If you notice any errors, please feel free to give me constructive feedback. English is not my first language, so if you notice any mistakes, please mention them in the comment section at the end of the chapter. I do not own Overlord. All property rights belong to their respective creators. Let's begin the story!
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Chapter-17
Alfheim,
Yggdrasil,
Earth – Year 2129,
Overlord Verse;
The Tower of Avalon:
The moment each player passed through the door, they were separated—each flung into a different floor, randomly with mismatch parties – banded together to challenge the raid together.
Despite teleporting to different floors with different layout and surroundings, they were all attacked by empty shells of knights – astral beings inhabiting empty full body knight armours.
[Knights of Avalon – Members of Round Table]
xxx
1st Seat: Sword
Manabu, and Nameless Shadow stood in an arena floating above a sea of swords. Weapons rained from the sky as their foe—The Sword Seat—descended, after an armoured knight moving with perfect tempo. After they had managed to clear more than 300 armoured knights wielding sword.
Every attack was a parry drill. Manabu tanked each hit using timed stances, while Nameless Shadow disrupted his footing with shadow movement and surprise attacks. Manabu teleported, matching the knight's timing punched taking in the gaps in its defence. After a synchronized flurry, the knight was impaled from three angles. A golden embroidered sigil on a flag dropped behind the Knight of Sword, as he disintegrated, revealing a door.
xxx
2nd Seat: Spear
Shouko, and Silent Witch landed on a glowing lake. Their opponent, the Spear Seat, skated across the water with unreal speed. His spear strikes caused mana burns on contact.
After luring him into a slowed field hex, Silent Witch bashed him mid-dash with Barrier. Shouko countered with her spear.
xxx
3rd Seat: Bow
In a dark, endless forest, Hitoshi and Kindred Star faced a ghostly archer whose arrows bent around trees and terrain.
After near-death dodges, Kindred Star planted illusion fields. The archer finally missed—just once. Hitoshi's ended the duel with support from the golems.
xxx
4th Seat: Magi
Wandering Soul and two others entered a floating mirror maze. The Magi Seat mostly cast no direct spells—he only reflected and occasion flicks of magic spells.
Through trick tactics and curse timing, they managed to bypass his layers and strike his true form. Before they concentrated their attacks.
xxx
5th Seat: Shield
Indomitable Wall and Red Order fought a knight who did not attack—only blocked. A pure tank war. While he used his giant shield as hammer. Before he fell from Indomitable and one other player.
xxx
6th Seat: Honour Guard
Zaroth faced this one solo.
As he stood raining destructive spell, laughing like a maniac and barely moved dodging every attack from the Knight with a lance and shield.
The Honour Guard moved with elegance. Zaroth slowed his movements, controlled every motion. After a ten-minute duel, he landed a pressure point magic strikes that dissolved the knight's form, as he disintegrated.
xxx
7th Seat: Riders
The Shining Knight along other players led through a maze of ethereal cavalry, with cavalry knights charging through winding halls, riding horses, griffins, and various other mounts.
A chaotic battle. With coordinated ambushes and mounted duels, as he and others at last battled the seventh seat, Knight riding a pure white Sleipnir and they emerged victorious.
xxx
8th Seat: Tank
Kai stood along with few of his other clanmates, as they cleared the mobs to finally face a Giant of a Being with 3.5-meter height, with bulky armour built for a Tank.
They fought dealing damage without approaching it, and felled it.
It crumbled as they advanced to the next floor.
******
After entering through the door that revealed itself after the fall of the Knights of Avalon, Kai and his clanmates find themselves under the open sky.
A silver moon hung above them—unnaturally large. It cast a pale, soothing glow across a field of quiet grass that rustled ever so slightly despite the absence of wind mechanics in this zone. While, they still remained inside the confines of flying castle of Avalon. The view they had witnessed multiple times within the game.
"Are we finally in Boss room?" Red Order asked, rotating slowly to scan their surroundings.
