7

“Is a higher Integrity Knight really that powerful?” asked Gabriel Miller as he sat in a large tank—which was really just a large four-wheeled vehicle without a cannon or treads—pulled by two dinosaur-like monsters.

Even the cushioned lounge chair couldn’t eliminate the vibration, but compared to the deadly rumbling of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle he’d had to ride in as a soldier, this was nothing. At worst, it meant the glass of wine on the side table sloshed around a little bit.

Three days had passed since they left Obsidia Palace, a period of travel he’d never experienced in the real world, but he didn’t feel tired at all. Perhaps that had more to do with the virtual nature of this world than the comfort of the tank’s seating.

At his feet, a beautiful young woman reclined on the thick carpeting, rubbing her bandaged right leg. “But of course. In fact…over three hundred years of history, not once have our dark mages or knights ever succeeded in vanquishing an Integrity Knight. Does that convey the danger they pose? On the other hand, our own fallen are more numerous than the stars.”

“Hmm,” Gabriel murmured.

Vassago was sitting cross-legged along the spacious cabin’s wall, cradling a bottle of distilled liquor. He wondered, “But, Dee, if these Integrity Knights are so tough, why didn’t they just come over here to invade?”

Dee Eye Ell, dark mage chancellor, gave Vassago a sizzling smile and raised a finger. “A very good question, Master Vassago. They are indeed warriors worth a thousand men, but each is only one person. If surrounded by ten thousand in a vast space, the little cuts and bruises will add up until their life is depleted. So the cowards never leave the End Mountains, knowing there is no danger of being surrounded.”

“Oh, I get it. It’s like when you’re up against a really tanky mob, so you just chill at a safe distance and riddle ’em with DOTs until they kick the bucket…”

“Mob…? Dee-oh-tee…?”

Of course the artificial fluctlight would not understand Vassago’s analogy. Gabriel shot him a look and cleared his throat.

“At any rate, the point is, if the Integrity Knights can be pulled into a wide-open arena, they can be surrounded and eventually overwhelmed, yes?”

“That would be the logic of it. But it would cost over ten thousand goblin and orc casualties, easily.” Dee chuckled to herself and picked up a poisonous-looking fruit from the silver bowl on the floor and sensually placed it between her lips, of the same bloodred hue.

It hardly needed to be said that Gabriel did not care about the expenditure of grunt units. In fact, if he could defeat the enemy forces at the cost of Dee and every other soldier from the Dark Territory, he would take it without question. In a sense, this war was no different from the tactical simulations that Glowgen Defense Systems ran on a daily basis in its lab.

He would cross a mountain of bodies and rule over the Human Empire as their new sovereign, giving them just one order: to find the girl named Alice and bring her to him. Then his mission in this odd world would be complete.

The thought actually made the strange-flavored wine a bit more special. He would be sad to see it go.

Gabriel lifted his glass and downed the dark-purple liquid all at once.

At this time, the hunter of souls, Gabriel Miller, had an unconscious mental image of Alice that was very similar to his very first victim, Alicia Clingerman: innocent, young, and delicate. He assumed she would be a kind, beautiful—and helpless—girl living in a town just like Pacific Palisades.

So there was one thing that Gabriel failed to sense. He could never have imagined that the Alice he sought was going to lead the enemy army as an Integrity Knight.

The military train ahead of the command vehicle flying its imperial flag stretched endlessly to the west on its slow but sure advance. On the horizon against the crimson sky, a range of mountains as sharp and clear as the teeth of a saw jutted upward, growing slowly closer.

On the seventh day of the eleventh month, the fourth day of their march, the Dark Territory’s main force reached the foothills near the giant gate that was soon to collapse. Around the flat mesa was a profusion of black tents prepared by the advance troops.

Du-du-rum.

Du-du-rum.

The beating of the giants’ war drums kept the ground rumbling.

From the roof of the command vehicle, Gabriel watched as the single line of troops fanned out over a wide area, like blood cells pushed by the pulse of a gigantic heart.

The first regiment at the lead was fifteen thousand strong, consisting of a battalion of goblin light infantry and orc heavy infantry. They made a vertical formation sized just right to fit in the narrow ravine cut through the mountains. Here and there, individual giants loomed over the rest like siege towers—perhaps just a hundred in total, but they would be a valuable and active force to assist the infantry.

Behind the demi-humans was the second regiment, consisting of a unit of five thousand pugilists and another of five thousand dark knights. The young knight who had been newly named to the position of dark general desired to fight on the front line to avenge the stain of his predecessor, but Gabriel ordered them back. The knight units were likely to have reduced morale now, and he wanted to eliminate uncertain variables.

