“Oh, for fuck's sake, not again!” The second is that she’s chained down in a dark room. “Zero points for creativity,” she shakes her head, “Kidnappers nowadays.”
As she continues waking up more and more, she finds more and more signs of gross unprofessionalism. She’s wearing rather baggy clothes — good for hiding things. No one is watching her — she’d have been able to break out if only she had a file with her. She’s chained, literally chained, but her hands aren’t even bound.
She sighs. “Kids these days. Watch one movie and think they can kidnap you, and don’t even bother learning how to tie up a prisoner properly. Fucking stupid. Anyway, despite finding all these problems, there is nothing I can do for now, so I just gotta wait and try to understand why I’m currently not feeling any pain. Anaesthetics maybe? That could explain the missing precautions, too. If they don’t know about my resistance to them, that would-”
While talking, she realised something odd.
“What the-” The scars on her hands were gone. Somehow, some random kidnappers had done what even the world's greatest doctors and healers couldn’t. Either that or…
“Oh, for fuck's sake, not again!” She repeated, with even more enthusiasm than last time. “Another fucking Isekai! Were the first two not enough!”
[Author Style: Flashback no Jutsu] (World building)
The game Zenith: The Final Calamity had been seen as both a hilarious joke and, hands down, the greatest VRMMO in history. Its name had been one giant joke, with all calamities having, according to the game lore, been beaten many centuries before the game began. This had been seen as proven when, for over a decade after the game's initial release, no calamity had unfolded.
Then, its 3000 top players disappeared, having been sent into the game, their level reset, but their knowledge untouched. They grinded to hell and back because, according to the System, they would get to leave the game after defeating all world bosses. When they succeeded, only a third of them survived, with all the survivors either heavily scarred or broken by the game. Countless had bloody reputations for their brutality, and all the top players were feared, for one couldn’t reach the top without making sacrifices. The most notorious of them all had been none other than Azarynth Veyloran, whose name literally meant: “One who claims in the name of balance.”
She’d terrified everyone, not because she was lawless, but because she had managed to enforce laws in a lawless place. By sheer power and unrelenting will, she had managed to completely stop every player from even thinking about raping or enslaving any other player or NPC. As her name suggested, she’d done that by straight-up killing everyone who tried, leading to her being responsible for over a fifth of the total player deaths over the course of those dreadful three years.
After the Assault Team defeated the bosses, the players who’d survived kept their powers, which would have been problematic, especially considering what had happened to their personalities, had there not been Azarynth to keep them in check. This continued for over 5 years until something unexpected happened. Azarynth had been poisoned and was no longer capable of holding the other players back. Shortly after this, she’d blacked out and appeared on this throne.
“And that’s the story of how I got Isekaied twi—” Why the fuck am I telling this story in third person? Scratch that, why am I talking to myself in the first place?”
After getting herself out of that weird episode, she finally collected herself enough to make use of the essence of every Isekai, the System.
[Status]
Azarynth Veyloran
(Reapers of Eternity)
Level 3486 Vampyr Progenitor [Archmage of Dread]
STR: 32,412
AGI: 3,502,342
CON: 88,232
INT: 54,923,239
WIS: 32,693,326
“What the flying f—”” Azarynth took a deep breath to calm her stress.
“How the heck did I get a thousand levels?! I should’ve been Level 2300, not this! And my class changed too! Why not just change my gender too?!” Upon realising what she’d said, panic started setting in. “No! Don’t! I very much like myself, like I am!”
To her relief, nothing happened.
“Phew, barely dodged a bullet on that one.”
After calming down once again, she realised something.
“Holy goddamn shit, am I stupid. If I kept my powers, breaking out is easy. I stayed chained down for no reason!”
Flexing her muscles a bit, she managed to rip through the chains.
“I didn’t even need to use magic. Anyway, now let’s find out where I am.”
She started to cast a lighting spell, when she remembered, or more like remembered she didn’t remember, something troublesome.
“What was the name of the spell again?” Her magic started to grow restless, and no matter your power, a failed spell was always unpleasant to say the least. “Ah fuck it! Lumos!”
