Bloody pillars of light began to appear all around the town, stretching up the sky and glowing ominously. There were about 6 of them in total, all evenly spaced around the town walls in a hexagon shape. A bloody moon rose into the sky and the night was drenched red.
Atlas activated Avatar of Death, kicking off of the wall and charging the nearest pillar at max speed. He was going to put down this wave as fast as he could. With a wave of his hand, a highly condensed mist wrapped around the tower of light, crackles of power floating within.
He channeled it further, pumping half of his mana pool into the mist before dashing off to the next pillar. Upon reaching the pillar he activated the second mode of his gauntlets, putting a little bit of strain on himself but multiplying his strength by 10. With a bestial roar Atlas’s upper body collided with the bloody tower, shattering it into multiple fragments.
Atlas didn’t even pause, speeding forward to the third tower. There was finally a change as demons started to flood out of the tower, each T3.
Atlas bowled through them, leaving a trail of misty death in his wake. He wasn’t able to kill the demons in one shot each, but he wasn’t trying to kill them right now, just destroy the tower.
This entire time, Atlas’s boots steadily gained more and more speed, until he was rocketing so fast that everything seemed to blur together. The only good thing was that his helmet’s senses were doing all that it could to keep him aware of his surroundings.
There was a crash as Atlas ripped through the tower, not even hesitating before zipping over to the next tower and crashing through it as well. He slammed into the 5th tower… only to bounce off and tumble backwards. Atlas managed to keep the effect of his boots running by quickly rising to his feet mid tumble and quickly backpedaling to survey the situation.
There were demons alight with red power, creating a bloody energy shield all around the tower to protect it.
Atlas leapt forward, stabbing one of the demons before quickly turning to the next one and lopping off his head, all while moving, so as to not lose the bonus on his boots. He quickly ran up the demon’s that were casting the blood shield, cutting through three of them in quick succession.
Spinning around, he thrust his blade forward, skewering a demon and using its body as a makeshift shield as the demons sliced at him and shot bolts of bloody light. Atlas used Elemental Affinity to create an explosion of fire that charred all of the demons at the cost of half of his remaining mana.
The barrier around the tower flickered before vanishing, and Atlas rushed up to it and slammed his shoulder through the building, wrecking it and taking down his 5th tower, at least, assuming that he had ended the first one with his Ruinous Mist. He shot off after the hopefully final tower, leaving behind the half dead dregs of the demons to his guard towers spaced around his town.
When he reached the final tower he found a sight that made his blood run cold. This tower, after being up for so long, had demons in a large ring around the tower, with the normal grunts at the outer reaches of the ring, with the mages and shieldbearers surrounding the tower in the inner part of the ring.
Atlas turned his run to a walk, needing to assess the situation, but still not wanting to stop the speed buff on his boots that had a great deal of stacks on it after all the running he had done.
As he observed, the demons all glared at him, eyes full of bloodlust. Atlas brandished his sword, trying to egg them on and get them to fall out of formation. Unfortunately, they seemed to be very disciplined and the best he could do was get a snarl from a handful of the outer demons.
One of the mages began to glow violently before exploding into a pool of viscera with a crimson orb occupying the space where the demon had previously been. The orb began to grow and flatten, transforming into a mirror like form, albeit out of blood.
As Atlas watched in horror, a system message appeared in front of him. One that he hadn’t seen before.
Hidden Event Unlocked!
Urgent Quest Unlocked!
Urgent Quest: Summoning The Avatar of Wrath
Details: The High Priest of the 4th tower has sacrificed himself to summon one of the avatars of the lords of sin, the Avatar of Wrath. The Avatar of Wrath can be summoned for three reasons, two of which have been met. 1: 3 or more towers have been destroyed before the high priest sacrifices himself. 2: Another Avatar is nearby when the high priest sacrifices himself. 3: The high priest is killed before he can sacrifice himself.
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Requirement: Destroy the tower before the Avatar of Wrath can be summoned or kill the Avatar of Wrath after summoning. Time left until summoning: 2:59
Reward: Rare Rank Weapon
Failure: Death
A quest? Hidden event? Why hadn’t he seen any of these before? He had thought that he had used most of the basic abilities of the system so far, but this seems like something new. Or had he gotten a quest before? Maybe at the start of the tutorial? What even were quests?
As all these questions bounced around inside of his head, Atlas continued to keep moving around, when a system tip appeared.
