Chapter 202 - A Knight in Shining Armor (Patreon)

The imposing building loomed over the rest of the city, looking precisely like the ruling seat it was. On his approach, Zeke studied it. During his time in Jariq, he had seen the building from a distance, so many of its features were familiar enough. The domed roof, the aggressive spires, the carved columns out front – it looked like a blend of Indian and neo-Roman architecture, as if someone had taken the Taj Mahal and smashed it together with the U.S. Capitol building, then blew everything up to massive proportions. And made it all out of marble, gold, and oversized gems. Zeke couldn’t help but wonder if the original builders – or rather, those who had commissioned it – had been compensating for something.

Of course, his home was a giant, somewhat phallic tower, so he didn’t think he had much room to talk.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, glancing at Abby. Her clothes were a little worse for wear, and she looked a little stressed, but she was otherwise unharmed. She had also lost her bow, which seemed to anger her more than her brief imprisonment. Luckily, Zeke had once again come to the rescue.

She nodded. “I’m fine, Zeke,” she said, examining the bow Zeke looted from the fallen Mykaela. It was a nice piece of gear, at least equal to the bow she’d had stolen from her, but it lacked the spatial storage ability of the Windseeker Bow. Rather, it had an enchantment that magnified the bow’s power by half, meaning that it would add quite a bit of penetrative force. “For the hundredth time.”

He knew she was annoyed at the necessity of rescue, and in a lot of ways, he understood it. After all, she’d worked extremely hard to improve and build upon her own power, even completing a quest that gave her a unique skill. However, she was also markedly weaker than anyone else in the party. Even Carlos far outstripped her both in terms of stats and in raw ability.

But on the other hand, Zeke thought that her issues, understandable though they were, were inherently stupid. After all, they were all in it together, weren’t they? They were a team. When one got stronger, the entire group did as well. So, Zeke didn’t see him as standing above her. Rather, he was just another cog in the machine that was their group. Everyone had played a role in their survival so far, and he didn’t expect that to change going forward, regardless of the gaps in personal strength.

“What’s the plan?” she asked, glancing at him as they strode along the wide avenue leading to the Seat of the Sultanate.

“I’m going to go in and crush anybody who gets in my way,” he stated. “Why? You think I should just knock the building down?”

“You think you could?”

He shrugged. He’d been building his momentum for a while, so he was nearly at the limit of what he could comfortably contain. His experiences had taught him that exceeding that limit would prove almost as damaging to him as it was to anything he attacked. So, while he couldn’t match the strike that had destroyed a good portion of the city, if he aimed [Unleash Momentum] properly, he thought he could probably bring the building down.

But would a falling building and a bit of rubble be enough to kill the strongest Spiders? Zeke wasn’t sure, but he suspected not. Still, he said, “Maybe.”

Pudge certainly liked the idea, judging by the anger, laced with approval, coursing through their bond. But then again, the bear had been in a strange mood ever since they had discovered the assassin guild’s treachery. Zeke had never seen his companion so angry.

“It would be a potent statement,” Abby said.

Zeke sensed that she didn’t wholly approve, though. “But?”

“But I’d prefer to kill them face-to-face,” she admitted. “I know that’s not healthy. I know I shouldn’t want revenge. But they threatened those people. They took Carlos and me hostage. I want to make them pay for that mistake.”

Zeke had rarely seen Abby’s bloodthirsty side, but he certainly understood why it had made an appearance. However, he suspected that her issues weren’t really rooted in the Spiders threatening innocent people. Rather, he thought that they stemmed from her feelings of inadequacy.

Which was preposterous.

She had made a choice to save people. It wasn’t as if she’d been defeated in battle. And even if she had, it wouldn’t be a judgement on her capabilities as a warrior. Everyone lost sometimes. That was reality. The only question was how you chose to react to that defeat. With Zeke’s experience as an athlete – specifically, in a sport where failure was an inescapable and common part of the game – had taught him how to react to losing. Abby had clearly never had that, and her reaction to her brief incarceration had put that lack on display.

Still, Zeke had no issues with a more direct approach. So, he led the group down that wide avenue to the sizable plaza before the over-designed building. As he did so, he realized that it was much larger than he’d initially judged, with the dome reaching at least three-hundred feet in height. Maybe even a little more. Regardless, it was a truly huge structure.

When they reached the steps leading up to the entrance, they were confronted by a group of thirty men and women, all of which wore yellow tabards emblazoned with a red rising phoenix motif. It was the Sultanate’s symbol, meant to inspire confidence in their ability to emerge victorious from even the direst of circumstances.

