Everlast Online

The shade of Ouroboros's eyes seemed to glow an even deeper red as dozens of tentacles gnashed around the ballroom - desperately trying to consume the mortals.

It was a pathetic dance of desperation, one with sloppy footwork and no rhythm as the man who stood atop the kingdom did everything he could so that he could survive.

"Hahahaha!" Dance you little monkeys!" Ouroboros jeered from the centre of the room, his ravenous tentacles doing all the work such that nothing could even approach him; and even when they did they were easily stopped by a barrier with varying effects. From simple defence to also trying to consume the attacker.

"Hahahaha!" He laughed, "The pathetic and fearful taste the best!"

His tentacles extended, hovering over the unconscious soldiers like a picky eater at a buffet. Eventually, his meal was decided as the tentacle threw the unconscious body into the air, catching it between its teeth.

"-Huh? Aaah! AAAAAAH!" The pain of being bitten in half was enough to wake the unconscious human, breaking through the fear that Ouroboros imposed as a new fear set in, "Help! Please! Please... Help..."

The soldier desperately dragged the top half of his body across the ballroom floor away from the tentacles, leisurely following behind him like a scavenger waiting for its prey to truly die. A trail of blood extended across the floor, Ouroboros's tentacles having stopped pursuing everyone else, as if to force them to watch the horrendous showing of a man so close to death, begging for life so desperately.

But it would not come, his arms became weaker until he was barely moving; dragged along the floor by nothing but his fingers - until even that stopped. His eyes rolling back from the pain as he bled out.

"Hahahahahahahaha!" Ouroboros mocked, whipping the remains of his corpse into the air before catching it in his mouth and swallowing him whole, "They always taste better when they try to avoid the inevitable."

Everyone present felt sick to their stomachs, to watch your fellow man be tortured and humiliated until their final moments; all the while knowing nothing could be done: It was a moment that would stick with them forever - even the players, for whom this was nothing but a game.

Nina felt uneasy, wobbling slightly and almost falling into a tentacle attack; had it not been for Gloria diving to push her to the floor she would likely have been devoured. Liz was a little better off, she was familiar with death - although, admittedly, none this gruesome.

The slums were not a nice place and the amount of times she had seen a rotting, emaciated corpse could not be counted on one hand. And even they were the lucky ones - they hadn't been sent outside the city before they died.

Seeing such a horrific death made her feel awful, but not in the same way - rather she felt more drive to succeed. A flash of memories of what her life had been like before ELO pushed her to think harder than she ever had. She needed a way out; a way to kill Ouroboros and ensure she would continue succeeding for Piper's sake.

Then something rang out to her in the mission plotline; something glaring, yet tiny. She quickly opened up her message log and found exactly what she was looking for, that tiny, inconspicuous bit of dialogue about Ouroboros's soul: "Containing only a small fraction of {Ouroboros}'s soul".

A shiny opportunity that only she could take advantage of - even if the odds were stacked against her. This was a mythic-ranked being, an immortal who had lived longer than she could reasonably comprehend; but it was also just a small part of him, this gave her hope.

Liz jumped as far from Ouroboros as she could, sending word to Gloria and Nina to keep him as distracted as possible; before activating [Soul String].

It took a while, but her plan was put into action. She was even more careful than normal, having the [Soul Sight] skill she was able to see the souls of those devoured by Ouroboros weaken and become smaller before dispersing into the universe; she could only imagine what would happen if he consumed her soul directly.

As such, she had to weave her string of soul between tentacles, desperate to keep it out of his sight and so she focused only on this; all other attacks and commands to her undead were forgotten in her attempt to become as precise as possible.

Ouroboros noticed something as he consumed yet another unconscious mortal; grinding the pathetic gnat between the crystalised blood that made up the tentacle's teeth, savouring its agonising screams while still blocking all the feeble attempts to fight back.

The magic had stopped. So had the feeble undead that gross little necromancer had been controlling.

His eyes shot wide open as he turned to see her in the distance, clearly focused on something important; and Ouroboros knew exactly what it was: A translucent strand of soul floating right in front of him.

This little mortal was the only one he had even considered the slightest of a threat. He could tell just by looking at her that she had a more refined soul than any of the other, indicating that she had awakened the SOU stat; this didn't mean she was a threat of course, but it was a matter for concern - yet he had completely forgotten after she had not used any attacks of the soul.

