Finding a suitable sword in the Universal Trading Hub was easier said than done. While there were a few exemplary armaments on sale, almost every weapon was keyed to a specific element. Most sword users seemed to prefer Fire as their core element, with a few outliers using elements like Dark or Light. This was because those more ethereal elements were better complemented by a material weapon, as opposed to elements like Earth, from which weapons could be made. Why would a powerful Earth elementalist want a sword when they could drop a mountain on their foes?
Eliza was slowly becoming more and more disgruntled as she waited for a good weapon to show up on the auction rotation. She was just about to give up and ask Jonathan for some money to go into the elite auction room when something finally appeared.
“For our next item we present the Hungering Blade!” the auctioneer, a slender half orc, roared. “It will consume any energy infused into it and release it at a level of power equal to the mastery of the wielder! Mana, elemental energy, even stamina!” A hungry grin appeared on the auctioneer’s face at the sight of a suddenly rapt crowd. “Bidding will begin at one million Telvarian Marks!”
“Hold up,” a voice came from the crowd. Everyone turned towards the speaker, an elderly human with scraggly white hair and a long beard. “Why is that sort of weapon being sold here? I don’t wish to offend, but that seems unusually powerful compared to the items offered before. I am a smith of some renown. Would you mind if I inspected it first?”
The crowd’s eyes turned back towards the auctioneer, whose previously happy face was beginning to fall. He had a difficult choice before him. If he was trying to scam the patrons, then showing the sword to the smith would be a bad idea. If he refused, though, it cast suspicion on the legitimacy of the auction.
Jonathan and Eliza watched, intrigued. If the description of the sword was true, it seemed like the perfect weapon. Now that suspicions had been raised, however, that was seeming less likely.
Eventually, the auctioneer made his decision, and reached into a storage device on his hip. He withdrew a longsword covered in glyphs, made out of a strange reddish metal that looked like steel fused with blood.
“Come on up then,” he said unhappily.
With surprising alacrity for his age, the smith leaped to his feet and hurried to the stage. Then again, he was Tier 7. Even though he was likely thousands of years old, he still could move far faster than any mortal a fraction of his age.
The auctioneer laid the sword down on the ground, taking a few steps back. The smith leaned over, before sitting cross legged in front of the blade. He started running his fingers along it, before a frown appeared on his face.
“Who made this weapon?” he asked.
“It was an anonymous submission,” the auctioneer said hurriedly. “It… uh… came in a few hours ago.”
“Well, I’d recommend against buying this,” the smith said. “It’s cursed. By Aldeus.”
“Who’s Aldeus?” Eliza whispered to Jonathan.
“No idea,” Jonathan replied, just as confused.
Everyone else recognized the name, as the prospective buyers erupted into fury.
“How could you sell that?” one roared, leaping up from the seats and onto the stage. “Do you not appraise weapons before putting them up for sale?”
“Now hold on a moment,” the auctioneer said, raising his hands placatingly. “How would we expect that a god would have cursed this weapon? Have you ever seen something like this before? It’s hardly-” the auctioneer was cut off by an abrupt punch to the jaw, knocking him off his feet and into the air. “Guards!” he shouted, prompting a trio of golems to come charging down between the rows of auction booths.
As more people entered the fray, Jonathan gave Eliza a helpless glance. “Why is it such a big deal that a god cursed this weapon? That smith was examining it without any issues.”
“You should analyze it,” Eliza suggested, ducking as a bolt of lightning shot over her head. “Don’t you have some sort of souped up analysis ability?”
Jonathan nodded and used Void’s Eye, focusing on the sword, still lying on the ground.
Hungering Blade
Tier 7 Growth Weapon(Sword)
Error!
Status is under a Divinely enhanced obfuscation ritual. Do you wish to read the replacement status instead?
Jonathan frowned, and pushed harder, drawing upon the Void to supplement his Divinity. He felt an equal force pushing back, the power of another Lesser God. Separated by dimensions, however, it could not stand against him. He pushed through, and was greeted with the real description.
