Clay Atlas’s eyes had a knowing gleam as he stared Blake down. He drew a thick deck of cards laden with power.
“This is going to be a little different than the duels you’ve had before,” Clay said, his tone casual. “This is what we call a free play duel. In a regular duel you have to draw your cards in a randomized order, but in a free play duel, you can choose to play any card you wish at any point you wish, as long as you have the anima to do so.”
“That’s just fine. Tell me, did you have to accept this duel?” Blake asked. “As City Lord, I’m guessing you didn’t actually have to.”
Clay grinned. “I did have to accept. I don’t know how you have managed it, but the system seems to think that you have amassed cards powerful enough that you are a legitimate challenger that could stand against me.” Clay let out a cackling laugh. “But don’t worry, I know exactly what you are. Have you ever wondered why the cards act so differently in your hands compared to everybody else?”
A wave of concern washed over Blake. He had been worried why the cards acted differently for him than everybody else.
It had weighed on his mind since he found his first power card and summoned that Stone Golem back in the forest.
Clay Atlas’ grin widened. “Yes, I know exactly what you are, Blake Thornwood. You are a pawn in a much larger game. You are part of a hand that has been waiting centuries to be played. Tell me, do you know who your birth mother and father are?”
Blake didn’t. That was one of the lingering mysteries of his life. He had never thought of his adoptive mother and father as anything but his real mother and father. The identities of his real parents were lost. He’d never been able to find so much as a trace of them.
“It doesn’t matter. They abandoned me when I was a baby, and they clearly didn’t want me, so they don’t matter. I’m lucky enough to have a mother and father who love me like their own. And you locked them up. Do you think there’ll be mercy for you for what you’ve done to them?”
“I want you to search for whatever truth lies in your heart,” Clay Atlas said. “Knowing everything that you know now, do you really believe that your parents were some anonymous strangers that gave you up as a baby?”
“I don’t know. I guess like any adopted kid I always hoped that there was a story or a reason why they gave me up, but that doesn’t matter today. Why bother to talk of the distant past when you’re about to be defeated?” Blake asked.
It felt like Clay was delaying the beginning of their duel, or just trying to rile him up.
The platform came to a stop, and the center of the penthouse floor was now flush with the top of Atlas Tower. This whole top section was one large private battle arena with no way out except for victory.
“You never had real parents, Blake Thornwood. You didn’t have parents because you were never born. You were played,” Clay said.
“Played?” Blake said, confused.
“Your real name, the one that the system gave you when it created the card that summoned you, is Monster Summoner Araya,” Clay said. “You were created as one of 13 deviant cards, one that could only be played by a Challenger who had achieved the powers of the gods. Do you truly think that men like me and the other six that came here to your world are the ones running this game? No. We are trying to attain that kind of power for ourselves, but we have a long journey ahead of us.”
A deep, black abyss opened up in the pit of Blake’s stomach. It couldn’t be true. It was downright ridiculous. Him, a card? The thought would’ve made him laugh if not for the gnawing worry.
Blake sent a query off to his AI assistant, who he figured had been listening into this whole situation. The AI’s voice came back almost immediately.
‘I never thought in a million years I would be one of the ones to help guide one of the 13 deviants! Now I can’t just look up a status and say yes you’re one of the deviants, because it doesn’t work like that. But from everything that I know of the deviants, there is one called Araya who can turn any card into a monster at their command. Now I’ve seen you turn every single card that you’ve used, except for facilities of course, into a monster. Heck even when you played that Lair card under the city it didn’t turn into just a regular lair. It became a Monster Summoner’s Lair! I’m pretty sure that Clay Atlas is telling the truth.’
Blake looked up at Clay and locked eyes with the City Lord. “How long have you known?”
“I knew there was something strange about you when the citizen report said that a Rank 1 Challenger became eligible for a Rank 3 examination without ever sitting for the second rank. I presumed you had just obtained the super powerful and rare card, which is certainly possible.
“Rare and epic cards, while quite scarce, have a chance to drop from anything that can drop a power card, so it was certainly a possibility. But it wasn’t until your first duel that I saw you play cards that shouldn’t exist in this system to defeat Kenji Nakamura that I knew something was different about you.”
“That’s why you started smashing me with work orders, isn’t it?” Blake asked.
“I had to keep you busy and deplete your Rank 3 anima reserves to stop you from gaining too much power too quickly. I needed to find out what your capabilities and your potential were, so I could prepare my best defense when you finally turned on me.”
“And how do you think your best defense is going to stack up against me now?”
Clay laughed that same deep throaty laugh. “You are only a Rank 3 challenger. I am more powerful than you by a significant magnitude, despite what this system appears to believe. You are no match for me, and I will squash you like a bug before you ever truly become a threat. Then you will be mine to command.”
