Chapter 286: The Clone
The stone vaults shuddered from the noise, the air thoroughly saturated with the smell of blood, while crimson streaks stretched along the walls and floor.
Noah cut his way forward without a word, the silence broken only by the whistle of his blade and the muffled death rattles of his enemies. Several guards retreated in panic, attempting to regroup:
"Where is His Majesty?! Protect him at all costs! Quickly!"
In a blur of motion, Noah closed the distance and slit their throats in one fluid stroke.
At that exact moment, Elyria fluttered down silently from the ceiling.
She swooped low over the heads of the remaining guards.
Noah raised his sword to strike a knight, but before the blade could fall, thick roots shot past his head. They pierced straight through the knight's chest.
Noah froze, staring in disbelief at the impaled knight, then at Elyria as she darted ahead. Grimacing in irritation, he shouted after her:
"Hey! Hands off my targets!"
Elyria spun around mid-air with a playful smirk and chirped:
"Finders keepers!"
Without waiting for a response, she swooped upward in a sharp maneuver and flew further down the corridor. An enraged Noah swore through his teeth and threw himself into carving up the remaining enemies with even greater fury.
Tapestry-draped walls blurred past as Elyria shot up toward the high ceiling of the grand hall.
Hovering in mid-air, she turned her palm downward and pushed her hand toward the floor with a soft exhale.
A heartbeat later, the stone floor buckled—starting beneath her and rippling violently down the corridor—as thick, bark-clad roots burst through the flags.
Deadly wooden spikes impaled the surviving guards before they could even scream. Not stopping there, giant roots crashed into the massive outer wall of the castle with a roar, breaking the masonry outward.
Elyria pumped her fist in the air with a triumphant grin and called out:
"That's how it's done!"
In that same second, her magic dispersed. The weaving spikes and the roots themselves crumbled into thousands of glowing emerald sparks, dissolving into the air. Without missing a beat, Elyria fluttered her wings and zipped out through the breach to take in the view of the castle.
Once outside, Elyria spotted Iron standing motionless on the ground, staring silently at the earth.
Elyria immediately flew over to him, hovering right in front of his face, and asked:
"Iron, why are you just standing there? Killed Edriac already?"
Iron stared down at the corpse in silence for a moment. Elyria pouted her lips and drew a breath to ask again louder and more seriously, but Iron turned his head toward her and tossed out dryly:
"He's still alive."
"Alive?!" Elyria threw her hands up. "Then why are you standing here?!"
Iron nodded toward Lucius Feramir, who was lying on the ground:
"This bastard teleported him away. I haven't tracked down where yet."
"Well figure it out, you can do it!" Elyria protested.
Iron stayed silent, looking away, and said mentally to Lumon:
Lumon, when will the coordinates be ready?
Lumon's voice instantly echoed in his head:
"Additional time required to complete the full teleportation analysis..."
Pick up the pace, Iron muttered in his head.
Ignoring Elyria's intense and visibly annoyed stare at his silence, Iron shifted his gaze to the castle. Devastation was visible everywhere, walls gaped with holes, and crimson streams flowed along the stone.
"Heavens..." Iron said quietly.
His gaze rose much higher.
From his elevated view, all of Avers lay exposed: the crumbling castle at its core and the frantic populace flooding the streets below. People trampled one another in a desperate bid to escape, realizing their ruler had fallen and the fortress was breached. Total catastrophe.
Iron closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, and when he opened them, his perception returned to normal.
We could take these people with us... he noted casually.
At that moment, Elyria flew closer again:
"Well? Did you figure out where he is?"
"Not yet," Iron replied. "Give me a few more minutes."
Elyria exhaled heavily and turned to fly away, but Iron called out after her:
"You two barely did any damage. Go wreck a few more things—I didn't bring you along just to watch."
Elyria's face lit up with joy instantly, her eyes sparkling:
"Thaaank..."
At that exact moment, a dry, crisp voice sounded in Iron's mind:
"Coordinates determined."
The exact data immediately displayed on his retina. Iron calculated it instantly and vanished.
Elyria was in the middle of squealing her thanks when Iron vanished into thin air, leaving her mid-sentence:
"...you!..."
Elyria stomped her foot against empty air and screamed straight into Iron's mind:
"Iron! Why didn't you bring us with you?! Where did you disappear to?! Did you get the coordinates?!"
Her high-pitched mental screech slammed into Iron's mind with enough force to make him wince and clap his hands over his ears.
Why would I bring you two along? he replied in her head with a grimace. Stay there and enjoy yourselves.
Beating up Edriac is way more fun than picking on these weaklings! Elyria whined, pointing a thumb back at the castle.
