Becoming the Dark Lord

Water geysers were erupting all across the forest. The mission now was simple: escape.

The problem was, no one knew how much time they had left. Luke had no idea whether that whole section would sink in five minutes or five hours. His best guess was that the collapse would only be complete once the last bracelet made it across.

”The bracelet! The bracelet!” someone shouted behind them.

During the past few days in hiding, Luke had watched the point-starved grow bolder by the hour. They moved day and night now, desperate enough to kill anyone they found. But this changed everything. Now the desperate had another way to survive.

”Give me the bracelet, damn it!” a man screamed from behind Luke, wand raised.

Luke stopped so suddenly the man barely had time to react. Then Luke rushed him, drove a fist into his face, tore the wand from his hand, and jammed it into the man’s mouth.

”Shut the fuck up.”

He took off running again, stuffing the wand into his backpack. He was close to what had once been the entrance to the third zone, but when the barrier fell, a new one had appeared far in the distance. He would have to cross an entirely different route now.

”For Father! Protect Father!” someone shouted nearby.

The water in that area reached a little above the ankles. Luke could see people running in every direction.

”A bracelet! He’s got one!”

A whole crowd turned toward him. Luke vaulted onto a rooftop. It was the remains of an old stone village, half in ruins. Arrows flew toward him.

”Here, my bracelet!” Luke shouted back, hurling the oil flasks he had collected.

One smashed into them. A man holding a torch got drenched by accident, burst into flames, and immediately spread panic through the group. Behind Luke, a woman was closing fast. She moved with terrifying speed, a thin sword in her hand, almost like a needle. Luke stopped at the last possible second and dropped low. She tripped over him.

The moment she hit the roof, Luke fired an arrow.

[You have slain a Human…] *11,175,333 IP earned*

He ran again.

He dodged through the chaos, evading the people on his heels, until he reached the edge of a massive abyss.

”Holy shit...”

A gigantic chasm opened before him, crossed by hundreds of rope bridges. Some stretched high above. Others hung below. Even deep in the darkness of the abyss, more rope bridges swayed in the void.

”Father, please, I’m sorry. Take me with you!” a woman cried.

”They’re slowing us down!” Father shouted back.

Only Father had an orange bracelet.

”We have to protect him, Jessica. He’ll help us once he clears the challenge.”

”I don’t want to die,” Jessica sobbed.

Luke sprinted onto one of the bridges. He saw people arriving behind him, already beginning to cut the ropes.

”If we’re going to die, then nobody gets across! Everyone dies here!” a man with a sword screamed as he hacked through the bridge lines, sending entire walkways plunging into the abyss.

Luke jumped to another bridge lower down.

Far off, he spotted a woman moving in a way that barely looked human, stretching her arms and legs as she leaped from bridge to bridge, knocking people off as she went.

”Father!” Jessica screamed, rushing toward one of the upper bridges with the others.

Suddenly, Luke’s bridge dropped out beneath him.

”Give me the bracelet!” the woman shouted when she saw him falling.

He landed hard on a lower bridge. Ten people jumped down after him, making the whole thing shudder violently. He was surrounded.

”Please, give me the bracelet,” one man begged, eyes red with tears. He held up a bloodstained knife with a shaking hand. ”I have a daughter. I have to help her.”

Luke jumped off the bridge.

Others followed. He caught the underside of the bridge with both hands, swung himself, and dropped onto another below. Three of them landed after him. Luke slashed through both support ropes. The bridge collapsed. ℴ

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The people on it fell screaming into the abyss. He grabbed hold of another bridge and threw himself forward again.

Then the same man dropped onto Luke’s bridge once more. ”I have a daughter!”

”Fuck you.”

He knocked the knife aside with one machete and drove the blade into the man’s chest. Then he kicked him off the bridge. Luke kept jumping, climbing, moving from one bridge to another. He needed to reach the topmost bridge. Without warning, a firestorm erupted overhead. The blast hit so hard the bridges shuddered under the force of the wind, ropes whipping wildly as flames raced across them.

Luke was thrown off balance and dropped into open air. He caught one of the rope bridges with both hands. The force of the grab twisted the entire thing, sending it spinning. People were falling everywhere, tumbling from above after being blasted off the upper levels. More explosions thundered at the top.

Someone was tearing the whole place apart. Luke pulled himself up once the bridge steadied, only for someone to crash down beside him.

“You have one, don’t you? Give it to me. Give me the bracelet!”

