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21.46% Out of Space / Chapter 144: Sum of All Fears

Chapter 144: Sum of All Fears

Kingdom of Bluewood, Imperial Capital

A tall muscular bald elf wearing pure black plate mail with a crest of a twin-tailed scorpion strolled past the featureless Lifeguards of the Emperor, his plated boots clanking as he walked down the narrow spiral stone steps and entering into an underground hall. The globes of light moss lit the way for him as he pushed the heavy stout wooden door open and entered a stone chamber of horrors.

Dozens of tables and wall racks hung naked people of all races, sex, and ages in various poses of agony. Some had their eyelids cut away, and forced to watch various kinds of torture inflicted on their bodies, while others had their tongues removed. The black armored elf stood before a table filled with instruments of torture and gently removed his plated gloves, and slapping them on top of the table, ignoring the screams of the condemned.

The Emperor bent over the wriggling body of Sturm, eagle spread over a rack with steel bars securing his arms and legs and watched his mage drawing lines of arcane symbols that confound and distort the mind. Sturm's mouth was opened in agony, a dark bloodied pit of emptiness as his tongue and teeth were all forcibly removed. His eyelids were also cut away, forcing him to watch the dark mage drawing magic runes on his body with the blood of the sacrificed.

Once the hooded mage was done with his art, he bowed to the Emperor who smiled and patted Sturm's shoulder in an assuring way. "My dear Sturm, well let this be as enjoying to me as to you." The Emperor then turned and nodded to his mage who started to whisper some form of chant which crawled the insides of the mind if one were to listen closely to it.

Suddenly Sturm jerked upwards, despite the steel bands holding his body, he bent up in an arc, thick veins appeared over his head and body as he contorted in pain and suffering. Underneath his skin, worm-like veins were wriggling all over his body and his body turning red and his temperature went up higher and higher.

The Emperor tilted his head as he watched in fascination at the changes occurring to Sturm's body. The skin of Sturm grew taut and turn dark shiny brown, his muscles growing abnormally, while his pupils turn red and sharp teeth grew out from his toothless gums. The metal bands holding on to his arms and legs creaked and strained as Sturm struggled and growled in suffering.

Finally, after a turn of the glass, Sturm slumped down back onto the rack, his lidless eyes staring blankly at the stone ceiling while his chest rose up and down as his body had changed to almost twice of his actual size.

The Emperor clapped his hands happily, as the mage bowed and gestured that the experiment is a success. "Well, at least you can be useful even if you have failed me after all." He turned to the newcomer and smiled, "So what do you think?"

The bald knight just gave a raised eyebrow look and said, "Won't know till he goes into the battlefield."

"Ahh, my esteemed mage here assures me that his," The Emperor gestured the changed Sturm on the rack, "Bronze Men, are more capable than our knights, one of them equaling 10 knights in strength and resistance. Normal swords and spears can barely penetrate their bronzed bodies."

The bald knight shrugged, and repeated, "Still have to see their performance on the battlefield."

"Haha," The Emperor laughed, "Then he's all yours! Since you caught him and brought him back to me. How's the situation at the border?'

The bald knight just gave a casual nod, "Not good, the two nations had allied up and are resisting rather strongly. But your Bronze Men are still tough as claimed, we should be able to force breakthrough before winter."

"And the rebels?" The Emperor stabbed the unmoving body of Sturm with a dagger. "How do you plan to deal with them?"

"I have sent the Hero down to deal with it first," The black knight replied, "The priority now is the Two Nation Alliance. The Hero should be able to deal with them, if not after we crushed the Two Nations, we can easily divert all our attention to the south, once we unite the whole New land."

"Good," The Emperor looked at the skin of Sturm were he had stabbed hard with his dagger, yet there was barely a mark seen. "I will be sending all the Bronze Men we have to be under your command.'

The black knight nodded, "I will make preparations for departure as soon as possible. Please send the Bronze Men to the Black Scorpion Legion barracks." The knight then gave a bow and departed from the stone chamber.

"Don't fail me, Rock..." The Emperor advised at the disappearing back of the knight and smiled at his mage. "Now, who is next?" He rubbed his hands together in glee.

