“Breathe Ada! Just breathe!”- Kenichi
“I AM FUCKING BREATHING!!!!”- Ada
*****
After days of fighting, Jack now floated above the golden palace used by the man who proclaimed himself king.
Under the storm of black winds, Jack furrowed his brow, narrowing his eyes as he glared down at the figure in the distance adorn in white and gold who stood before the gates of his castle.
Roland Cordelica, the usurper and White Knight of the Black King.
“FIRE!!” Selfia's voice screamed through Jack's ear piece, her voice ordering her airships to open fire at the awakened traitor.
The canons of all fifteen airships under Selfia's banner roared, unleashing round after round at the man who, in Jack's vision, remained unmoving despite the blanket of shrapnel and gunfire coating the city.
In the past, Jack would have been worried about the about the civilian casualties, but now, well, they had been warned in advance and told to flee. Anyone who stayed would die. Cruel? No doubt. The bodies that lay draped across the city painting a haunting image in his mind, but he couldn’t afford to falter. Not when everyone he loved counted on him, instead, Jack shut his mind and closed his heart to the horrors of war.
Sara.
“Yup I see, he's wearing nothing but enchanted gear and he's not alone.”
Great, so I'm not hallucinating… Jack said to himself as he eyed the distortion beside the white-haired man known as Roland.
“Hmm, this is a trap,” Jack frowned, switching his view from his angel vision as the smoke and dust dispersed.
“God fucking damn it why don't you just fucking die already?!” Selfia could be heard fuming with Jack seeing her in his mind's eye stomping around furiously on the bridge of her command ship.
“Looks like we're up,” Jack said to Selfia.
“What? Gonna railgun him?” Selfia sent back.
“No, if I do that he'll die and I won't be able to have a one on one chat,” Jack said, descending as Roland opened his mouth and began to give some grandiose speech to his soldiers.
“You think you can take him? We still have to contend with the Black King.”
“I'm sure.”
“Are you sure sure? Seriously Jack, this is no time-”
“I'm sure, after all, he flinched,” Jack said, referring to the usurper prince flinching under the barrage of Selfia's warships.
Of course Selfia had no idea what Jack was saying instead she moved immediately to bark orders, deploying her troops to prevent enemy retreat.
“-Of course my sister sends her patsy to face me instead of fighting me herself!” Roland roared, pointing at Jack with a golden blade that he realized was Excalibur. “See the cowardice their BELOVED queen displays as she not only ignores my call for challenge but fires indiscriminately at our city with her navy!”
Jack's feet touched the ruined street of concrete and rubble, his back to the Roland soldiers in the bombed-out houses and dug-outs who dared not act against the man who brazenly entered their defensive lines.
“Roland, I take it?” Jack said, eyeing the man with red eyes, white hair, and handsome features, the model image of a king. On his shoulders, a protective fur cape capable of hardening. His forearms, artifacts that boosted strength and conjured shields. On his feet, boots of speed that allowed him to teleport while his chest plate seemed to have a similar effect as the Savior chestplate he’d taken off of Hoffman. “We haven’t been introduced.”
“Oh, please, I’m well aware of what you are, don’t act coy, you’re nothing but my traitorous sister’s attack dog,” Roland sneered, pointing Excalibur at Jack with the weapon warping the space it sliced through. “Like father, like son, traditions of a bygone era.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Jack eyed the blade before focusing on the thing out of normal sight that hid behind Roland in his shadow, a specter similar to Ruby yet… not.
Through his angel vision, Jack could see it staring back at him, green eyes behind a mask. A relative? Jack didn't know but it was clear it didn't want to be seen.
Roland glared at Jack, realizing the latter wasn’t paying attention to him but rather preoccupied with something else.
“You stand before me, King Roland Cordelica of the Arthurian Empire, the man who will usher in a new age for the empire and the world!” Roland boasted, standing with the confidence of a man assured of victory, yet as Jack’s eyes flickered to the self-proclaimed king, he saw not bravery, but fear. The same fear of a man forced to do something.
So thats how it is…
“I’m only going to ask once,” Jack said, tapping his foot and releasing a shockwave of mana that blew away the spectators and forced the traitor guardsmen back. “Where is my sister?”
