Cursed Earth Online (First Cycle)

9: Bad Guys

The wind carried with it the sounds of crackling and the horrible smell of sulfur mixed with smoke along with a sweat-inducing heat as a blast of raging psychic energy exploded in the middle of the street, igniting the air with an unholy glow as the Demonic Hurricane rose high.

He was surrounded by gasmasks wherever he went, the things hell-bent on stopping him from advancing deeper into the city.

Thinking of this whole ordeal as a long, one-man war against an entire army of players; he had tried to keep his cool and not go full-power on any of the annoyances.

But even his patience eventually wore out with the non-stop flood of monsters coming his way.

All his power... all his strength... all his skill..... was it not enough?

Was it not enough to simply smash through them all and get to his family?

More... even more... he needed even more power, enough to overwhelm Metatron and his lackeys, enough to crush the world if need be.

"WHO.... THE....FUCK..... DO YOU THINK I AM!" he cussed while the burning air around him turned into a vortex of blue flames.

He was so mad, he had not realized he had activated one of his strongest moves...

A move that he alone had created based on his little brother's ideas of how to use his Cambion-aligned passive ability to ignite the air around him... "Star's Demise"

A large flash of bright blue light for a moment as the demon began to descend unto the completely empty crater in the middle of the crossroads.

There were no corpses... no cars.... no concrete.... no road... not even any bacteria left.

It was a space completely devoid of life, sterilized by the blue flames.

His strength left his body as he lay there, his eyes into the sky.

"I hate my life", he said with a sigh.

Greed was an impulse within the human mind that you could consider a formidable thing.

Whether they had enough or not was not important to humans after all. And they always either want more or are tempted by something so great that they tend to lose all sense to have it.

This is what crossed everyone's mind when they all stopped and found it; a curious and archaic gate of ornate design that carried phantasmal gastropod and octopoid gargoyles along its frame composed of ominous black stone.

They had scouted through the entire underground area and found it yet, not one of them seem surprised. They could have tried blasting the area open to escape but considering that they were all buried underground, they would all be crushed by a cave-in.

They all knew what this thing was. It was the very thing that tempted gamers into risking everything for; a raid dungeon, a place of extravagant rewards and challenges that tested an entire group's mettle.

"An Elder..... Gate", Slith began to say with a gulp while they all stood in front of the imposing structure.

Elder Gates were trans-dimensional portals leading to a pocket dimension that served as a territory for an Elder Thing; one of the toughest type of enemies in all of Cursed Earth.

They were usually raid-bosses that required entire Battalions to defeat and yielded immensely powerful rewards.

Joe's Outsider was one such example.

Yet, there was one other reason why they breathed hard upon seeing the portal; raid dungeon exits usually lead to other places and could be their way out of the underground.