Chapter 652: Making A Bet
"First. FIRST!" Two called out as Laz felt the shaking of his body.
"I’m awake. I’m awake... what?" Laz said, picking up his body off the ground.
"Damn. I wasn’t sure what had happened. We just felt that presence disappear but didn’t see you return. After waiting for a while, a few of us finally became concerned enough and decided to come down here to find you," Two explained.
"Or your body. Either way," Blake added before getting smack in the back of the head by Seven and Sixteen at the same time.
"Ouch. FUCK. What? I was just saying what everyone was thinking but didn’t want to say...." Blake said, rubbing the back of his head.
"Ever think there was a reason we didn’t want to say it?" Seven said, glaring at the young man.
"Whatever. He’s alive, right? No harm, no foul..."
"Anyway. Boss... how did you get rid of that giant fucking head nightmare thingy. I mean... I almost shit myself when it looked me in the eye. I even had to check to make sure when we first got out of here. I did actually piss myself a little but at least the other thing didn’t happen..."
"Can you shut up for like five minutes? Or better yet, I’ll just knock you out so I don’t have to look a your face..." Sixteen said, cracking his knuckles.
"Wow.... easy there. Easy... I’ll shut up. Alright?"
"Anyway... so the floating nightmare fuel?
"Yeah. Yeah.." Laz said, shaking his head.
"Uhh... Well... It left on it’s own...."
"What?"
"Seriously?"
"Why?"
"Oh? Did you not want me to survive or something?" Laz said, aiming a smile at Blake.
"I never said that. Ok? Not once."
"You saying it that way makes me think you thought it though?"
"Well... OUCH!" Blake was knocked off his feet this time and hit the ground.
"Anyway. So it left?" Two asked.
"Yeah. I’ll be honest. If it wanted us dead, we wouldn’t have lived. It spoke in it’s real voice, only a few short sentences... and even that was enough to cause my mind to blank out. I can’t even remember what the hell it said. All I remember is hearing words before sudden darkness," Laz said, having never felt so powerless before.
’Kat? Do you remember what that thing said?’ Laz thought in his head.
"Yes... but..."
"But?"
"I understand that I am nothing more than an AI program that’s suppose to support you in your growth but would you be willing to trust me just this once and not ask?" Kat said, although the unease in her voice was apparent for Laz to hear, something he never thought he would hear from her.
Laz thought about everything that had happened since he had gotten this armor and more that once, Kat had proven her worth to him by her actions and her advice. If she didn’t want to tell him something, there had to be a good reason. Besides which, she was also the only help he had right now so turning things sour now would have no positive outcomes.
’Alright. I’ll trust that it’s better for me to not know. But I hope to hear about it from you one day, alright?’
"Thank you Laz. I promise you won’t regret it. But for now you should focus on that other problem in the room," Kat said, directing Laz’s attention to the sword still stabbed into the ground. She then took the time to tell him quite a few things before going silent again.
"Heya boss.... uh...." Blake and the three numbers were all looking at the sword with both excitement and apprehension.
"Don’t if you value your sanity..." Laz said as he slowly got to his feet.
"What do you mean?" Blake asked, not in any hurry to move. After all, even he could tell the blade wasn’t a good thing despite being a strong thing.
"It’s cursed. Despite what happened, every one of those men in robes did obtain their wishes, it just wasn’t what they had thought it would be," Laz said, looking at the statue, the brain-eye thingy attached to the poll, the now quiet monster penis with the dead sack of a man still attached to it, the lump of flesh that possessed neither arms nor legs which had passed out at some point and the sword.
"Ok.. I can kind of understand the other four... but what’s the deal with the sword?"
"Well... that mayor did ask for something that could decide the life and death of everyone in the realm..." Laz replied, thinking.
"How does that relate to that sword? I both feel a desire for it but also a feeling like it would end my life if I were to touch it?" Two said. As the most rational one of their group, he knew better than to take the chance of trying to grab it himself.
