(Heaven's Key, Celestial Realm, Battle with Gamarn)

[https://i.imgur.com/KlgjYF5.png][https://imgur.com/qOpwRlH]

In the divine realm, us two were seated at the table. I could tell right away that this guy was a different caliber from the rest. His appearance was striking. He wasn't a man at all, but a full mecha humanoid. His hard surface parts were intricately made and modeled.

[https://i.imgur.com/pFYtNPU.png]

"Why do you not submit? Do you really think you can go against the entire city on your own? Did you use some kind of trick to defeat the time trap? If so, you will apologize for all the lives you have taken!" The enforcer before me roared.

I snapped my fingers and manifested a 100 shotguns in the air above him. At once they blasted away at him. The result was that he was unharmed. The bullets were bouncing off his metal armor, so he had no need for the Body Integrity Technique.

"Such tricks won't work on me. It reminds me of Gray, it is his favorite technique." He remarked. I shrugged.

"I'll give you a chance. Show me your best move."

"I will, I..." As I watched, his cybernetic eyes focused on me. "You...Where is your brain!? You are not a human!" He screamed. I laughed at this. Amazing that somebody finally noticed it!

"I am one of the Inspired." I said proudly. "Don't mind that. What is your move?" His pupils contracted and dilated as if he was unsure of what he wanted to do.

Is his trick the cybernetic Mind Reading Eyes like the ones I wanted to use in the real world? If so, lame.

"I...my strength is my armor." He beat his chest to produce a metallic thud. "Even if I cannot win, that does not mean you can either."

"Hmph." I snapped my fingers again and this time manifested missiles, rows and columns of them in the air above. "Gray taught me something last time. If a small barrage fails, that does not mean the bigger one will as well. Your armor will be scrap iron. Let's see if you can take this."

I blasted him away. Huge explosions rocked the table. And then the smoke cleared, there were only some burnt, smoking scraps left of my opponent where he sat.

Time for another wait. The wait is the real battle.

(Mickey POV - Heaven's Key, Outside the Raven's Eye Casino)

This time the wait was a lot longer. It took over 5 minutes for the match to finish, but Euclid emerged victorious from his fight against the Episteme Gamarn.

He didn't look like he broke a sweat. He calmly moved, heading to the next battle.

An ubermensch. I cannot imagine a person that word better describes than him.

"Fight!" The superiors urged their subordinates. "He is bluffing! He can't be unaffected after all these battles!" The battles resumed.

Just how could something like this ever happen? Bravely going forward against impossible odds, I wanted that to be myself. He is so cool.

I lost track of the number of matches, but by now a third of the enforcers sent here were eliminated.

You might think that 2/3rds is still plenty to go, but that is wrong. The Enforcement Division has been absolutely crushed in these last 3 hours! If this was a battle down below, an army losing a third of its troops, while the enemy hasn't even been scratched would have routed it. Right now I am looking at the enforcers, and they are ingesting amphetamines like little kids would candy! But it is starting to lose its effectiveness.

If I was amongst them, drugged out or not, I'd have enough sanity to realize that my 1 in 500 chance of getting killed, which I signed up for, is now at 100%. If I tried running I'd be hunted down by officers in the following days, but that would still be better than dying right now.

The enforcers at their limit. If the officers pump their blood with any more substances they won't be able to take it!

As I watch below one of the Introspects collapsed.

"Get up! Get up, you bastard!" The officer started kicking him, but the enforcer was non-responsive. This is actually a good strategy. If he's passed out here, Euclid is unlikely to go after him. But the rest are in greater danger. So rather than running and directly disobeying, I expect them to start collapsing soon. Those enforcers are dimwitted, I'd have done this long ago.

This situation is extremely terrifying. It is not a constant melee. Rather Euclid would pop out after a minute, grab the next victim and disappear. If it was a constant melee, the adrenaline would be running high, but the minutes of inaction are just enough to let the stress and the fear mount. The enforcers right now must be all imagining what is going to happen next.

