Chapter 108: Chapter 107: Victory and Defeat

Constance watched the battlefield like a hawk noting Mattison’s charge overwhelming the Sage Empire soldiers and Nero facing off against a powerful ki user she didn’t recognize. She felt no need to add her presence to the battlefield at the moment.

However, moments later, the southeastern wall of the fortress shook with an explosion. She raced around the overlook to see a much smaller squadron of 100 soldiers led by a sword-wielding ki user.

Constance thought to herself, “A small group. I should be able to handle this even in my weakened state.”

She rushed down the tower and to the fortress wall. She then jumped down through the smoky aftermath of the previous explosion. Bullets sprang forth at her from a hundred barrels, but she simply raised her ki to deflect them all. She then cast a nightmare illusion over the small squadron.

She walked with confidence as the soldiers began to fall to their knees in crippling fear and anxiety at the images projected from their very own deepest fears. As they coward, she casually walked through the group of soldiers attacking them with small but powerful ki blasts, killing one at a time.

Her demeanor was serious, and she kept her guard up knowing that should a more powerful ki user show themselves, she may need to escape towards Nero.

After blasting the heads off of nearly 30 soldiers, Constance felt a cold wind behind her as she watched the ki energy ball in her palm disappear with the wind leaving her unable to collect more ki to replace it.

With anxiety she thought to herself, “A domain? No. It can’t be. That would be an extremely rare talent reserved for high-profile takedowns.”

She began to turn; however, before she could complete her turn, she felt the cold pain of steel. She looked down to see a matte black sword blade extending through and out of her stomach. She gasped at the sight of the sword and watched it slide out from her stomach just as quickly as it had appeared. With the blade, the cold, chill of the domain disappeared with it.

She powered up and quickly turned while simultaneously throwing a curvilinear crescent shaped blast of ki blindly. The ki attack was cut in half by the person behind her, Natalya.

Natalya held her hand at the base of her blade, and she lifted her hand along the length of the blade covering it with a layer of powerful ki as she smiled at Constance, “Don’t worry Mistress Khan, I’m not going to kill you. Although I very easily could.”

Constance threw a ball of ki at the sword user before her; however, Natalya sliced through it and continued with her blade to stab Constance once again. Her blade penetrated Constance’s layer of ki surrounding her body with ease given her weakened state. The sword thrust into Constance’s gut causing her to fall to the ground on her back.

Natalya laughed, “I told my ally I could take you down with just a small initial advantage from his ki nullification domain. You never had a chance. Had you been stronger to fight against me, he would have drained any chance you had of victory with his domain. You lost this fight before it even began.”

Natalya stood above Constance and slowly pushed the blade into Constance with the sword pinning her firmly to the ground. Constance cried out in pain, and Natalya leaned over her, “Your capture will have cost us over 5,000 soldiers. A bargain! I would have paid with the lives of 100,000 soldiers!”

Natalya left her sword impaled in Constance’s abdomen and turned to the Master Chief, “Tie her up tightly. She is an extremely powerful ki user. If she is allowed to reach even a quarter of her full strength, she will tear you to shreds. I recommend you keep your ki nullification domain on her as often as is possible for you.”

The Master Chief nodded, “I will need breaks periodically to recover from the exhaustion my domain brings me.”

Natalya smiled at him, “No worries. While you rest, we will stab her and injure her as necessary to keep her in a weak state.”

Constance was no stranger to physical pain. She felt the tinge of pain from the blade; however, her deepest pain came from the realization that she had failed her Warlord. She had been bested in what seemed to be a plan to capture her all along. The knowledge of knowing she played right into their hands hit her hard. She wished they would kill her.

After chaining her securely, the Master Chief loaded Constance into an armored vehicle with a security detail and drove away.

Natalya grabbed a radio and spoke into it, “Mission complete. Retreat as necessary.” She smiled and climbed into the next armored vehicle, “Commander, take us straight to our base of operations. No stops!”

The commander responded, “Yes, Second Seat!”

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On the other front of the battle, on the northwest aspect of the fortress, Nero and Katya continued to exchange powerful blow after powerful blow with one another.

Nero charged a ball of ki and roared as he proceeded to fire a sustained beam of energy at Katya.

Katya began to spin with her sword out fast enough to make her image a blur. As the beam struck her spinning body, it broke the beam of ki into hundreds of smaller ki particles as her lightning-fast spin allowed her blade to slice the beam into smaller blasts that were easily deflected.

