The Tyrant Of Tartatus [Full Djinn Equip Training]

Some might ask why Lagi was in the radiated sands of the former heliohapt; it was well known for the violence between the newly formed and mutated residential creatures that lived in it. It was also well known that Lagi was a beast tamer of some kind, due in large part to his past training and upbringing in the El Nagi Clan; in some respects, his upbringing almost shaped who he was. The reason he was here was for the chance of growth through training and exposure of the radiation; despite the creatures being overtly hostile due to not understanding what the change has brought upon them and killing each other, it was more peaceful than, say, the side of heliohapt that refused to accept the fact that their country is no more. The power of politics was a vast one, and the way that the heliohapt wealthy.

"Deep, breaths, feeling the hazard energy around me. "

He hated that place with a passion. They were all fools, in his opinion, and their so-called pharaoh, well, Lagi had never met the man in person. Not many had the chance to meet this guy one on one and get a good feel of him without his lackeys around; but the rumors were enough. There were rumors that he was nothing more than a puppet for the sake of the capitalist royals that ran things in the shadows of Heliohapt's government. Such a man didn't have what it took to be pharaoh if he was willing to let those individuals walk all over him.

"Tainted, the lot of them."

He, however, had to do one thing first; seek out the Hazmat Beast. It had a combination of orange and light green skin, almost as if it was wearing a suit. It's eyes were green and wide, almost as if you can get lost in it's infinite glare. Some individuals say that its a combination of a few of the native heliohapt animals forming into an intelligent beast. It was the best way of putting his powers to the test and seeing a creature that has a varied control of the radiated forces around it. He wanted to mimic it, the unlikely teacher of his power was going to be mother nature herself. Most would find the prospect intimidating, despite it's personality; He didn't find the prospect intimidating at all. Why should he? He had to do this, had to grow in strength exponentially and the idea of time was truly against him. After that, well, he didn't know what exactly would happen after that. Would he kill the beast? Would he continue to leave it loose? Would it match it's legend? Or was it something much more different than what people thought it would be?

"Hmm..."

Which explained why he was entering the radiated sands alone; normally, he tried her best to avoid traveling alone to discourage people from thinking they can take him by himself, despite its serene beauty. He didn't know why, but there was something sweetly beautiful about it; He wished that the humans didn't mar that beauty which was created from hazard magic. It almost made it seem like the sands itself was alive. He smiled, faintly, as he walked through the whole of the sand focusing on his magoi control through his sealed vessel; it would be the on,ly time he could truly appreciate the beauty without the ugliness and darkness of what he did in complete solace. Soon, it was interrupted by a creature that thought Lagi was a cheap meal.

"sigh...."

---

After the defeat of the mysterious creature, he paused for a moment It was struggling to stay alive; the majority of its body had been destroyed with a punch by Lagi's A-rank strength and doxrus weapon equip. "You poor thing," he said in a soothing, quiet, and small voice; most wouldn't refer to these mutated carnivores as poor things, but he did, at least at the moment. Why not offer some small comfort to the dying creature?

"Would you like me to end your suffering?" he questioned of the being, looking straight into the eyes of the creature as if he was linking with it's senses. He saw feral intelligence in those eyes, and a moment later, the radbeast closed those eyes, as if in resignation. "I see," he said; although he had offered, he sounded sad to do the task. Such is the way of life, they were either too weak or he was too strong. Pretty soon, Lagi's own true worth would be tested.

"I should get back to training..."

---

As he continued to train with his weapon, Lagi felt eyes on him. Something was following him the entire time, perhaps bigger than the creature that he had just killed.

800/5000

When the creature arrived, it actually shuttered a bit when it saw Lagi's arm. Lagi noted with some small, tiny satisfaction that the presence of his weapon equip seemed to have some sort of effect on the creature. At least, that was what he supposed based on it's facial expression right now. The beast might not show too much of it, but Lagi believed the creature to have increased its intelligence as a result of the radiation; during that time, one tended to become a good reader or anticipator of other creatures you run into. Especially with creature swilling to stab you in the back if it benefited them if it allowed them to gain an easy meal if you found yourself injured. He had seen it happen before to other adventurers in the past, though thankfully, it had not happened to him. Still, even if it did, he thought rather arrogantly that he would survive such an attempt.

The creature released a haze of radiation to cover the area as it tried to use the shroud to hide its movements. Lagi then flew up in order to get a food look at the ground and smirked, knowing that the being probably didn't anticipate that Lagi could fly.  But still, the beast persisted as it lit itself in radiation like covering and jumped in his direction, falling directly into an A rank backhand and sending the creature far away.  

