9:00 AT, Day Nineteen | Castle Resolve / Entryway

  “Heloo! I have a package here that needs a signature!” Ray shouts, only to be met with echoes.

  “Hmm, perhaps no one is home and we got this whole place to ourselves?” I propose.

  “Readings are detecting seven very strong energy presences in the throne room, milords. I believe they are waiting for us to come to them, we should be careful of any traps they may have placed.” Emil states.

  “You heard the guy, let's take this nice and carefully..” I start to say.

  “Awwww cmon, klack that darling! Careful is for losers, and we are winners!” Ray says, pulling out her railgun and aiming it for the wall in front of us. She pulls the trigger and the point blank shot creates a small hole in the wall, leading into another corridor.

  “Now that you say it darling, yeah, klack careful. Lets go roast us some Quartet and get ourselves a nice flag to decorate our mantle back home!”

  (Group) “Pro luce lunae!”

  We use various explosives and guns and literally blast our way towards the throne room. Is it efficient? Absolutely klacking not. Is it cool? You better klacking believe it's cool.

  As everyone knows, a victory is pointless unless you get a lot of style points. Boring victories might as well be losses, it's all about the style.

  I'm pretty sure using the defensive shield to destroy most of their castle and forces, then blasting our way through the interior is pretty stylish. But what do I know, I'm no interior decorator. I’m just a guy, a worthless NEET really. But someone decided that I should be given access to high explosives for some reason, that person is both an idiot and an absolute genius.

  After several dozen walls, Emil informs us that the throne room is in the next room. Just one wall away, the Quartet and their strongest faction members. The only thing that stands between us, and their flag.

  “Hey darling Ray, are you ready for some fun? I hope they have some tea out, some biscuits would be cool too.”

  “Hmm, I think I'd prefer some cake. Or perhaps waffles. Waffles sound really good right about now.”

  “Well then, I guess I'll have to whip you up some waffles once we are done here.”

  “That sounds nice, nothing like a good post-conquest waffle party!” Ray says as she practically jumps at me to steal a kiss.

  “Alright fellas, let's get in there, I've got a waffle date later that I’d rather not be late for. I'm sure you all understand.”

  Everyone lets out a short laugh as they carry our last explosive up to the wall. We quickly duck into the previous hole we made and I get the honors of pressing the big red button. Yes, a real, literal, big red button. Man, I really love cool alien tech.

  The bomb explodes and a nice gaping hole appears in the wall.

  Immediately, it is filled with several dozen kilograms of hot metal as the Quartet unload their weapons en masse.

  What a rude welcoming party, we should really teach these folks a lesson in hospitality. Shooting extremely dangerous weapons at your houseguests is not proper at all.

  I look at Ray through the storm of bullets and I see a very scary smile on her face. I hope she doesn't traumatize anyone too much.

  Someone throws a shield generator into the gap and a bubble appears, absorbing the bullets for a few moments. Unfortunately for the Quartet, that few moments is enough for us to charge into the room, weaponry at the ready.

  We get our first glimpses of the Quartet in a while.

  April, with her rapier, is looking as fancy as ever. Marcos is sporting a new war hammer, looking ready to squash some bugs. Geo and Brian are standing off to the back, wielding some sort of rifle, I don't recognize the designs, they must be proprietary.

  Naturally, Rao and Uri Liv are standing in front of them, sabre and butcher knives at the ready. There is one other amongst them, a tall guy with black hair and black eyes. I guess they never got to deploy him to the frontlines. He appears to be wielding some sort of blade jutting out from a pair of armguards. They have a slight curve, I wouldn't want to get caught in between them, that's for sure.

  We all split off, each of us finding a good matchup. Ray and two great-levels pit themselves off against April, Geo and Brian. Yuin and Rigar go after Marcos and the black haired guy.

  Which leaves Emil and myself to take on Rao and Uri Liv. This is going to be fun, I can tell.

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  Wasting no time, Emil and I charge in. I leap forward, propelled by inae. My spear aimed at Rao’s general chest area. He barely manages to sidestep, leading me to scrape his side as I pass by.

  I quickly turn around and duck as his saber comes right for my head. Kek, I think he is really mad at me for some reason. I have no clue why. Oh well, he has to die anyway.

  In my attempt to duck out of the way, I end up falling backwards upon Uri Liv’s blade. My armor blunts most of the impact, but I definitely am bleeding a bit. I look over to see what Emil is doing and it seems part of his wing has been cut off and his lip is bleeding. Perhaps he is similar to Rao and hasn't fought much outside of ceremonial combat? That’d make Uri Liv, a berserker, a very bad matchup.

