Chapter 37

  I had never done a one-man assault against a heavily defended enemy position before — because who in their right mind would — but as I began walking towards almost certain doom, it wasn’t as nerve-wrecking as I had feared. I suddenly felt like I was one of those brave and foolish soldiers from one of my war movies who had to make a heroic last stand, sacrificing their lives to achieve a great victory in the face of overwhelming enemy force. The fact that the overwhelming force took the shape of demonic minotaurs was something I was getting used to, and calm was returning to me step after step on the hard and cracked ground. So, I advanced, watching the first enemy troops noticing me. I had my rifle ready, its targeting screen on one side of my vision via my NeuroHUD, the targeting screen of the sentry on the other. My hands stopped shaking, my finger on the trigger and ready to shoot.

  ‘Oh, here they come!’ Burning Darkness yelled, and I wasn’t sure if he was excited or was panicking.

  In a manner expected of the minotaurs, they charged in blindly, at least twenty of them rushing out of the camp, their weapons gleaming under the burning sky.

  ‘Let them come,’ I whispered and focused on the sentry’s panel in my vision, arming the weapon system. The targeting reticule appeared and found its prey, and the first loud boom sounded from a hundred metres behind me, the round hitting its target only fifty metres in front of me. The minotaur at the head of the charge exploded in a squall of gore. Then the next, then the next, and the next. I kept walking forward, large calibre rounds whooshing past me with every step, obliterating anything that moved. It was a gruesome sight, especially seeing it from this close. I paused the sentry’s firing pattern as I walked past the fallen enemy units, their mushed remains staining the dry ground black. Less than fifty metres now between me and the camp, I could see them perfectly as they mustered their forces, gathering in groups of thirty to forty, their attention fully on me. I switched the sentry to manual targeting, picking the minotaurs I guessed to be mages, marking them as priority targets, then resumed the firing pattern. The sentry opened up again, enemy mages dropping like flies along with anyone standing behind them. Some of the mages had enough time to get a few spells in; the ground exploded before me, spikes made of earth and stone flew at me, a spell turned the ground into quicksand under me, but my SAC’s physical and magical resistances handled it well, mitigating the damage to double digits, and my combined level of 39 against the enemy’s 20ish average got me through it. I was incredibly thankful I had listened to Burning Darkness and had leveled my bonded item set instead of myself.

  The magical bombardment didn’t last long; the sentry finished picking off everyone I had thought to be mages and resumed its automated firing pattern to mow down everyone else. It was a massacre. When I finally reached the first of the tents at the edge of the camp the sentry’s ammo counter was at 279 rounds, I hadn’t fired my rifle once yet, but the place looked like a kinetic bombardment from an orbiting ship had hit it — mangled minotaur corpses were everywhere, the tents were shredded and barely standing, and a few, injured survivors with limbs or other chunks of their bodies missing were bleeding and crawling amongst the corpses. They wouldn’t last long.

  The rest of the camp was in an uproar; I could hear and even understand their captains now, bellowing orders deeper in the tent city, soldiers roaring in anger, the clanking of their weapons and armour as they were forming up for a counterattack. They had no idea what they were facing, though. The sentry turret went silent as the edge of the camp became devoid of anything alive and moving, and I had to go deeper. But not without softening them up a bit. I brought up the sentry’s panel once again, set the area in front of me as its new sector of fire, and set up a 79-round sweep through it. I laid down on the ground, pointing my rifle at the area as well, and I initiated the sweep. The sentry began firing again. The 12 mm tungsten core armour piercing rounds tore through everything with ease — tents, wooden structures or bodies, it made no difference; the gun was designed to stop anything from SACs to tanks to other armoured vehicles. The shouting, screaming and gurgling coming from behind the rows of now perforated tents was terrifying to hear.

  ‘Just look at this carnage! I like your sentry-thing,’ Burning Darkness commented. ‘But all this wasted EXP, man! We need to make that weapon a part of the set!’

  I didn’t disagree with my sword about the EXP, but I had other things to focus on.

  ‘Button, I want to issue a challenge to the enemy general in charge,’ I said.

  [Minotaur general is not in your visual range. Please re-issue the challenge when your target is in your visual range.]

  The answer I had expected came; I really needed to have eyes on the general. The sentry’s firing run came to an end, and I clambered to my feet in front of the destroyed tents — some of them now burning — and horribly mutilated minotaur and werewolf bodies. Stirred up dust, dirt and smoke saturating the air reduced visibility greatly, so I switched on the infrared heat sensors, and proceeded to go deeper into the camp.

