System Change

Earlier…

Derek appeared just in front of the horse-like man. Instead of widening in shock, the centaur’s eyes narrowed, and a pair of battle axes appeared in his hands. “You…” the centaur spoke slowly. “You dare to show your face in front of The Indomitable Awery?!”

“Ah,” Derek muttered and glanced at the Invasion Status, only to see that it actually showed multiple people in battle and one of the cities under attack. I’ll have to check that out later, he thought, but first, he wanted to have a chat with the Champion standing in front of him.

“So,” Derek said as he eyed the centaur and all the soldiers gathering around him in a tight circle. “You’re one of these so-called Champions?”

“That’s right! I am The Indomitable!” the centaur answered.

“I see,” Derek replied. “You’re not that bright, are you?”

“I do not need to be bright!” Awery surprisingly didn’t get very upset at the slight jab at his intelligence. “I am strong.”

“I don’t know about that,” Derek said. “If the list is based on strength, then you’re pretty close to the bottom. That means you can’t be too strong.” That, however, did make the man angry.

“You little shit!” the centaur said. “I could crush you between two arms and use the other two to give myself applause. You puny human.”

“Yeah… but you see,” Derek said. “I was going to try to keep this secret, but since I don’t like to kill everyone I see, I imagine plenty of the people here will get away,” Derek started, then seeing Awery’s frown, said, “Not you… you’re not getting away.” He motioned to all the surrounding soldiers who were preparing for battle. “All these people. I’m not one to attack retreating enemies, and they’re all going to be retreating soon.”“Hah!” the centaur actually belly laughed. “I am surrounded by some of the best from the council. I do not know most of these… other soldiers, but the ones around me are with me until the end.” Awery snorted. “But what was this secret you were going to keep?”

“Oh! That!” Derek shook his head. “Sorry, I got sidetracked thinking of a way to not kill everyone. The secret is that I’m on the top of the Guardian list. I am the Monarch. I am the strongest person on this planet—in this system.”

“You are the Ascending Monarch?” the centaur asked with a gleam in his eyes. He licked his lips and said, “Then taking you out would be a devastating blow to this Davenresh System and prove that my strength is indomitable.”

“That it would,” Derek said.

“Why are we talking, then?” The centaur looked around. “Soldiers! Stand back! This fight is mine.”

“You don’t want to do that,” Derek said. “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”

Ignoring Derek completely, two more battle axes appeared in the centaur’s free hands, and he yelled, “Prepare yourself!” Then he slashed the massive axes down at four different angles.

Derek raised his armor-covered forearms to intercept the two blows heading toward his neck—which was still unarmored. He didn’t want to risk a strike landing on an unarmored part of his body before he read the man’s actual strength.

All four axes connected at the same time. A sharp clang rang out as they collided with Derek’s newly made armor, then bounced off. The pressure from the attacks he blocked was enough to cause Derek’s arms to move slightly, but then again, he wasn’t putting his everything into blocking as he wanted to test his armor.

“You!” The centaur’s eyes went wide with shock. “That armor! What is it? How can it defend against my attack without leaving so much as a mark?”

“It’s new,” Derek said with a shrug. “Pretty cool, huh? Decided to have it made by the best smith in the Davenresh System just for an occasion like this. This is the first time I’ve tested it. It’s pretty neat, isn’t it?”

“Neat?” The man gritted his teeth. “I’ll show you neat!” This time, the centaur released his aura, which was a grayish orange—not far from Braxton’s. However, even though Derek had not seen Braxton release his own fully, just from glimpses of it, he knew that the assassin’s aura was purer than the man’s aura that appeared before him.

“Interesting,” Derek said. “That looks like… strength… and stamina? Something like that?” After thinking about it for a moment, Derek decided to see if he could get any information about it. He knew that Avery had a gray aura and his affinity was with stamina, leaning towards the bow or daggers or something. All he ever heard about Braxton was how strong the man was, so he could only guess that the orange-colored aura represented strength or something close to it.

“It doesn’t matter!” the centaur completely ignored Derek’s question and then started a flurry of attacks.

This time, none of his attacks were timed to land simultaneously. One came after another—all at different angles—over and over again. The man attacked different parts of Derek’s body and armor, then occasionally tried to alter the trajectory of one of them just slightly enough to land on Derek’s neck or head. Unfortunately for the man, Derek’s stats were most likely beyond what he thought possible, and everything seemed almost in slow motion for him.

The more Derek blocked with his new armor, the more impressed he was with it. The centaur had been correct before, when he was stunned that his attacks had not left a mark. Even now that his attacks were reinforced by his aura, the armor stood strong.

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“Enough of this!” the centaur yelled. Energy gathered on the heads of each of his axes. A projection of the blades overlapped with each weapon and then grew based on the amount of energy poured into them.

Oh! This is like my Channel Void skill! Derek looked on in fascination. He’d never really seen anyone use a channel ability like the one he used other than himself. Of course, the projections of the axe heads were the man’s grayish-gold energy instead of Derek’s void purple.

“Take this!” the centaur shouted as he brought all of his axes down on Derek once more.

Once again, Derek blocked any that were going to land on an unarmored portion of his armor and let those aiming for his legs or torso fall. The attacks did not bounce off this time. Instead, they landed and caused his armor to release a much duller sound.

Derek glanced at all the spots where the axes had landed and smiled. The man had timed it perfectly and aimed with the hope that Derek would block just as he had before. Anyone else—any other armor—would have been crushed by the attack, even if the armor had only dented. Derek’s armor didn’t dent, though. Instead, Derek was only left with a slightly heavy feeling and that feeling of his organs being shaken up that he hated so much.

