The amber-colored magic blade cut shallowly into the Slaver King’s arm.
Amber pushed into the cut to withdraw.
The king’s fist cracked the translucent faceplate of her conjured helmet.
He reached out and ripped it off her head.
Amber-colored shards vanished like melting snow before they hit the blood-slicked floor.
She stumbled back, slipping on the contents of a dead person’s gut.
The next punch cracked her conjured chestplate.
“Not bad. Decent look. Very magic knight-ish. ‘Amberknight’, right? Might need to up the creativity lessons for my marketing crew,” he said.
Amber found her footing and quickly stepped into a diagonal cut.
The Slaver King lazily raised an arm.
The amber blade winked out just as it would’ve struck. Only to suddenly reappear inside the Slaver King’s guard.
His eyes widened.
The blade sank into the side of his neck and upper chest.
“Got you, monster!” Amber spat.
Two hands on the hilt shook.
Ghostly hands emerged from the Slaver King’s bare torso to grasp her conjured blade.
She struggled to finish the draw cut.
Stolen souls wailed as they floated from his back and shoulders like a cape in the wind.
More emerged from his arms to hold Amber in place.
She couldn’t dismiss her sword. Couldn’t let go.
The Slaver King grabbed her hand and almost gently pried it off. He laid his other hand on her shoulder.
With a smile, he ripped her arm off as easily as pulling wings off a dragonfly.
He lashed out with a foot.
Unspeakable pain shot up her leg.
He drew his hand back, made a fist and struck.
The blow to cave her face in never landed.
A crackling claw of magical lightning met it.
Amber fell to the floor, blood gushing out of her shoulder and leg where bone had broken through skin and clothing.
Max’s vines dragged her back.
The Slaver King’s punch had blown out Jake’s magitech hand.
The follow up blew out several of his mana shield casting smartphones.
He looked up at the king’s mantle of souls and saw his death.
Worth it, he thought.
At least he bought Amber a chance.
The shadows at his feet moved.
He fell through as if into a pool of water.
So cold and dark.
He closed his eyes and when he opened them he was back with the rest of the Watch.
A tall, scarecrow-like shape emerged from the shadows behind the Slaver King.
Sharp nails on long fingers plunged into his back, through the ribs, filling his lungs with blood and reaching for his heart.
He tore away, swinging blindly.
Hard hits broke bone.
Bennett hissed, healing his arms by drawing on the blood.
“You’re not one of mine,” the Slaver King said.
Bennett fell back into a shadow.
He emerged behind the king.
A fist met him, crushing his chest.
“Predictable!”
He fell back once again.
The Slaver King turned, fist cocked.
Rats swarmed out of the shadow, biting and scratching as they flowed over him.
Ghostly shapes pushed through, healing the wounds.
A slaver mage turned from her duel with Blackstar to drench her king in liquid fire. A costly choice as a star-shaped blast crushed her chest.
The Slaver King emerged, charred and cracked once again.
He moved out of the flames healing with each step.
Every bit of stolen souls he expended was replaced by the steady stream that flew in through the walls.
Nothing they tried managed to stem the tide.
The ghostly forms simply went through physical barriers, magic shields and ignored Skills.
The king’s decree and their oaths superseded everything.
“Vampire? Where are you? More importantly, where are mine? Velvet, De La Sangre, Rebel? You swore allegiance. Ladies and lord, I demand you deal with this. He’s one of your own, after all.”
Wind rushed past him.
He turned finding himself face to face with—
“Welllll… she’s gone and he’s ash, somewhere over there.”
“Lady Rebel,” he narrowed his eyes. “You swore an oath and I’m calling on it. Kill my enemies until your dying breath.”
The vampire’s eyes flashed red as her face twisted, revealing sharp fangs.
She doubled over, shattering the hardwood floor with each furious punch.
“Don’t fight it, you stupid bitch! Just do what your told!” the Slaver King snapped.
Bennett appeared at his back, sharp nails digging into the sides of his neck, searching for the jugular veins.
He tore the fingers free, breaking them in the process.
