Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration

by Edward Castle

  The Lieutenant frowned. "You wouldn't."

  "I would." The General said and even I, who had been trained to detect bluffs, couldn't detect any in his words. "Eight seconds."

  They stared each other for a few seconds, but when the General said "Five," the soldiers dropped me, dropped my VirBridge, emptied their pockets, and left.

  It had been a long time since I had seen anything that crazy.

  "Are you alright, son?" The General asked with concern.

  "I'll live," I said. "Would you really do it?"

  "No," he replied softly. "But I know how to deal with soldiers, no matter what branch they are from. I advise you to move to another apartment, sooner, rather than later." He turned his head to the side, as if someone was talking to him. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, son. I need to go." He flickered out of existence.

  That's when I noticed Daggers. She was to the side, sitting with a VirBridge on her lap.

  And, damn, she was beautiful.

  I'm not a man to fall for every beauty I see, but there's no harm in appreciating the ladies when I see them. Her beauty was exotic: she had Asian facial features and her skin was light brown. Her black hair was cut short, in military fashion, and her light blue eyes were an amazing contrast to her darker skin — which I could see very little of due to her conservative clothing.

  We said nothing for a few seconds, clearly analyzing each other. She was the first to speak.

  "You look like your character. Except the eyes, that is."

  "I guess," I said. "My character has more muscle though. It's been almost two months since I last worked out and it's showing."

  I almost frowned at that. I had seen a girl, and my brain had automatically entered flirting mode, saying something to draw her attention to my body.

  But that was Daggers. I wasn't interested in Daggers.

  "Yes, I can see the signs," she replied in a disapproving tone and kept silent.

  In hindsight, it wasn't a surprise that she didn't seem even slightly interested in my body. Her father was a General, and she had probably seen plenty of shirtless commandos running around. While it was a blow to my ego, it was also freeing. I didn't need Daggers interested in me.

  "Thanks for the help there." I smiled.

  "No problem." She frowned. "It's strange though. There is lots of news about these things happening, but I didn't realize they were this bold. The Airmen didn't even care I was recording it."

  She was right. Those men had been too careless. Something was wrong and now that there wasn't a gun pointed at my head, I knew exactly what had happened.

  Thing is, if they wanted to rob me, it would have made sense to feel my pockets first and only take the VirBridge after they had taken everything else in my house. With the dizziness from the forced removal, I wouldn't have known what hit me.

  However, they had wanted to make a scene. They wanted me to try to defend myself and when the General appeared, I had been about to shout out my last line of defense: my own name, and my relation to grandfather.

  Worse still, even when a damn General appeared, albeit one from a different branch, they continued their game, only stopping when they believed their lives were on the line.

  As expected, a robotic voice spoke: "Call incoming. Caller ID: Blocked."

  "I have to take that," I said. "I'll login in a few moments."

  "Are you sure?" She asked, concerned.

  "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks again. I owe you one."

  "I'll hold you to that," she said playfully, but it sounded awkward, as if it were something she'd never said before.

  She hung up, and I answered the next call.

  "I'm impressed," grandfather's voice came through. "Even your mother didn't have an Army General at her beck and call."

  I wasn't about to correct him. "Yup, I'm that good. I take it that this theater was meant to make me go back to living with you?"

  "We're family, boy."

  Him finding out where I lived after I called him wasn't impressive. I would be surprised if he hadn't.

  "Suppose I do that," I said. "What about when the cops find out what I did?"

  "They won't," he said confidently. "Things are better now and I used some favors. Federal, state, county, and even municipal police; I've checked them all. No one is looking for you."

  I frowned at that. "That makes no sense."

  "It does," he replied. "Someone ordered the investigation to be so covert that it's probably illegal. That's why you should come live with me. I won't shield you if a legitimate investigation comes up, but no one would dare attack you in my house."

  My first reaction was to say no, but if he was telling the truth, I could see the advantage. "Give me free access to the police systems so I can see for myself that there are indeed no investigations, and I'll go."

  "You know I can't give a common civilian like you access," he said, and I was about to say goodbye to him, when he surprised the hell out of me with his next words. "But I can give you my login."

  "Wait, what?"

  "Do you have a computer close by?" He insisted.

  I didn't, but I had a holographic interface with direct connection to my private server. He told me his username and password, and I did a full search of the police systems.

  I was able to confirm some things that grandfather had told me after my first month in Valia: someone really had interfered with the investigations into me when I had run my street gang.

  I also took the opportunity to access the fire department's files and could see the faint signs of someone quelling the investigation of my house's explosion. I had seen the proof grandfather had presented me before, irrefutable evidence that I had double checked, but this was the first time I had free access to the originals.

