King Andre’s death would mark the end of an empire. Without sons or an heir, chaos would follow. The declining, fragmented Zaiban states would cease their civil war, reunite, and partition up the Imperium of Ailmor.

The king wouldn’t allow what his family cultivated for generations to suffer such a fate. All nations fell, but this one? His special heaven? No. Patriotic fog whispered in his head. Twisted, cancerous love pumped his heart. The cost didn’t matter. The Westwinds? The sacrifices? Who cared? Only the end mattered.

Ashley returned Andre to his bedroom. The book machina, Soothsayer, gasped from his lap. It shouted, “Lord, he’s back! The Wyrm has returned!”

Andre was petrified in his chair, unblinking with a held breath. He seized, his eyes rolling back to stare up at the dark ceiling. The end had come. Ruin. The last person he wanted to discover what hid under Hemmer was The Wyrm. That monster of a man had more than enough power and reason to crush it.

Ashley shook Andre to test his alertness. He slumped over in his chair, face drooping and arms noodlelike.

Wide-eyed horror came onto her face. She asked, “Your Highness?! Talk to me!”

This was the last episode King Andre would ever suffer. It left nothing. His time was gone. Barely able to move, he groaned out nervous words slurring into each other. “No… Nononon Alhsey! Ashl! Aghuah!”

Witnessing The Wyrm’s power under his banner in The War for Lovecraft was what created Andre’s obsession with the homunculus. Then, one day, his ultimate weapon fled Castle Hemmer to never be seen again. The effort to recreate The Apparatus started soon after.

How did Jericho feel about it? About The Apparatus and traumas to create his existence? Unlike Abdul, he never forgot or repressed anything. He simply counted. The Wyrm remembered and mourned over every little detail. Now here he was, home, where his hell had been reborn.

Andre’s despair was understandable. To say that Jericho would be angry was an understatement.

Soothsayer communicated in place of the disabled king. “We have no more time and a single chance. Escort His Highness to The Apparatus.”

Shocked, she nodded. “I’ll send for the Champion to slow The Wyrm.”

“Don’t bother. Champion Gundyr is already moving toward his soul signature. Don’t fear for your lord’s safety. This is what he desires. He acknowledges the consequences.”

“I didn’t want him to die, but to put him into such a horrible thing? It could be worse than death.”

“It’s no different than a contract with a machina. Will the being on the other side find him worthy or not? That is the question.”

***

Simon didn’t expect a third party like Jericho to get in the way. This complicated everything. With a cold glare, he asked, “Why are you here of all places?”

Jericho shrugged like the answer was obvious. “The same reason you are here. You seek The Itblade, Lovecraft, right?”

“I have my reasons, but why would you care about Convergence all of a sudden?”

“May as well ask why we breathe. You know small talk annoys me.”

Simon couldn’t let Jericho get to Lovecraft first. He was a big threat. It would’ve been impossible to take it back. Somehow, he needed to distract him. Shake up the hornet’s nest and grab the great machina amidst the chaos.

As he thought up a plan, he questioned Jericho further to buy time. “What’s… happened to you? You don’t look well.”

It worked. Jericho settled down to entertain him. “I was never a human. I am a homunculus. You can only hide so long. Pretending got tiring.”

Ah… like Abdul?

“How… do you feel about that?”

Jericho tilted his head at him in confusion. “What are you, a physician?”

“I was just curious. Does it relate to your wish for Convergence?”

“I’ll wish to become human. I want all the mundane things unreachable from shadows. Is anything wrong with that?”

“A little selfish for something of grand power, but I’m not one to judge.”

“You never were. Say, Simon. Why not become my partner? We’ll take the blade from the king. Next, the dagger from the girl. Together, we can do it.”

Simon stared at Jericho ice cold. “But how do you intend to take the girl’s great machina? Once a contract is forged, it’s not that simple.”

“I am going to kill her. Shame, but it’s got to be done.”

“I can’t join you then.”

