The Soul Engine Ch. 24 (Original Fantasy) (Patreon)

A/N: Mikael and Bula have their fight. It is not a fair fight.

-x-X-x-

Mikael had briefly wondered at both of their previous meetings why Bula was dressed so… scantily. Her armor could not be described as all-encompassing after all, not by a long shot. Of course, knowing what he knew about her gorget and its primary purpose as a slave collar, Mikael had assumed that the rest of it was Zadicus’ doing as well. The white leotard, which provided absolutely no protection to the half-orc, seemed like the sort of thing the Lord of Alether might force Bula to wear.

However, as they fight and her sole garment quickly gets stained with blood, Mikael starts to wonder if maybe Bula would have been happier fighting stark-naked. Maybe Zadicus HAD forced the half-orc to wear the leotard, but only because the only other choice was her walking around completely nude. She certainly didn’t seem to mind being clad so scantily… and she certainly didn’t mind Mikael’s blade digging into her flesh either.

Bula was multitudes stronger than Thayla, obviously. But then, Mikael had known that going in. Half-orcs were said to have all of the strength of a normal orc and all of the intelligence of a human. But the regeneration… that was something else. As Mikael cuts Bula, she heals far faster than he would have expected. Her blood splatters all over the arena floor, staining the already stained sand even further, but her injuries heal in real time right in front of his face.

Narrowing his eyes, Mikael easily dodges another swing of Bula’s axe, even as she growls and grunts. Those big blue eyes of hers are filled with recognition now. She knows who she is. Or at least, she knows him as ‘the one who got away’, as the arsonist behind Zadicus’ unfortunate losses in the storage business. However, she hadn’t stopped the fight in order to inform Zadicus of this fact.

That was good, because Mikael’s plan hinged on it being just him and her down here. For the moment, whenever he glances in the Lord of Alether’s direction, Zadicus Quinn seems fairly confident still that Bula will prevail. That too is good, and it’s the reason Mikael is still holding back a lot.

Because yeah, Bula is strong. Yeah, she heals fast. But Mikael has absorbed the souls of hundreds of people. His Soul Engine is burning hot in his chest, but in a good way if that even makes sense. Power courses through his veins and he feels like he could rip this entire Colosseum down brick by brick if he really put his mind to it.

But overconfidence could still be his undoing. And he doesn’t want to have to kill a bunch of guards just to get to Zadicus. Hence, Plan B. Plan A was winning the Grand Melee so the Lord of the City would meet him alone with Bula by his side. With just the two of them, Mikael could have taken them on easily. But now that Zadicus, in his small-minded pettiness, has decided to push the issue regarding the survivors of the Grand Melee, Mikael has no choice but to pivot.

“Heh. You’re faster. Stronger too.”

Mikael snorts from behind his mask as Bula actually manages to speak in a reasonable tone. He’s grateful that she’s not shouting her words. They would have given too much away. Whipping himself under another powerful, air-splitting axe swing from the half-orc, Mikael buries his sword in her gut again, this time twisting it before tearing it out.

Bula ROARS in pain and agony, and that roar echoes through the Colosseum. Zadicus flinches and the confident smile on his face drops for the first time. More importantly though, the audience is hanging off the edge of their seats, watching someone actually stand up to their despot of a Lord. They watch as Mikael and Bula fight… and they watch as Mikael doesn’t immediately lose.

Of course, Mikael doesn’t follow up. Bula throws out her axe to try and cut him down if he does, but he’s already pulling away. Sure, he could have dodged her next wild swing and kept piling on the damage. Sure, he could have beaten her outright if he went all out. But he needs to prolong this. He needs to put on one last show. The most important show of his life.

That’s why, on his next pass, he lets Bula’s axe finally find purchase in his flesh. A hush goes through the crowd as she slams the battle axe down onto his shoulder, crunching in the metal plate there and digging deep into his leather armor. Mikael grunts and allows himself to be driven to a knee as Bula grins the vicious grin of a battle junkie.

He doesn’t hold it against her. Not any of it. She’s a bloodthirsty battle maniac who hasn’t gotten enough fights because the piss poor excuse for a wizard up on the Lord’s Podium tricked her into a disadvantageous contract. This and their fight at the warehouse were probably the most fun Bula had had in who knew how long.

“Mm. Good fight. You-!”