(System tip: Quests can be given and received at any time [ability to give quests unlocked after completing wave 10] and have benefits and detriments, quests are optional however, and you do not have to take them. Urgent Quests are different. They are not optional, and are in reaction to the events around you. They are generated by the system, and usually give better rewards, but if you fail the penalty is almost always death.)
Atlas nodded, thinking about it. He didn’t think he had ever gotten an urgent quest before, and it wasn’t possible for him to get a normal quest, seeing as the function wasn’t even unlocked yet. Atlas’s blood ran cold as he realized that he was wasting precious time thinking over the quest.
Checking the time, he saw he had a little over two minutes remaining and he shot forwards, burning up mana as he activated Elemental Affinity, sending a wave of fire in front of him smashing into the ranks of the demons. Not giving them time to recover from the destruction wrought by the fire, he dashed in, swinging from side to side in long, sweeping motions, decapitating demons like an instant guillotine.
He rushed towards the mages protecting the tower, practically hearing every second tick slowly down. The mages created a barrier in front of him and he rammed face first into it, halting all of his gained momentum in a blast of air. Atlas groaned at realizing that all of his constant moving had been a waste of time, seeing as he had ended up losing all the speed stacks anyway.
The mages pounced on his obvious opening with lighting speed, summoning demonic energy and blasting it towards him in the form of fangs, claws and horns. Atlas responded by creating his own demonic energy to block it, only to find that it was an inferior version compared to theirs.
Their energy battered him backwards and he grunted in pain before leaping at them, stabbing his sword into two mages in quick succession before they could respond. He grinned cruelly at the eight remaining mages. He would kill them with time to spare. The mages panicked as he rushed them, killing another three mages before the mages could hastily erect a barrier for him to slam into. Atlas was ready this time however, and he pushed off of the barrier before sprinting around it and cutting into the mages ranks. With a couple quick slashes, all four of them lay dead on the ground.
Atlas turned and slammed his shoulder into the tower, expecting it to shatter just like all of the other towers. To his surprise, his shoulder instead rammed into a barrier. Atlas’s eyebrows rose. Hadn’t he killed all nine of the mages? Then why..?
Atlas realized what was wrong instantly. Nine? Weren’t there originally ten of those things? Atlas frantically looked around for the final mage, glancing at the timer as he did. He had just over one minute, so he should be fine, but he was still panicking. Atlas’s eyes went into overdrive as he looked all around for the final mage, but it was either lost in the crowd of demons that were all around the tower, or it was… Up!
Atlas looked at the top of the tower, and, sure enough, there was the final mage. The mage noticed Atlas looking at him and waved cockily. Atlas ground his teeth. The mage was almost 200 feet above him, and there was no way that he could make that in one jump, if it were a quarter of that distance, he might be able to make it, but as it was, it was simply impossible.
Or was it? Atlas smirked at the demon as he activated one of his least used skills. Misty step. He appeared right next to the demon and casually kicked it, sending it tumbling downwards towards its death. It landed with a splat, and Atlas grinned, checking the timer.
0:04
What! How had he wasted so much time!? Atlas wasted no time and smashed his fist into the tower with everything he had, splitting it in half with an explosion of crimson shards.
Atlas entered freefall, and he realized there was a flaw in his plan. He could only teleport if he took a step! Atlas used the last remaining dregs of his mana to create a platform of air underneath him, stopping his momentum for a brief second, in that brief moment, Atlas stepped forward, appearing near the remains of the tower and checking the quest.
Urgent Quest: Summoning The Avatar of Wrath
Details: The High Priest of the 4th tower has sacrificed himself to summon one of the avatars of the lords of sin, the Avatar of Wrath. The Avatar of Wrath can be summoned for three reasons, two of which have been met. 1: 3 or more towers have been destroyed before the high priest sacrifices himself. 2: Another Avatar is nearby when the high priest sacrifices himself. 3: The high priest is killed before he can sacrifice himself.
Requirement: Kill the Avatar of Wrath.
Reward: Rare Rank Weapon
Failure: Death
Atlas’s blood froze. He hadn’t destroyed the tower in time! He looked at the portal and a bloody figure emerged. Its form slowly changed into a behemoth. It was a giant lion, about the size of a barn. The lion looked around and noticed all of the corpses of the demons and the destroyed tower. Atlas gulped as the lion roared in fury before turning to him.