“I expected that answer. Such morals are your shackles. Rath Ghul failed to perfect you.”

“I’d more say the guild failed to ruin me.”

Jericho scoffed. “Don’t get in my way, brother. Turn and leave. Hide in some hole. Don’t come out till it’s over.”

Simon’s tension worsened the more they spoke. He needed a wildcard. The Apparatus could have worked. How would he react to revealing its existence? Jericho was the furthest you could get from an ally, but perhaps he could be turned into the enemy’s enemy.

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“It’s good that I ran into you here though. I know something you can’t ignore. It’s under us. The Apparatus. This castle’s king—” His words caught in his throat.

Jericho’s hatred scared Simon speechless. The mention triggered something. He’d never seen such a knee-jerk shift in demeanor in all their years working together.

This was the first time he realized that the man’s teeth were jagged, razor metal. Jericho demanded, “Finish your sentence, Simon. Don’t tell me you’ve lost your tongue.”

“The Apparatus. It’s back. It’s under us in the depths of Castle Hemmer. King Andre is responsible.”

I should’ve known he’d do this.” Somehow, his face got even paler than its usual whiteness. He turned away and dry heaved, sickened. “Get out of my sight, weakling. If all this ends up a lie, I’ll force-feed you your own eyes.”

“I’d never lie about such a horrible thing.”

“I know. That’s why I hate you.”

Footsteps in the distance alerted both. Simon vanished from thin air and sprinted off.

Jericho stood his ground. A knight unlike any other approached him alone in silver plate armor gilded in gold. He held a halberd machina across his shoulders. Its green eye glared.

As Champion Gundyr readied his halberd, Jericho beat his chest and gagged. The edge of his blade of onyx, Black Hole Sun, stuck from his mouth. He pulled the entirety of the sword from his gullet like a magic trick. He growled, “Get out of my way! I’ll kill you!”

“Try your best. You’ll make a great trophy.”

They both rushed forth, exchanging and deflecting blows. Gundyr was wary of Jericho’s attacks, but the homunculus didn’t show him the same respect. Jericho let the halberd punch through his flesh to no reaction. He healed from the damage and regenerated his fingers in an instant.

The lack of fear or care in Jericho’s eyes frustrated Gundyr. The Champion increased his pace with animosity. There, in those halls, the skill gap between them became apparent. Jericho got the absolute shit beat out of him as Gundyr turned him into a training dummy. The Champion was too quick to get caught by Black Hole Sun’s existence erasing power.

Gundyr reared a heavy attack and impaled Jericho through the stomach. The end of the damn halberd went through the other side.

Jericho gripped the pole protruding from his gullet, groaning. He looked uncomfortable. “Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.” Then a twisted grin came onto his face. “I feel it. I am alive.”

Grey and gold energy surged from Jericho’s soul. Ki flowed down through his fingers. It swarmed Gundyr’s halberd. Upon contact, the halberd machina burst into pain screaming as its metal and wood shriveled.

Jericho rambled, “Degradation is my nature. Blight. Crumble.”

Gundyr reached down to his side. “Take this, you cur!”

Jericho gawked down the double barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. “What is that?”

“A New Age innovation.”

Gundyr blew The Wyrm’s head off with an ear-ringing explosion of gunpowder and smoke.

Jericho’s headless body wobbled back and collapsed dead.

Gundyr reclaimed his halberd from the corpse. As he opened the barrel, ejecting and replacing the spent shells, red electricity coursed across Jericho’s neck. His head and face materialized from bone to flesh.

Jericho cackled, “An interesting weapon. I’ll take it.”

“I’ve heard about your regeneration factor, but this is absurd.”

They wrestled over the shotgun. Two more shells got fired into the ceiling, leaving it empty and thrown aside. Jericho snatched up Black Hole Sun and slashed Gundyr in the bicep with it. They separated, both gasping.

Gundyr sneered at him. “Weak! Didn’t do shit!”

