The Gamer Chapter 1640 – It was Him [Levro POV] (Patreon)

Levro stretched in his seat.

Running a crime empire had always been stressful work, but it had been easier when he had the money. The office he sat in hadn’t seen natural light in a while, not since he had needed to close the complicated system of tunnels and mirrors that had brought the sunrays all the way from the surface to the bottom layer of the city. A safety precaution, to prevent the new authorities in town from finding him.

The opulent walls of the large room showed many blank spots. Once, he had worked in the middle of his private art gallery. Hundreds of priceless artifacts of either historic or material value had found their way into his halls. Pieces of prestige as much as assets that appreciated in value. Savings outside of bank accounts, for bad times.

And bad times had most certainly befallen him. Plinths were empty, walls vacated, and the shipping container that he once had several parts of the Amber Room displayed in was now just a rectangle of metal.

All of these losses, all of these difficulties, because of the so-called queen of mithril and that Gamer. One was pushing through reforms that, bit by bit, obsoleted his powerbase, the other had made it impossible to ship slaves. In combination, Levro was without the means to acquire emergency capital and his area of influence was gradually shrinking. Just the other day, two ‘allies’ that he had a firm grip on before had cut ties with the underworld.

Who the fuck even knew what they had passed on to the authorities?

“You’re relaxed for a doomed man,” said the woman in the nearby seat.

Levro glanced over at her. He did not like looking at her. To start with, there was little to look at. Small tits on a short body, and if she did have a decent pair of hips, she hid it via the illusion magic that made it so difficult to focus on her. That was the bigger reason why he did not like to look at her: the blurriness of her outline. She had black hair. She wore it in a ponytail. She wore a bodysuit. Did she have bracers? Armguards? Something like that. A kimono covered her. A blue sash was tied around her waist.

That was about all he could say with certainty. Sometimes he was halfway certain her eyes were blue, then that certainty was replaced with a question if they weren’t a peculiar shade of green instead. Maybe greyish?

Levro moved his eyes away from her. He did not need to look at the hired help while he talked. “No use crying over the inevitable, is there?” he asked and grinned. “There’s no way out of this mess for me. At least I’m going to stick it to the anal queen.”

The woman, Kage as she liked to be referred to, chuckled. “People like you deserve everything that’s coming for them.”

“Rich coming from a woman in it for the money.” He shot her a lewd grin. “You’re not my usual type, but how-“

A grey streak cut through his periphery. His eyes snapped to the needle only after it had sunk halfway into the enchanted hardwood. A few centimetres to the right and it would have been his eye instead. In a swirl of darkness, the dull grey thorn of metal disappeared.

Kage twirled something around her finger. Was it the needle or something else entirely? “No need to doom yourself further.”

Levro licked his lips. In better times, he would have had hired muscle pin her down just to prove a point. Not that he was even certain that would work. Hiring a new assassin that had entered the market carried with itself equal parts risk and opportunity.

BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEERGH!

The loud, trembling tone rumbled through the earpiece. It was loud enough to rattle the brain inside his skull. Levro jumped to his feet. Of all the alarms that he had set-up, this one was of the highest level.

The dark-haired man pounced at the table. His magic signature flashed through the reactive metal. Two dozen illusionary screens spawned all around him. “What?!” he bellowed into the communication system.

“The Gamer’s been spotted in the systems! He’s heading right to you!”

“Oh?” Kage hummed with deep interest. “Guess you’re even more doomed than I thought.”

“We’ll see about that – prepare the specialized defences!” Levro grinned, repressing the urge to look at the headache-inducing woman. “I’ve spent money on more than just you, prude.”

“You really make it attractive to just kill you.”

“There goes your premium, then.”

He heard the growl of a relenting mercenary. Oh, she loathed him, but who cared?

Levro slammed his hand on the table again, connecting with different parts of the enchantment network. Technomancers may have been more effective at what he did at the broad scale, but with time and preparation, he could be omnipresent. His will extended through the enchanted metal, into the enchanted stone, and found its purpose throughout the network of magical eyes that had been scattered all over the walls.

Minutes were spent scanning crowds. The sort of people that entered the lowermost levels of Prague typically kept anonymous. Growling, Levro kept on looking for someone, anyone, walking somewhere they were not supposed to.