Iron was about to cut her off and say that she and Noah were staying at the castle, but Elyria immediately pressed on:
If you don't bring me over right now, I'm telling Eliza everything!
Iron merely smirked:
Do you seriously think I'm afraid of Eliza?
Fine! Then I'm going on strike for an entire month! she huffed.
You can't even sit still for an hour, Iron noted.
Just bring me along already! Elyria snapped.
Iron took in his new surroundings: he was standing atop a rolling hill covered in lush green grass.
Endless waves of grassy knolls stretched out to the horizon under a blazing, cloudless sun. Tranquil silence hung over the landscape, save for the gentle rustle of wildflowers in the breeze.
Realizing that searching for Edriac alone would take too long, Iron sighed:
"Fine."
He snapped his fingers, and a moment later, Noah and a triumphant Elyria materialized at his side.
Meanwhile, deep beneath the Dark Castle, inside a sealed chamber, the only illumination came from the dim green glow of a vertical pod and the flickering glare of computer monitors.
Lines of code and system diagnostics cascaded down the screens in a frantic blur.
A spiderweb crack suddenly snapped across the pod's reinforced glass. More fissures shot across the surface until, with a heavy groan, the glass buckled.
CRACK!
The thick glass shattered violently in all directions. A surge of liquid poured outward along with hundreds of sharp shards. However, the entire mass didn't flood the room: the floor around the capsule had been pre-lined with a heavy, waterproof material that contained the water and glass within the designated area.
A figure collapsed limply onto the wet matting amidst the wreckage. Lucius Feramir.
An oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose. He lay motionless for a few seconds, slowly regaining his senses.
Finally, his eyelids fluttered, and Lucius opened his eyes. Focusing his gaze, he raised his hand to the mask on his face, ripped it off, and dropped it beside him on the wet matting.
Drawing in a sharp breath of dry air, Lucius pushed himself up from the floor and began rising to his feet slowly.
After that, Lucius looked around, taking in the puddle of water and piles of shards beneath his feet. He then clapped his hands together.
Flexible mechanical tentacles descended silently from the ceiling. They deftly grabbed the edges of the special protective lining holding the water and glass shards. The tentacles began neatly drawing the fabric together, taking care not to catch the clearance gaps and equipment openings, tying it tightly into a huge bundle. The manipulators then hoisted the entire mass upward, stowing it away in technical niches beneath the ceiling.
Lucius stepped forward and stood on two special metal footpads prepared on the floor.
The moment his feet touched the sensors, the platform beneath him hummed quietly and sank slightly—right up to his ankles. Smaller manipulators extended from the surrounding walls. One of them swung open a built-in cabinet door.
Lucius spread his arms to the sides, assuming a comfortable posture.
The automated dressing system fitted the garments directly onto his body without needing to go over his head. Robotic grippers wrapped dark undergarments and a sharp black dress shirt around him, followed by tailored red trousers and a matching coat. Smart fibers fused at the seams, molding instantly to his build.
The platform beneath his feet rose smoothly back level with the floor. Socks and footwear appeared where his bare feet had been.
Lastly, one of the mechanical hands carefully placed the red top hat with its thin black band onto his head.
Lucius took a step forward.
"Iron..."
Leaving the platform and taking a few strides ahead, he paused and cast a glance back at the shattered capsule, muttering to himself:
In three years, you're the only one who's managed to kill my clone...
He turned back around, taking a couple more steps:
Phew, good thing I created it in the first place.
Passing by the shimmering monitors, he added mentally in self-justification:
Though in my defense, I wasn't prepared for that fight...
Then Lucius shot a quick glance into a dark corner and commanded:
"Let's go, Edriac."
Edriac, who had been waiting silently in the shadows this whole time, obediently fell in behind him. Both stepped into the elevator cabin. Lucius pressed the activation button and, smirking at his own thoughts, mused:
Iron is most likely near the hills right about now...
At that moment, he recalled the holographic feed back in the cave showing Iron closing in on Edriac—and how he'd ordered Valerius over the comms unit to wait by the grassy hills.
A double teleportation, he thought smugly. You saw the first one, Iron, but the second... no... Even you aren't capable of calculating something like that right now.
The elevator stopped smoothly at the desired level. Lucius stepped out into the laboratory, turning to Edriac on the move:
"You stay here for now, while I head back to the kingdom and resolve all the issues."
Turning away from him, Lucius mentally pictured what he had seen shortly before the destruction of his clone: the ruined castle, piles of guard corpses, the panicked streets of the capital, and the rumors about to spread rapidly throughout neighboring kingdoms.
Sigh... What a headache this is going to be... he muttered under his breath.