Clover Kingdom / Diamond Border (Outlaw City / Black Die Underground City): January 20th, 1016.
It was a dead day for the world. The sky above outlaw city had turned grey, the bells of saint peter cathedral had stopped ringing and every rat, priest, knight, smuggler, merchant and gutter born child with enough sense to still fear breathing had gone silent, yet if you looked closely at the city itself. To be more specific, at the cracked streets above and the trembling tunnels below. You could see the final moment before two cities learned that one monster's promise to raise them to the ground had not been poetry.
The atmosphere apocalyptic.
(David's POV)
The first crack ran through the lower market at sunrise.
The second split the old well road in half.
The third opened beneath a church patrol and swallowed five men before their screams even finished choosing a direction.
By noon, outlaw city was shaking.
Not like a city under attack.
Like a body realizing the disease had reached the bones.
"Evacuation status." I asked calmly while standing inside the central command chamber.
Benjamin stood beside three open silver doors, sweat visible on his old face for the first time in years.
"Thirty six percent moved to outer routes. Twenty one percent trapped in lower western veins. Fifteen percent refusing to leave property. The rest are scattered." Said benjamin with a serious look on his sweat filled face.
"Kill the property ones if they block doors." I said calmly.
Benjamin bowed.
Nyx stood near me with blood on her arms and a ugly look on her face and said "She's really going to destroy everything."
"Yes." I said with a sigh.
Jarred wiped blood from his mouth and said with a chuckle to lighten the mood "I am going to drink her skull."
"No." I said with a snicker.
Jarred looked offended.
"Fine. Her helmet." Said jarred with another chuckle.
The command chamber shook.
*BOOOOOOM*
A ceiling crack opened.
Dust fell over the map.
The black dice pieces shifted.
Then fell.
I stared at them.
Five years.
Five years of coin.
Blood.
Routes.
Fear.
Food.
Murder.
Shelter.
My city.
My ugly practical kingdom that knew exactly what it was.
Ariella was erasing it.
My smile slowly widened.
It did not feel good.
It felt sharp.
"Benjamin." I said with wide crazed eyes.
"Yes master david." Said benjamin calmly.
"Move everyone useful. Leave the proud idiots." I said Immediately.
Benjamin's one eye sharpened and he asked "And you."
I looked toward the upper tunnel where weapon magic pressure was descending like a second sky and said with a wide grin "I'm going to make a old woman regret having a neck."
Nyx grabbed my sleeve.
I looked down at her.
She was silent for a long moment.
Suddenly she pulled me down and smashed her lips against mines.
My eyes widened.
*Gah*
Nyx pushed me away and wiped her lips and said with a grinning smirk "If you die, I'm going to kill you."
"That sentence is stupid." I said with a grin as I licked my lips that weirdly tasted like cooked fish.
"So are your feet." Said nyx while spitting on the ground.
*Plat*
I stared down at her for a moment.
Then flicked her forehead.
*THK*
She hissed.
"Stay alive, you can be annoying at times but also cute." I said calmly, my right hand lightly stroking her cheek.
Her face froze for a moment.
Then twisted.
"Don't say it like that you cheating bastard. I still haven't forgotten your Infidelity, who's going to raise your bastards if you have any." Asked nyx with a scoff and cold look in both of her eyes.
I turned away before she could see my face.
Because it was probably making something annoying.
…
Outlaw City / Central Pit Formation.
Ariella stood in the air above the old market.
Hundreds of thousands of weapons circled behind her like a metal storm.
The cathedral had cracked behind her.
The lower city screamed beneath her.
Clover knights were trying to evacuate civilians above ground.
Doran's beast magic roared in the distance as a rhinoceros armor smashed falling stone away from a group of people.
Julius novachrono stood on a broken rooftop, his grimoire swirling largely above the entire city, eyes wide and serious as he stared at the destruction.
He could not stop all of it.
Not yet.
Not this scale.
Not without revealing too much.
Or maybe he simply was not the man he would one day become.
Everyone had limits.
Even smiling bastards.
I stepped onto the surface through benjamin's door.
Ariella looked down at me.
"You came." Said ariella nonchalantly.
"You broke my house. I had no choice." I said calmly.
Ariella looked around at the collapsing city and said with her arms spreading "I am correcting a mistake."
I was silent, my grimoire opened.
The black magenta board spread beneath my feet.
Not across one tunnel.
Across the street.
Across the market.
Across broken stone and falling walls.
"Dice creation magic: Board of fate & luck." I said calmly.
The board groaned under the pressure.
My mana heart pulsed.
First ring.
Second.
Third.
Eleventh.
Pain stabbed through my chest.
Good.
Still alive.
