Unlocked achievement First Ever: Level 500!
You are the first in Disgardium to reach level 500! Your name shall forever be recorded in history; people like you expand the limits of what is possible for all sentients, and give others an example of what can be achieved!
Reward: active skill Flight.
Flight
You can fly without limitation!
Does not require mana.
Threat rank increased! Current class: F.
As I was showered with incredible achievements, gotten basically for free, just for being near when the lich died, I felt no particular joy. But relief did wash over me—I was far higher in level than any other player now, and it would take them a long time to catch up to me, if they even could. It was just a shame that now I didn’t know where to grind, and I wouldn’t be able to help my friends anymore—I was so high above the mobs that the boys wouldn’t get any experience after the penalties.
Incidentally, I’d died in the Nether—it was a good thing that deaths in Beta Dis didn’t count. The thought flashed up and immediately drowned in a horde of thoughts about the new possibilities available to me. Spirit Shackles could be used in instances to ensure that my dead friends revived right back into the fight—and it seemed I could now always choose for myself where to revive. I didn’t know whether to use Grain of Transformation yet. My stats didn’t matter too much to me now, but Flight…
Without much thought, I took off, leaving my allies and mechostrich confused. Deprived of its rider, the mount slowed.
It was as easy as could be to control the flight—all done with the mind. I flew up a hundred yards, felt the hot desert air beat against my face. I flew at roughly the same speed as Storm, but it was one thing to move on the dragon and something else entirely to fly on my own, feeling no support beneath me and seeing the ground zoom by beneath me. My heart dropped to my heels as soon as I so much as looked down.
The guardians were jumping up and down, waving their arms, and even Sharkon’s blunt face stared upward.
Forgetting my fear of falling, I emitted a victorious cry, extended an arm ahead and started describing circles at full speed above my minions. I’d never felt so good! Even running into a level five hundred vulture didn’t min my mood. I knocked him down with one hit as I flew, realizing with elation that if I wanted to, I could stand in the air as if on land, receiving an invisible anchorage for Stunning Kick. And generally, three-dimensional space gave far more possibilities in battle.
Once I’d flown to my heart’s content, I dropped down to look through the logs further. The notifications didn’t stop at achievements. When I expanded the last messages, I saw new ones. Several mentioned All hail the hero, but I ignored them. Another seemed far more important: Attention! You are the sole remaining legate of the
Destroying Plague, and you automatically receive the rank of Supreme Legate!
New ability unlocked: Call of the Supreme Legate!
Call of the Supreme Legate
You can instantly summon up to ten of your minions or up to three junior Legates of the Destroying Plague to your position from anywhere.
New ability unlocked: Plague Dust!
Plague Dust
When you die, you return to the lair of the Nucleus to await your next reincarnation. Your body disperses into Plague Dust, which kills all life by infecting it with the Desfroying Plague.
I’d already seen Plague Dust, but I decided to try out Call of the Supreme Legate in action. Selecting all my minions, I ordered them to run to Tiamat’s temple while I jumped there with Depths Teleportation.
“Where are you going, boss…?” I heard as I went.
Arriving at the temple, I waved at the builders, who had already restored the altar and were starting on the roof and columns. I activated Call of the Supreme Legate, selecting the guardians and Sharkon and five random undead minions.
I can’t say it happened instantly. Ten circles of varying sizes materialized on the ground around me. They were as if filled with poison-green slime that gurgled, boiled and disappeared, leaving perfectly drawn holes filled with ectoplasm. The substance fountained up and froze, turning into the shapes of my minions. A strange way to teleport, I thought. As if all my minions are being created anew.
The stunned faces of Flaygray and Nega would go down in clan history. I’d be sure to put the magic pictures on the tavern wall: the stunned zombie satyr with his mouth wide open, baring blackened horse teeth; the alcoholic temptress beside him, a dead succubus with eyes wide. As it turned out, the transfer was far from painless for them—their flesh melted away, seeping into the sand, and then something pulled the now-liquid minions underground and reassembled them again at the destination.
I had to explain myself. “Sorry! I was just testing out a new skill. Anyway, joke’s on you guys!”
“Jokes like that will land you in the hospital,” Flaygray growled, offended. “Where you brought us from, we could build a road to Ruby City out of bricks lying around.”
“Ruby City…?” I asked, confused.
“Forget about it. It’s in the Inferno.”
An offered bottle of the strongest ale from Shad’Erung served as a peace pipe. The guardians took turns to chink from the bottle and soon calmed down. Anf didn’t drink, but smoked some kind of foul-smelling weed. He chittered at us via Ripta that he ‘agrees with everything,’ then left to go talk to my Iggv. I didn’t like it when they talked. Those two overgrown insects were plotting something.
Staying with Ripta, Flaygray and Nega, I shared my plan: while they were undead and I was their legate, my guardians needed to level up with Plague Boost.
“The dead army created by the lich is useless to me. I suggest you take control of it and start to slowly feed them to the local monsters, absorbing experience from
