The fights, numerous as they were, would not end quickly, to the ire of Gilgamesh, as her enemies were all resourceful and powerful in their own right.

Which was her own fault given that her facilities created all of them, both enemies and allies, and the only one unaffected was Jaeger.

Then again, he had lived inside her property (Tartarus) and was even born inside, to her that just meant he was her property in the same way a farmer could own chickens and their eggs at the same time.

He didn’t understand that at first, and so she threatened him into obeying her.

Satyr, watching everything, did not know this background.

“Damn, we’re in some deep shit.” Satyr said, his calm nature hiding his worry for the friends he had made over the past few months as he looked over the five battles happening simultaneously.

Charon and Manticore versus Leviathan

There was Jormungand, Baal and Echidna versus Behemoth.

Then it was Sphinx, Nemea and Medusa versus Lu Bu.

Also happening was Typhon versus Jaeger.

And for the final fight it was Aaron, Empusa and Cyclops versus Gilgamesh, arguably the most one-sided battle occurring.

Lu Bu certainly looked like he was being forced out of the stadium, but anyone who looked closer than a cursory glance would see that Lu Bu was moving willingly.

His attacks were lethal, and so were the attacks of his three opponents, but beyond that, their movements were simultaneous to get out of Gilgamesh’s view.

To Satyr, all that said was that Lu Bu was a possible ally, which wasn’t a definite thing though.

Then for Typhon versus Jaeger, that fight was odd in Satyr’s eyes, given that he had seen them fight before, in such a quick battle that he could barely believe that it was that powerful Typhon who was defeated so quickly.

This fight was going on longer, though Satyr was certain that it wasn’t for the same reason as Lu Bu, Jaeger was not on their side for certain.

If there was a definite reason as to why the fight was suddenly lasting so long compared to their previous fights, it was likely because of Typhon.

Unlike their previous fights, Typhon was not caught off guard, and he was properly planning out his moves. Satyr caught a mistake or two, but he’d be free to explain them to Typhon later.

Using Aaron of course… Typhon disliked advice from his fellow Chained because he felt that he was their ‘king’ due to his title… stupidity, but it was a habit by now and Satyr understood his distaste was not on purpose but by reflex.

Typhon didn’t know it, and no one would tell him, but more than half of the advice he got about fighting came from the other members of the Key and not Aaron.

“Those Nano-bots could be the most versatile weapon in existence…” Satyr complained, with reason of course.

Aaron had Nano-bots, but could only make simple shapes due to being new to using his own. He trained, and was advancing faster than Typhon in their use, but his Nano-bots were less in number than Typhon and so he’d always be more limited.

Really, Typhon’s only limit with his Nano-bots was his imagination and his amount, and at this point it was clear that the latter was where his advantage lies.

Then for the Behemoth fight, Behemoth was basically a large Typhon physically. This would actually be a problem given Typhon’s physical ability, but Jormungand was not alone…

Echidna, like her brother, had something that just made her plain better than other Chained of the same type, and in her case, it wasn’t readily obvious.

Energy was her advantage. Compared to all other Cyber Chained, her stamina was much higher, she was also physically more powerful than her fellow Cyber Chained too.

In fact, as far as Satyr knew, Baal was the first Cyber Chained to ever be physically stronger than Echidna.

Echidna used this large reserve of energy and her physical strength to increase the power of her blades and use them to traverse, block, attack, and the best part of all was that she had twelve blades, six on each side of her spine.

By combining four together, she could actually fire off lasers momentarily, like some sort of Anime character.

Obviously with every blessing a suitable curse follows, and in this case she couldn’t use that thing often, as each time she did her blades would become sluggish and she’d be lethargic for a few seconds.

A few seconds was a life-time in a fight with your life on the line, and it was why she never launched two lasers at once, only using one every five minutes.