Then, he was found.

Levro’s attention snapped to the flicker of one of his enchantments. The signal spasmed and twisted, causing its video feed to distort around the edges. Artifacts and bad resolution, settled in the presence of the man who removed a smooth, white mask to stare with brown eyes right into the enchantment.

It was him.

“You have one chance to surrender. Otherwise…” The video feed continued to flicker, static breaking everything that wasn’t the face of the Gamer. “…I’m coming for you. You have one minute to respond.”

Levro only had one answer to that, “Deploy the acid.”

The roof of the corridor opened up, causing hundreds of gallons of dissolving sludge to pour into the corridor the Gamer found himself in. At the same time, he poured his remote will into the enchanted blast door preventing the invader from moving further in.

Arcane projectiles slammed into the steel, denting it. Levro laughed. “Yeah, that’s right, you little fucker!” he shouted, only for his own benefit. “Thought I was unprepared?! You regenerator types are always so cocky! Get melted, idiot!”

Multi-coloured light filled the screen for a moment. The door burst open, a mace flying right through it. The weapon screamed in chorus and multiple instrumental tones. It was a cacophony of protest and amusement.

Acid poured through the opening, the Gamer walking among it. Where the green liquid was supposed to touch him, silver light continuously flared. “You chose this,” the Gamer said, aiming two arcane projectiles at the tumbling mace. One flung it further into the air, the other changed its trajectory straight into the next door.

“Is he juggling a mace with Arcana Rays?” Kage noted with heavy amusement.

“He is just showing off, the little cunt,” Levro growled. “Ready for attack!”

“Yes, boss!” The answer came from the speakers.

The Gamer kept on advancing, blowing through anti-arcane doors by hurling the mace at them. Arrogant as high level people like him usually were, he did not realize the walls were about to open up on him until they did.

Two dozen of the organization’s cannon fodder trained their guns at the Gamer and pulled the trigger. A whole percent of Levro’s fortune was pumped in mithril bullets into the living bother. No one sane would have made that investment. Levro laughed and laughed.

The Gamer charged in, knocking the goons out one after another. Of course he did, they were just there to chip away at the man. “Yes, just keep on walking into my maze!” Levro goaded the Gamer, not that he could be heard through the screen. “Bit for bit, I’ll wear you down. I wanted your bitch, but I’ll take you too!”

“You really think this will work?”

Levro just shrugged. “Who the fuck knows, but it’ll be funny!”

Casually walking, the Gamer kept on encountering trap after trap. Acid baths, gelatinous cubes, magma chambers, true ice pits, everything and anything that could be used to decrease the man’s power stores. There was a limit to where these regenerator types could go and Levro would either find it or run out of money to throw at the problem.

“Speaking of which…” he turned around and looked at the shadow-wreathed headache.

“You know, I’m not a mind reader. If you want something, you’ll have to ask.” He got the feeling that there was a dangerous smirk under that mask. “Just remember to ask respectfully.”

“Get the fuck out there and take care of this. He should be weakened enough by now.”

“Pure speculation.” Kage tilted her head and looked at the latest screen, a split second before it went out like all the others before. The Gamer was blinding them as he advanced. “Let’s say I agree. What’s in it for me? He’s not the specified target.”

“Greedy, flat-chested whore,” Levro cursed. “What do you want?”

“My bonus.”

The crime lord narrowed his grey eyes for a moment, then nodded. Putting both hands on his table, he connected with a variety of seals and other defensive mechanisms that kept the prize concealed.

Out of a segment of the floor rose a long, wooden box, big enough to ship a camping chair in. Kage was next to it in an instant and eagerly raised up the age-weathered material. Inside, on a cushion of deep green cloth, lay a sword. Its grip was notably Oriental, the cross pattern on the handle matching the ornate guard. The blade, however, was a chunk of black mithril too thick for a katana. The single-edge was quite short, short enough to fit into the empty sheathe that Levro only now realized sat attached to the woman’s lower back.

“Welcome home, my Sahtu.”

“Yes, yes, very sentimental now-“

“Am I interrupting something?”

Levro whirled around, staring at the Gamer. The young man suddenly stood in the middle of the room. “How the fuck?! There were 6 metres of solid stone between us!”