Bennett spun him around, opened wide with a hiss and bit down on his neck.
Bennett didn’t drink blood directly from living humans. Not in this way. Not with violence and the desire to kill.
He drank deep.
It burned in his mouth and throat. The fire spread to his stomach.
He recoiled, body wracked by convulsions.
“My blood belongs to me. It won’t serve peasants like you,” the Slaver King laughed.
“Don’t drink your blood, noted,” Rebel tapped his shoulder.
He turned and ate an uppercut that sent him to the ceiling.
“Listen, king,” she smirked as he hung in the air for an instant, “I named myself ‘Rebel’ for a reason, you moron. Never bought into the whole authority thing. I was an anarchist before and I was just waiting for the time I could shove it into your face.”
Gravity reasserted its grip.
Rebel met the Slaver King halfway up with a knee to the face.
She grabbed him by the hair and spun him down to the ground.
Heavy boots stomped on his chest, breaking bone.
“Stop healing, fucker!” Small fists pounded his face like jackhammers. Rebel had potent strength, well-beyond her slim, slight stature.
He tried to grab her, but celeritous movement made her a blur even to him.
She hit him a hundred times as she blurred around him.
Until, the blood ran out.
She slowed.
He caught her with a crushing backhand that sent her flying across the entire length of the cavernous dining hall and through the wall.
He processed the scene for what felt like the first time since the fight began.
“Am I fighting by myself!” he roared.
He had felt his fists die. All that work building them up only to lose them in a few minutes of battle.
His forces in the hall had been all but wiped out.
The nobles that hadn’t been killed had fled with their household guards.
The Gold Division fighters he had secured allegiance from at great cost had proved weaker than the ones that had the gall to turn him down.
Even the clowns were dead.
He bent down and pulled a silver-coated battle axe from the fat clown’s forehead.
‘Useless,” he crumpled the axe and kicked the clown’s bloated corpse toward the one that had started this debacle. She shredded it into a fine mist without even raising that strange, dull gray sword. “If you had only had the decency to accept your place, Hanabi. All this blood is on your hands.”
She regarded him without word.
“I am the King and you attacked me in the heart of my kingdom.”
“Man, shut the fuck up! I’m getting tired of listening to you sucking yourself off. I can smell the dick on your breath from all the way over here.”
He regarded the speaker.
A brawny woman in plain, well-worn armor, wielding a battered-looking assault rifle.
“Who are you?” he didn’t recognize her.
“That don’t matter, fucksuck. All that matters is you’re about to get your shit pushed in so far up your ass that you’ll taste it. Won’t make a difference to the dick scent on your breathe though. Just turn it into shitdick stink. Kinda like your starfish-looking face with that taint-looking thing under your nose.”
“You’ll die last. Not because I care, but because I’ll forget about you the moment I’m not looking at your ugly face.”
“Yeah? You ball-less, no dicked slaver. Well, I care,” she sniffled.
“Are you going to cry? What the fuck is this? Who did you come with?” he eyed the rest of them. For some reason they were content to let the woman speak and not attack. Foolish, they were only giving him time to rest and draw in more of the tithe. The protocols had been one of the few things that had gone right.
Sure enough, the woman’s eyes watered.
“This is just embarrassing,” he smirked. “Women. The spires finally made you useful in a fight, yet you still can’t control your emotions. Are you going to do a crying rage thing?”
“Not rage… grief. You killed my rangers, Timber, Cherry Chapstick, Bootleg Jesus—”
“You’re a ranger? You know you guys pick the dumbest codenames.”
“- killed many others. Maimed more. Kids. They were kids. Except for Neckbeard, he was old, but he tried… and now he’s gone. Another name I’m going to carve into the wall. You. Killed. Them.”
“I don’t remember asking you to attack my kingdom.”
She raised her assault rifle.
He smirked, spreading his arms to bare his chest.
“I want you to feel the Weight of My Grief.”
The burst sounded like the mother of all bombs going off.
The bullets hit him harder than anything he had ever felt before.