  Grandfather could have paid someone to set up fake servers, to make me believe I was accessing the real ones, but I did everything I could to verify it. I checked random people, nonexistent ones, used a proxy to access the servers via another IP. In the end, I was confident this was the real deal.

  And there wasn't a single investigation into the murders at V-Soft going on.

  There was a flag, a request for someone to do it, with high priority and issued by the Director of the Department of Justice. But it had been cancelled by someone with even higher clearance.

  Grandfather's credentials were very good, but even they didn't allow me to identify who had done this.

  That scared the shit out of me. Someone higher than the head of the DOJ with enough authority to overrule him? Wasn't that supposed to be only... the President? But why would the President need to hide his identity?

  "When can your guys give me a ride?" I asked.

  "They're waiting for you outside," grandfather replied.

  "Make sure the plane has high-quality wireless internet, I'm working on something important."

  "No, you aren't. You're playing a game." His tone made it clear what he thought about it.

  "Whatever." I wasn't interested in arguing with him about it. "I still need the internet. Give me a car if you can't manage a plane, I'm pretty sure I can use my own connection all the way to Washington."

  "It was a car to begin with. The family is having some monetary issues."

  It made sense. Recovering from what I had done was expensive, and while I didn't think he had made it through unscathed, he had to fight to the best of his ability.

  "Alright, see you soon," I said. After taking some medicine for the pain in my stomach and face — the soldier hadn't been nice about it —, I ate something, then left the building, carrying only my VirBridge. Everything else was replaceable.

  A black sedan was in the middle of four Marines' Humvees, and a freaking APC full of Marines was right behind it.

  That showed just how worried grandfather was for my life. He also had been smart enough to get Marines to transport me instead of Airmen. I had nothing against the latter, but it would take me a few days before I was entirely comfortable around them.
>
  A Marine was standing next to the sedan and opened the back door as soon as I left the building.

  "You Jack McHolen?" He asked. Although he tried to be professional, it was clear that he wasn't delighted in being deployed as my security detail.

  "Yup. Thanks for the ride," I said, and entered the car.

  He closed the door for me and I put the VirBridge on.

  * * *

  I said after I logged back in and invited Daggers and Bear to a party.

  We were still in the Temple and the zombies were... Fighting each other.

  Two of them, both wearing leather armor, were engaged in a brutal fight. The others were all sitting scattered on the floor, watching the battle, cheering the most brutal attacks and jeering when there was a lull.

  One of the fighters had only a few cuts in his body but the other was covered in blood.

  I asked.

  Bear explained. What he said vaguely reminded me of an old movie I couldn't quite recall.

  What was happening was downright ridiculous. We were in an unknown place, probably surrounded by enemy elementals, and didn't know what would happen to us, or when an attack would come. And they had decided to weaken themselves to pass the time?

  I took a deep breath.

  Bear said. I was still thinking about how to explain to him that this fight of his was idiotic, when he looked straight at me, his eyes shining.

  I said firmly. I didn't even know what he wanted, but the way he looked at me was a clear indicator that I wouldn't like it.

  He got up and put his arm around my shoulders.

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

 

  I wasn't that stupid. Enemies could show up at any time and I didn't intend to fight them in anything less than top condition.

  Dagger interjected.

  I rejected them again.

  Bear smiled a creepy smile and began to chant. "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

  It was slow at first. He had his free hand in a fist and began to repeat the word with a low voice while looking around. When the first few curious zombies looked his way and understood what he intended, they started to join him.

  "Fight! Fight! Fight!" The zombies' voices slowly raised. Others saw what was happening and joined in.

  Soon, half the zombies were involved in the chanting and were now almost yelling. That's when the others also joined in. Even the two who were fighting stopped to chant.

  It seemed I had two choices: fight, or fight. Since I was now in the mood, I chose the first option.

  To be honest, I could refuse. But now that Bear had built anticipation about it, capitalizing on it was only proper. After this point, even if I chose to fight later, it wouldn't be as worthwhile as fighting now.

  Yes, it was dangerous, but great gains usually came with great risks.

  Putting on a defeated expression, I raised my arms, disentangling myself from Bear's embrace at the same time. "Alright, alright." They didn't stop and I had to yell. "Alright! I'll fight!" They cheered and I kept my hands raised, asking for silence. "But!" They booed and I insisted in the silence. "But will Bear accept the challenge?" I yelled and looked at Bear.

  The choice of adversary was obvious. Bear was the highest-ranking officer they had, and the only one they could relate to in my small 'officer team.' He was also the strongest zombie of the group. If I defeated him, I would become a legend and cement my authority within the group. If I lost, however, I would have lost to the strongest of them and Bear's authority would increase.

  Some might say that it wasn't a smart move to increase Bear's influence in the group, but the truth is that I didn't expect them to follow me if my zombie friend wasn't around. So, compared to mine, his status on the zombies' eyes was already higher and I didn't have much to lose.

