The Gamer Chapter 1531 – A traitorous opportunity (Patreon)

“450, maybe 550 at the higher end?” John suggested.

“That high?” Lu Zhi asked. The question was opposite of what Lydia’s earlier interjection had been. Understandably, compared to the struggle the fight against Liakan had been, Singed had gone down without landing a single meaningful hit.

“Since their battle plan was effectively the same, small differences can manifest into incredibly large ones,” John explained. “Singed and Jane both went at it with full physical force. Jane was faster, crippled him from the outset, then outpaced even his clones with Eclipse. Since he doesn’t seem to have any spells that could have been used as a back-up plan, he was doomed from the start.”

Lu Zhi made various listening noises, while loading chocolate cake into her face. Since she had arrived in the watching area, she had not stopped eating. She was another one of those girls that just put all of the energy to immediate use. Being half-god probably did that.

“The fact that he was able to take the level of punishment that he did and keep functioning is why I think he has to be somewhere in that range. Any lower, and I’d struggle to believe the initial use of Jane’s Babel Phrase wouldn’t have utterly annihilated him from the outset.”

John peered through the illusion everyone else was still watching. Underneath the reconstructed landscape, members of the Azure Tribe and Purest Front were moving back and forth, salvaging as much of Singed’s body as they could. The metals were as much part of them as they were of John’s Artificial Spirits, it seemed. Something that was rather interesting. The exact workings of these arcane elementals was rather enigmatic.

“Of course, the primary reason that this went so smoothly is that my girl is perfect,” John boasted, just as Rave sailed over the railing. Having ridden the elevator halfway up, she had leapt the rest of the way and smoothly plopped down in John’s lap to get her fill of ear scratches. “Wonderful showing.”

“’Course it was, I’m perfect,” Rave purred, wiggling her flawless ass until she was totally comfortable in her position. “Mwah!” she pressed a kiss on his cheek, then laughed when he tickled her neck with his tongue in return. “That’s awful, tiger! Ewwww!”

“For someone that says it’s awful, you’re trying a little too much to stay close,” John said, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

“I can think it’s eww and still love ya.” Rave grinned, putting her forehead against his. “That’s better,” she whispered, a low purr in her throat between words. John had no idea why he was given the privilege of staring into those eyes. The rim of blue surrounded, as a firm base, the pink that surrounded her slit pupil like a neon aurora. The bright colour shifted constantly, creating darker and lighter streaks. In them shone, even brighter than the pink, the love she felt for him.

Eyes like that were treasures that could not be conquered, only gifted. Nothing John could ever do would entitle him to the way she gazed at him. No, the best he could do was prove himself so that she chose to be with him every morning they woke up together.

They were already mid-kiss before he knew it. Her lips had a particular taste to it, probably because of some remains of crystal. It did not matter, only her warmth and softness did. The vibrations of her purrs translated through her tongue. Softly rubbing her ears, he made her purring wax and wane in intensity.

When they separated, they did so reluctantly, their tongues remaining connected longer than their lips did. A little strand of saliva remained between them, until it too broke. The now panting Rave wiped her chin with the back of her hand. “Ya know, I wasn’t horny going out of that battle.”

“Liar,” John called her out.

“I wasn’t! I was not!” Rave insisted. “Not unusually horny anyway!”

“We moved to the goalpost-moving at record speed.”

“Don’t be a dick, tiger.” Her demand was entirely nullified by her big smile.

“You two are insufferable,” Copernicus meowed and tapped over to Lu Zhi. “You, give me cake.”

“You are speaking to-“ Absalm began.

“Here you go.” Lu Zhi stuffed some of the chocolate cake into the maw of the solar jaguar.

“You should feel honoured, feline, that your unworthy self is…”

“Absalm.” The Heavenly Jade Empress turned to her advisor/watchdog with a grin full of pearly fangs. “Are you being mean to a cat?”

“N-no, my empress.”