-----

Uncharted Forest, 479 km from Sawtooth Mouth Pass

"GO, GO, GO!" Tyrier yelled as he fired at the approaching blue-coated soldiers mounted on dragons. He pushed the frightened ex-slave as he aimed at the charging dragons. His single shots snapping the soldiers off their saddles.

"Come on!" Altied helped one of the fallen ex-slaves up from the ground and urged the rest to run faster. "Where the hell did those blue boys come from?"

"I have no idea!" Doth yelled over the dim of gunfire, as he crouched next to tree root and fired single shots at the dragon cavalry. "I thought we are dealing with that Hero guy only!"

Unknown to Claymore One, the Hero and his party had managed to track the escaping slaves and Dante sent Stab back to Falledge to the garrison to bring reinforcements. Stab had shown up at the garrison and showed a letter to the garrison commander who immediately after reading it, turned pale and followed all instructions given by Stab.

It took the garrison's cavalry 3 days to catch up with the Hero and his party who followed behind the convoy and they took the opportunity to attack the ex-slaves when they stopped to setup camp.

"Go!" The men of Claymore One held the rear and proceded in a tactical withdrawal, buying time for the non-combatants to escape. Due to their firepower, they managed to stall and even led the pursuing cavalry into an ambush which decimated more than half their numbers.

"Doth!" Tyrier yelled, "You gotten in contact with HQ?" He dropped down behind a massive tree root and replaced his empty magazines with a fresh one.

"Negative!" Doth yelled back from a tree further down the line. "Too much interference from the trees!"

"Damn!" Tyrier cursed, he patted his ammo pouches and found he barely had two magazines left. "Try harder! Find high ground!" He yelled back to Doth who nodded and dashed off somewhere.

"Ammo status?" Tyrier yelled to the rest.

"Two mags!"

"Three left!"

"Same three here!"

"Shit, at this rate we need to go melee!" Tyrier cursed to himself. "And the damn Hero hasn't shown his face yet!"

"Save the last two mags for the Hero and his party!" Tyrier ordered, "Switch to melee against the blue boys!"

Suddenly, a warcry roared out from dozens and dozens of soldiers as they charged across the trees to close in with Claymore One. "CHARGGEEEE!"

Tyrier dropped his M2 and drew his longsword, stepping over the roots of the tree he was at and skewered a charging blue coated soldier right in the chest. The boyish features of the soldier's eyes widen in shock and he crumbled down while Tyrier barely gave a second glance at the dying soldier.

Hitsu raised his palm up and two blue magic circles appeared and a crack of lightning flared out, followed by a strong smell of ozone and burnt meat as he blasted at the enemy soldiers. He blocked a spear thrust and grabbed the spear and jerked the surprised soldier holding the spear towards him and impaled his sword bayonet into the surprised soldier.

Taver leaned against the tree roots and calmly fired his M2 at the charging soldiers, at the short distance, he barely missed, each shot dropped a blue coated soldier. Altied also did the same, popping single shots at the enemy, providing cover for the rest.

Young and Loke were leading and escorting the escaping slaves, while the rest held the rear, trading spells, and gunfire. And just as suddenly as it happened, it was over, the Empire soldiers were either dead or dying, the small battlefield was littered with the dead and dying.

"Grab whatever is useful!" Tyrier ordered, "Five minutes then we retreat!"

The men quickly went forward and started to loot the bodies of the Empire soldiers, picking up swords, water skins, dried rations, and even healing items. They gathered the weapons and retreated, leaving behind broken bodies. They managed to catch up with the ex slaves and handed out the weapons and supplies to them, as they had run away when attacked, leaving behind most of their supplies of food and water.

"I think the Hero is purposely draining our strength before he will show himself," Young spoke up as he applied some medical paste on a sword cut on Tyrier's arm. "At this rate without any supplies, we will be cut down one by one."

"Damn," Tyrier looked at the frightened and exhausted ex slaves. "How many made it?"

"I did a roll call earlier," Young replied as he bandaged up the wound. "232 of them, roughly 110 people are missing or lost."

"Shit!" Tyrier flexed his bandaged armed and grimaced. "Doth! Did you managed to contact HQ yet?"

"I am still trying!" Doth was perched on top of a tree branch, the radio headset covering his ears while he fiddled with the dials of the radio. "No go!"