  ***

  I advanced between the tents as fast as I could, and I wasn’t stingy with the ammo. The infrared visor display let me see enemy units before they saw me in the smoke and dust, each of them received three-round bursts before moving on. The notifications of my kills were piling up, and I ignored them; getting pinned down or surrounded wasn’t an option. Individually the lower level minotaurs weren’t that big a threat, but their numbers could prove fatal if I wasn’t careful or if I was too slow or distracted. Luckily, the chaos and confusion my sentry had caused was aiding me; it seemed the captains running the camp considered it to be the main threat — even though they couldn’t have known what it was they were facing — and judging by the surprise of those I came across and killed, they weren’t collectively aware of my presence here. Through the sentry’s targeting screen, I could see more and more soldiers rushing to the edge of the camp to deal with whatever was causing the carnage, only to be mowed down by the automated gun. It wasn’t even a fight; it was one sided butchery committed by an unfeeling weapon on my orders. I almost felt bad for them, but thanks to that I could move quickly deeper into their camp as a lone infiltrator. The ammo counter of the sentry was at 144 rounds, and with some luck it would last until I got eyes on the enemy general.

  After passing through the sixth row of the ramshackle, leather tents, the air cleared and I switched off infrared. I had used up two mags — a hundred and forty rounds — and I was beginning to worry about my ammo situation. I cast an Infernal Storm at the four minotaurs rushing at me from between a couple of tents; the spellspawn firestorm enveloped them completely, their forms falling to the ground, writhing and shrieking, but I received only one kill notification. I left them there and moved ahead, heading for the centre of the camp where I hoped I’d find the general’s tent. Ten more rows of tents and another seventy rounds later I burst out into an open space in the middle of the camp, filled to the brim with the largest minotaurs I’d seen so far. A sense of their levels slammed into me, telling me I was facing enemy warriors whose levels were in the thirties. Behind them stood a tent larger than any other, tall wooden posts flanking its entrance, on which heads, arms and legs of fire and ice demons hung as macabre decoration. The crowd was enraged, their bodies were shaking with anticipation for a fight; they had been waiting just for me to arrive with their swords, axes and maces in hand, ready to strike the intruder down. All my instincts screamed at me to turn around and run, or at least to slow down to consider my own chances of survival facing what I was facing, but none of those were options for me. I had to get to the general as fast as possible, issue the challenge and thus preventing this angry crowd from interfering. I could worry about the rest after.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  ‘Infernal Storm!’ I yelled, unleashing another swirling vortex of hellfire in their midst, and without waiting to see the effect I switched my rifle to full auto and pulled the trigger while running forward. I emptied the mag in four seconds as I sprinted forward ignoring the single kill notification I got. I slammed a fresh mag into my gun as I ran. The gathered minotaurs — probably either the general’s officer corps or his personal guards — roared in unison as some fell and some backed away from this so far unknown display of destructive power. I ran through that path before me, leading to the grim looking, spine-chillingly decorated tent. The minotaurs that had blocked my path became pursuers, running after me, yelling angrily, but I didn’t care; the goal was in front of me. I shot the single guard in front of the tent’s entrance twice, the six AP flechettes tearing through the poor sod, and jumping over the falling minotaur I burst into the tent, hoping I could shoot the general and get this over with without having to challenge him to an official duel, or whatever it was they called it. The giant, horned bull-fellow standing on the far end of a huge table in the middle must have been him. Unfortunately, his four companions were already standing in front of him, drawing their weapons, ready for a fight. Behind me soldiers were bursting into the tent shouting angrily. Shooting the general wasn’t going to happen, it seemed.

  ‘I challenge the general!’ I yelled, my eyes on my prize.

  [You have challenged Oxorranokh, a general in service of King Oxenarrikhon of the Third Ring, to a duel to the death.]

  Button ran his usual commentary on events, and the scene in front of me froze; the general’s guards stopped moving, the general just stared at me with his beady bull-eyes, and my pursuers screeched to a halt as they were entering the tent after me. It was as if someone had hit a pause button on reality itself, at least for a couple of moments. I stopped as well, panting and sweating, suddenly unsure as to what was going to happen. Button had been somewhat vague about details on these duels. I knew it was to the death, I knew no-one could interfere, and I knew the challenged party would receive twice the EXP than normal if they won. I also knew that terms could be set for these fights, if one or both parties wished it, so perhaps that would be the next step before jumping into the fight.

