Becoming the Dark Lord

Rain hammered that place without pause. It was a storm every second of every day. Even when it should have been daylight, the clouds overhead smothered everything, leaving the world trapped in a kind of endless dusk. Luke stood on the shark’s back. Far off, lightning struck the water. A wave rolled toward them.

He had been crossing it for two days now. Going deep was not an option. Luke had tried once and nearly paid for it. There was some kind of vortex field below, an oceanic anomaly that created shifting currents and multiple whirlpools. It was a trap, and he had no intention of getting caught in it. If it was already hard with the shark, he definitely did not want to be stuck in those currents at the exact moment the Spectral Beast needed to vanish.

The ocean beneath him also seemed much deeper than usual. That had made him ask Cadmus more than once whether he had somehow entered the Abyssal Zone. But the robot kept saying that if that ever happened, for contractual reasons, he would be required to inform him immediately.

“Yo-ho, I’m a pirate, yes I am,” Artemis sang under her breath.

“Another Beacon,” Luke said, narrowing his eyes.

“Yeah. Another Beacon in this rainy hell. We should go there. Maybe we’ll find Willem Dafoe,” she said.

They kept following the blue thread. Some time later, a cluster of lightning bolts erupted on the horizon.

“Gods, did you see that?” Artemis said.

“I saw it,” Luke replied, rising to his feet.

The shark kept swimming.

“Isn’t that the direction we’re already headed?” she asked.

When the lightning flashed, it had revealed a massive silhouette for a split second.

Then it was gone.

“Probably just... a trick of the light,” Luke said.

“Or something enormous that sank back under the water, and we’re heading straight toward it. Isn’t that a little too reckless, even for our usual standards of recklessness?”

“It’s not like we haven’t already entered the so-called Cursed Sea.”

“Cursed Sea? That’s actually a great name,” she said.

Then Artemis went right back to humming.

“I bet this would make a great story. A book, maybe? What do you think, Luke?”

“A book about standing on top of a shark in the middle of the ocean? Who would read that?”

“There’s a whole book about a guy in a lifeboat with a tiger. A shark would be even better.”

A few minutes later, they heard a sound. Loud. Deep. Something that rolled through the entire storm.

“Some marine creatures produce sound as part of hunting rituals or echolocation,” Cadmus said.

“Robot, do you actually have a problem with us?” Artemis asked. “Because every time you open your mouth, it’s always something like, ‘You are about to enter the most horrifying place in the world, where nothing escapes,’ or, ‘Did you know that sound comes from giant creatures that swallow ships and kill anything they see?’”

“Well, you are correct,” Cadmus said. “A marine creature capable of producing sound at that volume would indeed be something large enough to swallow a ship with ease.”

“Luke, let’s throw Wall-E into the sea,” Artemis said.

For the next hour, Luke stayed alert for the slightest sign of hostility or anything out of place around him. Nothing happened. Then he saw it.

“A ship.”

Something was moving in the distance.

“Looks like there are other lunatics out here in the storm besides us.”

It was not in Eleanor’s direction, but Luke still turned toward it.

“I hope we get absurdly lucky and find Charlie or Angie on board,” Artemis said.

The waves were enormous. They rose into temporary walls, blocking his view again and again. Luke kept heading for the ship until...

“It sank?”

The ship dipped beneath the water.

“A ghost ship?” Artemis asked.

“Very likely.”

Then the water beside him exploded. A massive whale burst out of the sea.

[Queen Sperm Whale - Lvl ???]

“I knew it,” Artemis said.

Luke made the shark turn away from the creature and activated [Torpedo Charge], driving it hard in the opposite direction. The whale roared, or maybe sang, and suddenly the water began dragging backward. The wave kept growing.

“A whirlpool,” Luke said.

He was inside an ocean vortex. The colossal whale was at the center of it all. It opened its mouth and pulled. Wind and water were dragged inward with terrifying force.

“So what now, Luke?”

Luke pointed his hands, and the bracers fired, sending the knives into the air.

[Telekinetic Impulse activated]

The blade flew straight.

[Knife Storm activated]

And then...

[Shadow Mana Explosion activated]

Eight explosions slammed into the giant sperm whale. It cried out and turned toward Luke. He quickly reloaded the bracer and fired another knife.

[Burst Throw activated]

[Telekinetic Impulse activated]

The blade struck the whale in the eye. This time the sound was pure pain. The whale shut its eye.

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“Go, go!” Luke shouted at the shark, and the beast surged forward, swimming hard out of the vortex. As Luke pulled away, the whale opened its injured eye, red with rage, and fixed him with a murderous stare.

For several hours, Luke kept the shark moving, putting as much distance as possible between them. The whale never appeared again.

“We could’ve been swallowed whole if we’d been under it when it came up like that,” Artemis said.

Now Luke was swimming back.

“Or if I didn’t have the Spectral Beast active.”

If he had been forced to swim on his own, he would not have had any choice except to fight the monster.

“The system didn’t even show me the whale’s level. That thing is way above me.”

A day passed before Luke reached an archipelago.

[The individual Eleanor Kennedy is nearby. The locator has been deactivated.]

“So the locator doesn’t take me directly to the person. It just gets me close.”

Some of the islands were ringed with tornadoes, creating a surreal landscape. Luke headed for the largest island, the one with many ships docked there. There were people everywhere. When he reached the shore, no one paid much attention to him arriving. People were running back and forth. One group sat around a wooden table drinking.

“Finally. A little civilization,” Artemis said.

Some people were selling things, or rather, trading them. Luke looked toward the port.

“How am I supposed to find her here?”

He started scanning faces, searching for anyone familiar. A village stood there, built in the architectural style of that world, clearly a settlement people had taken over and repurposed. Luke walked through it.

