The Eternal: A Boxed Set (World of Ga'em Book 6) Read online

  More mysteries are piling up around you. Go find the Grand Wizard Krof and see if you can get any answers from him regarding the Death Seal. Rewards: Unknown.

  Just how long does this chain quest go on for? I wondered. As long as it takes for me to find out who I am, I guess.

  Freya looked at me. “Ready to leave?”

  “Right away?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “We don’t have the time to laze around. And that Death Seal within your mind only means we need to speed up even more.”

  “Understood,” I said and followed her out. A part of me feared that the Phantom Lord was coming after me, but the rest wanted to dismiss the emotion, knowing the fear was only going to be a hindrance.

  “Also,” Ijyela said, standing up from her chair, “I’m not sure either of you know this, so I will tell you anyway. Markus Goodfield has finally made a move from his side.”

  “Yeah,” Freya said. “I got a message about that just a few minutes ago.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked.

  “King Markus Goodfield has assigned his Elite Squads to comb the Kingdom of Aingard and come after what he deems a ‘Rogue Eternal.’ I do not know what that means for you two.”

  Rogue Eternal actually sounds pretty cool. I grinned. “So now the Alliance of Light is after me too?” I asked.

  Freya nodded.

  “This isn’t something you could have prevented, Zoran,” Ijyela said. “Just be careful about it.”

  “I’ll try to,” I said.

  “We’ll be okay,” Freya said as we walked out the door. “Sorry for leaving so suddenly, Ijyela.”

  “Don’t worry, dear.” The elven witch smiled. “It was to be expected. This situation calls for haste. Just let me know what Krof has to say about this situation.”

  “We’ll take our leave, then.” She bowed.

  I followed suit. “Thank you for everything,” I said.

  “Good luck, you two.” Ijyela smiled. “Hopefully Krof doesn’t kill you on sight.”

  ***

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “She was kidding, wasn’t she?” I asked.

  “Well…” Freya kept walking. “That Wizard Krof doesn’t really have the best record for acting rationally. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched for him to kill someone on sight.”

  I blinked. “So Ijyela wasn’t kidding?”

  “She probably was, but it’d be best if we stayed on guard when we meet Krof.”

  “Why would he even kill anyone on sight?

  “When you’re a wizard like Krof, people have tried to kill you quite a few times.”

  “Oh.” I quietened. How many assassination attempts happened to make him this paranoid? I wondered.

  My stomach grumbled, interrupting my thoughts, and earning a chuckle from the Moon Elf.

  “Well, someone’s hungry.” She smiled. “We should probably stop and make some food for ourselves. We’ve got a long walk ahead, and starting with an empty stomach is probably not the way to go.”

  I nodded.

  “When was the last meal you had?” Freya asked.

  “Uhhh,” I said, thinking hard.

  “Wait.” She looked at me. “Don’t tell me you haven’t had a single meal since you woke up in the Viridian Forest.”

  I blinked. “Oh wow,” I said.

  “How are you even walking around?!” she exclaimed.

  “Maybe my hunger gets reset every time I Resurrect?”

  “Or maybe Eternals just don’t get hungry as easily,” she chuckled. “Anyway, I don’t have any food on me, so we’re going to have to hunt something down.”

  “I’m fine with that as long as I don’t have to use a bow,” I said. “I suck at archery.”

  “Swords are fine.” She slid hers out of her sheath.

  “What do we even hunt in here? Squirrels?” I laughed.

  She shook her head. “Wolves.”

  My laughter stopped. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “Good protein. And wolves are much easier to find in here.”

  “I bet they are,” I muttered, remembering the pack that had attacked me before.

  It wasn’t like I was scared to face the wolves again, but to say I was perfectly calm was wrong too. My mind was already rattled from the exchange with Ijyela, and being reminded of the wolf incident only made it worse. In an odd way, though, a part of me seemed to be looking forward to meeting the wolves again. I was much stronger now, and it was time for payback.

  “We should split up and hunt,” Freya said. “But before that, it’d probably be a good idea to form a party together.”

  My eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

  “A party?” she said. “You know, when two players form a group together. Do you not remember?”

  “I do, I do,” I mumbled. “Gosh, don’t treat me like an old man.”

  “I will if you’re so slow,” she said. “Wait, I’ll send you a party request.”

  I nodded.

  A party was basically a group comprised of a few players, and it allowed them to access greater services within the Ga’em. For example, the players within a party could view each other’s stats and skills and could also find each other’s location on a map, which was probably the feature that Freya was planning on using for the moment.

  DING!

  You have been sent an invitation to join a party formed by: Freya. Would you like to accept?

  Accept

  Decline

  I hit the Accept button.

  DING!

  You are now in a party with Freya.

  “Nice.” I turned to the elf.

  “Oooh,” she said, staring at a screen in front of her. “Pretty good stats you’ve got there, Zoran. Nice set of skills, too.”