"God knows," Wandering Soul muttered.
Ahead, a trail lined with cobbled white stone extended forward, winding gently up a slope towards a pristine white castle. Not as massive as the flying fortress of Avalon – but intricate, elegant. The castle rested atop a hill draped in mist.
"...That's almost too perfect," Shouko said, as her red cape fluttered with non-existing wind.
"A bit too fairytale for my taste," Red Order grunted.
"Speak for yourself," Silent Witch smiled, shifting closer to the path. "This… this is a piece of beauty, not that a chuunibyo like you would understand."
Wandering Soul chuckled beside her. "Yeah. It's like we're in a fairytale world where I am a princess."
"I was going to say like a lost step-mother of a pitiful princess."
"Which makes you what? The cursed witch who guides her?"
"I'll hex you next time you say something like that."
Their banter earned a few smirks, even from Kai. For a moment, it broke the feeling of impatience that had settled in-between them from venturing into the Avalon, it had been nearly five and a half hours since their expedition began. Though it was not the longest dungeon dive of theirs, but those were specialised dungeons that notified about the challenge at the beginning. While, this place housed measly ten floors and was classified as simultaneous dungeon – The hardest type of dungeon in Yggdrasil, similar to the great underground tomb of Nazarick.
"Can we teleport there?" Hitoshi asked, trying to cast the spell, his impatience running out, similar to Red Order to face the Boss of this dungeon.
Alas, he failed.
"I'll try flying," Zaroth offered, already mid-cast to activate the
Kai tilted his head. "It's forcing us to walk."
"Seriously?" Red Order groaned.
"Just enjoy the atmosphere," Shouko said. "The devs clearly wanted this moment to feel different."
"Then next time I'm walking in full plate armour, you can carry me," Kai muttered jokingly, making everyone laugh – while all he needed to walk the distance was to control his console. He stepped forward, leading the entourage.
"Well, shouldn't we enjoy the atmosphere till the hill." Muttered Silent Witch after Kai.
"True, the ambience of this floor is also great," mumbled Red Thorn. Surprisingly showing her girlish side, her fondness towards princess fairytales.
After a round of healing spells, buffs, and potion use, the clan began their ascent. The walk was peaceful. No enemies. No hidden traps. No status effects triggering from the terrain. Just... quiet.
As they walked, the ground underfoot shimmered subtly, as if infused with mana. Grass parted where they stepped. Floating lights danced lazily above the flowers lining the path. Insects that didn't exist in any other part of Yggdrasil flitted about, purely decorative.
"This really feels like a fairytale world," Silent Witch mumbled under her breath, earning a nod from Shouko and Kindred Star.
"Yes," Wandering Soul answered as she nodded.
While, Kai was surprised to discover Shouko and the rest of the girls in his clan liking such stuff without exception. He hadn't given it much thought, but he at least expected one among them to be not interested in such tales. But to find everyone interested in it, surprised him, especially Shouko, who he had least expectations from, for these matters. 'Hmm, it matters not if they like it. Not like it will change anything.' He mused, continuing his journey.
Somewhere along, insects chirping echoed faintly—likely an area-wide ambient effect, tied to the floor mechanics. And above it all, the White Castle waited.
******
The White Castle:
The walk to the castle felt longer than it truly was.
It wasn't distance that slowed them—but the silence. Not a tense, ominous silence. A deliberate, contemplative one – as they enjoyed the walk. Like stepping through a place not meant for battle, but for memories. The grass underfoot crunched, the cobbled path glowing faintly in the moonlight and small orbs of lights occupying the path – And fire lanterns lit along the way, floating in the clear sky. As each step brought them closer to the castle.
It had a grand gate, with no guards posted along the gate and walls. Inside the gate, walking past the garden, they arrived near the stairs leading to the main door of the castle. The tall doors were ajar, just slightly, as though waiting. As though someone had left them open for a guest that never came.
Kai was the first to approach, followed along with Shining Knight, Indomitable Wall, Red Order and Nameless Shadow.