Clay drew a card from his glowing deck and played the card. It burst into luminous motes of anima, which swirled around Clay himself and formed into a suit of stone armor.
A massive shield materialized, buckled to his left forearm. A huge sword that looked like a sharpened crystal appeared in his right hand.
“Go on. Summon something,” Clay said. “I’d hate to cut one of the legendary 13 deviants down before you can defend yourself!”
Blake wanted to test Clay’s strength before bringing out the big guns. A knight to counter a knight would be a good way to start things off.
The Minotaur Warlord materialized before him with a deafening roar.
“I see you fused your minotaur with something else. Interesting. I didn’t know that was possible, but I doubt it will be able to make a dent against me,” Clay said.
He surged across the battlefield with a startling speed. The minotaur swung its hammer at him, but Clay Atlas met it with his shield. A thunderous crack echoed throughout the room as the hammer collided with the shield, yet neither of the combatants yielded any ground.
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In a lightning-fast counterattack, Clay Atlas plunged his blade deep into the Minotaur Warlord’s abdomen. The Minotaur roared in agony, retaliating with another swing of its hammer.
Demonstrating astonishing agility and flexibility, Clay merely dropped to one knee, expertly dodging the attack. Blake could only watch helplessly as his Minotaur Warlord sustained another vicious slash to its leg.
The battle between the Minotaur Warlord and Clay Atlas was an intense display of raw power and unyielding determination. Each possessed strength to crater the reinforced concrete ground and shatter steel. Through the miracle powers of the cards they withstood each other’s might, holding on where any mortal man would’ve long since crumbled.
Yet the outcome was clear from the get-go. Clay Atlas was grinning and only playing with his food.
There were 10 seconds left before Blake could summon his next monster, and he had a bad feeling that if he didn’t summon his Radiant Colossus now, he’d lose his minotaur completely. But the minotaur took two anima to summon, and the Radiant Colossus took three. He’d only have three left to use for the rest of the duel.
Blake knew he would need Scorch Dragon to save him if he got knocked off the tower. There were no ring outs here that would stop the duel, only a terrifying plummet to the streets below.
Still, he couldn’t let the minotaur fall and the Radiant Colossus’ healing aura was the only way to keep it up.
Blake grit his teeth as he prepared to draw and play his trump card. He reached out and grabbed the Radiant Colossus card from his deck and played it.
The latent anima held within the card exploded forth and rose into the sky. Clay’s eyes followed that rising light until the anima became so bright that he had to avert his gaze. The meteor chose that exact moment to descend.
Radiant Colossus slammed into the top of the tower with an almighty crash. The meteor struck the pinnacle of the tower, catching Clay off guard. The subsequent explosion of radiant energy engulfed Clay’s armor, searing the metal and scorching him within its confines.
As the radiant flames clung to Clay’s suit of armor, the atmosphere in the room shifted dramatically. The tables had turned, and now Clay was at a disadvantage.
Blake’s Minotaur Warlord found itself engulfed by the same radiant flames that tormented Clay. However, where Clay writhed in agony from the searing heat, the Minotaur breathed in relief.
The purifying fire cauterized the Minotaur’s deep wounds, sealing them shut and mending its battered body. As the creature basked in the restorative blaze, it seemed to grow, emanating a sense of renewed strength and vigor.
Cursing, Clay rolled out of the radiant flames. He regained his feet and stared up at the massive monster standing in the middle of the flames. Pulses of healing energy washed from the Radiant Colossus, each continuing to heal the minotaur.
“That is a very nice trick you’ve got there,” Clay said. “But don’t worry, two can play at that game.”
With a sinister grin, Clay played another card. Motes of anima swirled around him, seeping into his very being. Within moments, a staggering transformation began to unfold.
Clay’s body expanded rapidly, growing to colossal proportions. The top of Atlas Tower trembled under his newfound size, as he ascended to equal the stature of the Radiant Colossus.
The two titanic combatants clashed. Each blow was like a car crash. Atlas Tower began to crumble underneath their weight, with the massive glass windows cracking and shattering and raining shards into the streets below.
Blake ran for his life until he could summon Scorch Dragon. He hopped into the saddle and took off, circling the top of the tower and surveyed the streets below.
Atlas security force was setting up a perimeter to make sure that nobody was in harm’s way, no matter what happened to the tower.
The Scorch Dragon shot its super-heated flare beams at Clay Atlas, but now that he had grown to massive size, the beams barely penetrated his armor. They left deep, gouged scorch marks on the back of the armor, but didn’t punch through into the City Lord’s flesh.
The flash of another power card being played put Blake on edge, but whatever it was, it had no immediately visible effect.
It wouldn’t be long until Blake could use his last, single remaining anima. As it stood, the Radiant Colossus and Clay Atlas were equally matched in power, and the Scorch Dragon’s beams couldn’t melt through his armor.
