Rune System: The Crimson Knight

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“Ugh,” Draàl groaned, wiping his lower lip with the back of his hand. “This makes no sense.”

“I beg to differ, Lord Draàl,” Zha’irah opposed as she retracted the missile launchers into her shoulders. “It makes perfect sense to me.”

Draàl gave the android a grim stare. “We’ve trained for three days, Zha’irah, and each day we’ve been at our necks for several hours. And every single time it looks like I’ve got the upper hand, you pull out a trump card from nowhere that knocks me out.”

“Just like I did now, on the fourth day,” she gloated. Then, on a more serious note, she added, “Perhaps the fault is not from me—perhaps it is from you.”

Draàl rose to his feet, sweeping aside his hair, which had spilled freely over his face and shoulders after the leather band finally broke from the last attack. “Feel free to tell me how any of this is my fault.”

“You keep fighting like you know me, like you are aware of everything I can and cannot do. Yet, you fall when I suddenly spring a surprise attack. That is your mistake. To fix it, your approach to every battle you indulge in must be unassuming—even when you think you know what your opponent is capable of. Expect the unexpected, make alternative plans on the fly, and adapt to the situation quickly, or suffer defeat.”

“Easier said than done,” Draàl mumbled, his eyes drifting to the rectangular pane of reflective glass high up on the wall—where he was sure the monitoring room was, as well as Valeria and her team of specialists.

“True,” Zha’irah agreed. “But you are a proven fast learner, and a quick thinker as well. You are very much capable.”

“Kind words,” Draàl noted. “I don’t suppose you’d go easy on me this time.”

“Not even a little.” Zha’irah widened her feet slightly and fired up the plasma repulsers in her palms. “Prepared for round two of the day?”

Draàl looked down, observing his tattered outfit. Another quality T-shirt was ripped to shreds, but at least his dark khaki pants and black boots were still intact. Almost.

Tearing the remains of the T-shirt off, he replied, “I’d be lying if I said yes. But, screw it. Let’s go again.”

Instantly, Zha’irah shot upwards, hovering about thirty feet off the ground. Both of her hands quickly detached from her wrists, and in the four seconds that they fell, each gauntlet spawned an entirely new android with identical features to the original. The clones attacked the moment they touched the ground, with one wielding katana blades while the other carried short pole-axes.

“As if one wasn’t bad enough,” Draàl said with a sigh. “And then there were three.”

Before the duplicates closed him down, Draàl used a trick he’d learned on the second day of training, recalling the accompanying lesson Zha’irah had given.

“On one hand, you control one of the most destructive elements on the face of the planet,” she’d said, just after beating him for the third time that day. “On the other hand, you possess a Rune System, which gives you a more precise and streamlined control over that element. The more you infuse magic into it, the more versatile your attacks become. Using fire, you could create weapons, construct shields, form teleportation portals, and even develop unique styles of attack. In the olden times, more advanced rune sorcerers could activate an innate mechanism called the Rune Symbol, which highly amplified their abilities more than tenfold.”

Bringing himself back to the present, he quickly formulated a plan: disorient all three androids, then pick them apart quickly, before they all had the chance to recover.

Sprinting with impossible speed, he skipped past his assailants nimbly, dodging their swift slices and blows. His first target was Zha’irah, and he never took his eyes off her as he conjured up a flaming spear and threw it powerfully like a javelin. Despite its frightening velocity, and pinpoint accuracy, Zha’irah saw it coming all the way. She simply tilted her left shoulder backward, allowing it to fly past her. What she didn’t realize was that Draàl—knowing she’d evade the attack—had quickly followed up with another, in the form of a long, fiery whip. One end wrapped around her right ankle, and he pulled ferociously on the other end, dragging and slamming her into the ground in the blink of an eye.

For a moment, she lay in a small crater, immobile and twitching like she suffered a convulsion. Draàl knew from experience, specifically from the previous day in training, that she wasn’t out of the fight. She was simply rebooting—a process that involved her making an analysis of his previous attack and coming up with suitable counters. He’d made the mistake of believing she’d been beaten, only for her to rise and turn the tide dramatically. He wasn’t planning on making that mistake again.

Just before he could finish her off, however, he heard the clank of metallic footsteps moving with urgency behind him.

“Seems like taking the head down didn’t finish off the subordinates,” Draàl grumbled as he turned around, facing the charging duplicates with a fierce glare. “No matter. I’ll do it myself.”

