Guinevere reappeared in the forest. Leaves crunched under feet as she took a step to catch her balance. Her heart raced as she pushed back the memory of death. She stood there for a minute before a notification filled her vision.

  It was a tie between Arthur and Mordred. She didn’t know how that was possible but it didn’t matter now.

  Two vials, wafers and tokens appeared on top of a thin silver chest. She scooped the tokens up she didn’t absorb them since she’d already used three on her ability Aphrodite’s Beauty. She needed to pick another ability to devote her remaining ability tokens too. She quickly drank the vials, splitting them between mana and stamina doing the same with the wafers.

  The chest was small, and she opened it looking at the diadem resting inside the black velvet lining. It was made from a pale silver twisting around with hanging pale blue and white gems set in silver disks.

  As soon as she had finished reading description another notification popped up.

  Guinevere’s face twisted as she read that. Even the gods apparently wanted her to marry Arthur. Her fists tightened but she forced herself to relax. Lifting the diadem out of the chest she set it on her head. This was a relic of her ancestors that had been lost centuries ago, it may have been the symbol of Arthur and Gwenfer before, but it was just a piece of equipment now.

  She settled the diadem on her head the silver and gem resting against the crown of her forehead. It remained cool against her skin, not warming with her body temperature. She could hear the baying of hounds in the distance. She quickly stripped out of the armor Mordred had made for her, tossing it under a log as stepped back into the dress she had been wearing.

  A large hound burst into the clearing and began circling her baying loudly its tail wagging enthusiastically. The huntsman following his hound rushed into the clearing nearly tripping when he saw her. His jaw fell open, and he just stared at her.

  “Can I help you huntsman?” Guinevere said after waiting for him to speak.

  “Yes, yes, forgive me my lady,” the huntsman said kneeling and averting his gaze. “We’ve been searching for you for days.”

  “I’ve been out hunting,” Guinevere said dismissively.

  “Your father has put out a reward for your safe return,” he said.

  “Fine,” Guinevere said. “You may walk me home and claim your reward.”

  The huntsman walked beside her; she could feel him sneaking glances at her whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. They reached her father’s castle, and she looked up at the towering grey stone walls. Her steps felt heavy as she walked through the outer gate into the courtyard.

  Every man who saw her stopped what they were doing their jaws hanging wide, one man even drooled looking away his faced reddening when she caught his lecherous stare. She felt uncomfortable, she was no stranger to the male gaze. Now it was different though, before men had simply looked covertly but now, they stared like starving hounds transfixed by a hunk of raw meat. Two of her fathers knights were sparring in the courtyard when the one facing her saw her he froze and was hit full in the head as he totally failed to defend himself.

  Servants rushed towards her, she had to force down the instinct to strike out at the hands reaching for her as handmaids began brushing down her clothes and pulling her away. She let them glad to be free of the hungry gaze of all the men.

  An hour later she stood before her father.

  “Where have you been?” Merlin asked, his voice flat and emotionless.

  “I was out killing things,” Guinevere said.

  “Why?” Merlin asked in that same calm voice.

  “Because I wanted to,” Guinevere said.

  “I gave you orders to remain home,” he said turning to face her only his eyes showing the shimmering rage behind them.

  “I know,” Guinevere said her voice just as cold and dispassionate as her own anger gazed back at his.

  “You are to go to Camelot today, your belongings have already been packed,” her father said. “Perhaps you will find less time to embarrass me in the city. Do your duty Guinevere, these outbursts do not become you.”

  “Yes father,” Guinevere said turning and gliding out of the room.

  ---

  My eyes snapped open as I gasped reaching for my neck. I calmed myself, that death wasn’t real I was back in the cave, everything was alright. My inner thoughts weren’t enough to calm the racing of my hearts as the feeling of Excalibur cutting through my neck was still fresh in my mind.

  A notification popped into my vision, and I read it.

  It appeared the System was calling it a tie between me and Arthur. If I wanted to have a victory over him, I’d have to see to it here in the real world.

  Two vials of the marbled gold and silver ambrosia appeared before me as well as two wafers resting atop a cotton square and next to them were two large gold coins and long thin silver metal chest. Reaching out I absorbed the tokens, my max rank for Void Asura was now rank forty, of course I had no where near the needed rank points. The System really hated that ability. I opened the silver chest and looked down on the sword inside.

  It was about four feet in length the gauntlet that served as its hilt covered in spikes. It was a dark grey only the edge of its blade having any glint to it. Green runes ran down the length of its fuller glowing with power. I didn’t really have a need for it so I just put it in my storage.

  I heard the shifting of massive weight and turned to see Exar’kun sticking his head through the mouth of the cave.

  “How did it end?” he asked.

  “Guinevere killed the other champions after you died, I got Kay she got the rest. Arthur had me down and I used an exploit to kill him just as he killed me,” I said.

  “Couldn’t you have used the exploit before than and still survived?” he asked.

  “Nah, I don’t think there was a way for me to survive that one,” I said thinking of the power contained within that crystal.

  “So, what now?” Exar’kun asked me as he settled down on the ground.

  “I need to upgrade some abilities,” I said. “Than we head back to Dragonhold and I get ready to go to Camelot. You probably have some abilities to upgrade, you killed a lot more gifted than me.”

  “I got a few, but not to many,” Exar’kun said. “Lower rank creatures rarely grant new abilities, apparently even if they’re champions but my time wasn’t wasted.”

  “Good to hear, do you need to use any of those pain reliever drugs?” I asked.

  Exar’kun snorted in distain. “I’m a dragon, my pain resistance is naturally higher than yours; I don’t need those sorts of potions.”

