Cypher entered the vault room to find only one man sitting shirtless on a wooden chair. A long Zweihander rested against his shoulder and a cigarette hung from his lips as he smiled up at Cypher. The giant sword longer than Cypher's body glimmered in the light of the fading Wards around the vault and the man exhaled smoke as Cypher stared him down.
"Well, I suppose a heavy hitter had to come sooner or later," began the man as he took another drag from his cigarette. "I told those guys that this would happen eventually, but none of them wanted to listen to me. Why they made me the leader of this merry band of dumbasses I'll never know. Still, things were going smoothly up until you showed up. I guess they paid for their stupidity with their lives. Relying on rogue wizards like that was a mistake from the beginning." The man shook his head lazily and took a long drag off his cigarette.
Cypher had pulled a new Saber from his dimensional pocket before he had dashed into this room. However, the calm man he found waiting here confused him. He had expected there to be a few more Conductors in this room. But after scanning it with his mental energy, he could only deduce that he had overestimated them.
"Yeah, I suppose they did," answered Cypher as he cautiously stepped forward. The man was easily in the fourth Rank of the body, but his Orrium and mind only lingered in the first stages of the second rank. Despite that, he still had to be careful. His armor had gained a nice boost from the spells in the hallway, but it still wasn't as empowered as it had been against Gaizeal.
"I'm Gastor. If you somehow missed it earlier, I'm the leader of these guys. Well…” he peeked around Cypher in an attempt to see the bodies in the hallway, “Not them but this movement in general. I have to say I'm impressed you managed to kill all of them so easily. I half expected you to come in here all bloodied and bruised but I suppose I'll have to fight you as you are. Wizards or not, they were still just common bandits in the end. Augh… that's a real bummer man. Still, I can't just let you come in here and ruin everything."
The man shifted the heavy burden of his Zweihander to the other shoulder and took another drag off his cigarette before rolling his neck calmly. "You've really thrown a wrench into our plans here, but I am going to claim the contents of this vault one way or another."
"I don't think so," replied Cypher as he gripped his weapons harder.
"No see, this is the part where you turn around and leave. Don't make this more of a hassle than it has to be dude. I really don't wanna have to deal with this right now. You've already killed those guys, isn’t that enough for you? Check it, I'll even cut you a deal. Leave now and I'll share a few of the spoils with you. Eh? Eh? Not a bad deal for just turning and walking away right?" continued Gastor.
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Cypher shook his head. "Look I've already told Lord Fayaldin that I'd return his property to him. I made an agreement and I don't break my promises so willy nilly. Instead, how about you just leave and you can keep on living your life? If you ask me, that's the better deal. I just wiped the floor with 10 of your strongest Conductors. Do you really think you stand a chance?"
"Oho! Confident are we? Hmm, that offer of yours is quite tempting but I really can't afford to leave empty-handed. Also, Conductors? You must be from Dellorim. Yikes, you Dellorites and your honor system. Why can't you just chill and let things go? It isn't hard to just switch sides you know. You're a Wizard... err, Conductor. The rules don't really apply to you like they do to normal humans. Why not take advantage of it?"
Cypher chuckled grimly and sighed, "I don't have time for this. Gastor was it? Well, I've said my piece and you've said yours. Now either leave or let's get down to business. I have things to do you know."
Gastor sighed and took a final drag from his cigarette before standing up and stomping it out. "Ugh, fine I guess. Looks like I'm going to have to teach you a lesson about listening to your elders." His Zewihander slammed against the ground and dug deeply into the stone tiles.
"Prepare yourself!" said Gastor. With that, he dashed forward faster than Cypher could see and swung his mighty blade down at his head. Cypher barely had time to move out of the way before the massive blade crashed into the ground where he had just been standing.
Gastor then bashed him with his elbow sending him flying into the wall and crashing to the ground. Cypher rolled to his feet and scanned the room for the powerful man. He was nowhere to be seen. Cypher moved around the room carefully, his eyes darting around quickly scanning every inch he could see. A motion above him caught his attention, and he looked up to see Gastor swinging his blade down on his head again.
Cypher raised his sabers to block. He converted some of his Zight into physical energy for extra strength and bolstered his arms and legs with armor from his breastplate. Even still, the blow forced him down to one knee and shattered the blades of his throwaway sabers leaving only cracked hilts to fend off the heavy sword of his opponent. Cypher dashed back and tossed aside the destroyed hilts.
They had been decent weapons but only held weak enchantments for durability. Cypher pulled out his father's Saber shortly after that. This was no time to be frugal with his resources. Gastor was insanely fast despite wielding such a heavy weapon. Even now he had already vanished from sight and Cypher wondered how he was able to move so quickly. Granted he had a Rank-Four body but even still, that surely had its limits.
To move so quickly with such weight had to use up a lot of physical energy. Cypher could only guess that the blade itself had some kind of energy reserve enchanted into it. With only the Zight in his Orrium, Cypher knew that Gastor shouldn't be able to keep this up forever. In fact, he should have already used up the energy in his Orrium if he was in fact converting it. Gastor had been moving at high speed non-stop since he began attacking.
"You're really impressive. It's no wonder you were able to get here unharmed," said Gastor from somewhere in the room. "That armor of yours is quite impressive as well, but I hope you have more weapons to waste because I'm going to keep breaking them!"
His voice was distorted as he moved around at high speed and seemed to come from all directions. Cypher stood cautiously and moved in slow deliberate circles as he kept an eye open for the next attack.