Krovath mistook the comment as a threat to his life and shrunk the room further. He had a constant eye on the undead outside, and with Tetsu demanding most of his attention, the undead gained the upper hand outside the castle.
On a timer, Krovath pulled the room closer to multi-task.
"Simulation room." He sends a message to Tarah. "Come." He challenges the human picking his nose.
"Don't wanna." Tetsu shook his head.
"WHa… Then why are you even here?"
"For the umpteenth time." Tetsu groans. "I have no clue. Stuf just happened..." His rant was cut short after sensing the room shrink further. "Seriously!"
"What?" Krovath fakes an innocent smile.
"Stalling for time?"
"HoW…"
Tetsu flings one of the lich's staff at Krovath, leaving one behind at the entrance, and dashes toward the exit.
Krovath swaps the exit with a simple flick of his wrist.
The world swirled, the screen creating an illusion so real that Tetsu's stomach churned. But by focusing on the man-child, the disorientation turned into disgust that kept him stable.
Tetsu dives forward into a handstand and pushes toward the exit once again.
"I won't let—" Krovath finds himself heading toward Tetsu. "Runes." He curses.
He shocks Tetsu by shifting the exit closer to the human. The sudden shift in focus breaks the Rune, and after stepping away from Tetsu's grasp, Krovath shifts the exit.
Tetsu scans the room, the staff he left behind, and the one he flung at Krovath. Both never moved.
An axe slides out of his sleeves, growing larger to fit his form.
As Tetsu stands to the side, he channels his mana into the runes inscribed on both his axe hilt and forearm. With practiced precision, he synchronizes the activation of the runes, causing the axe to rotate at tremendous speeds with a whirring sound that fills the air.
The rotational motion generates a powerful centrifugal force, turning the axe into a deadly weapon as it slices through the air with ferocious speed. Tetsu maintains his stance, ready to unleash the full force of the spinning axe against any threat that may come his way.
Alongside his enhanced agility and the lethal momentum of the spinning axe, Tetsu becomes a formidable force to be reckoned with. He remains vigilant, prepared to defend himself against any further attempts by Krovath or any changes that might hinder his chances to escape.
As the axe whirled around him, Tetsu remained focused, his sharp senses attuned to any sign of danger.
Shifting his weight onto his front foot, Tetsu hurls the axe one inch to the side, not wanting to kill the nut job. Thankfully, even he dodged at an angle, further away from the axe trajectory, but Tetsu's first goal was complete; the enchanted axe dug into the screen tile, leaving a one-meter-deep gash on the far wall.
The common sight of spiderweb cracks was nowhere to be seen, a testament to the sturdiness of these walls. Another axe accompanied the first, and Tetsu gained a sample piece, which he stored before Krovath noticed.
The door kept moving in unpredictable ways. Tetsu missed it by mere inches. Once it overlapped against the scars, then the hidden trick of the control room made sense. Tetsu ignored the angry man-child and attacked the walls. If the Krantz decided to stop him, he would have to come closer, and in close range, a Cultivator stood no chance against Tenco Ten.
"You shouldn't be able to follow the door," Krovath shrieked in anger.
He demanded answers, but Tetsu would not tell him he marked the door from outside before entering as a precaution. He wasn't a dumb Krantz.
"I don't have all day," Krovath urged Tarah.
"They should be there already."
"You are not coming?"
"We have an army out here," she reminded. "Please finish that battle fast, otherwise, we will lose this war."
"Send me the best of the best then," Krovath dodges an axe aimed at his head. He had to sacrifice his hair, balding himself to stay alive.
"Oops, sorry!" Tetsu smiled sheepishly.
"I did," Tarah replied. "Got a transmission. They are inside."
"You will pay for this," Krovath cuts the connection and tends to his bald spot.
"Was he talking to me?" Tarah turns to a general who shrugs.
"You look cute," Tetsu remarks, throwing the staff to see if he could hit him if he tried for real, and the staff slams into Krantz's forehead, confirming the possibility. "Sorry."
"You will pay for this."
"This as in the staff, bald spot, room, or my apology?"
"All of it," barked Krovath. "Converge." He stomps his feet in a pattern.
The title beneath his feet turns black, expanding toward Tetsu who makes a run for it, not wanting to find out what the skill did, but the exit was behind Krovath, the black tiles between them, and climbing onto the ceiling also did not work as the black tiles encompassed the entire room.
The tile turns out to be an open door, dropping Tetsu to the floor below. The door didn't work on Krovath, it being his domain and all.
