“Do you actually trust those monsters?” His closest friend asked.

Check sighed and rested his elbows on the large table. It was circular and had enough space for roughly twenty people, which he used for meeting with officials from the Confederacy or any other important person. As well as for internal meetings.

“As much as you can trust a monster with a three-thousand stellaurite bounty. I’ve heard that he killed more than a million people in the Kingdom, and some voices say that Misuh the Great’s disappearance is also linked to it. What do you think?” Check asked his companion, a burly man in his late fifties named Arka.

Arka scoffed and looked around the luxurious room, “I think that trusting monsters is a death sentence. Why don’t you just kill them and claim the bounty?”

Check covered his face with his hands and leaned back on his chair, looking at the mirror on the ceiling. It reflected the image of a man with deep yellow skin, without any features except holes covering the surface of his skin at random spots, resembling cheese. Indeed, to any onlookers, Check looked just like a humanoid made of cheese.

“You’re right, that would probably be the most cautious move. But we can’t afford to be cautious, can we?”

Arka looked at the ground and scoffed, trying to think of a solution to their settlement’s predicament. Seeing how he couldn’t come up with anything, Check continued, “How large was the tribute last time? Do you remember?”

Arka shook his head.

“Three hundred stellaurite. And it has been increasing ever since the war started, so I suspect that the next one, which is due today might I remind you, will be at least fifty percent more, at four-hundred and fifty stellaurite. Let me ask you this, do we have enough?”

Arka paled, his eyes flying open. Words emerged from his teembling lips, “N-No. We don’t have that much,”

Check nodded, “That’s right. The Confederacy is obviously trying to pressure us to join them of our own volition while milking our pockets until it kills us. With that in mind, do you still think an alliance with a monster that was able to escape the Alliance’s clutches is a bad decision?”

Arka breathed deeply and replied, “Yes, I still think so. But we probably don’t have any other choice, other than all-out war,”

Check chuckled, “You talk of war as if it was a trivial matter. I would hold my own against the Alliance’s armies, sure, but the consequences would be disastrous.”

“So what even is the plan?” Arka asked with incredulous eyes. The yellow man laughed loudly and leaned forward on the table, “If my calculations are correct, the arrival of the Tributary Officer should coincide with the return of the monsters.”

“They are making it back?!”

Check nodded, “I have eyes everywhere, so yes, they’ll most likely reach us at the same time as the Tributary. When that happens, here’s the plan…”

- - -

Prometheus and his group finally returned to Check’s…village? City? Theo wasn’t sure what to call it, since he couldn’t see any infrastructure, but given that the population was relatively low, it was probably a village. As they walked out of the vegetation, Sayuri held up her real arm and said, “Large number of humans up ahead. At least two hundred, tier four and up.”

Theo shifted into his Eclipse form, perfect for stealth, especially after he discovered the invisible cells, and flew up into the air, studying his surroundings. He could see the meeting square in the distance and the tables on it. On the other side of them, he could see a large group of heavily armored soldiers steadily marching forward, led by an elegant and tall man with blonde hair mounted on a bipedal creature resembling a horse and a dinosaur fused together. What’s that about? Are they attacking Check? No, that can’t be, they don’t look ready for battle.

After a minute, he saw a handful of figures appear in the square. It was Check and two other men, both of them equipped with long swords on their backs. Theo flew closer until he managed to hear their conversation. The blonde young man spoke, “Ah, Lord Checkos, such a pleasure to meet you! The Council is always delighted to receive your generous tributes!”

Check scowled and crossed his arms, “Let’s cut the pleasantries, Dorrick. How much do we owe you?”

Dorrick gasped loudly and covered his mouth with his hand, “What kind of barbarian do you take me for, to skip such a fundamental ritual of human socialization! But if you so wish, we can ‘cut the pleasantries’. John, boy, bring me the document!” Then, a young boy no older than fifteen ran up to the noble’s side and gave him a sheet of paper.

“Very well, seems like your tribute for this year will be seven hundred stellaurite. Quite minuscule relative to the honor of being granted independence from the Council itself!”

Theo could see Check’s gloved hands tighten for a moment, while he said, “We won’t be able to feed our people. We would have to give you every last reserve of food and Cores we have. We won’t survive the month.”

Dorrick lowered the piece of paper and looked at Check straight to the eyes, under the black covering. “I understand that completely, and trust me, I do, but this isn’t my decision! The Council has found itself quite tight with their funds, so they’ve had to make the heartbreaking decision to increase everyone’s tribute!”

While the two men continued talking, Theo tilted his head in confusion and thought to himself, Tribute? Isn’t Check independent from the Confederacy? Why would he need to pay them? Is he…paying to stay independent? That doesn’t sound right.

