Symbiotic Ascension : A Progression Fantasy Adventure

The Guardian's armor made a creaking noise as he straightened up. He held his head, grunting painfully.

"It is becoming increasingly harder to come back," he said in reply to the curious and questioning gazes of Glenn and his teammates. "I am bound to this land, bound to protect it until it no longer needs me."

"Why?" Glenn asked, his eyes wide open. "And how? You're truly immortal. That's not common."

The Guardian shook his head and pointed a steel-clad finger at the sky. "The Gods punished me for my sins, like they did the... Corpse, and a couple others."

"Sevirox and D the First King?" Glenn asked, squinting.

"You..." The Guardian paused for a moment, surprised. "How do you know about them?"

Glenn waved his hand dismissively. "Too long of a story. I'm more curious about that name-erasing thing. Why? Why would they do that? We know the First King exists, and that he was a legend strong enough to single-handedly build a kingdom. What's the point of erasing his name from the world?"

Liara leaned in with interest. "How did the Gods even do it? I have never seen any mention of the First King's name anywhere, nor of the Elven or Demon King." She paused. "You. You're the Demon King."

The Guardian sighed heavily. He grabbed the edge of his helmet to remove it, but changed his mind almost immediately. "I... Who I once was does not matter anymore. I am the Guardian, the one who shall watch over the demons and protect them from what threatens them." He looked at the tent's ceiling. "The process of erasing our names has never been too clear for us either."

He clenched his hand and stared at the closed fist. "After... something happened, the Gods viewed us as threats to the world. They couldn't actively kill us," he chuckled, "we were too powerful for them, after all."

Lucian shivered, awestruck. "Too strong even for a God...? How powerful does that even mean?"

The Guardian looked the Prince up and down, snorting. "You're his spitting image. Of D, I mean." He glanced at Liara and Sahro, pausing. "Now that I think about it, you also bear a strong resemblance to them... Ellaria and the Elf King."

"We look like our ancestors?" Liara repeated, puzzled. "Thousands of years have passed, yet you still remember how they looked?"

Sahro shook his head. "No, don't answer that." He grinned as he clenched the hilt of his katana. "How were they? As people? Were they powerful warriors?"

"They... We couldn't be stopped," muttered the Guardian. "Filled with dreams and hopes, and the means to fulfill our boundless ambitions."

"The demons, elves, and humans all fought before we came into the picture. Continent-splitting wars, continued bloodshed, and little space for the powerless peoples. But then, we intervened." He smirked. "The cement that maintained it all together was Sevirox, actually. That dragon wasn't thinking on the same plane of existence as us, always looking for every possibility, and obsessed with mixing magic and technology."

"He was from another world," he recalled longingly, "One with no monsters, where God either doesn't exist or is just content watching humans squabbling."

Glenn grimaced. "I... I'd have to disagree." He shivered, his fists clenched tightly. "Humans are often worse than monsters, no matter the world."

The Guardian chuckled lightly. "I never said the opposite. I am simply feeling nostalgic about those tales of iron birds and steel boats crossing the ocean without using a drop of Mana."

Milena frowned, her four arms crossed. "Enough reminiscing. What the hell happened to the Last City? Where are the demons?"

Glenn flinched. 'Oh, yeah, I had forgotten about them for a moment.'

'Meeting the friend of the First King himself has this sort of effect, heh,' Diamanes laughed mockingly. Glenn found himself almost longing for Nelg's presence to counter-balance Diamanes', but then he remembered the two would probably ally themselves together to push against him.

'And Nelg is better off looking for a way to drive a blade into Epinos' heart. If he even has one.'

The Guardian grunted and stood up, grabbing his sheathed sword and attaching it to his belt. "The Seal. An incredibly powerful Occult Wanderer and a dark elf descended upon the Last City. The dark elf destroyed everything while the Wanderer fought me. I managed to trade my life to give time for the inhabitants to save themselves, thankfully." He shook his head. "I am almost certain the Wanderers had no interest in my people's lives, only in the Seal. The dark elf, on the other hand..."

