14 A Ring And A... Damsel?
Deep within the Great Wildlands Forest, at the center of what appeared to have been an apocalyptic-level event that destroyed the entire area for dozens of miles, a boy who looked to be around 12 years old was lying down fast asleep with a content look on his divine features.
"...Mhmm..." Azmond began to wake up with a groggy face as he sat straight up and surveyed his surroundings.
He saw the absolute destruction he caused around him as he muttered, "Oh yeah... I did this, huh?"
A wry smile formed on his expression before he said, "I guess I should turn it down a notch for next time... I wouldn't want to destroy an entire ecosystem every time I go all out."
"But regardless of what I did to the topography, I think it's time I started looking for the place those green goblins came from. I remember they said something about me being a target part of some mission or something?"
Azmond pondered the matter for a few seconds as he tried to recall exactly what the goblins had said. But no matter how long he brooded over the subject, he couldn't seem to remember what they were talking about, so he decided to focus his efforts elsewhere.
"Hmm... let me see if I can find something that could give me a clue as to where they came from."
Following his words, he started to look around the destruction, searching for something that would give him a hint.
...
Azmond searched around for a total of ten minutes before he ultimately found the residual aura of the biggest goblin, who was called GrandMeister Argas.
He scanned the residual aura with his divine sense and found a vague direction for where it originated from.
"So those goblins came from somewhere in the east," he declared with confidence in his answer. "I don't know in what direction to the east, but something is better than nothing, isn't it?" Azmond ended with a neutral look on his face.
After figuring out in what general direction he should head, he was going to continue in a random direction to the east. But his plans were swiftly interrupted when he saw a shining object in the corner of his eye.
"Hmm? What is that?" Azmond asked with a quizzical look on his face.
He couldn't understand how anything of value could've survived the destruction he caused, but apparently, something made it through unscathed.
'How strong does something have to be to survive mass destruction like that, I wonder?' He thought.
"Might as well go see what it is," Azmond muttered as he headed in the direction of the shining object.
.....
When he got a better view of the object, he realized it was a glossy black ring.
'A ring? Where did such a tough ring come from? Was it dropped by one of those green piggies when they died?' Azmond was thinking to himself as he approached the black ring.
'That is most likely the case... but what is that ring made of to survive such damage without a scratch?'
Puzzlement overtook his expression as he edged ever closer to the ring.
"It could be dangerous, right? I mean, you shouldn't just go around touching random, mysterious objects, right? At least that is how a boring person would be thinking right about now if they were in this situation, but I couldn't care less if I'm being honest."
It wasn't like he didn't have a single cautious bone in his body; however, his craving for greater power far outweighed his apprehensive side.
One would probably interpret that as stupidity, or even foolishness, but that was just the way Azmond was...
.....
"That ring could be another way for me to gain more power, so I'm gonna risk it for the biscuit!" Azmond spoke with a large smile on his face as he reached his hand out and touched the black ring with his child-like hands.
BLING!
A bright black light shone in the area as the ring suddenly appeared on his index finger with a perfect fit.
Azmond had closed his eyes due to the extremely blinding light, but he eventually opened them when the light faded out.
However, when he regained clarity, he wore a perplexed look on his face as he asked, "What was that bright light, and how did this black ring suddenly appear on my finger!?"
He was confounded over the matter for a while before his expression eventually eased up as he thought, 'Well, it is after all a world of cultivation so it's probably some spiritual bullshit or something.'
After figuring out the 'cause' of the peculiar situation he found himself in, he looked at the black ring on his finger and said, "It doesn't seem to be harming me, but I do wonder what its functions are."
Following his curious thoughts, he started to try different things, such as touching it with his other hand or giving out various keywords such as 'Open', 'Hocus Pocus', 'Open Sesame', and the like, but nothing seemed to be working, so Azmond decided to try probing it with his divine sense, and he found that it actually did something different this time.
FLASH!
The black ring opened up in his divine sense, and he found that there were a bunch of treasures and trinkets sprawled out in some strange space.
'Wait a minute... Is this what I think it is??' He thought with a sudden look of realization.
'Yes, it must be!'
"It's an interdimensional Storage Ring!!" He exclaimed.
'I can't believe I actually found my first storage ring! I figured there would be something similar since this is a world of cultivation, but I didn't expect I would acquire one so soon!' Azmond thought to himself with an ecstatic look on his face.
"This is awesome!! Now that I have this, I can take donations from all the enemies I meet in the future and store them in this ring!"
He spoke dangerous thoughts of looting and robbing his future enemies in a way that made it sound like he was doing them a favor by stealing their belongings.
"Now that I have my new donation collector, then I can continue on my journey to finding the origin of the green piggies, so let's get to it, shall we?"