"Keep trying, if you managed to get to HQ, tell them we need a dust off, ammo and supplies," Tyrier ordered.

"Hitsu, find out who can fight or know how to use a sword," Tyrier ordered next, "Issue out the swords we got from the Empire." Hitsu nodded and started yelling to the ex slaves who were huddled up together.

'Tavel, check our total ammunition amount," Tyrier said next to Tavel, "Redistrub the ammo evenly out."

A smallish girl with white hair and fluffy ears suddenly stood before Tyrier who looked up in surprise," Yes? Can I help you?"

"I can help!" The cat girl said, "I- I know how to fight with magic! My name is Kaga, Kaga Whitetail!"

"Thanks," Tyrier smiled at the cat girl who barely reached his chest height and looked like eighteen or sixteen, "Then I will like you to help protect the women and children."

"But... I know magic!" Kaga protested, "I can help kill the Empire soldiers!"

Tyrier shook his head, wondering what is happening to his world were women and children have to fight and kill just to live. "It's all good," He assured the cat girl, "I am sure your magic powers are very strong, but I rather need you to protect the rest."

Hitsu came up at this time and cleared his throat, "Boss, I got about 40 men and women here who knows how to use a sword."

"Ok, gather them together," Tyrier stood up and rubbed the head of the cat girl who frowned, "Go look after the rest." Just as Loke yelled from his vantage point.

"Contacts!" Loke yelled down from the tree he was in, he spotted more blue coats moving among the trees. "They are about five, ten minutes away!"

"Go!" Tyrier gestured Kaga towards the rest and headed to where Hitsu is gathered with the slaves that knew how to handle a sword. "Protect the rest for me ok?" He left Kage who stood there staring at him with tears forming in her eyes.

"Come on! It is a good day to die!"


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Neobear Neobear

Advance chapters are available on Patreon (10 Chapters Ahead)

https://www.patreon.com/neobear

Join the discussion in Discord

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Donate/Support me via Paypal now!

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New year special part 2 ~ Enjoy! Stones and reviews plz!

Chapter 145: Rearguard

Clashes of steel and iron rang out among the trees where two groups were fighting. On one side were men and woman dressed in simple woven tunics and trousers while the other group was soldiers in blue coats and plate mail. Grunts and curses accompanied each swing and stab of the sword as both sides fought to overwhelm each other.

Tyrier flung a ball of fire into a group of soldiers who raised their shields to block only to get their shields shattered away and bones breaking from the explosion. He parried a swing from another blue coated soldier and hammered his dull blade onto the armored pauldron of his opponent, barely denting it. But it made his opponent curse in pain and Tyrier smashed the half helm of the soldier with a reverse slash, sending the shocked soldier tumbling over the forest undergrowth.

"Goddammit it!" Tyrier dropped his blunt and bent blade and quickly drew his Glock out and fired at the fallen soldier. He stepped back from the fight and took a quick check around his surroundings, taking note of his own guys and he fired at the blue coated soldiers who were overwhelming the armed slaves.

Tyrier took a quick breather, and reholstered his pistol before grabbing an abandoned ax spear from the ground and charged at one of the enemies who was engaged with a couple of slaves. He rammed the spear with all his body weight into the side of the unaware soldier, the edged tip punching through the side plate mail leather covers and into the guts, citing a dying scream from the soldier.

He pulled out and swiped the spear around, giving some breathing space for the two clearly exhausted and wounded slaves. The fighting had been brutal and dirty, the trees had forced the fighting into pockets of small conflicts. The remaining two Empire soldiers stared out with hate-filled eyes from the eye slits of their helms at Tyrier as he kept the spear between them.

Tyrier sighed and suddenly reversed the spear and stabbing it into the ground before whipping out his pistol and gave each of the surprised soldiers a shot each before picking up his spear again. "Grab their shields and replace any swords or weapons with dulled edges!" He instructed the two slaves behind him, "Quickly now!"

The two winded slaves quickly dashed forward and grabbed the fallen weapons and equipment on the ground, while Tyrier kept a watch around them. "GET DOWN!" He suddenly yelled when he felt goosebumps rising on his skin and he dropped flat.

