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Chapter 397: Cross My Hearts
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“Right.”
This was something known by all Players because all players are always in the look out on how to get their hands on the main material for the BlackTech.
In fact, in Jeremiah, there is always an active quest about the extermination of “Demons” in the Misty Plains area in the east.
Misty Plains was the battlefield of the War of the Braves, 56 years ago, and it was the most plasma-particle contaminated area in the planet.
It was also part of The Game’s published storyline.
Actually, of all the Players, only Gats was the lucky-enough person to actually unlock the secret about Misty Plains —it was the HQ of the Humans and it was their (unspoken and demanded) responsibility to ‘cleanse’ it of all the Plasma Particles.
(AN: Sorry for the ‘demanded’ portrayal as I can’t pull up the right set of words to actually depict the fact that they were discriminated by the Terrans and that this responsibility was forced upon them)
With the added variable as the “Players” having an Immortal Soul and knew more than even the very citizens of the planet themselves, the invasion of the LAGRAM Alliance —the Demons— was always being thwarted in the important areas they’ve also already contaminated… especially Misty Plains.
—or should it still be called Misty Plains since the place was already a desert wasteland?
Internally, the Terran Civilization may all be selfish and greedy, but as a species, they are strong, as they can wield the power of Magic and Bloodlines.
Given all these advantages, the Surface Continents may look like a messed up place to the unknowing lot, but the real reason why the Demons can’t get a proper foothold in Terroa is because of the Inner Continents… and perhaps, if considered, even the Dragons of Terroa.
Terrans may be a trapped denizen in their own planet, but they can’t be underestimated even by the ‘Supremes’ that, before recently, are the only strong arm in the Armada.
But now, however, with the [Cage] slightly opened and the “Generals” all having escaped confinement in a long time, and of course, adding the biggest of all variables, Siva himself, this deadlock will not be able to continue on and thus... the storm is coming.
“Obviously, with my current strength, I am not even qualified to even injure their nails. I won because I used all openings in my disposal and that I could win in a duel against them is also because I know their weaknesses and capitalized on them, unlike the other three who came here with you. You saw it as well right, that fire pillar attack they used… it’s the most basic of attacks in their arsenal but inside their ship, it’s the best they can use or they will ruin it further. The damage on their mothership is very serious enough that it rendered its ‘overmind’ not able to endure the backlash of the damage... which in turn made the mothership itself unable to move a single atom at its entirety. The Supremes were still shackled even though they unleashed the seal on their powers while I’m not. But look at me, I was still trashed around and had to endure these injuries so I could get a chance for a lethal counter. Can you even imagine how strong they really are without all these weaknesses I just mentioned?”
—it was this ‘weakness’ that Siva told Maki before the attack even started.
True enough. If they were fighting with no holds barred, Siva wouldn’t even be close to 1% when talking about winning against them.
Just their natural Mana Barrier alone was enough to block most of Siva’s attacks, including the BMA’s blades and even the ‘more’ smaller [parts] of it.
[But you still won.]
Kathleen’s voice rung excitedly. For some reason, she was different from her earlier self who yelled and hated him.
Siva contemplated, waiting for the pain to subside at least by a bit more before saying, “Luck.”
As much as he hated it, luck had a part to do with it.
He was lucky that they were minding the further destruction of their ship. If not, just one Supreme alone had enough power to destroy Terroa if they put their heart and soul on it within the week that they used their powers in the [Released] state.
No.
In reality, perhaps the biggest “luck” isn’t about all these matters, the lucky thing here is that Baal had been impatient and didn’t wait to totally [Synch] with his host body before going after the crystal.
Still, even if it’s Siva, with there being only nine of such crystals in the Universe and with one of them being revealed to be in their possession, being not aware of Siva’s existence in the place of the attack is enough ‘risk’ to make him mobilize an army for it.
Unfortunately for them, their [Released] state was a time-limited ability. Within that time, they either die of their enemies die. That’s it. No mercy.
