Overpowered Wizard

Zarian and Para slowly and carefully unraveled from each other’s consciousness.

Para reset her physical threads that were woven everywhere in Zarian’s body, bringing him back into his more human self. He returned to only having two arms and two legs with no armor or inhuman designs.

Para then woven her threads outside of Zarian’s body into a sleeveless shirt with a long V-neck opening at the front. She shifted from cloak form to kilt form, flowing around his sides to drape over the shadowy bottoms covering his legs.

Reaching into the kilt, Zarian pulled out a simple stool with a cushioned top. He set it down and sat while letting his four grimoires do as they pleased.

Black rattled its spectral chains and did nothing special but bob in the air. Voidling orbited around, making metallic humming sounds. Gator breathed huskily from behind Zarian’s shoulder. And Morph scrambled around the floor at Zarian’s feet, sometimes stopping to snap its snaggy teeth on the edge of the wizard’s boots.

Naomi remained as an eight-foot cat girl and stood over him.

“You’re using up a lot of aura in that form,” Zarian said.

“All that extra power from Hannah’s Aura Generator is getting put to use,” Naomi growled.

“You’re being naughty right now.”

Zarian opened and closed his mouth. His mind came up with dozens of responses. He chose one.

“I’m proud of you.” Zarian watched as Naomi flinched back. He kept going. “You found an avenue that pushed past the weakness of your class quality. You really are pushing further beyond.”

Naomi fidgeted a little before letting out a huff. “Are you kidding? You fought like a monster against three hell orcs while they were covered in that blood stuff. You took hits you shouldn’t be taking and kept going like it was no big deal. Zarian, you have me…”

“I have you what?”

Naomi hesitated. Then, with a cocky smile, she said, “You have me wondering how I can beat you up one of these days.”

That wasn’t what she had meant to say.

Zarian could tell.

But he took the change from being serious to joking with grace. He smiled and nodded, which made Naomi look more flustered until she changed her expression into a neutral one.

Then she shifted back down from her large predatory form to a more natural form, from eight feet tall to five feet and a half. No more cat ears. No more claws. Her hair returned to a shorter length, and the tail went away.

Naomi frowned down at the rips in her battle suit.

Zarian wondered if she was upset with the damage or upset with dropping the cat girl form. Then again, there was more than just Naomi to pay his attention to.

“You all did great, by the way,” Zarian said toward the others. “Each of those hell orcs would’ve torn through an entire kingdom on the Walled Continent. We’re literally the best people that can handle enemies like these.”

“SI!” Bianca bellowed.

“Yeah, well, that seems all nice to hear, but I’m getting this feeling I’m holding y’all back,” Gilbert muttered.

“Dude, you’re our only healer,” Zarian pointed out.

“I can do more than that. I know I can.” Gilbert felt over the dents and cuts on the surface of his shield. “I think it’s about time I take that extra weapon from you, Hannah. The shield thing I’ve got going has been great so far, but I’m losing my touch here.”

Hannah used her aura to pull out a legendary axe from her satchel. With a flick of her hand, she tossed it.

It clattered like a cheap thing at Gilbert’s feet.

The Knighted Healer muttered thanks and picked up the large battle axe, which matched the deep black and dark red theme of their outfits. Gleaming with a finished polish, the battle axe seemed to come from quality material and high-quality enchantments.

“It’s ice-based, plus the usual enchantments,” Hannah said. “Ice seems to work well on these hell orcs. I might even try to weave in destruction magic, but that one has always been intense on aura and uncooperative with other enchantments.”

“Destruction magic just like Lore Eater’s, right?” Zarian asked.

“Yes.”

A while ago, Zarian and Hannah went on a dungeon crawl to get some information out of the Hemlock Family. They’d ended up getting a dungeon and making the Hemlock Family subservient to them, which turned out great for Ride-or-Die Village.

The original boss monster, the Lore Eater, had powerful destruction magic that Hannah turned against it by hacking the dungeon’s doomsday devices.

Zarian hadn’t seen Hannah use destruction magic in a while. But he figured she must’ve run into complications with its scalability at their higher level compared to when they were around the Level 60s and 50s.

Destruction magic lived up to its name by directly destroying.

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But the costs must’ve been outrageous.

“You should try to get destruction magic working again. It’s not exactly death magic, but it might be close enough,” Zarian said. “Anything that strikes life energy works great, honestly. I even went as far as getting acquainted with their many souls.”

Gilbert was on his way to handing his shield to Hannah for a quick fix when he stopped and turned around. “Get the hell out of here. There is no way those steroid-feasting bastards have souls!”

Hannah used her aura to take the shield from Gilbert and make it hover in front of her. Her little orbital golems zipped quickly around her and used different craft features that worked alongside with her Cube Maker Magic +3, Enchantment +3, Rune Alteration +2, and other abilities. In no time, she fixed up Gilbert’s legendary shield and was now taking her time to tinker with the runes.

While she did that, Hannah caught on to Zarian’s dangling bait, as expected from her. “You said ‘many souls,’ which leads me to believe that each hell orc has more than one. Is that the reason they are so powerful and filled with vitality?”

“Hundreds. Maybe a thousand each. That’s the amount of souls bundled up in their cores,” Zarian explained.

“Dios mío!” Gilbert shouted.

“SI! SI!” Bianca used the spider network to give impressions of what she’d felt from each death of the hell orcs.

Because of her high Wonder stat and abilities that enhance such, she noticed all the screaming souls and ghostly things flying away from each hell orc’s death, but she didn’t have the words to explain it until Zarian brought it up.