“That’s a damn long time to be fighting…” Satyr considered, looking back to the worst matchup, knowing that Echidna was already evening things with Jormungand, including Baal guaranteed that fight.

The problem was Aaron’s trio versus Gilgamesh, because Gilgamesh was the most dangerous out of the five people on her side.

This was because her attacks, those beams of light, were monomolecular blades. Satyr did not actually know that term though… his mind just referred to them as ‘damn sharp’ and that was enough.

The only reason those three were even surviving was because Cyclops and Empusa were using Aaron as a shield because he could, through some miracle, block solid light made blades.

Satyr nodded as he saw those fights… then he looked to the distance and frowned…

Everyone had evacuated when the fights started, meaning that the only peoples around for about a four or so kilometre radius would be the members of the Key and Gilgamesh’s followers.

So why didn’t he see Minotaur’s group… there, a car… being chased by three giant metallic dogs and a giant robot.

“Well… fuck.” That summed up Satyr’s thoughts very nicely.

He was so glad he sneaked off to get a surveying spot for the area when Typhon’s group were approaching the stadium grounds. It let him see a lot.

So he had to decide who to help based on what he was seeing…

He’d go help out Mino’s group.

The other fights were okay in his eyes… with the exception of Aaron’s fight, but Satyr would be a liability there given that Aaron was already struggling to protect Empusa and Cyclops.

The only fight which had suspiciously little activity was Leviathan’s fight, and that seemed to be because he was talking with Manticore and Charon before they started.

With that observation complete, Satyr began to climb down the stadium as quickly as possible to go help out his friends.

With Leviathan, Manticore and Charon, the three were glancing at each other with anticipation, though Manticore and Charon were on the same side.

“Well, isn’t this a nice little reunion… last I recall you ran shit scared away from me, Chimera.” Leviathan said with a grin towards Manticore who frowned.

“Um, I was misnamed; my name should have actually been Manticore.” Manticore and his complaint were ignored, given that Leviathan already knew this information due to Jaeger.

“And you, old Charon, the guy who paddles the boat to hell. I figured you’d join the winning side.” Leviathan’s words clearly indicated which side he thought would win, given whose side he was on and his own mercenary mind-set.

“Honestly I would join you all, but you can’t offer me what I want so I decided to just make my side win.” Charon’s statement was said while fixing his glasses and having his oar at the ready.

He had gotten Synchronized by Echidna in the time between joining the Key and now, so his ability to utilize his abilities as a Chained had increased.

And for Charon, that equated to using his Oar slightly better, and consuming less liquid nitrogen in his ability based attacks, where before there would be wastage, now Charon could freeze anything he grabbed with pinpoint accuracy instead of freezing more than what he wanted to.

“Huh… I think I get it, you want freedom huh?” Leviathan asked with a raised eyebrow as he raised his fake left arm to his head and scratched slightly.

“Can’t say I don’t understand it, but I’m not so sure how we Chained would do on the outside. I’d rather stay here as a king.” Leviathan’s words were spoken with arrogance.

“You are no king Leviathan, just a tool for the use of a tyrant.” Manticore’s statement got a glare from Leviathan, who reached to his side, pulling out a small metallic container… a thermos?

“Right… what you just said? It pissed me off.” Manticore opened his mouth and focused on a strange feeling…

When he was a lion-thing he found it much easier to do, due to the size of his mouth, as well as differing organs…

Basically, he had an organ sac just behind his heart, which contained a natural forming flammable gas. By ‘belching’ he could force the gas out, it would exit from his mouth.

And it ignites when sunlight hit it for three seconds, something Aaron estimated to happen due to the unique properties of UV light.

There wasn’t any light inside Manticore, hence why he didn’t currently have a fireball sitting inside his body.

The fireball left, the gas heavy enough to be visible as it ignited, moving forward on the momentum…

Leviathan was not surprised, having known that Manticore could vomit fireballs before, as he opened the thermos, allowing a metallic smell to waft out before a red liquid flowed out of it…

Blood, the ability of Leviathan… it made him amongst the most dangerous Chained in Tartarus on the virtue of him being able to control the insides of a person if he could get the blood he controlled inside them.

