The Saga of Eden

Chapter 1, part 11

Coming down from the stairs is a three-meter tall demon with green skin, sharp teeth, twisted horns, and wings folded by its back. It is holding 2 small morningstars in its hands and is looking very angry. 

“I’m going to kill all of you, and I will take my time savoring every second of it.” Narila says sternly as it looks down from the stairs to inside the room and sees countless corpses of demons.

“Then come and get it, you...orc!” Lela slowly stands up and taunts him, making sure he would enter the room while the rest begin to move into their battle positions.

The demon runs inside the room within a blink of an eye, it could not fly inside as its wings are too large for the doorway. Narila attacks Lela first with all his might as she was the one who taunted him. Despite their vast difference in Levels, Lela’s speed is still somewhat comparable to the giant demon in front of her, and she narrowly jumps out of the way. Its overhead swing barely misses, and the morningstar crashes straight to the floor, leaving a small mark on the stone-hard ground. 

Leviathan, Nara, and the Battle Angels have been hiding on two sides of the wall facing the stairs the moment they heard its footsteps. Narila failed to notice them when it walked down. They immediately capitalize on its failed attack and bombard Narila with attacks of their own at its back.

Harmani and Astraka also waste no time and jump to its 2 sides and begin attacking as well. Eden, however, remains motionless on the left side of Astraka. His task is simple: the members with the lowest endurance on his side is Nara, Astraka, Lela, and the Battle Angels, in that order, and they are all near his position, Eden is waiting for the inevitable counterattack from Narila, most likely on one of the aforementioned targets, hopefully Lela who is luring it towards their traps, which then he will assist on the defense.

One reason Eden doesn’t consider demons as intelligent beings, even though they can speak Godian language, the language God taught his creations, is because they are mindless, flesh-craving brutes who are too dumb for their own good. As an example here, Narila has lost the moment it attacked the group inside this room, its best bet would have been escaping while it still could. Now its fate is sealed. Narila's sheer Level difference cannot make up for the tactical disadvantage it’s currently facing. Narila makes everything even easier by continuing to attack the ideal target: Lela. Still, it’s a Level 72 Rogue-class monster, Lela can’t dodge its attacks forever. She has no choice but to defend herself against this next attack.

Eden has been waiting for this moment, and he lunges towards Lela with a speed that might even match hers. He stops right on time and raises his well-crafted shield against Narila. Lela quickly shifts her position and holds the shield with him. Normally, Narila’s morningstar can easily shatter Eden’s shield and kill both of them in one hit, but Eden still has a few aces up his sleeve.

{Fortress.} He shouts. Eden has never said the skill name out loud, this is the first time he does so out of an adrenaline rush.

Narila’s swing sends them flying towards the incoming wall. Eden then grabs Lela by her hip and holds her in front of him out of reflex before they crash. Eden’s back hits against the wall, hard. He’s in great pain, and he can feel blood is dripping out of his back. The wall isn’t entirely flat, after all. Lela quickly jumps out of his embrace and pulls him up. Eden is a bit dazed, but Lela seems to be okay, thanks to him. Her face is a bit red.

“T-thank, Eden.” She says softly.

Meanwhile, Leviathan rushes forward and bites Narila's back the moment it attacks Lela and turns its back to the creature. Leviathan certainly cannot win against Narila one-on-one, but their slight difference in Levels means that it can keep Narila engaged for a long time before dying, and it has been waiting for the perfect moment to do so. 

Rogue class tends to be low on the defensive side to enhance its speed and evasion. But when locked in combat against multiple enemies, especially with a creature biting its back and preventing it from moving much, there’s not much a rogue can do to defend against attacks from all sides. This is why Astraka mentioned this weakness in the wanted poster, he knew how to beat Narila when it’s alone. All he needed was to wait and recruit capable bodies to help him achieve this result. Eden and Lela have gone beyond his expectations.

With Leviathan as the meat shield and the rest attacking Narila from all sides, the demon can feel its health is slowly draining. It will die soon. This fact terrorizes Narila to its core, it has no choice but to escape. It focuses all its effort into hitting Leviathan’s head until the beast loosens its grasp onto Narila, even for a few seconds. Afterward, Narila spreads its wings, creating a gust of wind that sends Harmani and Astraka falling backward. Narila then sees the broken window that one of its minions has entered and quickly flies towards it. If it’s careful enough, Narila can squeeze through the window, only just. For a split second, Narila thought it would escape, but it all comes crashing down when it sees a magic trap the moment it flies outside the window. 

Too late. 

The gravitational spell is activated, Narila comes crashing into the ground, landing headfirst. It can now barely stand. The group waste no time and jump out of the window as well. Eden and Lela attack ferociously and manage to cut off its spreading wings despite also being under the spell’s influence, making Narila scream in pain. Astraka immediately stops his control over the magic traps, the spell then deactivates. The group then resumes their relentless attack on the still lying Narila, not giving it a second even a second of momentum to turn the table. 

“I surrender! Please stop!” Seeing that it has lost, Narila drops its weapon and screams. It also then raises its arms upwards while still lying down facefirst, a common sign of surrendering. Seeing that, the group stop attacking and sigh in relief. They have won. 

“Eden, do you want to have the honor?” Astraka turns to the still bleeding young man next to him and asks.

“Sure,” Eden says as he slowly walks towards the now pitiful demon. 