“Halt!” yelled a man in the middle. He was tall, slender, and carried a halberd with a wicked-looking blade. Otherwise, he was armored in full plate that reminded Zeke of the so-called Devastator he’d fought only a short time before. However, this man’s enameled armor was blindingly white. He flipped up his visor, growling, “Go no further or we shall be forced to act!”

Zeke used his [Inspect] ability and was rewarded with the man’s name and level:

Lucas Worthington – Level 25

“Give me the Spiders, and I won’t take another step,” Zeke said. “But if you refuse, I’m going to have to go through you. I don’t have an argument with the Sultanate. Only with the Spiders.”

“You dare threaten us?!” the man screamed, his pompous voice on clear display. A prominent vein jutted from his forehead, evidence of his anger. “One more step, and we shall rid this world of your blightful presence!”

“Blightful? Is that even a word?” Abby asked from where she stood beside Zeke. She already had an arrow conjured and nocked, so she was ready for a fight. On Zeke’s left was Pudge, who, in the cold, night air of the desert, had steam rising from his fur. Talia lurked at Abby’s shoulder. Under the influence of the recently applied [Avatar of the Beast], combined with her [Alacrity of Undeath], she gave off an aura of barely restrained movement. In an instant, she could cover the twenty-or-so feet between the two groups, and when she did, she’d wreak havoc in their ranks.

Zeke didn’t respond to Abby’s flippant comment. Nor did he say anything to Lucas Worthington. Instead, he used [Inspect] on every member of the knight’s party. And he had to say, he was impressed. Six of them were level twenty-five, fifteen were between twenty and twenty-three, and the rest were just shy of that mark. It was a formidable force. But the only one that felt even slightly dangerous to Zeke was the man at the center.

“I do not think so,” said Talia.

“You dare mock me, monster?!” the man screamed, stepping forward. He leveled his halberd at Talia, and a moment later, a beam of waist-thick pure light cut through the air. It covered the distance between the two groups in only an instant, but by the time it reached Talia’s position, she was already gone. The beam of light melted its way into a building across the plaza, turning the sandstone into molten glass.

A scream tore through night air, evidence that the building had been occupied. A second later, another scream – this one coming from within the ranks of knights guarding the Seat of the Sultanate – joined it. Then another. And another after that. Talia hadn’t wasted any time before answering the attack with one of her own.

Not to be outdone, Zeke raced forward, Pudge at his side. The bear roared, and a bar of black-and-red fire erupted from his maw, overwhelming one of the lower-leveled knights. And then, Zeke reached Lucas, and the battle was joined in earnest.

The knight’s armor glowed blue, evidence of a shield, as he stabbed forward with this halberd. Zeke twisted around the attempt to impale him, aiming a backhanded blow at the knight’s unprotected flank. The strike landed without difficulty, but the shield absorbed the damage. It could do little with the momentum, though, and the knight’s footing was interrupted. He stumbled away, colliding with one of his fellow knights.

Zeke took the opportunity to aim a [Life Scythe] at the group, sending a blade of red energy arcing towards his foes. This time, he allowed the skill to be infected by the soul-shredding blue lightning, and when it hit, his efforts were rewarded with howls of agony. In addition, he was flooded with stolen vitality, and with his direction, the life energy latched onto the still-resent arrow shards and dragged them to the surface. It wasn’t enough to push them out, so he swung his mace at another group, activating [Life Scythe] again. Given what these people had done, he refused to hold back, so the skill was once again accompanied by the soulrending blue lightning.

As the knights dropped, writhing in the more-than-physical pain, Zeke snatched the life energy he’d stolen and pushed the arrow shards completely out of his body. A moment later, he was entirely healed from the battle with the bow-wielding assassin. That gave him leave to turn his attention to Lucas, the knight armed with a halberd.

The man, having only just recovered from his first experience with having his soul flayed, had risen, but his stance was unsteady, and there was fear in his eyes. “W-what are you?” he demanded, his pomposity having faded, replaced by terror and disbelief.

“Just a guy you shouldn’t have fucked with.”

Then, Zeke leapt forward, his mace held high in a two-handed grip. He tore through the air, his speed nearly comparable with Talia’s. The knight was a veteran of a thousand battles, though. His high level was evidence enough of that. And he was possessed of impressive stats as well. So, he managed to aim his halberd at Zeke, letting loose with another one of those bars of light energy. This one was more concentrated and less than a foot wide.

It hit Zeke in the chest.

The pain overwhelmed his resistance as the skill melted a hole through his armor and tore through his torso, destroying muscle, bone, and organs alike, punching through him with little resistance.

