Overpowered Wizard

“YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME, ZARIAN! YOU CAN’T RUN! I’M GOING TO BURN YOU ALIVE AND LOCK YOU UP MYSELF!”

Jack must’ve grown an impressive set of traits, skills, and stats. The hater was about ten miles away, and Zarian could hear Jack’s hollering clearly.

More importantly, the hater was in the middle of a messy, hazy, sprawling mega war camp that was packed up with at least several million imps and infernal creatures, all gathered for an impending Hell Break.

Right after ending his cultivation, and while using every bit of his wondrous and mystical senses, Zarian perceived the hater to have something above a legendary class. Jack probably had a mythical class just like Foodie had predicted last year.

Based on whatever powerful bonuses Jack had gotten from being mythical on top of his growth as a solo murderhobo with the literal support from heaven and hell, Zarian figured the hater’s threat assessment level was fairly high. In fact, Zarian could sense the hateful man’s alignment power.

Jack was good +5.

With that high level of traditional goodness, he might actually have a power that could burn Zarian and seal him away, just like something Metatron had attempted. Worse yet, Jack sounded like he really wanted to get to Zarian.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

I have to admit, maybe Jack might be a bigger hater than me. And we used to go to the same high school, same classes and all, Zarian thought in one portion of his mind.

Other portions of his mind disseminated information as quickly as possible to the others with Para’s help, pushing his Unraveled Mind and High Rune Mindframe +2 to their limits.

Before Jack and several million hellish creatures turned against the Floridians, Zarian and the others assessed the situation as if time had slowed down.

Their thoughts zipped between each other rapidly as they got a better look at the enormous cavern they’d just crept into while under Bianca’s invisibility cloaking, which apparently wasn’t enough to stop Jack from being a mythical hater who could sense and pinpoint Zarian’s location.

Thankfully, Jack was only one man.

Bianca’s support tricks and high Wonder could fool the denizens of hell. The Floridians just needed to get a layout of things before everything became an absolute cluster fuck.

Behind them, they had a mile-wide and open corridor. They had used it to get here, facing little opposition other than some imp scouts they discretely took out.

Granted, Bianca and Gilbert had done the imp murdering in ways that were far from princess-like or Christian. Bianca hadn’t even thought twice when Naomi told her to step on a few imps.

For some strange reason, the girls had gotten a kick out of that. Gilbert, too, but for crusader reasons.

Thus, they had no concerns about anyone attacking them from behind.

They’d found it quite easy to face imps in patrolling squads. But now they faced the mega camp, and the size of it was unbelievable.

The Floridians had an elevated vantage point, with a rugged decline leading down to a hard, uneven, and craggy floor where most of the war camp staged themselves. An infernal haze blanketed the lower floor, with orange-red veins streaking everywhere.

The haze and colors made the war camp look extra demonic, with chaotic movements, horrific bodies, and terrible voices spanning far to the front, to the right, and to the left of the Floridians.

The infernal denizens had shanty huts, stations, stalls, and what have you. They had fighting pits, filth pits, cannibalism pits, and other grotesque pits. They set the entire war camp in a disorderly disarray that made Zarian’s renegade Marine Corps instincts want to bark out like a mad dog.

There were more imps, hell wolves, hell serpents, and other evil creatures gathered on the rise leading to the tunnel, as if they were waiting for a mass order to rush out to begin the Hell Break. Yet, there was plenty more beyond those directly in front of the Floridians.

Zarian saw them squirming and moving like a living carpet, and they had so many packed together they couldn’t afford the space for establishments or any comforts.

How could they afford further space when they had more forces of hell pouring through a literal portal that was a mile high and two miles wide?

It was all the way in the distance. Far enough for the portal to look miniature.

But at Zarian and his friends’ levels, they could see it quite fine, especially if they had enough invested in Wonder.

Since they shared a high-speed hive mind right now, everyone had a visual of the portal, the reason for the Grimrock Hell Gate. And they could see thick rivers of demonic creatures streaming out to join the rest.

Yet, with even these already impressive numbers, this was only the vanguard.

There were many, many more seeking a way out from Hidden Hell. The Grimrock Hell Gate was their best chance to escape and wreak havoc on the mortal realm.

