Supreme Commander Gaath stared angrily down at the war
room table in his command tent. How could those foolish traitors evade me with
such ease? If this keeps up, Viran might… I cannot let this continue. I must
crush that monster’s insolent army the next chance I get!, he resolved. As
the general continued to ponder his situation, Lieutenant Lykus entered the
tent.
“So, lieutenant, you chose to retreat once again,” Gaath
snapped, glaring up from his maps.
“It was my only option, sir. My men and I would not have survived
otherwise,” Lykus apologetically explained.
“That is insignificant,” the general coldly retorted. “Your
retreat ruined my pincer maneuver and cost us the battle.”
“Surely it is better to live to fight another day,” the
lieutenant countered incredulously.
“No. You are expendable. Victory in this war is
worth more than your life.”
“But sir...” the subordinate protested before being cut
off.
“You have failed me for the last time,” Gaath balefully
declared as he pulled the greatsword from his back.
“No! You can’t do-” Lykus pleaded before his head was
separated from his shoulders.
Ì
Witherius and his allies entered the throne room of the
ghast king. Before them hovered King Irritus. He was a larger-than-average
ghast and donned a sizable netherite crown with a trio of rubies set into its
front. The markings under his eyes and on his face were a golden yellow instead
of the typical black.
“I have been expecting you, Witherius,” the ghast monarch
announced, his smooth, self-assured voice filling the room. “I have heard all
about your campaign to destroy the ‘Great’ Builder Empire, and I would like to
assist you in your endeavor. The builders have never been anything but a
nuisance to me and my people, and I want them gone once and for all, not to
mention the great wealth, prosperity, and security that victory will grant my
kingdom. And besides, I have always enjoyed a spot of combat now and then!” he
jovially remarked.
“When your men contacted me,” Witherius responded, “I was
actually on my way here to ask you to join my cause. Now that we have allied
every kingdom, crushing the builders should be easily within our power. Now
then, I believe it is time for us to discuss our plans for war.”
“Indeed, it is. As I anticipated this alliance, my army
is already prepared for battle. Now all that’s left is to decide what to do
with it,” the ghast king explained.
“Well, as I have discussed with my other allies in the
past, the best approach seems to be marching straight to the capital,
destroying any opposition along the way, and then crushing the builders in one
decisive fight for the castle. And killing Viran, of course. This way, we avoid
a drawn-out war and mitigate our casualties,” Witherius suggested.
“I like it. A quick and crushing victory like this should
send quite the message to any who may wish to challenge us in the future!” Irritus
assented.
“And with my necromancy,” 303 added, “we shall not have
to worry about our numbers dwindling if we get in a few battles along the way.”
“And I get to cave in some builder skulls!” Zavlok heartily
agreed, smacking his greataxe handle into his free hand enthusiastically.
“Those wretches will be no match for the combined might
of our armies!” Pyran boomed as he flared bright white.
“Then it is decided!” Witherius announced.
Ì
For several days, Witherius and his army marched across a
large section of the Nether, and now they were finally nearing the Great
Builder Empire. Over the horizon, an army of builders slowly came into view. As
the two forces neared each other, the towering, armored figure of Supreme
Commander Gaath became apparent at the army’s head. Also in the crowd were an eight-foot-tall,
armored, humanoid construct; a hulking warrior wielding a maul; and a robed man
with a staff.
“Here we go again,” Center muttered.
“Death
to the builders!” Left yelled.
As
the two armies violently collided, Witherius headed straight for Gaath.
“So,
the self-proclaimed king comes to face me at last!” the Supreme Commander
mockingly bellowed over the roar of battle as he spotted his approaching foe. “I
look forward to crushing you!” And proving to Viran that I am far superior
to the likes of Xamodas and Quith, he thought to himself.
“We shall see,” Center cooly responded.
“Let’s get ‘em!” Left screeched enthusiastically.
“We must exercise caution with this one,” Right whispered
to his brothers.
The wither telekinetically slipped the Grand Seeker’s
sword from his back, and with a muttered incantation, infused the blade with
soul energy, coating it in an aura of blue fire. The sword hurtled through the
air, speeding towards Gaath. Moments before the weapon would have collided with
its target, a spectral greatsword appeared in the air and deflected it. The
builder general let out a booming laugh as the two floating weapons began to
clash, dueling as if held by a pair of invisible swordsmen.