Whatever harsh condolences she intended to give him as he died… she doesn’t get the chance. Because even as she’s trying to yank her battle-axe back out of his flesh, Mikael snaps his hand up and grabs it by the haft again. Bula’s blue eyes narrow as he pulls the axe back down, not letting her yank it free. He can’t let her pull it out yet. It wouldn’t send the right… message.

Instead, while Bula is trying to remove her weapon from Mikael’s grip, what everyone else sees is Mikael slowly standing up while it SEEMS like all of her orcish strength is bearing down on him from above. What the crowds and the guards and Zadicus all see is Mikael rising back to his feet from his kneeling position, seemingly overcoming Bula’s monstrous strength and the wound she’s given him.

And what they see, once he’s risen to his feet once more, is Mikael being the one to yank her axe blade out of his flesh and his ruined armor and push her back. Bula stumbles backwards with wide eyes as Mikael’s blood splatters across the sand in a wide arc from her battle axe. But the wound itself… well, he might not know how Bula does it exactly, but he knows how he does it. It costs him a good amount of energy from the Soul Engine to heal his wound so fast but compared to how much power he’s currently holding onto, it’s a pittance.

More than that though, it’s worth it to see the look on Bula’s face as she sees how fast he’s healed. The look on Zadicus Quinn’s face is pretty damn priceless too.

“You… you’re like me.”

Mikael doesn’t quite know what she means by that, but he shakes his head all the same.

“No. I’m better.”

As expected, such words go a long way to bringing Bula back to the battle at hand. Her wide eyes narrow again at the disrespectful confidence in his tone, and she huffs as she snarls, showing off her tusks. Her sharp, knife-like ears twitch atop her head… the only warning Mikael gets before the red haired half-orc launches herself forward.

To the shock of everyone watching the battle, Mikael meets her charge in an entirely unexpected way. Namely… he drops his sword. It falls from his fingers right as Bula is bearing down on him, but while there are gasps of shock and cries of dismay from everyone in the stadium, the half-orc doesn’t hesitate. He wonders what they think is happening. They probably can’t see that he’s healed as fast as he did. Bula and Zadicus both noticed.

Though, in the moment before Bula brings her axe down, Mikael sees a fresh grin on Zadicus’ face. Perhaps the up-jumped City Lord thinks that Mikael’s healing is only surface deep and his sword arm has suddenly stopped working or something. Alas… that’s not the case. The brand new grin on Zadicus Quinn’s face freezes in place when Mikael once again catches Bula’s overhead swing on the haft of her axe before the blade can strike him.

To her credit, Bula is ready for it this time. She steps in the moment he does it and aims a quick kick to the inside of his leg, attempting to break his footing and bring him to the ground where she can wail on him to her heart’s content. A great idea… he’d go ahead and steal it from her then.

Easily dodging the sharp kick, Mikael grabs hold of Bula’s axe with his other hand as well… and then wrenches. Bula grunts in surprise as he tears her weapon from her grasp, displaying far greater strength than her and wresting the battle axe free in front of everyone watching. The Colosseum is packed with tens of thousands of people thanks to Zadicus Quinn’s vanity… and every single one of them see the Lord’s Chief Enforcer get disarmed in that moment.

Rather than use Bula’s own weapon against her however, Mikael tosses it away… and tackles Bula onto her back. The half-orc goes down with a surprised shout as Mikael slams a gloved fist right into her face hard enough to break her nose. She heals from it almost immediately of course but doesn’t recover fast enough to stop the second punch.

This right here is the crux of Plan B. He can feel everyone’s eyes on him. That’s good. But he has to be careful. Too short, and Bula recovers enough to fight back while he’s doing what he needs to do. Too long and Zadicus likely starts throwing magic around or calls in the guards to put Mikael down. In the end, he settles for a dozen walloping punches to Bula’s head, leaving the half-orc with glazed over blue eyes and a dazed and confused expression on her face.

She’ll heal, he figures. But not soon enough. He could have killed her right then and there. He could have cut her head from her shoulders with her own axe, or his sword. Both were close enough for him to get them and come back before she could recover.

But Bula’s death was never part of Plan B. No, she was much more useful to him alive. As evidence.

Before anyone can really react, Mikael reaches down and grabs the enchanted gorget around Bula’s neck, upper chest, and shoulders. He grabs it… and he begins to pull. Immediately, he feels resistance. More resistance than he’d felt when fighting against Bula’s physical strength, even. There’s a lot of fucking magic in the heavy, incredibly thick slave collar that the half-orc is wearing. Magic that fights its removal every step of the way.

