Chapter 42 – What if I fought three against one?
Back to the present!
Arthur had scarcely finished speaking when he unleashed a second spell.
A gigantic cube, formed entirely of pure light, rose up around them. The sky vanished. The earth dissolved. The outside world ceased to exist. In an instant, the ruins of Britannia, the charred hills, the shattered villages—all disappeared. In their place stretched a golden void, infinite and unreal. The cube's compact walls of light enclosed them, an immense prison of radiance. Only four figures remained inside, sealed within a luminous arena, cut off from any escape or aid.
Arthur stood at the center, one hand raised, his aura flooding the space. His very presence shone so intensely it was nearly impossible to behold. His eyes were not merely light: they embodied a sovereign will, an unwavering flame that consumed all doubt.
Facing him stood three warriors. Ezer, a colossus of stone, his massive body armored in mineral strata, veins swollen with telluric power, fists clenched like mountains poised to fall. Hit, lithe and quick, his frame bristling with translucent blades, each vibrating with killing intent, his gaze ablaze with wild ferocity. Fendreid, cloaked in writhing chains, links snapping like serpents in the air, his lips curled in a cold smile, his eyes sharpened with cunning.
A heavy silence pressed down. The cube reverberated with the sound of breath, of hearts pounding in anticipation.
Arthur was the first to break it. His voice, calm and grave, resounded like a verdict:
"Three against one. An alliance of brute strength, of speed, of guile. You are… impressive, in your way, let us say."
He took a few steps, his boots brushing the luminous floor without a sound, his eyes weighing them like a king surveying his subjects.
"But you have made a fatal mistake: to believe your union could extinguish my light."
Ezer growled, his fists trembling with impatience.
"Enough words, pretender king. In here, in this cube, there are no realms, no thrones. Only you… and us three."
Hit spat on the ground, his arrogant smile gleaming in the golden glow.
"Your fine speeches—I'll cut them to ribbons. I am faster than death itself. You will never see the blade when I come for your head."
The grinding of Fendreid's chains rang out like steel over stone.
"No one escapes my chains. Not even you, Arthur. Even light can be imprisoned. And when you fall, your glory will prove nothing but a mirage."
Arthur listened in silence, his gaze steady, unflinching. Then his lips curved into a cold smile, one filled with certainty.
"You have already lost. You do not yet know it, but your bodies will learn it soon enough."
The cube trembled.
The three warriors shifted into stance.
Ezer bent his knees, ready to leap.
Hit blurred, his blades humming with impatience.
Fendreid spun his chains, weaving a deadly net.
Arthur spread his arms wide, as though to welcome them.
"Come. And discover what it means… to defy the light."
The battle began.
The cube vibrated with condensed power as the first assault came like a contained storm. Ezer raised his arms and the floor shook; slabs of rock burst upward in waves, like stone seas crashing. Each wall took shape as though a cathedral of granite were rising, arches and pillars folding inward to entrap Arthur in a moving prison.
Hit was already in motion, hurling blades of pale white. They shot in a fanlike volley, meteors streaking across the infinite cube, each seeking to carve into Arthur's radiance. Hit's laughter rang sharp, like steel scraped across a whetstone.
Meanwhile Fendreid unleashed chains in spirals, cords of black steel twisting through the air to coil, to strangle, to cut.
Arthur, immobile at the storm's heart, raised his hand and spoke with a voice that made the very air vibrate:
"You coordinate poorly. Three pulses of pride striking in tandem. Do you truly believe I, the King of Britannia, cannot break such feeble symmetry?"
The barrage struck. Stone walls rammed into the light, blades screamed through the air, chains slashed down. The first impact was like watching a sun crash against a cliff: the cube was lit by an explosion so fierce even the dust seemed to melt into golden shards. The blades shattered into starlike fragments, the chains burned away into glowing filaments, while the stone pressed harder, obstinate in its surge.
Arthur did not merely withstand; he reshaped. From his palm surged a devastating wave, razing the walls of stone, reducing them to dust which did not fall but scattered as a glittering rain. Each grain of rubble was seized, rewritten into sigils of light, runes suspended for a breath before bursting into sparks of heat. He was not merely force: he was an architect, bending matter itself to his dominion.
"You fling your assaults like children tossing pebbles into the sea," he said, his tone neutral yet resonant with a king's certainty. "Look—and learn why light cannot be extinguished."