The conversation went back and forth between Check and the noble, neither of them backing down. “Listen, Checkson, I like you. I really do. I do not want to use…more direct ways of collecting the tribute,” he said while glancing back at the hundreds of men with their weapons drawn. Theo could see that around half of them were tier four, and the other half were a mix that ranged from tier five to tier seven for a handful of elite soldiers. Full purple plate armor without helmets covered their body, with an insignia of a circle of stars adorning their chest.

Check sighed and shook his head, slightly tilting his head back and up, and Theo was sure that he was looking directly at the shapeshifter. Then, the Anima at his side began moving in a controlled and precise manner, as if directed by someone. Before Theo could get in a defensive stance, words appeared in the air, made of the language Check and the other humans here spoke, detailing a plan to help both Theo and Check.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

He smiled internally, looking at the insanity of the plan. I guess I found someone as crazy as me.

Theo then immediately shifted into his Golden Ant form, which he could do thanks to the upgrades to his shapeshifting speed and the Biomass he always kept in his inventory. Dropping to the ground with a loud *thud*, the two-ton monster looked around at the soldiers and calmly walked over.

One of them noticed him and screamed, “Sir, a monster’s approaching! Tier four at least!”

Dorrick’s smile immediately dropped upon looking at Theo. The ant had walked over a couple of dozen meters away from the army, with it at his right and Check at his left, both equally distant. The three parties formed an imaginary triangle, each one looking at the other with weariness.

“I recognize that one. The Kingdom put up a large bounty for its head,” Dorrick spat, his face contorted in a show of disgust as he analyzed Theo’s body.

Theo cleared his vocal cords and spoke, happy to not be restricted to the robotic and monotonous voice anymore, “Seems like I have a fan over here! Nice to meet you, humans. I am here to…spread destruction!” He said, letting his Acting skill guide him forward. One of the tier seven soldiers rested his long sword on his shoulder and asked Dorrick, “Permission to strike, sir?”

Dorrick closed his eyes and rubbed his eyes, “Make it quick,”

As soon as those words were spoken, every semblance of control and civility exploded into fragments. Naturally, Theo was ready for it, so he already summoned both the Armored Lobster and two of his ability USB sticks. He wanted to try something out. Since these two abilities seem quite similar, they should be compatible. He was holding the Spiral ability, which allowed him to control any metallic spiral from a large distance, and the Automatic Weapons ability, which he had never used, but would allow him to give weapons he was a master at some semblance of autonomy, effectively allowing them to hit enemies and defend him without his direct control.

And now, he wanted to fuse them. He held both USB sticks between his mandibles and crushed them together. They exploded into tiny fragments of Influence, and rejoined together, forming a single USB stick with a different ability altogether. Hopefully, he hadn’t messed up anything.

Time to test this out.

He put the new ability stick into his neck, feeling the surge of power flow through his body, as a seven-minute timer appeared in his vision. Before he could act, a large gash appeared on the top of his head, cleanly cutting his left eye in half. The warrior hadn’t moved from his spot, but he had still injured Theo from that distance.

Shit!

The tier seven warrior was the fuse that ignited the gunpowder. Every single soldier began raising their weapons, striking down at the air in front of them. Each strike resulted in an injury appearing on Theo’s body, even though the soldiers were still dozens of meters away.

Their Soul Ability?!

At that moment, the Armored Lobster erupted from a batch of vegetation, barreling over the mass of soldiers from behind them, absolutely shredding their formation, claws swiping down and massacring handful of them with each strike. Prometheus was deeply injured, but thankfully, he had enough biomass to repair any injury for a while. Summoning the Soul-Devouring Multi-weapon, he shifted it into a large red spiral which began to hum with a menacing sound. As soon as he used his new fused ability, the spiral moved on its own, aiming for the closest soldier to skewer. The unlucky young man tried to swat away the flying object, but due to how incredibly dense and heavy it was, it did nothing, causing the red spiral to blast from one side of the soldier and come out of the other with an explosion of gore. The weapon flew at an astonishing speed, taking down dozens and dozens of soldiers in the same, ruthless manner.

Theo, meanwhile, was focused on fighting the tier seven soldier with the long sword, who was looking around the battlefield with a disdainful expression, as if bored by the bloodshed. Theo tried to close the distance, but the man immediately jumped back, cutting the air in front of him and causing another injury to appear on the Ant’s neck.

How is he doing that?!

The man’s strikes were regular and identical to each other, as if he had trained on that specific attack tens of thousands of times. A low rumble caused Theo to glance sideways, noticing massive worms of earth erupt from the ground and assault the army. Check was in a direct confrontation with the Armored Lobster, seeming at a stalemate. Theo used [Enhancement] on his legs to dash forward to the retreating high-tier soldier, snickering at the closing distance. Almost there!

The man’s snarl revealed a row of pearly white teeth, as he was pulling his hand out of a pocket, holding a small satchel of leather, which he immediately threw at Theo. Naturally, he dodged and bit with his mandibles in front of him, his vision obscured by the plume of smoke caused by the object. The man was nowhere to be found.

He..teleported? No, he teleported me.

