The Achievement Junkie

Chapter 456 Rushing to Save Moranti

While the rest of the guild was bringing out food and eye-catching merchandise to lure the crowds northward toward the Fat Goose and Celestial Crane, Jack and everyone returned to the guild property. Pestro’s divine corpse was still in the cage, carried along with them.

Once they were in the clear with everyone to the northern end of the guild property, Lorwynn and Kori stepped up toward the cage. Both entered without hesitation and Lorwynn was beaming with excitement. They readied themselves to steal Pestro’s dwindling divine potential.

Kori meditated for a moment as he honed in on the smallest morsel of energy found inside of his body, the latent fragment of Lunara’s energy that was waiting to catalyst Kori’s missing divine potential. Finding that, Kori brought that energy to the palm of his hand carefully. With that slowly showing itself, the former Fox God placed his hand on Pestro’s bare chest.

Everyone noticed a tiny stream of dark energy rush out of Pestro’s chest and into Kori’s arm.

That energy quickly reabsorbed into Kori’s being, glittering the area around him with dark energy that faded into water energy before dispersing completely.

Following Kori’s example, Lorwynn slowed his breathing as he focused on the morsel of energy that Rikko had left inside of him. It took Lorwynn an extra couple of minutes to focus that divine energy into his palm, but he managed to do it without losing control. He placed his hand on the same part of the corpse’s chest as Kori removed his hand. And similar to what had just happened, a rush of dark energy entered Lorwynn’s body before turning into a blend of wind and lightning energy as it faded.

Jack glanced at Hadurt, asking, "Are you sure about this? You may not--"

"Jack, what level are you now?" Hadurt responded with a question.

"Lv. 81."

Smiling and letting out a sigh of satisfaction, Hadurt explained, "Remember when I first met you? You weren’t even lv. 50! Yet you’ve already cracked the eighties to become one of the strongest mortals across Kartonia. If you wanted, you could probably compete with me."

"I don’t know about that," Jack chuckled.

"Either way, I’ll stick by my decision. If waiting just a bit longer means my potential will be that much greater, then I’ll wait however long it takes," added Hadurt, getting all the gods to smile.

"Jack... We need to talk."

A new voice caught most everyone off guard, all expect for Sterfen and Lunara. Looking back, Jack noticed a familiar deity running towards them. Trax was about to bow with the ninja continued, "We need to talk now before it’s too late."

"Ok..." Noticing that Sterfen and Lunara weren’t surprised, Jack assumed Choron’s entrance into the guild had something to do with them. "Then we’ll go to my--"

"Now, Jack!" Choron insisted. "Whatever you’re doing now can wait. It must. Unless, you want to lose your chance at saving Moranti?"

"What..."

"Moranti just informed me of Tralbok’s new plan. He wishes to bargain with Halmut with Moranti as collateral in an attempt to buy the chaotic gods time," stated Choron. "It’s a last-ditch effort to keep the holy gods from hunting them down until you’re eliminated."

"That means--"

"Yes, Tralbok should be leaving any moment now. He already stole Moranti’s contact crystal, so I know nothing else."

Karronteel yelled and roared in fury, not really saying anything but showing his rage. But the others ignored the Spectral Dragon as they didn’t plan to let that happen no matter what.

Hurrying to his map screen, Jack found both Moranti and Tralbok near the center of Talrania. The other gods were in Talrania too, but only three remained in the center while the others were currently fleeing and scattering.

Apart from Moranti and Tralbok, a third chaotic god was approaching them, as if he had started to flee but was now returning.

"It seems they haven’t left yet... I guess Tralbok asked for help since he knows Moranit likely spoke with you," Jack explained. "Oosam is about to meet with Tralbok, then I assume they’ll be leaving the moment Oosam arrives."

"Then there’s no time to waste!" Jin stepped up and threw his arm around Jack’s shoulders. "At lv. 81, you should be able to teleport all of us nearby, right, Nephew?"

Laughing, Jack smiled back. "Yes, but not everyone can come."

"Well, you can’t leave me out of this!" Jin boasted, slapping Jack on the back.

"We’ll come too." Lunara pulled her husband forward. "Moranti is one of the few dragons that I whole-heartedly respect. I’d hate to see him fall now."

"Count me in." Eedaj nodded, adding himself to the impromptu roster.

"I’m coming as well," added Choron. "Moranti has always taken care of me. If I don’t step up now and help free him, I’d be considered an ungrateful coward."

Shrugging, Jack chuckled. "Then I guess we should go now. Everyone else, just wait here and keep an eye on the city. We’ll be back shortly."

Everyone agreed. They were all smiles as those five gods gathered around Jack and placed there hands on his shoulders. Then, that band of five gods and a powerful demigod was carried away in a flash of light.

*****

"What took you so long!" Tralbok shouted as Oosam shuffled toward him.

Oosam bowed his head. "Sorry, I was the first to leave after you dismissed us so it took me some time to return."

"Anyway, let’s go already!" shouted the God of Time.

Behind him was Moranti, in an additional set of chains that restrained the God of Space by the ankles and wrists while completely restricting the use of his hands and feet. Moranti had no way to separate his hands or feet. Clearly, Tralbok didn’t want to give Moranti any chance of escape and had accounted for that.

The duo of jailers took off through the air, dragging their prisoner behind them, who was forcefully flying the other way with as much strength as he could muster while cuffed. Moranti couldn’t stop them while his powers were restrained, but he could slow them greatly.

They darted through the sky in a hurry, not caring if others saw them between the gaps in the clouds. All they wanted was to travel as quickly as possible and flee. So long as they were fast enough, Choron would have no way of tracking them.

Though they were right about Choron’s abilities, neither Tralbok nor Oosam knew about Jack’s system, let alone the map function that Daruun had given it.

When they neared the Korten border to the north, both gods suddenly stopped.

Moranti also stopped fighting back. Instead, he started to laugh without a word. With his spatial awareness, Moranti had long sensed those new arrivals but was glad that both of his captors finally noticed what was going on.

"Come out!" Tralbok shouted.

"Then come down," responded a voice. "If you want to talk first, then let’s meet on the ground. Otherwise, don’t expect us to show mercy."

Recognizing Eedaj’s voice, Tralbok squinted and looked to Oosam. "Shall we?"

Oosam only replied with a nod. Then, three more of Oosam split out of the original. The same happened for Tralbok and their prisoner. All four versions of the group split up into different ways, in an attempt to fool the four different divine presences that they felt within the clouds beneath them.

It was a perfect diversion. However, there was one thing that they hadn’t accounted for, nor could they have anticipated it.

When the four different versions of the chaotic gods separated, Jack was hiding his presence along with Sterfen so that neither of them could be sensed. And with his mini-map out, he had a natural counter to the Illusion Gods, schemes. Though it was hard to discern which of the groups was true, Jack was able to tell which group possessed the stronger divine energy as that group was the most recognizable by the system.

With Jack calling the shots, all four of the undisguised neutral deities swarmed downward toward the same version of the group with no hesitation whatsoever.

Trapped and startled to have been caught so easily, both Tralbok and Oosam were caught off guard but immediately heightened it for a possible battle to break out.