Chapter 1199 – The Emperor Strikes Back 1 – The Lure


    “Meteora is attacking us.” Half of the room was already on high alert before those words left his mouth. The nervous waiting of the past few days finally manifested into something tangible and it was the last thing John wanted – again. All that proved was that Arkeidos knew what he was doing. The fundamental axiom of strategic competition that the correct move was the one the opponent least wanted to see.


    Rave immediately jumped out of her chair. Light engulfed her naked form for a moment, then she was completely covered by her bodysuit. Similar scenes of rapid dressing took place all over the war room. “What do we do, tiger?”


    ‘Good question,’ the Gamer thought, his thoughts racing faster than Eliana could finish pulling her robe over her arms. ‘Nia is still in the west, so in an emergency she can slow down the Ironborn advance by herself. We can go east now, but that may be exactly what Arkeidos wants. Fundamentally, if it’s just Meteora, then Aclysia and Jack might be able to handle it.’ “We wait,” he decided. “I need further intel.”


    The mood in the room was tense, while they either followed the engagement or waited for the next statement on the matter. At first John felt relatively relaxed. Meteora had assaulted them by hurling/surfing a mountain peak at them, but that had been completely countered by a well-placed Skyfall. An initial clash between Aclysia and Meteora marked them as physically equal, roughly speaking.


    Then everything got a lot more complicated.@@@@


    “The second Iron Maiden is there too,” the Gamer reported and finally rose to his feet himself. Now there was only one course of action. “We’re meeting Claire halfway.” Rather than waste time leaving the fortress the proper way, he gave Gnome a simple mental signal. Running at full speed at the wall, and the next two behind it, the season elemental created a makeshift tunnel for them. Even as they ran after her, he told everyone, “This is almost certainly some kind of trap.”


    “And we’re running straight fucking into it?” Metra asked.


    “He got me by the heart,” John growled, angry that someone would even dare employ that strategy.


    “I wasn’t complaining,” the First of Wrath laughed, “I don’t fucking care what gets us action as long as I get a second chance to bash the asshole cunt’s skull in.”


    John snorted with amusement. The confidence Metra had in violence was soothing, in its odd way. His feet carried him past the edge of the fortress. Along everyone else, he sailed down the slanted grey wall. It was enough of a drop that the Gamer rolled to diminish the impact. Some mimicked the proper landing technique. Others just landed with both feet first and immediately leapt forwards again.


    ‘Sylph, don’t get too far ahead.’


    The thunderbolt in the sky suddenly stopped, the magic ebbing away, without completely vanishing. ‘I could be there in like 30 minutes tops! Just lemme go there and I’ll make a shocking entrance! Hihi, shocking entra- Not the time for puns, Sylph!’


    ‘As I said, this is almost certainly a trap and I don’t want you to spring it,’ the Gamer retorted. ‘Arkeidos must be planning something. There’s no way he just had his Iron Maidens wait randomly in the countryside.’


    Reluctant agreement radiated through the mental connection. Magical electricity crackled once again and Sylph dashed back to the main group. They stayed as a loose clump, careful not to stick too close nor drift too far apart. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, they ran. The passing time only increased John’s nervousness. The area around the Cardinal Bastion had been under constant surveillance by several of the mobile members of the group. Nothing could have been staged in the direct vicinity.


    The earth nearby bloated and bellowed. It was the only warning they got and an incredibly short one. Green grass and brown dirt turned into grey dust, scattered outwards by a massive torrent of necromantic energy. With no hesitation, John used Magus Step and the Skitterstep enchantment. Once, twice, three times, he went through the duality of uses, teleporting him a total of 66 metres in his chosen direction. Only by the last time was he finally out of the cone of the attack.


    The rest of the harem scattered just as quickly. Everyone’s first priority had to be to get out of that attack. Not everyone was lucky enough to do this swiftly. Sylph was caught out by the immediate blast and torn to shreds in a matter of seconds. She had been unluckily positioned and her low health pool made that mistake fatal. ‘So, this is your game,’ John thought, recalibrating his strategy at two different positions. ‘Drawing me out so you can get to Eliana.’


