Chapter 385: 385 - A Restless Night
"Thank you for the arrangements, Lilith." As these words came off of his mouth, Noah tried to force himself to look in her direction, although he did know he could do nothing but watch. But one thing he was now certain of. Lilith had, at least at some point, a human form.
"Lucifer! The demons are behaving strangely. It"s almost like something is changing about the humans that come," Noah was forced to look away from the hand, as a last person raised his head. Dressed in crimson armor with golden details, this man had a ma.s.sive double-headed axe rested on its head against the ground, its hilt pointing upwards in front of his chest.
"Where? No changes were noted in the regions everyone else is responsible of," Lucifer"s words made everyone tense, as all six raised their heads.
"I was informed of the changes. They are only happening around places humans first come after descending to h.e.l.l. They say a pair or two of sinners have been receiving "Powers"," Lilith said, making Lucifer put his hands together in front of his face, resting his elbows on the armrests.
"Sath, I a.s.sume you have dealt with those cases personally, right?" Lucifer asked, the man clad in crimson nodding.
"They seemed to be a weaker form of a messiah, prophets. But I had never imagined those coming to h.e.l.l," he told Lucifer, who frowned.
"There"s something strange happen—" Lucifer said, as the ground shook violently, everyone jumping onto their feet. "What is happening?" Lucifer stood up, asking, but n.o.body knew the answer, and Noah felt something leak from his hand and feet, seeping into the ground. The feeling was similar to mana, but it was a different thing altogether.
Noah felt his face stiffen, as he opened his mouth, "The boundary is cracking. We"re under attack."
"The boundary? Why would G.o.d trigger a war out of a sudden?" Bel asked, worried, as he pulled a sort of twisted dagger from his clothes.
And the entire image vanished from Noah"s mind, who felt himself back into a dark void.
[You gained a new insight on the Beginning of the End. Lucifer would not have time to investigate deeply into the matter before being thrown into an all out war against heaven. Lilith and Lucifer spearheaded the conflict, and vanished, as Christianity dwindled.]
Differently from other times, the text written in flames was short and precise, not leaving anything for him to guess or imagine. It was a warning more than anything, and he noticed it. Yet, there was no way for him to know for a fact what it was all about. At least not yet.
The feeling of being submerged in water came over to him, as he felt something weigh on his shoulders, and his eyes opened. Lit by the dim lights of the bathroom, the bath looked still, the water was already quite cold, and the weight on his shoulders did not lessen. Noah looked down, to see Lilith"s sleeping head hanging over his shoulder, her body around his neck and into the water in front of him.
"So I slept in the bath..." he thought, still slightly off from the strange dream he just had. "But to think this snake is actually a person..." He bit his lip, staring at the sleeping Lilith, and shaking his head softly. He stood up, despite the dozens of kilos the snake weighed at this size, not noticing he was doing so with such ease. He slid the snake a little, lowering her head to his chest"s height, as he balanced her weight so she would not slip down his neck. He dried himself up with a towel, drying the snake too as he did so, and laid it over his shoulders and her, before walking onto the room once again.
Noah laid Lilith onto the bed, before dressing himself in a fresh set of clothes, as laying on the bed next to Lilith. Strangely for him, who was already used to the snake, a feeling of unease struck him as he saw her sleeping next to him, and he instead sat down on the bed, taking his phone for a second. He saw the request for a Fortress for the next night, but shook his head, and looked onto the next page of the app, the store.
"Still no Essence, huh," he muttered, noticing the lack of high-tier essence in the contribution store still. And he, for the first time, feeling the unease not let him sleep, started browsing through the app, checking smaller sections he would never have checked before. Among them was a forum. Noah"s face cramped a little as he read the first headlines of it, which had nothing to do with Fortresses or the Khan Family as a whole. The most active areas were about himself, his nomination and who he actually was.
