Hencely’s eyes bulged, clearly outraged at the smirk his foe dared to flash in the face of his own death. “You would dare to mock me with such a worthless stat, after you’ve been drained of all strength? Ha! SO BE IT! Men, show this fool what happens to those who oppose us! Fire at will!”
The air filled with no less than a dozen clicks… and nothing else.
No roar of blackpowder cannons filling the air with smoke.
No sharp crack of ultra powerful ballistics.
There wasn’t even the flare of plasma, and Brittany had seen at least a couple of those futuristic, deadly looking energy weapons when her eyes had first frantically measured her opponents several awful hours ago, desperate only to escape certain doom… and finding that the trap had already been firmly sprung.
There was nothing but the soft click of high tech weapons dry firing, and the growing restless dismay of one elite mercenary after another.
Eric smirked when the air rang with confused grunts and snorts, the too slow orcs at last speaking.
“Cannons no work! They’re broken!”
“No! Impossible!” Hencely snarled. “Your defenses have been shriven. Your movements slowed to a crawl. The cannons should have shattered you already!”
“You sure about that? I mean… I’m feeling pretty fine on my end.” Eric turned to the assembled collection of confused orc artillerists, hissing gnolls, and coldly glaring mercenaries. “You all good at your end? Any luck getting your weapons back online? No? Damn shame.”
It was the hardest thing Brittany had ever done, screaming for her battered body to work. To crawl a single inch. To get out of the pentagram she could sense morphing in ways hideous and strange… to move!
It was only when she closed her eyes, streaming with tears, and visualized herself as who and what she truly was. An extension of her entire kingdom, no matter how imperiled.
And she, but a tiny piece. One that it took only the gentlest of gusts to blow right out of the pentagram, freeing her as it catalyzed, the foul card erupting with the darkest of magics.
A soul to be consumed the price of its working.
A price that must be paid.
“You would dare to make light of your doom? Pathetic!” Hencely roared, a shield radiating deadly enchantments raised high before him, along with a blade trembling with the weight of the awful curse magic it held.
“I challenge you, cur! A duel between Contenders! Let the might of our blades prove our worth!”
Eric grinned. “Fantastic. I—”
Hencely’s lips curled in a smile. “Such a fool. Already slowed and weakened, and you can’t even sense it. Now we END THIS! Black Flame! You’re challenge is accepted!” Hencely roared as the hideous pentagram flared with darkest flame.
His lips curled in a fierce grin at the surprised look in his prey’s eyes as he rushed forward on boots covered in sigils that matched those on the pentagram.
“Now, Slave! Strike him now!”
She heard the twisted blood magic, enticing its victim in the air. Before Brittany could even scream warning, it was over.
Shadow coalesced into liquid death slamming into her target.
Eric’s torso might be protected by an enchanted cuirass radiating exotic magics, yet that did nothing for the blackened dagger stabbing shadow’s prey repeatedly under the armpit, a dagger that actually managed to rupture the mithril links of the gloriously sparkly hauberk Eric wore, and Elonia’s poor brother was sent tumbling in a spray of blood right out of the pentagram without rustling a single blade of grass, only to collapse right to where Brittany had been slumped over for so horribly long, nearly slamming into the quartet of cloaked men that was all that kept Boston from erupting in an explosion of hellfire.
And that single jolt was all it took to rupture their cover, the quartet of exhausted purple eyed men covered in sweat, gazing at the proceedings in terror, sweat dripping from the bridges of their noses and down their faces, beading over the vile collars about their necks.
“Control your tools better, Hencely!” snapped none other than the Inquisitor known as Nazem, whose imperious gaze filled with such cold contempt was made all the worse by the uniform he wore, giving authority to his power-hungry madness as he snarled and kicked at the prone figure now before him and his slaves as he stepped back, pulling out the hilt of what a horrified Brittany just knew was some type of dark energy saber.
Nazem shook his head at Eric’s groaning form. “To think it would require six curses, a royal family, and a card of doom to bring you down, you pustulant sack of filth! Do you have any idea of how much capital we had to waste on this madness!?”
