“Assume worse and prepare for the worst?” Krovath couldn’t get over that line. “An initiate cannot have the mental faculties to calculate at such an extent.” He stuttered.
“Bonkers? I know. My mind surprises me more than anyone else. Now... a way out?” Tetsu clapped his hands, rubbing them in anticipation.
Instead of replying, Krovath removed his cap, revealing an exposed brain. Tetsu recoiled before getting a good look. Out of habit, when his eyes shut, two others opened. One focused on the Krantz and the other on himself.
Krovath’s brain resembled a human brain but with even more convolutions. Numerous folds and creases maximized its surface area within the confines of the Krantz’s huge skull.
The Rune [Info] failed him, only confirming the object to be an artifact. Made of transparent blue glass, Tetsu could peer deeper into the mesmerizing artifact. Blue bolts of lightning zapped through the folds, curving with impossible precision, making it seem as if a single bolt ran through the artifact, powering and activating various runes within its confines.
“Holy Mother of god!”
“I know, right!” Krovath beamed and then plucked his brain out to bask in its glory.
“Holy Mother of the devil.”
“Do you realize what this is?”
“Artifact?”
“Not just an Artifact. This is an Asura-level artifact. You can’t even fathom the cost—” Krovath banged his head on the artifact. “I am not thinking straight.”
“Well, duh! You forgot to plug your brain in! Do all of you have such...”
“No! That’s not the point. I acquired this to make me calculate and negate the tiniest errors. With this—”
“—Ah...” Tetsu cuts him off with a disappointed sigh. “It’s a common mistake. I had to learn it the hard way as well. Any artifact or object higher than your level is useless. Unless you use it as a shield.”
Krovath looks at his reflection on the artifact, realization and disappointment crossing his face. “It’s the only explanation that makes sense.” He agrees. “And I will die if you take it away.”
“AWH...! I just lost all the mood to reply. Bye.” Tetsu pouts and stomps out then turns around and returns. “It’s hard to storm out if I don’t know the way, ya know.”
Tetsu listens to the instructions and forgets them right after stepping out of the control room. “I can’t believe these people’s luck and yet they want more.” He curses, ignoring the jiggling of his pouches. Five minutes later, he comes to a halt, confused about the next direction. “Right, left, up, down? Those were way too many instructions. Hmm... eenie meinie miny go.”
He takes the steps leading to the higher floors, but thanks to Krovath’s meddling, the staircase morphs and ends at the ground floor instead.
“Ah, see, I chose right.” Tetsu pats himself on the back and stands over a circle with huge signboards reading: Stand here.
“Split the castle back in two and let the human out,” Krovath says with a hoarse voice, the potions still working their magic.
Tarah’s voice knocks the earpieces out of Krovath’s ears and onto the floor, yet her voice is audible as if the earpieces were in place. “What? Why would we want that? Is this even Krovath speaking?”
“Krovath? That would be King Krovath to you,” Tarah addresses with deference.
Tarah loses access to the castle and only then does she calm down. “Apologies, my king.”
“Stop arguing, call me by my title, and follow orders,” Krovath barks, pulling the walls closer.
The castle splits in half like the last time, the liches’ war map warning them before the split occurs. All eyes are glued to the center as a human descends, swinging two axes, pretending to cut the massive castle in two.
“Swoosh, psst, err...” Tetsu makes childish sounds, ignoring the imminent threat that lies beyond, lost in his own imagination of might.
Except for the liches, everyone else, including Val, gapes at the scene unfolding in front of their eyes.
“Ah—Trickery,” coughs Mor, dragging Val out of his daze.
“I knew that.” Val rubs his eyes to remove the sparkles of wonder.
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Tetsu glares at the castle one last time. “Don’t come behind me or the penalty will only increase.”
“You are really not here to kill me,” a speaker beside him conveys Krovath’s message.
“Do more research before you make enemies, kid,” he waves goodbye.
“Kid? Is he older than me?”
Tetsu never realizes he fought the castle’s leader, one of the top contestants in the incubation grounds: a former god. Escape is all Tetsu focuses on, and once he achieves it, he searches for a reason to rationalize his guilt.
By putting all the blame on the castle operator and conveniently leaving out the fact that he emptied their castle, he tries to justify his greed while disregarding the Tech’savy attempts to kill him for no apparent reason.
“You!” Tetsu frowns at Val, maintaining the act for a fleeting second before chuckling. “Aw, did I steal your only dialogue?”
Tetsu flips both axes into one hand. Two Runes flicker to life over the axe head in his hands, the second axe rotating on its own beside the first, freeing up his second hand, in which he held the staff of Ultum.