Sevras, the Hungering Blade
Tier 7 Growth Weapon(Cursed Sword)
Crafted by a legendary smith for the son of his closest friend, the Emperor of Zarastra, this blade has few equals at its Tier. Forged to channel any energy in existence, the Hungering Blade was uniquely suited for the Emperor’s son, a master of not one but four elemental disciplines. However, such excellence drew the eyes of the gods. Aldeus, son of Malaraxia and the god of Pride, realized that because this sword was crafted with such peerless skill, it could absorb Divinity itself. As a result he cursed the Hungering Blade to destroy any who dared to wield it.
Current Abilities: Abyssal Hunger
Abyssal Hunger: This sword may absorb and store up to the maximum amount of power that can be generated by its user in a single hour.
Warning!
Attempting to use Void energy on this weapon will result in its destruction.
Current Curses: Pride Before the Fall
This sword requires Divinity to function, and without its presence will absorb the life force of its wielder until their demise. Wielding this sword will also bring the wielder to Aldeus’ attention.
Growth Reagents: 1000000 units of Divinity. 1 ounce of Minor God Bone.
Bonuses: None
Jonathan started laughing.
“What is it?” Eliza asked. “Is it actually cursed?”
“I think this is the perfect weapon for you,” Jonathan answered. “The curse is actually a blessing in disguise for you.”
“Any idea why everyone is so freaked out about it?”
“Looks like its because of the guy who cursed it. Aldeus is a god, and a pretty vindictive one, it seems. Using the sword lets him know where you are, and kills anyone without Divinity.”
Eliza grinned. “I see what you mean about it being perfect for me.” She sped off, the air folding around her as she headed for the stage. Nobody was paying any attention to the sword, too engaged in their fight to care. The golems had arrived and were brutally subduing some of the weaker combatants, but for the most part, the melee was only getting started.
Jonathan watched as Eliza snagged the Hungering Blade with a hand of wind, drawing it back to herself. A few people gave her pitying looks, and then went back to fighting. It was surprising just how venomous their hatred for the auctioneer was after a simply mistake, but in Telvaria, the gods were near omnipresent, and petty enough to punish any tiny mistake they deemed an insult to their power. Most likely, the original seller had been trying to get rid of the weapon.
Eliza returned to Jonathan’s side in less than a second, hefting her new sword in her hand. The weapon was glowing a bright gold, drawing in Divinity from her. Eliza didn’t seem to care.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Before anyone realizes that I’m not dying. We don’t want to draw any unnecessary attention. Especially if the gods are involved.”
Jonathan and Eliza left the auction hall, walking back through the rows of tents and vendors to the original portal to their stronghold in the Hells. A few people glanced over at the sword in Eliza’s hand, but for the most part, she was ignored.
As soon as they had stepped through the swirling portal and emerged back in the merchant plaza of the Bloodspill capital, Eliza let out a sigh. “This sword is still pulling on my Divinity. It really wants it.”
Jonathan looked over, concerned. “Is it hurting you? The description makes it seem pretty dangerous. I’m not sure what it meant by saying that it took Divinity. Are there any negative effects?”
“Not really. My pool is just decreasing steadily. I assume it will even out some time soon. After all, nobody with the proper abilities has used this sword before. It’s probably just hungry.”
On Jonathan’s back, Kharon stirred. “What is that blade?” it asked. “I can sense a huge amount of Divine power drifting from it.”
“Welcome back,” Jonathan said. “Did you finally process all of that blood and bone?”
Kharon had been mostly silent since Tiering up, conserving its energy until it was needed. Jonathan’s soul damage had negatively impacted the scythe to some degree, preventing it from recovering fully. It looked like that was over, now that he was healed.
“I did. Your soul trauma made the process a bit longer than it needed to be, though. I’m mostly back now.”
“Do you know anything about this blade?” Eliza asked hopefully. “You could sense the Divinity entering it. Is there anything else about it that might not have shown upon on Jonathan’s analysis?”