He needed a card that would guarantee him victory…
Blake remembered how the Stone Slasher Golem had used its sword arms to climb up one of the massive rock crabs. It might actually be small enough that Clay in his new titanic form wouldn’t even see coming.
Swooping back down to the surface of the tower, Blake played his Stone Slasher Golem card. Clay didn’t even notice this summoning, as he was focused on making sure the Radiant Colossus didn’t get any hits in.
Blake commanded his Stone Slasher Golem to climb the scale form of Clay Atlas. His stone elemental creature had one mission, and that was to sever any of the straps that held his enemy’s armor plating in place.
If Blake could dislodge that armor, then the Radiant Colossus would be able to land some significant blows against the City Lord and finish the fight.
Clay did not notice the Stone Slasher Golem start to climb up his left leg. The swords at the end of the golem’s arms weren’t long enough to fully pierce the armor outside of weak points.
Blake continued circling around on the back of his dragon, launching beam after beam to distract Clay. He had to be careful with timings though. Clay’s shield was now shrouded in one of those reflective spells, and he reflected a few of the beams straight at Blake’s monsters before he caught on.
Eventually The Stone Slasher Golem managed to make its way up Clay Atlas’s body, all the way to his shoulder. Clay’s helmet allowed for absolutely no peripheral vision, and he only realized something was wrong when one of his pauldrons fell to the ground with a devastating crash.
Clay tried to look to the side to see what had dislodged his armor, but the Stone Slasher Golem had already skittered down onto his back. It was now focusing on the straps that held Clay Atlas’s throat gorget in place.
Clay Atlas grunted at the sudden removal of his armor and lifted his massive shield to cover the now exposed body part.
Suddenly, the heavy stone throat protector sprung apart and fell away.
The City Lord roared in frustration, aware now that there was something on his body removing his armor. He glanced over one shoulder, then the other, but couldn’t see the Stone Slasher Golem as it hung off of his back.
While Clay Atlas was distracted and reeling from the shock of being vulnerable, Blake commanded his Radiant Colossus and Minotaur Warlord to work together.
The Radiant Colossus extended its gargantuan hands, positioning them like a set of colossal stairs. The Minotaur Warlord charged, its eyes ablaze. With a powerful leap, it bounded onto the first hand, then sprang across to the second, propelled even higher by the added boost from the Colossus.
As it soared through the air, the Minotaur Warlord raised its hammer, channeling all of its might into a devastating strike aimed directly at Clay Atlas’s helmet. The impact was earth-shattering, reverberating through the sky like a cannon blast.
The Minotaur tumbled to the ground, struggling to regain its footing beneath the burden of its own armor. However, the damage had been done.
Half of Clay Atlas’s stone helmet crumbled away to reveal a face contorted frustration. He gritted his teeth.
“I’ve worked my entire life for this chance at building a new city in a new world. I will not have you take this from me. If I cannot have this city, then no one can!” Clay growled, then let silence linger for a few seconds before he started stomping on the roof of Atlas Tower.
The structure was already weakened from the battle and struggled under the weight of the two colossal creatures fighting atop it. It couldn’t take much more. Blake needed to end this now, before any of the residents within the tower were harmed.
His Stone Slasher Golem cut the straps of Clay’s chest plate. The breastplate clattered to the floor, revealing Clay Atlases muscular bare chest covered in strange runic symbols.
Blake didn’t give it much time or thought. He needed to end this now before it went bad really quickly.
Blake shot burning rays of super-heated power at Clay using his Scorch Dragon, while he commanded his Radiant Colossus to jab Clay in the throat.
Clay went to raise his shield to block the attack, but at the very same time, the Stone Slasher Golem sank its swords into the side of Clay Atlas’s neck. The golem ripped the swords free in a spray of blood and gore.
It was at that moment that Blake reached for the dangling obsidian necklace that hung around his neck. He activated the Amulet of Obsidia and empowered his Radiant Colossus for the last gambit. Blake chose to bolster the physical strength of his monster’s attacks for the next thirty seconds.
Shocked, Clay dropped his shield and reached up for the thing that was attacking his neck. He managed to grab the Stone Slasher Golem and pull it from the newly opened wound on his neck, but that opened the Radiant Colossus the opportunity it needed.
The Radiant Colossus delivered a one-two punch to Clay Atlas’s chest, which made him stagger backward, almost to the edge of the tower.
Clay managed to regain balance for one last second of defiance before the end. “You cannot defeat me!”
But the Radiant Colossus hunkered down on one knee and delivered a clean uppercut right to the bottom of Clay’s jaw.
The City Lord was sent up into the sky, and then tumbling down over the edge of the tower into the street below.