He glanced at his health on his temporary status sheet and snorted. The attack had done maybe a whole percentage of blunt damage to him. However, he furrowed his brow when he saw that his stamina was down by an entire third. The man’s plan of attack finally clicked. He saw that he wasn’t able to damage me if he hit my armor, so he’s trying to tire me out so he can land a hit on my head or neck once I can’t defend.

“Cute.” Derek looked up and stared into the man’s eyes. “Want to try that again?”

Awery withdrew his axes and attacked again. The energy channeled into them had lessened, but had not gone away completely. This time, instead of blocking like he had before, he removed the glove—which wasn’t part of his actual armor—from his left hand, then blocked the blade without any armor.

The blade did bite into Derek’s skin… barely. It was like a papercut. Seeing this, Derek broke out in laughter. His laughter only increased as he saw the look of horror in The Indomitable’s eyes. After a few moments, Derek stopped laughing and said, “I wanted to test my armor, so I did. It looks like you thought I was relying solely on it. Do you know how long I went without armor? It was a long time. And I never relied on it. It’s just a small plus to have.”

“How is this possible?”

“I told you,” Derek said. “I’m at the top of the list of Guardians for a reason.”

“You… you must be like Cuthos! Nothing but endurance and defensive skills. You are a cockroach!” the centaur said.

“Cuthos? Is that the Shield guy? Another Champion?” Derek asked. “It’s good to have a name. He’s got a lot of defensive abilities, huh? Nice to know. That’s another person I don’t have to worry about.” Derek’s eyes lit up, and he said, “Speaking of other Champions, do you know Kelvin? Is he the Azure dude?”

“If you are like Cuthos, then I just have to whittle away at you until you can no longer use your defensive skills,” Awery said, completely ignoring Derek’s question about Kelvin. The centaur’s eyes then landed on Derek’s armor again, and he clicked his tongue. “But that armor… it’s going to be a problem.”

“I think you’re getting something wrong,” Derek said with a chuckle. The man hadn’t even hinted at being surprised by Derek’s name drop, so Derek didn’t know what to think, so he just continued, “This… is just my natural defense. I’m not using any skills other than passives. My mana is sitting at a nice one hundred percent still. And… most of the people I’ve fought one-on-one for real would say that my offense is much more dangerous than my defense…” he paused, then shook his head. “No… they wouldn’t say anything, actually. They are dead.”

“Lies!” the centaur shouted. He then looked around him. “I do not like doing this, but since you are a cockroach… everyone attack!”

“Eh… actually, I’ve had enough of just defending against attacks,” Derek said. “I think it’s my turn.”

Derek quickly channeled the void into his right fist. He didn’t wait for all his energy to gather—his wisdom was already at such a high number that a second of channeling would be more than enough for what he had planned. The centaur backed away and began to draw more energy into his axes while the dozens of soldiers peppered his armor with ranged attacks, and a few ran in with weapons.

Derek had already seen what his armor could do, so he didn’t bother with many of the ranged attacks. He only stopped an arrow when it drew close to his eyes, but other than that, he let the attacks hit. After a second passed by, Derek figured he had enough void channeled into his fist, so he disappeared with Active Void Shift, then reappeared in front of Awery.

The centaur brought his axes down in panic, but Derek was faster. He loaded up Multi-Strike, then smashed his fist into the man’s solar plexus. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like the centaur may have had close to the same anatomy in his torso as a human. Really though, with his void energy, it didn’t matter.

With his strength stat already being over 1,600, the blow reinforced with Multi-Strike was enough to make the centaur gasp and even drop two of his axes as a hand went up to grasp at his chest. Blood trickled out of his mouth as Derek winced.

“I may have overdone it,” he muttered, then the effect of the void hit, and the trickle of blood became a flood. The centaur’s four legs collapsed, and he fell. Derek walked over to the somehow still alive man and crouched down. The man looked at Derek with nothing but fear left in his eyes. “The rules say that you can stay alive if you give up,” Derek whispered. “I think you probably should.” He brought his fist up, then the centaur disappeared. Derek chuckled and turned around.

He saw all the stunned soldiers who had just been attacking and the others who had yet to. “Y’all might want to look into going home. There’s really no room for you on this planet,” he shouted. “I’ll give you all thirty seconds, then I’ll show you what my area attacks can do.”

With no hesitation, the soldiers who were under the centaur’s command all broke out into sprints back into the protective mana circle. The others soon followed. Not a single one was left after thirty seconds. I wonder if they are able to go back home from in there, or if they will just have to wait, Derek thought, then shrugged. I may send a lookout here to notify me if anyone leaves the array. I have the location… I can get here within seconds now.

***

Avery was keeping an eye on the System Invasion status when he saw a change that made him take in a breath.

Invasion Status

Strongholds

Savannah

Ashgarde

Virendell

Eloria

Active

Active

Conquered

Active

Guardians

Champions

Ascending Monarch—Active

Braxi—Active

Old Goblin—Active

Sir Brandt—Active

Vendra—Defeated

Aria—Deceased

Big Sparky—Active

Osian—Active

Siren’s Second—Active

The Queen—Active

Amelia—Active

Great Ul’oc—Active

Jakis—Active

Silent Night—Active

Holcom—Active

Wri—Active

The Indomitable—Defeated

Shield—Active

Azureblade—Active

Trischa—Active

Invasion Time Remaining: 89 Days 23 Hours 28 Minutes

“At least… it’s not all bad…”