After a while, my idol comes out again.

"You are next!" One of the enforcers gets pushed in front.

"Are you kidding me!? Fuck off, I won't do it!" Disorder in the ranks is starting to occur. It makes sense. Those enforcers who are willing to sacrifice themselves for the city and who are valorous would be the first to die in situations such as these. And then you have the less valorous, smarter enforcers who maneuvered them into the back of the line.

Euclid looked at the scene, paused, and laughed.

"Ahahahahaha! What is wrong!? When you were picking a fight with a kid, you had a lot of courage! Where has it gone now, huh!?"

"Let me out, I do not want to fight him!" The desperate next enforcer pushed against the line, while his comrades were literally forcing him to his death. They were looking at him with looks of absolute loathing as they grappled him to the front.

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"NOOOOO!!!!" He was pushed to the front again, shivering, looking every bit like a pile of soon to be dead refuse. I wonder what Euclid would think of his behavior?

Like an unstoppable juggernaut, Euclid moves forward. He lunges and the pitiful next-in-line drops on his butt and shrieks. The strike comes, and hits one of the guys behind him.

He is saved. Tears streaking down his face, he looks at his comrades with gladness.

"You idiot!" The officer comes to him yelling, practically foaming at the mouth from rage. Losing all restraint, he throws a blow at him. And what happens after his fist connects with the subordinate face is that they are both locked in a resolution match. The two disappear, replaced by two white tags, much like Euclid's and his current foe's on the floor next to them.

The rest look at the situation agape. Nobody is sure of what to do.

In a minute, Euclid emerges victorious once more. He looks left, he looks right. Fearful faces surround him. Since nobody is stepping forward, he picks a direction and as soon as he makes the first step, something happens. The officer who struck the insubordinate emerges from his own duel, manifesting on the ground in front of Euclid.

"I am out?" He looks around in confusion. "I am finally out!?" He looks at the clear blue skies above. "Thank God! Haha...ahahahahahaha!!!" In view of everybody, he laughs joyfully for a while. Then he realizes what is happening and he looks around. Eventually he spots Euclid's glacid yellow eyes staring down at him. Euclid raises his hand...and having found his target, clenches his fist!

"Ah!" The previously proud officer backpedals backward on his ass in fear. "Ah ah ah ah!!!" His face contorted in fear as he realizes what is going to happen. Tears and snot start streaking down his face. Whatever spirit he had before, he must have lost it during the resolution duel.

"NOOOOOOO!!! I do not want to go to that place anymore! Fuck this city! Fuck this world! Just who wants to live here!?" Manifesting his life chip pile, he crawls up to Euclid and clutches at his thighs. Maddened, he says: "Take it! Take all of it! I do not care anymore!" He looks at the rest of us in hatred. As we watch, Euclid takes all of the man's chips and demanifests them. The officer himself disappears, finally free from this cursed world.

Euclid stares blankly where the officer used to be, thinking incomparably deep thoughts, and then once again turns his attention to the troops surrounding him. As he watches, one of the enforcers gets pushed past the line into the encirclement.

"Fight!" One of the officers urges him.

"Ghhhhh!!!" Clearly intimidated, the man nonetheless moves into a tackling stance. He rushes Euclid, or at least that is how it seems at first. Halfway he trips over his own feet and lands face down in front of Euclid. Euclid looks down on him just lying there for a couple of seconds, and after he concludes that enough time has elapsed, he moves up to the man, steps on his back with his right foot, and then climbs on him.

Standing upright on the body of the enforcer, he turns his nose at the rest of them and says: "It seems I grew a few inches today!"

A few laughs rise from the audience.

Livid, a woman behind the lines grabs the shoulder of one of the officers carrying a rifle.

"Goddamit, shoot that moron!" She barks at him.

"Euclid?" The officer asks fearfully. This makes the woman even more mad.

