Chương 32: Castle Assault - 2

The Bandit King's throne room was the largest chamber by far. Large enough for a procession of monks on a holy day, it was clear to him that the fort building was built with this space in mind. As he entered concubines fled in fear of the fighting to come. The throne was a jerry-rigged affair at the far end of the chamber. Whoever built the chamber originally had not imagined a throne here, clearly. Crude banners soaked in blood lined the chamber on either side leading to the throne.

The room smelled of iron and made his nose twitch in disgust. Ahead, the king sat unconcerned on his throne dressed in a bone armor mixed with metallic bits he no doubt had looted from knights. To his front were elites bandits while in the shadows along the chamber's edges were abominable creatures who likely thought themselves clever by obscuring themselves in the dark.

"I will make this quick, King!" Lance announced, pointing his sword directly at the bandit.

"Repent for your crimes and devote yourself peacefully to order's restoration or face your end! What say you?!" A snicker came from the bandit, then he laughed. As he expected the thug rejected commonsense: "So, you're the holy land lard lad whose been killing my men and slaughtering my beasties. Rude, do you know that? I bet you don't understand a bit of expensive, how long it took me to find a beast wrangler willing to sell me a kraken! Krakens don't come cheap, boy!" Lance sighed.

"Enough stalling. Answer me or die!" His sword changed into a crossbow, his finger itching to pull the trigger. But the bandit king only continued his drawl.

"You godly ass kissers are always so keen to skip the small talk, why? Do you think us little folk have nothing better to do than smack your heels? Why should I honor you with—" He had, had enough: Lance fired a bolt at the king.

"You have chosen sin and death. I will enact judgement!" The arrow raced through the air, but the king deflected it with magic. His attack had gotten the king's goat, as his eyes flared with rage, along with their nostrils.

"How DARE you!" the bandit bellowed.

"Kill these intruders and serve me their gonads on a silver platter!" Unoriginal threats aside, the bandit elites charged, setting the battle off for real. He and the Holy Slime made short work of the elites; his blade cut down limbs as if he were a lumberjack with a vengeance against trees while the King Slime's acid blasts melted men as if they were piles of sugar dissolved in hot tea.

Lance parried blows as if the whole affair was nothing more than a sparring exercise and returned attacks as if it wasn't a life-or-death struggle. Though he did suffer a few knicks, his healing factor refreshed him before the wounds bled a couple of drops. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Once all the bandit elites lay dead, he again implored the king to repent.

"There's no good to come from a life needlessly thrown away. You might yet have a role to play in our grand design if you ask for salvation!" He put on his best 'Paladin-Speak,' but knew the king wouldn't go for it. The king snarled at him, saying, "I don't need pompous speeches from some teenaged crusader! I bet you haven't even been with a woman, so what do you know about salvation?!" At that instant, the king raised his hand to the air, pointing at or indicating someone.

That was when Lance saw archers on the upper levels; while he and the slime were fighting the elites, bowmen had gotten into position on the higher level.

"Ready?" the king shouted.

"FIRE!" He had no time to think. He acted on pure instinct and jumped into the Holy King Slime. He dodged the arrows, but at the cost of his own skin sizzling. Audacious? Perhaps, but he did not plan on spending long inside the familiar: in the next breath he was out of the slime again. Paid racked him over but he was alive and nothing his healing factor wouldn't fix. He glanced above and saw the bowmen reloading for another volley.

He had to act fast if he wanted to return fire: he willed his weapon back into a crossbow and fired off a single shot before he had to jump back into the Slime King to avoid that second volley. He jumped out from the slime faster than he had before and shot off two attacks before he needed to jump into the slime for a third time; his fourth time out, the archers above had been thinned: between his counters and his familiar's acid blasts, the bowmen no more posed a threat.

A final bolt to the head finished the last of the archers. Lance again turned to the bandit king.

"Have you had enough?" The king gritted his teeth. His hands were curled into a fist. His face was beet red, flushed with rage.

"Abominations, end this welp!" From the shadows rushed the two abominations which had waited in the shadows for their call. Lance was sure the king figured expected him to quake in terror at fighting two abominations at the same time. Intimidating, sure, but fearful was the one thing he wasn't: "All right, you asked for it!"

"Slime, take the one on the left. I'll handle the one on the right!" Lance charged at the abomination with his war hammer weapon-variant. Imbued with a surge of flame magic from his [Absolute Infuse] Boon, the war hammer struck the beast's leg as a stone does to a gong. A wet snap sounded as flesh peeled away and bone splintered and broke. The creature roared with fury but still fell to the floor, snarling and spitting foam at him like some rabid animal.

Fire consumed the beast's flesh moments after, which despite not killing the foul monster, gave him time to circle around the abomination and slide in for another big slam with his hammer! His Martial Prowess stat had improved immensely since his time near the beach those few days ago. What once took him several [Power Charges] only took a few marshaled blows, now, bolstered by flame; it took four hits in total to break the monster beyond repair, the final attack a direct hit to its (now smooshed) head.

A notification popped up of his kill, moments later a similar notification popped in confirming the Holy Slime King's kill of the other abomination. He turned to look at the condition of his familiar and saw the other abomination's corpse as fitted with as many holes as a cheese grater. His familiar had laid on the hurt! He again turned toward the bandit king, asking, for a third time, if he felt salvation was owed. Unexpectedly, the king grinned.