The only thing that had stopped them were the hell orcs.

That and the circling tide of lesser aberrations crashing into their flanks and absorbing their members through skirmishes or through pure predation.

Most of the aberrations were born from imps, but Zarian saw other hellish species conjoined into grotesque toys and victims for his wife’s teary-eyed enjoyment.

She really was playing both sides. She had her fun challenging her husband’s party while she corralled and picked at hell’s forces to grow her own.

There might be a grand design Luciana wanted to implement, but Zarian couldn’t be sure of what that could be just yet. At the very least, the aberrations put their attention on the demons.

The imps weren’t very strong individually. Instead, they united their magic to cast powerful hellfire balls and other attacks. Together, they pushed back the aberrations and even killed some.

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But there were still plenty more aberrations. As long as they had bodies they could corrupt, the forces of Shadowfell would grow.

The Floridians didn’t have to concern themselves too much with that. They had bigger issues, like Jack, who flew at Zarian and his friends like a streaking white comet.

Beyond him, Zarian saw a giant ziggurat that was close to the portal but not quite in front of it.

The ziggurat was twice as tall as the Central Library Artillery Tower back at Ride-or-Die Village. It had a murky barrier around it that obscured any chance of peering into its structure.

But Zarian didn’t need to see through the barrier to know Foodie was there, waiting.

Zarian and his friends had questioned plenty of imps he turned into skeletons. The new imp skeletons had cleared up plenty of things leading up to this point.

All they had to do was get past millions of demons, aberrations, and one absolute hater.

What if his class is actually called the ‘Absolute Hater?’ Would that be too on the nose? Para asked, sharing her thoughts with Zarian and the others through their high-speed network.

I’ll ask, Naomi thought, sharing her action junkie thrill on the network. Can I go now? Can I go?

Zarian waited on Gilbert, and the big man didn’t disappoint.

A part of me wants revenge personally. A part of me wants one solid hit. But I would rather see that animal put down than for him to have any chance of walking free. So, however you do it, please make him pay, because I can’t quite turn the other cheek here.

That was all Gilbert had to say.

Naomi’s excitement turned into determination and sisterly love she shared on the network, especially for Gilbert. Then she turned her attention specifically to Zarian with something akin to battle lust, loyalty, courage, commitment, and more.

She wanted nothing more than for him to give her the order. She needed him to do it. To make it official.

It felt like a special moment between them, as if she wanted to become a living weapon in service to him. There would come a day when that weapon would turn against him, but until then, Naomi wanted him to use her.

Zarian appreciated that a lot.

“Go embarrass him, contain him, but don’t kill him,” Zarian ordered, ending their bullet time hive mind chat. “I want Jack for a certain dungeon project.”

Time seemed to resume to normal.

A few of them felt a slight burn from abusing High Rune Mindframe +2 too much. But Naomi did them all a solid. She used Tranquil Mind +3 to wipe away the headache and soothed them.

Then she blasted up and away, leaving behind Bianca’s invisibility cloaking.

Naomi propelled herself like a supersonic cannonball, drawing all the demonic attention to her. She gave Zarian some time to work his wizardry with Para, leaving Naomi to face the hater alone.

“You don’t fucking matter! Get the fuck out my way!” Jack shouted at a more reasonable volume.

Naomi, in fact, didn’t get the fuck out of Jack’s way. Even without a super hive mind connection, Zarian felt Naomi’s glee and savagery and rude attitude coming out in full force.

She purposefully placed herself on Jack’s flight path. She blocked his shot for Zarian.

Jack screamed in a crazy and unintelligible way, like he was having a battle tantrum. Then the two clashed head to head.

Zarian held his breath.

The Madness Wizard was a little worried. Everything leading up to this moment suggested that … Naomi would crush Jack like an ant pressed under her littlest toe.

Despite everything Jack had going for him, Naomi was a titan of a woman. She’d earned her power the hard way, more than anyone else. She had Jack beat by a significant margin.

Thankfully, Jack was tough enough to meet Naomi head on and not turn into a splatter of gore.