Astraka then conjures up a simple rope. Just as he’s about to hand over the rope to Eden, he sees Eden start raising his sword up high. The 4 of them have no time to tell Eden to stop before he raises his sword down and decapitates Narila. He killed the surrendering demon.

“What the f**k, Eden?” Lela screams.

“We don’t kill demons even if they're demons!” Harmani also shouts.

“Eden, you shouldn’t have killed it. There are still so many mysteries around its appearance, we should have interro...” Astraka tries his best to calmly explain why it was the wrong decision to kill Narila, but he is stopped in his tracks when he notices something coming from Narila’s lifeless left hand. “Wait, everyone. What is that?”

Eden also notices it and walks over to pick it up. It’s a small glass marble with red fog floating inside. He then raises it up for his teammates to see. It takes Astraka a few seconds, but he recognizes this magic item.

“Is that..Death Embraces Us All?” Astraka whispers in shock.

“...Seems like so.” Eden nods.

“Excuse me, mind to explain, old man?” Lela turns to Astraka and asks impatiently.

“It’s...it’s...” Astraka tries his best to answer. “A magic item that I once encountered during my adventuring time, it...killed someone dear to me. The user can swallow the marble, and it will violently explode after a few seconds, killing everyone caught in the blast.”

“If that’s true, then Narila must have tried to do the same...You...you...saved us, Eden.” Lela slowly realizes.

Eden calmly walks up to Astraka and hands him the marble. The old man gratefully accepts it and puts it in his small satchel containing other (lesser) magic items. Lela wastes no time, she runs over to Eden, tackles him to the ground, and hugs him.

“Thank you very much, pret...Eden. Thank you, Eden.” Lela says as she embraces him tightly.

“Ow...” Eden blushes when Lela is so close to him, but the fall has hit Eden right in the wound on his back, so pain is all he can express.

“Oh, sorry!” Lela quickly apologizes as she stands up and helps Eden up.

-----

The group return to where their belongings were hidden and stay there while Nara heals the injuries on Eden’s back. The rest of the team stare at him, but no one says anything. Meanwhile, Eden is lost in thoughts.

[Oh, thank God! When Astraka told me to have the honor, I really thought he told me I can kill Narila. Taking a demon prisoner did not even cross my mind. I only thought that his head would make a nice trophy. I also did not know that it was trying to take us down with him. I was so lucky that Astraka identified the magic item, I didn't even know that it was a magic item! I thought it was just a marble!] 

Eden’s face lights up for a second, then turns gloomy.

[...This only proves that I am still very incompetent and ignorant. I need to work harder if I want to stay alive and gain fame. All we had to do is kill a random flying demon, and we were close to dying several times. What would we do if we encounter demons again? I need to improve myself to stay alive and gain fame in this unforgiving world.] 

After this battle, Eden’s level is now 51, Lela is 47, Astraka is 62, Harmani is 48, and Nara is 41.

*****

2 days later

*****

On the Eastern side of Narn Empire’s border, there used to be a tiny kingdom called Daran. This ceased to be the case a year ago after a strange incident. Now, the entire region is a wasteland, with only their empty castles remaining. The citizens who lived here are all dead, their bones can be found scattered across the land. This place became a haven for all kinds of monsters, hundreds of thousands of monsters flock to this place to live from the neighboring states. In this land, one monster rules over them all, the Monster Emperor, Apocalypse. 

Rumors said that the Monster Emperor caused the utter destruction of the unfortunate Daran Kingdom, but no proof is found. One only knows that now, the Monster Emperor rules over this ruined land, and he has turned his eyes on the mighty but prosperous Narn Empire.

Apocalypse lives in the castle where the Daran King lived. Like every day, he is currently staying inside his room, refusing to let any of his subjects enter. And just like every day, his butler, a red demon, no taller than 1m7, walks across the long, empty, but beautifully preserved hallway. He stops at the human-sized door at the end of the hallway and knocks on it. This is Apocalypse’s room, and as his daily duties, the butler is here to report more news to his master. Before he can even knock, he hears the usual voice resembling a human male coming from inside the room, his master’s voice.

“Tell me, Khizit, is there any good news today?”

“There is, my Emperor. We have recently won a battle against the Narn Empire and are ready to strike back, perhaps even deep into their heartland. Lord Shar said that we...”

“I don’t care about this news, my generals can act on their own.” The voice inside the room stops the butler amidst his report. “Tell me, has Narila found anything new?”

“About that, sir...Narila...is dead….And his entire team is wiped out.” Khizit hesitantly reports this news to his master, fearing retribution towards the messenger, him. His legs are shaking.

“....” For a long time, there is only silence.

“I figured he would be dead sooner or later. So who killed him? The Empress? Her old pet? The Headmaster?” Apocalypse finally says.

“W-we don’t know, my Emperor. But from the scout’s report, they were likely killed by a group of...b-bounty Hunters.”

“That useless GRUNT!” The voice inside the room shouts. It is so loud that anyone within the castle can hear his voice.

“No matter, Narila reports were enough for the next step.” The voice quickly lowers its tone and says. “Go tell Lord Shar to abandon his plans, I have another task for him: I want him to go to Ella, raise a small army, and attack their Capital. Tell him to make sure to draw the attention of all people in Narila's list.”

“But, sir?” The butler weakly protests. “What about the war?”

“Just do it!” The voice shouts. “And tell Fenri to come and see me. I have another task for him.”