy,” Lord Shar says loudly, “and you’ll be next on my list of minions. You will spend eternity regretting your insolence.”

“See? Look at him! He’s scared!” Eden confidently looks over to his teammates while pointing his finger at the necromancer. “We can kill him and he knows it.”

Lord Shar has a short temper, and it looks like he’s fuming.

“Ok, let’s just SUPPOSE that you can do the impossible. How are we supposed to find a way to kill him then?” Lela asks, but no answers were given.

“ENOUGH!” Lord Shar shouts. He isn’t going to stand around and let that cocky warrior exploit his weakness any further, so the Legendary Undead takes the initiative.

{Energy drain.} Lord Shar casts, and from his bone staff, a black ray shoots at Eden with immense speed, faster than any attack they have ever seen.

Eden cannot react in time, and the attack hits him.

“Arghhh!” Eden grunts in pain as he feels his strength is leaving him.

“No!” Lela shouts, and without thinking, she jumps into the fight, straight at Lord Shar.

“Tch!” Lord Shar notices Lela from the corner of his eyes, so he stops the spell and backs off. The damage has been done.

The Undead accompanying him immediately jump at Lela, covering for their master. The Undead rogue attacks first, he strikes his spiked fist at her, but she easily jumps away, which catches them both off guard. Lela is surprised that his attack was much slower than she anticipated. The Undead archer takes advantage of this opportunity and shoots her from the back. Again, the arrow moves too slowly for Lela, and she dodges it without much effort.

Lela notices the wizard is trying to cast a long chanting spell, so she rushes at it first. Quickly, the Undead knight jumps in between them to protect her ally. Lela doesn’t stop, her momentum is too fast, so the knight raises her shield, ready for impact. To her surprise, Lela deftly leaps up right when she’s in front of her. Lela jumps over the knight’s left shoulder, using it as a lever for her hand, and passes through the Undead without any troubles. Lela catches the Undead Wizard off guard, who’s now right in front of her. With her dagger, she thrusts right through his skull like an arrow. He immediately falls to the ground, dead.

Too easy is what Lela is thinking. She could have sworn the wizard’s level is quite a bit higher than hers, so she stares at its corpse in disbelief. 

{Paralysis.} Lord Shar casts his spell on Lela, he finally has a clear view of her. She falls to the ground, motionless.

“No…” Eden says weakly.

The young man was on one knee, sweating profusely after being hit by Lord Shar’s spell. But after seeing Lela also got hit, he slowly stands up and tries to run over to her with normal walking speed. The rest of Fingers also run forward, preparing to fight.

Needless to say, Lord Shar is shocked that Eden manages to stand, not to mention walk, after being hit by his spell. It is as if his stamina gauge is a bottomless pit. The necromancer waves his hand and the three remaining Undead stop attacking.

“Let’s talk for a bit first before we resume fighting, yes?” Lord Shar suddenly tells them.

Eden is feeling exhausted, so he just sighs in relief and slumps to the ground, sitting. 

“Alright then, I’m listening,” he says. Buying some time to regain his strength and gaining more intel is never bad.

“First, tell me how you managed to slip past my army and kill my guard dog without alerting them? I could have sworn nothing could slip past their doors.” Lord Shar rubs his chin curiously.

“We didn’t avoid them,” Eden shrugs, “We killed them all. Your doorkeeper was harder, but we managed.”

“WHAT?” Lord Shar shouts in utter shock. “That’s impossible!”

Lord Shar is about to call on Eden’s bluff when he notices he indeed no longer feels any traces of curse magic outside the room. His mouth gapes wide open.

“There were hundreds of them, even the girl might die against that many!” He shouts, still not believing the truth.

“The girl, you mean...the Empress?” Astraka asks.

“Yes! Of course I meant her!” Lord Shar annoyedly answers him, then turns back to Eden. “Now answer me!”

“Poor planning from your end, I guess? I just lure them into the tight corridor, and kill them one by one.” Eden answers, he’s confused because he thought that was an obvious outcome.

“That’s still impossible!” The necromancer shouts even louder, he’s now very angry. “Do you have any idea how many years I’ve spent, the thousands upon thousands of lives I’ve sacrificed, just to build this elite corp? YOU MAGGOTS! I won’t forgive you!”

“You monster!” Harmani says in horror. “How did you find so many lives, and how could you?”

“... War is a profitable endeavor for vultures and necromancers.” After his anger has subsided a bit, Lord Shar says simply while his gaze is still focused on Eden.

“The war?... I see, so you have allied yourself with the monsters from the East.” Astraka realizes.

“Keen observation!” Lord Shar says. He’s genuinely surprised. “Astraka, right? I remember you from the Crisis War. A remarkable mercenary.”

Just at this moment, the paralysis spell has worn off on Lela, and she begins to slowly stand up, her body aching all over.

“Ughh...” she groans.

“Oh, well...” Lord Shar waves his hand again, and the three Undead draw their weapons. 

“Time for talking is over. Congratulations, you have managed to save Ella by utterly destroying my masterpiece. Unfortunately, that also means you’re never going to get out of here as human beings again.”