It was a kill or be killed lose-lose situation.
Furthermore, Siva was here and this situation so far is already a given.
“More or less, ten minutes per Supreme.”
[That ‘Release’ thing? But why aren’t the other guys’ enemies not using it?]
“Who knows?” Siva began walking further again after collecting his spoils. “If you can’t find your enemy, your enemy will find you instead.”
Albeit still a bit weakened, Siva had recovered most of his strength so he dared to move on now. After all, time is also against his side.
[I’m hiding perfectly here. Don’t jinx it.]
Siva didn’t really care.
[By the way, can I buy that spear?]
“No. Buy it from me.”
[Hmp! Miserly grandpa!]
Siva smiled and wore back his helm. He did not spread his blades this time and only maintained a steady ‘domain’ within a 50m-large circle —no— the area in front and at the back, occasionally using his Killing Zone when enemies are nearby.
*****
“He killed The Prince!”
“Monster!”
“Captain, what should we do now? if the Emperor found out about this we…”
“Shut up! Did you see the magic reading? He didn’t use internal Mana! The Resonance Scanner has a recording of that move earlier. It’s a Resonance! It was coming from that sword he’s holding! That’s an [Artifact] from the old era blessed by God Blood!”
“Wind-elemental Affinity detected sir!”
“Bio-Mechanical readings detected. It’s one of the newest technologies of the Terrans, sir!”
“Bio-Mechanical Synthesis scanned. It’s Dragon-grade Material!”
“““NANI?!!”””
“He hunted a dragon?!”
“No… he actually killed a Dragon!”
“The Prince… The Prince was murdered by one of those Dragon Slayers?”
“Quick! Notify all Commanders and most especially the Supremes. Tell them that a Dragon Slayer killed His Highness Antukin and that the culprit is still in the ship!”
“Captain, I think he’s planning to attack His Majesty The Empe—AAAAHH!! Captain! CAPTAIN!!”
“Quit shouting!”
“Oh no, Captain, he’s closing in at the edge of the upper central area!”
“Damn it all! Why aren’t you contacting all of the Commanders yet? Do it now! Kill that Terran! He must not reach His Majesty while he’s unconscious or we will all die in this wretched planet!”
“Captain! He’s turned slightly off and entered the sealed areas! He’s lost now!”
“Use this chance to ambush him! We know the ship better than him so send all of the Supremes and obliterate him immediately! Seal all partition doors and activated ship-wide defensive barriers! Guide him to the training zones to minimize damages! Do not let him take a step out of that prison!”
*****
15 minutes later…
[Boss, we’re blind. The walls, floor, and the ceiling are protected by Mana Barriers…]
Right now, in front of Siva, was Cortana’s projected map of his entire trip here in their Mothership. In it was a green dot, him, and a bluish 3D hologram of the entire 100m corridor he was currently located.
‘Hoh? But isn’t that something? I think we’re now in one of their protected areas in the ship.’
[Oh, I see…]
‘Hehehe…. It’s time to destroy some things. It’s not as if these walls are all impervious to a more in depth kind of scanning, right?’
[Please touch the walls, sir, so we can use manual physical probing and calculate their weakne—oh, enemies are coming from the back where we came from.]
‘Now that only proves my conjecture. Hehehe… kill them and continue the harvest.’
[Aye, sir.]
*****
10 minutes later…
“AAAAHHH!!”
“He’s blowing up the walls!”
“Captain! He’s able to plant some bomb inside the walls and detonate them from the inside!”
“Waaaaaa… Captain, he can punch the walls when it’s already damaged from the inside!”
“Captaaaainnnn!!”
“Cap’n…”
“Captain!”
“Capitan…!!”
“Gaaaaahhh!!! For just one fucking minute, will you all just shut the fuck up?!!”
“““…”””
“…”
“But Captain, what should we do? Aside from the Navigational Controls and Ship Communication and Liaison purposes, all other controls were handled by The Prince and His Majesty, The Emperor. The ship doesn’t even have an inner defensive system since The Emperor never even considered all the things that had happened just a few hours ago to actually happen.”