Arrows slammed into Luke.

“Damn it. Not again!”

He slashed the man’s throat, then ripped the bow and quiver from his corpse.

Luke climbed and leapt from bridge to bridge. More people kept dropping from above, some jumping, some falling. A woman came straight at him in a desperate leap. Luke kicked the bridge hard, sending it swinging sideways. She missed. Her body crashed through the lower bridges, bouncing once, twice, then vanished into the abyss.

Then the whole structure shook again.

[6 Orange Bracelets have crossed to the other side!]

[7 Orange Bracelets have crossed to the other side!]

[This side is collapsing! Good luck to those left behind!]

The bridges began tearing loose from the wall one by one as the tremors worsened.

“No... not mine...” Luke muttered.

A second later, his bridge ripped free. The ones above it came loose too. Luke was being cut off. He lunged for the wall and started climbing just as the bridge beneath him fell away into the dark. People screamed as they disappeared into the abyss below.

“He’s climbing!” someone shouted.

Arrows flew toward him. One struck his heel. Luke cried out and kept climbing. He grabbed hold of a shattered bridge hanging from the wall and used it to swing himself toward another section of rock. He scaled upward, dodging arrows as best he could. When he got close to the top, two people dropped down and grabbed his leg. Luke slipped. One machete scraped across the wall with a shriek of metal before he caught himself.

“Don’t leave me, man!” one of them screamed. “Take me with you! Try to take me with you!”

“Let go, damn it!” Luke shouted, twisting violently as he slid.

“Give me the bracelet!” the other man yelled, clinging to him. “You’re young! You haven’t lived at all! I’m forty. I deserve to live!”

Above Luke, a bolt struck the wall and began to glow.

“Oh, shit.”

Luke let go. The wall above exploded. He dropped. The two men holding onto him lost their grip and fell screaming into the abyss. Luke drove both machetes into the rock to slow himself, but the impact shattered them. He tried to catch himself with his bare hands. Nothing.

Then his body slammed into the torn remains of a rope bridge still anchored to the wall, and he clung to it with everything he had. The two below him kept screaming as they vanished into the dark. Luke was left with only a dagger.

“Shit... shit...” he muttered, shaking.

For one terrible instant, he had thought that was it. That he was done. He started climbing diagonally, faster and faster. Above him, the air was full of crying and screaming.

“I don’t want to die!” someone shouted.

The island trembled again. The earthquake was getting worse. Luke looked up and forced himself to focus.

Keep climbing.

“There’s an orange bracelet!” someone screamed. “Save me! Save me!”

[8 Orange Bracelets have crossed to the other side!]

[The barrier to the Third Zone will close in thirty seconds.]

“Fuck!” Luke roared.

Luke kept climbing.

People leapt toward him in desperation, trying to grab on. He twisted away from them and kept moving. Arrows flew at his back. Knives. Spells. Fireballs. He climbed so fast it almost looked like his fingers were sinking into the stone itself.

[The Barrier of the Third Zone will close in four seconds.]

He was nearly at the top.

[The Barrier of the Third Zone will close in three seconds.]

“Father! Father!” someone screamed. “Take me with you!”

“Get off me! Idiots, get off!” Father Brandt shouted, hurling a yellow bolt behind him that sliced through the bridge.

[The Barrier of the Third Zone will close in two seconds.]

His followers dropped into the abyss.

“Father!”

Luke reached the top. People were screaming, throwing whatever they could at him, trying to slow him down.

[The Barrier of the Third Zone will close in one second.]

He broke into a run, and then, behind him, a massive wall of barrier light surged up. The sight of all those people screaming in despair vanished at once, replaced by a smooth, mirrored surface.

[You have reached the Third and Final Zone!]

Luke dropped to his knees, breathing hard.

“Shit...” He dragged in a deep breath. “That was close.”

Father Brandt lay beside him, sprawled on the ground and gasping for air.

Luke turned to look at the old man. “Ah, you bastard. Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to kill you?”

“W-wait, peace! Let’s form an alliance.”

“Take your alliance and shove it up your ass!”

Luke kicked the staff out of his hand and grabbed him by the throat.

“You little shit! Because of you, I almost lost my bracelet!” Father Brandt yelled, struggling to fire off yellow bolts at him.

[Warning!]

[Warning!]

[Killing another participant is temporarily prohibited!]

The giant warning flared in front of Luke.

[The third and final challenge is for the Red Bracelet! Proceed to the challenge area!]