  After two seconds someone hit the play button, and the demons began to move again. The general’s guards sheathed their blades, my pursuers filed into the tent one after another, but not attacking, and the general himself, Oxor… something, walked around the large table — on which was a huge, hand-drawn map, now that I had the time to notice things — and stopped a couple of metres in front of me, looking down at me like and adult on a toddler.

  The monstrous demon was a giant compared to me; standing at around three metres tall, built of thick, solid muscles. His weird, tree-bark-like hide had patches of fur here and there, and his horns were … well, rather magnificent. He was the most imposing creature I had seen so far, save for my brief encounter with his King. The general stared at me for long moments as I was looking up at him, but no-one said a word.

  Finally, after a few more moments, the minotaur general let out a sigh.

  ‘So, it has come to this,’ he said. His voice was deep and resonating, and it was weird to see his bull-like mouth move to form the words. ‘A desperate attempt from a Ring on the verge of collapse.’

  Come to think of it, apart from all the yelling and cursing of minotaur soldiers, this was my first time speaking properly with one of them.

  ‘Whatever you may think, general, a challenge is a challenge,’ I said to him. ‘It’s not in our nature here in the Fourth Ring to just give up and offer our heads to our enemies.’

  I surprised even myself with this statement. Was I seriously considering myself a local now? Ah, I could ponder this later, I had more important issues right now.

  The general smiled — or at least I thought that’s what it was.

  ‘It’s not in our nature either. It’s as it should be. We’re demons,’ he said, and he sounded somewhat pleased. ‘Your challenge is absolute, and I shall fight you. But … I am not sure what kind of demon you are. You’re small for a fire or ice demon, and the kind of armour and weapons you wield I haven’t seen before. A duel must be as fair as possible.’

  That was true. A duel must be as fair as possible, but “fair” was a malleable concept, especially in Hell, where a level 39 human/SAC combo — such as me — could challenge a general who seemed to have at least 43 or 44 levels, simply because certain titles allowed it. In this case, “fair” meant that The Genius was likely to ban firearms from the duel, since the general didn’t have access to such things.

  ‘If you want to know what kind of demon I am, you’ll have to take the armour off my dead body,’ I told him. ‘Other than that, state your terms, General!’

  The huge minotaur grunted in approval and stated his terms.

  ‘I am Oxorranokh, general of King Ox, fighting for the glory of the Third Ring!’ he announced, stepping back a bit, looking around at all the gathered minotaurs in the tent, who began cheering for their boss. ‘I need no terms, except for a fair duel. State your name, champion of the Fourth Ring!’

  That surprised me; I had expected him to demand the surrender of the city or something. Then again, if he had asked for such terms as the challenged party, it would have given me the right to ask for similar terms as well, so it kind of made sense, and I was fine with that. I’d win this duel one way or another, and Reinos would sort the rest out. Hopefully.

  ‘I am Hyde, Hellfire Champion of the Fourth Ring. I don’t need terms either, a fair duel is all I need.’

  [The parameters of the Duel between General Oxorranokh and Hellfire Champion Hyde have been set. To ensure as much fairness as possible, use of firearms is prohibited during the duel. Any other bonded weapons, skills and spells are permitted. Good luck to you both and may the better fighter win!]

  Button displayed the message, informing me that The Genius had given his blessing for our bout.

  ‘Finally, some backbone from a Fourth Ringer,’ the minotaur general laughed, almost happily I thought. ‘Come champion! I am curious to see what’s under that strange armour of yours.’

  The general exited the tent. I followed him out to the area outside that had already been cleared of the couple of dead bodies I’d left behind, and from what I could see nearly the entire camp had gathered to watch the spectacle that was about to happen.

  ‘Burning Darkness, are you ready?’ I whispered to my sword.

  ‘Ready? Are you joking? A proper, glorious duel at long last, where your strength, skills and the best weapon anyone can wish for will outshine our opponent’s higher levels! This will be a fight to be remembered! Oh, I can just picture it: the astonished crowd watching in horror as we deal the final blow and emerge victorious, the blood of the vile foe dripping from my sharp edges!’

  ‘Calm down, calm down! Sorry I asked,’ I murmured unhappily as two minotaur soldiers brought the general’s weapon out of the tent for him.