The entire cavern lit up with a blinding light.
“How did that work? The incantation was supposed to be Gewurte lēoht. That’s not how magic works. The incantations of Zenith have always been in Anglo-Saxon. Did I land in Harry Potter or something?”
But once she looked around, she quickly concluded that it wasn’t the world of Harry Potter.
“Welp, this looks an awful lot like the Room of the Damned, where we fought the final phase of the Ashen Harvester. That was one terrifying boss, damn near party wiped the 500 players that fought it, and then the Black Block finished it by backstabbing their teammates. Was the last time I had to actually avenge a player. Meh, who cares ‘bout that. Now I just gotta leave this place.”
Turning to the enormous door, she blanched. “Oh shit! The spell circle disappeared. Am I supposed to brute force my way out? That’s 54 metres of pure orichalcum! How the flying fuck am I supposed to get through that!”
But just as she was starting to lose her confidence, the door started moving.
“— so there’s no danger here. This room has been empty for over 7000 years, is equipped with a spatial lock that even the greatest wizards of our time can’t begin to comprehend, and every opening and closing of the doors is documen–“ An unknown male voice started saying, before stopping once its owner spotted Azarynth standing in the middle of the room.
The silence stretched for a few seconds until…
“Well… this is awkward.” The female companion of the explainer broke the increasingly awkward silence. “Anyways, I’m Anaya Singh, an apprentice curse-breaker from India, and my, obviously wrong, colleague here is a British curse-breaker called William Dale. We work for Gringotts and are here to inspect a statue that should have been chained to the throne. Do you know anything about-?”
The curse-breaker interrupted her. “I think it is fairly obvious now that that is no statue, but a living being, although I wouldn’t say it’s a human because humans generally tend to live less than the 2000 years we know she existed.”
‘So I am in fact in Harry Potter, eh? Guess I’ll have to adjust my incantations to this world, just to blend in, but I should probably try out, whether I can use the old Anglo-Saxon ones.’
“I need to do something for a second here.”
Suddenly, magic surged so intensely that the two curse-breakers barely managed to keep standing.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Sceawa mē tone hearm te tās menn ōerum gedōn habbae. (Show me the harm these people have inflicted on others.)
The two completely and utterly overwhelmed curse-breakers now felt like they were being judged by a transcendent force. Their entire life flashed before their eyes, before the man started to radiate a neutral feeling, along with a grey light, and the girl began to radiate a white light that emitted a feeling of goodness.
“Now that’s something I haven’t seen in a while. You truly are an exceptional woman. Anaya was it? Take this as a token of my goodwill.”
Azarynth took off her golden gem-laced necklace and started handing it to the Indian woman, who looked like she wanted to refuse, but was too overwhelmed to remember how to do so. Then she started walking towards the still-opened door, with the other two falling into step with her due to their confusion.
“What was that?” The more experienced curse-breaker asked, after managing to shake off the confusion enough to ask a question. “I’ve never seen a spell like that before.”
“Just a fancy little trick. It uses your acclimatisation towards different fields of intent to judge the amount of willful harm you have inflicted upon others, and weighs it against the amount of help you have given others. It was to make sure you haven’t harmed others too much. Don’t be insulted that you weren’t judged to be a good person. I wouldn’t be either, and even the living saints barely qualified as good. Your colleague is truly someone special. I wonder how she got that kind of judgment.”
“My family has a ritual in which we pass the magic of our ancestors down to our descendants. Could that have affected it?”
“No, that would just be power, and acclimatisation to different fields of magic, none of which have to do with intent. Only those who have mastered an intent to the point of materialisation can truly sense intent, and it’s incredibly rare, so I doubt you know much about it, especially since every spell that directly uses it requires you to be able to feel it.”
“So you have an intent?”
“Everyone does. It’s about the mastery of it. I don’t want to talk more about it, yeah, so could we talk about something else? Like, I don’t even know the current year. Hell, I’m not even sure what time system you use in the first place.”
‘I do, of course, but I’ll try to be careful for now. Don’t want to let anything slip, especially since I have no clue whether I’m in an AU. Wait! How do I explain speaking English? Quick!’