There’s a chance that this will actually kill Bula… but having seen how tough she is and how fast she heals, Mikael figures she’ll be alright. Probably. Either way, he doesn’t stop. He burns through the energy in his Soul Engine as fast as he needs to… and he keeps. Fucking. Pulling.

“GUARDS, STOP-!”

With a roar of defiance and rage that reverberates through the entire Colosseum, Mikael cuts Zadicus off. The explosion of magical energy as he tears Bula’s collar off of her probably also helps to silence the shocked Lord of Alether. Only too late had Zadicus realized what Mikael was doing. Only too late had the City Lord realized he was about to be exposed.

Holding Bula’s slave collar up in two ripped pieces in his hands, Mikael looks down and sees the half-orc’s eyes refocusing just in time to glance down at the magical contract that was literally branded into her flesh. Mikael can’t say for certain how it works, but if he had to guess, he’d assume the contract was written in magical runes on the inside of the gorget, and then placed upon Bula, literally branding it into her flesh and tying it to her person.

Of course, now that the gorget is shattered, the contract flakes off of Bula’s body, the magic broken. Her flesh heals rapidly, the branding disappearing in mere moments. She’s free.

As Bula stares down at herself with wide eyes, Mikael rises to his feet and lifts the collar up, slowly turning in a circle to regard the people of Alether.

“IS THIS YOUR LORD, PEOPLE OF ALETHER?! A COWARD WHO HIDES BEHIND HIS SLAVE?! A MONSTER WHO STEALS YOUR LOVED ONES FROM THEIR HOMES TO THRUST INTO HIS SICK GAMES?!”

His voice rings out through the Colosseum. Everyone has seen it. Honestly, Mikael hadn’t been counting on the contract being so visible. But this works. Plan B has gone better than he could have hoped. There’s just one last step and it’s one Mikael can’t take alone. Beating Bula up was Phase One of Plan B. But turning the Colosseum Audience against Zadicus at long last… that was Phase Two.

There’s a brief pause… and then someone cries out.

“Fuck no!”

“Monster!”

“Murderer!”

“DOWN WITH ZADICUS QUINN!”

The stadium begins to fill with more and more voices. Mikael can see some of the City Guard even joining in. The others have faces white as ghosts as they look around, trying to figure out who the fuck they’re supposed to arrest first. The smartest ones quickly realize how outnumbered they are and begin to quietly disappear from the stands.

Meanwhile, Mikael slowly turns back around and looks up at the Lord’s Podium where Zadicus Quinn stands, his crime of slavery laid bare before everyone. Maybe he would have gotten away with it if they’d gone through the proper channels. After all, as Lord of Alether, he was part of the proper channels. But the court of public opinion was another thing entirely.

The sound of a scuffle draws Mikael and Zadicus’ eyes over to the same part of the stands. They watch together as a group mob the guards in that section and take their weapons. It’s only the first of many. The rioting has already started. The people are fed up and have had enough. When Mikael finally looks back to Zadicus… the Lord doesn’t even glance his way. He just turns and hurries off of the platform, vanishing down a passage and fleeing from the scene.

Mikael grits his teeth, prepared to go after him, but before he can do so, Bula rises to her feet in front of him. As expected, the half-orc had healed fast and whatever backlash she might have experienced from having her slave collar forcibly removed isn’t enough to keep her down for long. Mikael tenses for a moment, not sure whether to anticipate a thank you or an attack from the bloodthirsty woman.

But as she shakes off the last bits of metal from the destroyed gorget Zadicus had her in, Bula graces Mikael with a savage grin and brings her fists together, slamming her knuckles hard enough to make them bleed for a moment.

“Well? What are we waiting for? We going to go and kill that bastard or not?”

-x-X-x-

A/N: Bula out here all too ready to switch sides, lmao. 

Meanwhile, Mikael may or may not have started a city-wide revolution. Whoops.

Leave a Like if you enjoyed please! And if you have time, be sure to let me know what you think!

-x-X-x-

Another Royalroad Update! We went from Rank 5200 to Rank 3600 in the last 24 hours. 

I think we're on track to hit Rising Stars off of this progress, and from there my hope is that the story will wind up in front of the general Royalroad Audience and people will organically pick it up from there.

That said, if you've already helped me out, THANK YOU SO MUCH! If you haven't been able to help yet but maybe have the time today, please consider throwing me a Favorite, Follow, and Rating over on Royalroad!

Link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/74638/the-soul-engine-isekaifantasy