Symbiotic Ascension : A Progression Fantasy Adventure

"Now come at me."

The vision shattered, throwing Glenn on his back. He coughed and hurriedly pushed himself up, staring at the circle of silver sap on the world in disbelief. The circle slowly faded away, its purpose fulfilled. Javier stared at him intently, scribbling a hurried note.

"What did you see?"

Glenn stared back at Javier in awe, gasping for air.

"A Divine mistake, Javier," uttered Diamanes, shocked. "A Divine mistake."

"Wait, we're not even sure of that, Diamanes," placated Glenn, unsure. "He just pointed at the sky, and didn't explicitly mention any gods, did he?"

"How do you explain it, then?" Diamanes scoffed. "A blade pointed at the sky generally means you don't like what's living there. And besides the gods, there literally is no one stupid enough to live with the birds. Except for Whitey, but that just makes sense."

Glen grunted, trying to put his ideas in order. Javier tapped the paper impatiently, almost as if to repeat his question.

"What did you see?"

The young man took a long, deep, calming breath. "Alright. Let's call everyone and go up the pyramid. I refuse to explain this more than once."

Javier frowned, looked at his piece of paper for a moment, before shaking his head and walking away. Glenn rubbed the corner of his eyes, already feeling exhausted, even though the day had already started.

"So I was right to worry about the Gods..." he muttered with a heavy sigh. "No, this remains to be proven."

"Wasn't that void principle spell enough of a proof? The Divine Sage literally tried to kill you, and none of them moved a finger to stop it, aside from Nergal." Diamanes hissed.

***

A dozen minutes later.

Glenn pressed his hands on the table, staring at the map sprawled before him. He'd asked only for those who knew his secret about Diamanes, meaning Liara, Sahro, Lucian, Milena, Javier, and Nelg. He could have brought his sister and mother in, too, but he decided it would be better if they weren't mixed with this mess. It'll have to wait until Lina becomes a lot stronger, at the very least.

'Considering how much you shelter her, she'll never reach the level to help you,' mocked Diamanes.

'And I'm all the better for it. She can't go risking her life around; that's my job. Let her enjoy peace and Friends while I go reaping souls and killing gods, yeah?'

'...You sneaky bastard!'

Sahro tapped his newly-made prosthesis on the table, frowning. "What did you call us for, Glenn?"

Glenn took a deep breath. "This might sound crazy, but I think the reason the dark elves turned into Black Heirs and elves in humans was because of the gods."

Milena crossed all four arms. "How would you even know that?"

The young man scratched the back of his head. "There was this, uh, circle of sap in the back of the pyramid that Javier showed me, and it activated with Diamanes, for some reason. It showed me a vision of the past, of an elf called Elaria and the First King."

Liara's eyebrows creased. "Elaria doesn't ring a bell." She glanced at Sahro, who shook his head negatively.

"The First King, hmm?" Lucian approached Glenn curiously. "How was he?"

"Very similar to you, heroic, quite kingly, all in all." Glenn smacked his lips. "He did something with a silver seed that erased every elven feature from every elf. That was the only choice, if I use Elaria's words. Or else, they'd all be doomed."

Glenn rubbed his chin. "It might not be related, but I remember seeing another vision of Sevirox, the First King, the Demon King, and the Elf King going up against the Moon Rift."

Milena took notes in a small notepad. "Do you think these two events might be related?" She paused and suddenly grabbed Glenn's arm. "Wait."

Her eyes widened, and she paced around the table. "You think it's because of the gods that the First King acted this way, right?"

Glenn nodded slowly.

"What if the alliance of Kings accomplished something against the will of the gods? Like... Like..." She smacked her fist in her palm in enlightenment and pointed her pen at Glenn. "Like killing a God!"

Javier's eyes widened, his lips prying open slightly. He remained silent, but the shock was clear on his face. Lucian pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Humans killing gods? How would that even happen?"

Nelg cleared his throat. "Sevirox did invent Blumar... A material that is meant for destroying gods."

Lucian rolled his eyes and chuckled nervously. "That's one thing to say that, and another to make it a reality. How would you even reach the Gods? And... And... Do you truly think my ancestors and his kingly friends actually killed a God?"

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The Prince looked like he was about to lose his mind. "The Dead God, the seventh God that's like a hole in history, that'd be because of the First King? Really?"

"Who better than the gods to erase history?" suddenly asked Diamanes with a somber tone. "The Dead God's name isn't the only one to have been lost to history. The First King, the Demon King, the Elven King... Only Sevirox can be remembered, and I think that miracle is directly connected to the reason he passed himself for the Dark Wall for three thousand years, then flew up and dove into the Moon Rift. Let's not forget his body is one hundred percent Blumar."

Liara clenched the table, sweat pearling up on her forehead. "The Gods would have punished them? Punished the elves, demons, and were responsible for the Dead God's murder?"

Glenn sat, feeling a violent sense of vertigo. "The First King explicitly mentioned humans as untouchable, unlike elves and demons. The elves were turned into human look-alikes, and demons were locked in the Beyond with Sevirox acting as the seal."

Everyone around the table held their breaths, struggling to come to terms with what they had just learned.

"This... this is all conjecture," Lucian said with a trembling voice. "We don't know if it's true, right? Suppositions, right! We can be wrong!" He exclaimed desperately, as if trying to convince himself.

"Whether it is true or not, you all know as well as I do that we better start preparing," Diamanes declared gravely. "Prepare in case we need to overthrow the gods."

