So, there were a few things to address.
First of all, the second Twin Emperor turned out to be quite a bit different from the first one. Rather than carrying around a staff and wearing robes, he had on durable metal armor and carried around a massive two-handed sword on his back at all times. While Jake avoided the guy, he was confident that this second half of the Twin Emperor was a far more physical fighter.
Secondly, this entire war was indeed a plot by the Twinhead Ogre. In traditional Nevermore fashion, information could be found just out in the open within the main residence of the second Twinhead Emperor, which Jake had managed to sneak successfully into after the boss left the capital – likely to meet up with his other counterpart.
In the home of the boss, Jake found written records, as well as some books and even communications from the other Twin Emperor, where they discussed what they were doing. To summarize, the Twinhead Ogre wasn’t natively from the Vast Plateau but had ended up there after his own homeworld was invaded, and he used an ancient teleportation circle to try and get away. After arriving on the Plateau, he quickly came to realize there was a severe lack of enemies that would allow him to continue progressing and reach B-grade.
Without evolving, the Twinhead Ogre believed he had a low chance of being able to leave the Plateau to explore the rest of the multiverse, so the two heads hatched a plan of using all the enlightened life in the Vast Plains to fuel their own evolution. At that time, they had clearly been unified in their goal, but when Jake read the notes of the Twin Emperor now, he saw that things had changed.
Jake had been off when he theorized the ritual was to permanently split up. That had never been the plan at all. However, after the split, the Twin Emperors both experienced independence for the first time in their lives, and it turns out they both quite liked it. At least the warrior Twin Emperor also suspected the mage variant also preferred their split state.
Researching more, Jake discovered that even if the warrior variant looked like a pure warrior, he was more akin to a death knight. He was capable of quite powerful death magic, and the bone spheres had been created back when the two of them were still merged into one body, using both of their powers.
Meanwhile, the mage variant was something called a hex shaman. He was capable of using shamanistic magic along with hexes, wherein curses were a sub-category. So, one head focused on physical combat and death magic, while the other focused on shamanistic magic and hexes. A pretty damn strong combo when combined, Jake would reckon.
The problem now was that the two of them didn’t want to fully recombine, which was a bit of a problem if their party wanted to fight a recombined version. Jake even found evidence of the warrior making plans to use his death magic to ”kill” off his counterpart when they did the grand ritual to re-merge and hopefully gain enough Records to reach B-grade. At the same time, Jake didn’t doubt the mage was making similar plans to also get rid of the warrior in a similar fashion, something this warrior version already suspected.
So, yeah, things were a bit of a mess, which spelled problems for Jake and company. If the event boss was the re-merged version of the Twinhead Ogre, they couldn’t make do with one of them ”dying” during the re-merging, as that would undoubtedly weaken the final product. Something this Twin Emperor also fully recognized, but his desire to remain independent made the lower overall power worth it in his head.Interestingly enough, Jake also found out that the two ogres recognized the presence of Jake and company. There were several correspondences related to their party and how a third party had appeared, but so far, the two Twin Emperors did not seem overly concerned. In fact, they were almost thankful that their party sped up the process of killing everyone, doing such a good job on every battlefield by leaving no one alive. For some reason, the two ogres also felt the need to insult their party for not realizing they were just helping the ritual along, but Jake wasn’t going to get angry about that. He would get even in time.
Jake ended up spending half a day or so going through all the information the warrior Twinhead Ogre had just left spread throughout his home. Some of it was sealed away and hidden, sure, but Jake easily found everything using Sphere.
One could ask why all of these plans and correspondences between the two Twin Emperors were just left all around the place and not destroyed once the warrior had memorized everything, but Jake wasn’t going to question the flawless logic of a Nevermore floor. It hadn’t made sense on any of the prior floors either, so why suddenly get all up in arms over this one?
He managed to sneak out of the second Twin Emperor’s residence before anyone caught him, as Jake moved to meet up with his other party members once more. Sylphie had already rejoined them after helping Jake get most of the way to this other capital, and the four of them were busy making a mess on more of the battlefields.
Time-wise, they were still good. They still had a few months left to finish off this floor and defeat the re-merged Twinhead Ogre. The plan was to fight the strongest version of the Twinhead Ogre possible, and to do that, they reached a conclusion.
