Chương 33: Castle Assault - 3

"What are you smiling for?" he asked. Lance didn't feel like playing games with this psycho any longer. He really should just go for the king already, but he wanted, if possible, to convert the bandit king. Doing so would make for a pious way to finish off this godforsaken island while also providing a lost soul with a shot at redemption.

"I'm smiling because your death is imminent!" the bandit king stepped forward and threw down his armor, clothes, even his weapon. Only his amulet remained hanging on around his neck. Lance hadn't to wait long before he realized what the king was doing; dark magical energy surged out from the amulet and engulfed the bandit within its bleak aura.

The king writhed and screamed, bathed as he was in its malice; when he emerged from the maelstrom, his transformation was clear: huge, bulging muscles cackled with dark electro-magic, his once human features now a mess of twisted skin and muscle forming a dreadnaught of a creature more beast than human. Puss leaked from horrid pustules throughout its body, causing him to retch.

"If death is what you desire, then death is what you shall have horrible beast-man!" Lance [Power Charged] the abomination-human-hybrid, his own body remained stitching itself back together after his half-dozen odd jumps in and out of his familiar. Forgetting his body's limitations, his longsword variant struck home and cleaved through part of the king's head. The attack did not kill the king, of course, but did weaken him.

Lance dislodged his weapon by simply allowing gravity to do its thing and bring him to the floor after his sudden acceleration into the creature. With him on the ground, his familiar took the chance to shot ropes of acid at the abomination-king — each rope splattered into the king and melted its most outer layer of skin. However, dark magics reinforced the abomination's whole body, making his familiar's efforts superficial at best.

To anyone else, he and his familiar's assault would've stopped their enemy in their tracks. Yet the king-abomination flinched and nothing more; the king charged at them; they attacked the Holy Slime King first by thrusting their clawed, prickly arms into the slime and tossing it like a ragdoll high and threw some windows, shattering them in the process.

"Now it's just you and me, Pala-DIM!" the king mocked him like a child. Why? Lance returned the king's false confidence with a smirk. He took the defensive and dodged the king's assault by moving backwards. Only a few times did the king land a punch or claw attack on him, though he sought desperately to grab and rip him apart. It took Lance hardly minutes to work out the king-abomination's attack pattern.

Once he did, he lunged forward and leapt between the king's overgrown legs once he saw his opening; taken off-guard by the sudden leap, the king was slow on the uptake and hadn't the time to turn around and protect himself from the flurry with Lance's battleaxe variant. Huge swathes of skin sloughed to the ground, releasing black ichor blood and maggots by the bucket-fulls. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He grimaced at the sight, knowing in that moment that the bandit king was truly and well lost to the light. Few entities with literal maggots under their skin had much, if anything, to give to the forces of good. It was time to end this charade! Forced to the ground by his back-assault, the king-abomination seemed prone and ready to suffer another barrage. Lance jumped high into the air and brought his battleaxe down for a crushing blow to strike stone, not flesh!

The abomination-king rolled out from under his blow at the last second, then smacked him with the whole width of its arm as if his arms were slack sacks of grain. He recoiled and was sent flying half-across the room. He hadn't the time to prepare before the beast was on him and clawing deep gashes into his skin with its vile fingernails. He wasn't down and out, though! Pain shot through his body, but that only gave him the will to activate his [Radiance Overshine].

At once, all of the holy energy he accumulated by being faithful to his oath — those times he was unfaithful notwithstanding — and then the energy he accumulated from converting the bandit populace, exploded!

Light filled the room and scorched the unholy beast, forcing it from Lance and allowing him to get up and launch a counterattack; while the beast was blinded, Lance willed his weapon to transform into knuckle-dusters and activated another [Power Charge], what would be his last, and threw so many punches at the enemy, he lost count; behind each punch was all of the might he could manage as an overpowered, for his age, Holy Champion. His fists met bone, broke muscle, tore parts of its monstrous body away.

Lance reveled in the delight of having a punching bag able to withstand his attacks and redoubled his blows. Sweat cascaded down his body as every part of him went into the full-on assault. When Lance finally stopped his barrage, the abomination-king was on its knees, huge sections of its upper body missing. And yet, still, it drew breath. Its body jerked and spurted blood, its damage clear, but life intact.

"I don't suppose you'll repent now, monster?" A violent gurgle erupted from the creature's smashed-in face and mouth hole... the area that used to be its mouth, anyway. He understood enough of what the creature croaked: "Burn... forever... sissy!" Three seconds later, Lance had unlatched his one and only mana grenade and shoved the active weapon down and into the abomination-king's throat. He leapt clear of the explosion just in time to avoid being covered in burnt, putrid flesh.

Moments later, the only sound in the throne room was the sizzle of rotted flesh set aflame. Lance took a deep breath. He had done it. His System confirmed his triumph: [You Have Killed the Bandit King: XP Gained]. [Quest Complete: Behead the King: Reward: 1 Fairy Dust, 1 Stamina Potion, XP] [You Have Reached Level 32] [You Have Gained Boon Points: 7] [You Have Reached Level 33] [You Have Gained Boon Points: 8] And on until he reached level 42! [Unallocated Boon Points: 74] He looked over the throne room.

Blood, viscera, all the signs of a job well done. [Accomplishment Unlocked: False King Slayer: There are many false kings in this world, Lance. Do well to remember that their law is subject to dissolution at a moment's notice and that your will to serve our will trumps all those who would dare usurp the natural order.] At that moment, the Holy King Slime and the ex-bandit crew entered the throne room.

The Slime took a glance at the chamber and shrieked in mock outrage, "How could you slay him without waiting for me! Unfair, master, unfair!"