Grey slowed to a stop as the last of the guards fell. He stood barely five or so meters away from the king who hadn’t actually moved much at all since sending his guards flying away from him.
It was odd. The man wasn’t showing fear, or hesitation, but rage. And yet, instead of attacking with his guards, he was just standing there as though waiting for Grey to finish phase one of the BOSS battle to finally get to him.
While Grey was pretty sure a lot of the Genesis Game functioned on some very video-game-like mechanics, it shouldn’t be to the point the NPCs didn’t actually act human.
There was real world logic in there too, so unless the king was really so arrogant that he refused to gang up on Grey, there wasn’t much that made sense about why he was just standing there.
"Don’t tell me you’re actually that stupid."
Grey was speechless because the king really did just pull a blood red spear out of nowhere as though he had only gathered up the intention to fight now.
His words seemed to be the final straw for the king. He launched himself forward in a fury.
"Unreal. What shot do you think you have against me one on one?"
Grey could tell the king was in the Vector Class. But so what? The last Vector Class he had run into had to run away from him. Though, granted, there were tiers of strength differences between each Class.
’Wait, fuck. He might run.’
Grey’s sword shifted. He needed to take a different approach to this battle. If he was going to strike to kill, it had to be in a single fatal strike. He couldn’t miss.
He was definitely much faster now than ever before, but he didn’t want to bank on it being enough.
The king took Grey’s hesitation as fear, though.
Typical.
"It is too late to fear. I will grind your bones to dust and use your skull as a piss jar."
Grey side-stepped, parrying the spear with a grunt. The weight of the spear was certainly heavy. The king was the king for a reason. If Grey couldn’t take the immediate initiative, it would be troublesome to hold back like this.
"First of all, that’s my line. Second, if my bones are dust what are you going to use as a piss jar?"
"YOUR SKULL!" The king roared.
Grey blinked and then an ’understanding’ lit up his features.
"Blood is your son, huh? The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree."
It took the king a second to understand what Grey was saying and then he howled in fury.
His shoulders rose, doubling in size as though he padded them out like a flat chested broad would her chest.
His biceps followed suit with the swing of his spear.
The air exploded with shattering winds and a crimson energy that seemed to want to paint everything in blood.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The king’s speed and strength exploded, his body shuttling forward to cover the distance Grey had dodged.
’Well shit.’
Grey ducked and rolled, his body surging to the side. Luckily, the armory was spacious. Unluckily, the king seemed to recall that he was in an armory as well.
Rather than chasing after Grey, he yanked an axe from the wall and threw it.
WHOOSH WHOOSH.
The spinning of the axe came with a rhythmic whirring sound that was almost too fast to pick up.
"DIE!"
"Has anyone ever told you that you and your son have anger management issues?"
Grey thrust out his sword and clipped the arm of the flying axe, tilting his head to the side to dodge.
BOOM.
The axe slammed into a protective shield.
’How inconvenient.’
Grey had noticed earlier that the king’s arm had slipped right through a flickering wall of energy. There was definitely a special locking mechanism on these weapons. He couldn’t use them at all, but the king could.
Luckily for him, the king was a fool. He was almost surprised he wasn’t running around with no clothes.
’No way, that’s an emperor.’
Grey dashed away like he was running for his life.
"DON’T RUN NOW." the king roared.
Another axe was yanked from the walls.
Grey skinned around a center panel that hung a line of swords that went all the way up to the 20 meter tall ceilings. He crossed gazes with the king and a beam of red suddenly erupted from the latter’s eyes again.
It ripped past the air and instantly appeared in front of Grey. But the instant he dodged, the king threw another battle axe right toward where he predicted the dodge to go.
’Fuck! When did this idiot learn how to scheme.’
Grey twisted through the air, pressing a palm to the flat of his blade to block.
BOOM.
The strike should have shattered his wrists. From the king’s perspective, it certainly looked as though Grey was crushed into the ground, turned into little more than a ground puddle of meat paste.
But the king had grown almost feral. He wanted to thrust the final blade through Grey’s heart himself.
What he didn’t expect was for Grey to suddenly leap up as though nothing had happened. If the so-called king had been paying attention, he would have noticed Grey curve his defenses along the arc of the rotating axe, perfectly parrying it away while suffering the least damage.
Even if he had seen this, though, the king wouldn’t have cared. All he saw was prey he wanted to take a bite out of.
Canines grew from his teeth and he descended upon Grey, thrusting out his spear. So much rolling and rotating energy of crimson covered it that it almost looked like a lance for a moment.
Too bad it was large enough that it also covered Grey’s grin.
Grey held out his sword, his free hand making a ’come here’ motion. Even if the king had seen it, he would have taken it to be a taunt. Unfortunate for him, it wasn’t. Instead, it was a motion that sent a superheated axe rotating right at his back.
Danger warning signals blared in the king’s mind and he spun to meet the blade head on. He could feel Grey suddenly appear behind him, splitting his attention in two. But he couldn’t decide which was more dangerous.
The answer was both.
You see, Grey wasn’t very good at controlling metals from a distance or flinging things. Even with the upgrade, Paladin Spirit was no good on ranged weapons, it was far more effective in close combat.
But what would happen if he gave his sword and the flying axe opposite polarities and then thrust the former right at an opponent’s heart?
How could he possibly miss then.
Grey grinned ear to ear, his smile looking more devilish than even the king’s.