    Rave landed next to him, letting John breathe a little bit easier. She was one of the untraceable elements, after all. His relaxation was immediately replaced with concern when he noticed the white tips of her hair. The necromantic spell had drained some of the life force out of her. Worried as that made him, at least she had gotten out before the noxious green mingled with a secondary torrent of bloody red. Fire flickered around the wailing souls, scorching and salting the earth even beyond the attack itself. Hell had cracked through the earth, cascading continuously down the landscape.


    “You overestimate me, it’s just a well-executed grand strategy,” he tried to play it down.


    Arkeidos’ head, a hovering, highly ornate helmet, shook left to right. “Do not play me for a fool,” he chided the Gamer. “The fundament of this plan was to test the speed of your reaction and to lure you with your threatened subjects and the traitor Claire. You have means of instantaneous exchange, there’s no doubt about it. This makes this war, for me, untenable.”


    John tilted his head. “Odd choice of showing a surrender, all of this?”


    “SURRENDER?!” Arkeidos’ voice boomed over the landscape, blowing dust and dirt outwards. “What a horrific word to be uttered by a fellow conqueror. You should know that people like us do not surrender – they find ways to achieve what they wish.”


    “I guess you’re right in that sense,” John agreed and bowed his head. “My apologies, it is simply that, between the two of us, it must be known that there is no way to...” While he put on a bloviating show, he checked up on everyone. Total consolidation was impossible, but the haremettes had at least joined in smaller groups and were largely healed up. The loss of Sylph would make this more complicated. Their primary win condition remained Eliana and there were still emergency resources he could tap into.


    Arkeidos raised his hand to stop John’s one-sided babbling. “You speak when you think it is advantageous for you to win time,” he called out the Gamer, which immediately put him on high alert. If the Emperor was fully aware of that, then this current lull was, in some way, also advantageous to him. “Amusing as you are, I tire of this. You will be crushed here or tomorrow. We will all find out which one it is.”


    “You’ll get your fucking soul torn into its miserable shitty pieces!” Eliana screamed. Every fibre of her being radiated rage. “I destroyed your tincan once, I can do it a-fucking-gain!”


    “It is indeed true that you destroyed my previous body.” Arkeidos raised a hand and clenched it into a fist. “This one is stronger. I imbued this metal with the soul of the last mortal king of this world. Yet, I deem it not enough to deal with you adequately. No matter. As I said, a conqueror always finds a way to overcome what he has been faced with.”


    ‘ATTACK!’ John gave the order immediately. ‘TARGET THE GOLDEN ONE!’


    All of the harem sprung into motion, including Eliana and Rave. A variety of spells all flew towards the golden Ironborn, as she put a hand on her Emperor’s arm. The fully decorated living armour looked like a child next to Arkeidos, yet she was more dangerous than anyone else at that moment.


    “I, Arkeidos, offer the value of this form, body and mind, to Jevaine the Golden – Do not disappoint me.”


    How much value was imbued in a body forged from tens of thousands of souls, laced in elemental extreme metals, in the possession of a tyrant for almost a thousand years? How much value was in the craftsmanship of the many intricate details? How much value was there in the materials? How much value was there in the sentimental attachment? How much value was there in a fragment of the Emperor’s soul? How much value in a hundred years of invested time?


    All of these questions rushed through John’s head, as the titan before them collapsed into a speck of energy the size of a marble. It happened in a near instant. The intensity of the change created a shockwave of such intensity, it distorted and destroyed the magical projectiles launched at the Ironborn. An eerie silence spread, in which only the rising, metallic laughter from within the armour could be heard.


    Whatever discipline Ironborn were meant to possess, Jevaine displayed none of it as she reached up with trembling fingers at the manifested power. She clutched it in her fist. Prismatic light spread through her ecstatically quivering form. The many pieces of jewellery spread all over her clattered and sung.


    How much value was there in what Arkeidos had just sacrificed?


    Too much.