Before falling deeper, Tetsu pulls the axes and staffs toward him, stashing them away. Krovath stood over a transparent title, peering down at the room below like a god.
The stimulation room was similar to the one above, housing a fifty-by-fifty-meter cube. Tetsu dropped twenty meters below and landed rather smoothly thanks to the Runes placed above. He thanked his lucky stars that Krantz didn't have any means to erase runes like the liches. With both axes back in his possession, the climb back up was child's play. He only had to deal with the six elite soldiers in front of him, then climb up to give the toddler a good spanking.
"This is a big misunderstanding," Tetsu said in a mechanical voice, bored from repeating himself over and over to the purple aliens whom he had a hard time telling apart. "I mean you no harm. Please let me go. We can be friends. You and me." He suppresses the urge to sing and continues in the mechanical tone. "You're not going to let me go, are ya!?"
Two Krantz with orbs move to the right and left side of the room. Tetsu marks them as OrbA and OrbB. The group's leader, a hearty Krnatz, drew a massive sword twice his size. Sword leader, SL, Tetsu names the Krantz in his mind. The remaining three drew small pistols and moved far behind. P1, P2, and P3, Tetsu dubbed them. Unless they reveal their names or shift weapons mid-battle, Tetsu was confident he could remember who was who. "Last chance to back down. One verse seven isn't my strong suit," he said with a yawn.
"I decline the first sentence." SL had a voice that worked hand-in-hand with his appearance. SL lowers his stance, the apparatus on his knees creaking because of his weight. "I don't understand the second verse, though," he said with a serious face.
"Honest guy," Tetsu notes, two axes dropping from either side of his sleeves, expanding to their original size.
In any normal circumstance, he would have a hard time fighting such a group, but since he got the axes, he felt invincible. Only his values held him back from becoming a murdering hobo. Half of the castle would have become fodder for his axes if he were a cold-killing monster. A near-death challenge now seemed childish, a waste of his time.
"Remember," Tetsu lowers himself, the axe blades growing wider. "You asked for this." He peers up, staring through the one-way screen tiles, straight at Krovath. "You did." His expressions wash away.
The cool, funny demeanor was gone, replaced with a stone-cold demon.
SL's knees buckled, the apparatus snapping. But instead of losing both his knees, he burst forward. The ground beneath him cracks from the lift-off then cracks again as he trips and faceplants to the floor, the explosive speed dragging him across the room, all the way to Tetsu's feet, red streaks of blood marking the path.
The room went silent, eyes fixed on their strongest warrior at the intruder's feet.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," Tetsu straightened, scratching his head with an awkward laugh.
SL's hand snaps forward, grabbing Tetsu by the knees. Tetsu never stopped laughing as he swung the axes up and released them, hilt first.
The axes grow larger before slamming into his wrist, eliciting a pained screech, yet SL held on defiantly, his pride on the line.
Tetsu raises the axes higher next time. They grow larger to the size that suited Val. SL times the fall and releases his grip to snatch the axes, but as he lets go, Tetsu jumps back.
The axes land with a resounding thud, leaving a V-shaped puncture hole in the surface. Before SL reached for the axes, they slashed forward, spinning into Tetsu's hands.
Tetsu uses their momentum to reduce his. Two Runes pulling in opposite directions. Tetsu lands and in an underhand arc slides the axes into the floor, stopping the axes inches away from SL's eyes.
"Ready to give up?" Tetsu questions, poised over the axe handle.
"No!?" SL roars, sliding backward with his hands.
Tetsu hops down while pulling the axes out. The massive axes spin beside Tetsu, creating a nigh impenetrable shield. With each rotation, they shrink to fit his stature better.
SL checks on his broken nose and all the blood he lost because of underestimating his own strength. He stepped too hard and couldn't control the explosive power his enhanced knee apparatus provided.
"What happened?" SL growled at himself.
"You tripped," OrbA comments in a feminine voice.
"No," SL denies. "He did something to me." He blames it on Tetsu, his voice childish and hilarious to Tetsu.
"Come on," OrbB frowns, also in a feminine tone.
"No... I did do that," Tetsu admits.
"See..." SL lights up.
"Can I go now?"
"Fat chance," P1 snorts.
The pistols the three marksmen used were identical. A sleek, compact laser pistol with advanced targeting systems and a Light Burst Chamber emits devastating bursts of light energy to scorch anything in the path with precision and efficiency.
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