The blood was quick to form into a sphere around the fireball, covering the gas and protecting it from both the light and preventing it from taking in oxygen to continue breathing, killing it after it caused the bubble of blood to boil slightly.

“Now you two… don’t die too easily. I’ll get bored if you do.” Leviathan snarled as the bubble suddenly split into tiny globules, firing towards Manticore and Charon who split up, making Leviathan curse.

Leviathan had more control over blood when he used less of it, but he wasn’t capable of focusing on two things at once with accuracy.

He was a Chained, but he had little practice with his new abilities in this avenue, and immediately realized that he would be training that next.

He decided to focus on Charon because Charon was the more dangerous of the two when it came to fighting Leviathan… not to mention that Charon was an assassin.

Not taking note of his actions was a sure way to get killed… sure, Manticore was a part of the Assassin’s Guild, but he wasn’t really one, he was more of a guard for the real assassins of the group.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Leviathan focused his attacks on Charon, who narrowed his eyes at the red needle-like pieces of blood flying at him, swinging his Oar with the wide side to use it as both a fan and shield, making Leviathan click his tongue.

It wasn’t often used, but external factors did affect the blood he controlled, such as water diluting the blood and making it harder to control.

The air pressure from the swing didn’t stop the blood needles but they did make them waver in their precision, giving Charon enough space to dodge, had he not, he would have found new breathing holes in his body.

Manticore tried to take advantage of the moment, allowing his scorpion tail to extend, it was much thinner than it was before Typhon helped him, and Manticore even used his tail as makeshift belt at times if the pants had loops big enough for that.

Leviathan saw the tail coming and was quick to draw the blood back, creating the swirling pressure shield that he had used against Jaeger… and luckily for Leviathan, Manticore had never witnessed the shield.

Manticore was worried about the shield and clearly was suspicious, but he had invested in the attack already…

And the moment his tail connected with the shield, Manticore realized that his suspicion was correctly placed, given that he was just given a full body whiplash before he was flicked to the side from the internal rotation of the water.

Leviathan was actually impressed here, as begrudging as it was, if a normal human being had any piece of them inside that shield they would have probably found their skin grinded away and then their bones shredded.

Manticore instead had to deal with cracks on his tail and a pain in his ankle from his foot twisting while being knocked away.

“Careful of that shield, it’s like a water cutter in there!” Manticore warned his ex-boss and Charon didn’t show any sign of having heard the warning, but he notably only attacked the shield with the solid light part of the Oar.

That bit surprised Leviathan. He had known about Charon and his solid light Oar for years, but until meeting Gilgamesh he had been unaware of how… crippled, Charon was in comparison.

Gilgamesh’s armour created the blades, they were practically lasers with how they acted, and she could create huge ones if given a second to prepare, though she could shoot off ones larger than ten metres with barely a thought.

Charon, on the other hand, could only make his Oar blade and was incapable of changing it beyond a certain limit.

It was similar to how Typhon had greater ability with his Nano-bots in comparison to Lu Bu who needed a controlling system in his weapon.

Originally Leviathan had just considered it an unstoppable blade, a godsend to an assassin who specialized in killing in one blow.

Now he knew the full power of said blade and Charon became subpar in the eyes of Leviathan.

The result of Charon’s attack was that the blade could cut through the shield, it ended up slightly freezing the blood which made Leviathan pull it further back, having the orb of blood float next to him, expanding the blood to somehow heat up the colder blood.

“This sucks.” Leviathan ran his false hand through his hair, once more getting angrier at the synthetic feel of the prosthetic.

“Killing you two is supposed to be easy… I don’t like putting in effort…” Leviathan said with a sigh as he reached to his legs. Doing so, he pulled out three more canisters like the first, opening them and resulting in four blood orbs floating around.

