Volume 1 Chapter 3 The death of Alan Hollan

Going up the last few floors was not that challenging for Mars.

He was able to kill each and every floor director; they were too rusty, they all had their life easy in the last years, working in a prison was less difficult than risking your life everyday on the battlefield.

He arrived in front of the last gate, the very last challenge before freedom. Mars looked back one last time before taking a deep breath.

The next challenge was the true showdown, the most difficult fight he’ll have to do today.

Mars activated his Chus, preparing an attack spell and a defence spell in prevision of what was to come.

-The Cape of the Bloody Conqueror, War path

-Mars Original: Hidden Blade, War path

The escapist opened the final door, passing through he directly received a volley of magical attack.

-Temporary Firewood Series 1

-Snake like Smoke

-Hollan: The Bone Spike

While the two first attacks were effortlessly parried, the attack from site director Hollan was devastating, completely ruining Mars' defensive spell.

The warlord was sent flying through the wall, not all of the damage was absorbed by his cape a lot actually went through and injured Mars.

Not leaving his eyes from his foes, Mars used the little respite to check his wound using his Chus. It was less bad than he thought, some of his bones were broken but in general he was just fine.

Instantly reusing his defensive spell he got out of the gap and did a swaggering walk towards Hollan and his men.

Mars unhurriedly said: “Your attacks still hurt like a Prito’s Punch *1”

Alan responded: “It won’t work on me Mars, your little tricks may fool my underlings but not me and I know you’re buying time to regenerate yourself.”

With that sentence Hollan started to gather his Chus, with the very short amount of time Mars had he summoned a bow, infused the arrows with Chus and shot the Smoke Path magic user.

The man was able to evade the shot by swiftly crouching but the Fire Path user behind him wasn’t able to do the same, his head bursting as the Chus started to devour his carnal body.

The magical cannonade continued, this time with the two sides attacking.

-Holland: Skeletal Fracture Bone Javelin

-Mars Original: Plot and Schemes, War path

-Mars Original: Seeking Sword Aura, War path

-Smoking Snakes Summon

Mars was receiving a lot of attacks in a short window of time having to refresh his defence every ten seconds or so.

He had to quickly kill off the people around Hollan or else he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his real enemy.

He once again created a War Path domain, sending it the moment it was ready. But this time he wasn’t facing a bunch of clowns, the one against him was Alan Hollan, a tempered warrior at the Imperium-level.

The Imperium-level general quickly created his own Bone Path domain. As Hollan was at Imperium level and Mars at the Tatum level, his domain overtook Mars’s one.

Hollan knew this was most likely a plot from Mars but he couldn’t let the prisoner set up his domain.

And it was in fact a plot of Mars, as Alan was using his domain, Mars activated his pre-used spell Plot and Schemes.

The team leader Spencer in the far back, started losing concentration, he started to think his allies were moles, traitors helping Mars escape. He accused his fellow guards and ordered his troops to attack the ones he judged to be traitors.

His team was trained to not question order, it was the basic requirement needed to work in Bonerest; Unfaltering loyalty.

And this phenomenon was occurring everywhere in the army’s formation.

Alan hadn’t realised and couldn’t dispel the illusion as he was to focus fighting Michael in a domain battle.

Mars had surprisingly a lot of experience in domain battle for a Tatum-level who passed fifty years in jail.

Ultimately, Mars threw in the towel, his goal had already been fulfilled and the chaos was reigning in the opponent’s subordinates.

Mars started to summon as much hammer, mace and spear as he could in the sky, Alan realised what Mars was trying to do, he checked back at his soldiers to use a protection spell on them but was temporarily shocked to see them killing each other.

But the soldiers were never Mars' goal and as Alan was setting up a large-scale defence above his subordinates, Mars sent every weapon on him.

-Hollan: Cartilage Shielding Net

Alan was still able to protect his underlings from an imaginary attack. The multiple Chus infused weapons hit him one after the other, Mars was ending their summons after they had hit, leaving more space for the next salvo of brute force.

Hollan was still able to protect himself after one or two successful hits. Mars hastily widened the gap between them.

And as Bonerest’s Warden was blocking wave after wave of attack, Mars was preparing his next big spell.

-Mars Original: Siege Weapon Catapult, War Path

The poor jailor could not protect himself, while checking the situation of his followers. He was getting overwhelmed.

It was too late when the general saw the giant rock coming at him; his shield was broken under the sheer pressure of the boulder.

The attack had just finished and Michael had activated his next one.

-Mars Original: Siege Weapon Ballista, War Path

This time, the Bone Path user was ready and used the best protection he knew of.

-Bone Lord Signature: The dead protect the living Series 1

The skeletons of his deceased soldiers were used up to create armour around Alan. The ballista bolt made some cracks on the armour chipping away some pieces but nothing too compromising.

Yet this was all that Mars needed.

Mars who had closed the gap, stabbed Alan with a powerful magical attack

-Mars Original: Hidden Blade, War path

Alan did not take notice of this attack activation because it was not activated during their fight; Mars had kept it in state of activation from the moment he made it in the stairway.

Alan looked at the knife in Mars' hands, and then at his wound, he tried to heal himself but he couldn’t.

He asked: “When did you even have time to understand principles of Suppression?”

He heavily fell on the ground

Alan murmured: “Please Goddess Eryn... please bringer of Light and Fire... tell me this is a lie.”

Mars looked at him and said: “Unfortunately for you, I won. Now if you may excuse me, I have some things to do.”

Hollan said: “How, how could you win against me... you’re weaker than me?”

Mars replied: “Wits my friend, I simply outsmarted you.”

With that Alan Hollan the Bone Warden, keeper of Bonerest, was no more. Mars summoned a sword and stabbed himself around the stomach, in a non-lethal place of course.

The protection Alan had set up for his subordinates slowly dissipated, the soldiers now in their sane mind looked with eagerness, knowing their leader had won.

But instead they saw a staggering Mars, walking slowly towards them, with a painful look on his face.

He summoned a row of bows, making them all shoot at the same time. The losses in the rank of the remaining soldiers were way too big to continue fighting.

Mars yelled: “See you can’t fight me anymore, now go to your masters and tell them that I may be injured right now, I’ll go into hiding but when I’ll come back you’re all dead!”

Before any of his foes could give any demur, he started shooting them with his bows again.

After they had all scrammed, he walked out of the prison, without his agonizing look. He saw what he was searching for.

The boy with cyan hair came to him.

Mars said: “You could have helped me on this last fight.”

The boy laughed and said: “You would have gotten all mad if I did.”

Mars, smiling for the first time in a while, asked: “What are the orders?”

The boy took a serious look and said: “It’s on the west coast, a small town named Pavv.”

Mars replied: “Thanks for checking on me Stellar.”

Author’s notes:

*1 A prito refer to a race of the Emiprusixen World, it is known to be extremely weak physically but good at magic, they look like humans but smaller and with gray skin. So when Mars says how an attack hurted him like a Prito’s punch it means that it felt like a little breeze.