Gaath raised one hand into the air and closed it into a
fist. As he did so, numerous small chunks of rock-hard ice formed in the air
above the wither and rained down. Witherius’ middle head glanced upwards and
launched a glowing, blue skull toward the incoming hail. The skull crashed into
the balls of ice and exploded in a thunderous blast, sending tiny frozen shards
in all directions, some of which bounced off of Witherius’ bones and Gaath’s
armor. The Supreme Commander instinctually placed one arm in front of his face
to stop the ice shards, and was caught off guard as he was struck by a blast of
fire. Although he was burned by the flames, his injuries were much less
significant than expected.
From his position above the battle, King Pyran watched
Witherius duel with Gaath, and when the Supreme Commander took suspiciously
little damage from that blast of fire, Pyran spotted a towering construct stumble
back a step, as if struck. A moment later, he perceived the amulet hanging from
Gaath’s neck and put two and two together. “That construct must be absorbing
some of the damage that despicable commander takes. I must put an end to it,”
he resolved.
The construct marched forth, plowing through the ranks of
Witherius’ army using its massive fists. Suddenly, it was engulfed in a blast
of white-hot fire and stumbled back, smoke issuing from its wood and metal
frame. The blaze king swooped down to meet the mechanical warrior in battle,
but was met by a thunderous blast that issued from its chest and pushed him
back. Pyran roared as he launched a barrage of fireballs from his burning core.
The shield guardian placed its arms in front of itself and blocked the
projectiles, scorching its arms in the process.
Zavlok
rushed forward, furiously chopping his way through the enemy’s lines, when he abruptly
found his axe blocked by a maul. It was one of Gaath’s lieutenants. The warrior
threw all of his weight behind his weapon and shoved Zavlok back with sudden
force. The king leapt back, narrowly avoiding the sweeping arc of his foe’s
hammer. The barbarian waited for just the right moment as his hulking opponent
raised his maul into the air and swung it down in a devastating overhead
strike. Before the blow could connect, Zavlok swung his battleaxe sideways and
caught the hammer’s long handle with the hook of the axe’s blade.
With all of his might, Zavlok yanked his weapon to one
side, dragging his foe’s maul along with it. The lieutenant was pulled off
balance, unable to defend himself from a headbutt to the stomach, followed by a
savage metal-booted kick to the knee. As his foe screamed in pain, the piglin
king jerked his weapon to the side once more, flinging the massive hammer from
the enemy knight’s hand. The barbarian was not prepared, however, for his enemy
suddenly grabbing him around the waist, hoisting him into the air, and tossing
him several feet back, hard into the ground.
Zavlok snorted angrily as he painfully impacted the
ground and watched his enemy run for the dropped maul. The piglin leapt to his
feet, raised his axe over his head, and hurled it at the enemy knight. The
weapon flew end over end, spinning through the air. Just as the goliath of a
builder reached down for his weapon, the axe buried itself in his back. For a
moment, he stood in silence, unmoving. He feebly began clutching at the axe as
he fell to his knees, then collapsed limp and motionless to the ground.
“This will not do,” the ghast king thought to
himself as he watched an enemy wizard decimating swaths of piglins and wither
skeletons with explosive spells. Irritus inhaled sharply, drawing in air and
converting it into heat energy. He spat a massive fireball from his maw, aiming
it straight toward the enemy spellcaster. The wizard looked up just in time to
block the attack with a magical barrier, but the invisible shield was shattered
as the ghast king struck it with two more flaming projectiles in quick
succession.
The robed man stumbled backwards out of the cloud of
smoke, frantically putting out a small fire on his clothing. He hurriedly recited
a string of arcane words and pointed his staff at the ghast.
“So, we’re conjuring lightning now, are we?” Irritus mocked,
hearing his foe prepare the spell. “You’re not the only one who can do that,
you know!” The king’s booming laugh thundered across the battlefield as he
stretched out two of his tentacles. The end of each limb crackled with
electricity as a large sphere of whirling air and energy formed between them.
Just before the wizard’s lightning could strike the ghast, a similar bolt issued
from the ball of air and the two beams of electricity collided in a
firework-like burst of sparks. Before the mage could cast another spell, a
second bolt shot from the sphere. The wizard screamed as he was struck by the
bolt, and his charred form was hurled back, slamming into the side of a small
hill.