The inquisitor’s earlier hesitation broke off with a contemptuous sneer when Eric groaned.
“Please… a healing potion… something! That… that was not an honorable fight! Oh fuck, it hurts!”
“Don’t kill him!” Hencely frantically roared. “He was promised to me, Nazen! He is my sacrifice! His power is mine!”
The inquisitor sneered. “Finish this, then. But don’t underestimate him.” He then cracked his neck, lip furling at the groaning youth by his feet that he happily stomped and pounded just because he could, ignoring the exhausted sobs of the trembling quartet of arcanists desperately keeping the Hyperion Core as stable as they could.
“And no, Hencely. I’ve thought better of your mad gambit. With Eric Silver, or ‘Ernest Edgelord’ out of the picture, there’s no need for us to waste such a valuable resource.”
Hencely stiffened. “But you agreed it was a fitting end to the Silver clan! You know what those bastards did to my family!”
Nazem’s lips curled in a sneer, turning to face the scowling Hencely, both their eyes off their prey, who did little more groan and rock in the same breeze that sent the quartet of collared engineers jostling as well.
Then Eric seemed to flicker before their eyes, before Brittany’s exhausted gaze as well, and she feared that the story of his wondrous life was already fading to memory. Too noble a tale, perhaps, for their enemies to be permitted to feast upon his remains, spiritual or otherwise. The slaves had no idea what was going on, clearly, their eyes widening with obvious fear, knowing better than to lose control of the horrific core only they could keep tame.
“Oh yes, I did indeed agree to that outrageous waste,” Nazen sneered. “And the look of utter sincerity in your face was exactly what was needed to lure our target in. But now that he’s broken and bleeding, bounded by that foul card that has stripped him of all his powers, critically wounded with the help of your Shadow Contender… I can think of far better uses for that Trillion credit prize. Can’t you?”
The other man gazed at the scheming inquisitor in stunned surprise. “Did you truly say a trillion credits? That’s a hundred times what all the settled territory in the northeast is even worth!”
The Inquisitor laughed. “Now you understand! You’ve shown yourself the true master of Elonia’s greatest tool! His power is now yours, correct? You’ll now be able to claim New Arcadia in all its pristine glory, with no need to waste such a valuable resource. And fear not. You’ve proven yourself useful enough that I will happily share the largess. A fitting reward for such a useful… compatriot. Now we need but secure the—”
The inquisitor’s brow furrowed, nose furrowing as if able to detect even the slightest uptick in the constant dread and misery that should be his slaves’ constant and eternal state.
His eyes narrowed, then bulged in alarm when he registered what was right before him. “Why aren’t you four wearing your collars?”
His lurched back in surprise a heartbeat later when a full dozen hard-eyed mercenaries dropped from the heavens, surrounding the four confused-looking men only now truly registering that they were without collars.
Brittany blinked with surprise when the tinny voice of Eric’s familiar filled the air. “Yes, you’re free! Now focus on the prize, boys, or we all blow up, and no one gets any shiny toys! So, how would you four boys like to embrace fresh employment opportunities with an employer who doesn’t believe in collars?”
“Please, yes!” Cried the youngest of the four. Little more than a boy. “Free us, and we’ll do anything for you. Anything!”
“A million credits each and your freedom, if you can keep this badboy stable while I call some friends.”
“Done!”
“Sweet. You boys got Blue Corp accounts?”
Nazen’s eyes bulged in outrage. “No! What mockery is this?” His glare turned to a snarl when three massive twelve foot long war hammers and an equal number of spears covered in runes of resilience and flame were directed his way from the surrounding pack of revenants, their eyes now grimly locked on the Inquisitor.
Nazen stumbled back, snarling his outrage.
“You think foul necromantic abominations can stop me?”
He raised his sword hilt high.
“I abjure thee!”
He blinked in surprise as a beautiful fluffy white rabbit with sparkling ruby eyes hopped onto the largest revenant’s head and snorted. “Sorry, buddy. But seeing as your pathetic-tier abjuration doesn’t have an ounce of essence attached to it… Yeah. No way you’re beating a 75th level Master Necromancer at his own game.”