“Maybe if I kill you two the boss will let me have more privileges… maybe I’ll even get some real weapons.” Leviathan notably had no weapons on his person beyond his blood.

This was not because he did not know how to use the weapons given his previous career as a mercenary for hire.

Gilgamesh simply didn’t trust him with weaponry like she trusted Jaeger, and told him that giving him blood was already the equivalent of fitting him with an armoury.

She was right, but he wasn’t going to be admitting that any time soon… besides, he was still good with weapons, given the chance. As it was, Leviathan was still figuring out his new fighting style, now that his body was smaller, and his control over blood better.

“Hey, let me practice on you two a bit before I end up without a punching bag.” Charon’s blank stare gained a hint of steel as he twirled his oar preparing for battle as Manticore cursed his own lack of weapons.

While this was happening, Mino, Solomon, Cerberus and the triplets were wondering where they went wrong in life to be attacked by giant robotic dogs and a man so dull he might as well be a butter-knife.

“Shouldn’t we get out of the car?” Drei, usually the calmer one of the triplets, shouted in question as Mino took a surprisingly good corner onto the larger road heading near the stadium.

“If you can get out of this car at this speed without getting mauled by those things, be my guest!” Mino responded as he looked to Cerberus, who was deep in thought.

By technicality, Mino was the stronger between the two, but Cerberus wasn’t an attacker in the first place, he was a bodyguard, a defender.

And they were currently being attacked. This was prime positioning for Cerberus and his planning.

“Actually, they are right… we’re in a giant metal box being chased by giant metal dogs. They’ll tear through this thing easily with us still inside, so it’s best for us to be outside of it.” Cerberus admitted, a tactic that would normally be suicide for a normal human, but for them it made sense.

“Hey, you all can do that, but I need to get to the Stadium in this thing!” Solomon complained, and Mino offered a simple solution.

Everyone but Solomon jumped out of the car, leaving the Lord to desperately grab the steering wheel, cursing Mino and the others who jumped ship… those five were facing the growling Hell-hounds while she sped off.

That seemed like a pointless inclusion to the already deadly killing machine. It was like getting a Ferrari a bumper sticker, it didn’t make sense.

“The Hydra, the Minotaur, and the Cerberus, under orders of lady Gilgamesh, I am to kill you all.” The dull voice echoed from the bigger robot trailing behind the dogs, the rider was the Warden of Tartarus.

“…” No one said anything, not really having much they could say to the Warden of all people to try and get him to stop attacking them.

That didn’t stop the triplets from whispering to each other about his boring nature and how it seemed to drain the fun out of any situation.

Granted, there couldn’t be much fun about fighting with your life on the line beyond possible adrenaline junkies enjoying it…

“No response, nothing to say? Good. This can be straight forward then.” The Warden seemed to be glad for the lack of conversation, as the dogs rushed the five Chained.

“Mino, you take two of them, triplets, get the other one, I’ll distract the Warden until you’re done.” Cerberus stated, and he didn’t have much time to continue his explanation before the fight started, the dogs charging at them only for Mino to tackle one dog into another, the triplets drawing the attention of the other one by tossing things at it.

That left Cerberus open to attack the Warden… it was going to be difficult though…

He had heard of the time that Aaron faced the robot he was piloting. It was called an Enforcer then though.

But when Aaron had faced it, it was a prototype with no weaponry and even the circuitry was exposed.

Now it was slightly sleeker, the seams in the machines parts were not as visible, and it had a massive blade on one arm and a machine gun in another.

It also moved fast, turned slow though.

Cerberus charged forward, and he had to turn once he heard the gun begin to hum, clearly about to fire as he ran to hide behind a building.

The building blocked some of the bullets before the walls began to crumble; clearly the bullets were way too powerful for the simple concrete to block.

