Chương 377: (370) 5.66. Negotiations Have Broken Down

For the second time, Vin found himself matching the cold stare of the ranker king while wind whipped through his hair and he fell through the sky. Only this time, he was falling toward the incredibly deadly warrior rather than away from him. The ranker king had to have spotted him the moment he'd rolled off the cloud, as none of the three Earthers standing just a few feet behind the warrior appeared to have been harmed. As he fell, Vin took the time to get his first look at the three of them.

The first was a lanky man with wide eyes who kept glancing around as if he was afraid that anything and everything nearby was plotting to come harm him specifically. His hands were clasped together nervously, and he hadn't even noticed Vin plummeting toward them yet. The second was a woman with unnecessarily large hoop earrings and big, poofy hair that looked like she'd recently had a perm done.

Her mouth was currently wide open as she stared up at him, and based on the slack-jawed expression on her face, his body falling from the sky was clearly the last thing she'd expected to see. The final Earther was a smaller man with almost mousey features. Similar to the woman between them, his eyes were also focused, but Vin wasn't the target. No, his eyes were locked on the back of the ranker king, as if he were waiting for some sort of opening to attack one of the deadliest men Vin had ever met. Crap.

Lumel needs to get them out of there before that guy gets himself killed, Vin realized, before turning his focus back on the man of the hour. The ranker king himself stood atop his keep with his sword lazily hanging from his right hand. If Vin didn't know better, he would have said the man looked calm and ill-prepared for a fight, but he didn't have a doubt in his mind that the ranker king was more than prepared to strike the instant he tried anything.

Only a split second before hitting the roof of the keep, Vin cast Slow Fall and brought himself to a hard but no longer bone-shattering landing on the stone roof, the shockwave knocking up a small wave of dust. Standing up straight, he brushed the dust off his pants as he gave the ranker king a wide grin.

"Hello again! You wanted to talk?"

"Indeed I did," the ranker king said, actually going so far as to give him a tight-lipped smile.

"It was an impressive plan. Unfortunately, I care more about getting my people out from within the confines of the alliance's territory than I do about preventing the beastkin and orcs from leaving. Once we are free, we will simply conquer them a second time."

"I've been meaning to ask, why even bother calling it the alliance in the first place?" Vin asked, trying to get the ranker king to actually lower his guard and give Lumel an opening.

"I mean, you all knew what was really going on. It's not like you were trying to fool anyone that you'd taken over their fragments by force."

"The true ranker king back on our world dubbed our territory the alliance. I was merely following suit," he stated, his eyes following Vin's every movement as they spoke.

"You will aid my people in fighting our way out of these surrounding fragments to the rest of Edregon. In exchange, I will not slaughter these three humans you desperately continue trying to save."" Slaughter us?" the nervous man repeated, before letting out a shockingly Reginald-esque squeak.

"Why would you even joke about something like that?!"

"He's not joking," Vin said, keeping his own eyes locked on the ranker king.

"Just calm down and don't do anything stupid, you three. I'm with Project Ark, I'm here to bring you all home."

"You're with Project Ark?" the woman gasped.

"Finally, where have you been?!" Both her and the nervous man went to rush toward him, only to be stopped by the ranker king's blade as he held his sword out to the side.

"You should note I've already sent the rest of the rankers back into the keep," the ranker king stated, and Vin blinked as he actually cast a quick glance around, confirming the man's words.

"As the ranker king and new nexus for the Thread of Ranks, I alone am above the restrictions placed upon us. While I dislike dirtying my honor, I am not bound to our rules to the same extent the others are. If any of you attempt to leave, I will strike you down where you stand, regardless of my own preferences. I see now this is the only way to get what I want, and my people's need to expand outward and conquer is more important than my own personal honor."

Damn it, that's what I was afraid of, Vin thought, realizing things just got a whole lot trickier. He'd told Lumel he wasn't willing to risk the missing Earthers' lives on a maybe, but deep down he'd still been hoping beyond hope that the ranker king was bluffing and that he wasn't actually capable of killing them. Figures he wouldn't be that lucky. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"I'm sure we can come to some sort of an agreement," Vin began, giving the ranker king a smile with about as warmth as he could muster.

"How about you let those three humans go, and I come with you again? You can personally watch over me this time instead of putting me in the dungeon again."

"You who are capable of flying through the skies and escaping from our cells of pure onithite are too much of a flight risk, and I cannot personally watch over you every second of the day," the ranker king stated.

"No harm will come to these humans you care so much about, but I will keep them scattered throughout the keep in different locations, to make escaping with them all the harder. Once you have helped us break free, I will allow them to walk free once more."

