Chapter 246: The Ultimate Fight (3)
Kestrel moved her wrist quickly, and the bracelet on her arm changed into a small but super sharp dagger.
She held the black and white dagger upside down.
The blade sparkled for a second. A chopped-off white tendril hit the ground, splashing her face with red blood.
It hurt like crazy to cut off her own psychic incarnation, but Kestrel did it without even frowning. The cut-off piece twitched on the floor; she didn’t even give it a second look.
She even licked her own blood off her face and grinned.
"So, I want that," she said, still smiling, her face covered in blood. "If you won’t give me something this small, then why are we talking about me being your heir and all this Empire and throne stuff? Are you just tricking me?"
The Queen couldn’t figure out what Kestrel was thinking, which made her uneasy. For hundreds of years, she had used her psychic powers to know what people were really thinking.
Still unsure about going easy on Kestrel, the Queen heard her happily say, "Round two, Your Majesty."
Kestrel ran towards the altar again, into the creepy place that could totally mess her up with just a touch—a scary place that could swallow her whole.
Her tendrils got chopped off one after another, and her once pure white beta skirt turned red with blood.
She’d heard predictions that she would be covered in blood; she’d seen in those predictions that she might lose—but she didn’t care. If that was how it was gonna be, then she’d fight to the end, covered in blood.
At the time when she was under Yggdrasill, the tree where all the psychic energy came together, Kestrel saw something.
She saw endless possible futures. Of those, maybe 999 were super dark, where tons of people would die, just like that kid who drew had said. But in all those dark futures, there was one tiny bit of hope, one way to live, one small sign of life.
The words "the fate of all humanity" didn’t mean something really specific to Kestrel, because she only knew people as individuals.
Ren, Olivia, Rakan, Raymond, Birdie, Nicole... and lots of other friends. They were all humans, and they all meant the world to Kestrel. They were treasures she could never give up. She was ready to risk everything for that almost invisible chance at survival.
Kestrel knew she didn’t come here just to die; she came to find a way to live, even if it was just one chance in a million.
She was ambitious and braver than she’d ever been, not scared of anyone at all.
A bright full moon popped up from the really dark sky. Its light broke through the heavy darkness that covered the ground. The light made a clearing bright and stood up against the Kraken that was in the dark ocean waves. It was like a lonely ship sailing in a sea of darkness, facing off with the huge monster, all under the safety of the moonlight.
This fight happened super quietly, without the smell of explosives or the noise of big guns, without any screams or roars. But this battle was just as wild as those that had tons of bullets and blood flying everywhere.
Down at the bottom of the Tower, a huge cannon shot broke a wall apart. Dust flew up, making it hard to see anything. A few quick beams of light came from behind the enemy, and then everything got quiet again.
The Royal Guard who were supposed to protect this floor had failed and moved up to a higher level.
The soldiers who were attacking the Tower looked at each other. Everyone thought the Royal Guard was super tough and not to be messed with. That was what soldiers from the frontier had always believed.
In contrast to the basic gear from the freezing, empty lands, the alphas of the Royal Guard always had the best weapons from different Polluted Zones. They were supposed to be the Empire’s top military force, like the last line of defense for humans.
But surprisingly, the fighting here was pretty weak. These fancy enemies just fell apart when they got hit. The Tower’s defenders couldn’t even stand up to a couple of real attacks from the invading army. They didn’t even put up a good defense.
Olivia fired some warning shots into the air and waved her hand to signal it was time to go. She ignored the mad yelling from the opticomputer’s commander and led her own Royal Guard group to get out of there.
These folks had lived easy lives for hundreds of years, with all the safety and stuff they could ever want. But the safer things got inside the Tower, the fewer people wanted to risk their lives going into the dangerous Polluted Zone.
Out of all the Royal Guard, only a couple hundred had ever been in a real fight. Some, like Olivia, hated how the Empire was going downhill and had secretly joined groups that were against it.
These young soldiers from rich families had to deal with well-planned, big attacks from soldiers who had trained in the Polluted Zone. Lots of them ran away.
The Tower’s doors, which hadn’t seen any trouble for hundreds of years, got blown open that day for everyone to see. All the years of unfairness and pushing people around lit a fire under everyone’s anger.
That day, the center of the Empire, the Imperial Nexus, turned into a total mess.
Loads of hidden warriors started popping up all over the Imperial Nexus. They came from places where regular people lived, from the basements of big factories, and even from the royal blimps of the Empire itself. Their faces were covered with dark cloth and their eyes looked intense. They carried huge weapons on their shoulders and sprinted through streets and narrow lanes.
All these fighters were rushing toward the Tower, which stood right in the middle of the Empire like a huge skyscraper.
Loud cannon shots kept booming non-stop. Even people in the poor areas far from the Tower could hear the scary sounds. It was like the sky was going to crack open and the whole world would fall apart.
Inside a run-down little house, some young kids were shaking while they hugged their mom.
"It’s scary, Mom," said the youngest kid, lifting his head. "Are those bad guys? What are they gonna do to the Tower?"
"Don’t worry, just stay hidden," the mom said, gently pushing him under the bed.
She whispered, "Maybe this isn’t a bad thing, really."