“Captain, we need orders.”
“…”
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“““…”””
“Where are the Commanders and the Supremes?”
“Reporting, sir. The Supremes reported back that the enemies they are fighting are proving to be a bunch of challenges because they’re accompanied by very strong puppets. Unless they remove their limiters, they wouldn’t want to leave those three in the vicinity of the ship unattended. Also, half of the total Commanders we have had already been killed by the Dragon Slayer. The rest are on their way to intercept the Prince’s murderer.”
“Damn it. How many exactly are left?”
“17 Commanders, sir, not including the ones that are outside and retrieving El Bravo Supreme.”
“Shit. This only mean that they’ve totally held us on our ankles… and what more, the advance troops have been annihilated as well… good thing we also sent Delta as a backup. Now, we just have to wait for them to retrieve the Crystal.”
“What about the murderer, Captain?”
“…”
“Captain…”
“Shush… I’m thinking.”
“…”
“Okay. Since we’re out of options, we can try to…”
“…….”
“……….”
“……………”
“….ehem. Try to compromise with that Terran.”
“““…!!”””
“Captain! We can’t do that, sir… how could we, to a mere Terran….”
“The Captain has lost his mind!”
“We’re doomed! We’re doomed!!”
“Shaddap! All of you! We don’t have a choice. He’s destroying the ship, the Supremes are tied down, and unless we risk a worthless clash and the dying of yet another one of our Supremes, we can’t do anything about that Terran! So if we don’t lure him out of here, we will be the ones to die instead!”
“Captain…”
“Cap’n…”
“Captain!”
“Capitan…!!”
“Tsk. Prepare the ship-wide communicators. Let me handle the talking.”
*****
BOOM!!!
CRASH—!!
BOOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!!!
CRAAAASSSSHHHHH——!!!
“Ahahaha… this is fun. Although it’s impractical that I have to manually touch the walls, at least I still get to wreck a few parts of their ship from the inside.”
It was obvious that Siva was purposefully speaking out loud to further enrage the Demons.
The walls and ceiling were now 10m in height and width, and Siva found it harder and harder to fight on with the suicidal approaches of the small-scaled minions… only, thankfully, these ‘minions’ were all Commanders and with their ‘weakness’ active, Siva was able to harvest many BlackTech materials and even whole and complete corpses.
Of course, with Siva’s ‘blue smoke’ domain that’s spreading with the (secret) help of the tiny ‘smaller’ parts of the BMA, spreading the cold climate within the ship wasn’t the hard part of it... maintaining it is.
‘The Demons found out that using their weapons is useless within the range of the smoke screen but it’s not as if it wouldn’t be consumed as well so they’re now using them without restraint just to be able to consume my smoke screen.’
Right now, Siva’s continued consumption of the PSS-Grenade had reached 40,000 units and while it is still a small number compared to the overall total units that he had received before, the fact remains that his consumption every second—if he continue this trend— will reach a staggering amount while still being trapped in a single area.
The sheer number of the Demons plus the number of their plasma weapons meant his ‘blue smoke’ is being consumed at a faster rate so he had to ‘refill’ it to maintain the domain.
What more, it’s not only them that he had to use the PSS-Grenade for.
[Sir, the temperature in this area had reached 80% of the BMA’s Melting Point Threshold.]
In other words, it was impractical. For Siva who was running out of time, this impracticality ain’t a good sign so he must hurry and locate Baal to finish him while he’s still defenseless —of course, that’s the best case scenario.
‘Ultimately, they’re still an Intelligent Species. Being able to discover a way to counter my nullification of their plasma particle technology should be a given.’
[In the end, sir, you just have to destroy as much as you can until you reach an important area where the leaders are forced to contact you and negotiate into a compromise.]
