Max was ready to throw in the towel, the shaman god Angakok had thrown him into a position where victory was impossible.
It was a grave miscalculation on his part and it was going to end up costing Max his life.
His body was feeling like it might get ripped apart limb for limb and he was struggling to maintain his Blood Manipulation to get the necessary blood his body needed to function upstream against gravity.
Had it been anyone else but Max, without the extremely high fire resistance and the special ability, unless they were a tier8 god or higher they would have kicked the bucket by now.
Even Angakok with all his might claimed that he was incapable of retrieving the last piece personally and even with all his help Max felt like he was going to fall a little short.
Perhaps if he was at the peak of tier5 this might have worked. Perhaps if Angakok gave him more time to prepare and had sent him hurtling towards the Agni Astra a little closer it might have been possible, but those situations did not come to pass and now Max was going to die as a result.
As his consciousness dulled Max accepted his fate that he was done for and even apologised to his loved ones for he felt like he was going to be asleep forever now.
Just as his consciousness was ready to go dark however, he heard his own voice from some deep depths of his own mind which repeated a phrase that Max himself spoke with conviction in the past.
' I will be king one day, I promise! ' the voice seemed to say with a burning passion as listening to it Max's pupils dilated and his mind cleared out in an instant.
' That's right! I'm going to be king one day, after everything I've been through, I'm sure as hell not dying without that crown over my head and all those fucking vampire lords on their knees infront of me!
I'm going to be king one day no matter what! ' Max thought as his eyes regained their lusture just for a second as he gripped his almost torn right arm with his left arm and pulled it back towards his body with all his might.
If he had air in his lungs he would have been screaming on-top of his voice, however, he had no air to exhale.
Desperately pulling on the connection between his arm and the Agni-Astra through the added effort of the [ retrieve ] spell Max tried his best to give it a fight till the last second.
The last piece of the Agni-Astra trembled violently as it rose up a few centimetres from the surface of the star and began spinning at a high speed.
In what was nothing short of a miracle, the spinning Agni-Astra seemed to move towards him slowly at first but the closer it got the faster it seemed to spin towards him.
Max held onto his arm and pushed his newly promoted tier5 mortal body beyond the limits of pain and sanity as after a few short seconds that felt like an eternity, the Agni Astra escaped the pull of the star and flew at a high speed towards Max's arm.
*SHING*
The bracelet lodged itself perfectly into Max's almost torn arm as it embedded itself just under Max's elbow at the end of the second piece completing the Agni-Astra in all its magnificent glory.
Max was sure that the final piece of the Agni-Astra was burning a searing hole through his flesh and sending waves of pure elemental fire mana through his mana circuit that was supposed to hurt like hell, however, he was already in so much pain that he did not even feel the effects of the added misery.
A protective layer suddenly enveloped him, as he felt like he himself was as hot as the surface of the star that he was on, perhaps even hotter as his body accepted the final piece of the divine weapon before his mind finally blacked out and there was absolute darkness.
***********
( Meanwhile Asiva )
Asiva received the letter on Max's behalf that the king Regus Aurelius had decided to ' Revoke ' their special status that exempted them from sending troops to the border planets under ' Extraordinary Circumstances ' clause.
They were now supposed to send a full regiment to the border planets and a subsequent tier 4 commander to lead them.
A total of 150,000 troops were to be sent and it was bad news for the Bloodfall clan since sending these many trained troops at once would put them back in about 2 months worth of recruitment and training effort.
The king's orders were absolute and they were not given a choice, but the timing of it could not have been worse than this.
Even if she did send the troops, there was still the problem of sending a Vampire military certified commander level figure to accompany the troops as the only two commander level figures the Bloodfall clan had currently were Max and DarkSorrow himself.
Should DarkSorrow be deployed, the training and recruitment process would come to a halt in his absence, while Max was unavailable indefinitely for the job.
Although they had over 130 tier4 warriors serving in the military currently, none of them had proven their worth as a leader and were not commanders.
With only 4 days notice period to comply, this letter put Asiva under a lot of pressure as she needed to find a solution to this problem fast, or say goodbye to the recruitment and nourishment program that Max had put so much stress on and had made his highest priority during his brief period of governance.
Distressed and running out of better options, she decided to seek counsel from the man Max regarded as his second brother.
It seemed like it was time to call Sebastian back home from his adventures.
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/// Bonus chapter for hitting the GT target, good job everyone! ///