Chương 145: 58 - OPENING MOVES

Fiery chunks of rocks formed in front of the moon as Corlander prepared his opening gambit. Tyene lazily sat up from her chair, wearing her green coat over her black romper. She raised her hand as the meteor came down upon the Looter's paradise. Her own mirrored meteor formed hundreds of feet in the sky. It connected with Corlander's as it was still above his head, the sound like a volcanic eruption.

Corlander was surprised by the sudden match in his strongest attack, but with a forcefield around him, there was no damage done to himself. Pieces of rock and flame rained down over the island city. Gracelandians stationed on all sides of the city acted as its protective barrier, shooing away the falling debris with intense gusts of wind loot. There were hundreds of splashes in the ocean around them and the sizzling of a hundred fires being extinguished.

Tyene continued staring up at her stepfather, who scanned the area for the source of the second meteor.

"You trust me, right?" T'balt asked behind her. She chewed her tongue.

"Go on… talk to him. Let's see what happens."

"Thanks… don't draw any extra attention to yourself. Your mirror loot's gonna be invaluable if things go wrong."

"Yeah, yeah. Get to it already." T'balt teleported away to the roof of a tall building. Responding to the thundering of the Wanderer, Mitas Corlander noticed him immediately. Though he hesitated to attack, as T'balt was down there holding his hands up in peace.

"Are they surrendering?" the man mumbled, floating down to him.

"So the great Mitas Corlander finally decided to show up again," T'balt said once the man was close enough to hear him. He could immediately feel the pressure being exerted by the man. The smoke was leaking from his pores, and loot stamps blackened any exposed skin on his body. Corlander analyzed the wording.

"Again? As far as I'm aware, this is the first we've met."

"Then let me introduce myself. My name is—""T'balt Ferrier, aged 25. Dark hair, medium complexion, wears a choker around his neck." The man landed on the building in front of him, keeping a good enough distance to talk but not enough for any sudden attacks.

"You had spies," T'balt said. He expected as much. Whether that was going to make this any easier remained to be seen.

"As did you."

"What I have is a little bit more than just spies."

"Then enlighten me. Does your loot allow you to see the future, as they say?" T'balt smiled. Tyene's info was true. Corlander could immediately scan any loot a person had in them, but for some reason the Redeemer was exempt from that.

"I'm a Redeemer. I've already lived the future. Enough times to know this attack doesn't end well for you."

"Cute… if your aim is to negotiate, my terms are simple. Surrender the Bestower and any other loot I desire. Then I will leave Graceland unharmed. It's all or nothing."

"I was serious. See, the key thing about us Redeemers is that as soon as we die, everything starts over. We go back to the first day this all started. Uriel's one, too." T'balt gestured at the statue.

"He's lived this life countless times. So I know that you never win here. No matter what you do." Corlander squinted his reddened eyes.

"Explain."

"I already have… The Bestower loot is in Uriel, who is also a Redeemer. Meaning if you kill him to take it, then everything resets, and you end up at ground zero. You don't even remember anything. You just pick up and do the same shit to try it over again. Then the same thing happens. Wanna take a guess how many lives you've been in this same song and dance?" The old man either stopped computing or started overcomputing. It was like a lapse of function that eventually turned into a laugh.

"No… that's not it. That's not it at all."

"You don't believe me? Oh right, you don't have your mind reader on your side anymore. I'll tell you what you can scan my loot right. Tell me what you see." Corlander's jaw tightened. He was able to read the other loots: Wanderer, Thinker, but the third was blocked by some strange fuzz like a glitch.

"What kind of trickery is this?" he seethed. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. T'balt shrugged.

"Some strange law of the universe, maybe. But whatever it is, you can break the cycle just by choosing to go home. End this right now. And we can forget any of this ever happened. Or you can continue attacking the city. But there are five of us, Redeemers. You can destroy this whole place… but you'll likely kill at least one of us. Then that's it for you. Right back to the beginning. All your progress erased." Suddenly, the roof beneath them began to crumble.

A circle-shaped hole burst through the building where Corlander was standing. The gravity loot was responding to the tension in him. The building imploded with a condensed crash as T'balt was forced to teleport to another rooftop.

"Careful now. Remember what I just said," he said to the man who was floating in the sky.

"I never knew you as someone who lost his temper, but I guess you did last time Uriel told you, too." The man just floated there in his golden armor. His arm was aimed at T'balt like he was seconds away from pulling the trigger. T'balt readied himself. But Corlander took a deep breath and lowered his arm.

"My mind reader… German, you're listening to this now, aren't you?" German was stationed alone in the library under the city, hypersensitivity activated. He could see Corlander's position and everyone else in the city despite being deep underground. But he said nothing.