Liara crossed her arms, her expression hardening. Glenn grimaced. 'Probably doesn't feel good to hear that your kin is fighting with these child killers.'

"The Seal?" Repeated Lucian curiously. "What is it? We found a sort of pedestal. Is that what you're talking about?"

"No." The Guardian stumbled a few steps ahead, struggling to balance himself. "The pedestal is only there to protect it. The Seal that sealed the Ancients away. I must recover it before it is too late!"

Milena scoffed and pushed him back into the bed. 'How are you going to do that? You can barely move!"

The heavily armored knight crashed with a loud grunt, the bed almost shattering under his weight. He sat in silence for a moment before sighing. "Coming back takes a lot out of me every time..." He turned to them, his red eyes filled with imploration. "You are good people, the kind who would change the world. Like my friends and I once did. Would you..." He hesitated.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Oh, you mean getting back the Seal? Yeah, we'll do that no problem, pops!" Diamanes suddenly exclaimed, startling all of them. Lucian gasped while Milena paled. Liara simply slapped her forehead with a look of 'I knew it was going to happen, ' and Sahro sneered. As for Glenn, he had never been closer to cutting off his own hand just to shut the damn thing.

"What... This isn't just a remnant?" The Guardian asked, confused. "Is there a part of a... Soul, in there?"

Glenn cleared his throat awkwardly. "D- Don't worry about him, it's just Diamanes, the resident parasite living in my hand. I, uh, he sort of just got there and, well..." He scratched the back of his head. "It's hard to explain, but it should be fine with him around."

The Guardian stared at the purple hand a little longer. "I wonder if-"

His voice suddenly cut out, and his head dropped, limp. Glenn blinked, waving his hands in front of the Guardian's eyes, but got no reaction.

"Did he just pass out?" Lucian muttered in disbelief. "Isn't he supposed to be some sort of super-powerful existence? Can you just pass out from exhaustion when you're capable of killing a God?" He spoke the last part with a tremor in his voice, unable to believe what he was even saying.

Glenn shook his head. "He came back to life. Speaking from experience, it sucks."

"I mean, it was fine for me when I rewound time to save my life..." Lucian pouted.

"Yes, well, not everyone is like you, capable of rewinding time itself, Lucian," Milena pointed out.

"That's just a skill issue," Diamanes commented with a plain tone. "We can practically already freeze time with Glenn. I'm sure manipulating it isn't so far off."

Liara cleared her throat. "The Guardian said we needed to retrieve the Seal. Nergal sent us here to find the Guardian and break his chains."

"The connection cannot be more evident," Sahro grumbled as he scratched Raijin between the ears. The fox had sneaked onto his shoulders at some point, watching the situation with a calm gaze. "Let us go after that Occult Wanderers powerhouse. We get back the Seal, release the Guardian, and save the demons."

Glenn nodded. "That sounds like a plan. Where the hell should we go, though?"

"I think I might be able to find out," Liara said, her hand wrapped around a tiny triangular stone. "This fell out of the Guardian's armor, and I think it's part of the Seal he spoke of."

Lucian's eyebrows rose. "How do you know? This just looks like a random triangle to me."

The white cross on Liara's forehead shone as her golden eyes filled with Ethereal Mana. "I can feel it. It is similar to that spell Nergal saved us from back in the Elf King's castle, the principle of void of the Divine Sage." She played with the triangle for a bit, studying it under all its angles. "The principle of sealing. This piece of stone incarnates. I wouldn't know how to explain it."

Glenn grabbed her shoulder with a warm smile. "You've always been good at seeing what others couldn't, Liara. You're probably right."

Liara smiled back at him, grabbed his hand, and clenching it gently. 'Feels good,' thought Glenn.

Milena sighed. "Let's track the rest of the Seal. I can't be bothered to watch these two any longer."

"I can't agree more," grumbled Sahro. "How do we do that, though?"

Liara, still smiling from one ear to the other, blew on the small triangular piece. Pale light swallowed the piece of stone, making it float above her palm. It turned into a pyramid-like construct, its tip turned in one direction.