The fancy armor Jack had on that Zarian’s other haters, gods and whatnot, must’ve given Jack held together. It had to be high-quality stuff, legendary for sure, or it would’ve turned into crumpled wads of tinfoil.

Zarian hoped Naomi could rip the fancy gear off of Jack without damaging it too much. They could feed the legendary items to Reiki and the Dancing Librarian Dungeon. It was always nice to spoil her and the dungeon, especially with Reiki being a mother.

That was a thought he noted down in a smaller part of his mind. Another portion of his mind beheld the sheer power of Naomi and Jack’s first reunion clash, which went off like a bomb midair, flattening the demons under them.

Then Jack ricocheted off to the right and landed hard, digging a deep furrow across the ground, blasting through many demons and shanty huts.

Naomi changed directions with an explosive kick midair. She kept flying at Jack like a heat-seeking missile, rocketing for another clash.

The hater barely got out a star bolt and a swing of his fancy star sword before Naomi slammed into him again, but this time on the ground. The legendary impact shook the local area, throwing demons off their feet.

Then she struck with the Strength and Agility of a fist-fighting demigoddess, regardless of the lesser quality of her class. She forced Jack to tumble backward like someone kicked a well-dressed action figure across the floor for a long distance.

Oh, wait, she really was kicking him. She was treating him like a human soccer ball.

Jack barely had any time or space to muster back. Naomi kept battering him around playfully with kick after kick.

Each of those kicks sounded like mini-explosions, too.

But none was louder than Naomi’s boisterous and mocking laughter.

She sounded wild. She sounded out of control. She sounded like herself as she treated Jack like a toy. Like how a cat played with a living mouse.

It was an incredible sight to see from a woman with an epic quality class, especially when beating around a hater with a mythical quality class.

“God Almighty,” Gilbert said.

“Too much?” Hannah asked.

“What? No! I’m just sad I don’t get to see that ass whooping up close!”

Hannah quirked an eyebrow. “Go on.”

Gilbert gladly aired out his feelings. “He’s the type of girl-stalking, backstabbing, school-shooting, bastard kid who should’ve gotten his knees taken out by a pipe years ago.”

“Anymore?” Hannah asked.

“Two-timing, fuckwit, comepinga that some trashy dirty-dick whore-fucker should’ve left as a smear on the sheets or a squirt on his mama’s tongue. But, hey, fuck it! Naomi got it! And she’s not even using Aura Ignition yet. God bless that mad-as-hell woman!”

Gilbert seemed a little happier getting all of that off his chest.

Too bad he wouldn’t get to stay that way for long.

“Hm. Well. Since we’re on the topic, it wouldn’t surprise me if Jack’s the one who called the cops en masse just for Zarian. Right before he opened that portal,” Hannah said. “I know it wasn’t me. I’m not that type of woman.”

Gilbert froze, as if a year-long realization finally came to the forefront of his mind. It was like how he’d revealed his bullet had landed in Zarian’s shoulder a year ago, but much, much worse.

The big man was slowly turning red in the face as that realization settled into his heart. Before he derailed his part of the operation, Zarian and Para finished their mental preparation for a big working of a spell.

The hellish creatures in front of them were still making their move up the rugged incline and toward the invisible Floridians, not so easily tricked by the illusion now that the cat was out of the bag.

No worries, Zarian and Para transmuted the ground with a Quagmire Pit spell that was thousands of feet wide.

The quagmire turned out shallow and watery, but it was still quite slick. The tip of the vanguard tripped, slid, and fell into the slippery muck. Many tumbled backward down the slope.

Not all of them had tripped or slowed. The more serpentine creatures kept propelling themselves forward, unbothered.

Zarian and Para fixed that by casting Dread Mire Bite, raising an invisible set of jaws that snapped apart and crunched all those caught in the quagmire. Then the wizard and parasite cast Dread Mire Bellow, blasting away the nearest demons outside of the pit.

Finally, Zarian stretched out his arms wide.

Bianca dropped the invisible cloaking fully, revealing all of them. Her timing was on point, as the Dark Lord and his kilt raised up the infernal predator of the pit, but as a bigger and meaner version than ever before.

“With this folktale, we summon you, Dreadnought Hell Gator!” Zarian and Para shouted together.