SWNOVELXO Chapter 21: Chapter-21
If you notice any errors, please feel free to give me constructive feedback. English is not my first language, so if you notice any mistakes, please mention them in the comment section at the end of the chapter. I do not own Overlord. All property rights belong to their respective creators. Let's begin the story!
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Chapter-21
Múspellsheim,
Yggdrasil,
Earth – January of Year 2133,
Overlord Verse;
The Eternal Flying Garden of Utopia – Avalon:
A soft flash of magic illuminated a small space at the foot of a mountain surrounded by volcanoes. Kai who had teleported on the mountain, adjacent to a cave inspected his surrounding for players and headed inside.
He stepped inside, ignoring the faint chill of a cry from bats of the cave with scorching interior. His boots echoed gently on stone as he made his way forward, weaving through tight corridors until the path opened into a junction.
The ceiling expanded.
Before him, the path branched off in five paths, each corridor leading to a room containing treasure, with a Guardian Golem guarding them. The path that led to them, filled to brim with traps that could kill even level 100 players. And this was the place with the weakest security from the place he wished to travel.
Looking around at the branching paths, he stood at the intersection and mused, 'Those treasure rooms will mislead the spells and items that are used to find the treasure or route to traverse dungeons and mazes. We have set up quite a number of traps and yet, no one has even managed to find this place. Much less invade our guild," and sighed. "Well, that is also a great fortune in its own right. As they say, a blessing in disguise."
Kai stood at the center of the intersection and closed his eyes, before muttering softly, "The Door to Avalon is the door that leads to eternal utopia, Agartha."
The stone beneath his feet glowed faintly, a teleportation magic array lighting up—one among dozens of others hidden across the chamber. Concealed among many other that were traps, to divert the attention of attackers from it. With a blue glow, he vanished.
Kai's view changed to finding himself inside a small hole with no light, and with the quiet dripping of water sound beside, occupying his ears and with a feeling of darkness encroaching on him – while it was a simple illusion, it did its job. With his vision snatched, at least of those of who did not possess night vision and items to enhance their night vision.
He stepped forward, brushing aside moss-covered vines that veiled a natural opening. As he passed through the hole, the darkness receded.
What greeted him was no longer a cave.
A vast subterranean cavern unfolded before him—lit by soft, ethereal light pouring down from unseen sources above. Bioluminescent vines twirled around towering stone pillars. Crystals shimmered faintly beneath the water of a quiet lake. And floating above it all—perched upon nothing—was the soaring silhouette of Avalon – Now his guild base.
Despite the artistic view that could compel most to drop their guard, mesmerized by the view; the place was filled with one-time summoning arrays that summoned variety of monsters and mercenary to attack the invaders along with various other traps.
Kai walked slowly, crossing the stone path that led to a golden door resting beside the lake. Runes flickered along its frame. 'Hmm! I have yet to find any job class that can use runes, beside the decoration stickers that we can purchase from few shops in some towns.' He mused as he entered through the door. 'I have made it possible for few of our NPCs to be able to create those stickers and add cosmetic effects of the runes on items, but I wonder how it would function in the New World.'
And he stepped inside the Garden of Avalon.
The air changed instantly – warmer, fragrant, like springtime. Though he could not feel the wind caressing his skin, as the game did not link their sense of touch in the virtual reality of Yggdrasil.
He stood in the center of the garden only briefly, before slipping on a ring from his inventory and activating its teleportation function.
This time, he arrived on a small floating platform, partially embedded into the waterfall – the only stable land in the midst of a massive, vertical cascade. Water thundered down in both the direction, creating an unbroken curtain of white that stretched to infinity. Only a hanging bridge connected the platform to the main landmass of the tenth floor, the largest floor of the guild, expanded beyond the capacity with cash shop, guild store and some string pulling from the behind the scenes by both Kai and Shouko.
Kai took a breath. The view hadn't changed. He felt butterflies fluttering in his stomach, every time he laid his eyes on the view.
Across the waterfall and the bridge was the city – Vanitas Regnum Anta guild's city. Buildings stacked in chaotic but strangely charming rows. Bridges ran through the air and ground, towers connected to sky, open-air market zones dotted with lamps and cobblestone patterns – crafted individually by players who cared more about creativity than optimization. The shops whose purpose remained unknown with no stream of customers.
There were castles. Too many castles. Everyone who joined the guild had taken some part of the tenth floor and declared it their dominion. Several members had even claimed chunks of terrain and started building replica buildings of entertainment, food places, magic facilities, weapon stores, theatre, opera house, malls, gardens, parks, restaurants, hotels, research towers and sports complex. The city housed almost every facility that one could think of.
None of them followed a central plan. The city layout was a mess, and chaotic. Yet there was an underlining order that the buildings and other structures followed. The presence of order in chaos, puzzled Kai every time he laid his eyes on the city, but he didn't it give much thought and accepted the way city was and was even happy with it.
Kai's eyes were drawn toward the far end, where a large castle towered – the largest structure in the floor. Its gates closed, flanked by giant golems. Their size dwarfing most boss monster of Yggdrasil, except for a select few.
Kai activated another short-range teleport, landing softly on the rooftop of that very castle. From there, he could see it all—the waterfall, the mist, the city stretching outward. And just beyond it, floating behind the central palace, a dome-shaped structure hovered above the waterfall. Inspired by the underground tomb of Nazarick's meeting chamber and modified for practicality with many other facilities added, it was their gathering spot for meetings before the raid or for other any decisions.