The year before, her husband was harmed by government people because they couldn’t pay some crazy-high living tax. Last year, her oldest son, who had just grown up, tried to make extra money by going into the dangerous Polluted Zone and never came back. This year, they had no chance of paying the tax.
"At this point, who cares what they’re blowing up? It’d be awesome if the Tower just fell down, and even better if all those government people got what’s coming to them," she thought to herself.
Even though she often said, ’Hail to the Tower,’ like everyone else, she didn’t actually mean it.
While the sound of the cannons kept roaring, the mom held her kids super tight under the bed.
"It’s okay; if we all die, at least we die together. We’ve got nothing left to lose. It would be way better if just those government people got taken out and nobody comes to collect the tax this year," she prayed in her head.
Inside the Tower, Brandon’s calm voice spoke to all the rebels through their earpieces, "Stay sharp; the real fight’s just getting started. Remember, the scariest thing about the Tower isn’t how strong the Royal Guard is."
Ren got what Brandon was saying better than anyone. "The scariest thing about the Tower isn’t the power of the Royal Guard."
He’d been chased by that force before. Just one look from that super powerful being almost wiped him out, making him super weak. The battle had been raging for a while now, but that terrifying force still hadn’t shown up.
Ren set up an explosive device under a door in an emergency hallway and then got to a safe spot.
He glanced at his wrist-bound opticomputer again. He had sent a message asking for info a bit ago; Kestrel’s icon was still not showing any activity.
Kestrel’s tiny pink octopus avatar was just hanging out on the screen. Its tendrils were all curled up, and its round black eyes stared straight ahead.
For some reason, Ren felt super worried this time. Even when fighting was going on, his heart felt like it was jumping out of his chest.
Kestrel hadn’t texted back, which meant she couldn’t even send a quick smiley face to say she was okay.
Ren leaned against the wall of his hiding spot and pushed the button on the thing that makes stuff go boom—the detonator. A massive explosion rocked the space behind him. Pieces of stuff—debris—flew past his face, and a bunch of dust got all over him.
He was right up there in the action, and his job was to mess up all the big stuff inside the Tower that kept people out.
Since he made stuff explode, there was now a way from the bottom to the top of the Tower. No one could shut the big doors to stop the rebels from moving up anymore.
The dusty air started to clear. The lights on the ceiling were busted from the explosion, so it was kinda dark. Through the cloudy air, Ren thought he saw the tiny pink octopus avatar flicker a bit under a pile of dust.
Ren quickly cleaned off his screen and tapped the flickering octopus picture.
A box popped up in front of him. Kestrel’s face showed up on the screen.
All he could see was her face, and it was really pale. There were even some red blood splatters on it.
She didn’t say why. She just leaned against a gray stone wall and gave him a weak smile.
"Hey, how’s it going?" Kestrel tried to sound upbeat.
"I’m good," Ren answered right away, shaking off the dirt from his face and head. "Where are you? I’ll come get you."
He stared at the screen, trying to figure out where Kestrel was.
The lighting where Kestrel was seemed even darker than where he was. The ceiling looked high, and there wasn’t anything special to see.
Ren noticed a little piece of broken pink brick in the corner of the video. It was pink, like something you’d see in a kid’s room. The walls were pink and the high, domed ceiling had nothing on it. She was in a big open space.
Then, Ren remembered this hidden school place inside the Tower he had sneaked into once. The walls looked just like that.
Kestrel was in that secret spot meant for training betas, in a weird altar with a high ceiling. On the screen, he saw other shapes slowly creeping closer to Kestrel. She looked like she was totally out of energy.
"Hang on, I’ll be right there," Ren said through the opticomputer. He sounded super calm and dependable, like a hero who could magically appear next to Kestrel in a flash.
Kestrel opened her hand so that Ren could see the red gem she was holding on the other side of the screen. She gripped the shiny red gem tightly and held it up like a trophy for the camera to see. She grinned big, showing off the cool thing she found to her boyfriend.
What the camera didn’t catch was the floor covered in gross cut-off pale tendrils.
Red blood was slowly spreading all over the floor. Leaning against the super cold stone wall, Kestrel felt like she was losing her energy, hardly able to stay sitting up. One hand was holding up the red gem for Ren to see, and her other hand pulled out a small square box from her pocket.
The box glowed with a really awesome shine all around it. But the top part, the lid, had this empty hole, like something was supposed to go there.
The second Kestrel took out the box, some dark mist around her got even thicker. Creepy sounds came out from the mist: people screaming and shouting, and sometimes she could hear kids crying too. It wasn’t like a bunch of different human voices—it was just total chaos, a loud mess of scary sounds filling up the dark air.
"What is that thing!"
"Put it down, that’s super creepy!"
"Is that the Verity Vault?"
"Wow, so your mom did leave you something cool."
"We should’ve killed her when we had the chance!"
"You’re done for, I’m gonna eat you right now."
"Put it down, Kestrel, just put it down! Ah—no, don’t do that!"
Ignoring the really loud and annoying voices, Kestrel carefully placed the gem she was holding into the top of the Verity Vault.
It fit perfectly into the last empty slot on the Verity Vault.