Fire spread from his fingertips to his forearms and stopped just below the elbows, forming bizarre gauntlets coated in yellow flames. He was ruthless in his attack, lunging and fighting like a bloodlusted demon as he effortlessly kept up with the androids. Swinging his arm with incredible strength, he punched a hole into the torso of one robot, instantly melting the components within. When the other lunged from behind, Draàl picked up a fallen poleaxe and ignited it, launching it at his attacker and pinning it to its head. As the robot stopped and attempted to pull the weapon out of its metal cranium, Draàl had already reached its position. He picked the android off the ground with both hands and held it over his head as he ripped it into two parts.

He only had a moment to catch his breath, because he could hear mechanical joints whirring as Zha’irah, his original opponent, slowly got to her feet. He turned around just in time to see her prepare her guns and discharge her launchers for another shootout. But, this time, he was ready.

The weapon he chose to create was a strange product of his imagination—a machete with a short, wide blade and a long chain attached to the base of the hilt, all doused in fire. With a good amount of the chain wrapped around his bare arm, he allowed the blade to dangle to his feet. Then, spinning the weapon rapidly, Draàl sped forward, just as Zha’irah began to shoot at him. His speed and reflexes had greatly improved, so he had little trouble blocking and deflecting bullets and plasma beams with his blade. Unlike the first day, he didn’t run away trying to evade the projectiles—instead, he charged right in their direction. Zha’irah placed a foot backwards as she took a firmer stance, with even more gun barrels emerging and firing from her shoulders and hips.

But it wasn’t enough to stop Draàl.

He got within a foot of her and swung upwards, slicing her arm off at the shoulder. His next round of movements became a blur as he rapidly pivoted side to side, left to right, repeatedly cutting through the android like a hot knife through butter. Her weapons seized fire, and her body shuddered and fell apart, separating into a hundred pieces of metal, wires, and sparks. Draàl caught her severed head just before it hit the ground, observing the robot’s damaged face.

“Incredible,” Zha’irah remarked, her voice full of static. “What changed this time, I wonder?”

“Expect the unexpected,” Draàl repeated with a grim smile. “You weren’t expecting me to charge at you head-on like that, and you made no alternatives to deal with it. Someone needs to follow their own advice more often.”

“Admittedly,” she agreed. “You win, Lord Draàl, and I deem you ready for your quest. However, your training session isn’t quite over yet.”

A puzzled frown came over Draàl’s features. “What do you mean by that?”

The unexpected answer to his question entered the arena through the elevator at that very moment, wearing a flowing, white furry robe that covered every inch below her neck. Slender boots clicked with every step she took, and her hair was held back in a tight ponytail which accentuated her beautiful oval face. Her colorful eyes scanned that wreckage before her, with an amused grin tugging on her lips.

“Well, that was entertaining.”

Not sharing in her amusement, Draàl kept a straight, burned-out expression. “Mrs. Salazar. I’m sure you and your team had enough to observe.”

“Oh, we did,” Valeria confirmed without fail, her smug countenance still lingering. “Those geezers up there were quite impressed with your level of sheer power and strength, as was I.”

Draàl raised an unconvincing eyebrow. “And that’s what you came to say?”

“Not quite, my lord. I’ve been quite busy, you see, making arrangements for your visit to the museum in Pueblo Libre, where the Blood Amulet is located. By this time tomorrow, my men will be stationed within the building to facilitate your swift retrieval.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “Anything else?”

“Well…” she smiled sheepishly, “this is more of a personal request. Hosting the Crimson Knight is an extremely rare privilege I may never have again, so I wish to utilize this opportunity fully. Simply put, and with all due respect, my lord… I wish to fight you.”

Draàl regarded her with an incredulous stare for a moment. Then he shook his head subtly. “Surely you can see that my training session is over, Mrs. Salazar.”

“With Michael’s robot plaything? Of course. But since you’re done with that toy, I figured you’d want a taste of something more real.”

With a single shrug of her shoulders, the heavy-looking robe dropped to the floor, revealing a second, rather shocking outfit underneath.

A fitted battle armor made of dark, hardened leather and strips of iron covered her figure, ending in a pteruge that hung just above her knees. Her forearms were strapped with thick, woven leather, which was rimmed with golden bands. Bound to her left arm was a wide, circular shield, and her right grip held the hilt of a gladius with a bluish steel blade. Platform boots completed the look, covering up to her shins with neat laces.

Even when dressed for combat, Valeria still found a way to appear extremely attractive, and that infuriated Draàl for reasons he couldn’t name.

He took one look at the android’s head that sat in his palm. Zha’irah gave him a wink, then the robot’s eyes eventually powered down, indicating her disconnection.

“Fine, then,” he finally replied, crushing the head in his hands with brute strength. “You want a fight? Have it your way.”