Chereads / The Fool's Last Laugh / Chapter 56 - The Army Arives

Chapter 56 - The Army Arives

The army had started to prepare for war as soon as the king woke from his sleep.

"What in the world just happened?"

The king woke up with a splitting headache and a throbbing pain where his heart used to be. He looked around and saw that all of the remaining people in the room that weren't dead were all in a sleeping state, even the hero who had been holding a spear in his hand had fallen down where he had been standing. He quickly stood up and gasped in pain, there was a hallow feeling inside him that he had known once before, but that had been so long ago he couldn't remember when.

"Wake up."

He said the words weakly, and then gave up using words instead opting to use a spell instead, it was simple enough, only a spell to wake up the people in the room. As soon as he used the spell he felt a burning sensation that he had never experienced before, he felt like his insides were being ripped apart, he coughed up blood and fell to the floor gasping for breath. Those who had just woken up looked on in fear at the kings sudden collapse. The hero came forward to see what the problem could be, but then stopped as he saw that the kings pupils were dialated. He looked up at the guards and started shouting in anger.

"Call for the doctor emidiatly, he is about to die."

One of the guards stood up and ran out the door in search of a doctor. The hero flipped the king onto his side so that he would be able to breath a little easier and waited for the doctor to arrive. As much of a jerk as the hero could be here, the king had always been nice to him no matter what happened. He had been enjoying a very long vacation and now he realised that he had become complacent. He had no plans to lose the perfect set up that he had built up in this kingdom, He flicked his wrist and a set of numbers appeared in front of him, he hadn't used his possession skill before, after all he had never needed, but now that the king was in this condition he would be forced to use it. The king had told him about a monster that was trapped in the dungeons that could turn the tide of battle. He clicked a small button in the corner to activate his skill, which could be successfully used once a day, meaning if the possession failed he could use it again without any problem. He was deciding what to do when the Doctor burst into the room and quickly began to examine the kings condition with a frown on his face.

"This is most strange indeed."

The doctor muttered to himself and the hero's ears perked up.

"What do you find so strange?"

The doctor looked up at him and pointed at the king.

"Do you not see that the king no longer seems to have a magic field?"

The hero looked closely and realised that almost all of the kings magic had completely disappeared and only residue remained, it looked exactly like the person who had caused all this mess.

"What does it mean though?"

The doctor looked at him with a sollum expression.

"The king has lost his magic affinity, at least for the time being. Did anything strange happen that could have caused this?"

The hero looked at the doctor with a dry expression.

"Does getting his heart ripped out count?"

The doctor looked at him with a horrified expression, not sure if the hero was pulling his leg or not. But given the hero's expression that was not the case, The doctor put on a pair of glasses commonly used by doctors to see under the skin in order to see the extent of the damage. He gasped as he looked where the heart was supposed to be, but all that remained was a void. The strange thing was that the blood was still pumping through the kings veins. After he had seen the heart somthing else cought his eyes, he looked down toward the kings stomach and saw that his organs were twisted and small pin pricks were covering them. The doctor was even more horrified than when the hero had told him of the missing heart.

"Well, is he going to make it?"

The doctor nodded his head slowly.

"As long as he gets his heart back soon the damage shouldn't be permanent and he should regain his magic, however I need to stabilize his condition."

The doctor had all of the people exit the room except for the hero and one of the dying guards who was slowly bleeding out on the ground.

The prossedure that the doctor was about to preform was considered taboo for any doctor, but it was the best way to improve the kings condition in a short amount of time, after he had heard the whole story from the hero he had decided that it was the best method at this point. He placed his hands on both the king's forehead and the wounded guard.

"Don't worry, your death will be to save the king, and your family will be compensated for your sacrifice."

The guard looked up with wide eyes, and tried to move his head away from the doctors hand as the procedure continude, a deep pain swept over him. The doctor pulled the pain and fatigue out of the king and transferred it over to the guard who was convulsing in pain. The process took several minutes and by its end the guard lay motionless on the ground while the king began to stir.

The king sat up suddenly looking around the room.

"Be careful your magisty, you need to take things slowly."

The doctor explained the situation to the king as he sat there in silence watching him coldly. Once the explanation ended the king looked up to the hero.

"Are you ready to use your skill?"

The hero nodded, and the king stood up leading the hero out of the throne room to a location suitable for the spell.

"Well then let's give it a go shall we?"

