Becoming the Dark Lord

It was daytime, and Luke walked along the beach. He had finally reached the true ocean. The waves were massive. A few trees grew nearby, something like palm trees, except their leaves were orange.

“Looks deep,” Artemis commented while Luke studied the water.

There was no gradual slope leading down into it. No shallows, no gentle descent. It looked more like the edge of a vast hole dropping straight into an oceanic abyss.

“This is where the real challenges of Sunken Realms begin.”

For all he knew, giant creatures could be moving down there right now, directly beneath him. Luke kept walking along the shore.

“The Beacon is in that direction,” Artemis said.

Luke was looking at something else. An island in the opposite direction.

“It’s within reach. If the octopus goes full speed like a maniac, I’ll probably wear it out, but I won’t need it on the island anyway.”

The creature was useless outside the water. He was still deciding whether to go now or wait for the tide to rise. After a few more hours following the shoreline, he came to a place where several people were working. They were cutting wood from the strange trees, and ropes were hauling the gathered material up to the tops of ancient structures from this world.

At the top of one of those structures, people had already spotted Luke. A group started walking toward him. There were mages among them.

“What are your intentions, staying around here?” asked a tall, dark-skinned man wearing clothes that were worn out but still somehow neat.

“I want to wait until night and see what happens here when the tide comes in,” Luke replied.

The man glanced at Luke, then toward the island.

“You can stay nearby. But a warning. I won’t tolerate you harming any of the people under my protection.”

“As long as no one tries anything with me, I’ll go my way in peace.”

“Good.” The man extended a hand. “My name’s Luther.”

Luke looked at the people behind him, then at the man’s hand.

His mind immediately turned to tricks, angles, hidden moves. But something told him the man standing in front of him, if forced into a fight, would not rely on cheap tactics.

“My name’s Luke.”

The group headed back toward their camp, but the ones watching him from a distance never once took their eyes off him.

“A community,” Artemis said in his thoughts. “A small faction.”

Yeah. Maybe they were in the same island challenge.

Luke looked again toward the distant island.

There’s an accessible island right there for them. It’d be a lot better than staying here and dealing with that massive flood every night.

“The island could be dangerous,” Artemis said.

That’s what I’m thinking.

“Or maybe the route to it is full of things in the ocean that want to kill you.”

***

Luke stayed a little way off from the camp. He had gathered a handful of plants from the area, and a huge cauldron sat over the fire, simmering with a thick stew made from the fish he had caught during his days of exploration.

“This is when I miss Charlie,” he muttered, raising a hand and firing a [Shadow Ball].

The blast erupted. He dragged a few more pieces of wood toward the black fire, lit another pile, and set a second cauldron over it.

“They probably think you’re launching some kind of attack,” Artemis commented.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Luke had to keep firing [Shadow Ball] every few minutes into fresh stacks of wood. Unlike normal fire, this one ate through the timber, corroding and destroying it as it burned.

“You really going to keep cooking, grandma?”

“It’s always better to be prepared. I don’t know when I’ll be back on solid ground without something trying to kill me.”

He intended to prepare as much food as possible for the journey ahead across the ocean. Glancing at his magic bracelet, Luke touched it, and the image of a greenhouse appeared in his mind. He went through the motions of tending his magical crops.

After Charlie started feeding on beasts and Angie got healing powers, I stopped growing healing plants like a madman.

He closed the image of the greenhouse.

If the Fifty-One hadn’t been pushed forward, I would’ve built up a good stockpile of potions.

Luke kept cooking, using ingredients he had been cultivating ever since the tutorial. Then he noticed a group approaching from the side. Among them was the man named Luther. ℴ

“That’s a strange way to build a campfire,” Luther said.

“Everybody improvises however they can,” Luke replied.

A woman holding a torch stepped forward. “Want me to light it with real fire?”

Luke glanced at the pile of wood burning with black flames. “Yeah. That would actually help.”

“Don’t know how to make a fire?” asked a young man who looked about Luke’s age.

“I was feeling lazy,” Luke answered evenly.

“Where are you from?” an older man asked.

Luke looked at them. “Where are you from?”

“Australia,” Luther said. “But they’re from Ghana.”

“United States,” Luke replied.

“Ah. American.” The older man studied him for a moment. “So tell me, American. Why do you keep staring at that island?”

“And why are you all still here, risking being dragged off or killed by a giant wave, instead of heading to the island? When the tide rises, does it disappear or something?”

“No,” Luther said. “The island rises with the tide. But other people passed through here before us and went there. None of them came back. The sea around it is deep, and who knows what’s down there.”

He gestured toward the distance. “We’re getting ready to travel in the opposite direction of the wave. The farther we get from the shore, the closer we’ll be to actual solid land,” the older man added.

“You don’t plan to clear the event phases?” Luke asked.

Luther gave a faint shrug. “For some people, the real game is surviving until the Fifty-One ends, and not dying before they live to see it.”

“The real race begins on the New Land,” the woman said. “And with everything waiting for us there, and all those planets we saw drawing near to ours... we won’t be alone anymore.”

The group kept talking with Luke. They even offered him fruit, and a few items through barter. Luther had a profession called Negotiator, probably some evolved version of Merchant, at least that was Luke’s guess.

Luke traded some of the meat he had stored away. There were plenty of dead fish in his storage item, some bigger than he was. In return, he took a few pieces of fruit. Not because he particularly wanted them. A friendly trade opened the door to information, and both sides understood that, even if neither said it outright. After that, the group headed back to their camp.

Luke watched them climb the ruins as night approached, using ropes and moving upward through the interior of the structures.

Logically, most of the people who don’t intend to clear the event phases are probably heading for the Main Island.

The continent was not a continent at all, really. It was one enormous island. The so-called Main Island. When night finally fell, Luke saw how the tide worked there. It was instant. A colossal tsunami came roaring in from the horizon.

“That’s fast as hell.”

Looking toward the ruins, he could see the people already safe on top. Then he saw the enormous wave rushing straight at him. Luke dove into the water. He summoned the Spectral Beast, and the octopus appeared beneath him. Together they plunged fast, going deeper and deeper into the oceanic abyss.

Even that far down, he felt the pressure of the wave as it passed overhead, dragging the octopus sideways. They braced themselves against the wall of the abyss until it finally moved on.

Okay. I’m really doing this.

Now he was truly in the real ocean. The octopus kept moving. The feeling down there was oppressive. Luke could not see the bottom, only darkness. Even so, he kept descending.

Then he saw what looked like a mountain, except it was made of sand. A moment later he spotted enormous roots tangled around glowing pink spires, forming a vast bioluminescent forest.

So it’s not a straight drop. This is probably where the slope begins. The farther I get from the Main Island, the deeper the water becomes.

Strange fish passed close to Luke, only to dart away immediately, whether because of the giant octopus or because he was keeping [Despair Aura I] active. He saw one fish with transparent skin, its bones clearly visible through the flesh.

As the Spectral Beast advanced, Luke noticed several “islands,” chunks of stone floating in the water. Those islands were covered in strange purple plants, and some of them released streams of air bubbles.

A fish that looked like a swordfish drifted toward the Spectral Beast. Luke did not hesitate. One of the octopus’s tentacles snatched the creature before it could launch whatever attack it had been preparing, then crushed it to death. The beast fed as it moved, swallowing chunks of the fish before continuing on.

Activating [Jet Propulsion], Luke sent the octopus surging forward. Now he was going to the island.