Landing in front of the royal palace, Bryan could see gigantic marble-like walls shooting into the sky. At the entrance of the palace stood a double sided door, with a luxurious looking golden border. Next to the door stood a guard wearing heavy metal-plated armor.
"State your purpose."
The leader then walked forward and said in a fierce tone:
"His majesty personally summoned someone for reasons you may not know. We have brought that person, so step aside."
The guard's gaze lingered at me for a second, before opening the door and stepping to the side.
When the leader walked into the palace, I followed after him, while the other henchmen all stayed outside.
As we walked through the long corridor, I noticed the lack of beautiful paintings and exquisite statues that I saw the last time I was here. The whole place felt rather barren.
'Did the king really spent so much money on my assassinations that he had to sell all of this stuff?'
We eventually reached the end of the corridor, where a single finely detailed door stood.
The leader turned back to face me.
"His majesty is waiting behind this door. Open the door when you're ready."
He proceeded to leave me alone and walk back through the long corridor.
Waiting for the leader to leave first, I then opened the door and went through to the throne room.
While slowly walking forward, I could see someone a dozen meters in front of me, furiously looking down at me while sitting on his raised throne. It was obviously king Richard.
Now standing a few meters before him, I stopped walking and stared at him, waiting for him to start talking.
After a minute of silence, he finally opened his mouth
"Bryan Gale."
****
(Richard Levion)
For the first time in a while, I sat in front of the one that murdered my father. He stared at me with the same indifferent, golden eyes as always.
'It's nearly time. All I have to do now is convince him to step into that room, and he will finally stop existing in this world!'
"Bryan Gale."
Bryan opened his mouth and spoke in a lazy tone:
"What is it, my king? Why did you call me here?"
'This is the decisive moment. I can't lose my cool here.'
"I want to make a deal with you. I"ll try to kill you this one last time, and if you survive then I will never do anything to you again. I'll even order my henchmen to stay far away from you, so you can peacefully live out the rest of your life. But keep in mind that you can't defend yourself."
He frowned and spoke in a threatening tone:
"I didn't think you were nice enough to promise such a thing. Is there going to be another catch or something? Also, why can't I just kill you right here and now?"
'Brat, you know very well why you can't kill me! He's really testing my patience.'
"Don't be silly! You know very well yourself that if you murder me, all of my henchmen will attack you all day and night. Even though you may be stronger than them, it will still be a bother to handle that many people for so long."
"Yeah, that's true. Alright, I'll accept the deal, so get it over with."
Although I didn't show it, I relaxed a lot after I heard his words.
'Now the difficult part is over, all I can do is pray that it will actually work.'
"Wait, not so fast. We have to go to another room first. That's were the 'assassination' attempt will happen. Follow me."
****
(Bryan Gale)
Following the king, I noticed that he seemed quite relieved and happy. 'Is he so sure that I'm going to die? It must be quite dangerous then, but I already accepted the deal anyway. I'll just try my best to survive.'
After walking following the king for a bit, he stepped into a completely empty room with a few windows on the wall. The room was about 10 meters in length and width.
"Alright, this is the room that you will stay in. I'm going to start things up first, so just stay here and wait."
The king left the room right after he said that.
"Haaaa..." I let out a sigh and laid on the ground.
'Since I'm not allowed to defend myself, I might as well relax while I can. If I survive today, then I can finally live without people trying to murder me everyday. Well, if the king keeps his word anyway.'
Closing my eyes, I kept waiting for something to happen.
Finally, after a few minutes of waiting, I felt the ground vibrating.
Opening my eyes, I looked at the ceiling. I could see the ceiling slowly shaking. After a few seconds, the ceiling split in two, slowly moving apart into the walls.
Looking through the gap of the ceiling, I could see a drill-like machine rapidly spinning around. At the tip of the drill, I could see a small blue light slowly growing bigger and bigger.
'I guess that's the attack I'm supposed to survive. Except for standing in the corner, I can't really think of anything else I can do while not defending myself.'