  I quickly dodge around Rao’s next strike and bend around Uri Liv’s blade as it comes for my throat. I move over to Emil and quickly inject him with a healthpack and motion for him to take on Rao.

  As much as I’d like to kill Rao personally, it's important for a leader to put the success of the mission first. Plus, we can't have Emil getting too injured, he is almost solely responsible for running this whole military operation.

  Uri Liv and I circle around each other, sizing each other up once again. It's been a few days since our last fight. I can tell she has been doing some pretty intense training after her humiliating loss. However, no amount of her training can compare to what Initae put us through.

  As much as we call Initae a demon, she knows what the klack she is doing. Without her, we would be practically useless.

  I jump into the air and come down hard, Uri Liv manages to deflect my attack with her blades, leaving a large chip in one of them. She pauses for a moment and looks at her blade, then a deep fury appears in her eyes. Exactly how I intended.

  She launches a rapid series of attacks against me, which I dodge with only a few minor cuts. I land some blows of my own as well, taking several chunks out of her armor and leaving wounds that definitely hurt like Kek's singing voice.

  Unfortunately, with berserker types like Uri Liv, pain and being outclassed only serve to make them angrier, and thus stronger. The human body truly is a wonderful thing. In most cases it is fairly average. But, when you really push it to its very limits, you can unlock a whole new tier of ability.

  Her attacks increase even more, I slowly start to build up more and more injuries. My armor and healing are struggling to keep up with stitching all the wounds shut.

  But, that is the exact moment that Emil leads Rao right into me. Using a colossal amount of inae and force, I thrust my spear into Rao’s exposed backside, sinking in deeply. I then heave him into the air and practically throw him right at Uri Liv, who is too battle-mad to dodge. In fact, she attempts to cut Rao down.

  Rao crashes into Uri Liv. His heavy battle armor pinning her to the ground as blood leaks from unsealed wounds all across their bodies. After a few moments, respawn barriers appear and suck them away.

  I look over to Emil and give him a nice smile. He is covered in his fair share of cuts, many feathers missing from his wings. Of course, I'm not looking too hot myself. If that fight had dragged on much longer, we likely would have lost. If it wasn't for our quick thinking and teamwork, we might be the ones being respawned right about now.

  I look around the throne room. Black haired guy appears to be absolutely destroying Rigar. Rigar is covered in scratches, while his opponent seems to be unharmed.

  Just who is this new guy? Why have the Quartet been hiding him for so long?

  Ray and co are handling April and co. fairly well. They seem to be just about finished. Yuin also appears to be finishing off Marcos, it seems like in a battle of giant klacking sword versus giant klacking hammer, sword wins. Or perhaps it's the centuries of experience that makes a victor, if so, Yuin has that fight secured, sadly for Marcos.

  Emil and I quickly inject health packs and then rush off to Rigar’s aid. It doesn't seem like this battle is quite over yet.

  As we are about to engage with the black haired guy, a menu appears in my vision for some reason. It says the guy’s name is Nero Diablous, walker of the void. Whatever the klack that is supposed to mean, we don't get time to ponder it at this point.

  As I throw out my inae perception field, I sense a strange resistance. Almost like what I feel when training to resist compulsion from Initae. Either way, I charge in with a strong leap, hoping to catch Nero unawares.

  In the instant before my spear tip is about to hit his armor, he moves out of the way, at a speed that seems practically instant. He immediately swings one of his blades for my spear and slices it in half.

  My spearhead clatters to the floor, now useless, separated from the rest of the spear.

  He effortlessly blocks Emil’s strike, but he only manages to make a strong notch in the katana. I guess the ancient Japanese reinforcement techniques are truly as good as they say.

  Before I can retreat to figure out a new gameplan, Rigar, bleeding profusely, gives a great swing of his warhammer.

  Rather than move out of the way, I feel a strong pulse of energy from Nero and he raises the point of his blade and simply catches the hammer.

  A hammer capable of making strong quakes in the ground, stopped with just the tip of his blade.

  Nero quickly strikes back, a quick, lethal strike right to Rigar’s chest. Thankfully, he is intercepted by the respawn barrier that sucks Rigar away to be respawned back at our castle.

  Klack, this is not good in the least bit. Emil and I are exhausted, and even though the others are going to succeed shortly, they will be tired and a little beat up as well. And we've still got a top tier not nice guy that seems to be completely unscathed.

  I finally realize what the weird resistance I felt was, and that pulse of energy before he caught the warhammer.

  Nero is using inae.

  I am unsure what will come of our battle with Nero. But, I believe that so long as Ray and I tackle it together, we shall overcome him. If we can't do it alone, then we have a bunch of super strong friends that can definitely help.

  So, bring it on.

  End of Chapter 108

  Next: Chapter 109 | Walker of The Void

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