”To summarize, firstly, we will clear up all the battlefields to ensure all the Totem Bone Spheres are fully charged. Then, we will allow the two Twin Emperors to collect them, but before or perhaps in the middle of their ritual, we need to make the two of them realize that they need to merge with one another fully to stand a chance against the five of us. If all goes well, we will end up with a Twinhead Ogre fully put back together, further empowered by the ritual. It’s risky, and we may be biting off more than we can chew, but this is the plan,” the Sword Saint nicely explained their plan for finishing off the final Nevermore floor.
A simple plan where a lot could go wrong, with the end result potentially being an event boss far too powerful for them to beat. Yep, Jake was definitely going to enjoy this final floor, especially what would happen over the next few months… because it was time to wipe out all the battlefields and get just a few more levels under his belt.
Azal cursed under his breath as he looked out at the vast plains in front of him. It did not get better when his party member, the Dungeon Engineer, shook his head as he opened in eyes, having finished his analysis.
”Nope, no way to do it in time,” Casper said with a sigh. ”This floor got two main bosses from what I can sense, and in order to get the best reward, we need to do something with the two of them. Not just kill them both, but something more complicated… and time-consuming.”
”The essence of death is powerful in this world… it’s one suitable for us. However, it has an artificial feeling… as if it’s cultivated. Do we need to finish this cultivation to ensure a perfect victory?” the ghostly bride asked as a few ghosts returned to her, having scouted their immediate surroundings.
”Right… I sense a lot of focus points where both death and curse energy are gathered. As you said, it’s all happening in a rather artificial fashion, so probably someone that’s being done by one of those Twin Emperors,” Casper shook his head again as he looked at Azal. ”Sorry boss, no way to do everything in time.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Azal couldn’t fault the Dungeon Engineer. They had simply been too slow at passing the prior floors and even made some major mistakes along the way. Especially their attempts to do the event boss on floor seventy-five had been overly ambitious, resulting in the death of one of their comrades and Maltrax having to overuse a certain boosting skill, making her weakened for more than a year afterward. Luckily, the Risen had sent a replacement from one of the other elite teams for their dead party member. This meant another team was crippled by losing a member, but there had simply been no other choice. Azal had been prioritized by the higher-ups; that was the end of it.
My score should still be acceptable in the eyes of the Blightfather, Azal thought. No, hoped. If not, he could potentially lose his title of Ghost King.
As he was standing there considering the situation, his party kept discussing.
”Can’t we just kill these two Twin Emperors and quickly pass the floor that way?” Maltrax, the beastfolk Risen, asked.
”Look at the objective of the floor again. It says to end the conflict, something I doubt just killing one or both of the two Twin Emperors will do,” Casper said. ”It would also just be too easy from a design perspective.”
”Well, fuck,” Maltrax cursed out loud. ”What then? We got a month and a bit left or something like that, right?”
”Right,” Casper confirmed. ”In my opinion, the best way to optimize points would probably be to hunt down at least one of these bosses. While it won’t be as good as clearing the floor, hopefully, it will give us a few achievements. We can also try and do a few bonus objectives, but yeah, the best thing is probably to just kill a Twin Emperor or two. I would assume that’s also the best for levels.”
”Let us do that then,” Azal said with determination. Even if he doubted he would be able to take the top spot of the Leaderboards as his Patron had hoped, he would, at the very least, do his best till the very end.
Jacob relaxed on the fourteenth City Floor, sitting and drinking tea with Bertram as he waited for more members of the Holy Church to come to see him. His former bodyguard and current Guardian had a tentative look on his face as he looked at the teacup in front of him.
”You’re really satisfied with this?” he asked after a bit.
”It was for the best,” Jacob sighed, having had a similar conversation like this before. ”We can do more good here, helping those who have questions or are beginning to doubt if their Path needs improvement. Especially as most finish all the Challenge Dungeons on this floor, it’s the best place to have these conversations.”
”Hmph,” Bertram just grunted, not entirely satisfied with the answer.
Jacob understood… Bertram was a fighter. However, Jacob wasn’t. While the two of them were bound by the unique bond between a Guardian and an Augur, they were still two separate people with their own Truesouls. This meant they took up two spots in the Nevermore party, and that sadly made them burdens.
In the earlier floors, this wasn’t really a problem, as Jacob’s abilities as an Augur were highly valuable, allowing them to often skip many time-consuming steps. Back then, the true difficulty had been in pure navigation and figuring out the floors. Now, the difficulty was in the actual fights.
Bertram and Jacob could pull off some interesting moves, considering Bertram’s near-immortality and ability to be resurrected repeatedly. He could use boosting skills far beyond where one would die and wield powerful weapons such as a Holy Sword to be a true pinnacle fighter for difficult fights.