Gaath leapt to the side of an incoming flaming skull, and
as a second one rocketed towards him, he drew the greatsword from his back and
spoke a command word, engulfing the blade in flames. He swung the weapon
through the air, slicing the incoming projectile in twain. The Supreme
Commander took one hand off of his weapon and launched a beam of light from his
palm, striking the wither in the ribcage and leaving a glowing burn mark.
Left
let out an enraged yell as he levitated the corpse of a heavily-armored builder
knight from the ground and hurled it at Gaath. The general impaled the flying
corpse upon his sword, easily stopping the impact, but he was too distracted to
notice the glowing, blue skull that was hurtling towards him. The Supreme
Commander was flung to the ground by the blast and his netherite armor was
dented where the projectile had hit, but since some of the damage was absorbed
by his shield guardian, the general was not badly injured. Gaath scrambled to his
feet, immediately shielding himself with the flat of his greatsword and
stopping Witherius’ charge, but he was pushed back several feet in the process.
Left grinned, realizing that his foe had lost his concentration when he was hit,
causing his spectral blade to dissipate. With his telekinetic powers, the
wither slashed his sword across the general’s armored leg.
Pyran blocked the shield guardian’s fist with a shield
formed from one of his floating metal rods. The blaze king then shoved his opponent
back before slamming each of his rods into the ground, creating a fiery
shockwave. The construct stood its ground, unhindered by the attack, and then
lunged forward, striking out at Pyran with one hand. Suddenly, the guardian
reacted as if it had taken a significant blow to its side, and its punch went off
course, missing the blaze by a large margin. Pyran laughed maniacally as he
opportunistically formed a mace from one of his rods and bashed the construct
in the chest, leaving a sizable dent.
As the shield guardian was about to retaliate, a gash
appeared across the side of its leg, and it fell to one knee. Pyran swung his
mace upwards, smashing the weapon into his opponent’s mechanical jaw. The
automaton fell onto its back, multiple large cracks running through its steel mandible.
Wanting to ensure his victory, the blaze king slammed his mace down onto the construct’s
head three times in quick succession. The shield guardian’s head was badly
dented and broken apart, and the construct no longer showed any signs of
movement or life.
Supreme Commander Gaath grunted in pain as he lunged
forward and sliced his greatsword across Witherius’ ribs. The fire engulfing
the weapon’s blade had no effect and the wither’s magically-hardened bones were
too strong to be cut through with a single slice, but a sizable gash was left
in them nonetheless. Witherius’ three heads simultaneously screamed with rage
as the strike landed. Gritting his teeth, Center focused his telekinetic might
and shoved Gaath back. Though the Supreme Commander braced himself and dug in
his heels, he was unable to resist being pushed back significantly.
Right hastily chanted a series of words taught to him by
303 and conjured a line of fanged maws from the ground. There was a sudden
shattering sound and Gaath looked down to see that the sapphire in his amulet
had crumbled apart, indicating that his Shield Guardian had been slain. A
moment later, a terrible pain shot through the general’s uninjured leg as a
pair of spectral jaws clamped down upon it. Seeing his chance, Left directed
his sword to fly forwards and impale the badly wounded general.
Gaath watched the sword as it flew through the air,
hurtling toward his chest. He took one hand off of his weapon and snatched a rune-engraved
conch shell from his back. As the deadly weapon was about to strike him, the Supreme
Commander held the conch up to his mouth and blew into it, vanishing in a flash
of light as the sword passed through the space he had occupied moments before.
With their general suddenly gone, and his officers slain,
the builder army quickly lost ground against the armies of Witherius and his
allies. As the last of the enemy soldiers fell to the ground, 303 limped to the
center of the battlefield and invoked his magic. The entity began chanting, and
a dazzling light show of soul energy emanated from his staff. By the time it
was over, the fallen builders had been raised as wither skeletons and the
fallen piglins had rejoined the ranks of their comrades as zombies.
“I guess the
Supreme Commander is also the Supreme Fleer,” Left chortled.
“Good job, everyone!” the wither shouted to his army. “This victory is thanks to your bravery and skill! Together we have made history this day by giving the enemy general his first defeat in many years! But it is not over yet! We must remain strong and push onward to the capital! This war will not end until Viran breathes his last! Let’s make that happen!”
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