Chapter 598 – Small Lake Reforms 12 – The first battle of the war

Chapter 598 – Small Lake Reforms 12 – The first battle of the war

“I can walk by myseeeeelf,” Rave whined, slowly shaking her legs while John carried her out of the arena. “Ya don’t need to carry me- Ah!” The half panicked noise came when John threw her up a bit in order to reaffirm his grip on her.

“If you walk yourself, how am I going to carry you like the princess you are?” John asked, kissing his pouting girlfriend on the lips. He tasted a bit of blood; she was still hurt and clearly barely conscious. After having collapsed moments ago, she had quickly woken up again. The moment John pulled his lips back, she passed right out again, though, her head hanging down.

The Gamer didn’t head immediately for the exit. Not by a longshot. First on his list was to heal the familiars that had survived. Starting with Salamander, because that was the quickest and easiest, the endflame elemental going incorporeal once Undine was done with her. Siena didn’t need the help; as a matter of fact, she had already disappeared elsewhere.

Aclysia, however, was a bit difficult. “I am not sure how to get you out of there,” John commented, putting his girlfriend down for a moment, just to scratch his head. Not the most helpful motion, but that was all he knew how to do in that moment.

The weaponized maid was embedded half a metre deep into the solid stone wall. Well, half of her was anyway. Her lower body was gone, to be found as molten drops of metal all across the glass cone.

‘I would say this is about... a tenth of Sigmund’s ability in terms of large-scale destruction,’ John thought, looking at the entire thing again. The shockwave around Rave hadn’t reached particularly far and it didn’t seem to affect landmarks all that much, while the main attack was all direct heat without fire. If something was blazed and started burning, that was more of a side effect than the actual intent of the attack. ‘Against the actual target though...’ John thought, and looked to Aclysia, ‘A fourth? Third? Not that easy to melt Aclysia... Don’t think that could have killed me in one punch either, but it’s getting there.’

‘For data collecting purposes,’ the weaponized maid added to his thoughts, not all that bothered by her current position, as the pain had faded after the initial impact. ‘I had Fortification active before the impact.’

‘Well, not sure if having a harder body makes a big difference against that,’ John commented, still scratching his head. It wasn’t just how deep Aclysia was buried, but also the fact that she was like two metres up. Without Gnome around, he couldn’t just get her out of there.

‘I am going to rectify this problem myself, Master,’ Aclysia stated and John saw her successfully ripping an arm out of her lodged position, grab the edge of her confinement and pull herself to freedom. She dropped in John’s arms, although less gracefully. She was heavier and just existing from the ribcage upwards.

“That marks two killed and two crippled to the point of non-functionality. I am honestly impressed, Jane,” John glanced at his girlfriend, awake again, but only in the way that somebody who is in delirium was awake. Her eyes were moving, there was something like a smile on her face, she gave him a thumbs-up, then she was out again. His attention returned to the half-present person in his arms. “Sure is good you encapsulate your core these days,” John noted, watching as Aclysia’s stomach reformed centimetre by centimetre.

The material for this appeared from seemingly nowhere. Artificial Spirits stored excess material in a sort of inventory space. At this point, Aclysia had plenty Baelementium to pull from, that she passively created from lesser materials that entered her body thanks to the Twilight’s Body ability. The only really irreplaceable part of her was her core, thusly. Its destruction would end her life. For that reason, it was hidden under a layer of the only material that she had available that was even harder than the elemental metal: Nathalia’s scales.

“Master, there is no need to wait for me,” Aclysia announced from John’s arms. “I will have to see to the cleaning of the arena regardless of your next actions.”

“Right...” John had to agree there. While the material lost wasn’t necessary to Aclysia’s reconstruction, they were still talking potential millions of dollars in molten L- and S-Baelementium here. For Aclysia to enrich that much, it would take days to weeks. Best to have it be absorbed back into her again.

That aside, the arena was a total mess. They were going to pause the tournament until it was at least partially fixed up. At least the damage hadn’t spilled out to the watcher’s area. That would have been a catastrophe for John’s reputation, especially if it hit the reporters.

With all of that said, the Gamer still wasn’t going to just leave. “You currently don’t have your teleport,” he reminded her. “Should Jeremiah decide to follow his appetite right now, while we’re weakened, that would be a problem. Best I wait here at least until you’re regenerated.”

