Chapter 10: #10 - War(3)
A/N: Before we begin, I want to say that action scenes in novels go way better if you think of them as comic panels, in one panel they dodge, and in the next panel they reveal that while dodging, he hit his opponent's arm.
So, if you pair that with reading fast, you get an expressive action situation.
All this said I hope you enjoy the chapter.
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As I sprinted forward, his figure crouched, flexing his muscles and bursting from his spot to meet me in the middle of the path.
Beret spun his whole body before slamming his weapon into the ground, leaving his back completely exposed, but forcing me to stop before he hit me.
Using the sudden force from my break, I jumped and did an axe kick right to his back.
My feet covered in ice should be enough to pierce whatever leather armor he should have under all that fur.
But before it could land, he grabbed my feet, without even looking up and not bothering to think about dodging.
My eyes met his, and I feared what he would do.
"RAGH!" Beret screamed as he crushed mercilessly the ice where my foot was in.
Foreseeing this, I undid the top part of the black boots and used the soles to jump back just in time for him to destroy it.
A few meters from him, I looked at his hand and found it slightly purple, even if he tried to hide it with his weapon.
"You're strong..." I said just for the sake of saying something while making another boot of ice.
He's leagues above my physical strength and durability, and his speed isn't bad either. The only way I see myself winning is if he lowers his guard. But the moment he does that, it's probably because I'm about to die.
I'll have to be very careful.
The barbarian warrior pays no mind to my comment as he takes his weapon from the ground. I don't know how I could survive an almost direct hit of it, well, my arms hurt a lot, so they definitely know.
Circling him, we never left each other's eyes as I tried to find a way of using the boring terrain to my advantage.
I don't think he will move, but he will follow me and maintain a safe distance from me so that he can anticipate, analyze, and react to my moves. Even if he's stronger than me, he's playing it safe.
There's one thing I can do to force him out of his comfort spot.
I started moving my left hand and its fingers weirdly, but not taking it off my side.
"Hey, what's that behind you?" I made a gesture similar to pushing something out with my right hand.
Obviously, he didn't look behind him, but this and the movements of my left hand were enough to distract him enough to slow down his reaction to the ice I shot at him from the right.
My opponent dodged it and dashed towards me, but it wasn't fast enough to completely evade my attack, cutting him slightly in the shoulder.
He spun and used the force to horizontally smash the air with his hammer.
I backed off and released an ice wave when he had come into my view again.
Beret spun on his feet and repeated his attack to my ice wave, which dispersed and slightly froze his hammer and fingers, but to no notable consequence.
The metallic smell of the blood was present in his hand, but he didn't show any sense of pain. Taking advantage of the supposed state of his hand, I started my attack.
With an explosive speed, I dashed with my gauntlet-covered fingers in a stretched shape, imitating a spear that went for the kill to his neck, just when I was close enough, I jumped towards the weak spot.
He didn't see me spinning for a projectile attack, so he thought he could lower down his hammer, confident that I wouldn't be able to cross this distance either.
By the time he realized about my attack my hand was to pierce his neck.
Unfortunately for me, he reacted just in time to dodge.
"But!" I screamed my thoughts with strength.
He didn't put enough distance between us, and my feet moved slightly to the side he had dodged, cutting his ear gravely. Almost completely.
Sense of hearing successfully distorted, now I need to aim for other small places...
Turning back to see me, he doesn't panic at all and raises his hammer, entering in stance properly since the start of the fight.
Maybe I could aim at his ligaments? His Achilles tendon is covered by the boot, but I could be able to freeze it...
"Hup..." Huh? What's that sound? Why is he raising his-Oh.
With a loud thunderous sound, the top of his hammer head hits the ground harshly.
Jumping high in the sky, I avoid the quake he just sent across the ground, making it tremble for a moment.
"The move was great stat-wise, but I'm not a mindless undead who will just take such an obvious move you know?" I said with a sassy tone, but he obviously knows this, so there's a problem here.
The quake travels through the ground, concentrating in some points and breaking the perfectly straight arena we were fighting it.
"Oh, that was your intention..." Now I have fewer places to dodge, that was his only concern since he's bigger than me, not by much in height but in bulk, enough to make a difference in movement.
Where he needs one step, I need one and a half. It doesn't sound like much, but in 10 steps I would have needed 5 more to keep up with him.
Striding to me, he slowly but surely closed the distance, positioning himself close to one of his traps in case he needed to make use of it.
Seeing as how the terrain didn't help me, I simply started walking on the mountain wall to the side of the path, took out my gun from my inventory, and shot at him.
Beret isn't as dumb as a stereotypical Barbarian, he saw me with an unknown item and immediately covered his vital parts with his hammer and ran around.
Still, this thing has auto-aim, so it should have no problem hitting him.
"Take the power of America!" I calmly told him, knowing he couldn't understand me.
The bullets I fired reached him immediately, the leather and his tunic did little to stop them, but the same couldn't be said for the hammer and slight sparks of magic that appeared around him.