‘Hehehe… of course. These guys treat Inventions as important as any part of their bodies. Especially the kind of control Baal has to his kinsmen. If my impression of Baal is still accurate, he wouldn’t run amok even if I killed one of his prized scions. But if I destroy this ship enough, he will surely go angry.’
[By the way sir, based on the mapped course I’ve made since our landfall in this mothership, all the simulated initial conjectures on both our location and directional displacement are almost ready.]
‘Oh?’
The map on his vision refreshed. Projected directly to his mind through his connection to Cortana right now is an entire map of the ‘area’ the scans already detected since earlier.
Looking at the zoomed-out map, a general location was now being projected.
[We’ve managed to trek a 13* arc since the last 30 floors and I can simulate with a 20% chance that the important area we’re looking for is just 200+m east, northeast, away from our current location with a marginal error of 35%.]
(AN: for those in the know, when saying locational displacements and projected (and also calculated) directional transpositions —in other words, [map reading] —it’s quite normal to hear these kinds of repeating directional instructions)
‘Just 35% margin? Not bad for a prediction range.’
[We should start the next part of the plan now, sir.]
‘Right.’
*****
[Gaaaaaahhhh… I’m lost. I’M LOST!!! Why is this fucking ship so big… Gaaaahhh!!]
Siva, in their video feed, could be seen ‘having lost his mind’ as he grabbed his head and screamed as he did.
There was an automatic subtitle on the video feed and the demons all smiled seeing him.
Especially the captain.
“This is our chance!”
*****
‘This should be enough cue for them.’
Siva just waited for them to act as he studied the map Cortana made for him.
After assessing the map in front of him for a few couple of minutes, there was the sound of tapping in the area with a “whew” and a “mic test” in a slanted Terran tongue.
{Hello, can you hear me, Terran? (Burkav, can you check if it’s working?)}
{(It’s already working, captain.)}
{(Okay) Hello, Terran… you seem to be lost…}
Siva raised his head, trying to pinpoint the direction where the voice was coming from. Although these Demons never realized that he can understand the words they’re saying even if they talk in the Demon tongue, Siva still realized that they wanted to help him ‘get out’ of their ship with that ‘overbearing’ greeting.
He immediately understood that his plan was a go.
They have finally contacted him.
“Who are you?” he feigned worry and looked every side and corner of the long hallway. “Where’re you talking to me?”
{Look up.}
Right at that moment, a ball f light traveled on the walls of the copper-colored corridor and a screen expanded from the ball of light, showing a Demon’s six pairs of eyes… only. Nothing more.
The anger in his eyes were evident but Siva knew that no matter how ‘angry’ the seemed, he knew that these Demons are already out of options.
He, alone, had eradicated majority of their forces.
“What do you want?” Siva used the Terran tongue.
Before answering, the seemingly solid wall not too far away from him opened a secret partition and a corrido appeared which the end was projected on Siva’s map until the limits of the [Scan].
He secretly smiled, widely, underneath his mask.
{I am the acting captain of the ship, Terran, you are allowed to call me Jekiwabbashlu.}
“Oh, so you’re Jenkins.”
{No! Jekiwabbashlu! It’s Jekiwabbashlu! Get it right, you moron! How can you call a revered Captain of the Demon Armada of a different name?!! I have a Rank and I even allowed you to bypass the Rank as you address me, but… Gah! How rude! I’ve met so many people in my long life but I’ve never met a ruder person from you… ever.}
Siva was laughing hard inwardly. He was enjoying this very scene itself.
As it turns out, Demons actually do care about their name and status. In other words, just like a few of the Terran Nobles, the difference between them and the demons is their alignments. All in all, they all share that same arrogance in their noble blood.
“Watson… you—”
{Watson?!! How is my great name, Jekiwabbashlu, ever close to being a Watson?}
Siva raised a hand in apology, “I’m sorry—”
{…}
“—Martin.”
The six pairs of eyes on the screen widened along with a gasp of shock and disbelief.