Kharon fell silent for a few seconds, before answering. “I’ve never seen that sort of metal before. Whatever its made of, the blade is a nearly bottomless energy sink. It isn’t especially durable or magically significant, but it should grow stronger the more energy you put into it.”
Eliza stared down at the Hungering Blade and her hands started to glow with a faint white light. Air elemental energy sank into the weapon, and it started to glow the same color in turn. Eliza’s eyes widened. “There’s so much space in here! It feels like I’m trying to fill a pool with a straw.”
“It said the blade could store up to an hour of your peak energy output,” Jonathan explained. “That’s a long while at this Tier. I’m interested in seeing what you can do with it.”
“I need to go test it out,” Eliza declared after a short pause, still looking at the weapon. “Give me a few days out in the wastes and I’ll be ready to keep climbing through the Circles.”
Jonathan nodded. “I have some things I need to attend to as well. How about three days? We can meet back on top of Avarana’s tower. It might take a bit longer to gather our forces though, now that we have so many fighters.”
“Bloodspill really was a massive boon to our fighting strength,” Eliza agreed. “We have almost a billion Tier 7s now. At least, I think that was the last count.”
Jonathan froze. “A billion?” His previous armies could be counted in the hundreds of thousands, or millions at most. In the previous circles, most people were lower level, slaves to those above them in the power hierarchy. Bloodspill was different. More people than not were high Tier warriors, able to level by killing their foes, far more plentiful than monsters.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Yeah. It’s kind of hard to wrap my head about, if I’m being honest. It’ll be very useful going forward. A massive fighting force that has already been trained.”
“That’s a good portion of the population of Earth,” Jonathan exclaimed. “Armies back there were barely more than a million for an entire country. A billion? I’m going to have to see this for myself.”
“They’re spread out across the realm right now,” Eliza told Jonathan. “The biggest groups right now are about fifty million. Now that the realm has been united they’ve started construction projects to expand outwards from the cities and restore Bloodspill.”
“Restore it to what?”
Eliza shrugged. “There are a few different theories, but the common consensus is that Bloodspill was once very different from what it is today. Most of the Hells were allowed a short grace period to develop civilizations before the Circle Lords were dispatched, so as to create something out of the ruins.”
Jonathan nodded his agreement. “It was like that in the Ash Heaps. This whole Greater Circle of Sloth has a common motif going with ruin and despoilment.”
“I wonder what the next Circle is going to look like,” Eliza mused. “Maybe a nice beach? I can only hope.”
“If it was going to be a beach, it would most likely be in the Circle of Sloth,” Jonathan reasoned. “More realistically it’s going to be a never ending field of corpses or something.”
Eliza’s lip curled and she gave Jonathan a playful shrug. “Don’t scare me like that! I’ve had enough of the Hells already, and we’re only on the first Greater Circle.”
“Do you want another break?” Jonathan asked. “We, or more accurately, you all, just liberated Bloodspill fully. We have time.”
Eliza looked longingly at the sword in her hand, but eventually nodded. “A few days, maybe? I still need to train with this blade.”
“I’ll be taking my leave, then,” Kharon said unexpectedly. The scythe shifted around and dropped from Jonathan’s back, transforming its lower half into a strange, animalistic form. “I want to fight. Even if it's just monsters.”
“Can you do that properly?” Jonathan asked worriedly. “I thought you could only move less than half of your body?
“Yes, but I can move my awareness around. I am also far more durable than most things my Tier.”
Jonathan couldn’t help but stare at his weapon, contorted into a strange, dog-like shape. The top half of its body was still recognizably a scythe, but the bottom was made up of four stubby metallic legs. Kharon gleamed, even in the faint light of the sun coming from behind the perpetual gloom of Bloodspill. Its glossy black surface was pristine, even around the crude legs it had constructed.
A few passersby gave Kharon odd looks, but nobody batted an eye otherwise. There were far stranger things in the Infinite Hells than a sentient weapon walking around.