“Okay, good.” John could practically hear the teeth in her pretty head shrink to regular size. “Because otherwise you would have to suffer one million years in a dungeon.”

“Tiger, tiger, can we keep her?” Rave loud-whispered. “I wanna keep her, pretty please.”

“I don’t think we have the power or influence to adopt an empress.”

“We already did it once!”

“I entirely refuse your categorization of adoption,” Lydia threw in. “If anything, I uplifted you.”

“I mean… initially,” John pushed back. “You can’t tell me you didn’t overall benefit from our relationship more than I did, though – on a purely material level.”

“Wow,” Maximillian chuckled from the other chair, “if the traditionalist faction heard that, they would be pissed.”

“They would indeed be, so I would appreciate it if you did not speak such slanderous words publicly without consideration,” Lydia sharply reprimanded him.

“H- whew… HELLO, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” an exhausted yet excited voice boomed out over the loudspeakers all around the arena. “I am so sorry for this delay, but the great announcer has returned!”

“…That guy…” Lydia sighed.

“THAT GUY!” Sylph shouted in absolute glee and ran up to the railing.

On a floating announcer’s desk sat, in all of his overemphasized glory, Jeff. The announcer looked the same he had the last couple of times he had served during events John was involved in. A typical three-piece suit, tailored into a sharp fit, on a body of the common human proportions. What was outstanding about the man were both his large gestures and his absolutely absurd hair. Long brown strands had been combed straight upwards in a display of dedication and extra strong styling gel.

“Sorry for the delay, FOOOOOOOOOOOLKS!” he screamed randomly, putting one foot on the desk. “It has been a last minute call, but I would never miss such an opportunity! Such a tournament of legend! Such a-“

“Take your foot off the desk.” The demand came from the calm-headed black-scaled lizardman next to the hype-man. Dra sipped on his coffee mug, likely filled with ginger ale. That John now knew that this was one of the side jobs the leader of the Abyss Auction got engaged in when he was bored made the straight man routine even more entertaining. “I put my drinks on that desk.”

“But Dra, my dude, do you not feel the energy?! Does it not make you want to stand up and SHOUT?!”

“No,” Dra responded. “Also, you don’t need to make the desk dirty to stand and shout and let it all out.”

“Bah, cynical as ever!”

“No, I’m reasonable.”

“Booo!” Sylph shouted. “BOOOOOO!”

“Statement: the lizardman is the superior commentator,” Beatrice countered the loud-mouthed air spirit.

“No, he is not!”

“Disagreement.”

“You’re stinky, Bae!”

“No.”

Above and below, the babbling force clashed with an immovable straight face. “Ya wanna get out of here so I can suck your dick?” Rave whispered into John’s ear. “Ya know ya need a little release before ya fiii~iight.” The offer was tremendously dangerous and her museful tone only pushed him further along to say yes.

“Alright, everyone!” Jeff had taken his foot off the table, the argument conceded, and turned back to the events. “Let’s reel this right back! The break will be going for another fifteen minutes, so we have time to review this footage in some close detail and, WOOOOOOW, is there some impressive stuff to review here. Fateweavers, please take us to cut 1!”

“Ah yes, the most important moment of the fight,” Dra took over, his calm voice adding some much needed relaxation to the over-hyping of Jeff’s shouts. “Past recorded fights of Jane ‘Rave’ Hollmey, nowadays also known as First Lady of Fusion, have shown her to be focused around more of a back and forth fighting style, favouring a gradual ramp-up of her abilities. Jury is out on whether or not that is a deliberate strategy or her just trying to get as much out of her fights as possible.”

“Whatever it is, this opening gambit was not expected!” Jeff declared. The announcer’s desk hovered down to the reconstruction of the crystal desert, where Rave was just about to finish her Babel Phrase. “Slow it down further, please!”

“What we see here is a high-class incantation concluding.” Dra and Jeff hovered between the crouching Lightbearer and Singed. “This is slowed down tremendously and still you will find that…” Rave suddenly snapped forwards. Now in front of Singed, in mid-air, and with a trail of technicolour behind her, it seemed like she had teleported. Not even the most powerful cameras in existence could keep up with the ultra-rapid movement.