The hero could definitely tell that there was a being underneath them, but for what ever reason he felt like it was incomplete. He decided to ignore this and activated his skill which pushed his mind out of his body. His consciences drifted down to the depths of the furthest dungen until he felt an icy pull dragging him into a small room lit with blue flame. On a frozen chair sat a horrific monster that looked to be in slumber. The hero pushed forward trying to enter the monsters body, but the spark of life was gone from the creature, and without something in it, the possession was not effective. The hero pulled back his soul in frustration not understand what was wrong, and then suddenly he heard a low laugh which made him freeze in place. His soul looked up and saw that the creature had opened its eyes.

"Sorry to disappoint you but, at the moment it's impossible for you to posses me little hero, so why don't you head back out of this place before you get hurt."

The words were dripping with sarcasm. The hero felt an icy grip start to form around him and he looked to see that a cage was forming around him.

"In this place I control everything, but unfortunately it takes me a bit to mess with souls, since that's never been my specialty."

The hero pulled his soul back as fast as he could causing even more laughter to come forth from the monster. When he returned to his body he found that it had started to cover in frost. The king was hovering over him worried.

"What happened, did the possession fail?"

The hero looked down at the floor with an icy glare.

"Some one took the monster's core so the possession was unable to take hold."

The king's face turned red as he heard the news, he had the sneaking feeling that the person had something to do with this, and that made his blood boil.

"Well then let's move on to plan B, have the men prepared."

The king had turned to a guard who was standing at the door quietly.

"They await your order, my king."

Thankfully most of the army had been already geared up after returning with the General so it had taken a significantly smaller amount of time than usual. The king and hero set out emidiatly even though it was already dark outside. Gordans words were still fresh in the kings mind, if they didn't make it to the location on time he would be a dead man.

They traveled nonstop until they finally reached their destination, the king saw four people standing in the distance as well as one horse. This bothered the king, there had only been three of them the day before, so why was there another one now. The last unknown person was giving off a bit of a disturbing feeling even from far away, it was starting to worry the king so he pushed it out of his mind. He had a job to do and he couldn't stop for somthing like fear, if he did that there would be no way for him to win back his heart.

The army was led by the cavalry and backed by a large number of foot soilders, over all Gordan was quite satisfied with the turnout, as they were approaching Gordans attention shifted to the open plain, he could here the beast coming closer, the timing was almost perfect, he would just have to stall for a few minutes before the two armys could clash. Thankfully the king provided the perfect opportunity for such a delay. Once the army was about five hundred feet away the king and hero road out to meet the small group in order to resolve the situation 'peacefully' but it was quite obvious that they had no intention of settling things so easily.

"We are here to offer up a deal to you."

The king spoke the words in his most diplomatic tone of voice as he slowly approached on his horse, which just so happened to be the General's personal horse.

"What kind of deal are you offering?"

Gordan had sat down by the fire with the others and was looking up at the two of them like they were just some passing travelers. The king's face changed color slightly, but he did not let his anger leak into his voice.

"Give me what you have stolen and you will be free to go without any problem."

Gordan chuckled and then his expression changed to a slightly sarcastic one.

"Let me guess, you got a taste of using magic without a magic affinity?"

The king's eyes widened as he remembered the pain that he had experienced the night before. His lip curled up in distaste.

"That was not magic, that was an abomination, the feeling of dragging the energy out of the air and forcing it to preform the action, it goes against all principles of magic, which are harmonious and fluid."

Gordan raised an eyebrow and looked away for a moment toward Orion, who nodded his head slowly.

"I know it's a bit of a strange thing to think about, but sacrifice magic does have that kind of reputation. And as someone who used to deal with sacrifice magic I have to say it is a very bizzare feeling."

Gordan nodded, he never really understood it when people talked about the flow of magic since it had always been explosive for him.

"Well I guess you learn new things every day, I have always been curious about the feeling that people talk about when it comes to those two topics."

Though that wasn't entirely true since Gordan was already well aware of what sacrifice magic was like, but feigning ignorance was a fairly good way to gain more time from the king.

He looked up and saw that the king was looking at him like an idiot, but he just smiled and held up the sack which contained the kings heart.

"I don't see why we can't solve this situation peacefully... Well after the monster gets delt with that is."

The king looked at him in confusion, what monster could he have been referring to? And then he heard it, the sound of marching from the plain next to them. He quickly looked up and saw that only a thousand feet away from them there was an army of monsters ready to attack at any moment, perfectly centered toward the king's army.

"Well they got here sooner than I expected."

Gordan smiled and stood, followed almost emidiatly by the other three next to him.

"I guess we should get started soon, wouldn't want to keep your king waiting, now would we?"