"No! That retard under him!" The crowd is quiet, so the drama unfolds in plain sight. The man makes his way through the lines to the front, aims his rifle and fires. Somehow, the bullet hits Euclid's foot, and instead of the guy under him, the rifleman officer and Euclid are the ones which get locked in battle. The man under Euclid just continues lying there, serving as the pedestal for Euclid's white tag.

The blonde, long-haired woman stares at the scene with her mouth agape. The crowd laughs again, this time more vigorously.

"Ehehehe!" I crack a laugh myself. It simmers down after a bit.

"Enough of this! Officers!" She barks out orders. "Turn your weapons on them!"

There are still a couple of hundred grunts left for Euclid to go through, but only a few dozen officers. Still, none dare go against them.

"You will do your duty towards the city!" She yells at the Introspects. "While we worked to better ourselves, what were you doing, but sucking up our salaries!? You WILL do your part NOW!"

She took one of the rifles from the officers.

"If anyone tries to flee, I will kill them myself! If anyone succeeds in escaping we will hunt you down and toss you over the railing!" She fired the rifle over the heads of the Introspects. "Next time Euclid comes, you will all rush him together!" She leveled the rifle at them.

Taking her lead, the officers did so as well. Barrels pointed at their backs, they turned their attention to the man still lying on the ground and Euclid's tag on top of him. Nobody thought that the officer who was currently locked in battle with him would survive. And soon enough that is proven true, as Euclid is the one to emerge from the fight.

Standing on the back of a body, he spreads his arms like an eagle taking flight. Enraptured look on his face, he grasps towards the heavens.

Nobody rushes him, nobody moves forward.

(TODO Image: In the street of a golden city, men in golden uniforms surround a 14-year old boy wearing glasses who is standing on the back of a man lying prone on the ground like it was a stair step. The golden uniformed men are recoiling from him, while the boy has an enraptured look on his face as he stares at the heavens. His arms are raised like a pair of wings, spread like an eagle taking flight. A godlike ray of light illuminates this golden eyed conductor of the divine play.)

What an amazing scene. I can imagine a painter immortalizing this. This event is not something that the city will forget. No matter what happens, Euclid will become a part of its legend.

"What are you standing around for! Charge!" The beautiful woman in charge yelled out, and the line moved.

"Uooohhhh!!!" One of the men gave a yell, and lounged at Euclid, only to come short and fall prone at his feet. The rest of them also jumped to lie at his feet. The enforcers charged and is coordinated, started stacking themselves in a pile. It was not something I'd expected to see. The threat did work, and the enforcers charged at Euclid. But their only thought was of saving their own skin. The grunts aren’t stupid, they know the officers can at most get 20 of them. The safest position for them to be is prone in front. It was a race to see who could get there first.

[https://i.imgur.com/GaXgJCf.png]

Euclid did the right thing when he spared the coward, and killed the one pushing him into battle. This little bit of mercy set a precedent and now the rest of the enforcers were only pretending to do their part. They run up to him and then fall on top of each other. Soon, Euclid was surrounded by a hundred bags of meat. He got off the guy he was standing on, moved to the top of the body pile on one side and took a seat. Making himself comfortable on the pile of people sent to subjugate him, he mocked the woman who gave the order with a smile.

Something in me broke when I saw this. Like a dam bursting forward, letting through all the pent up water, my heart became filled with admiration for Euclid.

This is how a real man should live. Just what the hell am I? Go Euclid!

"Ahahaha...ahahahahaha!!!" While I thought Euclid was incomparably cool, some of the other people thought the scene was really funny and started laughing uproariously. It caught on and soon the entire crowd was laughing at the Enforcement Division. The symbol of authority in this city is crumbling.

The blonde haired beauty who was at the back of the lines clenched her fists so hard as to drain the blood from them, and could only stand there gritting her teeth as the mocking laughter washed over her, drenching her in shame. She tensed her face so hard it caved inward, she couldn’t bear to look at the scene. This continued and Euclid peered at her from the top of the pile for a while. Then she made a decision to step forward. With determination she leveled the rifle at Euclid who was looking down on her and pulled the trigger, starting the resolution match.