~Brrr~
As the blue light grew bigger, so did the annoying drill-sound of the huge drill above the ceiling. The blue light was blinding me every time I looked at its direction, so I just closed my eyes once again.
After about 15 minutes of waiting, I finally heard the sound of the drill getting quieter. I opened my eyes, to find that the huge blue light turned into a dimmer black light shining throughout the room. When the drill stopped spinning, the black ball of light detached from the drill and slowly drifted down into the room.
The black ball of light kept slowly floating down, until it hit the ground.
~Boom~
The moment the black ball hit the ground, I heard a loud explosion-like sound. Immediately after the sound, the black ball of light completely enveloped the room in pitch-black darkness.
Slowly trying walking forward, I tried to find any hint of how I could get out of the darkness.
'Strangely enough, I don't feel any pain. Actually, I don't feel anything at all.' All my senses disappeared the moment the black ball of light exploded on the ground. Touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing, I lost all of them at the same time.
Suddenly I felt my consciousness getting dragged through endless darkness for what felt like hours, maybe even days, even though I have no idea how much time really passed. In the end, I finally completely lost my consciousness and passed out.
****
(Richard Levion)
"Tell me! How is the experiment going! Will it actually work!" The king shouted with a hint of anxiety.
"Please calm down, your majesty. The experiment worked on all the test subjects, and since the black light hasn't disappeared, all I can assume is that the process is still ongoing."
"Haaaa... Alright. Tell me as soon as something happens."
'If this weird soul-transporting device can't remove him from our world, then I never had any chance of killing him anyway.'
****
[5 minutes later]
~Knock~ ~knock~
"Enter! Is it about the experiment?!"
The researcher quickly rushed in and spoke:
"Your majesty! The black light has disappeared and the kid is completely gone! There is no trace of him left."
"Rea- Really! Is he finally gone!"
Rushing out of the room, I sprinted as fast as I could towards the experiment room.
I opened the door and what I saw was... absolutely nothing. The room was empty, with no trace left of Bryan.
"Haaahh...Hahhhahaaa! We actually did it! We kicked that monster out of our world!"
Never in my life did I feel so ecstatic as right now. It felt like all my burdens and stress just disappeared.
"Of course! How could I doubt our technology! All my effort finally paid off! After all these years... I finally avenged you, father."
"Finally...Haaaah...Finally..."
Slumped on the walls of the room, Richard peacefully sighed in relief.
Catching up to Richard, the researcher asked:
"Your majesty! Now that we have basically confirmed the capacities of the device, what should we do with it? Although it has an incredible effect, it takes a long time to charge up and costs insane amounts of energy. We already sold most of the objects in the palace."
"I don't know yet. I haven't thought this far ahead, but I'm sure it will have a use in the future. But the device will never be used without my permission. Who knows what side effects it may have on our world, or anything in general. That is all, so leave me alone for now. I need to sort out my thoughts."
"Yes, your majesty!"
****
(Bryan Gale)
"Aaaahhh!"
Suddenly screaming awake, I felt severe pain in my head.
'What happened? I... was just standing in the corner of that room, and suddenly the black ball exploded and severed my senses. At least I'm still alive, which means I won't have assassins sent after me again. But where am I?'
Looking around me, all I could see were the tall trees on a slightly tilted ground.
Jumping a few dozen meters into the air to see more of my surroundings, my eyes locked onto a huge city on the horizon.
Then jumping towards the city in the distance, I landed on a hill overlooking the city a few kilometers away.
'Where the hell am I? Did the black light teleport me somewhere? Also, I have never seen such a big city before, not to mention the humongous buildings towering over the rest of the city. I should have at the very least heard of this city before.'
Lightly running towards the edge of the city, I tried to sort out my thoughts.
'First of all, the king suddenly wanted to make a deal with me. Seeing how he dared to make that bet, he must have been confident that something would happen to me. After I entered the room and the drill started charging up the blue light, the light suddenly turned black and exploded, severing all of my senses. Then I get transported to the middle of the woods, and the closest city is ginormous, with multiple buildings surpassing the size of the royal palace.'
"This... is all quite overwhelming."