Theodore didn’t waste anymore time and slithered towards the gates, when he’d gotten close enough, they would push themselves open automatically and a blinding light would wash over his figure, followed by an announcement.
[Would you like to exit the ‘Eternal Purgatory’?]
‘Yes.’
With that final thought, he felt a wave of drowsiness crashing onto his mind, and in mere seconds, everything went dark.
When his vision had cleared and adjusted, he found himself back in the Ancient Cavern. His fireball was still the only source of light in the dark hollow and his friends were still there in the same position.
Merlin was crouching next to the sleeping Eugene, who’d turned back into his human form, he was sweating from head to toe and his shirt had been taken off possibly because Merlin was afraid he might die from overheating.
When the archer saw Theodore, his eyes instantly widened with shock. “Holy f*ck, you’re huge!”
“Not the time, Merlin.” Theodore got a little closer to Eugene before using one of his newly acquired skills.
[Asclepius’ Secrets]
Magically, the brunet’s body began to glow a soft light green as shining gold particles sprinkled from a few inches above him, in only a few seconds, he would slowly open his eyes.
“What…?”
“Eugene!” Merlin sounded ecstatic. “How are you feeling?”
“…” The other man didn’t reply for a moment, seemingly still dazed from having just woken up. “Great, I feel great, did Theo—“
As soon as Eugene’s gaze landed on Theodore, his whole body froze.
“What the f*ck?”
“I know, right? He almost doubled his last size!” Merlin shook his head in disbelief.
Theo only let out a sigh in response. “I died once inside that dungeon, it’s only natural that I grow a lot stronger in the process.”
“You died?” The ginger frowned.
“Yes, met the God of Medicine, came back, and killed the Devil.”
“The Devil?” Eugene slowly got up from the floor, the healing spell still working on him, the chunk of flesh that’d been bitten off were showing signs of regeneration, muscle fibers and veins miraculously materialized and weaved themselves together, it seemed that his wounds would heal in around a few minutes.
“Lucifer, yes. He was in there.”
“What? How did you beat him?” Merlin was the first to ask.
“I used his own spell against him.”
Eugene spoke next. “Like a Rebound spell? Isn’t that supposed to be super rare and hard to learn?”
Theodore shook his head. “I just learned the actual spell on my own.”
Merlin suddenly threw his hands in the air with a heavy sigh. “I’m not even surprised at this point, how about you take my name? I feel like being called ‘Merlin’ is an insult to you.”
“No, you can keep it.”
Eugene clasped his hands together, he seemed to have regained his energy, as if he wasn’t at death’s door a few moments ago. “Okay people, can we get out of here now? I don't want to be here for a second longer.”
Merlin looked behind him towards the large tunnel in the wall. “…Do we really have to walk for hours again?”
“Wait, let me check something first.” Theodore opened his attribute window again and searched what the Status Orb had given him.
<<Titles: Demon King of Pride [NEW!]>>
<<Unique Magic: Demon Arts [NEW!]>>
<<Bloodline Skill: Lightbringer [NEW!]>>
Merlin leaned in closer, even though he couldn’t see the panel. “Got any good skills?”
“I’m looking through it right now.”
<<Unique Magic: Demon Arts
Lvl. 1
Type: Versatile Magic.
Requirement for Upgrade: Usage and increase proficiency.
Cooldown: Depends on spell (5 seconds to ???)
Description: A one of a kind magic created by Lucifer with the purpose of rebelling against the divine, it has a viarity of useful spells ranging from support to all-out attack and even a suicidal ritual which only the true demon king was able to use. Many of the demon race adapted to this magic, although none could bring out its full potential like the creator could. Now that you’ve inherited his title and magic, you’re now the master of the Demon Arts.
Spell List:
-Chains of Sin
-Hell Fire
-Dark Veil
[…]>>
<<Bloodline Skill: Lightbringer
Lvl. 1
Type: Passive Skill
Requirement for Upgrade: [Unknown]
Cooldown: None
Description: Once the brightest star in the sky, the original owner of this name had alas seeked for a higher place and inevitably was brought down, this status had stuck with him even after the Fall, but it’d never been brought out, uttered, or even remembered. Now you, the Bringer of Dawn’s inheritor, had finally responded to its pained cries and brought it into the light, this name will forever be in your debt and will assist you with all skills belonging to its previous owner.