Ariella raised her spear and said with a roar "WEAPON MAGIC: HELL RAISE."
The ground erupted with weapons.
"Loaded fate" I thought calmly with sharp eyes.
Dice spun around me.
"Weighted roll" I thought calmly with my arms spreading.
The board shifted.
My grimorie pages turned quickly.
"Critical roll." I said calmly.
Six.
Six.
Five.
Six.
The first blade meant for my heart bent into the ground.
The second struck a panel and launched toward ariella's shoulder.
The third sliced her thigh.
Healed.
The fourth cut through her ribs.
Healed.
The fifth nicked her neck.
Ariella moved.
Hard.
Too hard.
The wound opened along the side of her throat.
It did not close.
Not fast.
Not like the others.
My smile became slow.
Wide.
Awful.
"There it is." I said softly.
Ariella's pale blue eyes narrowed.
Nyx appeared behind me, breathing hard, one arm hanging wrong and said "Her neck."
"I noticed." I said calmly with narrowed eyes.
Jarred's black wine rose behind us like a rotten ocean.
Benjamin opened doors beneath falling civilians.
Julius watched from above with cold eyes.
Doran laughed somewhere far away, but even his laugh sounded tense now.
Ariella lifted both hands.
Her expression finally changed.
Not fear.
Annoyance.
Real annoyance.
"WEAPON MAGIC : COFFIN OF LOST LEGACY." Said ariella loudly with gritted teeth.
The sky turned silver.
Every weapon behind her folded into a enormous coffin of blades above outlaw city.
The pressure hit like a mountain.
The board beneath my feet cracked.
Nyx's knees bent.
Jarred cursed.
Benjamin's doors flickered.
Julius's eyes widened.
Ariella looked down at me and said with cold eyes "You found a secret too late."
I looked up at the coffin.
Then at the city.
Then at my people running through doors and tunnels.
Then at the black dice marks painted on walls that were about to become dust.
I started laughing.
Ariella stared.
Nyx looked at me like I had gone insane.
Maybe I had.
"I built a city under a city. And you needed a sky full of weapons to evict me." I said calmly, laughing under my breath.
Ariella's eyes went colder.
"Die with your pride then." Said ariella.
The coffin fell.
"THE JOKER." I said shouting at the top of my lungs.
The clown faced dice appeared above my head.
It laughed.
The world bent.
Not enough.
The coffin struck.
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
Outlaw city disappeared.
Not exploded.
Not collapsed.
Disintegrated.
White stone.
Black tunnels.
Markets.
Clinics.
Taverns.
Wells.
Streets.
Banners.
Bodies.
Walls.
Everything became a white silver light and then nothing.
For one long moment, the world had no sound.
Then wind rushed into the emptiness.
Where outlaw city and black die underground city had stood was only a deep pit.
A wound in the earth.
A crater so wide that the border itself looked ashamed.
At the bottom of the pit, I was still standing.
Barely.
The joker dice cracked above me and turned into dust.
My left arm was gone.
My ribs were visible.
My grimoire floated with burned pages.
Perfect Health screamed through my body and failed to keep up.
Nyx was alive behind a half broken silver door shield, coughing blood.
Benjamin was on one knee, his door magic flickering around survivors.
Jarred was buried waist deep in rubble, laughing and crying over a broken bottle.
Ariella descended slowly.
Her armor was cracked.
Her left side was split open and healing.
Her neck wound was still bleeding.
I smiled at it and said hoarsely "A ugly secret."
Ariella landed in front of me.
"You have lost everything." Said ariella nonchalantly.
I looked around the pit.
At the dust.
At the absence.
At the missing city.
At the kingdom I built from filth and turned into something that had actually existed.
I should be proud of my accomplishment.
Then I looked back at her.
"No. I should be proud that it actually existed. I know something that you don't, everything eventually comes to a end." I said calmly.
Ariella's eyes narrowed.
"I lost a city. You lost the right to walk away." I said while lifting the black dragon sword with my remaining hand.
My grimoire flipped.
The pages tore.
Mana bled from my mana heart as thought "Dice magic: Loaded fate."
One dice appeared.
Cracked.
"Dice magic: Critical roll" I thought with gritted teeth.
A second dice appeared.
Bleeding black magenta light.
"Dice Magic: Lucky break" I thought with my last ounce of mana.
A third dice appeared.
Laughing.
Ariella moved first.
Her spear pierced through my chest.
*THK*
Pain vanished.
That was bad.
Perfect health did not answer. It was not the level of seadpool or wolverine.
That was worse.
Ariella's eyes were cold.
"Goodbye david swallow. I pray for you." Said ariella nonchalantly.
I smiled with blood running down my chin.
"Wrong neck." I said whispering with a bloody grin on my crazed face.
