“Haah… Haah… Haah… Haah…” came the panting of the queen of Bhasmachal as she was on one knee, trying to catch her breath. Brutus was about a 10 meters from her walking towards her with the intention of finally finishing off the task. “Should have finished this job years ago”

Few hours ago…

Tara lunged into him from his front, Brutus slow as ever could not dodge the scythe and let it hit him, he did not feel any pain himself but something felt off about this girl’s hits. Every time she hit him he felt something leave him, it like a weird feeling of loss. Sylvie too attacked Brutus with everything she had, each and every one of her deafening attack came right after Tara. Only benefit of her attacks were it immobilized Brutus for a few seconds after the hit, but considering his already sluggish agility, this was of no specific benefit to the fight.

They had been fighting rigorously for hours but, Brutus simply got hit again and again. He could never land a punch on Tara and whenever he tried approaching Sylvie he and his attacks were blocked by Gloria. A shield warrior standing in front of her master. She had the ultimate defence combo wherein her characteristic power was toughness and karmic power was a manifesting a huge tower shield which had a few other properties. She had the ultimate defence in the kingdom, to extent that she defeated Brachios simply using defence and enduring all his attack till he accepted defeat. This allowed Sylvie to develop… develop into the ultimate attack type mage.

Time was running out, though they had evened out the numbers in the war before but Brutus had intervened on a lot of occasions and demolished most of the cannons and had wreaked havoc among her armies. Whatever she had to do she had to do it quick cause the tired soldiers would not be able to hold out long.

“Should I use it?” she thought. The price was unknown; it could be anything but at this rate like her father she might miss her shot as well and then…

She closed her eyes in the middle of battlefield…

“Hahaha Julie maybe my brother should have taught you how a battle actually works” shouted Brutus as he lunged into action “you do not have time to rest”

But just as he was about to reach Sylvie, a massive shield almost as tall as him blocked him in his path. Sylvie didn’t even sneak a peek to see if the Brutus reached her, she trusted her subordinate, ‘The Ultimate defence’ ‘The shield of the queen’ ‘The impenetrable’ Gloria. The power behind the monster’s hand was enormous to say the least a small push was all it required to push the fortress back, but then she lowered her centre of mass, dug her feet and buried the bottom end of her Aquamarine blue mana shield the ground, finally stopping the monster in its tracks. Sweat started pouring down her cheek, she had gritted her teeth, adept level cultivators were able to prevent the corrosion to enter their chakra points to some extent, but the power still entered their mana veins which very painful. Suddenly the feeling went away and so did the pressure. Brutus had retracted his hand, Gloria gave a sigh and looked up from her position only to be surprise and buckle up for an incoming storm as a punch came flying in from the monster and smash across the shield and…

‘boom’

came a cracking sound as Brutus’s punch collided with Gloria’s shield she was pushed back a bit, blood coming from her mouth eyes and ears, the leg caving in bending inwardly from her knees but when Brutus retracted his hand, they sprung back up. She did not back down. Experiencing this force for the first time in her life.

‘shing’ came the sound when Tara’s scythe attacked his back, he was pushed forward a bit but only felt that weird pain wherein he felt something was taken from him. So he ignored the attack quickly and punched Gloria’s shield again

‘boom’

Came a larger sound as the shield took the attack and the collar bone which Gloria used to push against the shield cracked, gritting her teeth she didn’t let a sound slip. Brutus gave a smug grin as he retracted his hands to punch but saw the scythe wielding lithe figure run towards him “Man… this chick’s annoying” extending his hand to grab the scythe and threw it with its wielder far off in a corner of the islands. “Again the cold feeling, dammit!!!” he cursed. But ignored it. He was finding some sort of carnal pleasure in hurting the dog of the queen, something he only seldom felt for the past 12 years. He retracted his hand back and smashed down on the shield with the punch and her legs buckled again her left femur bending in weird shape and then snapping like a twig, her ulna and radius, and three of the ribs.

“Hahahahahahaha you are probably the strongest shield warrior our country has ever seen in its history; I can tell you that”

The last punch had broken her armour in many places and thrown her helmet off a good distance bringing her beautiful face in picture and Brutus was put in thought by it, not because he was mesmerized by it but because he recognised it. It was lot younger than he expected and completely different in some ways. So he said “You… do you know Anastasia?”