“Yeah, that’s about right.” Naomi turned and sat next to Zarian.

Before she fell fully, the wizard pulled out a stool from the pocket dimension and placed it right under her. She scooted her seat around until it was a few inches closer to him.

Then she continued where she left off. “I don’t have a sense for souls, but I felt it through their minds. It was more than just one thing.”

“Like Zarian and Para’s minds?” Gilbert asked.

Naomi shook her head. “Nah. More chaotic than that. At first, I thought they were hella screwed up in the head with multiple personalities or whatever. But now that you mention the whole soul block party they got going on, then it makes sense that their minds would have all that chaos, too.”

Para spoke from the kilt. “There are many mysteries surrounding Hidden Hell, and every Hell Gate is different. I believe it is safe to theorize that the Grimrock Hell Gate is based on the orcs that had ruled here long ago.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Hannah said.

Para raised strands of the battle kilt in acknowledgement. “It is also safe to assume that when evil creatures die in Infinita, their souls become fuel for the weapons and the puppets of this terrible place. I think that’s also why there is reduced experience here. Maybe more reduced than anywhere else. This place takes everything it can and tries to obscure its traits and rules.”

“Hidden Hell,” Hannah said thoughtfully, flicking her finger to toss Gilbert’s shield back to him. “To think, a mere goblin we were led to believe was weak had done this. She really has to be in the Master Rank. And we must assume that her evil alignment is high up there. Maybe evil +4.”

“Maybe evil +5,” Zarian suggested.

Bianca’s giant form shuddered.

Zarian nodded seriously. “Yeah. As someone who got up to evil +3 before going to the freedom alignment, that level of evil is fucked up. Incredibly smart. Very conniving. She would definitely have what it takes to bring about this Hell Gate and have something set up for us when we finally find her.”

“It was a while ago, but it’s still fresh in my mind when Zarian’s hell spawn of a sister warned us about the Grimrock Warlock.” Gilbert turned his shield back into a brace he fitted on his left arm.

He performed some easy-going test swings with his new legendary ice axe as he continued. “Thanks, Hannah. But, yeah, we’re really up against hell and damnation. I’m ready to keep fighting and putting the spawns of hell in their place, but this all raises one or two concerns.”

“Other than the risk of a Hell Break?” Zarian asked.

“Is Foodie going to be okay?” Gilbert asked. “And must we concern ourselves with … you know?”

“SHE WILL BE OKAY WHEN WE SAVE HER!” Bianca bellowed.

Nodding, Zarian picked up the conversation. “As for the second point, do you mean Shadowfell? Wait, that’s obvious. We know my wife is up to something evil somewhere in this Hell Gate. What you’re really talking about is Ariana, right?”

Zarian stroked his chin. “Through a Hell Gate we get more access to Hidden Hell. And the more we can access it, the more likely Ariana can access us. Her physical body might still be stuck in hibernation, but … her projected mind can affect things. Or affect your minds. We can’t risk sleeping. She might be pissed after what Bianca did, too.”

Bianca sagged toward the ground a little. She gave the impression that she would be sad about missing her beauty sleep.

Thankfully, at their levels, they could keep going for a few weeks without sleep. They just needed to let themselves sit and rest up so the stamina part of their vitality could recover.

Gilbert’s ability to overcharge vitality allowed his Healing Force +2 to bleed into stamina recovery as well, even if it wasn’t much.

“We have enough food stocked up in all our satchels to last us months,” Hannah said. “But Zarian, you and Para need to eat religiously. It’s only in a fight with these hellish monsters where your appetite can get sated.”

“We can’t stop and wait around too long,” Naomi said. “We have to keep pushing to keep Zarian and Para fed.”

It feels a little selfish that everyone has to hustle because of us, Para thought.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

They care about us. So we’ll make it up to them as best we can, Zarian replied via mind.

“There’s some positive news,” Zarian said aloud. “With enough time, I can use Overwhelming Darkness again. If we can keep Bianca from abusing her free good +6, that sub alignment energy for her would recover faster. Then she could really hit like the best of them. And, of course…”

With him trailing off, Naomi picked up the conversation naturally. “I still have Aura Ignition in the tank. I want to try using anything but that, so it remains a surprise.”

Everybody agreed.

The others ate, hydrated, and readied themselves. Despite Bianca’s size, she didn’t need to eat much. Then they picked themselves up and continued their grind of a hell crawl.

Zarian, Para, and their grimoires fell in place in the middle of their formation. Naomi and Gilbert led the way. Bianca followed from the back with soft and slow steps. Loner and Slip trotted to Zarian’s left. Hannah walked to his right, forgoing aerial movement as she concentrated working on the hellish trap enchantments and infernal runes.

She wasn’t bleeding from her nose this time.

They left behind the dining hall and entered the tunnel, following its windy, jagged, and pitted length.

Red and yellow streaks pulsated all around them. Smoky, ash-filled haze filled up the air. The drumming echoed from ahead, and alongside the noise were the bestial roars and chants of hell orcs sounding off from a distance.

Zarian and Para ensured to cover their front, sides, and flanks with spectral spiders and their Aura Mastery. He couldn’t leave any far behind them or they would succumb to the curses.

It felt like they were getting further cut off from the Lesser World above. Hidden Hell drew them deeper and deeper.

The horrors of Grimrock Hell Gate awaited them with open arms.

And Zarian’s party brought a ruckus that only Florida Men and Florida Women could do.