Cerberus had to keep moving, and not only that, he had to keep attention on him at all times so that the Warden wouldn’t suddenly fire at Mino or the triplets.

That was just how Cerberus was, his job was to keep others alive, no matter what, and he would be damned before he failed at his job.

Before that, he had to figure out how to get close to that thing.

While he was running away from bullets, Mino was facing two of the hell-hound units with some annoyance…

He really wished Nemea was with him at the moment, mostly because the hell-hounds had claws and he couldn’t use his bare flesh against blades or bullets.

Nemea on the other hand could resist blades, but not blunt force or bullets.

Bullets were just a general weakness it seemed.

But even with Mino’s current weakness against his enemies, that wouldn’t keep him from beheading them, his two massive tomahawks in place as he waited.

Contrary to popular belief of his person, Mino preferred hitting second. This had to do with his ability to redirect force.

The dog on the left charged, and Mino once more marvelled at technology, the dogs and their ‘heads’ sat face to face with him, being over two metres tall, though clearly machines.

Aaron mentioned once that they looked like the giant robot dogs from some video game about a world where Germany won world war two. Mino didn’t recognize the reference though.

Mino moved back only after it was close enough to attack, preparing his tomahawks to either attack or defend depending on how the dog struck, and it seemed to just be doing a charging head-butt.

Mino smirked as he let his tomahawks remain at his side, allowing the head to slam into his chest as he flew backwards, the force building up in his body as he slammed into a wall, the second dog coming and trying to cut into him with one of its claws.

Mino ducked under the swipe, using one of his tomahawks to keep the ‘paw’ up as he ducked his head under its chest.

Remember he has bull-horns?

He focused the kinetic energy towards the horns, how he did this he did not know, and gouged a hole into the giant machines chest, actually trying to leap off of the ground with the thing above him.

He did leave the ground, ripping his horn out of the dog as it flailed backwards causing a massive noise as it landed and Mino aimed his tomahawk for the neck part of the dog.

It didn’t go through with the first hit, but the second did, ‘killing’ one of the hell-hounds before he looked over to the other dog he had to fight.

“One down, one to go.” Mino smirked as he walked forward.

The triplets were not having as much fun as Mino. As ashamed as they were to admit it, the triplets weren’t that strong as Chained. Separately they were each of the lowest grade of Chained in existence, and their ability to use poison was only really worthwhile against living creatures.

Against a machine, it wasn’t working so much.

“Dodge!” Zwei shouted as Ein rolled backwards, Drei charging forward with his makeshift shield to block the attack, being sent back due to the weight difference.

The shield itself was the Jeep door. Drei ripped it off as they jumped out, knowing that he and his siblings weren’t really made for upfront fights as it currently was.

“Nothing made yet?” Ein asked as he stood from his position in front of Zwei, preparing to charge back in and start dodging and kicking at the thing, given that he and his siblings each practiced a different martial art under Sphinx’s tutoring.

Ein used Taekwondo, Drei used Karate and Zwei was still busy learning her one. It was called Systema, a Russian martial art famous for having no set kata during sparring, and it was focused on pressure point application.

In all honesty, the person most suited for the fighting style was Aaron, but he did not have the fighting ability for it yet, and so he had learnt Pankration first instead.

As Ein was getting ready to step in and kick the dog in the chin, Zwei shook her head with a tired breath from having to stay away from the dog.

“No, still busy synthesizing, but our specialty is poison, not acid.” Were the hell-hound to possess intelligence it would realize what was being done, but it didn’t and so just focused on its goal of killing the Chained.

“I know that. Get Drei to assist you, I’ll be able to handle myself.” Ein smirked as he stepped forward, leaving Zwei to roll her eyes at how her brother liked showing off.

Drei was soon at her side, the two holding hands as they connected to each other.

It was something only they could do as they were once one body, the Hydra. The process was similar to the theory that two people with identical wavelengths in brain activity would be able to have the same dream or communicate without speaking.