"Your half-hearted attempt on my life was your undoing… I know you have the Loot Thief. I don't have to kill anyone to get what I want." He said the words with an expression of sweet relief. T'balt grimaced. It was a hasty attempt to avoid this confrontation. If anyone could've dealt with Corlander quietly, it would've been German. It felt like a sure shot, but because it failed, now they were working on half-plan, half-improvisation.

However, when Monan abandoned the city, he had left behind all his stuff, including a bag of loot left in his room. Inside was the Thinker's Loot that had given T'balt problems once upon a time. It slowed things down for him just enough to blur the lines between plan and improv.

"That's the thing. You take it. I think Uriel's gonna be a little suicidal about it. Trust me. We've tried before. It didn't work out." Corlander spoke into an earpiece.

"Hobbs… this is Corlander. Command all forces to go non-lethal. No one dies until I can verify their loot." Even though Corlander was ignoring him, it was an optimal result. Minimizing casualties was one of his top priorities. But it didn't appear the man was gonna back down either.

"Our priorities will be to capture the Bestower alive and obtain the Loot Thief," he continued into the earpiece.

"You mean this Loot Thief?" T'balt pulled the loot out of his pocket, showing it off to the man between his two fingers.

"Did you think German still had it? That's cuz you can only scan loot when it's in someone's body and not when it's on its own." The man reacted, suddenly pulling T'balt in with a vacuum of wind. T'balt clutched the Loot Thief and teleported away before Corlander could grab him. He appeared on the ground, still waving the loot.

"Give it to me now. Even if I can't kill you, I can make you wish I could for every second of your existence." Corlander commanded.

"Sure, I'll give it to you. If you can find it…" Sensing his plan, Corlander searched his catalog of loot before finding an energy blast. But it only hit a spot where T'balt no longer was. He had teleported away, electing not to come back. Corlander floated gently to the ground, where he sat on a bench, deep in frustrated contemplation. Vienna spotted through her binoculars dozens of boats heading their direction. Many were full of hunters dressed rather lavishly for war.

Some of them were military-style rafts that were loaded with RazorWind mercenaries.

"German, can you hear me?" she thought.

"I can," his disembodied voice responded in her head.

"Corlander forces are rapidly approaching the shoreline."

"Negotiations unsuccessful. Defend the shores with everything we have."

"Understood." Cannon Valkyr was pounding his fist into his hand.

"So it's go time, eh?"

"It's time to commence our attack. Tell the others." This was one of those times when Cannon's big, booming voice came in handy. Vienna might not have liked loud people, but they had their uses.

"FIRE AT WILL! THE BATTLE IS ON! LET'S LAY THE SMACKDOWN ON THESE FOOLS!" Vienna rolled her eyes at his wording, but it seemed to work on all the Gracelandians. Behind them on the beach were Graceland's white walls, manned with looters. They began shouting orders at one another and launching their respective loots at the coming boats: fire, water, earth, knives, whatever form the loot took. Only some of them had a protective loot to defend themselves. There was a gunshot from one of the Razorwind boats.

The shot lodged into the city wall. But the shooter was quickly smacked in the head.

"You heard what Commander Hobbs said. Non-Lethal," one of the soldiers said.

"The hell are we supposed to do then…" The soldier listened to words coming from his ear piece.

"Use your loot as covering fire!" The boats began to shoot back, hitting the walls and the beach. A huge waft of fire bounced off the wall, nearly landing on Cannon's head as the Gracelandians continued fighting back. Vienna watched on.

"Where are you? …"

"I'm all for sightseeing, but don't you think we need to get moving from this beach?" Cannon asked, using his forcefield to shield them from the rain of magical attacks.

"It looks like some of the boats have their own forcefield users. We won't be able to damage them from this distance." Cannon started stretching his arms.

"Alright then. Let me show you something I learned back in the day." He planted both of his legs deep into the sand, the veins pulsing inside them as he activated his ten stacked strength loot. Then, like a rocket, he launched high into the air, sending a whirlwind of sand in all directions. He flew like a mortar bomb aimed at one of the boats, a yacht about the size of a small mansion.

"CANNON BUSTERRRRR!!" Suddenly the yacht split in half and the shockwave caused a small tsunami in the water. Vienna raised her binoculars.

"He elbow dropped a yacht, which is effective apparently. Noted." But it wasn't enough to stop the assault. A couple of the quicker rafts landed on the beach as a bunch of mercenaries unloaded in formation. Vienna unholstered her pistol and cocked it as the hunters and the mercs started piling in.