Agatha The Legendary Guild Master

'Wolves? He is the leader of the wolves?" I asked.

"Sure, he was the leader and defeating this creature took most of the old witch's strength, and she couldn't kill her. That was the famous rumor spreading among the world in the first years of it," the demoness explained.

"She was the ruler of the wolves, had great grudge against the old witch no doubt. I recall she said that when she got freed, after the witch got killed by the remaining forces of wolves," the demon said.

"So she didn't kill the witch?" I asked.

"She had participated greatly in that! after all she is immortal, can't be killed; or that was what she said about herself," the demon said.

"Sure she is strong, but I doubt the point of being immortal. The witch managed to weaken her greatly, and so she took all these years to rebuild the wolves again after all the devastation the witch did to her and her wolves," the demoness said.

The two kept debating about this for hours, and I just listened and then delved in thoughts about this hidden enemy, the one who was pulling the strings from the shadows. "What is her anyway?" I asked.

"She is a phoenix, but not a fiery one, she has fire and ice implanted in her body, making half of it bathed in fire, and the other half is made of ice," the demoness said.

"Ice and fire phoenix? That's new!" I muttered, as I never heard of such a monster before.

"She is an arrogant, stubborn, bloodthirsty one, even more bloodthirsty than the witch of the old, right?" the demon said.

"Sure, I once served under her, and to be honest she was something more horrifying than the witch," the demoness said.

"With no weakness at all?" I asked, not believing this immortal and invincible part.

"As far as I know, none," the demoness said, and the demon just nodded agreeing with her.

"Sigh, it seems the new world will be much harder to survive than I thought."

I glanced at the horizon, while stuffing pearls inside my mouth. These gossips weren't mere gossips to me; they were distant facts disfigured by someone to be untrustworthy and unbelievable like these.

I now knew the next world would be mostly a world unsuitable for humans to survive. I also realized our own enemies were amassing all their strengths, so once the world would be established, they wouldn't wait and try to annihilate all of us.

"Sigh, why is it this hard, witch?" I muttered, asking the illusionary figure of that old witch in my mind, trying to get past her old machinations, hoping some still present after all this intervention from the wolves.

Linking all the dots so far, I realized that the old lizard knew his fate; being a slave dedicated to serving and guarding one place. if I didn't intervene to save him, he wouldn't be able to survive or gain its freedom.

It seemed that he had done something against that ice and fire phoenix, making him quite afraid of her retaliation. Sigh, that old lizard was quite a coward, afraid of facing his enemy head on, preferring to run away, and asked me to help him in that.

"I should have made him serve me for a couple of years before agreeing on that contract," I sighed, helplessly shaking my head, lamenting on my mistake and the chance I let slip by my hands easily like this.

However, I didn't know anything at all that time, and that might serve as a good excuse for my mistake.

We passed layer twenty two and twenty three within a week. I tried my best to push forward, and that was the fastest I could go to the front without any enemy to face.

As for my spear, it was now fighting inside layer twenty five. I knew there was no monster enough to stop it, so I didn't feel any worry at all.

However, after it just crushed all the enemies it had, per usual, and as I watched my hunger value fluctuate rapidly before stabilizing again, it pumped into a seemingly worthy enemy after one hour of that.

I knew it should reach layer twenty six, but when it stopped moving, rapidly consuming my hunger value, and giving me a huge boost in my points, I knew it faced a huge army of monsters and demons.

"Strange, what's so special about layer twenty six?" I muttered after two consecutive days of fighting on my spear side without moving forward for an inch. I kept supplementing my lost hunger value, but this was a strange incident to notice.

"Is there something wrong?" my demoness, the one with good eyesight and senses, asked.

"My spear just cleared layer twenty five and now it's stuck at layer twenty six with some weird stubborn resistance," I said with an annoyed face as the consumption rate of my hunger value was really terrifying.

"This didn't happen before?" I didn't glance at my demoness to see the worry on her face, but I noticed it in her tone. "No, I don't recall this ever happening. It seemed like there was an endless army of humans, monsters, and demons standing in front of my spear, blocking its path. Strange!"

My demoness kept silent for a long moment, before she said:

"This isn't strange at all, this has an explanation."

"What?!" I raised my head to glance at her, to see her face showing excited and worried expression at the same time. "Tell," I demanded.

"It's not layer twenty six, instead it might be that trapped mystic art layer."

My eyes got widened, as this never crossed my mind at all. "Are you certain?" I asked.

"Not completely of course, but this is the only explanation if your spear faced such a resistance," she added, before her face showed strange seriousness as she added, "you need to treat this with extreme care, after all this layer isn't filled only with your enemies, right?"

Her words made me stupefied! That damn spear wouldn't differentiate between my enemies or friends, as it would only aim towards clearing the whole layer.

"Snap!"

Despite wanting to clear that layer, or at least leave it to clear more enemies, I couldn't take the risk. I had to be able to witness the battle, so I could adjust everything and interfere to stop the spear at the right moment.

"Snap!"

"Snap!"

"Snap!"

As I expected, this spear was so stubborn to answer my call and retreat, so I kept snapping my fingers for hours until it finally appeared on top of my fingers, humming and buzzing, showing its anger and complete discontent.

"Don't worry, I will let you kill them all soon."

"Buzz!"

It kept vibrating and humming, not accepting my words, however the next moment I stored this angry spear away. "Sigh, why is this bloodthirsty?!" I wondered, while feeling it was getting harder to control it with time.

"It grows by killing," the demoness suddenly said, "all the artifacts grow this way, so after all this killing its soul is getting stronger, harder to be kept in check."

"You have a point here, but I can��t use any other artifact," I sighed, "it's the only spear artifact I had."

"It was said the witch had an artifact of each weapon possible, dunno why," the demon suddenly said.

"By the way, are there any gossips about artifacts?" his words reminded me of the artifact issue, and so I asked, trying to get any intel about them.

"I think someone said they were horrifying weapons in the destroyed world," the demon said.

"No, they are usually normal weapons, with no special thing about them at all," the demoness said.

"I can't believe that! my artifacts are so mighty! They can't be simple weapons back then!!"

"Just accept the fact they are simple weapons in that world. The power difference between this world and the shattered one made any simple things in the latter exert extraordinary power on the former." She then pointed to her and him as she added, "for example we were mere demons with no powers or special thing related to us back in that shattered world, however right here we are considered gods. Artifacts are the same."

"What makes you think we were mere demons in that world? they are all gossips, and I believe we are meant to be special in that world as we are here!"

I didn't want to splash cold water over his head, telling him that I agree with the harsh, but real, opinion of the demoness. Only those really special creatures like the old wizard, that fog monster, and the ice and fire phoenix would stay special in the post-apocalyptic world.

And these two, and many others, were doomed to be normal demons there!

This mere thought made me compare this to our condition as humans, feeling the more logic for only those with mystic arts to be acknowledged by the new world, as for others; well I didn't know what would happen to them.

I just hoped they wouldn't be killed or exposed to unjustified circumstances.