The Influence he felt in the air reminded him of the one used in portals. Looking round, he noticed the soldier getting into the same, rigid and grounded stance to continue the barrage of identical strikes over and over.

Does he need to strike the same way to activate his ability?

Theo shifted some large and powerful vocal cords into his chest, sucking in a large volume of air, and waiting for the right moment. Right when the longsword was above the man’s head, ready to descend like an executioner’s axe, the shapeshifter screamed with as much power as he could, even imbuing his lungs and vocal cords with Influence, causing an absolutely deafening shockwave that traveled kilometers around himself, stunning his enemies. The tier seven soldier, who was just ten meters in front of Theo, suffered the most. His ears began bleeding, and his strike deviated and failed. No new injury appeared on Theo.

Knew it! He needs to strike identically to activate it!

Using the newfound opportunity, he immediately ran forward and closed his mandibles enhanced by Influence, but the man showed why tier sevens weren’t to be underestimated, managing to put his longsword between himself and the monster in a fraction of a second. At that moment, the two enemies engaged in a furious back and forth in which Theo tried to wrestle the longsword out of the man’s hands, while he was trying his best to hold onto it and hit the monster at the same time. Theo felt a presence rapidly approach them from a distance and immediately shifted his objective to constricting the soldier in front of him. He placed his legs and mandibles on the soldier’s armor to hold him in place, while his enemy began punching Theo’s head with enough power to cause shockwaves. Each strike absolutely crushed his exoskeleton and bones, mangling everything inside.

“Die, die, you monster!” The man shouted as each punch caved Theo’s skull in more and more. At one point, the punches began to slow down, eventually stopping altogether. A line of blood came down from the soldier’s lips, and they both looked down. The red spiral had impaled the man’s chest and was spinning around like a drill. The man’s eyes flew to Theo’s face, spitting a blob of saliva and blood on top of the Golden Ant, before falling to the ground, motionless.

Soul +1

Theo healed his injuries and returned to the battlefield, noticing the insane casualties on the soldiers. The only remaining ones were a tier seven man and the noble who was cowering in the distance. Sayuri and Zlich were both covered by deep gashes through their body, and they were going against the high-tier enemy, who looked unharmed.

“His ability only works if he does the downward strike the same way each time!” he said to his allies in a mental communication. Check was still pretending to fight the Armored Lobster, throwing a punch and kick here and then. As soon as Theo appeared, the elegantly dressed leader flashed forward to him and when he was close enough nodded, saying, “Ready?”

Theo nodded.

Check’s arm impaled Prometheus’ chest, raising the Golden Ant into the air. Theo moved his legs as panickedly as he could, shifting a bunch of fake blood and organs to come out of the wound Check had caused. The Armored Lobster then engaged the remaining tier seven soldier, the house-sized monster swiping at the man’s back. After Theo’s advice, Sayuri sent a blade of water to hit the man’s sword mid-slash, causing it to veer off course and ruin the strike. Zilch used that opportunity to jump forward and chomp the soldier’s left arm off, while Sayuri focused all of her Influence on her sword and jumped forward, raising her katana to hit with a diagonal strike. As soon as the man lifted his sword, the Armored Lobster hit the man’s back, which didn’t manage to penetrate the armor, but it still gave Sayuri the opening she needed, and she was skillful enough to take advantage of it, cleanly decapitating the soldier, his head rolling on the floor.

After Check ‘killed’ Theo, he immediately ran up to the remaining three monsters and punched each, who fell down to the ground, unmoving. Check ran up to the noble, who was as pale as a ghost, and said, “Dorrick, we need to get you inside to check for any injuries. Follow my men, they’ll bring you to safety. I’ll take it from here,”

Dorrick nodded shakily and was accompanied by one of Check’s allies and they were teleported somewhere else. The elegant man sighed heavily and approached Theo, lowering himself and whispering, “Are they all dead?”

Theo got up and nodded, “I can’t sense anyone else, so I’m pretty sure that they all died,”

Check hummed, “Perfect. That should get some pressure off your back, and hopefully, this will ignite some animosity between the Confederacy and the Kingdom,”

Theo tilted his head, “Why would it?”

Check scoffed, “As soon as Dorrick returns to the Capital, he’s going to explain everything, and the Council will blame it on the kingdom for ‘letting you go free’ and causing this disaster. Politics is a complicated, bloated mess, you shouldn’t think about it too much,”

“Alright…I think I understand. But why did you make us kill that monster on the coach then?”

Check laughed and replied, “Well, let’s say that the monster you killed…prevented another, much bigger danger from appearing to attack the Confederacy. I won’t bore you with the details, so follow me, we need to discuss how to move forward from now,”

Theo moved to his friends and healed their injuries by sending his own cells into their bloodstream. The Mirror, the Armored Lobster, was only just pretending to be dead, so he dismissed it and it disappeared in a gust of Influence.

Time to see what this guy’s deal is.