Not even the demon had struck him a heavier blow.
The barrel of Mouthy’s gun had split open. She cast it aside and hefted a flanged mace. “Well?” she regarded the others. “I ain’t gonna fucking do everything.”
----------------------------------------
Lord Stuart marched back up the path toward the dining hall.
Twelve of his best guards moved in a circle around him.
He was a rarity among the nobility in that he didn’t utilize collared fighters in his guard.
His aura boosted their bravery, coordination and desire to die to protect him while strongly encouraging most of the fighting men and monsters to steer clear.
Not much time had passed since the king had started his ill-thought out stunt.
Less than half an hour and in that time the estate grounds had been littered with the bodies of the dead and dying.
The toll had to be well into the thousands even if one didn’t count the collared monsters.
Something he had no idea the king had already accomplished.
His information had suggested that monster collars were still in the planning phase of their development.
The problem in swearing oaths had been the way they crippled his ability to push back as the king deemed such behavior disloyal.
Still, Lord Stuart was a rational man that made decisions along the optimal paths to his success.
The spires had rewarded him with the Skills to make that a reality.
As such, as soon as the chained prisoners rose up from the circular platform he was already ushering his family out of the dining hall.
They had reached the exit when all hell had broken loose.
Once again he had picked the path that put him ahead.
He had gathered his guards and brought his family to the parking lot.
Two paths had presented them to him at that moment.
One was to go back to his mansion and prepare to weather the storm to come.
The other was to return and defend the king.
It was hard to say what ultimately pushed him to take the latter path.
Perhaps the oaths?
Perhaps the optimal path was to risk his own safety in the immediate term to avoid a greater danger in the long term.
After all, he would’ve lost much of the king’s favor had he failed to lift a hand in the man’s defense.
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So, he split his guard.
Half went with his family, half stayed with him.
He was confident that the heavily armored convoy would make it back to their estate with little trouble. After all, they had gotten a head start on the rest of the screaming people.
Thoughts of his family invariably led him to his recently murdered son.
It pained him to acknowledge that Jeb’s death had been a net positive.
The boy added nothing to the house while taking a toll from their wealth and reputation through his constant partying.
He had never believed that Lord Reagan had been responsible despite the evidence.
Evidence that had been so obviously planted.
The murder of his head accountant had been a true blow.
He realized that he had missed it somehow despite all of his analytical Skills.
The unsolved murders in the months before the Freedom Championships. The strange behavior of certain nobles. Odd movements.
It had all led up to this night.
This chaos.
It was like a veil lifted from his eyes.
Connections that had been staring him in the face suddenly fell into place and made sense.
This was enemy action.
They were striking through that which lifted the New American Republic on its meteoric rise to strength and prosperity.
“We fight to save our nation. The king must not die.”
His guard gave silent acknowledgment.
The fighting in the great hall had dwindled in number, if not in ferocity.
The king was down to his last handful of loyal fighters.
A small group of gladiators crouch amidst the mounds of ruined furniture and dead bodies.
The stench hit Lord Stuart like a punch to the face.
He hadn’t fought a true battle in a long time.
The reminder wasn’t pleasant.
They arrived just in time to hear the end of the world heralded by a three round burst louder than any bomb.
The last remaining windows shattered as the floor rumbled underneath their boots.
The king made a furrow over a hundred feet long across the floor.
Lord Stuart suppressed a wince.
The cost—
The king rose to his feet, broken and bloodied but healing.
The lord’s eyes widened.
Ghostly forms seemed to trail out of the king’s back like a cape in the wind.
“What—” he shook his head. Now was not the time to lose focus.
He spied the closest threat.
One of the Gold Division fighters.
The blue-clad woman stood in a circle of arctic cold.
Frozen statues stood in their death throes like silent sentinels around her.
“Thoughts?”
“My lord,” his guard captain nodded. “She appears to be weakening. Long minutes of fierce battle drains mana quickly. You’ll note that her area of effect appears to have shrank.”