  “Well, I’m just going to do my upgrades here,” I said. “I can fly on my own so if you want to head back to Dragonhold now, you can.”

  “I need to do some hunting,” Exar’kun said. “I don’t think the contents of my stomach made it back with me.”

  Settling back into a cross legged position I closed my eyes falling into my Wrathful Meditation.

  “Raise Unending Flow to rank twenty,” I told the System.

  Skipping past the first few notifications I got to the first upgrade options.

  The first ability was useless to me, I had so much mana that running out of it was never an issue. The second one was a good option; I probably would have taken it in the past but my battles with Arthur had taught me where I was weakest. In massive battles my AOE abilities let me devastate my enemies and just keep going as Magma Hearts fueled me. That all ended when I was in one-on-one fights with people like Arthur or boss monsters. That left the third ability, it was simple, but it seemed like the best out of my three option. Plus, it would make my massive mana pool even more efficient.

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  Looking at it I was confident I had made the right choice, a percentage reduction that would go up permanently overtime the more I fought. I had to kill humanoids to do so but they always seemed eager to start fights with me so that wouldn’t’ be a problem. Skipping past the next four notifications I got to the next upgrade selection.

  If I didn’t have Storm Soul, the third option would have been the best choice to pick out of the three options. I did have though so I didn’t need to increase the amount of mana I had at all. That left the first two options to compare. The first one would increase the strength of my mana abilities; I didn’t know exactly what that meant but it was probably useful. The second would increase their duration, I had lots of duration effects such as the debuffs and buffs I could grant as well as my damage over time effects. Since I was uncertain of what increasing the strength would do, so I went with increasing their duration.

  It would seem the System really wanted me to go on a murder spree. I skipped past the next few notifications until I got to the upgrade selection.

  All my options here were variants of the same. They would increase the percentage gain in some way. The second would always increase the gain regardless of what I killed allowing me to focus just on monsters or beasts if I wanted the third would make hunting elites like powerful monsters or bosses more profitable. I went with the first option; people were going to come after me and if they were I was going to farm them for all they were worth.

  I skipped past the next few notifications getting to the next upgrade.

  The first ability was good, but it would only be good in battles where I was spamming my abilities, I wasn’t a mage and most of my kills were actually done with my weapons with the exception of Chain Lightning which rarely killed most gifted creatures unless they were low rank or already heavily damaged. I used my abilities to soften up my opponents than dove into the fight and made sure they were dead. The second option was just bad, I wouldn’t be running out of mana and while I could recognize my self-destructive tendencies going further down that path wouldn’t lead anywhere good. That left the third choice which was… weird.

  “Why are you putting video game mechanics into my abilities?” I asked the System.

  There was no reply, but I chose the ability anyway. Getting loot drops from my enemies would be an interesting experience.

  Doing the math, I would have to kill a total of eight-hundred-and-forty people to raise this ability to its max. While that was a lot it also wasn’t that many, and I was glad I wouldn’t have to kill the population of a city to raise the percentage to its max.

  “With the regular ability taken care of,” I said to myself. “That leaves, Void Asura, I’ve got nowhere near the points to raise this to its limit.”

  I only had the rank points to raise it to a little past rank twenty, but I decided to save those points and just raise the ability to twenty flat and save the others until I was able to upgrade it twenty-five or thirty.

  “Raise Void Asura to rank twenty,” I told the System.

  My soul began to burn, there was no blocking out this pain, I was changed on a spiritual level not a biological. Even raising my Spirit didn’t feel like this, Guinevere had explained to me once that the Spirit Attribute represented how connected we were to our soul and was not actually affecting our soul. It was just strengthening the signal between the body and soul bringing them closer together. This ability was not that and was directly affecting the hardware of my soul. The pain coalesced and brightened as I received a notification from the system.

  There were no choices for me with this ability; it would grow and change as it chose or as my soul mutated. I wasn’t actually sure what was the determining factor and with the fresh spike of pain I was in no state to think of it either. I was dimly aware that I was screaming but I blocked out the sensations of my body as the agony of my soul tried to overwhelm me.

  I was actually glad I didn’t have the rank points to increase this ability any farther, that was hell and wasn’t something I wanted to go through anymore. Sadly, for me I would have to eventually as I still had twenty more ranks to go and another ten after that once I increases its max rank.

  “Pull up my current status,” I told the System.

  I stood up, my body shaking not from physical pain but the after effects of my soul altering. My body was drenched in sweat, and I wiped it off with my Cleansing Cloth. Stepping out of the cave I looked up, I couldn’t see Exar’kun anywhere, but I didn’t need him to fly me around everywhere anymore. Lightning enveloped my body as I rocketed into the air blasting towards Dragonhold.

  ---

  Arthur bolted upright his body heaving as his hand reached for his face.

  His breath began to heave again this time with anger instead of panic.

  A single vial, wafer and token appeared before him on the ground. His fist slammed into the wall again and again the stone cracking under the strikes of his armored hand.

  “Calm yourself my champion,” a hard female voice said.

  Arthur froze, turning to see his goddess. He dropped to one knee before her.

  “I am sorry for my outburst my lady,” he said.

  Viviane stared down at him for a few moments. “I can see your memories of the Event; you have not failed me my champion.”

  “But the Warlord…” Arthur said.

  “Is being dealt with,” Viviane said. “Even as we speak his retribution is coming. He has grown too powerful and angered too many other gods. We may limit ourselves when interfering with another champion for fear of backlash from other deities, but this is an exception. All the other pantheons, even the Mendactheon and Vastitatheon have sided with us. The Warlord will be tested, and even if he survives his vassals will not.

  “He will learn what the price of his victory is soon.” she said her voice as hard and cold as steel. “Without an army, the Warlord is nothing.”