As they stayed far away and looked on, something amazing happened. The lump of flesh, the man who had been cursed to be without arms or legs had suddenly woken up. While he was about to start screaming, his attention was suddenly grabbed by the sword which was quite close to him. While he had no real way of moving normally, he still had a cultivation at the stage of the void palace realm which allowed him to be incomparably stronger than a normal human. In a surprising show of resolve and strength, the man flailed wildly and shot himself around so that he was now laying on his stomach. Then, using his mouth and his teeth, he dragged himself the few feet over to the fatally attractive sword as though a man possessed.
As soon as he was close enough, the man stuck out his tongue to touch the sword.
"That’s just... wrong...."
"I admire his will to live. Think he lost his dick too?"
"You going to check?"
"Well I didn’t see him using it to crawl?"
"What the fuck is wrong with your brain, boy? Would you be horny in that kind of situation?"
"You can’t crawl with your dick unless it’s stiff? I feel so sorry for you..." Blake said, giving Seven a look of pity, earning him another knock to the back of his head.
As soon as his tongue touched the sword, his entire body went ridged and began to shake. Then, before their very eyes, his body deflated like a tube of toothpaste that suddenly was emptied after being squeezed from the bottom to the top. Once it was done, all that remained was a discarded husk that broke apart shortly after.
"That...?"
For once, even Blake was speechless.
"Fuck me..." Laz said with a sigh and began walking over.
"Boss... What are you doing?" Blake asked.
"First... this isn’t the best plan..." Even Two advised him.
"This thing is inadvertently strong... stronger than it should be if I’m being honest... I don’t think this thing is at the level that even gods can handle," Laz said, still walking slowly over.
"Ok. Right. You would know best... so why are you?" Two then questioned.
"Think about it. What was that mayor’s wish? What did he request?" Laz said, keeping his eyes on the blade while steeling his resolve to confront this enemy. Kat had told him he had to try.
"He wanted to control life and death within this realm?" Sixteen replied, thinking back for the exact wording.
"Right... So whatever he received would have to be strong enough to control the life and death of everything in this realm, meaning it would have to be able to kill anything in this realm, correct?"
"I don’t see how that’s... wait...." Two stopped speaking as he thought about Laz’s exact wording.
Laz looked back with a smile.
"Now you’ve got it. If it wasn’t for that damned shadow dragon, this thing would have never appeared here. The Emperor has already failed in his fight with it which means the only target this is meant for would be that dragon. If this is something that can kill it, doesn’t that mean that anything else that’s tried would be useless?" Laz replied shedding light on his thoughts.
"But that doesn’t mean you can subdue it boss. Aren’t you just throwing your life away? Maybe this thing can only be wielded by the Emperor himself?" Blake asked, his thinking, like that of everyone else in the realm, in that the Emperor is the most powerful being.
"Had the wished been made with the Emperor present, I might agree with you. But he wasn’t and isn’t. If we assume that the contract was made with the process of equivalent exchange, that could only mean that the strongest present here when the wish was made is the one that can control the blade. And unless I’m wrong here and feel free to correct me if I am cause I don’t really want to die, I’m the strongest one here... right?"
"Well..."
"Now that you mention it..."
"Go get it boss. I’m sure you won’t be sucked dry like an old, rich man in a brothel."
"That... what the hell have you been doing with yourself to even use that analogy?"
Laz wasn’t so sure his reasoning was correct, but since this was what Kat told him and he had decided to trust her, he would trust her fully.
He was willing to make this bet with his life on the line.
Within his head, there was a loud pounding along with an ever increasing number of angry, ghoulish wails that assaulted his senses and attempted to break his mind. But with a stead resolve, Laz pushed his way forward until he was close enough to lay his hand on the hilt of the sword.
Bracing himself, Laz touched the cursed object...
But nothing happened.
Moving his hand down, he made to grip it tightly to pull it out of the stone floor when everything suddenly went black,
"What?" Laz said, looking around.
"Two? Blake? Seven? Sixteen?" Laz called out, wondering just where the light from the torches went, but he got no reply.
Just then, a massive shape appeared as the darkness around him began to move.