“UN-BE-LIEVABLE!” Jeff shouted.

“…No, it’s very believable. This is exactly the kind of powerful effect powerful Babel Phrases produce,” Dra said drily. “And here comes the swing... desert – molten.”

“THERE’S SO MANY CLAWS, I CAN’T EVEN COUNT THEM!”

“Five… there’s…” Dra let out an exasperated sigh.

“We can squeeze in a quickie,” Rave kept purring. “Grab Metra on the way, make it a reward threesome.”

John was just ready to give in when he noticed something interesting down below. Underneath the illusion, Mengele himself had moved down to the pit of the arena. The butcher was trying to stay calm, but John could see the angry red of the annoyed authoritarian in his face. ‘If I ever look like that when someone disappoints me, I know I have gone way far down the arrogance rabbit hole.’ John burned the image of the angry leader of the Purest Front into his mind, both as a warning and for personal amusement.

Important, however, was that Mengele was on his own.

‘Claire?’

‘I was just about to tell you that I have managed to coax the target to the wanted position,’ Claire told him. ‘A bit too easy, which lends your hypothesis that he has his own will the credence it needs to be the expected truth… Although I won’t lie, this has me more paranoid than eager to praise you.’

‘Good,’ was all John could respond to that. “We’ll have to postpone that quickie. Can’t have someone fight with cum sloshing around inside them.”

Rave took the excuse for what it was. Any surprise she felt, she hid perfectly. Like all the other haremettes, she was informed on what John planned to do over the coming days. Not that she needed to be informed, comfortable as she was between the folds of his grey matter.

“Imma whittle ya down on that,” she purred and the two of them engaged in their typical idle banter as, elsewhere in the arena, John’s double looked up.

The Ambassador Double sat in a hidden compartment, barely larger than a walk-in closet. There were two chairs inside and a cut-out in the wall to his left, big enough to hold an oil lantern. A bronze specimen of such a device did stand there, untouched for ages and yet still prepared for someone to light the soaked cloth.

John preferred the darkness. Nightingale’s blessing gave him vision even in this lightless space and it was easier to hide both traces of the meeting happening and ever having happened if he did not touch anything he did not need to. The only reason he even knew this tiny area existed, hidden behind two sets of sliding walls, was thanks to Luna.

His eyes rested on Vier. The uniformed clone of Herman summoned an immediate wave of annoyance, range, and paranoia. All trust issues that John had developed over the course of his stay in the Abyss had matured and engraved in himself because of the original owner of that face. “Herman, Judas, Vier, Betrayer of All,” the Gamer said, while a spider skittered up to his shoulder and took a comfortable seat there. Without being invited, the clone did the same, taking the opposite chair. “It doesn’t matter what name or title you go by, your face will forever be etched into my memories as the one that shattered my naivety. Maybe I should thank who you come from for that. I can’t find it in my heart to do so.”

Vier did not respond. He did not even seem to react. Like a puppet on strings, he sat perfectly straight. His blue eyes were as vacant as his expression. The only sign that he was even alive and present was the occasional blink and the rise and fall of his chest with each slow, measured breath.

“…You’ll have to forgive me for that little rant…” John mumbled and shook his head. “Let’s get to the point before your master realizes you’re gone. I need an in. A way to put an assailant next to Mengele when he least expects it. He’ll be torn apart, that much I guarantee you. All I need from you is a yes or a no. Further instructions will follow.”

For several seconds there was nothing. Vier just sat there, nothing about his demeanour changing. It was more unnerving than Nia. Nia’s gestures had been easy to misinterpret and often oddly still, but she had never been this entirely devoid of anything. John felt like, if he did not pay attention, he might forget Vier was even there.

And then, ever so slowly, the puppet’s lips curled into a vein-freezing smile.