[The next Artifact Challenge will begin soon.]

That drew cheers from the people around him.

After twelve hours of asking questions all over the island, Luke learned that the archipelago had received a huge number of people during Stage 1. It stretched from the storm zone all the way out beyond it. He was already close to the edge of that Cursed Sea. The flow of people coming and going was constant, with groups leaving to explore and others returning. There were Halos nearby too.

“We hit the jackpot, huh,” Artemis said.

Luke had not found Eleanor there, so he switched strategies. He would go somewhere she was highly likely to appear. The place where the event was about to begin.

[The Artifact Challenge is about to begin!]

Cheers erupted around him. Luke stood at the edge of a cliff. A lot of people were gathered there. That island chain had been seeded with several artifacts when Stage 2 began. But there was also a fixed challenge, one that happened every day and rewarded the people there with a few artifacts at a time. It had basically become an attraction.

[No participants detected in the Artifact Challenge area! The challenge will begin in 10 seconds!]

Unlike the other artifact challenges Luke had found, which required a certain number of participants to be inside the zone, this one worked differently. The island where the challenge took place had to be completely empty. For one obvious reason. So no one could build a base there and farm the artifacts over and over.

[Time Remaining: 5 seconds]

[Time Remaining: 4 seconds]

[Time Remaining: 3 seconds]

Everyone waited at the cliff’s edge.

[Time Remaining: 2 seconds]

[Time Remaining: 1 second]

Then Luke watched dozens of people hurl themselves into the water.

[Swim to the island and collect one of the artifacts, but be warned... the path will be dangerous!]

He also noticed others sitting back and simply watching the whole thing. Sharks were already rising toward the surface.

“The world belongs to the impatient,” someone said.

Below, rowboats were already moving into place. One person sprinted past Luke, launched into a huge leap, and splashed down far out in the water. A second later, Luke jumped too. It was not just sharks in the water. There were jellyfish too.

Pink ones, bigger than a person. He saw someone get shocked and kept swimming toward the beach. A few sharks cut across his path. Luke threw a knife at the fin of one of them sticking out above the water.

[Shadow Mana Explosion activated]

The shark exploded.

[You have slain a Riptide Shark - Lvl 83] *273.265 EP earned*

Your second class [Arcane Witch] has reached Level 74! (+12 Intelligence, +10 Wisdom, +7 Perception, +6 Willpower, +5 Agility, +3 Vitality, +2 Endurance, +10 Free Points.)

The moment Luke came out of the water, another notification appeared.

[In 15 minutes, tornadoes will sweep toward the island and destroy anything in their path. Good luck collecting the artifacts.]

That was one of the challenge’s hazards. Selmarines were another, from what he had overheard during the day. While everyone else ran, Luke kept scanning faces.

“No sign of the pretty girl in gym clothes,” Artemis said.

He broke into a run toward the artifacts.

“If she’s taking part in this challenge, I’ll find her here.”

A scream came from the forest. Then selmarines appeared.

“Leave them to me!” someone shouted to the group.

“I don’t have time,” Luke said as he ran straight past them and attacked.

He moved fast, spinning his kukris through the air. Selmarines dropped dead behind him. He kept running. Around him, ten throwing knives floated in formation, following at his sides. When he reached one of the artifacts, a few selmarines were already guarding it.

Luke sheathed one kukri and started throwing knives. He grabbed the artifact. Then he ran for the next one.

“What are you doing?” Artemis asked.

“Cutting down the competition. If she’s here, she’ll have to go for another one. If I sit around waiting at just one artifact, I could end up missing her and wasting time on the wrong one.”

So he moved toward an artifact. By the time he got there, a group had already claimed it. That was not a problem for Luke.

“They already took all the easy ones!” he heard someone shouting.

Only the hard ones were left. That was how the event worked. The artifacts near the start of the island went first, then the ones near the far end. The problem was that the ones at the far end were in the zone the tornadoes reached first.

“Always the hard option with you, huh?” Artemis said.

Luke threw a knife. A thread of mana pulled him forward, carrying him toward the tornado zone. He reached a half-destroyed stone village. There were five artifacts there.

“Ten artifacts a day. I can’t tell if that’s a lot or not.”

He climbed to the top of a broken stone tower, the highest point in the village. From there, he had a clear view of all five artifacts. With his eye, he could see at long range.

“Hey, Luke. Staying here when those tornadoes hit is, like... incredibly dangerous, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, just saying. A shark and a tornado is basically a sharknado...”

“Don’t.”

“I’d do great in Hollywood.”

Luke kept watching the artifacts. Very few people were going for them. The reason was simple. It was not enough to grab one. You also had to calculate whether you still had time to escape the island before the tornadoes arrived. The selmarines were in the way. They did not care if they got swept up and hurled into the ocean.

Then Luke saw them dropping one after another. An arrow struck each of them. And someone moved through them with a bow in hand.

“I found her.”

Luke leapt from the tower, throwing knives and letting the mana threads pull him forward. Just as the figure neared the artifact, it was yanked away by telekinesis and flew into Luke’s hand.

“That already belongs to someone.”

The female archer lowered her hood and half-mask.

“Luke?”

“Yay, we found my gym crush,” Artemis said.

***

The sperm whale swam through the deep ocean, far below the surface. One of its eyes still throbbed from the wound it had taken, a wound that had nearly blinded it. And the pain from the other blows to its head had not faded either. That tiny human riding the little shark had wounded her.

The whale was the queen of those waters. She ruled that storm. And she would not forgive it. Not the insolence of entering her territory. Not the audacity of hurting her. As she rose closer to the surface, she turned toward one particular direction. It did not matter how much time passed. She would repay that little human for what he had done. And with a violent burst of speed, she swam that way.