The next moment, Gundyr’s arm fell off. A wave of black void ate where the blade marked true. He yelled as a fountain of blood erupted from the stump. He gripped it, sending a high voltage surge of electric ki through. The wound fused shut.

“We’re banning that one,” Gundyr said. He planted his halberd into the ground. An iron gear under the blade shifted, causing the air around them to change. “Metal Gear: Rules of Nature!”

The Champion left his halberd standing and approached bare-handed. Thick, static energy coated his armor and fortified his fist. The aura was overwhelming. Electricity coursed and chained across his body chaotically. It lit the carpet beneath his feet on fire.

Jericho took a step back, put off. Something feels different. What did that machina just do?

He had to admit that he was impressed. “Your ki understanding is tenfold mine... And a lightning nature too? What a drag.” He blinked and Gundyr had teleported forth, sending a Mach fist into his chest. The blow tumbled him into suits of armor across the hall. His temporarily ruptured brain reduced him into a drooling idiot.

Gundyr approached. “Your machina is strong, but your soul is lacking. You are deaf to The Inward God. That is why you will never defeat me. Can you call yourself a genuine warrior?”

Jericho scraped himself up from the ground. He picked up Black Hole Sun and lunged at Gundyr. Every swing of the blade phased through the Champion though. Gundyr stood there unthreatened as more and more slices did absolutely nothing.

Bewildered, Jericho reached down his throat to pull out another machina. This one was a mace. He swung only for it go right through Gundyr’s body with no effect. On the next swing, Gundyr blocked the arm at the elbow and countered with a straight right to the chin.

Jericho stumbled back, blood shooting from his nose. The electric ki cloaking Gundyr’s fists made each punch impact twice. First came the concussive strike. Then came the crackling reverberation.

Gundyr sighed. “I’ll reveal the mystery since you’re dull. Rules of Nature is a power that warps reality by altering cosmic law. I've overwritten the rules of our battle to disallow weapons. Your machina will never touch me now. You may only defeat me with your fists."

He grinned, filled to the brim with confidence. "But can you? Someone like you?”

Jericho dropped his weapons. He willed the owl’s mask to close over his face. Serrated spears of devil’s metal sprouted from his wrists. His teeth and claws malformed and lengthened. He showed his bestial nature.

Gundyr commended him, “If you have nothing else, at least you have balls. They aren’t enough though, no matter how heavy.”

Jericho lunged with a bladed cleave only to be parried and countered with a flurry of punches and a front kick to the face. Gundyr threw effortless jabs that looked like flickers and impacted like a war hammer.

When Jericho adapted, raising his hands to protect his head, the Champion demolished his legs with low kicks and sent loaded hooks to the body. They sent air and spit flying from his mouth.

Jericho shot in close and low to grapple, wrapping his arms around Gundyr’s knees to tackle him over. Gundyr put him in a front headlock, planted his feet hard, and sent Jericho flying overhead with a suplex. He smashed his head open on the ground.

Gundyr yawned and squatted next to Jericho, talking down to him. “Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve been trained to fight you. The king feared you that badly. I’ve anticipated this day forever. Here it finally is. I’m disappointed in you.”

Jericho spoke up to the Champion, dazed. “Give back my weapons… and I’ll show you…”

“No. This was my strategy.”

“Cowards use such strategies.”

“You’re known for two things. Seven machina and survivability. Take those away and you’re nothing.”

“I’m starting to get that now.”

“Want to know something? Once you break a homunculus’s will, it stops regenerating. You are no different. I can already see it.”

“Why won’t you just kill me now? End this damn embarrassment.”

“His Highness wants me to take you alive. If I wanted to kill you, I would have shattered your core the second we met. That's the only thing that kills you monsters. Surrender.”

Jericho spat on him. “Fuck you.”

Fury snapped Gundyr's patience. He caved in Jericho’s skull with a punch as if it were a melon. “Nasty bastard.”

The Champion took a knife from his belt and imbued it with focused ki. He would carve Jericho down until he couldn’t regenerate. The Wyrm would be offered to the king.