The problem arose when every fight was a dangerous one. In his basic state, Bertram was only a good warrior. He was skilled for sure and was considered an elite, but compared to the others they had in their party, Jacob and Bertram simply fell too far behind.
That’s why it had been decided that Jacob and Bertram’s Nevermore journey would end here, not going to floor seventy-one. Instead, they had been replaced by two others from the Holy Church. In fact, the Church had split up their entire party and made one with the five best prospects to go as far as they could during the final decade or so. It would be the very best the Holy Church could muster for this early era of Nevermore, and hopefully, it would be enough.
Meanwhile, Jacob would stay back and help guide people until this decade expired and it was time for him to leave. One could question why he didn’t try and do some more floors to at least gain a few more levels, but to someone like Jacob, staying back on the City Floor was better even for that. He would gain more experience acting like an Augur for a decade compared to doing more floors.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the higher-ups believed it best Jacob didn’t take more risks. On floor sixty-eight, he had trigged his One More Light skill, which had resurrected him once after death. The skill gave him one charge per grade, and while he did have one more left as he didn’t die in D-grade, the Church believed it too risky for him to continue. His death back then had come when they pulled off one of their special strategies with Bertram, leaving Jacob defenseless as he was killed by a regular monster no one had seen coming.
”Hey, at least I have some positive news,” Jacob said with a smile. ”I have ensured we will be able to go back to Earth when the Prima Guardian arrives. I didn’t even have to act like this would be my compromise for not making a fuss over being told to stay on the City Floor.”
”Oh?” Bertram said with surprise. ”That is good news… I hope everyone is doing well back home.”
”Based on what I heard, things are just fine,” Jacob answered. ”My father is even part of their World Council running things in place of Jake having to actually do any work as a World Leader.”
”Definitely for the best. Not the thing about your father, but that Jake isn’t running things all on his own. Doubt that would end well.”
”For sure,” Jacob said with a look of nostalgia.
The two of them tended to avoid talking about Earth as it was a sore subject for both of them. Jacob didn’t like how he had borderline been fooled into leaving before Ell’Hakan had made his invasion, much less that the Holy Church had taken advantage of this invasion to force the Risen off the planet.
At least he had learned that the Holy Church had expected to be able to remain and still have some presence, even if it wouldn’t be prominent or displayed openly. Efforts Miranda had managed to crush, as the planet was nearly entirely dark to the eyes of the Holy Church now after almost all of the people affiliated with them were removed.
Perhaps for the better. No matter how involved Jacob got with the Holy Church, he still cared about his home planet and the people from it, and he genuinely hoped they were all doing well.
Carmen didn’t like being forced to spend time with more people she didn’t know, but at least the three of them were more skilled than their former party members. Plus, at least they were doing fun group activities.
Davion, their party leader, rushed forward as the four others followed into the battlefield, where they became a machine of death. While clearing all of floor eighty would be a stretch, they sure as hell should be able to get in quite a few good fights.
Moving swiftly, Carmen took the frontal position as they were noticed by a group of enemies. A few dozen spells flew toward them, Carmen just smiling as she took the magic head-on. It didn’t even manage to leave a mark on her body as she punched a particularly large fireball apart before continuing to pummel the mage who had cast it.
Two warriors attack from behind as their blades hit her back. The large clang of metal hitting something tougher than itself sounded out as Carmen turned with a grin and punched one of them in the throat before kicking the other in the stomach, sending him tumbling back into the two-handed blade of Davion, who cut him in two.
Flashing him a grin, Carmen turned to face more as she took every hit without a care in the world, the level 300 foes far from capable of piercing her natural resistance. Especially not the casters. Ah, but there were a few who could maybe nick her a bit here and there so she could still have some fun.
Her three other party members also went hard. A shaman with a dozen or so summoned fire and earth elementals was practically a one-woman army, as she wielded her own staff to shoot out torrents of lava to burn her enemies. A caster that didn’t really fit into the usual Valhal archetype cast spirit magic to buff their party members up and act as a healer, while a third guy wielded a massive great bow to shoot devastating arrows. He wasn’t as good as Jake, but he was decent enough.
Their party had been shuffled up a bit after doing all the Challenge Dungeons, resulting in only Davion and Carmen continuing in the ”elite” group. While Carmen hadn’t been a fan of this shuffle initially, she had to recognize it was probably for the better, as there was no fucking way they would have made it to floor eighty with their old group.
Not that they would beat it… but at least Carmen would have a good time until the very end of Nevermore by punching her way through a few dozen active battlefields.