“I never thought of using it in such a way,” Val muttered.
Mor wanted to add more insults but stopped after seeing his boss’s shame-faced expression and praising the human
“YOU...” Mor hisses at Tetsu, his eyes fixed on Ultum.
“I need to write dialogues for you people.”
“We do need better dialogue,” Val mused.
Tetsu releases the spinning axe, for the first time noticing the absence of mist on the battlefield. “Difference between an intellectual fight,” he snickers.
The undead shift stances, their eyes fixed on KalKros
{KalKros: A blade forged in the depths of the hottest volcano from the underworld. An unknown black piece of metal molded to form an axe. Enchantments: Slice, absorb, dread, grow, self-repair. (Warrior/Legendary)}
The axe made Tetsu feel invincible, and it wasn’t even an exaggeration. With both of them by his side, the army, his luck, the boring system events, and the entire incubation grounds seemed futile. Tasks unworthy of his time.
“These axes are crazier than you,” Tetsu taunts, showing his fangs and throwing the Staff up.
Both axes meet with the staff of Altum in between them, snapping like a twig. A powerful force field of pure energy blasts through the battlefield, pushing everything in its path. Tetsu ignores the liches’ curses and wailing, storing the staff in a pouch.
He twists the axes around himself, snapping the rest of the lich staff he stored. These require little force and strength, having been made from lower-level materials.
“I warned you multiple times not to mess with me,” Tetsu returns the hostile stare. “Keep your petty revenge scheme up, and next time you will be between these axes.” He shifts the death glare to a monitor. “That goes for you too.”
“How’s side is he on?” Tarah demands an answer.
“I don’t know,” Krovath blurts out the truth in frustration. “He isn’t on anyone’s side. He just is and does... ah! Stuff, which makes no sense.”
“Speakers are still on, mate,” Tetsu chuckles.
Krovath shifts the feeds to find every Krantz staring at the monitor, except for the cameramen who care only about filming.
“Can I leave now?” Tetsu asks.
“Through me,” Val gestures for him to approach.
Tetsu’s step resonates across the battlefield before the undead army’s frantic charge drowns out every other noise.
“Positions,” Krovath’s command jolts the troops into action, the numerous drills etched into their very being.
Val nods, and both the animated Horr’ers, placed on opposite sides of the castle, converge toward Tetsu. The liches who still had their staffs moved behind the Horr’ers, maintaining a safer distance than usual, aware of Tetsu’s tactics.
The Zeeches’ speed brings them to the Front lines alongside the zombies and skeletons already present, wearing down the shield. None of them know how the shield works, and neither does Tetsu, but he knows it lets him through with no resistance, and he wants to try an experiment—a gamble—that could ensure more chaos.
“He can’t get out without our permission,” a Krantz scout laughs.
“So we thought about him entering,” the General growls back. “Yet he entered and exited as if he owns the place, so stop assuming and concentrate.”
The cameraman zooms in on the general’s face and then pans the camera onto the human. Tetsu zig-zags for some unknown reason, dashing forward and backward, his snickers and skills transporting him four meters with each step, in unpredictable and lightning-fast movements. Yet the camera catches Tetsu’s every step, his picture a constant on the monitor.
The Krantz stop prepping and gape from the monitor to the cameraman capturing Tetsu’s every move with the slightest adjustment to his camera. Tarah and Krovath should have reprimanded them all, yet they were busy ogling like the others, in awe at the cameraman’s skills.
“That is enough practice.”
Tetsu swirls one axe to the far end, rotating it beside the axe-wielding hand. In his free hand, he holds a pouch open, shards of metal pouring out of the pouch. He blinks faster than ever, smiles wider than before, and moves like a raging bull, ready to shred the world if it stands in his path.
“Through him it is.” Tetsu steps and zaps closer to the castle’s main shield, metal shards rotating around him, doubling down as a shield and a lawnmower to cut down the undead.
He connects with the castle shield, and it grants him access. The undead armies leaning on the shield stumble in as the shield shimmers out of existence. Tetsu jumps back and forth, trapping the faster units of zeeches within the barriers.
“He figured it out,” Tarah gasps, the shock dragging her and the others back into action.
“Of course he did,” Krovath pushes his brain deeper in frustration, hammering at it to work better.
The undead inside the barrier get cut off from the outside world, and by extension, from the lich’s command. With no one to order them around, they do the one thing they always do: attack the living.
“We have a problem,” the General reports.
“I can see that too, General,” Tarah retorts.
“Not what we see, but what we do not. I think I figured out the intruder’s true intentions in infiltrating.”
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