Kai had designed it himself. While, he had hired a few of the best designers and artists from his company, who had joined his guild for a short time and helped him build it according to his and Hitoshi's design. Though Hitoshi and Kindred Star had been against it at first, but after calculating the time it would require them to take on such an arduous task, with their indifferent guildmates who were busy with their building and only planned to make it more function oriented and were satisfied with initial palace that the Avalon was, unlike himself and Kai – As both wished to design the Guild in a grandiose design and were not fully satisfied with the initial design of the Avalon.
They speculated it would have taken them more than four or five years, with them working in their free time, aside from their job and playing Yggdrasil to explore, complete quests and battle.
Kai exhaled slowly reminiscing the old days.
Their guild had expanded with new players joining through referral of old players of guild and with housing five World Champions, they had managed to rotate teams to handle dungeons, raids, hunting and mining efficiently. From a scattered band of oddballs to a hundred-players guild, filled with friends, classmates, casuals, and a few obsessed crafters. Most didn't care for power builds. Few had no combat strength at all and most role-playing with their desired class and race. And with few who had disastrous builds, meant solely for role-playing. Most of them were uninterested, lazy or may be with their horrendous skills to design and create NPCs, compared against the ones created by Kai and Hitoshi, they had left it for Kai and Hitoshi to handle.
Kai sighed, he looked over at the race track with cars parked off the tracks. There were multiple race tracks aside from the one for cars. The other tracks for horses, bikes, carts, and a track expanding across the city for flying mounts.
It had all started when Kai and Hitoshi had managed to build a mini-computer inside the game using only game features. 'Well, calling that a computer is a bit of an exaggeration, but they were computers that performed large number calculations with hexa-numbers. Getting items and designing them to work together and function as logic gates was a bit hard, but we somehow managed it. The most difficult part was the flipflops for performing multiple calculations. Yet, our hard work paid off.' He mused, looking over at a F1 like car.
From there they used Wish Upon A Star, throwing loads of money at the cash shop, neither Kai nor Shouko nor Manabu hesitated after the mini-computer had been built by Kai and Hitoshi. They all poured resources to create what he now witnessed before him, shocking many players in the guild and even a few devs from what they had pulled off, using enchanting and blacksmithing to create a mini-computer or calculator with memory retention feature.
Kai smiled happy at the progress but with a few players who had left the game, reminded him of the era that closed in – the end of Yggdrasil was drawing near.
Shaking his head of such thoughts, he teleported inside the meeting room, located inside the flying dome like structure behind the Castle. Ready to join the meeting, as they prepared for the big raid.
******
Abyss;
World Enemy Raid – Abyssal Void That Which Lies Outside the Reaches of Gods and Yggdrasil:
World Enemy: Sovereign of Original SINS – Demon of the Abyss:
A silent fog veiled the sky, if it could be called one. In this place, no stars hung above—only endless void stretching in a shade darker than black. There was no sky. A realm outside Yggdrasil, as per the lore Kai read when they had unlocked the event.
After they had completed through the Ten Archangels of Sephira – World Enemy Raid and also cleared the Lords of the Seven Deadly Sins, under the specified time limit for each raid, they had unlocked a hidden event, A New World Enemy. 'Sovereign of ORIGINAL SINS – Demon of the Abyss, A World Enemy said to possess the combined strength of the Lords of the Seven Deadly Sins and the Ten Archangels of Sephira.' Kai mused.
With the new quest unlocked, they had received the key of Abyss. A key that opens the doors of the Abyss. 'The key of Abyss – unlocked the doors of Abyss but it is a single use item, and if we were to fail the raid, we will have to again clear the raids and meet the requirements, if we are even allowed another chance.' Kai mused, gazing at the demons lunging toward him to be only crushed by the Tyrant's Hands, that he summoned.
'A Ten Floor Dungeon, with each floor ruled by a Primordial Demon and at the end awaiting us is the Master of these Primordial Demons. The Sovereign of Original Sins, a supposed Outer God, born abomination from the Shadow of the Progenitor, Origin and Creator of the Outer Gods. This was added after the Outer Gods event… At least that's what Kayaba said. Players have to first complete the Outer Gods pack and should have cleared the World Enemy raid of Archangels and Lords of the Seven Deadly Sins under a specific time to unlock this Raid. This is quite a painful raid with probably, the most number of requirements to attempt this raid. Moreover, the time is also hidden.' Kai mused, venturing inside the Abyss along with his guildmates.
Clearing the Nine floors with each ruler of the floor, whose strength surpassed Boss Monsters of high-level dungeon and lacking just a fraction of strength for each of them to equal the Lords of the Seven Deadly Sins and the Ten Archangels of Sephira.
Against all odds, Kai and his guildmates with a very large supply of potions, items and artefacts had come to this raid.
Now, they stood before a door.
Unlike the ornate, dramatic gateways that had marked each floor, this one was simple. A plain obsidian archway, set into a slab of cracked stone that floated in the void.
Kai stood at the front, gaze fixed on the gate.
"We've burned almost all our supplies," Hitoshi muttered behind him. "You sure about this?"
"Imagine the loot," Wandering Soul said with a faint grin.
Zaroth laughed. "Yes! Let despair become a crown we carve ourselves!"
They stood in silence for a moment. Then Kai stepped forward.
And the door opened.
******
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**The End**
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