Arthur, yesterday

As wonderous as this modern world was, and as much of a relief as it was to have Merlin back, he still had questions. Many questions.

Some could be answered simply through the research the internet made oh-so-easy, for others, he needed to find someone knowledgeable. He was currently in the process of doing the latter.

His mentor’s return had thrown up certain issues, starting with his return. Merlin had been manually sealed and manually retrieved in that tree. The others had been sealed and unsealed through mysterious means.

Yet he, he was caught in between both those versions of a century-long sleep, sealed by a known force, by the fae of Avalon, yet unsealed in a thoroughly mysterious manner.

Why he’d woken was simple. The apocalypse had started on that day and was continuing to happen even now, growing worse with every passing month. Yet it should have been the Lady of the Lake who woke him, who sent him out, at the very least, he should have been able to see someone, rather than “waking up” already walking up the stairs that led back into the world of man. Granted, his dealings with the fae and the other ancient beings in the otherworld had often been contentious, outright adversarial at times, but that had been … incorrect.

Whatever his position might have been among his fellow humans, the fae rarely acknowledged those titles. Yet what had happened was not simply a lack of ceremony, but an outright aggressive dismissal.

When he’d come to that realization, the paranoia had started. Had they simply thrown him out to face the apocalypse and then sealed themselves off from the world? Considering what had happened in Ireland, the barrier sealing off the otherworld there … it was entirely possible that it had been created from the other side.

And that had then set off another array of dark ideas. What if that had been the plan from the start? The Fae were long-lived, they made plans that spanned decades the same way humans decided what to have for supper.

Create a champion, wait until he was badly injured, then keep him “on ice,” as the modern people phrased it, until a problem arises, then throw the champion at that problem.

The more he’d thought about it, the more it made sense. A disturbing amount.

So he’d armored up and gone here.

Arthur glanced down at the unfamiliar armor wrapping his body. He’d just gotten it two days ago, and only replaced his old chainmail with it an hour ago. It was the creation of the finest smiths of the modern age, made from the most expensive materials, a gift from the England of today to the king of the England of yesterday, or so it had been said.

Fabrics that would blunt any blade that lacked the power of Excalibur, armor plates that could stop those ridiculously noisy firearms of the modern day, an “open” visor that was supposedly adequately protected despite being made from glass … yet had stopped a bullet in the demonstration he’d been shown.

A gift worthy of a king.

On his left hip, Excalibur hung, ready to be drawn, and in the small of his back, he felt Carnwennan hang. He hadn’t had a use for his dagger and its ability to cloak him in shadow since his return, but it had never left his side.

And beneath his left glove, on his middle finger, the Ring of Dispel Lancelot had “gifted” him sat, ready to rip apart any spell the fae sent his way. Only Rhongomyniad had been left behind in the London dwelling he had been gifted, being too large for the tunnel.

“Thank you,” he finally told the pilot of the noise machine that had carried him to where it had all begun, rose to his feet, and walked open to the doors. He’d learned how to open them himself pretty quickly, and people had learned to let him, he wasn’t an invalid or someone too good to open his own doors.

Then, he leaped out, landing on the ground ten meters below while the helicopter was already turning and flying away, likely fearing something would “blow up.”

The hill had changed very little since he’d emerged from it. The hole was still there, as was the crater his very first use of [Grand Slash] had left behind, and the entire area had been sealed off with red tape, which was apparently not as proverbial as he had been led to believe.

And the trash … had modern humans somehow unlearned the use of rubbish heaps? Why was there plastic litter everywhere?

Even so, that was not his issue to deal with, and the guards left here didn’t bother him as he headed into the tunnel. Still there, still made of dirt, still leading into the very bowels of the Earth.

Arthur clenched his fists and stepped inside, walking deeper and deeper until, several minutes later, he came to a … a … a wall. Not even a stone slab that might have indicated it having been put there after the fact, nor the same hard-packed earth that made up everything he’d seen so far, but a simple mound of, well, dirt. And not in a way that would have indicated a collapse, no, it just … ended.

He raised his fist, ready to slam it into the obstacle, before he stopped himself. It wouldn’t do to cause an actual cave-in.

Instead, he stepped forward and started digging, handfuls of dirt creating a mound at his feet. He might have been forced to stop at some point as the debris piled too high there, but thankfully, that didn’t happen.

Instead, he came face to face with a white, opaque, slab of energy. But as he yanked his hand away, he made a half-turn that pushed Excalibur’s hilt into the dirt. And into where the barrier was, beneath that dirt.

There was a sound, unlike any other, one that spoke of disaster and catastrophe, a cacophony of noise. Like glass shattering, like mountains breaking, like castles collapsing in on themselves.