"Not a monster in sight," Red Order murmured, walking beside him.
Kai gave a slow nod.
Inside the castle was a corridor unlike any they had passed before.
Pristine white marble stretched in every direction. The floor beneath their boots glimmered with threads of gold, weaving geometric patterns that shifted ever so slightly when looked at directly, laid on the white marble tiles. Pillars of transparent crystal arched overhead, refracting the pale blue light of floating orbs that acted as ceiling chandeliers along with pristine chandeliers that hung around the hallway with the giant chandelier at the centre.
And then,
The debuff that extended up to seven levels, which remained exclusive to World Enemies. While, players could access that same skill up to five levels.
"Debuff," muttered Kai, as he observed his log.
"Lovely," Manabu muttered. "So, we're walking into a slow crawl... before we've even met the boss."
Red Order opened his status window and clicked through the icons. "Debuff with Aura of Despair up to Seven levels, the resistance we have, combined with our equipment cannot resist level seven, debuff." He sighed.
"Well, it's just another Yggdrasil dev joke, what use is resistance if we can't protect ourselves." Hitoshi replied.
Still, no one turned back.
Kai stepped further in. The moment he passed the first set of crystalline columns, they were hit by another set of debuffs.
Shouko leaned closer, examining her own debuffs.
"They're not stacking. Just increasing with distance. We are hit by random debuff as we move inside." Spoke Shouko. Causing them to all, hurry their advance.
They continued deeper into the castle, footsteps echoing softly off stone.
At the far end of the white corridor, a spiral staircase began its slow rise—curving upward.
And above it, faintly painted across the ceiling in subtle shimmer—
A dragon and a knight, locked in combat beneath a silver tree.
Kai's eyes lingered on it.
Before they rushed toward the stairs, they entered the door at the end of the stairway.
******
Kai and his clanmates found themselves in a grand circular hall, wider than anything they had seen in the castle so far, the size of the grand hall dwarfing the castle outside, including the whole floor they walked across to arrive at the grand hall inside the castle. The ceiling rose into a dome of crystal, allowing a false night sky to shimmer above them—one designed with such care it mirrored constellations from the real world. At the center of the room, asleep and coiled in a lazy, languid sprawl, was a Red Dragon.
He was massive.
A World Enemy no less, his stats surpassing the level cap of Yggdrasil.
Crimson scales, great wings folded, and his horns spiraled backward like blades.
They stood gazing at the monstrocity that slept at the centre of the hall.
When they were hit by multiple notifications:
The Dragon's eyelids—iron plates split by glowing cracks—slowly opened. Crimson eyes the size of walls raised around the city, gazed down upon them. When he spoke, the words did not echo aloud, but appeared directly in their minds,
["So... you are the ones who have come to claim Avalon. A foolish dream of hatchlings. But so be it, you shall be the key that will set me free from this cage."]
He rose—slowly, deliberately. Every movement was massive, yet fluid. The hall trembled as his wings spread wide, blocking out the false stars above, as the dome that covered the top blew open.
The Dragon dwarfed the players by a big margin, as the tallest player in the party, Indomitable Wall was barely one tenth, long as the eyelids of the Dragon.
Notification:
"Brace!" Kai barked. "Positions!"
Dreh'h opened his jaws.
A crimson pulse built in the back of his throat.
"Move!" Shouko shouted.
It was unlike any breath attack of Dragons they had faced. The barrier cracked. Everyone's HP nearly dipped by a quarter, despite protection.
"Spread!" Hitoshi called, dashing sideways, hammer in hand. "He's charging again!"
Wandering Soul floated above, casting rapid mass buffs:
"I need three seconds—prepare your golem!"
"Already preloaded!" Kindred replied, releasing her Level 100 golem rather than the usual army [Crystallis Engine] onto the field. The massive golem stomped forward, taking position as a mid-line tank.
Zaroth cackled. "Oh! Dragon, Behold, o scaled tyrant, the end of flame lies in the void beyond despair!"