“How dare you-”
“Wrong answer.”
In the fraction of the time it took to blink, Jack vanished, closing the distance with Roland with his palm outstretched to grab the usurper’s face.
Suddenly an attack, the shadow nearby producing dozens of crimson spikes that nicked Jack's mana barrier and forced him back.
Jack narrowed his eyes at the black clad specter, his cheek leaking smoke from the gash from the spike strong enough to break his barrier.
Blood technique?
“Hm,” Jack let out, already feeling the intrusion of foreign mana attempting to wiggle its way inside him.
Against lesser awakened, the attack would have left them nothing less than a bloody mess on the floor.
It didn't go far before submitting to Jack's command.
“Coward! To attack me mid sentence? You're nothing but a trashy curr, and in these darkened times, it befalls to me to take out the trash!” Roland yelled, striking a stance, his body radiating with silver light that moved along the blade of gold.
Jack found his heart racing, an anger within not of Lilith's, Ruby's, or Sahaqiels but his own igniting.
The sword brought back bad memories.
“You really like hearing the sound of your voice, huh?” Jack asked rhetorically, noticing that the soldiers around him were beginning to move in.
“Clashing with that sword is going to be a problem,” Sahaqiel advised. “One cut could be fatal and it's not like we have weapons that can block it.”
Yeah, and judging from his bodyguard I'll need you or Lilith to purge his attacks, Jack sent back as he readied his gun blades.
For once in a long while, there was someone who actually posed a threat to Jack, not the man himself granted, but rather the gear he wore.
“Ruby,” Jack called out, summoning the knight, “Deal with the fodder.”
Roland shot off the ground, the Imperial prince roaring his battle cry as Jack took to the sky.
From above Jack unleashed his salvo, firing flechette rounds that peppered the man protected by his armor and the shade who took the burnt of the attack.
“COW-” Roland yelled but not before a proximity HE round from Jack’s gunblade blew him back.
Jack reached out, attempting to drain the White Knight’s bodyguard that bounced between the ruins, using them as footholds to rapidly close the distance with Jack.
“Seventh! Solomon!” The black-clad blood user hissed while smashing Jack through a nearby building.
Rolling to his feet, Jack's wings moved, blocking the punch that smacked against his feathers with a resounding crack.
Jack's feathers shifted, wrapping around the man's arm who immediately slashed it off, leaving the appendage behind to detonate and send them both flying through the walls of the ruined building.
“SOLOMON!” The voice of his assailant roared, moving through the smoke, the stump of his severed appendage oozing blood that shaped into penetrating tendrils.
Activating hardened and putting up a barrier, Jack moved to shield himself yet the attack pierced his body cleanly through, locking him in place.
[-183 HP] Gone in an instant.
Jack felt himself moving, the tendrils poking out of his back forming into hooks to reel him in as the spikes attempted to force his blood to explode.
Fortunately Lilith kept that from happening, her mastery of Gehenna turning what would be a death sentence into an annoying injury instead.
Still, the man knew what he was doing, every spike in Jack inhibited his movement with the tendrils piercing ligaments, joints, and tendons.
The man's free hand reached out, commanding crimson liquid to form a dagger in his palm that he moved to put in Jack's eye.
Suddenly a black chain wrapped around the man's wrist, stopping his attack as Jack's gunblade came up, snapping the head of his attacker back from the force of the fifty caliber round exiting his weapon.
The man hit the floor with a thud, the only sound in the stillness that echoed through Jack's surroundings.
But the awakened wasn't dead.
Over his face was a barrier of crystalized blood, stopping the attack. Jack dropped a blast of fire on the man, boiling away the blood spikes chasing him as he made his escape from the building.
Barreling through a window, Jack took to the sky, his movements still sluggish as his body worked to expel the foreign mana.
“Jack! Fall back! NOW!” Selfia's voice barked.
Jack shook his head, alarm bells ringing in his mind as Sahaqiel turned his body to catch the golden spear an inch from his face.
“Hi dimmie cur, how's my son-in-law doing?” Lancelot grinned, the gold armored man appearing before Jack with a floating fortress in the sky behind him.
“LANCELOT!” Jack roared.