The two slaves were slower and they paused, turning to see what was the problem when a dozen bolts of energy blew up the area around them. Tyrier rolled away to the side until he reached the cover of a tree root while the area he was before was smoking and bits of bark and flesh rained down.

As the smoke cleared, both the slaves were down, parts of their body missing and smoldering from the effect of the spells. "HAHAHAHAHAHA!" A childish girlish voice was heard laughing, "Die you, evil man! Know the power of I, Liz the greatest mage ever!" A petite sized girl appeared several meters away, perched on top of a tree root. She waved her staff and posed, all the while laughing to herself.

"What the... fark?" Tyrier peeked over the side and saw the scene, "Damn kid is crazy!"

He turned back into cover and unslung his M2, and slowly leaned out while prone, placing his rifle sights at the crazy girl who had started chanting and preparing to cast spells. He lined up the rear and front sights directly at the center of mass and squeezed the trigger twice. The painful slam of the rifle butt against his shoulder felt comforting, like an old friend.

Both bullets slammed into the girl mage, the impacts barely shattered her magic shields but was enough to break her concentration of her spells and also it knocked her off the tree. "Ahhhhhhh!"

"Crazy bitch!" Tyrier spat, "Eat lead!" He quickly rosed from his position and weaved through the trees, "Fall back. fall back!" The Hero's party members have started to show their powers, it would mean that the Hero will act soon. "Come on people! BACK!"

-----

UNS Singapore, Command Bridge

"---more One, ----est re--for--ent unde- ---tack by her- and emp-- forc-s" A choppy transmission burst was broadcasted into the headphones of the radio operator. "Repea-, nee- sup---t now!"

"XO!" The radio operator yelled out, urgently waving for Commander Ford to come over. "I am picking up a transmission with Claymore One identifier. The signal is very gabbled up but it will appear that they are in trouble."

"Let me hear," Ford leaned over the comms panel and held the offered headset to his ear, listening to the playback. "Shit. Get me the Captain, Commander Tommy and Major Frank on the line now, put it on the command chair."

"Yes, sir!" The female operator quickly punched in the call to the Captain and the Airforce and Marine commanders to the command chair of the bridge which Ford quickly sat on.

"Captain!" Ford greeted Blake and gave a nod to Tommy and Frank when they all log in to the call. "Got a situation again. Claymore One appeared to be under attack, permission to engage retrieval protocols?"

Blake nodded, "Do it, I will be in my office in..." He glanced at the digital timer on the side, "10 minutes. Brief me what's going on there. Tommy prep the birds, Frank get your boys loaded and ready to move."

"Yes sir!" The men acknowledged the order and left the chat.

-----

Sawtooth Mountain Airbase, Valkyrie Hanger One

The old support base was rebuilt and refurbished to be an Airbase for the planes, dragons, and Airforce. Inside the brightly lit hanger, a single boxy looking craft was nested on its four landing gears, and a large crew of technicians, elves, humans, and even a few goblins dress in a various color-coded vest over work overalls swarmed the craft.

"Come on!" Chief Gale yelled at his crew as they serviced the craft, "Move those asses of yours, load up the extra fuel canisters, remove all the external armor plating!" He stood over the crew as they labored with powered tools, unbolting huge plates of armor plating from the bird.

Two goblins wearing oversized ear mufflers, a black hockey like helmet, and a green vest over their kid-sized overalls, pushed a trolley ladened with a massive fuel tank pod. They both eagerly scampered across the hanger and parked the trolley at the color coded box drawn on the floor, handing over to the crew with a yellow vest.

Chief Gale kept a wary eye on the goblins as they scampered back happily to the elevators that lead to underground storage to pick up the second load of fuel tanks. Shaking his head, "Damn, never would I thought that I will have goblins under my watch."

"Chief!" Flight Lieutenant Peter walked into the hanger, with his flight helmet held roguishly at his side. "How's everything?"

"So far so good," Chief Gale replied, "Just that those goblins give me the creeps." He unconsciously patted his sidearm to make use it is there.

"But I heard they are pretty handy on maintenance," Peter said as he watched two goblins giggling away as they push a fuel pod out from the elevator. "They seem so happy and eager too."