  I blinked. “Wait, you’re looking at my info already?” I complained. “I played nice by not looking at yours.”

  “Well, too bad for you,” she chuckled.

  I stared at her head and a screen popped up in front of me. It was similar to my Analyze screen but held way more information.

  DING!

  Name

  Freya

  Level

  47

  Health

  540

  Constitution

  54

  Mana

  820

  Intelligence

  82

  Stamina

  470

  Endurance

  47

  Strength

  88

  Wisdom

  74

  Agility

  91

  Dexterity

  54

  Charisma

  23

  Luck

  29

  Whoa, I thought. Her numbers are pretty good. The high Agility and Strength stats were from her assassin profession, and the high Wisdom and Intelligence stats were probably from her race bonuses.

  Each race had a certain stat bonus that it got, which basically meant a certain stat would automatically increase whenever a person of that race leveled up—regardless of whether they invested stat points in it or not. For the Moon Elves, the stat bonus was in Intelligence and Wisdom.

  I noticed that the screen I was looking at had two sections to it, with the tabs Stats and Skills helpfully positioned at the top of the screen to help me navigate.

  Let’s see what kind of skills she’s got. I tapped on the Skills button.

  DING!

  Access to this screen has been locked.

  “What?” I turned to her.

  “Problem?” She grinned.

  “You locked access to your Skills screen,” I said.

  “Pretty neat, huh?” she chuckled.

  “I didn’t know you could do something like that.”

  “I’ll show you how to do that later if you want.”

  “No, it’s fine,” I mumbled. “All I need is the location tracker option, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You just have to open up your
field map and you’ll see a green dot on it. That represents a party member’s location.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “I guess that’s about all you need to know,” she said. “I’ll head out now. If anything happens, I guess just yell?”

  “I’ll be fine.” I smiled.

  “If you say so.” She gripped her longsword, and with that she was off.

  I turned around, facing the darkness in front of me. “Well, this seems like a nice path,” I mumbled to myself and headed forward. I slid my sword out of its sheath and held the weapon in front of me.

  Mentally, I wasn’t spending much time in the present. My thoughts were still hung up on the connection I seemed to have with the Phantom Lord. I wondered why it was he’d tampered with my memories, why I possessed something like the Death Seal. Why am I involved with such a man? I asked.

  A part of me, though, was amused in the face of all my questioning. In the few days after I’d woken up, I’d had plenty of questions, a lot of which had almost been answered. However, now I had to deal with a separate set of questions, each one arguably much harder to answer than the ones I’d had before.

  Maybe I’m just going to be stuck in an eternal state of answering questions, I thought.

  A low growl rung through the air and cut my thoughts short. I stopped and hunched down to a low stance. A pair of red, glowing eyes emerged from the darkness before me.

  “Finally.” I held my sword out. “We meet again.”

  A few rays of moonlight pierced the dense canopy and fell onto the shadows, revealing the dark silhouette of a wolf. The beast threw its head up into the air and howled, the tone reverberating in the air before disappearing into the wind. More pairs of eyes emerged out of the black—about ten in total.

  “A pack,” I muttered. Didn’t think I’d face another one again. I quickly used my Analyze skill on them and noticed that the highest-leveled one was only Level 12. Easy pickings. I grinned.

  I charged forward, my sword at my side. The wolves instantly scrambled, moving in all directions at once, but turned an instant later and charged right at me. They slid through the darkness, but I could see them clearly now. My Night Vision skill had activated.

  I yelled out and swung my sword at the first one that came up to me. The blade passed through cleanly, and the beast went thudding to the ground, dead on impact.

  Another wolf jumped, latching onto my shoulder and sinking its teeth into my flesh. I grabbed it by the neck and pulled it off, with its canines slicing my skin as I yanked it loose. I threw the wolf hard against a tree and leapt to it, pushing my sword through its body before it could react, and it slumped, dead.

  I kept charging, dodging teeth and claws and slashing into all the enemy wolves. It took me about another five minutes before the last wolf fell to the ground.

  I flicked the blood off my sword and chuckled. And I didn’t even have to use Bladestorm.

  DING!

  Congratulations! You have defeated:

  Wolf Pack (Lv 10)!

  Revenge is sweet isn’t it? Reward: 2000XP. Reward: Wolf Meat (x5). Reward: Wolf Tooth.

  DING!

  Congratulations! You have learned a new skill:

  Hunting!

  You are now the hunter, not the hunted. Gain increased ability to track small animals. Increased knowledge of the behavior of prey.

  Effect 1

  Agility increased by +5% while hunting.

  I quickly summoned a Warrior’s Restoration Potion from my Item Inventory and consumed it, ridding myself of my injuries.

  Boy, did that feel good. I stretched my arms, my sword still in my hand. I’d gotten the food that I needed and a neat skill as well. I wondered for a moment how I’d gotten the Wolf Meat as an item drop this time, when nothing of the sort had happened before when I’d killed beasts like the sabretooth.