Bonus Effect: Increase proficiency with the Unique Magic ‘Immortal Flames’. Increase resistance to attacks relating to ‘Evil’.>>
<<Title: Demon King of Pride
Description: A name feared by many demons, with this name you unlock the potential to learn demon-related spells and the Ancient Cavern has now become your domain.>>
Theodore thought that the title didn’t give him anything useful, but it turned out that he was very wrong. He figured that if the ‘Ancient Cavern’ was now his, he could practically do anything with it, right?
‘How does this work? Can I just summon a portal?’
[Currently you’re at Floor 54. Would you like to teleport to Floor 0?]
Theodore was slightly startled by the sudden notification, it spoke in the same feminine voice as before when he was about to enter Lucifer’s throne room. ‘Yes, it would be nice if you can take my friends with me too.’
[As you wish.]
The air in front of him suddenly began to crackle as sparks flew out of nowhere, the flickers of fire grew larger and larger until a circular plate was formed, it was big enough for Theodore to fit through.
“You can open portals!?” Merlin shouted, surprised.
“Only in the Ancient Cavern, but here’s our exit.”
Eugene whistled as he stepped forward, picking up his torn shirt from the floor. “Maybe you should take Merlin’s name after all.”
The brunet was the first to walk into the portal, followed by Merlin, who seemed hesitant at first, then Theodore slithered through as well.
.
.
.
Once everyone had emerged through the other side, the swirling flames slowly shrunk until only a small spark was left, and even that would disappear in only a second.
The sun was starting to rise from the horizon, signaling a new day, the two humans let out sighs of relief as they all began to walk back the way they’d come from.
“So, it’s time isn’t it?” Merlin was the first to notice that their battle wasn’t over just yet, despite knowing that, his voice sounded tired, like he didn’t want to continue fighting anything else for the day.
Eugene put his hands behind his head as he leaned up slightly to look at the forest ceiling. “Are we really fighting the Griffins today?”
Hearing that name made Theodore’s stomach churned. “Yes, I can’t leave my dad in there for a second longer.”
Merlin pursed his lips. “Alright, alright…Let’s hurry up then.”
“Should we start planning things while we walk?” Eugene suggested, extending out one of his hands as if trying to get their attention.
“Oh yeah, Griffin’s tech building has a sh*t ton of security systems.” Merlin started. “They’ve developed a machine that could cancel magic in a small area, they probably have that all over the place.”
“And,” Eugene tilted his head slightly. “Theodore, you’re way too big to fit through the door.”
“I’ll just break in.”
“Yeah sure, but they have secret weapons too. I’ve already told you that the place held an unholy amount of secrets.” Merlin turned to look at his best friend while still walking.
“But can they break through my scales though? My rank is S plus now.”
“While that is very impressive,” Eugene genuinely sounded surprised. “I’ve overheard some big shots say that they have about ten S ranks at their disposal, and S ranks aren’t even made public yet!”
Theodore was still confident that he could take them on very easily, awakened humans, even if they’re high ranked, usually don’t have more than ten skills to use, unlike Theo who had enough to make his head spin every time he opened his attribute window. “How can they be stronger than Lucifer?”
“Who knows?” Merlin shrugged, turning back around before he could run into a tree. “You remember Oliver? There could be someone stronger than him inside that place, or hell, maybe they have a hundred Olivers in there.”
“…” While Theodore was sure they couldn’t kill him, but now, after hearing what the two had to say, he wasn’t so sure if he could kill ‘them’.
The Griffins had been keeping secrets ever since the time before the gate creatures, so they could very well have a nuke that they could set off the moment he let his guard down.
And he didn’t know if he could tank a nuclear bomb just yet.
“That’s fine,” Theodore finally spoke after a minute of silence. “Even if I can’t kill him now, I can wait until then. Right now, I just want to get my dad out of there.”
Merlin hummed with a nod, agreeing with his best friend. “That plan sounds a lot more plausible, I’m down.”
Eugene just shrugged. “You helped me, so of course I’ll help you, I don’t like owing people favors.”
“Oh, and by the way.” Merlin stopped before fully turning to face Theodore. “Eugene made a good point earlier, you’ll have to bust in like a tank to get inside the building, wouldn’t that be kind of bad? For a rescue mission…Threatening the kidnappers doesn’t sound like a good plan.”
“Ah, I have that covered, don’t worry.” Theodore sounded buoyant, which raised his friends’ eyebrows, even Eugene whipped his head back to look at him with a curious expression.
“What do you mean by that?”