Nero grinned as he was inwardly impressed with his opponent. Although he outmatched her in raw strength, she was keeping up with him because she outmatched him in technique. Nero softly said to himself, “Unfortunately for you, First Seat, nothing can overcome strength in the end.”

Katya came to a stop from her spin and yelled, “What was that Nero? You’ll have to speak up. For a second, it sounded like you might be considering your inevitable defeat.”

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Nero shouted back, “Nothing of the sort! Quite the opposite. I said let’s finish this!”

He lowered his shoulders as he assumed a three-point stance and took off running at a sprint towards her.

She whispered to herself, “Is he suicidal? I have impenetrable armor from my clan. I have a sword. He has neither.” She took a defensive stance and sighed, “I shall give you a warrior’s fate.”

The ground beneath her feet rumbled, and Katya steeled herself as a raging beast charged towards her. Nero covered himself in a layer of thick ki as he charged. It was no understatement that he could flatten a row of cars with the power at his back as he charged.

Katya swung her sword slashing at the charging Nero as he approached. To her surprise, he caught the sword blade between his two flattened palms and began to alter its path as he slowly lowered the blade. He yelled and grunted as he struggled against her strength; however, ultimately, he overpowered Katya.

She stood in astonishment trying to pry her blade free of his grasp; however, before she could make any progress, Nero charged both of his hands with ki and yelled at the top of his lungs as he snapped the blade of the sword in two.

Katya had expected his plan to be as much, and she now had full control of the sword half in her hands. She immediately stabbed the remainder of her blade directly into Nero’s chest narrowly missing his heart.

Katya could see the blade within his chest, and she could see the blood dripping from his wound around the impaled sword. Thus, she couldn’t understand why he seemed completely unphased by such a mortal wound.

Nero’s eyes went wide with excitement. He knew her attack had failed to kill him, and she was completely exposed to his next attack.

With the sword still impaled in his chest, he raised both hands over his head clasped together like a rock surrounded by ki. He then yelled as he slammed his mighty hands down into her armor. The impact of his ki-powered hammer-strike shattered her silver chest plate as splinters of hand-crafted metal shards went flying in every direction.

Nero’s hands bounced off the plate armor after shattering it, a testament to its creator’s skill. Knowing he would lose the chance for a second strike if we waited to recover his hands from the recoil against the plated armor, Nero instead lowered his head.

Surrounded by his powerful ki, Nero headbutt Katya squarely in the face sending her body flying backwards as she landed on the ground. Blood covered her face, and her nose was clearly out of place and badly broken.

Nero made no intention to remove the sword blade from his chest and instead began a slow walk towards Katya, “There is no substitute for power on the battlefield, First Seat. A lesson I implore you to remember should you survive this encounter.”

Katya suddenly heard a radio transmission from Natalya. Nero paused knowing attention to the battlefield was crucial during times of high-importance radio transmissions often indicating reinforcements or other attacks to come.

Katya only laughed, “I am afraid it is time for me to go, Nero. I will do my best to remember the words of a true warrior from the BloodStar culture.”

Nero punched his fist into his other palm and said, “And what makes you think I am keen to let you leave so easily?”

Katya stood with a shaky stutter from her injuries and said, “I suppose you could stay and kill me. But then who would save Mistress Khan?”

She gave a loud laugh as she made her retreat, and Nero turned back to the fortress. He finally pulled the sword from his chest and started a mad sprint to the fortress. He scoured the tower finding no evidence of Constance.

A soldier yelled to Nero, “Sir! I last saw Constance scale the Southeastern wall to fight off a small squadron!”

Nero nodded and jumped from the tower to the fortress wall and subsequently down to the ground in a matter of seconds as he made haste. He came to the area of prior battle and investigated the grounds noting many dead bodies of United States soldiers as well as a set of tire trucks from what appeared to be very heavy vehicles.

Nero continued to survey the field before him as Mattison came up behind him, “This battle has been a striking success. We massacred their forces. Completely lopsided. Of their 10,000, they have lost more than 6,000 while we experienced only minor casualties.”

Nero grunted, “That’s because they had a different objective.”

Mattison frowned, “Am I missing something?”

Nero turned to face him, “I don’t see her body anywhere, so I can only guess that their main objective was to capture Constance Khan. Although why that is… I can’t say.”

Mattison felt a cold sweat over him, “Our successes will be overshadowed by this. Warlord BloodStar will not be pleased.”

Nero grinned, “She won’t be pleased. But it is not us who must worry. If you are a man of prayer, I suggest you pray for the enemy. Those fools have just brought upon themselves a wrath I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemies.”

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