“Well, good luck,” Jonathan said, a bit worriedly.
He wasn’t going to stop his scythe from exploring, especially considering that it was stronger than almost everything in this realm, but he couldn’t help but feel apprehensive. What if it got lost? What if it never came back? Jonathan hadn’t used Kharon that much in recent times, but the weapon was incredibly useful, and would be necessary going forward.
“I will meet you back here in three days,” Kharon declared. “Will that be enough time for you?”
Jonathan and Eliza shared a look before nodding. “That should be good,” Eliza said. “We don’t need to go on a honeymoon or something. Just catching up.”
Jonathan coughed at the unexpected mention of a honeymoon. “Yes. Just catching up.”
Eliza gave him a playful look that let him know she had noticed his reaction. It wasn’t until Kharon bounded off that she let him know verbally. “That caught your attention, huh?”
“It certainly did,” Jonathan admitted, looking away awkwardly. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t given that much thought. At least, since…”
Eliza grinned wickedly. “Since we got to know each other properly?”
“Since then. I suppose if this keeps going, and we don’t die anytime soon, it might be something we’ll have to deal with. You’re already by my side, but it would be even better if we sealed it fully.”
Eliza nodded, before freezing. “What about… No… I shouldn’t think about that now. How would that even work?”
“How would what work?” Jonathan asked. “Wait, you mean-”
“No!” Eliza said sharply, her face flushing. “Let’s wait until we think about that. I don’t want to even consider that, seeing where we are.”
Jonathan, the man who had slain Circle Lords, gods in their own right, balked at the images rushing through his mind. On Earth, he had always been the lonely type. Sure, he had engaged in a few flings. It would have been quite pathetic to not have had any contact with women for someone nearly thirty years old, but nothing longer than a month had passed. He had certainly never thought about having children. Living as a truck driver had made him apprehensive about raising a family, given that he would be away a lot of the time. If anything, being some sort of divine super-warrior butchering his way through Hell would be an even worse situation. However…
“There’s always a chance,” Jonathan found himself muttering. He shook his head, watching Eliza’s expression grow even more bashful. “Let’s get something to eat, shall we?”
“That sounds good,” Eliza replied, almost shouting in her relief.
The two headed off into the city, the sprawling mess of buildings just as inscrutable as when they had first set foot within its walls. Luckily, with the city as large as it was, most of the districts and shops repeated eventually. There were good places to eat, especially close to Avarana’s tower. It was hard to not notice the towering edifice behind them, casting a shadow over a good portion of the city. None of the other buildings nearby came close to its height, likely the result of the dragon’s arrogance. In medieval Europe, buildings had been made so as to not overshadow the local church of cathedral, purposefully accentuating the most important building in the town. It was the same here.
After a few minutes of walking, Eliza paused, looking over at a packed restaurant. “Oh, I love this place! We should go there.”
“What is it?” Jonathan asked, unable to tell from the sign, which simply said ‘Old Johnny’s”.
“It’s a buffet place,” Eliza explained. “I’d never seen one since leaving Earth, so I had to check it out. The food is incredible, and it’s really cheap.”
“Who’s Old Johnny?” Jonathan wondered out loud. “The owner?”
“The current owner’s distant ancestor. I believe fifty generations removed?”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “That restaurant has been here that long? What is that, a thousand years?”
Eliza shook her head. “A generation here is closer to a hundred. People have children later in life, or at least that’s what I gathered from talking to citizens. It allows them to gather more personal power so they can guarantee a better future. Especially with the widespread conscription here.”
Jonathan gave Eliza a long look. “When do you have the time to figure all of this out? Aren’t you fighting a lot?”
She shrugged. “Yes, but I’m a lot more approachable than ‘The Great Jonathan Harlowe, Hellbreaker and lord of all he surveys’. People come to talk to me as a way to talk to you. A lot of them want you to know more about their lives and stories, but are too afraid to talk.”