True enough. Beyond the twenty foot radius was an area filled with partially frozen bodies. They were in the process of thawing, leaving partially broken limbs littering the sodden floor with red slush and water.
“I recommend fire spells at range followed by a quick rush to prevent her and the others from retaliating. We have to be careful to avoid drawing attention since we are at a level disadvantage. Excepting you, of course, my lord.”
“Let’s do it, but why don’t we shrink the difference.”
He beckoned the gladiators over.
Four of them, including the king’s new champion, Malcolm.
An analytical eye regarded their bloody, nicked weapons, damaged armor and bandaged wounds.
They had remained loyal.
It wasn’t a certainty to take for granted with these sorts.
He knew that Malcolm had a family and it didn’t take a long leap to understand the leverage that provided over him.
His guard captain explained the plan.
The gladiators agreed with terse nods.
His guard moved forward in formation.
He followed with a few more guards to watch his back.
The gladiators moved loosely with them.
The blue-clad woman saw them approaching and thrust a wave of bitter cold which was met by two of his mages’ flames.
Steam obscured both sides’ vision.
Advantageous.
The blue-clad woman wasn’t a mobile fighter from what he remembered of her work in the championships.
“Sand Spray,” his mage coated the frozen floor.
They charged past bloody faces frozen in twisted agony.
Magic flames filled the air.
The steamy mist thickened.
Vision dropped to near zero.
He focused on his command aura to ensure that there would be no friendly fire.
A woman screamed.
He knew that one of his guards had just been flash frozen.
Another guard was too slow to avoid running into her body causing it to shatter into a dozen pieces.
He drew pistol and rapier.
His guard captain made contact.
Taking a blast of freezing cold on his shield with a Skill.
Guards opened fire.
The blue-clad woman sapped the bullets of momentum inches from impact.
He drew closer.
Three guards formed a wedge in front of him.
For a moment he was back in college about to run a kick-off back to the opposing team’s end zone.
Except this time he wasn’t carrying a football.
The wedge fell away.
Frozen.
The blue-clad woman stared at him with wide eyes from less than a half dozen feet away.
He pulsed his aura, forcing her to hesitate.
“Heat Blade,” one of his mages said.
His rapier glowed with red hot magical light.
“Body Barrier,” another said.
The blue-clad woman snarled. Her aura pulsed back.
His rapier sizzled as he lunged into a thrust.
The barrier shattered into a thousand flickering shards.
“I Suffer For My Lord,” his guard captain’s sacrifice meant that he had been spared even the slightest pain.
The blue-clad woman tried to slap the blade aside. She hissed as her cold skin cooked on contact.
The blade struck, but not where he had intended.
Instead of in the woman’s cold heart, it pierced lower.
Red bubbled on her lips.
It was striking against her pale skin.
He pointed his pistol at her head and squeezed the trigger.
The cold dissipated as her body fell to the floor with a dull thud.
The steamy mists cleared quickly as if with magic.
“Tisi!” a red-clad woman roared.
A pillar of flame erupted around him, but Lord Stuart remained unharmed. He jumped back quickly. Hopefully it was enough—
He glanced over to where he knew his guard captain stood.
The man was a charred statue.
“Find cover! Gladiators! We need urrkk…”
A cold caress moved lightly against his throat.
It turned wet and hot a moment later.
“Lord!”
Spells crisscrossed before his eyes.
He staggered.
All strength suddenly leaving.
His guards tried to close around him, but the gladiators had placed themselves in their formation.
The fighting was fierce and frantic.
The Furies struck indiscriminately to avenge their fallen.
Somehow, Lord Stuart held his concentration together while trying to hold his slit throat.
Arms dragged him back toward the way they had come.
Bodies threw themselves in front of him.
The Soul Netter’s net descended over them, but Lord Stuart wouldn’t let it sap their wills.
Caught off-guard by his failure, the Soul Netter fell to multiple stabbing blades.
Thousand Cuts shredded the guards with a flurry of strikes, bladed fists flew with fury too fast to count with the normal human eye.