"Back on our mounts, my friends!" Lucian acclaimed excitedly. "We've got an Occult Wanderer that could destroy an actual city to fight out and a Seal to retrieve!"

Glenn moistened his lips. 'I feel like I am missing something, but I am not sure what. Are we perhaps a little too hasty?'

'Bah! You've got Lucian around. What's the worst that could happen?' Diamanes whispered in his ear wickedly. Glenn shook off the bad feeling and left the tent. The Black Knights outside were staring at the tent with a weird gaze, but none had dared to break into the area set up by Glenn and the rest. After all, there was their Prince, the Duke of the Stars and the Duchess of Dela Luna, as well as a Queen of a foreign kingdom in the tent. Not exactly a bunch you'd want to bother for your own curiosity.

They hitched a ride on Pebble and Whitey's backs, following the direction indicated by the piece of Seal. Glenn and the rest took the opportunity to rest a little, Meditating or straight up sleeping. Only Sahro couldn't get calm enough to take a break.

Glenn scoffed as he floated within his Mana Heart and gazing down at his Milky Way. "I can't believe he still isn't comfortable riding Pebble. He can fly and still stresses out about this. How's that even possible?"

The silence of the Milky Way was his sole answer. Glenn's mocking expression faded away, replaced by deep pondering. His Milky Way had never shone any brighter, and he could feel that he had reached a plateau.

'I won't progress any further unless I break through to the Seventh Circle and become a Newborn Ruler. I can already practically stand next to Exan, Duke Noir, and Harriet the King's Blade. How much stronger will I get?'

Just thinking about it was enough to get himself riled up. The feeling of growing stronger wasn't something he would ever get tired of. 'And the stronger I become, the more Diamanes can tell me. I wonder what other secrets he'll offer me once I become a Newborn Ruler.'

In his mind, there wasn't even a doubt about it: he was going to become a Newborn Ruler. It wasn't a question of if; no, it was a question of when. Filled with confidence and impatience for what would happen next, Glenn woke up from his trance. Pebble had shaken his back to alert him of a new development.

He had expected to find the same hellish landscape as always, scorched earth filled with molten lava and covered in toxic fumes, but no. The scorched earth had left place to dull gray stone that brusquely stopped a short distance away. The land had given way to a bottomless void stretching over the entire horizon.

"What the hell...?" Lucian muttered, awed.

Glenn looked left and right, but it was the same thing. The land just stopped there, as if they had reached the end of the world. He glanced at Whitey and the two women riding on his back. Liara noticed his gaze and pointed at the seal piece. It had changed direction, pointing them to go along the void.

The young man nodded, and Liara turned the mount in the given direction.

"This is wrong," Sahro hissed. "I can't feel anything, no matter how hard I use my senses. It is empty void as far as I can see!"

"The Beyond is different from Limbo," Lucian said. "Perhaps the world is contained on a country-sized piece of land, and the rest only consists of nothingness." He pointed to the sky. "Look, the eyes are rarer here too."

Glenn looked up, surprised. "Oh, that's true! I hadn't noticed it."

There were still a few eyeballs staring down with morbid gazes, but they were sparse and spread out in the sky, unlike near the Horizon Gates, where they were packed together tightly. Beyond them was... nothing, once again. Plain darkness that couldn't be peered through.

"There's still some space to welcome a few more Corrupted Newborn Rulers," Diamanes cackled. "How great is that?"

"I think I see it," Sahro said, squinting. "That's... I see a temple of some sort, I think? I have never seen that before."

"Oh yeah, you're right!" Lucian exclaimed, using his hand as a visor. "Wow, that's some weird stuff! Which God would it even be for?"

Glenn had to wait for another minute of flying before finally getting a view of the mentioned church.

Indeed, it was a little peculiar.

Completely built out of black bricks, it bore a strong resemblance to the Gothic cathedrals he remembered visiting back on Earth. The only differences were a distinct lack of gargoyles and the presence of a conspicuous hourglass sitting at the top.

An hourglass with flowing sand within it.