{You… you’re doing this on purpose… are you?}
Siva denied it, “No! No! No! You got me wrong. I’m actually suffering from a rare disease of having the hard time remembering names.”
{…}
“Promise.”
{What’s the disease called?}
“Bluefishydorydory Syndrome.”
{… (searched our database regarding that one)}
The twelve eyes on the screen actually tried to put a cover on the mic as he gave the instructions at the people behind him.
The muffled sounds were actually clear to Siva as they conversed in the Demon Tongue. While they were busy, Siva continued to put his hand on the wall just 20m the open partition, on the other side, and scanned it.
Given the size of the corridor, this was a fairly close distance from the open partition.
{(Negative results)}
The ‘Captain’ snapped back at him.
{You’re lyi—WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!!}
It was at the time that Siva made another explosion.
Siva ignored the cry of the ‘Captain’ as he stepped into the new hole he made and floated away.
On the new corridor, another ball of yellow light snapped open and a gloating screen appeared with the twelve eyes staring furiously at Siva.
{There is already an open pathway for you straight outside so you wouldn’t be lost… why the hell do you have to create another hole in the ship?!!}
Siva stopped and yelled, “How do I know that you aren’t lying to me and are leading me to my death?”
{…}
“We’re enemies. As far as I know, you wouldn’t help me get out of your ship and instead lead me to an ambush!”
Siva continued on and ignored the ‘Captain’ on the hovering plasma screen.
The twelve pair of eyes could be seen trying to put his poise into alignment, calming himself with a few deep breaths.
{Okay… look. Terran…}
“It’s Siva.”
{Okay. Look, Siva, I know you are lost. And since the ship defenses are up, there are barriers set up all over the area of the ship where you are at. I can help you escape from the ship.}
“I know. That’s why I’m trying to find my way back since the fights earlier made me lose my bearings.”
{So listen to me and stop destro—I WAS JUST IN THE MIDDLE OF TALKING! STOP! STOP!!}
BOOM!!
“Oh, I’m sorry, I was busy. You were saying?”
{STOP DESTROYING THE SHIP! *pant*pant*pant*}
“Ah… I’m sorry. My bad. You know, Robert—“
{Jekiwabbashlu.}
“Right. William…”
{Jekiwabbashlu!}
“Sorry. Look, Nicholas…”
{JEKIWABBASHLU! It’s Jekiwabbashlu!! God damn it! *pant *pant *pant… ack… ack… uuuurrrgghhh…}
{(Captain! Your hearts’ rate’s in critical levels!)}
Siva had traveled 50m and put his hand on the wall again, sighing, and then looking at the ‘Captain’.
“Geezer’s mice! Take it easy on the coffee, Simon, you should take care of your heart better.”
BOOM!!!
{Gaaaaaahhhhh….}
{{{(Captaaaaain!!!)}}}
The poor Captain’s eyes turned white from a great amount of anger hormones. And he collapsed at the floor as the plasma screen shut off.
After awhile, and while Siva was traveling on the route detected by Cortana’s passive scans, that plasma screen appeared again with the twelve eyes glaring hatefully at Siva.
If there’s one thing that changed, though, the skin on the head and the tentacles on its face was paler than earlier.
{Siva…}
Siva just smiled secretly. They hadn’t realized who they were talking to.
On the pathway he was traversing, there’s another opening that popped up with a hiss of hydraulics, and Cortana immediately scanned it as going back to the direction where he came from.
{That’s the exit.}
Siva paused and looked at the ‘tunnel’ then to the pale face with twelve eyes above it.
“Are you telling me the truth? It’s not leading to my own death, is it?”
The squid head ‘Captain’ nodded calmly.
{Yes and yes.}
“…”
{I promise that I am not lying.}
“…”
{Please believe me.}
“Lies.”
BOOM!!