It's weird to see magic take such an active role in the world, because of my normal sensitivity and the fact we never saw Greek magic in explicit action.
Not caring about my thoughts, he kept on shielding himself but slowly getting closer to the wall, as if to not scare me out of it.
The parts that weren't protected by his hammer had a slight wound, but nothing too big or important for it to make a difference. Magic really is bullshit.
Once he got close enough, he closed his eyes, raised his hammer, and hit the wall.
The wall, which was part of the mountain, started to tremble uncontrollably, the area where he hit had a huge crater that crept through the entire surface.
As the mountain's surface trembled and crumbled under the hammer, I jumped down.
Taking a stance, once again we stood looking at each other meters away, he grabbed the hammer from the wall, and both of us walked to the center of the path we were both in.
A scream could be heard in the distance, but it was close enough for both of us to hear it.
Beret tried to not appear nervous, but the slight tightening of his grip on the hammer wasn't helping him.
"So, what now?" I told him. These little comments I'm making may appear useless, but if they can distract him, anger him, or bother him, for just a second, then they are worth it, and I know they can.
"You do know that I'm winning, right?" This isn't a bluff, I am.
He's the one who hasn't landed a hit in the battle(We don't talk about the initial ambush), he's the one who has an almost severed ear, and he's the one who's suffering frostbite in his hand.
I am winning, the bad part here is that he only needs one or two direct hits from his hammer to destroy my limbs, so I can't give him even one chance.
Beret moved forward, step by step he slowly got faster; I copied him and began to close the distance too, carefully not stepping where the magic puddles were.
Once I entered his range, he swung his massive weapon down to me, dodging the hammer, I jumped towards the already injured shoulder with my hands raised in the air, making it seem as if I wanted to capitalize on the injury with a sledgehammer.
He took the feint and tried to grab my foot the same way as before, I already thought he would do that, so in the trajectory of his hand, I disconnected my fingers and extended them, sending some ice to his hand and part of his arm.
It pierced through and I took advantage of the damage to stick my feet in his thighs and punch him in the face repeatedly times.
*POW* *POW* *POW*
The punches screamed as they came into contact with his increasingly more swelled face.
My spider sense alerted me of something, and I jumped, just in time to dodge the bear hug he was going to put me in, as I jumped directly upwards, I kneed him in the jaw and his body snapped back.
Falling, I adjusted my body to fall on top of his torso.
Where I kept on pummeling him, Omni-Man style.
*POW* *POW* *POW*
The punches seemed even louder than before, and this time my spider sense wasn't telling me of anything, so I kept on hitting and hitting, until his face I felt the flesh on my hands, the moment where I hesitated to keep on with the attack.
In that small moment of hesitation, I got grabbed.
"Huh?!" Uh-oh!
Beret's hands grabbed my body by the sides of my torso, his hands pressed on me as if I were a squishable plushie.
"Argh!" Spit came out of my mouth and fell into the bloody face of the barbarian I was punching, but he didn't care.
"Urgh..." With quick thinking, I made a small dagger of ice in my hands and stabbed the barbarian, my plan backfired as the weapon couldn't fully pierce the leather armor and just touched the skin, when he noticed the small knife in my hands, he stood up and bear-hugged me.
"Argh!" Came out of Beret's mouth while he stood up.
He was now hugging me with my back to his chest while keeping an arm on my throat and the other on my torso, restricting my hands against my sides.
"Die now" He said roughly.
My body was against his and I was pressed to his chest, making my figure too small to do anything of significance with my limbs.
The arm around my neck got tighter, if it wasn't because of my divine mana coating, it would have already snapped.
The air was escaping me, and with a small thought in the back of my mind, I willed my armor to act.
"Spi...der-legs" I almost whispered.
Just in time for me to not lose consciousness, the four spider legs came out of my back, piercing his torso entirely.
As I felt the arms around me get deprived of strength, I straightened my body and raised my fist as if flexing it, but going further, I punched his jaw with my fist without even turning to look at him.
He was sent down the straight spider arms until he stopped just short of getting them out of his body.
"Shit, that punch hurt me more than you" My arms were both almost broken and that punch didn't do much to heal them.
Retracting the spider's arms, I turned to look at him as he slightly tried to crawl toward me, but soon enough, his body stopped moving.
[Great Enemy Felled: 32%+]
"Victory..." It felt more bittersweet than I thought to win, maybe because he was so stronger than me that the feeling of victory was replaced with the feeling of tiredness.
Beret was stronger than me, tougher than me, skilled enough to change the terrain to his favor with magic, and equal to me in speed without that huge hammer. He only lost because he got overconfident after realizing he only needed to hit me a few times to win, while I needed various.
"This adds one more to my increasingly bigger body count... the bad kind" I mirthlessly joked without anyone to hear me.