It was fringe science but nonetheless feasible, just not as much as media portrayed it.

For the Hydra triplets, they did not communicate so much as send sensations to one another and occasionally vague ideas.

Zwei would send one, Drei would deny the feasibility or add something and send the idea back to Zwei, and so on and so forth as the organs inside of them responsible for creating poison worked overtime to match the images in their minds.

It took time to describe but this communication of ideas took less than a minute to complete, barely thirty seconds before Zwei and Drei nodded to one another.

Drei went back into the fight, witnessing the hound attempt to bite off the upper body of Ein before Ein ducked and did a rising round house kick… though his other leg remained rooted to the floor as the hound was forced to tumble back.

They could kill it soon.

Cerberus was obviously unaware of what was going on with the triplets and Mino, but he knew that the Warden was going to be an issue as he had finally gotten close enough to attack him, attacking using his flamethrower breath.

Little known fact about Cerberus was that the entire lower half of his face was comprised of synthetic skin and metal. When he breathed fire, it was truly gruesome to see as his jaw unhinged itself similarly to a snake, and then further split itself into two, his tongue possessing a nozzle on it to squirt a flammable liquid out.

The place where the two jaws connect would then ignite a tiny flame to light the liquid as it squirted forward, and even then, Cerberus was certain his body was mildly fireproof given how little heat he felt.

Also, the flammable liquid was actually alcohol, which was why he had a reputation as a big drinker back before he joined the Key. Drinking replenished his reserves, and so allowed him to continue using his flamethrower.

His flamethrower wasn’t doing much against the Warden though…

If anything it was making the Warden annoyed as he swung the giant blade the robot possessed to try and kill Cerberus.

Cerberus dodged luckily, despite the speed at which the attack came, rolling through the legs of the robot while focusing the fire on its back.

The back of the robot had slightly less armour than the front due to that being where the Warden entered the robot from, though Cerberus didn’t know this and just attacked there because it happened to be close.

The result of this attack was known very quickly as the Warden began to turn the robot, shouting at Cerberus as he did so.

“Motherfucker- you idiot, you burnt the hatch closed! Now I won’t be able to get out until I get to the wall, what if I have to piss!” The Warden shouted in anger as he spun, pointing his gun as he spun, aiming for Cerberus who ran forward.

A common idea originating in video games, but when fighting a massive enemy… being closer was actually better.

Sure, too close and you might be crushed, but if you are too far away, you would be in their strike zone and die faster.

Cerberus only really used this tactic because Aaron had explained that this was what he did the first time he fought the Enforcer.

Cerberus managed to jump onto the leg, using it to climb higher as it turned, though he almost slipped off more than once as he moved his jaw, disliking the feeling of using his flamethrower.

He couldn’t climb any higher, so he began to breath fire on the metal just next to him, around the left rib were the robot to be a human, as it began to slowly slag and melt.

“Damn it that’s going to come out of my pay!” The Warden was unusually angry at the moment as he couldn’t reach Cerberus due to the range of motion of the robot.

It was to this scene that Satyr arrived.

It was also because he had just arrived that Satyr could do nothing to stop what was about to happen.

“Get off!” The Warden’s shout was punctuated with Cerberus’ screams as he began to convulse, falling off of the robot, not knowing what had just happened as he fell to his back shaking.

This only gave him enough time to look at the giant blade coming for his chest, eyes wide with shock.

“Cerberus!” Satyr screamed as the blade was finally removed from Cerberus after a moment, the blade glistening where it had the blood lingering on it as the robot turned to Satyr.

Cerberus was dead. There was no way to come back from having a hole from your heart to your stomach… Satyr stared.

“You…” The Warden’s voice was quieter than earlier, and likewise Satyr glared at the robot, not paying attention to Mino and the triplets who hadn’t seen what had happened.

Satyr was currently the only one who knew… One of the Key had fallen today.