"Hey, help!!!!"

Looking over, Lagi saw a man in the distance, or what he considered to be a male from how the beast-men was shaped.  Landing right in front of him, Lagi transformed into his full vampire lord form and made a terrifying roar. The creatures ran off as he changed back and looked at the boar-like man.

"Thank you....i..was confused. I changed....well..... we all did. But, you..... you're different. My name is Jako, thank you."

He nodded his head, politely, respectfully, as he began to speak about how this was his only way to make ends meet by hunting these creatures.  There was no telling how true those words were; right now, all he could do was trust his word. Which he would remind herself was flimsy right now; which also caused her to wonder why he managed to run into this man all the way out here. The major reason was the fact that he seemed to hate how the mutated beings acted since the big bang happened; the downside of talking with him was constantly wondering if he was deceiving Lagi in any kind of way.

---

He continued to train as he ran into Jako every other day, wondering more and more if the people that changed since the country changed have become even more desperate than before?

"Times really have changed...."



1266/5000

With every passing day, most of Lagi's time has been towards preparing for his coronation and training his DMV. Due to this, he also got to know a little bit about the outside world and what was happening with the people who were trying to adjust to their new lives here.  There was also the case of the factions breaking apart and the will of the people being split. It was something that Lagi had to address separately, but he was more so focused on training his full Djinn equip. It was quite powerful, but part of him felt like it would be a sorry day for the people he had to use it on.

"Sorry for them anyway....ahh...back to training..."

---

After an additional couple of days of non-stop full djinn equip training, Lagi felt like he had the time to address a few things from the reports he was getting from the dark hand priests. The people who were trying to undo everything Lagi put his work into, just who did they think he was? Lagi could overlook many things, from personal slight to misguided assaults on his person. He had, could, and would pardon almost anyone for doing almost anything... if he was the only one who had to bear the burden or suffer its effects. When the name of the enemy leader that was trying to launch a counter-attack against him had been brought up by a close friend, not long before, Lagi had been startled but not unduly concerned. It was a name he herself had heard in the past, so why should he be worried about the name of Badri el-Sharifi being brought up in conversation?

That was before he had learned what he had done to the much more weaker dungeon beasts who weren't blessed with a good transformation. Words could not be unsaid. Knowledge could not be unshared. Though healing might take place, given the right circumstances, wounds could not be undone. The flesh might heal, the bone might knit, but the pain remained. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the scar that the Badri's blade had left on Jako and his family, as fresh in his memory as if it was his own; and the makings of scars of a different sort, the kind that wasn't seen with the eyes, but with the heart. Of course, he wasn't one to point fingers in that area. Many times, Lagi has denied the will of his heart for the sense of duty. He truly wanted to remain king, and remaining on the throne was an eventual fight to the finish with Octavius.

A strange geometric symbol filled the air, unseen, unwitnessed, yet ominously present within the sands of heliohapt's radiated lands. A moment later, that symbol widened to become the representation of Doxrus's power, it's will. The vessel was speaking to Lagi, it demanded retribution, that was what his heart was screaming for right now, and Lagi had every intention to answer the calls of what he truly wanted. The dark hand did try to advise Lagi in how to handle the precarious situation, but he felt that  if you leave a wound out in the open for too long, it starts to infest.

---

As Lagi went searching for Badri, no one else really knew where he was if they were looking for him. Only a small handful of individuals would be able to confirm his absence, and of them, even fewer would have reason to do so, and none would be able to determine his destination. It worked out just as well for what he was doing now. He couldn't afford distractions or having to deal with hostages, and if any of the idiots came looking for him, that would be exactly what they would be. Not that any of them would have the with to realize it until it was too late.

Breathing in the cold night air , the shadowy figure would take chape beneath the cover of night. the only light that would give off any sort of indication of him being there was the sealed black vessel of doxrus's black ring.  It was nearly impossible to tell, as Heliohapt had not become a place of seemingly perpetual night.

"Hm......"

Lagi started to cover his tracks by simply flying instead walking. There was no reason to expend more energy than was necessary merely moving around. It was for the same reason that he began to rely on Orie's danger sense, using his loyal beast for guidance. Even from this distance, he could feel the faintly familiar presence of the gathering of human beings, the whispers of talking as he moved closer and started to sense their life energy as well.