Milena laughed tensely. "I'm starting to miss the days when my most important problem was just to hide my identity as a noble."

Glenn clapped his hands together, breaking the stressful atmosphere. "There's nothing we can do about it for now. Nelg is already working on it on his side, and he's already close to figuring out where the Gods hide. But even if we can confront them, they could probably just kill us with a flick of their fingers."

Sahro grinned, his fingers wrapping around the hilt of his katana with chilling determination. "The solution is simple, then. We need to become stronger."

"Stronger than even the gods..." Liara whispered. "May the Ancestors be with us."

Nelg pointed at Sahro's katana. "They already are, in a way."

Liara looked at the cocky Soul Weapon and let out a laugh. The team finally realized the absurdity of the situation, and more laughter followed, letting them finally relax. Only Javier was stone-faced, his arms crossed and his thoughts hidden behind dark, emotionless eyes.

He picked up a pencil and a piece of paper, scribbling on it. The sound of him slapping his message on the table killed the laughter.

"Why did they kill the Dead God?" He asked in writing.

Glenn frowned. "That's the question, isn't it? What do we even know about the Dead God? He's nameless, there's no mention of him anywhere..."

Javier wrote another message, shorter.

"Corruption."

Glenn stared at the paper for a long time. "Corruption. That's true, he does appear to be the source for Corruption."

Sahro played with his prosthesis, glaring at the fox hiding in his shadow. "Perhaps that's why they killed the Dead God. To stop the Corruption."

"Look at the good it did us," snorted Lucian. "Corruption is still as much a risk as ever, as are Rifts and monsters."

Milena sighed. "There's more to this than we can see. But as much as it pains me to say it, it's true. The Gods are hiding something."

Diamanes exploded with a manic laugh. "When has that not been true? And since when did the Gods have the mortals' best interest in mind?"

A heavy silence followed that declaration. As if to reply to it, Glenn's arm suddenly shone with a warm, divine light. His eyes widened, and he hastily conjured his spells.

'The Seed of Darkness detector Onnea gave me! Shit, I forgot about it!'

Blinding with power, the light washed over them violently with a Divine might impossible to mistake. Onnea.

"Mortals, your eyes have settled on secrets that should have been left unburied," boomed a severe, female voice.

Glenn gritted his teeth, Nelg disappearing and reappearing in his hand, turned in a hand axe. Without a shred of hesitation, the young man cleaved down on his arm, chopping the limb off. The shining arm fell to the ground as Glenn willed his Regeneration to stop the bleeding.

"Futile. Forget and live to fight another day." Onnea's voice rang in their head like a bell. Glenn fell to his knees, his sight becoming hazy.

"Fuck you, bitch! Nobody can touch the one I've chosen!" Diamanes roared, a purple mist hissing out of Glenn's left hand. The purple mist and the blinding light fought for a moment until Onnea clicked her tongue.

"Very well, fiend. Divine Sage, Plutus, Bloodblade, I call to you!"

A veil of darkness covered the pyramid, falling on the shining limb and muffling its light.

"No, you do not." A man spoke, appearing among them. He was cloaked in black, his face hidden under a hood, covered in moving shadows. "Begone."

"You...!" Onnea screamed in frustration, and the light coming off the lopped arm faded away. "You cannot continue to do as you wish!"

Javier stepped up, his eyes shining with moonlight. He opened his mouth and spoke in a language couldn't recognize, the tone of his voice ancient and different from something that should come out of a human's throat.

Yet Glenn could still understand what he said.

"Begone."

Glenn's arm turned into ashes, disappearing alongside Onnea's presence. The cloaked man turned to Javier and bowed. Javier nodded at him before collapsing on the ground, the moonlight coming out of his eyes gone.

"Fuck me..." Glenn gasped. He almost looked at the space beyond his elbow, but thought better of it. He turned instead to the cloaked man, spells still channeled and Nelg ready to Cleave & Double It.

"My apologies for that," the cloaked man said, looking at them. The team was sharing the same look of wariness, shock, and disbelief. Liara's eyes were stuck on Glenn's missing arm, unable to let go. They were all a hair's breadth away from just jumping at the cloaked man and pummeling him, even if he was a God.

'Which he probably is,' thought Glenn, focusing on anything that wasn't his missing arm. 'So that's how Sahro feels. Fuck!'

"I wish things had gone differently," Mr. Cloak sighed. "I am known as Nergal amongst mortals, so you may address me with this name."

Milena shook her head slowly, awed. "This can't be real, can it? Talking to a god..."

Nergal looked at her for a moment before pointing a gloved finger at Glenn. "This one has met many of them, and he's surviving quite well, isn't he?"

"A god joking around..." Diamanes spat. "That's why they say to never meet your idols."

Nergal's gaze stopped on Diamanes for a moment before going up to Glenn's eyes. The latter couldn't tell how he knew that the God was looking at him, but he just knew.

"Go to the Beyond," Nergal ordered, "Find the Guardian, free him of his chains, and bind the old blood once more. The Dead God is looking less dead by the day, bringing the End inevitably closer. Only the Heirs may stop it." He stared at Glenn intently. "You can fight this Fate. Do it, or this world will collapse, Corrupted into a shell of what it once was. This, is the only way."

Nergal flicked his finger, withdrawing the veil of darkness on the pyramid and disappearing along with it.

Lucian gasped, his knees giving up beneath him.

"So we just met two Gods. Fuck."

Glenn collapsed in a chair, cold sweat running down his back.

"Fuck indeed."