Meanwhile, Malcolm stared at the retreating lord with a bloody knife in hand. He seemed to come to a decision. “Lord Stuart, I Challenge You.”
The words pulled, but weakly.
They weren’t in the arena and he was a lord, not a mere gladiator.
The Gladiator’s Challenge was easily ignored.
Malcolm cursed and gave chase only to skid to a halt.
The king had landed between them.
“You too, Malcolm? Haven’t I been good to you guys?” the king said.
“You call holding my family’s safety over my head ‘good’?” Malcolm said.
“And they were safe. Untouched so long as you did what you were told like a good boy. That’s over now. As for the rest of you—” he eyed Soul Netter’s corpse, “he’s a lost cause, but if you return to my service then I will only punish you lightly.”
“You can’t touch my family anymore.”
“Shut up! Think, Malcolm! You’re just going to end up like your predecessor.”
“Alexandria was the only one of us in this damn place that did the right thing.”
“I only went along with you slavery weirdos cause I didn’t have any better options,” Thousand Cuts shrugged. “Malcolm brought us a better one.”
“A real chance for freedom is worth death,” the Broken said.
“Then let me give you what you want.”
The king struck.
The Broken took the blow, trading damage for strength.
Her battered chestplate shattered as did her ribs, but she returned a strike with her hammer that caved the side of the king’s head in like a watermelon.
Lord Stuart didn’t see the rest as what was left of his best guards dragged him out while the rest of the enemy raced across the dining hall to join the fray.
His healer mage had stemmed the bleeding by the time they had found a car to take back to the estate.
The lord was content to obey his king.
After all, he had demonstrated his willingness to die for the king and had materially affected the fight by removing a dangerous Gold Division fighter from the field.
The streets were awash in combat.
Figures darted in and out of the SUV’s lights.
Some weren’t human.
Rocks and other projectiles peppered the armored vehicle.
Fires lit up the darkness through the curtain of heavy rain.
Some mansions burned along with the nobles inside them.
The street leading up to his estate was relatively quiet.
Unlike the vast majority of the nobility, he had built a true wall to protect his home and family.
Ten feet tall with enough space for his guards to fight from above.
A handful of armored guard towers stood even higher.
All possible avenues of attack had been covered.
His investment had been wise judging by the dead bodies they had to drive over.
The gates opened with a groan as armed guards covered them until they drove through.
They drove all the way to the enormous garage.
“They haven’t arrived yet,” he rasped.
Concern bubbled in his gut.
“No, my lord,” his chief of staff said. “We haven’t received any word.”
The old man had a bloody bandage around his head.
“Report.”
“I don’t know what to say. Though, with your arrival and… er… state, I imagine you know more than I. But, to keep it succinct. The collars failed and the essential workers revolted. I’m happy to say that your protocols minimized the damage. The guards acted swiftly and professionally. We suffered no losses. The essential workers are currently contained in their quarters under chains and guard. As for the defense from the monsters and others, the officer in charge would have the best information.”
“Very good…” he fought the urge to scratch the scabbed wound on his neck. “Establish contact with the convoy and assemble a strike team. If they’re in trouble I want us ready to get them right now.”
“Right away, my lord,” the healer mage said.
He realized that she was the next highest ranking guard currently with him.
“Five minutes. I want things ready. We’ll meet in my office in five to go over details.”
“My lord. Did the king really disable our protections?” his chief of staff said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We’ll cover that in the meeting.”
Things had changed.
Even if the king triumphed hard questions would have to be asked.
The downside to being solely dependent on one man for safety and prosperity was kicking them in the stomach.
There had to be a King.
One way or another.
Lord Stuart made for his office.
He had cleaned the blood off and changed into a clean set of clothing and armor. He had picked up a new rapier from his closet and reloaded his pistol.
So armed he headed straight for his main office.
Five minutes on the dot.
A tingle tickled the back of his neck.
He suddenly realized that it was dark.
“When had the lights…”
He glanced out the hallway window.
The rain poured in sheets.
Those flashes of red lightning lent an eerie tinge to the shadows, making them seem to dance.