Theodore chose this moment to reveal his new ability, after reading how to use it during his time in the dungeon, he only needed to think about it and the System would take it from there.
[The Skill ‘First Deceptor’ has been activated!]
Dark mist began rising from beneath him and it spiraled upwards until it engulfed his entire figure, his friends stood in awe as they watched the scene unfold before them.
“Is that…a skill?” Between the two of them, Eugene has a more sensitive instinct, and he could tell that something seemed off about the smoke; it didn’t take him long to realize that he’d felt a familiar air back at the Ancient Cavern.
Soon, the black fumes would slowly dissipate, parting away from where Theodore was supposed to be standing, after only a few seconds, the two men would find themselves standing face to face with another human.
Merlin’s jaw dropped the instant he saw the person’s face. “Theo?”
Theodore was slightly taller than Merlin, but still a few inches shorter than Eugene, he was wearing a grey sweater over a white polo shirt, paired with straight-legged jeans and black sneakers; they were his favorite outfit because it felt the most comfortable for him.
He ran his hand along his dark hair, seeing that they were longer than his usual haircut, he didn’t know what image the skill had used to give him this appearance but he wasn’t complaining. “I thought it would leave me naked but I guess not.”
[Your clothings are akin to your scales.]
‘Huh.’
“What the f*ck.” Eugene slowly shook his head, eyes glued to Theodore as if not believing what he was seeing.
“Okay,” Merlin took a deep breath. “Problem solved then, you can turn into a human now.”
“It’s temporary, but it’ll have to do.” Theodore shrugged for the first time in months, he still felt slightly odd with his body movements, but it shouldn’t take long for him to adjust. “Oh, this isn’t the only surprise; I’ve got something for the both of you.”
“Something for us?” Eugene and Merlin looked at each other.
Theodore opened his attribute window, he was specifically looking at the small tab on top of the screen that said “Storage”. When he focused on it, another panel would appear from behind the current one and swapped with it.
He'd apparently gotten it from his evolution.
The Storage tab consisted of seven by seven smaller boxes, each of which had the ability to hold any object as long as it wasn’t too big, it was basically an inventory function like those in video games.
He hasn’t experimented with its limits just yet, he only knew that it can’t store living beings Currently, there are six items inside the Storage.
Small doodles of the objects were encased inside those tiny boxes, some of them took up more than a single space, the largest one spanning over a four by four block.
Theodore decided to take that one out first, and with a single thought, a swirling small blue portal appeared next to his right hand.
“What is that?” Merlin seemed intrigued as he peered his head slightly closer.
“Oh, this one’s for Eugene.” Theodore reached inside of it and pulled out a massive double-bladed battleaxe, the portal had to expand because of the weapon’s size, it was almost as tall as him, and only specific classes could use such a thing.
Eugene stared at the axe with a look of confusion and awe. “That’s for me?”
The battleaxe’s appearance was nothing short of beautiful, like it’d been forged with consideration and patience, the whole body was made of a silvery material while the handle was nicely wrapped in reddish leather, near the knob, there was something engraved into the handle in gold, it appeared to be lines and sharp edges similar to the nordic runes.
Theodore lifted the axe horizontally and handed it to Eugene. “Yep, that’s for you.”
The brunet continued to look at it for a moment before finally taking it from his hands, although as soon as Theo let go of the weapon, Eugene almost instantly lost balance and dropped the axe, luckily, he was fast enough and jumped back, or else the sharp blade might’ve already taken his foot. “Sh*t! It’s heavy!”
Theodore was surprised, he knew the weapon was big but Beastmen were one of the classes with the highest strength level, while their numbers were low, there were some that decided to make a living online and streamed their monster hunts, showing off their power and their abnormally large weapons. “Is your level too low?”
Eugene looked disappointed. “I…I don’t use my Beastmen skills much…”
“No wonder…” Theodore muttered as he stared at the battleaxe, it was unfortunate, but Eugene couldn’t use it with his current strength. He lightly tapped the axe’s handle and another portal appeared, it would move downwards and take the weapon away before it would disperse away too.
[The ‘???’ Battleaxe has been stored.]
“Don’t worry, I have another one.” Theodore took out another weapon, this time the battleaxe had a single silver blade with a pointy, jagged butt, the patterns engraved on the axehead were equally as mesmerizing as the other one and the handle was made from pitch-black wood with a similar red leather wrapped around where the wielder would have to grab it. “Didn’t check its efficiency, but I can tell it’s high quality.”