Nazen snarled, stumbling back. “What foul abomination—” Only then did he seem to truly appreciate the significance of his force sword hilt. “Why is my blade not working?”
“That’s because I suppressed all fire in a fifty yard radius,” said the brightly smiling youth now before him, the spurting blood from his shoulder instantly fading to a trickle. “Normally, the ritual takes way too much time, especially for players like us. But I was able to transform all those glorious insights I gained from taking out a certain Silver-Tier asshole manipulating the entire world with his 5 Ranks of Essence of Dominion. I mean, believe me... I would have LOVED to have his auras of Dominion and Rightful authority. Using those powers to shape reality itself by my will alone? Like the ultimate god or mage, assuming one doesn’t have any higher order concepts to counter such a generalized effect? Shit, that would have been so epic!”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Eric affected a sad sigh. “But a White-tier novice like me didn’t have a fucking chance. Silvers are Silvers for a reason, right? But at least I was able to turn my insights into something useful.”
The handsome youth flashed a smile as cold and ruthless as the Inquisitor before him. “Like a fast-cast spell so saturated with the Essence of Dominion that it doesn’t just keep black powder from sparking, but even Bronze tier primers and powders and hell, even plasma catalysts. Pretty awesome, right? But I’m not such an idiot that I’m going to trust spells built upon intuition and gut hunches to neutralize a potential quark bomb, so I thought it best if I secure the core first with a bit of fumbling around like an idiot. And did you see how fast I smeared blood and popped all four of those collars? Pretty fucking fast, right?”
The inquisitor stiffened, slowly turning around, gazing a smirking Eric’s way with blanched features. “NO. Impossible. You? NEVER! I will never believe a loathsome fool like you could harm—”
“You’re cousin?” Elonia’s brother chuckled coldly. “Yeah. He underestimated me too. Only unlike you, he was Silver and nearly killed me. Twice. Good thing I sensed his card of Twisted Fate.”
Eric smirked, daring to turn away from the man as he gazed at the pentagram and a shocked-looking Hencely. “Yeah. The thing with those cards? They pretty much are a sure way of taking out even powerful prey… assuming you haven’t been manipulated or led by the nose by cards like those for years of your life. Assuming you can’t read between the fucking lines.
“Like your cousin’s card!” He said brightly, effortlessly slipping past the howling Inquisitor’s flashing and clearly functional mana-using vibro blade.
“It all but assured my death, should I dare face Song’s fucking deadly war hammer with a sword that should have spelled an easy win for me. But since I’m not a complete idiot… I charged him with a spear instead,” he said, smirking as a wild-eyed Nazen howled and charged again, vibro blade ramming right for his belly.
Before Eric lurched close and caught the cursing Nazen with a flawless right hook that sent the man tumbling through the air.
Sans his head.
“Then I followed up with a Fire Fist that took out nearly half a dozen blocks! I’d feel guilty as fuck, but Elonia and I somehow brought everyone back. All eight and a half million New Yorkers. I’m not even quite sure how, but fuck it. Linchpin city and the city of our birth. Good karma, maybe? Why sweat the details, right?”
Eric grinned at the horrified-looking Hencely, who’s eyes seemed locked on the gore spattered fist Eric waved at the man with.
“So, yeah, that just happened!” Eric said brightly. “Same right hook, minus the flame! But considering that your friend, unlike his Silver-Tier cousin… former cousin? Was a fucking pathetic pussy with a Vitality barely over 200, he’s still dead. Head shattered like a rotten melon. Damn smelly, too. Must be all that sellout corruption rotting him from within. Damn shame. Now, as for the crimson pentagram radiating the same fucking warping dimensional magic as the FUCKING RIFT THAT COULD KILL US ALL that you’re using as such a trump card to take out an opponent way above your weight class? Yeah. That only triggers if I actually touch the interior of that pentagram which is actually a gate. Which I’m not going to do, because I can fucking LEVITATE, genius! I mean seriously. Look at my feet. I’ve mentally declared the ground to be three inches above your own slowly sinking boots ever since this fight started. I mean... just look at the sky. Flying boats much? Revenants hopping down to rescue captives before hopping back up? You understand what I’m saying, or are you going to keep your jaw hanging open like a complete idiot?”
