Chapter 49

  The knife dug into Dalex’s armor but did not pierce past the outer layer. A warning notification he had never seen before popped front and center into his field of vision.

  Alongside the notification, Dalex saw his armor status for just a moment.

  Considering he had sustained next to no damage in the fight with the hydra, Arnaut had just dealt him a mighty blow. Before the duplicitous hero could strike a second time, Dalex grabbed the blade of the knife with his gauntleted fist and snapped it in half. Just barely scraping the edge of the weapon with his hand was enough to do an extra point of durability damage to the armor.

  Arnaut kicked Dalex in the chest, staggering him only a little but giving the hero a perfect platform to leap a dozen yards away. He held his sword at the ready, poised to dart in and finish Dalex off. Dalex summoned every weapon he knew that Arnaut would have trouble with. The {solar lens} dropped into his hands and he cast {sleeting swords} to instantly fill the air around him with twenty homing blades. Another {prismatic strike} stood on standby, but the low-power setting might not be enough to take out Arnaut, and using the high-power setting risked catching Yesui in the blast.

  The fox-eared damekin was standing to the side of the two humans, staring in shock at the sudden explosion of violence between them. She backed away a few steps and said, “Ogtol salk summons scythes of wind.” The saw-like shimmers of air she had used to decapitate so many hydra heads appeared in the air above her, but they hovered in place, not yet moving toward either human combatant.

  “I was a bit skeptical,” Dalex said, “but I didn’t think you would stab me in the back so quickly.”

  “I stabbed you in the front,” Arnaut said.

  “Let’s not nitpick. You know what you did.”

  Yesui spoke up, demanding, “What’s happening?”

  Instead of answering her, Arnaut continued speaking to Dalex alone. “I was worried for a moment. I thought that armor of yours was truly impenetrable. After everything we threw at you that night in Batulan-bar, it seemed like there really was no way to defeat you. But seeing your reaction just now… That hurt, didn’t it? I may not have reached your heart, but you panicked a little.”

  Dalex tried to remain calm. Arnaut was right, he had panicked. Dalex couldn’t tell if he was angry or scared, but both were bad. He needed to be clear-headed. Arnaut had seen most of his tricks before. He might have developed a counter measure for the {sleeting swords}, and from the way the hero’s eyes kept darting upward, he was on the lookout for {prismatic strike}. He was fast. Could he dodge the beam?

  “I’ll admit, you pulled one over on me,” Dalex said. “But that trick won’t work again, and I know your sword doesn’t have as vicious of a bite.”

  He almost mentioned Arnaut’s dwindling mana supply after the hydra fight, remembering the hero’s exhaustion after summoning the mountain, but it occurred to Dalex that his fatigue may have just been for show. Arnaut may have been planning an assassination from the moment he saw Dalex in the Dugan inn.

  “But my sword is hungry,” Arnaut said. “Would you like to reevaluate its bite?”

  Dalex held his ground but considered retreating. He surreptitiously glanced at Yesui. Would she sit out the fight or join in? Which side would she support? She didn’t like Dalex or Arnaut, but her feelings seemed in line with the status quo. She might choose to aide Arnaut who was the proxy for her rulers rather than back the rebellious startup.

  Seventh and Balgoth remained passive observers, as well. The moment Arnaut had showed hostility, the [android] had shrouded herself in her own armor, but Dalex knew she would not intervene to help him. Whatever rules his benefactors had placed upon her would prevent it. Balgoth had paused writing to study the two human combatants closely, likely formulating the beginnings of a brand-new song.

  “Fulgurped grants me speed faster than the eye,” Arnaut said, and he charged forward, blurring into a steel-jacketed bullet.

  Dalex’s {astral mortar} swords reacted instantly, striking toward the oncoming hero. He ducked under one and dodged around another. His speed increased and he outran two more, the flying blades not quite calculating his velocity accurately.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Was he really going to dodge them all?

  Dalex hit the trigger on the {solar lens}, activating the bulb in its business end and lighting up the beam. Arnaut saw the light and jumped just before the beam struck him in the chest. Dalex swept the beam up to follow him, but the hero pivoted unnaturally in the air, slipping past the beam to touch back down without even a singed hair. He moved too fast. Dalex opened his mouth to cast {preternatural intuition} to speed up his own reflexes, still trying to catch Arnaut with the beam.

  “{Pret—}—"

  The armor system recognized Dalex’s intentions and activated the spell before it finished leaving his lips. His perception quickened. Arnaut slowed down. Dalex brought the edge of the beam in close to catch his assailant in the side.

  But even so, Arnaut was on top of him. Before the beam could touch him, the hero stabbed Dalex in the chest with his sword, striking the exact same spot he had hit with the knife.

  Something inside Dalex snapped. Following his first instinct, he dropped the {solar lens} and reached out to grab the hero, but Arnaut was still too quick. He danced around Dalex to the right, preparing his next blow.

  Just before Arnaut could deliver it, something fast and nearly invisible struck him in the side, sending him tumbling across the blasted ground. One of Yesui’s air saws flashed by to hit the hero again, pushing him back a little farther. It did not break Arnaut’s barrier to draw blood, but it prevented him from rising for another few seconds. Yesui moved to stand between the two humans, more air saws appearing above her.