As he continued on, the makeshift base of  Badri came into view. It was bigger than he had expected. That wasn't entirely surprising, since he had come in without really knowing what to expect in the first place. Well, it didn't matter. The weaker guards came out of the shadows as well, but Lagi paid them no mind. He effortlessly dodged their attempts to stab him and countered with his beast-like claws. They weren't stupid enough to attack someone with a reputation as great as Lagi, but it's not like they had any idea who he was as he hid within the dark corners of the night. From the clawed weapon attacks, it seemed as if they were attacked by a wild animal.

*Ba Dump!*

Come to think of it, when was the last time that he had a taste of blood? To Lagi, they were lesser than human after becoming his enemy. They seemed more and more like food, which was all well and good, as he intended to preserve his energy for the times ahead.

"Let's make this a nice decoration, how about a symphony of screams?"

---

At the entrance, the sounds of misery and the ripping of flesh echoed throughout the compound.

"Badri" he shouted, loud enough that his voice would echo in the halls. He would not so easily allow their meeting on Badri's terms. "Show yourself, coward! Will you hide behind stone walls, only revealing yourself to prey upon the weak? Have you fallen so far to hunt those you consider prey? You no longer see the dungeon beasts as your fellow man, and brought a predator to you as well. Come and face me for what you have done, or I will tear your castle down, one stone at a time if I must. Denying my right as a king candidate.....is a mistake."

2331/5000

With Badri coming out, he held Jako with a chain around his neck.

"Look at these pathetic pets, it's like the value of heliohapt's slaves have gotten worse. However, I'm pretty sure that he would fetch a hefty price. "

Badri laughed maniacally as his guards started to come out from the back, looking like a small army.

"Listen here monster, we like what you did to the place. Adding more value to these slaves was the best thing that you could possibly do, imagine the boom of this economy with the plethora of dungeon beast slaves my racking up the price. In addition to that, killing a wanted terrorist who made the cause to such changes that seem terrible will grant us an amazing reward with the heliohapt nobles. So you see you gotta die. We even prepared something just for you, follow if you dare!?"

With that, he retreated to the background while yanking on Jako's chain to follow. The small army of bandits that Badri produced had started to charge as well.

"You were a fool to come alone!!!"


In response to that, he revealed his ring and started his chant.

"Revel in the suffering of my enemies with great malice, the grasp of your dark hand reaches all! Radiate, Doxrus!”

[ht]



Breathing out slowly, Lagi extended his senses outward. Like water through a pipeline, they soared, noting each and every obstacle along the way, measuring it for it's values and potential threat, until he finally found what he was looking for. Well, he probably should've done this before... not that it would help to worry about something like that now. What was important was that he could confirm the presence of the radiation that stained these lands. This was the first time that he used his full djinn equip, and it really seemed to be an amazing experience for him. Time stood still, not even the attacking bandits were a worry for him.

"Come then, keep me entertained!"

---

The first thing he noticed was that his power had magnified itself exponentially, maybe this was the potential of how strong he would have been if he never lost his original djinn.

"How could I have lost such an amazing power? The power of the king....."

Lagi was grudgingly forced to agree with the contractor's assessment. Last time, he truly was chasing both sides of the same coin. He was using the djinn for his own whims to improve his country, when the contrctor wanted him to bring it to ruin. However, it was not Lagi's will, and he didn't have much of a choice besides returning it because of those transgressions. Though she felt reasonably confident that he could handle one such opponent, he knew in his heart that such a confidence would be the death of him. No matter how strong he gets, he could never reach the power of the contractor. And if they had a force of such power - or even greater power - in double the quantity of all the king candidates that the world could muster, it would be in vain. Well, suffice to say that the ensuing conflict would be a mercifully short bloodbath. He couldn't afford to let that happen because of his ego, and while he was wary again of the dangers of the contractor alone, he felt that there were other men and women with the power of the king that would stand against him eventually. It would be foolish to believe that no one could stand as his equal. He had to make sure that his movements were absolute in what he did.

"And that includes snuffing out all rebellion!"

---

After killing the bandits, she rested the palm of her left hand against the wall and started to fly at a rank speeds. With his hand now dealing A tier ability damage, he was dragging it against the corridors and support beams to topple and trap Badri inside. He knew that this wasn't the end of Badri's small army, and there was also the case of that surprise trap that he laid bare for him. Even if it was a magic item or anything of the sort, he had to lower the chances of that executing.

"Huh?! Retreating?! Badri! You Bastard!"

