Chapter 81: Preparations For The Summit
A DAY TO THE SUMMIT
Ba-KOOM!!!
The explosion pulled King out of sleep before his mind caught up to the sound.
He was on his feet and moving before full awareness arrived, crossing his quarters and pulling the door open in one motion. The corridor was clear. Vi’s door was open, she was already up. The sound came again, muffled but unmistakable, rising from the lower level.
King moved to the stairwell and descended.
The training room doors were open at the base. He pushed through them and found Eli standing at the far end of the space, shirtless, bandage wraps covering his torso from the base of his ribcage up to his shoulders.
The Calamity Long-Shoulder rested in both hands, all three barrels still smoking from the last discharge. Six construct dummies at the opposite end had been reduced to scorched fragments scattered across the training room floor.
King looked at the dummies. Then at Eli.
"Eli. You should be resting."
Eli lowered the rifle and turned. "I’m okay." His voice was steady, no rasp left in it from the previous night. The color had fully returned to his face.
"I saw the summit announcement in the World Chat this morning. We’ve got barely twenty-four hours left, and with every dangerous player in the top ten in the same room..." He began reloading the Calamity Long-Shoulder with steady hands. "Yeah, I’m not letting you walk into that potential death trap alone."
"You took serious." King insisted
"it’s nothing." He snapped the reload closed. "I can still keep up, and with enough training, I should be sharp as ever by the morrow."
King looked at him for a long moment. Eli met the look without flinching, without posturing, just holding his position with quiet stubbornness, he had already decided and was simply waiting for the conversation to reach the same conclusion he’d started at.
"You still need rest after this, but for now, why don’t we put your words to the test..." King said.
He stepped fully into the training room and pulled the door closed behind him, then summoned six fresh construct dummies along the far wall and let them solidify into position. After which he turned to face Eli and dropped into a ready stance.
"Okay then. I’m coming at you. Get ready."
Eli raised the Calamity Long-Shoulder and braced.
King closed the distance fast, pushing off the ground and covering the gap before Eli could fully establish a comfortable firing range.
At close quarters the rifle’s size became a liability the length of the weapon made redirecting it difficult when a target was already inside its barrel reach. Eli stepped back and swung the stock laterally to create separation.
King ducked under it and drove forward with a shoulder, using pure physical momentum rather than any spell, forcing Eli to keep moving backward or absorb the contact. Eli chose to move, turning sideways and creating an angle while bringing the barrel back around.
King stepped into the turn range, rather than away from it, closing the angle before Eli could use it, pressing into the space the repositioning had opened. Eli recognized the counter and abandoned the pivot mid-motion, planting his back foot and shoving the rifle’s stock into King’s path as a blocking frame rather than a strike.
The block connected. King redirected off it, broke left, and reset his distance.
Eli was already reading the reset. He dropped the Calamity Long-Shoulder.
In the same motion he produced the revolver from his hip, shorter, faster to redirect, built for the range King had been trying to maintain throughout the exchange.
King’s skin darkened immediately, and he lounged forward, creating a construct blade and spinning to cleave Mr Eli.
Eli back pedaled a step, aiming the revolver straight at King’s forehead. King immediately swiped with his free hand, knocking Eli’s hand away. But as he did, Eli quickly swapped grips. Allowing the revolver fall freely to his second hand while spinning with the motion of the swipe.
He reoriented with the same revolver still pointed at King’s forehead.
"BINGO!" He whispered.
King looked down the revolver’s barrel. Then at Eli.
The older man’s eyes were calm and completely focused, his breathing was still normal, despite the pace of the last several minutes.
The bandage wraps across his torso showed no fresh staining. He had moved through that entire exchange without compensating for the damage underneath, displaying clean footwork, clean transitions, nothing favored or protected.
King straightened slowly.
"Very well then." He nodded once. "You can come with me."
Eli lowered the revolver and holstered it. "Thank you, Master King."
They trained for several hours after that, working through new combinations they hadn’t built together before. Working on cover angles King’s spellwork naturally left open, King creating construct frameworks that extended the effective range of Eli’s precision work into zones the rifle alone couldn’t reach cleanly.
They ran the combinations until the movements stopped feeling assembled and started feeling continuous.
By the time they finished, both of them were covered in training room dust and the construct dummies had been destroyed and resummoned enough times that King had lost count.
They rested for a moment in the training room.
King returned to his quarters and sat at the edge of his bed, opening his interface. He pulled up the message thread with Pantheon and typed.
[King: How many confirmed for tomorrow?]
The reply came within a minute.
[Pantheon: Most of them. The majority of the top ten across both rankings have accepted the invitation and the ceasefire clause.]
[King: Who hasn’t?]
[Pantheon: Cain. And the Starbusters.]
King considered that. Cain’s absence was almost expected, the man operated on direct confrontation as a primary philosophy and a structured summit under a collective ceasefire clause ran against everything his profile suggested he valued.
Sitting at a table with the understanding that breaking the clause meant the room turned against him was not an environment Cain would find comfortable, and not to mention, Cain had seemingly vanished since their last encounter.
The Starbusters were more interesting. Hunt had said nothing at their meeting that suggested he would refuse.
His reply in the World Chat had been a single considering sound rather than a rejection. He was either still calculating or he intended to arrive on his own terms regardless of the formal acceptance process.
King decided both were manageable. A summit without Cain reduced one volatile variable. Hunt’s position would reveal itself when the day came.
[King: Good enough, we’d see what happens tomorrow then.]
[Pantheon: Tomorrow. Be ready for anything from the moment you arrive.]
[King: Always.]
King closed the interface and set it down.
He looked at the ceiling for a moment, running through the day ahead.
Drafting plans in case things went wrong.