"By the way, don't display those notifications, they aren't as cool as I thought" I didn't wait for the gacha answer as I proceeded with the next issue.
"Now, if I remember correctly, in the second game of the saga, a certain god that I won't call, revived the Barbarian king to fight against Kratos one more time, he came back with his body all rotten and battered, but with his body nonetheless" I monologued to myself.
"I already tested this with some soldiers, so I'm sure it will work out here too"
"Mirror Magic" I called back my grimoire, and it flew from the side of the path to mine.
"I didn't even get to use you... I'm kind of dumb, aren't I?" I did a not-so-joke for everyone to hear.
"Mirror Magic: Reflect Refrain" In the blink of an eye, several mirrors appeared around the body, and started both reflecting and shooting various lasers that came from them.
The body slowly lost its properties that defined it as a human body and became a bloody puddle in the ground.
"Haah..." A sigh escapes my mouth, I don't know how much I've sighed in the past few days, it's definitely not healthy.
With my sigh appeared the other Spartans, who had come back from somewhere miles away.
"The Barbarian backup is dead" I told him, just in case he asked.
"..." He said nothing as he stared wide-eyed at the side of the mountain, now with ugly cracks that traversed the entire wall.
Then he turned to look at me, I stared at him dryly, and as I was tired, my gaze came up intimidating and threatening.
"..." As most Spartans, he wasn't a very words person, but I could tell he was slightly scared, enough to not ask any questions.
"Have the other reinforcements been dealt with?" I ask, just to give the guy something to say.
"Yes... We will resume our march to Sparta" He said and turned back, not waiting for a response as he reunited with his brethren.
Not caring about it, we all did as he ordered.
Arriving in Sparta a few hours later.
...
...
...
The sun was in the sky, with a shine that characterized the dusk, its brightness made me feel as if it was laughing at me for all that happened today.
The city's doors were open as they should be at 5-6 pm, the guards on there didn't react to us six as we passed through the gates, no big crowd was waiting for us, no parade, our names weren't screamed through the city.
Its inhabitants went through their day as usual, as if 5000 soldiers hadn't sailed to war, as if 5000 soldiers hadn't died in it, as if their lives were meaningless.
If even I, who the only people I knew from there were the guys who hated me, felt more pity and anger at their unnecessary deaths than the ones who they were protecting. What does it say about them, about the protected and the protectors?
What does it say about their lives?
How are they able to not care?
How, and most importantly, why...?
It's so... disgusting.
So horrible...
"Hey, you." Someone addressed me, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I didn't recognize his voice, and the five others who were with me had left some time ago, I was just wandering around the city's gate.
"What?" I asked turning to him.
"Someone wants to see you" He told me.
"..."
Manga, Anime, and Comics have taught me to say ¨What if I don't want to see him?¨ defiantly, but I still want a civilization to be near please, thank you.
"Where?" I asked him, just to be sure that I wasn't going too far.
"At the mountain peak, follow me" The spartan told me.
He was wearing comfortable clothing and sandals, looked to be in his late twenties, and didn't have the appearance of someone strong.
...Gauging the strength of someone wasn't exactly a sane thought, but I haven't had a sane day either, so that's that.
I followed him through the city, instead of going to the streets like I usually do when I'm wandering through it, we walked through various stairs, a lot of stairs.
Jesus, how does a city have this many stairs? Something I've never bothered to mention is that the streets are wide, but not wide enough, as Horses aren't allowed to be used and cars haven't yet been invented, so everywhere is safe to step on, but at the same time, there isn't too much space to step on.
Thankfully, as we got closer to the mountain, the less people were in the way, but the most stairs we had to go up.
I'm not Po or have gained his card, so I'm not mortally allergic to stairs, but still, it really is a horrible amount of stairs.
Not soon enough, we arrived at the upper part of the mountain, where the air was less, but strangely, I didn't have trouble breathing.
Once we finished the last flight of stairs, into my sight came the structures that were in no way similar to Sparta.
While, yes, they had an extensive lack of details, these ones were bigger and made more attentive.
The small little things they had as decoration looked so pristine you would've thought this was the Elysian Fields, or whatever was heaven in a Greek world.
As I admired the lack of details, or to use better words, simplicity, of the surroundings, I followed the messenger to the second most important building there was, something similar to the Parthenon. The building was only second in size to the palace in front of it.
If my understanding is correct, this is where the high society has their weekly chats about anything.
How did I know this? Well, it's the natural law that a governor needs his palace, to show his superiority and how he's far above the normal mob. Not to mention we're already at the top of a mountain.
"Follow me, you shall be directed to the meeting" The messenger told me as we walked through the insides of the Parthenon.
A meeting? I wonder what they want...
I don't doubt the Admirer who saw me beat up my now-dead teammates will be there, but who else?
There's only one way to answer that.
"You may come in" Messenger said.
To open this door.
And so I did.
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A/N: Hey there.
No chapter note this time, I just hope you have already left a review, and enjoyed the chapter.