Jako was abandoned outside as Badri and a squadron of his men, or a remaining squadron of his men were trying to retreat into the radiated sands. They had some distance head of Lagi, and they were only gaining ground due to Lagi checking on Jako.

"Jako......."

The badly wounded dungeon beast would open his eyes to see the face of Lagi as he remained in his djinn equip. The look that the face brought about was maddening for the average man, showing the absolute fear in his eyes.

"He....tortured my wife....she died from the blood loss. My reason for living....gone..."

He empathized with what Jako lost.

"I cannot bring the dead back to life, but I will bring you revenge. This is something that I swear to you."

Jako looked like he would survive from his wounds, but it was quite upsetting sith what happened to his wife. Either way, Lagi didn't have the time to babysit Jako any longer.

"I am the overlord of all dungeon beasts, and with such a transgression, a swift act of judgment will fall upon Badri. So says the voice of doxrus."

---

Soon after taking Jako to a safer place that was away from the collapsing building complex, he began his mad chance after Badri. Or at the very least, Lagi was heading into the direction of where Badri was. The A rank flight speed was certainly helping, even though he had to rely on his own senses for now, not too used to this.

"I'm so used to us being one, it might be best if I start getting used to fighting on my own if I used this power. Just like how I used to in the past. "


3331/5000

As Lagi continued the chase within the savage lands, he managed to fly a little closer towards the location of a few people on some fast-moving horses. At the same time, he also saw first hand about the greenish cracks on the sand, a bit of the sand seemed to harden due to the chain reaction of the radiation itself. Lagi wasn't too sure as to what that was, but he saw that Badri was in his sights and he was getting even closer to him.

But suddenly, Badri activated one of the magic tools on his person that constructed a hand of the nearest elements, constructing a hazard hand with green energy from one of the black cracks in the hardened sand. It reached up and grabbed Lagi, immobilizing him.

"Ha, I caught you. Did you seriously think that your power was strong enough for the radiation levels that terraformed these lands? Before I knew it, it became the greatest energy available here, as well as the greatest weapon. "

Badri said this with glee as Lagi struggled to break free. But this was Strange to Lagi, with all of this strength, even with him being in his djinn equip, why couldn't he break free? The hazard energy was even burning him, something that should have been considered as an element that he mastered through the gains of his djinn.

"Wryyyyyyyyy!!! When I get out of here, I am going to kill you!!!!"

The hand then started to pull Lagi into the radiated geyser in order to bury him in.

"With these lands you created, you will finally get a chance to become one with them as your tomb. it was a mistake to follow me here, "Vampire", you claim to lordship through your useless vessel holds little weight if you were defeated by your own terrain."

After that, Badri and his people would whip the reins of the horse and ride away.

---

As for Lagi being dragged under through the use of Badri's magic tool, he found himself directly under the sand itself. However, it wasn't much sand where he found himself, it was a ghastly green energy, with a hue that had the lowest hum. In a way, it was like there was a second world that was under the sand, a world that could either be controlled or destroyed. At the moment, this served as both a unique trap to Lagi, but an ultimate test of his control over hazard magic. In order to escape, he would have to absorb as much radiation as possible, maybe beyond his usual possibilities in order to escape alive. This gamble was nothing new with what Lagi face in the past, but if it was his fate to die in such an ironic way, he was going to deny it with all of his might. He had to live, he had to believe in his own reason for living and surviving, even if it seemed small and nonexisting to others.

"I will survive!!"

3831/5000

Who knows how long it's been, maybe a few minutes or hours? Regardless of how long it's been, Lagi started to focus less on the pain and the fact that he was currently trapped. He tapped into the hazard magic that was around him, or at the very least, the faint sources of hazard magic that converged into the radiation substance that he found himself trapped in. He had to pull from them, he had to absorb as much energy from them as he could. However, the power was also eating at him, slowly but surely.

"Just a little more...."

---

He kept telling himself that, he continued to give himself bits and pieces of self-encouragement as black butterflies swarmed the savage lands. This was something that Lagi did before when he fought Doxrus, this was an ability to those who truly rejected fate. With it, he could bring about even more power than he originally had. As they fluttered about, Lagi reached the pinnacle of his absorption. He immediately started to act fast with the newfound strength that he received.

"Power of darkness!"

With that simple utterance, the butterflies shot inside of the cracks and empowered Lagi's beast arm. After that, with a mighty swing, he broke through the geyser and started to fly in the direction that he last saw Badir. They were going a little slower now, even if they thought it was because his plan was foolproof and that they were safe.

"Badir!!!!"