“It can’t have been that much time, since you also speak High Vila, although I do find it interesting that regular human mages have been seen as worthy to learn such a noble language.”
‘Game lore for the win!’
“What do you mean, High Veela? We are speaking English! This language has nothing to do with those disgusting creatures!”
I'm not sure if I should be happy that the British are as backwards as they are in the Harry Potter world, or annoyed at it. On the one hand, it makes it more likely that I'm in the real world, but it could also make my life a lot harder. Meh, I’ll get to it when I get there.’
“It’s High Vila, not High Veela. It’s the language spoken by the high elves. I really wonder how you learned it. Took me saving the life of their princess for them to give me those permissions. Anyway, doesn’t really matter. So what time system do you use, I mean, what is year 0 in it?”
“We use a system where the birth of Jesus is classified as year 1. Do you know who that is?” Asked the female Indian.
“That’s interesting… Very interesting. The year wouldn’t be, I don’t know, 1990, would it?”
“It’s 1995. 2nd of August to be precise. At least you seem to know roughly how much time has passed.”
“Oh, Menes, you old bastard. So this is what you meant when you said ‘This will be very relevant to your future.' Fucking bastard.”
“Menes? Do you mean the old pharaoh?”
“Well, his real name was Narmer, but he didn’t like it for some reason, so everyone calls him Menes.” The vampyr’s eyes darken. “Or called anyway. He’s gone now. Guess that’s a silver lining to the whole you lose everything and everyone you know situation.”
They finally reached the door.
“What the fuck?!”
This had been the weirdest, most annoying and most headache-inducing day of Anaya Singh’s life.
First, she had been required to work with William Dale, who was notoriously racist, sexist and made his opinions on everyone else clear. Despite that, he was one of the most accomplished curse-breakers in the entire world, making working with him an honour, even for highly experienced curse-breakers. Much less for someone like her, who had just passed her finals and had just started her apprenticeship. She didn’t even have a master yet!
Sadly, it had quickly become obvious why she had been the one to work with him. The moment she arrived at the arranged meeting place, she’d been told to make tea before being forced to listen to a 2-hour rant on why magical beings were supposed to be slaves to the true nobles (British wizards), and how other magical cultures were subpar.
After spending two hours listening to someone explaining to her why she was a lesser being, if not as bad as the inborn slaves (magical beings), she was finally told what they were supposed to do. Perform a routine inspection of an old tomb! There was no need for multiple people to be present, let alone have a strategic discussion beforehand, so the entire meeting was wholly unnecessary and consisted only of the rant.
When they finally arrived (there was another delay thanks to Mr Dale making sure she knew all the security measures, which were obviously completely unnecessary), they found out the tomb still had to be opened and waited another 3 hours until the doors were finally unsealed, and another 30 minutes for them to finally be openable. By this point, she was immensely annoyed and just wanted to get home quickly.
The sight she saw when the doors had finally opened far enough for them to barely see the walls of the room behind them made her immediately shake off her boredom. Her sixth sense immediately started going off like crazy. There was a woman inside, and she was dangerous!
She was tall and lean, almost lanky, but her presence was heavier than even that of the Maharishi Asim Jaggi when he had moved against the Andhere Prabhu two years ago. Her clothing consisted mainly of layered, dark clothing worn under a long, worn mantle that had obviously seen its fair share of battles, and was reinforced and repaired, but still hung in torn, uneven lines.
She also carried a thick, battered tome that looked suspiciously like an ancient grimoire, as they were used millennia ago. She stood in a position that made her barely visible, but Anaya had seen her reflection in a glass-like wall.
Naturally, she immediately warned her colleague of the possible threat, but he answered with his signature disgusted sneer and arrogant tone. “It’s completely impossible for anyone to be here. The Egyptian Ministry guarantees it. They have frequent expeditions to this place, so there’s no danger here. This room has been empty for over 7000 years, is equipped with a spatial lock that even the greatest wizards of our time can’t begin to comprehend, and every opening and closing of the doors is documen—“
Only to stop once he saw the woman standing in the middle of the room.