Zeke was no stranger to fighting through pain, though. And with his stats, he’d long passed the point where his body was wholly dependent on organs to function. So, he managed to fight through the torment of his wounds and bring his mace down in a herculean attack. As he did so, green light bloomed from the weapon, mingling with the red cloud of mist that had come with his [Life Scythe] skill.

Voromir took the knight in the crown of the head, the metal of the man’s armor crumpling like an aluminum can. His head didn’t fare any better, exploding like a watermelon that had found itself on the wrong end of a sledgehammer. But Zeke’s attack didn’t stop there. It kept going well into the man’s torso, destroying everything that stood in its way. Metal wrenched apart or crumpled, completely incapable of standing up to Zeke’s might.

The knight was pummeled into the ground. The sandstone tiles that made up the plaza shattered into dust, and the ground beneath it gave way to a huge crater. Waves of earth bucked, throwing the surrounding combatants into the air.  When the dust settled, Zeke was on his knee atop a pile of blood, gore, and metal that had once been a powerful knight.

He stood, and as he did so, directed the life energy he’d stolen to knit his chest back together. As the other knights watched in horror, his spine regrew. Then his ribs. Organs. Flesh. And finally, skin.

It took every ounce of control Zeke possessed, but he managed to keep the energy contained to the area. Because of how potent the attack had been – and with how little the knight had actually been able to stop – he’d stolen quite a bit of vital energy. And given the state of his torso, that was a very good though. He was surprised at how little a hole in his chest had affected him, but he wasn’t going to question it.

“W-what…”

The knight in question never got the chance to finish her question, because an arrow tore its way into his torso, followed closely by a bolt of lightning. He fell, his armor melting and his body smoking. Thus resumed the battle, with the group tearing into the accumulated knights with little in the way of mercy.

Without Lucas, none of them could stand up to Zeke. Nor could any of them keep up with Talia or Pudge. And as Abby had just shown, her [Thunder Strike] was more than enough to take down any of them. So, it was a one-sided battle with predictable results.

In the past, Zeke might have gone easy on them and tried to preserve their lives. However, the leader’s pompous nature had put him on edge, and that, combined with his already simmering anger, had driven him to take his frustrations out on the much weaker knights.

Later, he might regret his actions, but in the moment, it was a much-needed catharsis.

When the last knight fell, her armor destroyed and her flesh black with the decay of Talia’s attacks, Zeke looked around to see that his friends were largely unharmed. Pudge had taken a few hits, but none of them had been capable of penetrating his thick hide.

To Talia, Zeke said, “Gather the hearts. There’s no telling what we’ll find in there.” He nodded to the Seat of the Sultanate. “Better to be prepared.”

Talia nodded and began her grisly work. Suddenly, Carlos stepped out of the shadows beside Zeke, saying, “You didn’t have to kill them all.”

“Yeah,” Zeke said. “We kind of did.  I notice you didn’t get involved. I’m beginning to wonder why we’re still keeping you around.”

“Me too,” Carlos agreed.

“Get onboard, or get left behind,” Zeke said. “You need to pick a side. Us or them. If you choose them, just stay out of our way.”

“You have no idea how hard this is for me,” Carlos said, his eyes never wavering from the slain knights. “I knew most of these people. Lucas was an arrogant ass, but he wasn’t a bad person.”

“He was in the way, though,” Zeke stated. “I gave him the chance to step aside. He chose not to take it.” He pointed to the building at the top of the steps. “Either I go in there and clean house, or I’m going to be looking over my shoulder the rest of the time I’m here. That could be decades. I refuse to live like that. And remember – they started this whole thing. I was perfectly willing to let bygones be bygones, but they kept pushing. I didn’t start it, but, goddamnit, I’m going to finish it.”

Carlos didn’t say anything. Instead, he took a step back and faded into the shadows.

“You think he’s on our side?” Zeke asked, hearing Abby approach.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Maybe. I can tell he’s conflicted, though. These people, they helped and supported him. It can’t be an easy decision, even if he agrees that it’s necessary.”

“Yeah. I get that,” Zeke said, looking around. “I do. I just don’t care right now. I’m tired of dealing with the Spiders. I’m ending the threat, here and now. Either he gets onboard, or he doesn’t.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s see if any of these people have anything we want. After that, we’re headed inside. I have a feeling that this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of their strength.”

“You don’t think the Sultanate would give the Spiders up?” Abby asked.

Zeke shook his head. “They wouldn’t have come out here if they were going to do that,” he stated. “Let’s just assume they’re the enemy until they’ve shown themselves to be otherwise.”