Eugene instantly took the smaller axe from Theo, it was larger than an average wood-cutting axe, being around as big as the brunet’s werewolf form’s upper body. Although it didn’t look as threatening as the large axe, Eugene seemed pleased with his new toy. “Thanks man! I’ve always wanted to use one of these!”
“You’re a fan of ‘The Mad Tiger’ or something?” Merlin chuckled.
“Hey! He’s the best Beastman streamer on the market! Who doesn’t like him?”
“I don’t, his jokes are lame.” The ginger mockingly scoffed with his arms crossed.
“…” Eugene’s eyes went down to his new axe before it averted back to Merlin. “I respect your opinion, but don’t blame me next time if this lil’ guy went for your neck.”
Merlin laughed off the death threat. “Hah! You’re not the only one with a weapon, right Theo? You got one for me too?”
Theodore nodded and called for another portal. “Of course, I got six weapons from that dungeon, and three of them were bows.”
The swirling dark blue mist suddenly enlarged and three bows fell out of it, as soon as the last one was out, the portal closed.
Merlin’s eyes instantly lit up. “Oh sh*t! I have to pick?”
“What? You’re going to use all three of them?”
“Well, I could?”
“But you have two hands?”
Merlin crouched down and picked up one of the bows, its limbs were seemingly made out of solidified flames, it has an arch covering the grip and the bowstring shined a blood red under the sunlight, when the ginger pulled on the string, an orange-ish silhouette of an arrow appeared. “…I have to find a way to use all of them, this is sick.”
The redhead got up with the bow in his hand and decided to use a nearby tree as a test subject, the frame of the arrow was an actual projectile, much to Merlin’s excitement, he took aim and let go of the bowstring, letting the arrow fly until it struck its target.
Instantly from the point of impact, the bolt exploded, leaving a large dented burn mark on the tree’s trunk.
Merlin’s jaw dropped from the unexpected outcome. “…Oh my lord.”
The ginger immediately went to try out the other two bows, one of them was light blue and the other was pure black with some spots of purple.
The azure bow didn’t give much of an extravagant result, while it has infinite arrows like the fire one, at first Merlin thought it couldn’t do anything else until Theodore told him that it could split into multiple projectiles if there was more than one target.
“This one looks the coolest.” Merlin held up the black bow, letting the amethyst purple gleamed under the newly risen sun. “Do you know what this does?”
Theodore titled his head. “I believe you can control the arrow’s direction with it.”
“Huh?” Merlin stared at his best friend, eyes widened slightly.
Theo extended out his hand and gestured for the redhead to hand the weapon over, and when he did, he began to demonstrate what he’d meant earlier. “It’s hard to control, but it’s sort of fun when you get the hang of it.”
He pulled back the bow string and an arrow-shaped purple light appeared in his fingers, nocked and ready to fire. He then blindly let it travel in a straight line, but then as it was about to hit the dummy tree, it suddenly weaved to the left and circled around the bark once before returning to him, he held his hand up and grabbed the arrow, causing it to disperse into small particles.
Merlin blinked. “What the hell…? Did you practice beforehand?”
“No, I just read the weapon’s description.”
“Then how did you ‘get the hang of it’!?”
Theodore’s lips slightly curled upwards, it was barely visible and it would’ve gone unnoticed if Merlin wasn’t used to seeing it. “Well…I might have more or less practiced archery when you weren’t looking.”
“No wonder why Rhys wanted you dead.” Eugene spoke, catching their attention. “You’re a mage for god’s sake, don’t just go around using other class’ weapons.”
Theodore rolled his eyes. “My defense has four digits, I can be a tank if I want to.”
“Okay, okay…” Merlin sighed before leaning down to pick up the other two bows, holding it in an embrace as if they were his most precious things. “While you can only use one bow, I can use ‘all’ three, I’ll show you my quick swap skills.”
“…Where are you even going to put them?” Eugene raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll show you! I don’t need a quiver anymore so I have plenty of space!”
“Alright!” Theodore clasped his hands together, making his friends turn to face him. “We all got our new weapons, I think it’s time.”
Eugene looked down at his axe and smiled brightly. “You bet! I can’t wait to test out this bad boy.”
Merlin was too busy fidgeting with all three of his bows to properly give a response, but Theodore could tell that his best friend was equally as excited to use them as Eugene.
But Theo was undoubtedly the most delighted among them.
‘I’m ready now, Rhys, let’s see what your family is backing you up with.’