He flipped the light switch… nothing.
He touched the small emerald set into the leather bracelet around his wrist.
“Nightvision.”
The spell turned black into shades of gray.
His boots echoed against the hardwood.
Silence pervaded.
It was as though the mansion had emptied.
He knew better than to call out.
Drawing his rapier and pistol, he activated his Skills.
Nothing.
He couldn’t find a connection to a single guard.
Remaining alone in the dark wasn’t the optimal move.
He needed his subordinates to utilize his class to its fullest.
One way forward. One way back.
He chose the former expecting to find his people waiting for him in his main office.
For some reason he didn’t think to use his phone, nor did he question the silence.
Rationally speaking, guards and staff should’ve been shining lights and making noise to investigate the sudden darkness.
Protocols weren’t being followed.
The door to his main office was slightly ajar.
He pushed it open with the tip of his rapier.
Gray tones filled his vision.
The large round table sat in the middle of the room.
Four of the chairs looked occupied.
No one turned their heads toward him.
He swept the room quickly.
Nothing in sight, nor sound.
A Skill came up empty.
“Stand.”
His commanding aura was ignored.
Lightning flashed red through the windows.
They sat in straight-backed chairs.
The young officer in charge of the defenses, the chief of staff, the healer mage temporarily in command of his protection detail and one other sat motionless, hands on the table where a map of the city had been spread out.
He approached cautiously and tapped his chief of staff on the shoulder with his rapier.
The man’s head rolled down to his lap.
Lord Stuart cursed, instinctively putting his back to the closest wall.
“Are you on my list?” a voice giggled in his ear.
He spun and fired at the glimpse of too-white teeth smiling out of a dark shadow.
The mirror shattered.
The smiling shadow remained.
He spun—
Nothing.
Just his round table and three motionless bodies seated around.
The shadows came alive, writhing in the gray tones of his nightvision.
Red slowly seeped into his eyes.
It started with the front of his dead subordinates.
From their necks down to their laps, cool gray became warm red.
He focused on his class, calling for assistance through a lordly Skill.
“No one left to hear you,” the voice echoed from somewhere out in the hallway.
The murderer must’ve been using Skills of his own to counter.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Lord Stuart projected his voice. “I’ll pay you more than whatever it is you’re being paid now.”
Silence.
Movement out of the corner of his eye.
The broken mirror displayed the smiling shadow.
Except there was nothing in the room.
Just three bodies seated around the table—
Hadn’t it been four?
He couldn’t trust his memory.
There were four.
He had marked the other three. Knew where they sat.
He forced himself to breathe steadily.
Lunging Thrust.
The Skill carried him across the distance to pierce the tip of his rapier into the— empty seat.
Giggling.
The mirror!
Empty.
Blood red shadows pressed in from the edges of his vision.
Nightvision was still active.
How? Why?
“Lords and Ladies, so disappointing. So weak without their little soldiers to hide behind.”
That was the general rule.
Lord Stuart acknowledge it, which was why he had trained hard to improve upon the martial class he had started out with.
“Too much training, not enough experience.”
He dismissed the smiling shadow in the broken mirror, turning his back to it.
Small, strong hands struck his and knocked his weapons to the floor.
A kick to the back of his knee forced him to kneel.
Hands gripped his head.
“You were the hardest out of all the nobles on the list.”
A thin blade slipped into his ear.
Lord Stuart’s last thought was of hope. The hope that his murderer was satisfied with his life. That she wouldn’t still be here when his family returned.
The Slasher watched the lord’s body cool.
The sum was greater than its parts.
Individual nobles had been easy to kill, but the total difficulty of the Quest had made the night’s work worth it.
Only a few more left to take.
Then it was time to wait and see which why the spilled blood ran.
If Cruces won then it was back into her cage until he needed to use her talents once again.
If Cruces lost then… freedom?
She shrugged.
Either prospect worked for her.
She activated a Skill and set out after another name on her list.
Slasher’s Stride meant that she didn’t have to wait long to wet her blade, which was good because blood dried quickly.