‘Don’t worry,’ Siena mentally reached out to him, sending a mental picture of her overseeing Zensie and Jeremiah talking. From their expressions, the mood was quite heated. Which was likely good for John. ‘He is occupied with his toy.’

‘And you’re getting all of that?’ John asked.

‘I put your ears where you wanted them,’ Siena answered and caused the Gamer to pull out of the conversation with a grin. Everything continued to go along as he wanted.

“That means that this is now grounds of the Lake Alliance, specifically the Niagara guild,” John interrupted him. The earth began to rumble, an earthquake inside a Protected Space, as massive amounts of dirt were moved around. Something that could only have one possible origin. “Which makes this a war zone, isn’t that right?”

Jeremiah’s grin died as slowly as it had come as he realized the Gamer had already foreseen what came next. There was a sudden tumult when a number of holes opened up under less powerful individuals and John’s elementals assured that the more powerful individuals ended up in the earthen confinements. People stood around, confused as to what happened, as John’s overdesigned scheme came to its conclusion.

Just like people that came with John onto the island were brought under the earth, people that had been there beforehand were suddenly ejected onto the surface. People that wore the insignia of the Lake Alliance, a simplistic depiction of the Great Lakes on a hexagonal, were forced out of their hiding spots.

Rather than explain himself, either to the confused onlookers on his side or the shocked Jeremiah, John just grabbed his phone and played a file he had already open. A snippet of a conversation between Zensie and Jeremiah.

“So, what, we’re going to ambush him?” the former second of the Small Lake Pact spoke in the recording.

“As long as we get the drop on him, the fucker won’t be able to do anything.”

“When though?”

“When he transfers the island. Nobody can say we did something dishonourable. My superiors can’t circlejerk about an invasion as well, careful cowards, once the island belongs to me, the Gamer will have technically invaded the Lake Alliance.”

John stopped the recording. “Look, my dude,” he announced with a grin. “You aren’t smart enough to get ME on technicalities. Especially if I am the one writing the words.”

Siena had put recorders all around the places that Zensie and Jeremiah met regularly. The moment John had found out in what exact way they planned to try and one-up him, he had sent Gnome to the island. Of course, he hadn’t just put her into a boat and driven her over, that would have been way too obvious.

There was a pretty reliable way to smuggle Gnome somewhere though. Namely, fusing her with Siena into Darkness. That elemental could travel unseen even between shadows, creating an outline on the floor of herself that was easy to miss if one wasn’t paying attention. That way, Gnome had been put on the island unseen, hid herself underground, waited since yesterday evening, and accumulated John’s mana for the past few hours. Which was also how she could even move that much soil reliably.

All of this was taking advantage of tools and knowledge only the Gamer had. The Combination skill. The absurd 500 kilometres his elementals could distance themselves from him. Getting information unseen and being able to gauge his enemies’ responses by regularly using Observe on those he found out were in on the conspiracy but didn’t have a protection against scrying magic.

“Now, I am going to make you an offer,” John said, keeping an eye out for the reporters, many of which had hastily started recording upon this whole thing suddenly going down. “You can fight me here, with your scattered forces,” he gestured towards the Small Lake Pact traitors, all currently confined in their own holes, then towards the reinforcements the Lake Alliance had not-so-successfully smuggled there, recovering from their sudden ejection into open daylight, “or you can admit defeat, for the second time in as many days, and I will let you and your people go. The traitors will stay, of course.”

Watching Jeremiah turn from self-assured to beet red with rage was the greatest reward John could have asked for. This entire plan had been completely overdesigned for this simple accomplishment, but John wanted to ride it out nonetheless. It had been a mere side plot of his bigger aspirations anyway.

“This isn’t over,” the Art Eater growled.

“Fighting it is, then?” John asked, raising his left hand, which was engulfed in flames a moment later as he equipped Purgatory. The sight of that item must have put a dent in the man’s rage, as Jeremiah turned a bit pale now, likely reminded at the spell that thing had unleashed on his leg. That it wasn’t recharged didn’t actually matter, Jeremiah couldn’t know that.

“...Fuck you...” Jeremiah spat out and then walked off with shoulder’s hanging in defeat.

John could only stretch like an accomplished man on a vacation day.