  "Do you dare?" I smiled at him.

  His smile was so wide it almost split his face in two. "It's time I made your appearance match your nickname, Ugly-face!"

  Everyone cheered.

  "Oh," I said when the cheers silenced a little. "So you'll be calling me Champion-face after the fight, huh?"

  Everyone booed. Even I had to admit that had been a bad one.

  "No, I'll smash your face so hard that no one will recognize you!"

  That also wasn't that good of a line, but the cheering it elicited was the loudest yet.

  * * *

  Daggers was standing to the side, holding the offline Ted away from Bear, while the zombie and I stared at each other. He was wearing Deathlord Shai's black armor and holding her kickass greatsword. He looked strong.

  I had my less impressive gray armor — I had taken my circlet off and was now using a helmet —, a copper shield, and a darksteel sword. We were still in the same party, but Daggers was now the leader, to prevent Bear from getting bonuses from my Strategist trait, since it only worked when I was the party leader.

  Without the Strategist trait buffing him up, he wasn't that much stronger than me.

  HP-wise, he had 3245 points to my 3070.

  Stamina-wise, it was 590 points to my 570.

  All his armor gave him 100 points of defense, while mine gave me 68.

  His greatsword dealt 190 damage, when accounting for his strength modifiers, while my sword was capable of dealing 126 points of damage.

  Most importantly, however, I had a shield that mitigated 75% of damage dealt when I intercepted attacks with it. It was my greatest advantage.

  Since I couldn't use my magic, it was only fair that he also couldn't use his skills. I was confident in my ability to win given these conditions.

  Generally speaking, neither of us could kill the other before our stamina gave out, unless we allowed ourselves to be beaten without dodging, so we decided on a duel with a single rule: the winner would be whoever did five hundred damage to the other first.

  "Like what you see, Ugly-face?" He said. We had been looking at each other for quite a while, deciding on how we would fight.

  "Yes," I replied. "The armor you stole from me looks quite nice. Maybe I should miscalculate my power, 'accidentally' kill you, and take it back."

  People started to mutter about that. They didn't know Bear's black armor was actually mine. It had been my 'ice cheatstone' that had led to the demise of Deathlord Shai so it was only proper that the armor belonged to me.

  He laughed. "The strong take from the weak, that's the law of the jungle, kid. Enough talk." He closed his helmet and came at me.

  21. Elemental, My Dear Jack

  His greatsword came at me vertically, crashing down with great speed, but still way too slowly to hit me.

  Mid-swing he turned it into a horizontal slash but I was able to step back just out of reach.

  Bear came at me again and I understood his tactics. His agility was clearly much lower than mine, so his best chance of winning was hitting me first and using the momentum to obliterate me before I could counter attack.

  It was so childish that it made me want to laugh.

  He kept going. Vertical, horizontal, diagonal slashes. He even tried to poke me with the greatsword. It was pointy and long, but it was not very effective as a spear.

  Ten slashes and pokes later, I was stil
l easily dodging. The zombies were cheering and Bear seemed to be waiting for me to make a single mistake, thinking he would then trample all over me.

  I was more than happy to prove him wrong as I paid attention to my surroundings and never put myself in a bad position.

  In the end, the difference in our agility was just too great. I didn't know how high his was, but I had twenty-nine points and I estimated that my reactions were at least a third faster than his.

  "Stay still, dammit!" He bellowed in rage.

  I sighed. I had actually been looking forward to this fight, but the moment we decided on not using skills, attributes became the most important thing.

  Besides waiting for me to make a mistake, he could also wait for my stamina to run dry. Each attack, dodge, or defense cost five stamina and his stamina pool was larger than mine.

  I wasn't about to let that happen though.

  Deciding it was enough, I took a hit on my shield. The greatsword was enchanted and liquid darkness surged from the blade, ran over my shield, and covered my arm. It found an opening in the armor to enter and touched my skin.

  It was cold, and it was supposed to deal damage to me. Unfortunately for Bear though, I was immune to the darkness element.

  No damage received from Bear

  HP: 3056 / 3070

  My HP was never full. I didn't think about it but the Life magic kept damaging me and I kept healing myself.

  I took no physical damage, because the attack power was first reduced by my shield, then my armor nullified the rest.

  The lack of damage from Bear's attack caused my breathing to become more relaxed. Unless I failed to defend myself, he simply couldn't damage me.

  He hadn't been expecting my change of pace and couldn't stop his momentum in time, coming at me like a truck. I pushed his greatsword away and dropped my shield, revealing the dagger I was holding in my hand. It was the Swift Dagger, which increased my agility by one when I was holding it.

  I raised my dagger arm just in time to hit Bear. We fell awkwardly on the ground, but my dagger had been firmly thrust through a vision slit of his helmet.