Battered and broken Gloria looked up from the shield in shock on hearing that name, she looked right into the eyes of the monster which confirmed his conjecture.

“Hahahahahahahaha so you are that rat Augustus’s daughter huh” he said. Anger filled her eyes on hearing this. ‘Rat Augustus’ was what his father called among the nobles. Of humble origins, he rose to prominence in ‘The War Against the world’, he worked his way up the chain of command and became the Commander in chief of the Army. Making it so that the three most powerful positions below the king belonged to commoners now. He then married one of the most desired woman of the country ‘Anastasia Gregorian’ a woman of noble descent. They married each other despite the obvious opposition.

Gloria hated the term but this was not the first time she had heard it, this an obvious term she heard when she made her way to the top, the personal guard of the queen the ruler of Bhasmachal. She didn’t react any further and switched hands on the shield.

Just then a crack of lightning sounded out behind her, she looked and saw the red face of her queen a meter behind her, thin lighting cracking on her skin, eyes closed.

“looks like she has decided…” she thought to herself and she then looked forward towards the monster and saw the crack of lightning attract the monster’s attention. To taunt him he said “Hey you dick less bastard!! You think I am done I heard your mother fingered fucked you when you were young was it really true or was it other way??”

Brutus was obviously pissed but said “You think your taunts would attract my attention from whatever that brat’s doing”

“How would I know the working of a man who fucks his own mother?” she said as she braced herself at the incoming punch which came. Following the provocation, the punch was heavier than the one before, this time the toes of right leg broke. Augustus was on the ship sitting in chair on the ship’s deck. He was a cripple now, his feet and spine were of no use now. Following his exertion in the battlefield 12 years ago, his muscles had atrophied and bones had become mush, there were a few elixirs which could bring him to his former glory but he had abandoned his cultivation once the master he served was no more choosing to forever don his wheel chair. He was given the information of his daughter facing the monster, but his attention was still towards the ongoing battle against the goblins. Their duties had been distributed and family came second to their mission.

‘Boom’

Came the sound as the next punch and this time Augutus heard it as it rang above the clashing sounds of the battle slightly and he looked in the direction of the fourth island finally, but he forced his mind to wrest control from his heart as he turned his head towards the sky, “sorry Ana” he said “Looks like both of us will meet you quickly” and then looked towards the battle and resumed command.

Gloria’s spine had buckled this time and three of her vertebrae had broken the right foot shattered to the last bone. With this she and her shield dropped to the ground.

“Hmph… fucking rat spawn, all you are good for is the gutter”

He slowly made his way towards the queen, but right after his third step…

“Take… it back…” the pain should have forced her to pass out, send her in a coma of killed her. But she bore it and stood up. She couldn’t say anything further and both her hands were broken, her forearms in weird angle, but since it was her mana shield it didn’t weigh anything to her. She held it up for one final time, “you are yet to shatter my pride” her eyes said.

Brutus’s grit his teeth angered by those eyes. They were the same as Augustus’s, Brachios’s, the two hundred soldiers’ who he killed one by one the end of the battle in the previous battle, same as the eyes of the 50000 soldiers, same as the 1000 that came after that. It was the one thing he hated,

“why is it always him!!!” He shouted

“I was the one who preserved our way!!! I was the one who wanted to make our nation greater than it was today. I was going to bless you with a rich and easy life, a life where you pray to your Gods for mercy, food, water and everything. But Why? WHY WAS IT ALWYS HIM???”

He thought back to the time when the news of his admission in Nalanda Uni came

“You have done it my son” said both his parents

When his brother single handedly destroyed marine beast which had almost killed their father, the whole kingdom welcomed him with open arms. He was brought home in procession on elephants, while Brutus had helped out in the expedition as well.

“EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU, WHY ARE YOU BASTARDS SO LOYAL TO A FUCKER WHO PLUNGED THIS COUNTRY INTO THE SEWERS!!!” he screamed as he was about to punch Gloria into oblivion when a blaze of lightning came in from a few meters in front of him and he felt it… another feeling he didn’t have for the past 12 years. A feeling so distant he had forgotten. Not because he never felt it, he was a warrior of broad sword, to the extent except for Julius, Augustus and Brachios no one could match him in the entire kingdom. He had many wounds to prove it too, but flavour of invincibility was one which could intoxicate even the darndest of the warriors, one which could numb the senses of all.

There buried in dirt and sand he did not get up for a while. Tara ran up to the queen and the shield warrior Gloria who had fallen from the wind generated due to the impact between the mana attack. Sylvie did not turn her head to look at them, she peered in the direction of the monster she once called her uncle. The one who took everything from her and the one she would kill no matter what the cost.

Tara realizing her resolve picked up Gloria and left the island to Augustus’s ship where she placed Gloria who had passed out and went out to help the monsters in the battlefield, kingly them in scores. The soldiers were tired and mostly given up, the only thing that kept them standing was their eternal loyalty to the country and their training to stand up no matter how many times they fall. “I wish we had something like this as well” she thought as killed one goblin after another with a single swing of her scythe.

Brutus stood up to look at his abdomen and saw a burn mark, about 5 cm in radius. Second injury in his otherwise flawless body, the former king took out his eye and his daughter burnt his body, this a peculiar thing for him, elixirs no longer worked on him and no matter what he did he didn’t heal, his cut open eye still present and the way his eye is arranged meant he could half of the world.

He stood in front of his niece and just as he was about to say something another ear piercing and blinding strike of lightning came his way, hitting him in the chest throwing in the air. Brutus this time did not wait to inspect his body and used all the power in his body to launch himself towards his opponents, considering his earth moving muscles capability in a matter of less than 2 seconds he cleared the 350 m between them and was about to hit the woman who attacked him when another screeching shot of lightning cut through space hit him right in the chin knocking him in the air and throwing him 400 m from her. Undaunted he kept attacking her ruthlessly, but couldn’t seem to find a chance. Slowly he noticed the armour was falling off, like blown away by the magic forming on her body.

After a few ten rounds of attack, Brutus was brunt all over, it hurt like hell but he knew she could not continue like this forever. Her armour was off and clothes and under armour had burned off as well. There she stood naked as the day she was born, pale as a glass of milk with tinge of red on her cheek. Her massive breasts heaving with every breath she took, sweat from her body all over her down her tight stomach pooling inside her perfectly placed belly button, the legs too were sweating. A drop of sweat was hanging down the cameltoe of her vagina, lurking there ready to drop as the slightest of movement, but it wasn’t big enough to drop down just yet and the body was not moving too. After a few seconds after becoming big enough to drop it fell the inside of the fleshy soft supple skin of the queen travelling down to the knee, by it was spent. All over her hands and her back their marks of cuts which opened every time she used the massive power to injure the monster and after every attack her hopes became weaker cause she had realised something.

“Hey missy, drop the act, even a blind fool can clearly see it that you can’t control the power whatever you are using and it’s not really having an impact, use the power to flee by yourself, considering you are my blood I will give you atleast that much”

“You motherfucker never belonged to the Rhineland family not even if you sold your fucking dick to some two time crook to set you for this” replied the naked queen. Thought she said that she knew he was telling the truth and only now after using it did she realise that she had not even scratched the surface of the power in arm band. It was like she was fighting to expend the mana collecting inside her preventing herself from imploding and the only way to do that was reseal the armband, but she knew… this was it… if this didn’t work all was done for. She needed a vessel a vessel large enough to store the humongous power of the armband else all will be naught and she for sure knew that she was not it. She closed her eyes again and remembered a line from a person had known for less than a day

“You know… my father usually says that a person’s fate is not always in their hands, they may win or lose depending on a lot of things, but if you don’t do anything you are definitely going to lose”

“Why am I remembering something that idiot said?” she thought and then paused for a minute and thought, “maybe if I can maintain the power output equal to the mana input then maybe, just maybe I can…”

“You know… my father usually says that a person’s fate is not always in their hands, they may win or lose depending on a lot of things, but if you don’t do anything you are definitely going to lose”