Fearing he would say something that would enrage the obviously dangerous woman, she quickly started diffusing the conversation, only for the woman to cast a spell she had never even heard of before! A magic that was simultaneously so light and blatantly dark was unprecedented. And then, while her brain was still trying to make sense of the situation, the woman handed her some kind of necklace that carried an aura of magic so strong that it almost knocked the sensor off her feet, before starting to walk towards the exit of the room.
This was the moment she came to know why the Brit was a respected curse-breaker despite his abrasive personality. He shook off his confusion at a speed that shocked her and immediately followed up with a neutrally phrased question about the magic used, as if all that pretentiousness was only pretence.
Only to immediately lose his newly won composure when the woman started talking about Intent, and he realised its implications. The woman was wrong about one fact in this whole explanation, and that was her claim that they wouldn’t know about its existence due to its rarity. The magical world very much did know about its existence. After all, the legendary British wizard Merlin, the Greek god Zeus, the immortal Mahavatar Babaji and many other unparalleled figures in the history of magic had called the manifestation of intent the difference between them and regular wizards.
This meant that the woman's mastery of magic was on par with that of the greatest in history! And she didn’t even know that intent was public knowledge, so she must’ve been a witch from the very distant past.
Then she commented on the language used, and the British idiot immediately got back to his old abrasive personality. The now horrified Indian witch almost stunned him out of instinct, so his idiocy wouldn’t kill them both when she realised he was trying to gather information on the unknown woman, so that Anaya would be able to share it should this woman be a dark witch. He was betting on the witches' obvious favour towards the Indian, to quickly test the woman and give the world as much preparation time as possible, should they be up against a dark witch or a fanatic!
Almost against her will, she began to (slightly) respect him for his courage.
Luckily, the woman proceeded to give a logical answer and didn’t show the characteristic volatility and irritability of dark wizards and witches.
Once they gathered that piece of knowledge, she quickly led the conversation back to its previous course, where she discovered that the witch had known Menes. The Egyptian Pharaoh who lived in roughly 3000 BC! This had finally answered the question of how old the woman was, a very rough answer, but an answer nonetheless. She was approximately five thousand years old! Even if she had spent quite a bit of the time in a coma, as Anaya was starting to suspect.
It was only now that she realised the woman had managed to roughly guess the time they were in, and seemed annoyed at the Pharaoh because of said realisation. But just as she began formulating her question, they reached the door and saw it!
“What the fuck?!”
These were the words of both Azarynth Veyloran and Anaya Singh, once they saw over 1000 wizards and witches in red robes standing in front of the entrance with their wands pointed at them! Somehow, the message had gotten out that there was a disturbance, and the Indian Jaaduee Suraksha Sevaen, their British counterparts, the Aurors, as well as the German Polizei des Magischen Ministeriums, had arrived in fairly high numbers, in case a dangerous being had gotten out of the tomb.
“You don’t need to worry!” Shouted her British colleague, whose expertise she was starting to value more and more. “She passed the classic test, so she’s not an immediate danger.”
The stress began to fade from the faces of the magical police forces, and many breathed sighs of relief. Apparently, her partner’s word meant a lot more than she’d thought.
“Sorry for that.” He then proceeded to whisper to the still unnamed, dangerous woman. “It’s protocol to secretly alert the local ministry if any undocumented lifeform is present in a tomb. Standard security measure in case we accidentally break out an immortal dark being. And before you ask, yes, that has happened before.”
Her shock must’ve been visible on her face, because he immediately turned to her and said, “No need to look so surprised. I am indeed capable of diplomacy. It’s just usually not worth the effort, so I don't even bother trying. Also,” he turned back to the unknown, “would you be so kind to tell us your name?”
“I’m Azarynth Veyloran,” was the answer he received. “Now, do I have to register somewhere? Go through a mountain of paperwork to be classified as alive?”
Finally, a topic where Anaya had something to say. “Lucky for you, you’re in the Indian magical world! Here, you can register for citizenship with zero paperwork, because the Maharishi abolished it, after he had to work through 23 kilos of paper to get reclassified as alive. So no, you don’t.”
“Well then. Let’s get registered.”