  Maybe the item drops are based on what I want as well, I thought. I couldn’t remember if that was indeed the case, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was.

  I opened the Field Maps option of my Maps menu, and a screen emerged, displaying the vast region of the Viridian Forest.

  I saw my blue dot blink close to the southern edge. I zoomed out, and a blinking dot of bright green emerged. It was located to my west, a good mile away from me.

  She moves fast, I thought. I should just head back to where we split off.

  I’d only taken a step forward when a low growl echoed through the air. I slowly turned around, careful not to make any sudden movements.

  A massive wolf walked out from behind the trees, this one more than twice as tall as I was. Its eyes were not red, but a solid white, and its pupils were missing as well. Its fur was a weird gray, and black markings were drawn all over it in weird, contorted shapes.

  An odd aura emanated from the beast, and a tingling sensation emerged inside my limbs, just from standing in its presence. I looked at the creature’s head and the Analyze screen popped up.

  Race

  Rabid Forest Wolf

  Level

  32

  Rabid, I noticed. Maybe that’s why it looks different.

  The beast stepped forward, its paws swiping the stray leaves on the forest floor. It gazed at me with its emotionless eyes, its mouth panting.

  I held my sword up. Do I just attack it like normal? I wondered. My first instinct was to turn to Freya for help, but she was too far away to get to me in time. I doubted I could even get a Ga’em message across to her given the situation I was in. Taking my eyes off this beast for even a second seemed like it’d prove deadly. Taking my eyes off it long enough to write a message was suicide.

  The wolf threw its head to the sky and howled. Its shrieking call pierced my mind, and the tingling sensation in me grew. I frowned. What the heck is this?

  Suddenly, the wolf jumped at me, its claws aimed for my face. I dove to the side for all I was worth, rolling onto the ground and bringing myself up in an instant. I turned around and the wolf swiped at me with its sharp claws. I held my sword up, connecting with its attack. The force of the strike was too much, and I ended up sliding back a few feet.

  I lowered my weapon. Too strong, I mumbled. Would I really be able to take this beast out? I have to go on the offensive, I realized.

  I charged, relaxing the muscles in my arms but still gripping the sword tight.

  “Bladestorm!” I yelled. My combo move activated instantly, and I charged to the beast, moving much faster than before. I thrust my sword at the wolf, and my attacks turned more intensive with every strike. The beast suddenly pulled back, at a faster speed than I’d expected. The next thing I knew, its claws smacked into me, throwing me hard against a tree.

  My health bar lowered to about half, and I slowly got back onto my feet. The beast, on the other hand, had about a fourth of its total health left. My special move hadn’t done as much damage as I’d expected. Granted, I hadn’t been able to execute Bladestorm completely, but it was also unsettling that the wolf had been able to outpace me. If it was faster than I was—and that was probably the case here—then Bladestorm wasn’t going to be helpful at all.

  Fine. Plan B, then, I thought and charged forward once more.

  The beast was ready for me this time and lunged forward. I slid away from its path and let it land on empty ground, just like before. However, that was where the similarities ended. I shot forward and jumped onto its hind leg, using it as a wall and propelling myself onto its back. I leapt to its neck, tightening my grip on my sword as I did.

  I hope this works. I lifted my blade up.

  “Heavy Swing!” I yelled and thrust downwards, right into the wolf. My sword pushed through its skin, sinking down to the hilt before the beast even had a chance to react. The wolf’s health bar instantly lowered to just a tenth of its health. It howled in pain and shook violently, but I held on. I gripped my sword tight and twisted, turning the weapon inside its flesh.

  A second and a half later, the beast’s health bar dro
pped to zero and it collapsed to the ground, motionless.

  I breathed heavily, my hand still holding my weapon. I pulled my sword back up and flicked the blade, throwing off the thick coat of blood dripping from it. I jumped off the dead creature’s back and landed a tad sloppily on the floor.

  Critical hits are more effective than I thought, I realized. I couldn’t think of any other way I could have taken out the massive beast if it weren’t for something like that.

  I looked at the runes on the skin of the fallen beast. What are those things? I asked.

  As if on cue, a low hum sounded in the air. I jerked my head around, looking for the source. The dark runes on the wolf’s body glowed a bright gray—the same color its eyes had been. The humming intensified, no longer a low tone now, but rather a howl. The sound sank deep within me, rattling my very bones.

  A bright light flashed from the markings and a form emerged from within the wolf.

  A wraith.

  I held my sword up high and kept my hands as steady as possible. I looked at the spirit, focusing on it as it slowly took form—a young man dressed in loose robes. His eyes shone a painful white, and his expression was filled with nothing but anger. I quickly used my Analyze skill on him.

  DING!

  Warning!

  Unable to analyze subject.

  Dammit, I muttered. I kept my eyes on the creature in front of me. I didn’t even know if the word creature was apt for this thing. I had no clue what was going on.

  The spirit gazed at me, its bright eyes glaring at my presence. “Eternal,” its voice slithered.