The wall before him collapsed into a previously unseen pit as that barrier went away, falling away into a newly opened tear in reality even as he went flying the other way, Excalibur having rebounded off the wall and then torn its way free from its sheath as it yanked him back, landing with a loud clattering sound a few meters up the stairs from where he was.

Arthur glanced at his sword, briefly considering lunging for it, but even beyond the damage he could already see, he could hear something behind him. Something large. Not in range of his unenhanced ears, but a Skill that allowed one to hear a whisper on the other side of a castle’s grand hall in the middle of a grand feast also allowed him to notice many things that existed at an even greater distance in a less noisy environment.

Carnwennan was in his hand in a flash, while he left Rhongomyniad in his apartment in London, not taking advantage of the fact that his weapons were bound to him by magic now. It still wouldn’t have fit, even given Excalibur’s unavailability.

Though even if he had summoned the lance, Arthur was half-afraid he’d have dropped it in shock, considering what he was facing. It was a … it was what he’d always imagined Avalon to be, even if he hadn’t seen very much of it, considering his state of injury during arrival. And only at first glance

A verdant garden as far as the eye could see, but with more dwellings than he’d have expected, large ones too, luscious green grass that seemed to have grown more than a little out of control, healthy trees that should have been covered in plump fruit but were somehow lacking it, crystal clear yet somehow … hollow. Shallow.

As though someone had found a paradise, found it wanting, and used its resources to reshape it, though perhaps this was more a case of his expectations not matching reality.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Although he’d never expected to see a giant in Avalon, let alone such an ugly one.

The creature whose footsteps had alerted him wasn’t quite a “giant” giant, perhaps a hair over nine feet tall at the most, but it decidedly gave off that same kind of feeling as one, of a being that was larger than it really should have been able to while maintaining its proportions, with half his mind believing it was about to fall while the other half reminded him of the fact that not only was the creature still standing, it had done so for the past … well, however long it had been within eyeshot.

Though height alone was not where the strangeness stopped.

Grey skin, rough, cracked like a dry creekbed in places, and far too much of it was on display, only a large and strangely wet-looking loincloth covering where Arthur suspected its unmentionables to be located, though considering its clear supernaturality, he may unexpectedly catch an eyeful of something he’d rather not have seen anyway. Again.

Although judging by the water dripping from the giant’s body in general, the beast had been bathing in one of the many ponds.

Either that, or it was a disgusting primitive that did not even wear armor.

It roared something, sounding oddly happy, as it continued its approach straight at him.

… There went any chance that his mistake was not the reason behind the beast’s approach.

As for the language it used, it was oddly familiar. Similar to Gaelic, which he’d had scant encounters within his first life and in his second life, he’d only ever heard it from Fionn when he muttered profanity when he thought no one could hear him, but it seemed, well, primitive, compared to what little he knew. Simpler. Older.

The only silver lining was that the tear he’d caused seemed to be healing, as the opaque wall of energy was creeping back into the “entrance” he had unwittingly created, but the giant would likely reach him first … and it did.

A titanic leap flung the creature straight at him, and Arthur lept backwards while hurling Carnwennan at it, straight at the entirely unguarded and unarmored throat. In mid-air, it should have been unable to dodge even if it reacted in time, and its only resort should have been to sacrifice an arm to block. Should have been.

It did not move, did not react, yet instead of taking a lethal strike to one of the most vulnerable spots in any creature’s body, the dagger simply bounced off in a flare of light.

Running would have been the correct choice at this point except … well, for one, his beast that had taken up residence in Avalon would be released onto Earth if he stepped aside and it would be his fault. Also, he only had to guard this point for a few minutes at most, even if this one beast stayed here, no more would come through if he had anything to say about it. And besides, he really didn’t have the time to run even if he’d found it within himself to make that decision.

Arthur sidestepped the monster’s fist, pressing his back against the wall of the tunnel while summoning Carnwennan into his hand and drawing upon its power to cloak himself in shadow. How much use that would be in a corridor this narrow would remain to be seen, but it was his best option here and now.

The giant said something and laughed, Arthur still didn’t understand but he caught a few words, something he thought meant “small,” an insult of some sort, and finally “Fomorian.” He had no idea what it meant, but if distant memories of his childhood and the myths he’d been told then held true, it wasn’t a word. It was a name.

Then, the beast slammed its hands together and a tremendous shockwave washed out, far more than mere physical force should have allowed, not only crushing him into the wall but also causing the entire tunnel to crumble. Dust cascaded down, then entire sheets of dirt, and after barely a second, the world had gone dark. Entirely dark.

All light blotted out, all sensation suppressed by the crushing pressure of the dirt, seemingly nothing existed anymore save this tiny hollow in this … this universe of dirt.

Except then, he heard a sound.

Thump.

It was simultaneously an entirely new sound, and one he had known since before he had ever even been born. His own heartbeat, amplified a thousandfold, and resonating with his growing rage at the current situation.

How dare this beast attack him?