Ezer roared, eyes of stone blazing with primal rage. He struck again, channeling deeper telluric magic: the ground warped, columns surged upward, blocks hurled from beneath in an attempt to seal Arthur in a vertical tomb. The entire cube quaked; fissures crawled like veins through its walls. The air vibrated with the groan of strained earth, the scent of scorched minerals filling the lungs.
Hit slipped within this chaos, darting through gaps with predatory grace. He became a streak of silver, blades flickering beyond sight, lunging again and again in a frenzy of feints and strikes. Yet Arthur moved like an aurora, his counters weaving luminous swords around Hit in invisible nets. One blade grazed his cheek, leaving not a cut but a burn—a searing mark of light that widened Hit's eyes with astonishment.
Fendreid, ever calculating, chose precision over frenzy. He condensed his power into a single construct: a massive ring of chains whirled above him like a mechanical eye. He cast it with surgical intent, aiming not to wound but to ensnare, to rob Arthur of space, to smother his control of the battlefield.
Arthur's smile deepened, soft yet terrible.
"You seek to reduce me to your dimension. But you forget: light breaks free in all directions."
He snapped his fingers. Hundreds of fine golden blades lanced into the spinning chains. Where they touched, the black links did not burn away but transmuted into translucent glass-like rails. The ring, trapped, splintered into shards, its energy devoured by the glowing floor. Fendreid's lips curled in a curse.
The rhythm of battle accelerated. Each attack was answered, not only countered but dissected, studied. Arthur was not merely defending—he was reading them, adapting, mapping every flaw. At times he conjured shields of light to absorb barrages, yet each shield was a ruse: as blades struck, he bent the shock into fissures of reality itself, minute rifts that siphoned fragments of his enemies' vitality.
Ezer staggered first, his colossal strength dimmed by a subtle drain. Hit slammed into a wall of light that hadn't been there a heartbeat before. Fendreid narrowed his eyes, realization dawning—it was not simply strength or speed that opposed them, but perception itself.
"You read us like a book," snarled Hit, blood glistening at the corner of his mouth. "You divine our very thoughts."
"Not your thoughts," Arthur replied, his voice gentle yet cutting as a blade. "Your choices. And a man's desires betray him. When one knows what he seeks, his hand becomes predictable."
A shiver passed through the three. At last they moved as one, closing ranks, weaving their skills into a single engine of war. For the first time, Arthur witnessed genuine synergy: Ezer hammering like a juggernaut, Hit striking in flares of lightning speed, Fendreid binding the field with precision. Together, they became more than three men—they became a storm.
Their combined onslaught reached its peak when Ezer hollowed the floor into a cavernous trap, unstable and shifting. Hit darted through its shadows, striking from impossible angles, while Fendreid spread his chains like a net, awaiting the moment when Arthur must choose defense or ruin.
Arthur sensed the knot tightening. He pressed a hand to his chest, concentrating. The light around him thickened, compressed as though he cradled a fragment of the sun. Then he released it: a rippling wave spread outward, not to harm but to reveal. Radiance coursed through the cube, penetrating cavern and fissure alike, stripping shadows from every crevice. Hit's feints blazed clear, Fendreid's chains froze before they could close, Ezer's collapsing pit was flooded, robbed of concealment.
Ezer bellowed, pounding the ceiling until fragments crashed down. Hit rejoined, panting but ferocious. Fendreid whipped his chains with desperate speed, trying a pattern Arthur had not yet seen.
But Arthur had already foreseen it. His voice rose, and the light answered, summoning a celestial choir: dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of blades suspended in air, poised above like a curtain of judgment. They did not fall—yet. They waited, aligned as though listening for his command.
"Three against one," he intoned, his words like ritual. "You would test the limit of light. You would prove that together you are greater than the sum of your parts. Very well. Show me. But know this: light, too, can gather its strength."
He stepped forward. The suspended swords tightened formation. His foes tensed, muscles coiled, awaiting annihilation. What came next would not be a mere strike, but an unveiling. No longer were the projectiles individual blades—they were a single language of war. Each combatant, whether aggressor or witness, was inscribed in its syntax.
An uncanny stillness settled over the cube. Not repose, but expectation. Breath held, the world poised between anticipation and collision.
The cube itself seemed to lean into the silence, awaiting the next revelation. The stage was set for what all secretly awaited: the clash of bodies, the trial of steel against flesh, the intimacy of war at its closest range.
To be continued…