Jonathan frowned. “Why are they too afraid to talk? It is something I’m doing that I don’t realize?”
Eliza laughed. “That you don’t realize? Jonathan, you’re dressed in a black suit of dragonscale armor, carry around a scythe and frequently cover yourself in ominous purple light. It would be stranger if people weren’t apprehensive about you.”
Jonathan couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright. You know what? I’ll remove the armor for now. Kharon is gone as well, so that shouldn’t be much of an issue.”
Jonathan quickly stripped off his armor and tucked it away in his storage device, leaving him wearing a nondescript shirt and pants. Noticeably, he was without shoes. Because of his high stats, Jonathan tended to wear little padding under his armor, and considered shoes to be a waste of time.
“Need a little help?” Eliza asked, pulling a pair of shoes out of her storage device. They were suspiciously the right size for Jonathan.
“When did you get my feet measurements?” Jonathan asked. “Actually, don’t answer that. At least not here.”
“How about we just go in?” Eliza replied, chuckling.
Jonathan quickly put the shoes on and nodded, following Eliza close behind. She opened the door and strode in, revealing a tavern-like restaurant packed to the brim. The center of the room was filled with long tables, each covered in heaps of food. The smell was utterly delicious, especially with Jonathan's enhanced senses. He could almost taste it just by smelling it.
An older man stood at a desk by the door, smiling at them. “Five hundred Leviathan Marks each, please.”
Jonathan and Eliza forked out the money without issue. The man raised an eyebrow at their storage devices, but didn’t say anything. Instead he handed them each a small paper ticket.
They nodded their thanks and headed into the room, moving to the back of the line. Plates and cutlery were stacked at the end of the table, which they quickly picked up as they went by.
Jonathan piled his plate high with different cuts of meat, while Eliza went for some fish options that seemed out of place, given that there weren’t any oceans in Bloodspill.
“Where did those come from?” Jonathan asked, looking at Eliza’s plate.
“The fish? I think it’s from the Universal Trading Hub. Either that or somebody brought it from the Great Farm.”
“Oh. I guess that would make sense. I might have to try a piece then.” Jonathan picked up a serving spoon and scooped up a large piece of what looked like salmon.
With his plate filled, at least for now, he followed Eliza to a nearby table. There were a few soldiers at a table nearby, who initially glared at them. Then the men seemed to realize how powerful Jonathan and Eliza were, and went back to their meals.
Jonathan dug in immediately, forking bits of meat into his mouth. The food was, as seemed to be the norm at higher levels, shockingly good. He didn’t recognize any of the meats, and the flavors were different from any cut of meat he had tried before.
His favorite had the texture of a steak, but had a hard to place smoky flavor that mingled perfectly with the slightly sweet sauce that covered it.
“So, what do you want to do?” Jonathan asked Eliza, after he had polished off almost half of the plate. “We have a few days, which is enough to travel around Bloodspill, but not do too much else. This world is getting big, even for me and you.”
“Yeah. Bloodspill is enormous. Millions of miles across. It’s bigger than the Sun was back on Earth. I can only imagine how large the later circles are going to get.”
“What even is there to see here, though?” Jonathan asked uncertainly. “I know you said people have started building it up to be better than before, but there still isn’t much right now other than cities and barren wasteland.”
Eliza winked. “There is a bit more than meets the eye. Avarana, as it turns out, wasn’t entirely a battle maniac. She liked her comforts, and liked to have them away from the eyes of her followers. One of her attendants, since freed from her service, works near here, as a matter of fact. In a tailor’s shop.”
“Really? What did they say?”
“She told me that Avarana built an entire complex in a mountain range. About half a day’s journey for us.”
“That far? Where is it exactly?”
“It’s not the distance, so much as the defences,” Eliza explained. “The mountain range is the center of a gigantic elemental array. Its made up of Earth and Air elemental power, and a giant hurricane surrounds it. You can’t see it from here, it just looks like a dust cloud, but up close it’s nearly impossible to get through.”