"Just what in the h.e.l.l do these people think of me?" he thought, aghast, as he read the many a.s.sumptions and theories about where he"d come from, all focused on his appearance on the Arena and the sudden nomination of a newbie to the Elder ranks of the family. "If I read any more of this bulls.h.i.t I"ll have a stroke," he thought, reading a particular comment saying he was probably making a harem. He scrolled out of the thread, going into another one about the Fortress Spill of today, where many Blessed of the Khan Family were discussing the lack of partic.i.p.ation of their family in the process.
"Guess they are angry none of them could partic.i.p.ate," he thought, checking a couple profiles, and realizing most of these, despite being in the Khan Family for a long time, were D-Rank Blessed at best. Rather, going down to other and more popular comments, it was clear that they had the same vibe of a cheering crowd, full of confidence in their opinions, but voicing things that made no sense for those down into the game.
"Come on, this is just sad," Noah told himself, rolling his eyes and standing up, walking towards the wardrobe, tired. "Did I bring that thing?" he asked himself, as he rummaged through the small amount of things he brought from home to see whether he"d brought the tiara, so that he could spend some time doing something good, since everywhere he checked was talking about himself.
"Found it!" he exclaimed internally, as he reached into the drawer he used to store his belongings, which had not much other than his wallet and a small bag with things he brought along. Together with the tiara, he pulled a small thumb drive, which he looked at with affection, before putting it back into the bag. This was a backup of all the pictures he had with his mother and Maggie, which he brought along after the house was invaded by Khish.
"Welp, guess it"s the best of times," he told himself, wondering what he would do next, as he put the tiara on, and laid on the bed, to start Valorwatch.
"Should I train the new skills?" he asked himself, as he faced the character selection page, where he had only Lucifer. He was curious as to why there even was a character selection screen, since each account could only have one character, but he figured it was just to serve as a thinking spot for people before joining a lobby. "Guess I"ll make a smurf," he thought, as he created a completely new character for an extra account.
"What should I make this one look like?" he asked himself, as he scrolled through the appearances. Oddly enough, a sudden thought occurred to him, as he made a human-looking avatar that looked more like Bel than himself. "I should try having an avatar with the generic skills too later on, so that I can train getting used to other types of skills.
While thinking so, he finished up the plain-looking character, and bought it a plain set of sword and shield, as he planned to try those first.
As he joined the tutorial, Noah simply ran towards the monsters, using his Edge Mastery to cut through the opponents like they were made of b.u.t.ter. "Is it because this is the tutorial?" he asked himself aloud, as he sliced through another player who was using a sword to strike at him, scratching his head at the sheer lack of interesting blessings.
"Wai—" he yelled, feeling a presence, and almost inadvertently tunneling away from him, but held down and jumped, an explosion from the ground catching him off guard, and ending his first life in the tutorial round.
"d.a.m.n, that guy had a nice Blessing," he said, as he looked at his legs, lowering the tip of his sword.
"Hey, you," a voice called him from behind.
"Me?" Noah asked, turning around to meet the eyes of a Blessed that had an avatar that looked like an Elf, with long ears and pale skin.
"Yeah, you. Aren"t you a Protection type Blessed? Why are you running ahead alone like you"re an a.s.sa.s.sin or something?" the guy asked, Noah scratching his head, the shield rising over his head, as it was attached to his arm.
"Y—yeah... I was just checking something out," he said, making the guy smile.
"I see... You dive into fortresses too, right?" the man amicably asked, smiling, "I almost started doing suicidal stuff when I joined, because I wondered how cool it would be if I won"t die. You know? Being a front-lane fighter for once..." he said as he saw Noah"s unmoved expression, thinking he"d said something stupid.
"No, yeah. I completely get you," Noah feigned, walking closer to him. "Actually, my blessing is related to the shield, we can advance together so I can defend you," he said, taking this chance to train the [Selfless Bastion] skill too during the tutorial, making the man happy.
"Cool! Let"s go," he said, running ahead of Noah, who realized just how awkward it was fighting with people he didn"t know in this game for the tutorial, since they didn"t start all at once together like a normal game.