Ariella's eyes widened.
Nyx's claw came from behind, not to kill, but to push her head half a inch.
Benjamin's silver door opened at her throat.
Jarred's black wine wrapped her ankle.
My black dragon sword entered the door.
And came out from the other side.
Right across her neck.
"Critical roll." I said softly with a whisper.
Six.
The blade cut.
Not her arm.
Not her heart.
Not her immortal flesh.
Her neck.
Ariella's pale blue eyes widened for the first time.
Blood sprayed.
The wound did not close.
Her spear twisted inside my chest.
My body broke.
But my sword kept moving.
Ariella staggered backward, one hand gripping her throat.
Her immortality tried to answer.
It failed.
Her mouth opened.
No words came.
Just blood.
I dropped to one knee.
Then both.
Ariella tepes fell in front of me.
The first abomination of wallachia.
The undying dhampir.
The blood queen.
The grand commander of saint peter.
Dead in a pit she had made.
I laughed once.
It hurt.
Good.
Pain meant I was still here.
Nyx crawled toward me with wide scarlet eyes.
"David." Said nyx weakly with her right hand out.
Her voice sounded wrong.
Too far.
Too small.
Benjamin was shouting something.
Jarred was laughing and yelling at the same time.
Julius stood at the edge of the pit above, eyes wide.
Doran was silent.
Good.
Finally.
I looked at the sky.
Grey.
Ugly.
Fitting.
A screen flickered in front of my face.
[DING!]
[Health: Critical]
[Body: David Swallow: Unsalvageable]
[Perfect Health: Failed.]
[Mana Heart: Collapsing]
[Condition: Death]
I stared at the words.
Then smiled.
"You have got to be shitting me." I said whispering with a smile on my face.
I've achieved something. I've earned my rest.
Another screen appeared.
[DING!]
[Locked First Dice: Opening]
My remaining eye widened.
The cracked dice from my storage appeared above my chest.
Old.
Black.
Silent.
The first dice I had never been able to open.
It rolled once in the air.
No sound.
No number.
Just fate turning its ugly head.
[DING!]
[Death recognized…]
[DING!]
[Original vessel destroyed…]
[DING!]
[Forced Reroll activating…]
Nyx reached for me.
Her fingers almost touched mine.
Almost.
Then everything went black.
…
Clover Kingdom / Royal Capital (Royal Palace): Unknown Time.
It was a disgusting morning for the world.
Not because of blood.
Not because of stone.
Not because of saints, devils, pits or dead cities.
No.
It was disgusting because I woke up in silk.
Soft silk.
Clean silk.
Expensive silk.
The kind of silk only useless rich bastards slept in when they had never been punched hard enough by reality.
My eyes opened slowly.
A golden ceiling stared back at me.
I was silent.
My body felt wrong.
Too soft.
Too short.
Too pampered.
My hands lifted.
They were chubby.
Pale..
Annoying.
A maid screamed.
"YOUR HIGHNESS." Said the maid loudly.
I froze.
The room went completely silent.
Highness.
No.
No, no, no.
A mirror stood across the room.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
I turned my head.
A handsome unconscious 18 or 19 yaar old man with ice blue eyes, a light skin color, 5'3 in height, short golden buz cut brown hair with a square shaped bearded face, and wears a striped doublet with alternating dark and light purple sections separated by white lines. The long sleeves have lace at the wrists. He also wears a pair of trunk hose that have a similar pattern as his doublet, as well as a pair of white tights and dark purple shoes. Over all this, he wears a fur-lined, green mantle and a yellow cravat stared back at me.
A face that I knew.
A lavish unfit body that I hated on sight.
My left eye twitched.
"Status" I thought calmly with a sigh.
[DING!]
[STATUS]
[Name: Augustus Kira Clover XIII]
[Race: Royal Human]
[Gender: Male]
[Age: 19]
[Title: [Crown Prince of The Clover Kingdom], [Royal Fool], [Future Useless King], [Forced Reroll Vessel], [Mate of Nyx Nocturne]
[Strength: 3.1]
[Agility: 3.3]
[Vitality: 66]
[Mana: 1,555,754]
[Magic: Light]
[Perk: Perfect Health]
[Skills: [Etiquette: Mid], [Dancing: High], [Sex: Advanced]
[Spells: Light Creation Magic: Absolute Monarch of Divine Brilliance]
[Storage: Locked]
[DING!]
[Previous Vessel: David Swallow: Dead]
I stared at the screens for a long moment.
Then at the mirror.
Then back at the screen.
The maid trembled near the door.
I slowly closed my eyes.
I smiled.
Kindly.
Peacefully.
Like a man who had accepted his fate.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me." I said calmly with a whisper.
…
THE END…