Slowly Zogaroth stepped out of the dimly lit room inside basement 3 and walked out into the corridor.
He scanned the faces of the party who were there to save him and scoffed at their dressing sense and appearance.
All of them seemed to be close range warriors yet none of them were wearing heavy armour.
Every last one of them was wearing thin protective robes or light armour that was good for agility but terrible for defences as instantly Zogaroths evaluation of the group dropped significantly.
In his era, all close range warriors wore heavy armour and managed to move pretty fast despite the heavy load whereas light armour was preferred by mages, archers and other long ranged classes that did not need to engage in melee.
On the other hand, Max also scanned and tested Zogaroth as he found that the once powerful entity had waned in power and was now only at tier4 whereas his HP bar was at an extremely fragile position of 500/500.
Years of surviving with the aura of death had waned the divinity of the god alongside his vitality as he was now a shell of his true self.
A single destructive move could potentially kill Zogaroth, but looking at his confident golden eyes Max knew that he did not fear the group of six killing him at all.
His facial features looked a bit like Arandale from Max's memory, as if they were brothers or father and son.
" I want to know about the sealing method of the god's, are you the one who created it? " Max asked in an authoritative voice as Zogaroth smiled at his question.
" For thousands of years I've been aching for conversation with someone else.
You cannot even imagine what such long periods of isolation do to one's psyche.
I have a total of 31,000 different entities living inside my brain, each having their own personality.
In my isolation they accompanied me, but despite us spending such long times together, none of them once raised their voices against me or ordered me to do something.
Now- you boy 21-25 years of age wants to come and call the shots over me?
IMPUDENT ". Zogaroth said as his powers exploded
Black smoke came out of his body and went towards Max who tried to block it with [ Flame Wall ], However the wall was broken instantly by the fog which kept travelling towards Max at consistent speed.
[ Disperse ]
Max used disperse with his bare hands as thankfully it worked and he was able to neutralise the spell by targeting its weakness perfectly.
" We are here to rescue you!
You don't need to fight us " Lucius said, trying to make the situation clear that he was here to save the old man and not kill him.
" Save me? The moment I step outside basement 3, I re-enter the administrators domain. Arandale my son will kill me in an instant if I do so. If you really want to save me, kill the fucking administrator first and then destroy the codex! " Zogaroth said as he attacked Max once again.
" Enough "
Zippo, who usually never came out to fight unless absolutely necessary, came out this time to personally block Zogaroth's attack as he sucked it into a black vortex.
Lucius was stunned to see Zippo pop out of Max's shadow, till now he believed Max's shadow guard was a darkness elemental like the one they fought on the streets, however, it seemed that it was a living creature.
" Black Dragon! " Zogaroth exclaimed as Lucius's shock deepened.
' Ravan's bodyguard is a black dragon? Is he connected to the black dragon clan? Or is he a rogue? ' Lucius wondered as for the umpteenth time he felt that Max was like a bottomless well of surprises.
" You will answer him about the sealing method of the god's, or I will beat it out of you " Zippo said as Max raised his eyebrow at his unusual behaviour.
Today Zippo had suddenly spoken more words than he usually did in an entire month, and the reason behind his actions were unknown.
" 7 minutes are up " Sebastian said softly, reminding the group that they were on a time limit.
" What sealing method of the gods? " Lucius asked curiously, as the name of the method was grand and he heard both Ravan and his bodyguard mention it to Zogaroth.
" You want my life's work just like that? Over my dead body you bastards! " Zogaroth said as he began controlling the darkness around them, preparing some grand move.
" It's rich of you kids to think that you can fight an abyssal mage within abyss city. Here the darkness is our ally, which we turn into a bottomless abyss.
Here - you don't stand a chance! " Zogaroth said as he unleashed his attack.
[ Abyss Entrapment ]
An eerie darkness instantly covered the entire passageway as the area suddenly became a zero visibility zone.
Inside the darkness some Mysterious bindings began restricting all six of them, as in this situation only Max and Sebastian were able to have a read of their surroundings as they had perfected the first level of [ Way Of The Wind ]
" Sebastian! Take Lucius and Go " Max shouted as he could absolutely not risk the life of the prince in such situations.
Sebastian listened to Max's command as he struggled against the bindings, broke free and jumped over Lucius's back and activated the teleportation stone, teleporting out of the entire abyss city and going straight back to the Geonmi city camp of the Bloodfall clan.
[ Fireball ]
[ Fireball ]
Max activated two fireballs on both his hands as he tried to illuminate the surroundings and drive the converging darkness away.
During the short timeframe where he produced some light, Max watched how Lucius's guards struggled against the darkness bindings covering them, however, they were unable to retaliate properly and were mummified under the bindings.
Even Max's fireballs which momentarily drove the darkness away were snuffed away quickly as more and more darkness tried to restrict Max's movements.
Max kept moving with all his energy, his way of the wind alerting him on where the next binding was coming from, however, he was fighting against too many small bindings at once and it was almost impossible for him to avoid them all, as slowly but surely he was beginning to be subdued.
Just as Max was about to activate [ Flame Armour ] and blast all darkness covering him temporarily away, he felt the move receding from his body as his senses felt like there was some vortex created 5 metres to his left which was sucking off all the darkness in the passageway.
20 seconds later, Zogaroth's move was completely neutralised and the light bioluminescent glow returned to the passageway, as Max looked at the tier5 Zippo calmly standing at the spot where the darkness had covered, black fog surrounding his body as he stared towards Zogaroth amusedly.
" Impossible - How do you have a better understanding of darkness than me? Although I have weakened over the years, I was once a tier6 god! I have mastered the law of light and darkness! I have spent 4000 years being trapped in darkness? Yet you a mortal can dispel my attack? How?" Zogaroth questioned Zippo, his golden eyes looking hazy and unfocused as Zippo smiled at his question and said
" You merely adopted the dark….. I was born in it "
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/// A/N - Chapter 15/20, almost done for the day ///