After Azmond got all his affairs in order (Looting the rest of the war-torn landscape.), he continued on his way out of the rubble and destruction and headed towards the east, where he was sure the goblins came from.
******
Meanwhile, a few hours after Azmond left the destruction he caused, in an area thousands of miles away from the destruction,.
A young girl who looked to be around 14 years old and wore a once gorgeous blue dress with a few expensive-looking pieces of jewelry hanging around her bruised-up neck and wrists was leaning up against a tree with blood coming out from injuries she had on her body.
She was a beautiful girl with dark blue hair and dazzling blue eyes; however, her flawless appearance was barred from existence, as she was on the ground kneeling with her clothes in tatters and tears falling from her lifeless blue eyes onto her bosom.
The young girl was surrounded by heavily armored guards who were no longer breathing; they all had deep, bloody gashes in them. Some of them were even missing a few body parts, as their arms and legs were scattered around the battlefield.
"W-Why??" The young girl asked with a strained voice.
And just as she was about to continue her doleful monologue, multiple green figures came into view from the shadows.
FWIP! FWIP! FWIP!
They were all around 6 feet tall, with green skin, long, pointy ears, and hideous faces. Furthermore, each and every one of them was wearing a hood of sorts, with long daggers and swords hanging from their waists.
"Why, you ask?" One of the hooded figures at the front of the group began to speak to the distraught girl with a wide, malicious smile on its ugly face.
"!?" The girl thought she would have more time to figure out what she should do next, but before she even realized it, her enemies were already after her throat.
After the leading hooded figure saw that he had acquired the girl's attention, he continued, "Because we're mercenaries! Taking jobs that require us to kill people is what we do for a living, my silly little princess."
"Plus, we sometimes get bonuses here and there," he said as he looked the princess up and down with a lecherous look on his grotesque face.
"!!!" The crying princess was practically on the verge of mental collapse when she heard what the hooded figure in front of her said.
And what the deplorable figure said next, only left her in an even worse state.
"Why don't you have a little fun with us before you die, Princess~?" The leading hooded goblin asked the kneeling princess with a sinister gleam in its eyes as it started to slowly approach her.
*Thud! Thud!*
As the goblin's heavy footsteps became louder and louder, the princess's face darkened before she thought, 'Should I just kill myself...?'
She saw no other option to escape this quagmire than to kill herself and be done with it.
The princess refused to be violated by the hideous creatures in front of her! She promised herself when she was younger that she would only give her purity away to the man that she loved with all her heart...
She would rather kill herself now than be defiled by the monster in front of her!
Following such resolute thoughts, the princess's tearful expression turned into one of determination as she pulled a small dagger out of her boot and put it to her throat.
SHING!
She went straight for the kill!
However, something strange happened when she went to slice her throat.
The dagger she was holding in her hands started to dissolve...
"!!!"
She tried to slice her throat again before it fully dissolved, but she was too late...
The dagger had already fully melted away, with nothing left of it.
"Did you really think you could get away from us that easily, little Miss Princess?"
The words of the leading goblin mercenaries took her out of her stupor, as she looked up at the mocking expression plastered on that ugly creature's face.
"We aren't in the Late Core Formation realm for show, you know!" He continued to speak to the despairing princess with a wide, malevolent smirk, as he was now mere feet away from the princess.
With a growing look of lust being the only dominant facial expression left on his ugly face, he reached out a hand towards the princess's remaining clothing in an attempt to rip the rest of it up.
"..." The Princess's once-determined face turned into one of someone who had lost all hope. A face of utter despair for what was about to happen to her.
'Why is this happening to me...? All I wanted to do was find a few 1000-year-old Ice Lilies growing out in the depths of the Great Wildlands Forest for my Grandmother's 12,000th birthday celebration, and yet...' Aqua gritted her teeth in anger before an expressionless look emerged on her small face.
'Me and some guards I hired behind my family's back got ambushed out of nowhere by a bunch of goblin mercenary scumbags a few miles away from our destination... Now all of my guards are dead and I sit here about to b-be defiled by goblins...' She thought with blood dripping from her lips.
'Life is so cruel…' Her tone turned to one of disbelief as she started to question herself.
'What did we do to deserve a fate like this??' The young princess thought to herself in utter dismay with dead, lifeless eyes as the leading hooded man began to rip at her remaining dress.
*Shred! Shred!*
She was on the verge of mental collapse when suddenly, as if an angel sent from heaven was speaking directly to her, a childlike voice was heard next to the young princess's ear, as a young boy around 12 years of age with God-like features suddenly materialized in her vision and spoke what sounded like angelic words to the young princess's ears:
"Looks like you were given a pretty shitty fate as well, huh?"
BOOOOOOM*
Azmond's demonic voice resounded across the area as a loud explosion was heard, and the leading hooded man was nowhere to be seen.