  Arnaut got to one knee and stared at her. “I would have forgiven you for staying out of this fight, Miss Yesui, though it is your duty to aide me in the capture of any dissidents seeking to harm draconic authority. But I cannot forgive such a traitorous turn. I see I must apprehend or execute you as well.”

  Yesui didn’t say anything. She only grimaced and held her ground.

  Arnaut got to his feet and swiped his sword through the air, preparing to re-engage. “Two will be difficult, but I am sure My God will reward me even more for eliminating the both of—.”

  Light flickered from above, there and gone in less than a millisecond. Dalex grabbed Arnaut by the back of the head. Yesui’s eyes widened. Dalex felt a surprised tremor ripple through the hero’s entire body.

  “How did you—?”

  Dalex slammed Arnaut face-first into the ground as hard as he could. The hero’s head embedded nearly a foot into the earth, making a crater around the impact point. Cracks ran out from the hole, pushing up chunks of rock and casting dirt into the air. For just a moment, Arnaut did not move.

  But then, the hero twisted out of Dalex’s grasp and pushed off the ground, jumping out of the crater. He managed to keep hold of his sword as well, but Dalex saw a flash of his face running red with a bloody nose.

  Midflight, Arnaut began to chant, “Fulgurped grants—”

  Another flicker of light from above. Dalex appeared beside the hero and grabbed him by the leg. He swung Arnaut over his head, throwing the hero into the ground to create another, bigger crater.

  Arnaut lay there for two seconds, long enough to cough wetly and coat his white teeth with blood. He slowly started getting to his feet, using his sword to prop himself up.

  The same light flickered a third time. Dalex knelt in front of Arnaut, looking the hero in the eye. He punched the man in the gut, hard, but not as hard as he could. Arnaut doubled over, letting out a long and painful wheeze as all of the air left his lungs. Before he could catch his breath, Dalex leaned in close and whispered in the hero’s ear.

  “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. If you ever think you’re winning, it’s because I’m still challenging myself.”

  The light flickered a fourth time. Suddenly, both Dalex and Arnaut were surrounded by darkness, floating in absolute silence. They were lit from below by the glowing ball of the seventh habitable planet of Gaia-BH1, Gaia Eta. Arnaut’s shiny armor reflected the planet’s shine. A little bit of final aerosolized moisture escaped his lungs, crystalizing in space. Dalex didn’t feel any different.

  With a fifth flicker, Dalex was back on the ground with Yesui, Seventh, and Balgoth again. He did not bring Arnaut with him.

  “Wh—” Yesui stuttered. “What just happened?”

  Dalex ignored her for a moment, turning to Seventh. “How long do you think he can survive in the vacuum of space?”

  He probably should have asked the question before taking Arnaut into orbit. At least Dalex had kept the presence of mind to force the air out of the hero’s lungs first. While Dalex didn’t know much about space, he had heard it was smart to empty your lungs if you ever thought you might face explosive decompression.

  “A typical human male might maintain consciousness for fifteen seconds,” Seventh said. “After that, it is hard to say. Arnaut seems to be magically modified, so he will likely last longer than is typical.”

  The length of time it took for her to rattle off that explanation seemed like an adequate amount of waiting to Dalex. With a sixth and final flicker of light, Arnaut appeared on the ground next to him. He lay on his back, staring up at the sky with eyes red from burst blood vessels. The skin on his face looked pale. He took in a deep, gasping breath and seemed to want to refuse to let it go, but then he blew it all out and took more, sucking down that sweet sweet air.

  Dalex suddenly felt a little bad. Maybe he had gone too far. “It’s alright, you’re not going to die. I’ll fix you up, but I’m not going to give you another chance to kill me.”

  The hero paused his gasping to whisper something. Dalex bent down to listen. “What’s that?”

  He only caught the last handful of words.

  “—borne away on dragon’s wings.”

  An orange glow lit Arnaut from beneath his skin. He started to dissolve from his feet up, his armor and clothes flaking away into fluttering ash.

  “What is this?” Dalex asked. “What did you just do?”

  “I’ve heard of this,” Yesui said, looking down on both of them. “It is a word of power for retreat.”

  The hero was already halfway dissolved. A wan smile touched his lips. He whispered, “Until next time, Dalex of the Expedition Seven.”

  “No god damn way,” Dalex shouted. He seized Arnaut by the arm as if that might keep him in place, but then the limb vanished into ash. Dalex’s mind raced. He couldn’t let this guy get away, not after today and not after he already lost Castreier.

  The thought finally came to him. A tracker! Wherever Arnaut was going, Dalex could {teleport} after him.

  An {astral mortar} device appeared in Dalex’s hand. He tucked it under the collar of Arnaut’s armor before that part of his body could disappear. A moment later, the hero was gone, just a pile of ash on the ground.

  But the tracker was gone as well.

  Dalex sighed in relief. Hopefully, the device had gone with him. He looked to Seventh. “Do you know where he is?”

  “I should receive a signal from the [transponder] shortly,” she said, then cocked her head to the side. “There it is. Calculating.” A short pause. “I have his location. It appears he has moved to the second planet from this system’s star. I believe the local populace have named it Gaia Beta.”

  Dalex let out a single sharp laugh. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of that? There was still a barrier between the world of Gaia Eta, and the only around it was the Waterfall Portal. Naturally the hero would flee somewhere Dalex couldn’t follow, yet.

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