He cast
Nameless Shadow blinked behind Dreh'h, triggering
Kai narrowed his eyes. "His physical defense is too high for mid-tier magic. Focus on DoT(Damage Over Time) magic or attacks paired with high damage spells and skills."
"I'll draw aggro," Red Order said, triggering his samurai stance.
"Supporting him," Shining Knight added, drawing his blade and glowing shield. "Pulling left wing. Kai, can you aim for his heart?"
Kai nodded. "Shouko—"
"I'll cover his flank," Shouko cut in, already midair. Her spear lit with
Dreh'h roared – His tail lashed, slamming Red Thorn and sending him flying into the wall. HP dipped to 20%. Silent Witch barely healed him in time.
"Brace!" Indomitable Wall shouted, slamming his shield into the marble as Dreh'h exhaled a sweeping arc of crimson flames.
Hitoshi charged in with his hammer igniting briefly before slamming into the marked leg. The dragon roared, then lunged.
"Down!" Manabu shouted. Kai barely managed to parry. Shouko, caught mid-lunge, twisted into
"Left blind spot!" Shouko called out.
Kai and Shouko teleported in near-unison, appearing to the left of Dreh'h's flank. Kai's spear flared with mana as he activated
Zaroth, ever the dramatist, raised his hand toward the ceiling. "Then tremble, for I shall gift you an ending worthy of ruin!"
"…Just cast the damn spell," Wandering Soul muttered while she was busy supporting Indomitable Wall with her healing and buffs.
Red Order launched a flurry of slashes with
Dreh'h roared this time.
The chamber shook.
It reared back and expelled a wave of fire—not forward, but skyward. The flames curved unnaturally, clinging to the walls before sweeping down in a ring.
"AOE incoming!" Wandering Soul warned.
Nameless Shadow used the moment of chaos to vanish from sight. He reappeared above Dreh'h's nape and slammed both daggers into the base of the dragon's skull with
The battle continued.
Minutes passed in controlled chaos.
As the Health Bar of the dragon dropped, the ambient heat doubled. Its scales began to shimmer with inner magma, and it stopped using its wings for movement—relying entirely on ground attacks.
"Mana low," Silent Witch added.
Kai adjusted his grip. He had saved it for this.
"Shouko."
She looked at him and nodded.
They moved.
Kai activated
Shouko, in tandem, triggered
The two strikes hit within frames of each other. Dreh'h recoiled.
"Zaroth! Now!"
The demon grinned, spinning a ring of several casting circles.
A golden sphere ignited at the centre of the room, expanding outward with a slow pulse of searing light. Dreh'h roared.
"Everyone! Unload!" Red Order shouted.
Kindred Star's golems fired simultaneously, their enchanted magical attacks detonating against Dreh'h's chest, while dolls she had crafted, exploded on the Dragon's body. Red Thorn and Shining Knight executed a cross-slash combo from opposite ends, while Manabu landed a concussive uppercut into the jaw.
Kai cast
As the rest continued raining down attacks, Kai invoked his super-tier spell,
Ignotus Adventurers had pulled all stops for this raid.
"NOW!" shouted Manabu after Kai had casted his spell.
While, Kai equipped [World Item – Helm of Aesir] and summoned all the players from Valhalla, he fought in PvP challenge without outside interference, in solo combat and bested. Though the player summoned were replicas of the players he had won against but they only possessed half their strength.
And the attack continued.
Before long, Dreh'h's health bar hit zero with continuous strikes.
It roared as it's eyes light with radiance, ["Pests…"]. Before it fell, its body disintegrated, into particles and they were hit by a message confirming their kill.
Yet, they all stood stupefied at not receiving the corresponding message for clearing the dungeon.
"So, wasn't he the boss of this dungeon?" muttered Red Order.
"I believed so, but what now…" mumbled Silent Witch. And such conversation took place in-between players of Ignotus Adventurers.
******
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**The End**
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