Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen slightly loosened his grip on his sword as he took a deep breath. He had taken care of all the small fry and destroyed a few of the temporary buildings in the meantime. A few of them had managed to hit Eisen with attacks infused with cursed energy, but they really weren't all too special. But then, there were the three players that were waiting by the sidelines.

The first to step forward was the young woman who was lazily sitting at the edge of the cave's entrance. She yawned while looking at Eisen, "Waah... so boring..." she let out, holding her hand forward. Eisen saw her cursed energy move forward in tendrils, though it wasn't aimed at him.

Instead, it was aiming at a few spots gathered around the area. Eisen had been wondering what those were about for a while now. All the players that he had killed left behind some kind of 'mark'. And now, those marks were being activated, and deeply rotten hands pushed themselves out of the ground. They looked like undead, though they didn't have the same sort of necromantic energy in them as the ones that Jyuuk would make. Rather, they were dolls controlled by cursed energy instead, simply borrowing the bodies of those that were killed.

The crowd of players approached Eisen, and he let out a long sigh. They didn't seem particularly stronger than before, so what was the deal with this? The old man swung his sword at the nearest 'cursed corpse' and cut it in half, but even before he could, he felt a strong force blow at him. The corpse exploded, throwing a slash of cursed energy right at him. Eisen pulled up his sword in front of his body and blocked the attack. He could feel the impact reverberate throughout his body, and he realized what the nature of this attack was. It was the attack that Eisen had used to kill that player. So that woman's curse gathered the damage that a corpse took before its death and then returned it to the killer. It didn't seem to be the most useful in 1:1 combat, but this woman seemed like she was a powerful force in group combat.

Though, in the end, this was just a bit annoying to deal with any nothing more. It wasn't like Eisen actually used a ton of force to attack these players; he had just done the bare minimum, really. Whenever Eisen got close enough to one of the corpses, even before his sword could connect to them, they blew up and returned his former attack to him. That did mean that they were easier to deal with than before, since Eisen just needed to wave his sword nearby each cursed corpse to make them explode and then simply deal with any damage that ended up reaching him.

But while he was doing this, the other two more powerful players got their attacks ready as well. Eisen was hit by both of them. Though, if he had to admit it, he did let himself get hit on purpose, just so that he could increase his understanding of what he was dealing with. One of the curses deprived him of two senses, sight and hearing, while dulling all other senses as well. It was certainly pretty annoying to deal with, but nothing that Eisen couldn't push through by trying to sense the flow of mana around him. Even if it was harder to do than before, it still wasn't impossibly hard.

The other curse was a bit more offensive, though. With every movement, he could feel his body grow heavier and heavier. It seemed to be a restraining curse that got stronger the more someone moved. If the three of them had done this the other way around, waiting to activate the cursed corpses until he was restrained like this, Eisen might have been in trouble. But it seemed like more these three acted independently most of the time, and were just forced to work together because they knew they couldn't deal with him on their own.

Eisen sighed lightly. The three players were rushing toward him, trying to take him down like this. Sure, Eisen couldn't move that well, but that really wasn't the biggest issue. He didn't need to move to take them out. He quickly activated his demonic transformation, and could already see the players pull back confused while Eisen transformed his head into a specific prepared shape. His jaws were strengthened and enchanted, both from the inside and outside. His stone skin had deep engravings filled with gold, and even his teeth and tongue were similarly enchanted to create a powerful magic array for a single purpose.

He took a deep breath, and then blew out in the direction of the three people in front of him. A cone of fire was shot in their direction as powerful fire magic attacked them. And this wasn't even Eisen's own fire. In this form, he had a small crystal embedded in his tongue that instead transformed his mana into a red dragon's fire. Since red dragons had the most powerful fire magic around, it was obviously quite potent, even if Eisen couldn't control it all too well. But it was still potent, especially since the enchantments he used to create this strengthened the fire by replicating a red dragon's breath attack.

Though he was effectively deaf right now, Eisen could feel the players' mana fade away, and the curses were soon lifted too. Eisen undid his transformation and lightly stretched as he walked over the scorched ground into the cave, not worrying about whatever else was going on around him. The further he stepped into the cave, the more he could feel the density of the cursed energy grow thicker and thicker. There were a few more straggling players in here, but none that were any particular threat. Really, it seemed as though this dragon went for quantity rather than quality of champions. Which, in the context of a war, might not be the worst tactic all the time.

Eisen continued on through the cave's winding tunnels, soon reaching a large space at its end. On a hoard of bones, half-rotten flesh, and rusted armours and weapons sat a black dragon, napping. With every breath, cursed energy flowed in and out of it.

"Wake up. I'm here to take your trial and become your champion," Eisen said loudly, slamming his sword into the ground. Somehow he felt like this was the best way to deal with a black dragon with that sort of hoard. Slowly, the dragon opened its eye. It was glassy and glazed over, like that of a dead fish that was left out for a bit too long.

"Who dares to wake me up in such a rude manner?" the dragon asked, and Eisen tapped his foot on the ground.

"A challenger. I already took care of your little 'champions' outside, so you better not waste my time," he said, trying to act the part of someone that would fit well into this dragon's army.

The black dragon hesitated, seemingly looking past Eisen. Realizing that he was telling the truth, the dragon grinned broadly, revealing its rotting teeth.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"So you did. But do you really think that's enough to become a champion of mine?"

Eisen scoffed, "If those guys out there were able to, then yeah, I definitely can."

The dragon simply laughed loudly, as if he were amused, "Those, my champions? They are merely those who I have bestowed some power upon to stir up a bit of chaos. Some were more useful than others, but none have been able to become my champion."

Raising his brow curiously, Eisen looked at the dragon and smiled, "Is that right? So then what do I have to do to become your champion?"

"Pass my trial, of course. But do not worry, even though you won't pass, I can bestow you some power. You are obviously more useful than those maggots out there," the black dragon explained, slowly lifting itself off from the ground, "It is a simple trial. Survive against my power. The longer you can last, and the more of my power you can take into your own body, the more worthy you may become."

Eisen sighed lightly. That was it? He just had to push through? At least that made things easier for him. Though the dragon continued.

"And if you can take it all, you shall battle against me, and if I am satisfied, you can become my champion."