With Lagi flying straight into the group with his beast arm extending outward, he hit the area of sand ear them and caused an explosion of black sand and debris around the area. When it started to clear up, Lagi had Badir in a chokehold as his hazard magic started to engulf him.

"How does it feel? Eh? How does it feel to lose to me in such a way, to experience the hazard radiation that you tried to subject me to?" The screams were loud enough to cause echoes, but enough of those screams allowed the guards of Badir to break out of their petrified fear. They started to move, but it seemed as if the savage lands had a mind of its own and the green cracks began to appear. Whenever they moved closer, a geyser of hazard magic erupted in order to block their passage. It spoke volumes of Lagi's current control over hazard magic, recently tapping into the native radiation and manipulating it to his will.

"ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!! guahh!!!!!"

"Scream some more!!!"

This continued until it ultimately sopped, Badir's face being unrecognizable due to the radiation burns and his body shaking uncontrollably. The rest of the guards that he employed simply got on their horses and started to run away. However, this was fine, Lagi wanted them to survive in order to tell this story. The new lord even had the entire land under his control, a power that no other can possibly fathom. Even if this was to bring infamy as a tyrant, he welcomed it.

4331/5000

Recent events had passed in a blur; it seemed like only yesterday that Lagi was out hunting insurgents that proved to be a nuisance to his rule. After that, he realized that his training was nearly complete and that he realized his training was complete and that returning back to the spire was the only thing he could do at the moment. Or was it?  What had brought him here, really? A series of chance encounters, coincidences, luck. He couldn’t really rationalize it better than that: that was exactly what had happened. What would have happened if he had return directly from his encounter with Badir instead of staying in the savage lands in an additional week with training and mental contemplation? What would have happened if he hadn’t saved Jako after the torture incident? If he did nothing, he would have been inadvertently lying to himself, his true feelings. Lagi still maintained an inkling of compassion, there still exists a boy who thought that he could bring great change with his life. Only as he got older and became something more than human, the meaning of such a change had become more complex.

"..............."

He dwelled on some of the things he had done to get here, things that he had definitely been in control of. He had killed Badir, unable to restrain himself but somehow relishing in the violence as it had been taking place. He had conned the heliohapt people into a false propaganda of denying the humanity of their true selves, rather forcefully by making them transform to truly face themselves. Did he regret any of it? No, not really. They had brought him this far. The ends justified the means, and up until now, the ends had been acceptable.

Even the atrocities he had committed when he had seemingly died to the rest of the world didn’t faze him in the slightest—it was all collateral damage, an acceptable loss. He didn’t care much for humanity, to begin with; their selfish, xenophobic, and irrational behavior was distasteful, and they acted like cattle more often than not. They had certainly died like cattle, that was for sure. Screaming senselessly, panicked, trampling one another in a futile effort to get away from the invisible monsters that were tormenting them.

Needless to say, it hadn’t worked very well.

Lagi wasn’t a psychopath by any means, but he was practical. Something had been required of him and he had achieved his objective. Reim and the rest of his family thought he was dead, which is exactly how he wanted it. Having teams assassins chase him all over the world or harass the El Nagi Clan wouldn’t do; Lagi had the first-hand experience with how they operated due to being in that business with the unity corps before, and it was never easy for the target. No, things had happened the way they had happened, and he was glad for it.

The time he had spent in savage lands of Tartarus since then had been productive, for lack of a better word. Long days and nights under the sands of the vast black desert had seen him grow, in more ways than one. The company he had kept down among the crystalline trees had been varied, but it had made him stronger. Faster. Better. He had even forcibly invaded his own psyche, ripping open the dimensional fabric like tissue paper, strengthening his bond with his dark metal vessel. On the final day, he had achieved full djinn equip, he made the silent agreement of his role in what transpired.

But all of his progress was overshadowed by something else in his mind, something sinister. Before he had left his humanity behind, he had dreamed only once, long ago, but now, he was having constant nightmares. Dreams of losing himself, his sanity, his identity. Having it stolen from him by something malicious and used for things that Lagi could not condone on the basis of it being little more than wanton destruction. Whatever it was, it was coming from inside himself, and it worried him.

Today was different though,  he had to welcome the change that it brought. Not as if he was accepting fate, but that in regards to changing his fate, he too, had to be malleable to the change.

If he was to live as a tyrant in the process, so be it. His new lease in life was governed over his new name, his new identity, and his new role in his new country.

"I am Requiem Jynx."

5000/5000 wc

End