She smiled thinking the same thing again and said “oh well this is going to hurt a lot”

She bent her body at her knees, placed her open right palm behind her open left palm and let it rip. The heaving of her heavy breast slow down and realised she was prepared to the next round when the clouds sky started to coalesce, starting to come closer to her, the amount of mana she pulling up was disturbing the environment just like that, winds changed direction, current slowed down and large waves started appearing in the rather calm ocean. Brutus started getting nervous and went straight in. Sylvie was in no hurry, once she began she did not have control over how fast she would unleash it and she was not running away for sure. Augutus, Brachios, Tara, Marcus, the soldiers and the goblins all felt the change and felt the fight of flight instinct in their body chose flight unanimously. Something was happening which Sylvie did not understand but she could see something in the atmosphere splitting up and preventing what she was doing from happening. Her head started aching and her nose bleeding profusely, her skin started splitting up more as more and more mana entered her body. Her nipples puckered up and goosebumps ran across her skin, her eye lit up with lightning again and her eyes started bleeding giving the lightning a red hue and then it happened…

A lightning 40 cm in diameter came out of her outstretched hands, the force of which was so much that it pushed Sylvie back a bit from the recoil because of this, despite aiming for the head it hit the incoming Brutus in the left side of the chest and then came the sound

‘BOOM’

A huge shockwave was formed at the site of explosion, as from the epicentre wind started blowing all directions, a huge storm of sand blew from the point of impact, waves went in every way impacting the direction of ocean upto a kilometre. A huge 100 m radius crater was formed in center of the man-made island and a fissure 3m deep and 5 m wide extended 500 m upto the ocean. For as long as 79 seconds the outward going shockwave prevented the seawater to come in to fill the huge crater. Brutus’s body was thrown in the ocean about 5 km from the point of impact.

“was it over was” the thought on everybody’s head as they hoped for the nightmare to end. Some of the soldiers forgot about the surroundings and screamed at the sky in joy only to be pounced upon by a goblin and being killed. The goblins weren’t dead and neither was the monster.

“How… how did that monster survive?” was what people thought only to be drowned in sorrow at the sight of Brutus emerging from the waters only a few minutes of being thrown away. They had gone mad at the sight, to see green colour liquid presumably his blood oozing out from the wound which seemed like the top layer of his skin under his armpit being sheared by the attack from before.

Marcus an un-trained person in ways of war fell on his knees on the sight…

“What have I done???” he thought. This monster was impossible to kill, he had pushed the future and any possible retaliation against Brutus down the drain. He knew he committed a crime. His eyes split up wide in as he saw what was happening. He tried getting up, but his jelly legs did not respond and he fell on his butt. He punched his legs to make them work but he was more than a few kilometres from the site and couldn’t do anything to help her. Her stabbed his legs and pain brought his legs back to life and he made a run towards the battlefield but could not make it in time, but he saw a shadow in the sky as if flying in the direction of the fourth island.

Tara on seeing what was happening started running though the hoard of the goblins, but they grabbed her legs in an attempt to slow her down and kill her. She cut and cut but there was no end to it. Her immense mana was attracting the monsters to her. Augustus commanded the army to send some troops into rescue the queen, but they couldn’t even move from their location let alone saving the queen. The two of them too saw the shadow in the sky which was flying towards the fourth island.

On the fourth island…

“Should have finished this job years ago but I let you live cause you were my only living blood relation, but it seems you did not appreciate my gift as gift as much”

He walked up to her and was about to put the nail of her finger on her forehead when

‘BOOM’

Came the sound of a giant black axe crashing into the island splitting it apart from the point of impact, creating another fissure 10 m deep and 4 m wide from one end of the island to the other. Brutus nail which were about to touch Sylvia were shattered from the impact with the axe.

The new comer then carried the damsel in a princess carry to another island in a jump and placed her on the ground and gave her a dhoti from his huge bag to cover her body and placed it next to her.

The queen was surprised at the new arrival and her mouth was agape, when she saw the awesome muscular body of the six feet 2 inches tall and the first thing he said after his reunion were.

“I swear to you, I did not arrive here at the last second”