His arrogance had once again cost him greatly, he didn't recognise what was happening, but it could hardly be good.

Time seemed to slow around Ouroboros as new blood extended from him, all the old tentacles changed direction and headed directly towards the strand - desperate to cut it off or possibly remove the source.

But his arrogance had cost him greatly and that attack landed.

Ouroboros expected pain, intolerable pain that comes with soul damage - but it never did.

His eyes that were clenched tight opened wide as he looked around to see an equally baffled looking girl in front of him - only they were both completely translucent: They had entered the ethereal realm.

Liz looked around, entirely unsure of what had happened. Everything was as it should have been, only she was floating above her own body and no one even seemed to notice her as she called out to them - her voice echoing through the hall.

Ouroboros's body had stopped entirely, all the blood tentacles receeding and his form simply standing static in the centre of the ballroom.

However, this wasn't what drew Liz's attention as the really interesting part of this experience was the thing above Ouroboros's incarnation: A disgusting mass of mismatched souls. There were some that looked like the scales of a snake, one eye reptilian in nature and a set of ethereal horns resting above the head - but more of the mass of soul looked human: Images of what Kilgard had looked like before Ouroboros had taken his body.

It was like someone had lost a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and instead of looking for them, they jammed pieces for another puzzle into the missing place.

But again there was a discontinuity between this; the few reptilian pieces rippled with an intense power, while the human parts were dull and lifeless.

Is this... Ouroboros's soul?

Liz wondered, feeling disgusted by the abomination of nature in front of her. She didn't even understand what was wrong with it by standards set across every dimension - but deep within herself, she knew it was wrong.

"Ha.. Ha... Hahahaha!" It laughed, a grating voice echoing through the hall, "This is what I was worried about?"

His mocking voice caused Liz to flinch, floating back above her now collapsed body. Gloria had come over, but she couldn't hear her or even receive the telepathic messages that her undead normally could.

"Don't bother mortal." Ouroboros grinned, clearly enjoying his opponent's cluelessness, "They can't hear you from the ethereal realm."

"Honestly though, I knew you could do something with the soul, but this was beyond what I expected." He laughed again.

"Of course it doesn't matter even if you can trap me in the ethereal realm. I'm assuming so long as I kill you, I'll go back?"

"And let me warn you as a final courtesy... Soul death is not the same as a regular death." His grin became incredibly cruel as he floated towards Liz at incredible speed, Liz barely managed to get out of the way as his mouth opened wide in an attempt to bite down on her flesh... Soul?

"It was pretty smart to stop me from using blood to extend my range, but I can still devour you all the same." He laughed, "I applaud you for getting this far as a mere mortal, but it's better to snuff talent like this out early."

Liz could barely float away, still trying to figure out exactly what had happened. She had used [Soul String] and expected to take over Ouroboros's body, but instead she had brought both of them to the ethereal realm, whatever that was.

Is this what normally happens when you take over a "soulled vessel"? She wondered, having only had 2 experiences with the process with the first having totally destroyed the soul of the other - neither experiences were normal of course.

What had happened was that Liz's skill had not been able to properly understand what Ouroboros's soul was. The skill had made contact with a soulled vessel and typically the skill would have either taken over the body, with strain on Liz's soul, or been blocked entirely with the possibility of backlash. However, Ouroboros had made yet another mistake due to his uncontrollable emotions.

Many years ago, a mortal on the planet of Galdrash had reached out to him; somehow extending their mind through the void and reaching his own. He had been sealed across multiple dimensions for 82 billion years; enough time for even an immortal to go mad - and so desperate to get revenge he had accepted the mortal's mind and gave them a blessing with the intention of taking over once the summoning was complete.

It took time, but that was all he had in his confinement. And so, the seal, placed upon him by Beelzebub as a final mockery for his defeat, was broken:

The blood of 1000 traitors shed by those with loyalty in their hearts.

He did not know how the mortal had done it, nor did he care. But when the ritual was complete, he forced himself into the idiot's soul and killed off any ego within - but now it had backfired.

Because the soul was so abnormal, so abominable it had created a strange effect from Liz's [Soul String] skill.