“Is what’s inside even worth getting to?” Jonathan asked. “Sounds like a nightmare to even enter the complex. Did your source tell you what was there?”
“Yes. Apparently, it’s like a resort from Earth, but scaled up to the size of a dragon. Filled with palm trees, exotic animals, all sorts of luxuries from the Universal Trading Hub. Things that the rest of Bloodspill wasn’t allowed.”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Well, now that Avarana’s gone, perhaps we can change that. Is there any way to bring that barrier down, or is it something you have to brute force?”
“Avarana prided herself on the strength of her scales, using them to get through the barrier. Any of her attendants that she brought, she carried within her mouth. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable ride, but she didn’t care. It was better than death, in any case.”
“Hmm. Avarana is about as strong as me, and you’re pretty close. We also have elements that can deal with the storm pretty easily. You can control it directly, and I can just erase it.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Eliza said with a nod. “If we want to get there, we need to leave now. It’s an hour or two away at our top speeds. Well, the speeds we can hit without damaging the world.”
Jonathan finished off his meal and got to his feet. Eliza quickly followed, and the two left the restaurant, striding out onto the streets of Avarana’s citadel. Well, Jonathan’s citadel now.
Reaching the walls took a lot longer than they expected, given the immense amount of traffic on the ground. Flying was possible, but almost as difficult, given that others were flying as well. The city had a designated airspace, about a mile above the streets. All sorts of flying vehicles, beasts and people vied for the airways, making it a confusing morass of noise and occasionally violence. Unless Jonathan wanted to flex his authority and force his way through, there was little choice but to take the streets.
Thankfully, Avarana, or at least her builders, had taken into account the needs of higher Tier individuals. Some of the roads were barred to anyone under a certain level of power, to ensure that any accidents were kept to a minimum. While anyone worth their salt would be able to track lower Tier persons in their area, mistakes did happen.
Using these roads, Jonathan was able to get to the wall in less than half an hour, though if he had been able to move at his full speed, it would have taken less than a minute. However, the city around him would have suffered for it. Just the wind of his passing at the conservative speed he traveled at was high enough to buffet those nearby, and in one case, knocked a slight gnomish traveler off her feet. That had set Jonathan back a few minutes, after a profuse round of apologies. The woman had been unharmed, given that she was Tier 7, but her ego was bruised.
Finally escaping the labyrinthine streets allowed Jonathan to take a deep breath and survey… well, the bland expanse of grey dust and rock that made up most of Bloodspill.
Looking towards the horizon, Jonathan spotted what Eliza was talking about. A smudge on the horizon, so far away that it appeared to be so even with Jonathan’s incredible vision. It was an unfathomable distance to a mortal, though easily possible to reach for him.
“Lead the way,” Jonathan told Eliza. “You know the lay of the land better.
Eliza gathered her elemental energy and Divinity and took off, a drift of dust spraying over Jonathan. He erased it with the Void before it could hit him and took off in turn, speeding after Eliza. Each footstep left a crater, the sides slightly melted from the force.
Time passed by with the position of the sun in the sky as the only way to tell. The world of Bloodspill changed slightly as they went, transitioning through various shades of grey. Sometimes there were monsters, though they were avoided for the most part through sheer speed. Of those that were stupid enough to attack, they were quickly put in their place by Jonathan’s fists.
The mountain range slowly came into sight, surrounded by an impenetrable storm filled with boulders and a few chunks of rock the size of small mountains. It was a uniquely intimidating sight, closing off Jonathan’s view of the horizon beyond.
“This is it?” Jonathan said a bit uselessly, amazed by the sight in front of him. It extended for thousands of miles in every direction, not just a force of nature but a monument to its power.
“Yep. Now all that remains is getting through. That might be easier said than done.”
Eliza frowned up at the monolithic hurricane of dust and rock. Even from here, the wind was noticeable. It would have been like a hurricane on Earth, but to Jonathan and Eliza, it was like a calm breeze. However, it would only get worse the closer to the center they got.