“Should have made it ten,” John Newman declared. A sudden impact ran through Levro, the anti-scrying enchantment he had tattooed onto his ribcage struggling to negate an attempt to extract intel. Struggling, but succeeding. “Which one of you two would be Levro?”

“Kage!” the crime lord yelled.

The ninja was suddenly next to the Gamer, then both of them disappeared only to clash right in front of him. “You’re fast,” Kage complimented.

“Not really, I just know how to counteract weaknesses,” the President of Fusion stated.

Levro was blown back by an exchange of blows too fast for him to follow. ‘Fucking Latebloomers!’ he thought, shockwave after shockwave rattling the various display cases in the room.  Tumbling through the jungle of plinths and priceless statues, the crime lord came to a halt at the foot of an original statue of Luna, holding a sphere as much moon as it was skull, in honest reverence to her nature.

The source of the shockwaves came to a sudden halt, as the opponents separated from each other.

“Interesting,” the Gamer said. Levro needed a moment to notice that three needles had been sunk into the young man, each of them a silvery white. “I really don’t like it when people have abilities that break barriers – Kage, was it?” He switched to fluid Japanese – a bother because Levro spoke not a single word of that.

Kage crouched down without answering and went for the next attack.

The Gamer jumped away from her, slamming his hand on an old Soviet war golem in passing. The piece of flaky red paint and Baelementium screeched into motion, its metal body hurling a fist at Kage. The ninja placed a hand on the handle of her sword. A soft clicking sound was the only indication for the reason why the golem was split in two a moment later.

Levro’s attention snapped from his hired sword to the Gamer. John Newman suddenly stood on top of him, trying to grab him by the throat. “You thought I-“ That was as far as he got before two more of Kage manifested near them. One pulled Levro back, the other rammed a fourth needle into his back.

The Gamer screamed in pain – sweet, sweet pain. “Yeah, take that, fu-“

The words got stuck in Levro’s throat.

The temperature in the room collapsed. “Lady luck is not smiling on you,” the Kage carrying Levro declared.

By her Master stood the frigid butcher, the cleaving hand of the Gamer, the monstrosity whose veil of humanity was as translucent as the ice that crept over the floor near her. “You dare?” the black-horned dragon woman asked, the uniform of a maid soon replaced by scales like frozen, shattered tar. In her hand, she held a sleek dagger.

Levro hadn’t been able to follow what happened before.

He had absolutely no clue what happened after.

Three Kages leapt at Aclysia, all three of them cut in an instant. The dagger was replaced by a massive cleaver, only to be replaced by a katana a moment later. Silvery-white mithril clashed with its blackened counterpart. Where they met, black ice began to bloom.

Kage said something in Japanese.

The fury on Aclysia’s face was replaced with confusion.

Fighters separated in an explosion of ice. Glacial winds that wiped through the large chamber calmed to nothing. The butcher glanced once more at Kage, then answered in Japanese, her voice flat and angry. The ninja bowed respectfully, then disappeared, leaving only streaks of darkness behind. Then, the draconic hand of the Gamer ripped the needles out of himself.

“That was unpleasant,” he said, once they had all been removed.

“Where did she go?!” Levro shouted.

“Is that really your first priority?” Approaching with steady steps, the fully healed Gamer only stopped when Levro tried to spit at him. A flash of frost froze the saliva mid air. “One arm.”

Levro had no time to even be confused about the two words. The black-horned maid had already lunged forward and snapped the bones in his left arm as if they were all made out of thin icicles. “FUCK!” he shouted, the pain following a moment later. “FUCK! ASSHOLE!” He stumbled as far away as he could. An act hindered and ultimately stopped by the fact that his feet froze to the floor.

“I prefer ‘dick’, but that’s hardly to the point,” the Gamer stated and put his hands in his pocket.

Aclysia still stood where she had broken his arm, glaring at him out of the corner of her eyes. “That was the warning for the inconvenience.”

“You don’t think I would just kill you, do you?” the Gamer asked. “Can’t risk you hiding any co-conspirators.” What flooded out from the man and his servant caused pure dread in Levro. “You threatened one of mine, after all.”

Levro gulped. ‘Maybe irrelevance would have been better after all.’

Too late to change course now.