Liz couldn't have known this, and Ouroboros seemed to misunderstand her skill as a sealing-type skill; not caring to delve further into the intricacies of the skill. It was a back and forth between them, Ouroboros rushing forward in an attempt to devour Liz's soul while Liz did everything she could to avoid that; Liz didn't have any way to protect her soul or even fight back, while Ouroboros - having devoted his eternal life to mastering blood magic - had no other soul-type attacks other than [Gluttony].

[Gluttony]'s effects had been amplified thanks to Liz pulling them into the ethereal realm. Ouroboros was full of uncontrollable glee at the thought of devouring a complete soul as it would grant him every skill and stat point that his enemy had - he couldn't wait.

She failed only once so far, and vowed never to allow it to happen again.

One tooth had grazed the side of her arm, reducing her SOU stat by 1 in her info page - but the pain was almost enough to stop her heart. The visor she was wearing even sent an alert to her in game that if she didn't regulate her heartbeat it would have to call a doctor for her own safety.

Liz eventually got it under control, the screaming and crying stopping as her heart rate returned to normal. Ouroboros of course allowed this, simply laughing mockingly as he became more certain of his victory. After a while of a silent back and forth Ouroboros spoke again with a macabre grin.

"You should just give up." He laughed, "From the way you've been acting, my victory is assured."

"How'd you gather that then?" Liz shot back, not panting since she had no lungs to do so, but still feeling increasingly tired.

"Well, isn't it obvious." He mocked, "Whatever this skill is, it's clear you can't undo it until my soul or body dies."

Liz's eyes widened slightly, she hadn't considered killing the body as an option, but the thought was squashed as she remembered she couldn't interact with the real world from the ethereal.

"Since you clearly have no soul-type attacks and they don't know how to kill a devil incarnation, you'll eventually run out of energy and I'll devour you." He said, "Just give up nicely and I'll eat you in one bite to lessen the pain."

Liz's eyes almost burst out of her head at Ouroboros's word.

There's a specific way to kill a devil incarnation? She wondered, that would be the key - she was sure of it.

"How do you kill a devil incarnation anyway?" Liz asked, acting as clueless as possible in an attempt to make Ouroboros even more arrogant.

"Well, it's not that hard really. All you have to do is destr- " He caught himself, his mouth hanging open in the middle of his sentence before he looked around, his glare finally settling on Liz, "You think you can trick me?!"

Shit! She cursed internally, dodging to the side as Ouroboros attacked her with renewed vigour.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice you trying to bait me!? Huh!?" He had once again been consumed by his rage, the mere thought of a mortal trying to outsmart him was infuriating - as were many things about mortals.

I need to find out how to kill it! Liz thought, looking down at the fight occurring in the real world.

 The body didn't move on its own, but reacted to any attacks directed at it; like a self defence instinct. It was pretty good, but had still gotten pretty injured - all healing - during the fight that had now taken a new turn.

She couldn't hear anything since sound didn't seem to travel between the real world and the ethereal one.

She dodged back and forth as Ouroboros kept attacking like a shark, floating through the ballroom and occasionally through its walls as nothing physical seemed to matter at the moment. During all of this Liz kept a close eye on the fight to try and find any idiosyncrasies during the fight.

Nothing came to mind, the incarnation was even exceptionally reckless by allowing many attacks to land as they would regenerate soon after - even when significant damage was done to the head.

Liz had almost given up hope, when the thought about the head brought something up:

Why is it protecting the heart? She wondered, her eyes going wide in realisation. If it can regenerate from even a headshot, then the only reason it would need to protect something would be if it couldn't be regenerated.

Most attacks were allowed to land, but not a single injury was permitted on its chest; not even a single scratch above the heart.

"It's the heart!" Liz called out, causing Ouroboros to falter in his attack, stopping midair with his glare becoming more fearful; though it didn't last.

"So what if you know about the devil heart!? It's not like you can do anything!" He jeered, "You can't even tell them about it!"

Shit! He's right, I can't communicate with them at all... Liz thought, trying to find a way around the problem, when she realised there wasn't one. When did I start thinking like such an NPC?

She looked at Ouroboros, grinning like there was no tomorrow as a solution presented itself to her - it seemed the bounds of the ethereal realm were not so strict on player:

[Smokey: Aim for heart]

[Smokey: heart is weak spot]