“No!” A clearly shaken Hencely said. “There is no way you could know. No way you could best us so easily!”
Eric gazed almost pityingly at the flustered Contender. “And you know those boots you’re wearing won’t last more than a couple of seconds before the gate pulls you in as well… right?”
Hencely paled, screamed, and retreated right out of the pentagram.
Eric smirked. “Awesome.”
Lord Hencely’s eyes widened as he caught sight of revenants now racing away up into the clouds, with Nazem’s formerly enslaved arcanists and the priceless core now firmly in their possession.
“No! You distracted me on purpose! Your ships are flying away!”
“You’re damn right they are. Separately too!” Eric said with a too bright smile. “Because you’re a Contender, which means you could have a dozen tricks up your ass, no matter how stupid you look, and I’m taking no chances when it comes to getting that core away from your sorry ass. No fucking way am I accepting any pyrrhic victory bullshit, no matter how high my Elemental Resistance.”
Hencely’s shocked features turned purple with outrage. “I will not let you make a mockery out of me!”
“Too late,” Eric winked. “Repudio!”
The air itself seemed to twist and stretch in unnatural directions. Hencely stumbled to his knees with blood trickling from his ears when the pentagram flared out of existence, space itself suddenly feeling so tight as if reality itself would burst open in a single tortured blink of an eye… before the feeling passed, a moment later, and a still dazed Brittany shuddered with the relief of her entire kingdom.
Eric glared. “Too fucking close, asshole. Do you seriously not realize how close we are to a fucking rupture? Have you not seen the rift that looks fucking ready to burst over New York?”
Hencely’s only response was to scream.
“Slave! From behind! We strike him as one!”
Eric’s gaze turned almost pitying when the air rang with a crack and a body of darkness went cartwheeling through the air.
Brittany found her awed gaze locking with her nemesis. For a single endless moment, she wasn’t just sensing the movements of his body, but the bitter hate that infused his entire soul.
***
Hencely blinked as his mocking foe seemed to disappear before his eyes. “No. Impossible! How fast—”
5-fold speed multiple in effect :( Your opponent is more than 5 times as fast as you. You have failed to spot your opponent!
Hencely blinked in confusion when his body was rocked by sudden pain, gazing stupidly to find himself prone… horrified to see living bone crawl free out of his fallen mercenaries to slither across the ground like snakes. Then the awful bones chill with death were now twisting upon his own limbs and wrapping him up in their awful vice.
“No! No! Necromancy is forbidden. It is absolutely forbidden! The emperor himself will have your head!” Hencely shrieked for all he was worth.
“Actually you’re wrong about that,” Eric said with a wink at the hoard of transfixed soldiers and mercenaries staring right at them both.
Eric flashed his killing aura.
The entire army stiffened and lurched back.
“Necromancy now has Conceptio’s Seal of Approval. Cost me a Silver-tier title to get it too, but fuck it. A great long term investment, no?”
“Outrageous!” A blustering Hencely shrieked. “You will release me at once, or face the council’s retribution!”
The blood paled from his features when Eric held up his finger. “Hold that thought!”
Hencely’s bluster faded the instant the wild contender disappeared. He whimpered, in that moment forced to accept just how perilous his circumstances had become.
He managed to twist his neck around just enough to see the coldly glittering steel edge of the weighted blade reflecting off the light of the setting sun.
Only in that moment did he truly appreciate the awful nature of his confinement.
He wasn’t being trapped or contained to await trial.
He was locked in a guillotine of sinew and bone.
Awaiting his own execution.
And if he had had any doubts…
The tear-streaked features of the brat he had so gleefully struck and taunted with death just minutes ago made his fate clear enough.
His breath turned ragged as Brittany Summers, Queen of Boston, approached him with a broken-toothed smile.
“You don’t dare execute me, you stupid brat. I am on of the chosen! I am a member of the counsel!”