"They wouldn't exactly be free if you rule over all the fragments on Edregon, now would they?" Vin asked, deciding it was time to discuss the elephant in the room.

"Look, regardless of all that, let me be honest with you for a moment. I don't even think your people can get out from this cluster of fragments, even with my help. You said it yourself that unlike you, the other rankers are bound by that weird Thread of Ranks or soul brand or whatever. If they have to accept whatever they view as a challenge, I don't think they physically can make it past any of the surrounding fragments.

Half of them are filled with impossible fights, like the monsters hiding in magical darkness or the exploding monsters in the mist, while the other half are simply impassable terrain, like the giant whirlpool or lava beds. Like it or not, your people are stuck here. Forever." Goading the ranker king into attacking him wasn't exactly the greatest plan he'd ever come up with, but it was the only way he could imagine getting him away from the missing Earthers long enough for Lumel to warp down here and rescue them.

The moment they were safe, he could turn gravity on its head and fly off into the sky again, and maybe even get a second fancy sword for himself to match the first one. Of course, it was never that easy.

"I don't expect you to come up with an answer immediately, but you will have plenty of time to figure one out," the ranker king stated, as if Vin joining them and carrying out his orders was all but a given.

"Now, we have spoken with one another long enough. I should get you secured so that I can head out and take care of the mess with the orcs you and Grunch have created. Emrelda better pray the beastkin aren't a part of this, or they will suffer as well for their transgressions." Well, I guess that means we're out of time. Taking a deep breath, Vin prepared himself for anything as he silently threw together his first spell.

Without warning, the gravity immediately around the ranker king inverted, as Vin's precise cast of Redirect Gravity went off. Yet rather than go flying up into the heavens, the ranker king moved with lightning speed, driving his sword into the roof of the keep at an angle and effortlessly holding on with a single arm as he flipped around and his feet dangled toward the sky.

"So that is the key to your mastery of the sky," he stated, sounding more curious than concerned as he peered upward. His impressive muscles prevented him from moving so much as an inch as he nodded.

"Not what I imagined."

"Get away from him, but stay together!" Vin shouted at the other Earthers as he flowed seamlessly into his next spell. The ranker king had already threatened to kill all three of the missing Earthers, which meant the restriction on Vin's boon was already satisfied. He was more than free to use lethal force in an attempt to save all their lives. Knowing anything like Fireball or Stone Shot would almost certainly be shrugged off effortlessly, Vin went for the delay tactic instead." Aqua Sphere!"

Unfortunately, the ranker king moved faster than his magic could gather. Even as the streams of water quickly spun up into a massive bubble around his location, the ranker king somehow threw himself out of both spells, yanking his sword out of the roof of the keep as he did so.

He didn't even stumble as he exited the zone of flipped-around gravity, twisting and landing on his feet without issue before hurling himself directly at Vin, who had just enough time to cast Dimensional Sheath and summon his petrified elderwood door in between them. Rather than smashing into the door and sending him flying backward, the ranker king adjusted his lunge, dashing around the door almost faster than Vin could follow and attempting to drive the pommel of his sword into the back of his head.

Vin had just enough time to reach back and twist his golem hand around at an impossible angle, catching the strike with a flash of blue before it could knock him unconscious.

"You have quite the bag of tricks for one who is not a warrior," the ranker king said calmly, before his other hand shot out to punch him in the stomach. Vin tried to cast Stone Wall and block the blow with a pillar, but again the warrior moved too fast for his magic to follow, and he doubled over as the wind was knocked out of him. Falling to all fours, Vin retched and his eyes watered as he fought to keep himself from curling into a ball.

He didn't know if the ranker king had any sort of special skills or if he'd just punched him in the gut that hard, but the blow hurt more than any he'd ever received, including having his arm chopped off by the Relic Guardian. He was pretty certain his Total Resistance skill and high endurance were the only things that even allowed him to stay lucid and fight through the pain.

"That didn't put you down?" the ranker king asked, sounding mildly surprised for the first time as he stood over him and looked down.

"I held back as I didn't want to kill you, but still, I—" The ranker king turned and hurled his sword off to the side, and Vin's watering eyes widened as he spotted Lumel appearing beside the Earthers in a flash of purple. Based on how fast the ranker king reacted, he must have been waiting all this time for Vin's mysterious Dimensional Mage friend he'd talked about to appear.

Time seemed to slow down as the point of the ranker king's sword flew directly at Lumel's chest, and Vin watched in horror as Lumel's wide eyes landed on the weapon far too late for her to dodge out of the way.