{GYAAAAHH!! MOTHERF****** MOTHAFAKAH! A WHOLE F****** @*&^#%$*&!@ YOU, YOU ARE A FUCKING ****! GAAAH!! WHAT IN THE FUCKING FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOUR BRAIN?!! I’ve told you! I’ve told you already! That’s the fucking wrong direction! *pant*pant*pant—}
Siva ignored him and just continued to float toward the direction Cortana chose… to the central area, completely opposite of the direction he was being led to.
[Boss, my predictions are actually 65% incorrect.]
‘It’s a good thing that we have this back up plan.’
[The backup plan is actually working. Nice one, sir.]
At the moment that the explosion occurred, there was also the sound of explosion not too far away from the plasma screen monitor’s speakers. It did not escape Cortana’s detection.
[Boss, I think we’re pretty close to them.]
Siva delightedly smiled.
……then he made for another round of acting.
“Gaaaaahhh… this is all your fault! I’ve already had enough of this damn ship! I just want to get out of here! And you’re still trying to trick me!”
Siva darted towards the new hole.
“!@&#$%”
—you’ve harvested my minions and now you want to get out just like that?!!
The ‘Captain’ was totally enraged, stupefied, and utterly dumbfounded by the thickness of the skin of this bastard.
The Prince is dead.
His Majesty, The Emperor is offline.
The rest of the Supremes are also tied up a few kilometers away from Siva’s location. Even if they release their [Limiters], with the winding path and corridors in the ship, along with the damage and the fact that they have to be careful not to damage the ship any further, the time limit of their released state wouldn’t make it in time to deal with Siva.
Not to mention, fighting Siva would have to take its time as well.
If they were outside Terroa, in outer space, then they could go all out and even kill this ‘Siva’ with a flick of a finger. Just one of the Supremes would have been enough to do the job.
And so, right now, to prevent the ship from being destroyed even further, the ‘Captain’ was left with no choice but to lower his tentacles and ‘trick’ Siva into helping him get out of the central area at the least.
But who would have known that Siva would really not believe them?
{STOP DESTROYING OUR DAMNED SHIP!!}
“Oh? But it’s just a few holes in the corridors!”
Logically, he was right. The total damage he gave the ship was insignificant when compared to the overall size of the ship.
But that wasn’t what concerned the ‘Captain’.
—he’s fairly close to the life support facility! I have to get him out of the central area!
If the Life Support Facility is damaged, then the atmosphere that prevented them from being pulled down by Terroa will crumble. When that happens, they would become weaker and when that happens inside this wretched planet, then they would die.
…slowly.
Definitely.
Actually, they aren’t afraid of dying themselves.
What they are afraid of is that His Majesty, their oh-so-great and almighty Emperor Baal, will be pulled down alongside them.
They can’t sully the dignity of the Fireflame Beasts.
The fall of their emperor in this wretched planet will unreservedly tarnish the reputation of the Burning Apocalypse Dominion —not to mention it will also impact the overall leadership of The Armada.
They can’t pull down the name of the empire with their deaths here by dragging along their Emperor.
As such, the ‘Captain’, the most senior staff officer next to the Supremes inside the ship, had to make the choice —and this was his choice… to lower his head and ‘persuade’ Siva to trust him so to get him out of the vicinity of the Life Support Facility.
{Look. If you go in deeper, there will be five other Supremes in there… and if you fight, you will die but that will also damage the ship. Do you want to die in this place? Honestly speaking, I don’t care if you die but if you ruin the ship while dying, that will not spell well either. That’s why I am helping you get THE FUCK out of our ship!}
Siva was struggling to stop himself from laughing.
His eyes were two crescent moons, he was biting his lips, and he was really at the verge of laughing out loudly if not for the fact that he needed to play this guy’s game a little bit further to get the right feel to go deeper inside.
“Then you are truly trying to get me to safety?”
{Yes. Yes! I am actually trying to save you!}
“Truly?”
{I promise. Cross my hearts.}
For some reason, their roles —in this invasion— are now reversed.
.
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So evil…
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Next chapter: The eye of the storm…