"Yea, I just hope they don't turn on us," Chief Gale frowned. "Those creatures seemed to worship technology. They have been praying to the planes, calling it some kind of Machine God..." He rubbed his head as a headache sudden threaten to pop out. "Gods, I am getting too old for this shit."

"Hahahaha," Peter laughed cheerfully, "I still remember when they first saw the Valkyrie, they all bow down and prayed, and later they found out that your the 'Chief' of all the planes, they started to worship you as the chosen one of the Machine Gods! Hahahahahaha!"

"Not funny, Lieutenant," Chief Gale rolled his eyes, "Not funny at all."

"Great Chief Gale!" The two goblins skipped over and saluted, "We complete great mission! Need more mission?"

"Ahh..." Chief Gale sighed, "Once the fuel pods are loaded, return the trollies back."

"Yes! Great Chief!" They gave a salute again, and ran off happily, "Mission accepted!"

Peter laughed again and gave a salute to Gale as he half jogged to his bird while mimicking the voice of the goblins, "Great Chief Gale, I go for mission now!"

"Asshole..." Chief Gale cursed at the back of the laughing Peter. "Damn, I hate goblins..."

-----

Uncharted Forest, 469 km from Sawtooth Mouth Pass

Kaga panted hard as she helped to support one of the injured slaves as they half ran in the forest. She kept her eyes on the back of the mercenary with his strange weapons and ignored the pain from healed blisters from opening again. Only two of the mercenaries were with them while the rest were at the rear selling their lives for them to escape.

Suddenly the mercenary at the front stopped in his tracks and raised a clenched fist. Kage was confused but she stopped as she watched the mercenary turned his head left and right as if he had sensed something. She was about to ask when the mercenary suddenly spun to the right and brought up his strange metal wand and thunder and fire erupted from the tip of it.

Despite witnessing the effects of the strange magic weapon they were carrying, the loudness and suddenness were still shocking to everyone, including Kaga. She flinched and instinctively ducked down, but her eyes never left the mercenary as he continued to cast spell after spell with the thunder stick of his.

-----

Doth jerked to the right just as he sensed an intense killing aura from his right. He smoothly raised his M2 and fired at the glow that was approaching, and saw sparks exploding off a magic shield. "Damn! Is that the Hero?" He cursed his luck but he held his ground. "Young! We got company!"

He tracked the inhumanly fast movement of the glowing Hero, firing at him as he weaved in and out of the trees for cover. Despite that Doth's majority of his shots managed to hit the Hero, forcing his speed to drop as the force of the bullets stunned him slightly.

"Son of a Bitch!" Doth yelled as he stepped back while firing at the rapidly closing Hero. Suddenly he felt a chill, a premonition of death behind him and his instincts told him to duck. He dropped to the side just as a silver slash came from behind. "Fark you!" He crashed down on to the undergrowth just as someone attempted to backstab him.

His left shoulder took the brunt of the attack and bleeding, but he ignored the pain and turned his M2 to the attacker and fired blank point.

-----

Stab cursed as his rapier missed his target, only managing to inflict a cut on the guard's shoulder. He was very curious of the weapons the guards were using and knew that these were the rebels that had signed some pact with demons to possess such powerful artifacts. He knew that they are very dangerous, that was why he and the Hero decided to attack from both sides.

With the glow of the Hero as a distraction, he would slip into the shadows and reappear behind the guards to backstab them while they are distracted by the Hero. But he did not expect to be noticed! He had erased all of his presence but how did he got found out?

Just as those thoughts were racing in his mind, the guard rolled over and pointed the thunder stick artifact at him, and the world turned into flames and thunder.

-----

Doth emptied his remaining magazine into the slim bony looking male, his shots unable to miss due to the very short distance. He saw the bloody body tumbled down as the protection spells on him failed and the bullets ripped through the assassin.

"How you like that? Bitch?"


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Neobear Neobear

Advance chapters are available on Patreon (10 Chapters Ahead)

https://www.patreon.com/neobear

Join the discussion in Discord

https://discord.gg/A8Tm86V

Donate/Support me via Paypal now!

https://paypal.me/neobear

That feeling you get when someone tries to backstab you and they fail ... and you shoot them in the face ...

Priceless =D

And its New year's eve! See you guys next year!

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