The third regiment was seven thousand ogre archers and three thousand female dark mages. Their job was to enter the ravine behind the infantry and decimate the enemy with long-range attacks. According to Dee, as long as they could see the Integrity Knights, the primary source of the enemy’s power, they could focus their fire on the target from a long distance and possibly defeat them.

For his part, Gabriel was intrigued enough by the supposed invincibility of these Integrity Knights that he wanted to battle one directly and devour their soul, just to sate his curiosity. But he couldn’t afford to lose this account through some unforeseen accident, and he could always produce as many Underworldian artificial fluctlights as he wanted later. Right now, it was more important to seize Alice and escape from the Ocean Turtle with her.

Eight days had already passed inside since he’d logged in, which was about fifteen minutes in the real world. It would take roughly ten days to completely conquer the Human Empire and ensure the entire world knew about his order to find Alice. With that in mind, he wanted to get this battle over with as quickly as possible—within a full day at the longest.

“Damn. You think I’ll even get a chance to shine?” complained Vassago.

Gabriel couldn’t count how many whiskey bottles Vassago had downed today. He shot the other man a look and snapped, “I saw what you did. When that Shasta fellow turned into a tornado, you abandoned me and ran for cover.”

“Heh-heh, I knew you’d be paying close attention, Boss.” Vassago grinned innocently. “Listen, I’ve always been a PvP kind of guy. I’m not up for fighting against ghostly monsters without a corporeal body.”

It wasn’t clear just how serious or silly he was attempting to be. Gabriel stared at his subordinate, then asked, “Vassago, why did you enlist for this mission?”

“Mission? You mean the Underworld dive? Because it seemed fun, obviously…”

“No, before that. The mission to attack the Ocean Turtle. You’re on staff at Glowgen DS, but you’re a cyber-operations specialist. What’s the reason you would take part in a mission that might involve live fire? You’re too young to be a Middle East war dog like Hans or Brigg.”

It was a long question by Gabriel’s standards, but that did not mean he had any deep interest in Vassago Casals, of course. The thought merely occurred to him that something must lie beneath the young man’s shallow exterior.

Vassago just shrugged and said, “Same thing. It seemed like it would be fun.”

“Aaah…”

“Also, if you’re gonna go down that rabbit hole, it seems a lot crazier for a fancy elite college boy like you to want to go into live combat. I don’t care if you do have military training.”

“I prefer a hands-on style,” Gabriel replied. On the inside, he wondered, What does “fun” mean to you, Vassago? A chance to shoot? Or…a chance to kill?

He was deciding whether to go ahead and ask these questions or cut off the conversation there, when he was interrupted by the sound of high heels coming from the staircase at the rear of the command vehicle. The chancellor of the dark mages guild, Dee Eye Ell, appeared.

She gave an obsequious bow, licked her lips, and reported, “All units are now in place, Your Majesty.”

“Good.”

Gabriel unfolded his legs and stood up from his makeshift throne, then looked around. Aside from the main force of thirty-five thousand ahead, there was a reserve of ten thousand (mostly) goblins and orcs to the left of the command vehicle, plus five thousand members of the commerce guild’s supply corps to the left and right.

This army of fifty thousand was what Gabriel had been given to work with. So if all his units were damaged without breaking the enemy’s line of defense, he would have no choice but to give the plan a fundamental course correction. His chances of catching Alice would become infinitesimally small.

But according to the dragon scouts he’d sent out, the enemy’s size was no more than three thousand. So as long as they could eliminate the Integrity Knights as he desired, their victory was all but assured.

“How long until the gate is destroyed?” Gabriel asked.

Without looking up, Dee answered, “Roughly eight hours, Your Majesty.”

“Then one hour before collapse, move the first division into the ravine. Put them just in front of the gate and have them lead an all-out attack as it collapses. If that pushes the line, send in the second and third division behind them and wipe out the hostile force.”

“Yes, Majesty. Before the day is out, you will have the head of the enemy leader. It may be slightly charred.” She giggled and turned to pass on the orders to the messenger behind her before bowing and descending the stairs.

From the roof of the command vehicle, Gabriel surveyed the massive gate in the distance. It was more than two miles away, but it had such weight and presence that it felt as if it were practically hanging over his head. The crumbling of that mammoth structure would be something to behold.

But the true feast only started there. Thousands of souls would burst and vanish, releasing an indescribably gorgeous shine into the air. Perhaps the Rath engineers trapped in the upper shaft of the Ocean Turtle were gnashing their teeth, because the biggest spectacle they had scheduled in their system was going to happen, and they wouldn’t be able to observe it.

Du-du-rum. Du-du-rum.

Dun, duh. Dun, duh.

The war drums’ tempo rose, and with it the pitch of thousands of bloodthirsty roars.