How dare this beast invade England?

How dare this goddamned hill collapse onto his head and bury him?

Thump.

It felt as though each heartbeat pumped not blood but liquid flame through his body, building a heat that leaked out into his surroundings, forming the first seed of a titanic explosion … when he finally realized what was happening, so much time had passed that it was downright embarassing.

So that was how Ascendant Capstones worked, what they did when their holder was struck down by something the Skill deemed as “beneath them.”

Arthur coughed, spitting up a few bits of dust that he had somehow managed to inhale even from inside his helmet.

Ignominiously and entirely accidentally buried in a mountain, without even having a real chance to fight back. What a monumentally shitty way to die.

The heat continued to build and build yet before anything could happen, the dirt vanished, pushed past him and compacted into a new, and hopefully stable, wall, forming a massive sphere in the bowels of the Earth, surrounding a nearly fully-closed portal.

And as suddenly as it had arrived, the buildup of the [Heart of Fury] vanished, no longer needed.

But Arthur only had eyes for a single thing, and that was the giant and the waves of magic that surrounded it, forming the new chamber. It looked terrible, but not in a way a collapsing cavern would have explained. Not bruises, broken bones, or general crush injuries, but burst blood vessels filling the monster’s eyes with blood, twin trails of blood leaking from its still-intact nose, and seemingly every blood vessel in its body bulged and stood out in stark relief against its skin, as though about to burst.

The first two would not have been unusual to see on a being who’d gone through what that thing had; they could easily have been simple injuries caused by a collapsing cave, but as the only signs of damage? He didn’t buy it. Something else was going on, he didn’t even need to see the desperation in what he now suspected to be a Fomorian’s eyes to realize that.

It lunged towards the portal, and Arthur intercepted it, launching himself at it and swung Carnwennan at its side while activating [Grand Slash]. The titanic silver blade manifested for only a split-second before it burst against the monster’s side and hurled it against the far wall, thankfully not causing another cave-in.

With a snarl that was more beast than man, the monster rose to its feet, clutching a bleeding side as it advanced. But it was only bleeding, from a strike that could have cut a castle in half.

Now that he had the space, Rhongomyniad manifested in Arthur’s right while his left slipped Carnwennan back into its sheath on his back. And then, he launched himself at the monster.

The tip of his lance sank into its gut, just below the arm covering the wound with the beast not even bothering to block, then, the world spun around him for a split second before he impacted the wall, bounced off, and bellyflopped onto the ground.

What on earth had hit him?

Suppressing a groan, Arthur dragged himself to his feet. It took mere seconds, yet he knew that if the monster had wanted to take this as its chance to finish him off, it likely would have.

Yet when he’d finally risen and was facing it once more, he saw it shoving an arm through the rapidly shrinking gap in the barrier, its bearing practically radiating utter panic while its body, well, it looked worse. Much worse. Flesh that seemed “bloodless” while its veins seemed to be on the verge of erupting like … like … something.

Earth wasn’t agreeing with this monster, thankfully. Arthur grinned and resummoned Rhongomyniad into his hands, having dropped it when he’d been hit.

Unfortunately, that was when the monster realized that it would not fit inside the remaining hole, turned to face him, and lunged with murder in its eyes.

It was fast. So damn fast.

He barely managed to get out of the way, he wouldn’t have managed to land a counterattack even if he’d attempted one, and by the time he’d managed to turn around, it was already too close. All he could do was turn with the blow and blunt the impact, again and again, only his armor, System-granted enhancements, and sheer dumb luck keeping him alive.

That was when Arthur finally activated [Resurgent Strike], a Skill capable of completely reversing the flow of combat used on the brink of death, causing his lance to slip past the next fist entirely on its own, dragging him out of the path of a giant fist in the process, smoothing striking a point between two of the Formorian’s ribs and sliding deep into its body.

It should have been a fatal blow. But Arthur did not get the chance to learn the true effect of his attack as a split second after the strike had landed, the monster simply … dropped dead. Keeled over. Fell amidst a spray of blood from exploded eyeballs and ruptured blood vessels, painting the walls, the floor, and even him black with its gore.

Arthur could feel his gorge rise at both the sight and stench, but while he had not seen worse, he’d seen enough that came close to control himself. He threw a long look at the portal, making sure it was fully sealed once more, and began the long march to the surface while pulling his (thankfully intact) cell phone from its pocket.

Was it possible that the entire affair had not been related to what was happening on Earth right now? Granted, that was a possiblity.

But an apocalypse striking the world while otherworldly planes were sealed off and monstrous beast invaded an otherworldly paradise … anyone who dismissed those things as being unrelated for the sake being able to sleep at night did not deserve to wear a crown, or call themselves a king.

And while Arthur had neither a crown nor held a throne right at the moment, that did not mean he would ever be derelict in his duties.