Brittany clenched her fist, looking so ready to smash his helpless face.
Hencely frantically twisted his hands, heart fluttering with one desperate final chance at escape.
“You wish your family’s full pardon? I can make that—You’ve been served, Brittany Summers! You are hereby remanded into my custody to await trial in the Carolina Courts!” Hencely’s lips curled in a fierce chortle as his hand slipped free of all restraint, for no Legal Summons could be denied by any lower court.
“The chains of servitude bind you! My safety and well-being has just become your number one priority! The moment I die, so will you!”
His lips curled cruelly at her horrified countenance. “That’s right, bitch. I OWN you now!”
Yet before he could give any orders, the vile Contender whose acting he had always found atrocious in the before times, unlike his moderately talented sister, spun around his prey and whispered words in her ears it turned Hencely absolutely LIVID with outrage to hear.
“Legalese uses the specter of LAW which everyone pre-apocalypse allowed to rule their lives, back when we were all powerless and chaos risked all our fragile lives, should societal chaos cause clean water and food supply chains to break down. But today, those old world codicils need have absolutely no power over you. You are your own queen. You control your own sovereign nation. So the twisted laws of an enemy need have no grip over your heart, or your soul.”
“Fool! You think it’s that easy?” Hencely desperately shrieked. “She’s American-born, same as me, same as you! Of course we’re all bound by those laws—no!”
Eric flashed a bitter cold smile as Hencely cried out, feeling the claws of his dark magic actually lose purchase on his victim. For the very first time.
“No, she’s not. And what makes it all the more pathetic, you gas-lighting fuck, is that you’re using Confederate law, where slavery is still legal. And, in case you’ve been asleep since Lincoln, slavery has been OUTLAWED without exception in the nation of our birth. That renders all your writs, summons, and compulsions NUL and VOID. And in case you or your victims have any doubts about that…”
“Repudio!”
Hencely snarled, feeling his wondrous writ fade to nothing, before screaming as his arm fazed into the bone chopping block that had just fused with his limb.
“I’m free! Mother’s mercy, I’m finally free of him!”
Hencely gasped in dismay, unable to hold back the howl slipping from his lips as he was struck by the backlash of so many blackened tendrils manipulating his favorite pawn being simultaneously severed. And the irony of it was, he had only bound her with her own belief, her own faith in his power over her. He growing stronger with every level she endured under his control, and all he had done was clue her in to the power that was already hers.
Yet with one assinine bit of rhetorical artifice, she was free.
Simply because she believed it to be so.
Then Brittany’s words made his crushing defeat all the worse. “Goodbye, asshole. May you burn in hell.”
“No, wait! You’ve already won! I can make it worth—”
Just a heartbeat before his own neck was freed from his body, his final agonized moments being the look of furious vindication on Brittany Summer’s face when steel chomped through flesh and bone and all was the nauseating sight of the world spinning around and around.
But Hencely couldn’t heave… he couldn’t even breathe! His brain screamed for oxygen as his body burned with fire every bit as bad as the doom he had promised the girl glaring down at him even now, without a single flicker of remorse as she plopped his head into the very container filled with shockingly potent spirit peach juice that forced him to endure endless PAIN! Exactly what he had threatened to do to her. No matter how much he silently wept and begged and pled with her, mouth opening and closing like a fish while his soul screamed for release.
Then she clamped the lid closed.
“Exactly what that fucker was going to do to me,” her muffled voice declared to both Contender and the silently shrieking head now trapped in a pitch dark box of endless pain.
“I’m not complaining… fuck!”
“Eric? What’s wrong?”
"I think I'm going to burst!"
Those were the final words Hencely heard when the event horizon of oblivion clawed at his soul. Yet his chamber of torment was so saturated with raw life energy that he sensed he could fight it off. At least for a time.
But unlike every other struggle he had ever endured, Hencely surrendered completely, utterly, happily letting his soul be dragged out of that box of nightmare pain, eager to give the predator consuming him every last ounce of potency that he could, for the sweet balm of oblivion and final release.
