"Yes, this place is truly incomparable to the beauty and splendor of the Tomb of Nazarick."
From the gap in space, emerged a skeleton wearing a robe that looked like it was sown from darkness itself. With a glaring pair of red eyes glowing in his skull and a red orb floating in its rib cage that completed his nefarious appearance he gave off a menacing and deadly aura that made the soldiers shudder.
Behind him, stood on both sides two upright creatures that looked human until you took a closer look. On the left of him stood a bipedal figure that wore something found in the south called a suit with round glasses covering his eyes. His spiky hair complemented the equally pointy ears on his head and the monstrous spiked tail growing from behind.
On the left stood an elderly man that one guessed was in his late fifties or even sixties, but despite that had a fresh look on his face. A stout and sleek figure that betrayed a well-built body beneath his clothes which seemed to belong to a butler that served high nobility. It would be extremely unlikely that this man was really human as it would be too out of place for a human to be standing next to these monsters unfazed.
Behind the three, all the way in the back stood a youth with an eager and clearly excited face. He had dark-tanned skin and red hair, combined with his well-shaped face and pearly white teeth he would be quite the looker and would charm more than one lady…
Were it not for those white teeth clearly not belonging to humans as the canines that were shown were at least several centimeters long and were abnormally sharp. They reminded one of what you would see if you pried open the mouth of a beast instead.
It took a while for the guards to put two and two together as this situation was unimaginable to them, but when they finally snapped out of it…
"Intruders! Sound the central alert! Inform Archon-sama that the enemy has invaded the inner sanctum!"
"Paladins, step forth, we need divine magic against undead! Priests, prepare wards and heal spells immediately!"
"How in the name of the God of Life did they get in here?"
"Oi, don't use my god's name to curse, you bastard!"
A mixture of frantic orders and hysterical shouting filled the grand hall as the sounds echoed and reverberated throughout the sanctum. Soon, the entire place erupted with even more noise as the soldiers were preparing to use message spells and inform the higher ups as well as request reinforcements.
At least that would happen if they not for…
"So noisy. Demiurge, deal with them quickly."
"Yes Ainz-sama! [Kill yourself!]"
Immediately, the sound of guards and warriors shouting orders and echoing cries of panic was replaced by the sound of metal violently shaking as, to the guards horror, they had drawn their swords, but not to protect themselves or to attack the intruders, but instead to silence themselves. As if a bunch of inhumanly strong hands were pulling their limbs, they saw the tip of their own blades placed against their necks. No matter how hard they struggled, the force that pulled them was too strong. They could not even issue a cry for help, as they felt that if they stopped resisting with full force for even a second it would spell their doom. Seconds later, shrieks of agonizing pain began to ring out throughout the halls as one by one the guards and paladins could no longer resist the force that manipulated them and fell to the ground as their own swords impaled their throats.
One by one they fell until the entire hall had become deadly quiet, and only the strong odor of fresh blood being spilled waffled through the place. As the blood continued quietly flowing out of the dozens, if not hundreds, of corpses, Ainz could but look around uninterested at the carnage that had been displayed before him. Right now, he was still fuming with rage about how he had to kill his friend's creation Shalltear due to the effects of brainwashing and was also in ecstasy over how he had finally managed to capture them. Right now, human suffering left him completely cold, and he had but one goaclass="underline" find the remaining two World Class Items that were probably still in the capital.
One item in particular was a huge concern to Ainz; the Six Addicts possessed a WCI that was one of the fabled twenty. One that could, upon activation, kill all creatures with a high negative karma.
Ahura Mazda
Ainz could not help but recall his days in YGGDRASIL. Even in the game, it was a rare enough thing for a WCI that was one of the twenty to be activated. After all, the expense one usually had to go through to attain one of them was not something that even most of top twenty guilds undertook without careful consideration. But when it was activated, it could potentially turn the entire world upside down, and with some WCIs, that was true in the literal sense.
Ahura Mazda, however, was so annoying that guilds used another one of the twenty to adjust the rules on its use and items like it. The rule was that global items like Ahura Mazda could kill or influence all creatures with one exception. The NPCs and players inside a guild or clan base were exempt from its power. With this rule there would be no risk of clans or guilds bankrupting themselves after all the non-POP NPCs that they had painstakingly created were suddenly in need of being resurrected. Only so called game anarchist would try to oppose this rule, but besides them it was welcomed by the entire YGGDRASIL community and left that way until the very end. But now, in this world, there was no guarantee that those same rules still applied.
This was why Ainz wanted to quickly confiscate the WCI and end this headache that had been troubling him for so long once and for all. After the Slane Theocracy had been dealt with, there would no longer be any prominent threats to Nazarick or to him. There may be other enemies who possessed a comparable amount of power in this world, but they had yet to clash with Nazarick so for now that was none of his concern.
"Well then, let us go find where the maggots are hiding their valuables. Lycan, now is the time for you to make up for your behavior in the capital earlier."
"As you wish, Ainz-sam…"
"Hold it right there!"
Ainz and the trio looked, surprised, towards the direction from where the sound had come. As incredible as it seemed, there was still one soldier left who had not been influenced by Demiurge's mind control. The warrior wore a full body suit of armor with a green silk cape laced with gold threads fluttering behind him. This man's attire was visibly much more lavish than the rest of the men that lay dead, and evidently his position in the nation was not low. But whether he was just too high a level to be controlled or had some kind of item that protected him, Ainz could not tell.
The person that was still standing was none other than the captain of the Windflower Scripture, who had stayed behind in the sanctum while the rest of his men went above ground to try and restore order to the chaotic city.
"You fiends who dare to trespass on our sacred ground will face divine retribu…"
"Demiurge, kill him!"
"Yes. [Hellfire Burst]!"
After demiurge cast his spell, a crimson sigil appeared under the warrior's feet. An enormous pillar of fire erupted from it as a deafening explosion rang through the sanctum. The entire hall trembled from the power as the sound of the bang travelled deep into the inner sanctum.
After the fire of the spell had subsided, all that remained was the charred corpse of the unfortunate warrior who never even realized what it was that killed him.
"Well then, now that that's settled, let's continue where we left off."
Ainz looked towards Lycan, who still had a slightly frightened expression
"Lycan, the foolish creature that attacked you should be the secret reserve of this nation. Since it was not amongst the ones we have captured so far it is safe to assume that it is hiding in this place as a guard for their secret weapons. It should be easy for you to locate it, right?"