Gambit Of The Living Weapon - Chapter 274 Who fights who?

“Now then…” Detra commented after noticing that Evlin had finally got a look of resolve on her face, “There are still a couple of things we need to settle…”

“Right!” Daren commented, “We still need to find the rest of our friends and make sure they are all safe…”

“No, that can wait…” Detra corrected.

“What!??”

“Ugh… You people and your obsession with the word ‘what’… I’m not going wander around aimlessly while we have a dragon to deal with… Now that you are all here, I need you to share everything you can about our enemies so I can build up a proper strategy to deal with him and his pack!”

“But- But Lilith and the others…”

“Ugh… Fine… Young miss!”

“Eh…!?” Ellie replied after suddenly being called out.

“Use your ability to get in contact with Marcus and the rest, hop on that Griffin, and get them all here so the lion boy can stop crying…” Detra requested while talking to Ellie as if she was a delivery girl.

“Uuhh… Aunt Evie…?” Ellie whispered as she was unsure of what to do.

“Detra, you want to send a kid alone around the world while Knucker’s forces are out there?” Evlin asked.

“This ‘kid’, is one of the most powerful things on the face of the planet right now… She might be even stronger than you by this point… If anyone can do it, it’s probably her!” Detra stated.

“Still… You can’t just-”

“I’ll go with her!” Auren said while raising his hand and stepping forward.

“Auren…?” Evlin said with a shocked expression.

“East is right, Evlin… We need to make the best use of our time as possible… I’ll go with Ellie and gather the rest of our friends… I studied the geography of the kingdoms for years so I’m the best choice to be by her side! Besides…”

“You wanna see Ria and Cia again…” Evlin guessed.

“That’s right…” Auren admitted.

“But don’t you think it could be dangerous to split up again?” Evlin insisted.

“It will be fine, trust me! All we gotta do is find Ria! Using her portal powers and my knowledge, we will be able to set up safe spots to meet up with everyone and return here as fast as possible!”

Elli grabbed her aunt’s hands, “I can do this! I’m not the same little kid I was six months ago!”

“Oh, my sweet little girl… Sigh… Very well… If you two say you can do it, then I’ll believe in you!”

“Thanks, Evlin!”

“Thanks aunt Evie!!”

Auren and Ellie then jumped on top of the griffin after the girl hugged her aunt one more time and started to fly away until their figure disappeared among the clouds.

“My little girl is all grow up…” Evlin whispered.

“Hey!!” Detra shouted while snapping her fingers twice, “Focus!! We have work to do!!”

“Ugh… I think I liked you more when we were enemies…”

“Yeah, well, sucks to be you I guess… You’re stuck with me now, and I’m not going anywhere!”

Evlin processed that last comment and began to stare at Detra, feeling like she had just heard the lady say she had already accepted herself as part of her group, which caused Evlin to grin a bit.

“What…?” Detra asked.

“Nothing… I’m just glad you’re here… Thanks, East!”

“… Just call me Detra… I’m not a goddess anymore… But nevermind that now! Tell me everything you know about Knucker and his demons!”

Evlin then did as she was told and shared with the group everything that Knucker had told her, about his power to see the future, about how she was the trigger to make his power work and thus why he had such a big obsession with her, how he planned everything that happened in her life, and how he was coming up with a scheme to slay every single person in the planet that had inherited blood from Evlin’s world to stop another situation like her from ever happening again.

That last part had the group gasping with their mouths wide open, but that also helped clarify why Knucker wanted her so bad and why he tried to take over all the kingdoms.

“Does this mean if we lose this battle…” Leona whispered.

“That stupid dragon will kill probably half the population of the world…” Daren finished.

Joseph, Dia, and Claire just continued to observe without knowing what they should say. Joseph took a quick glance at Dia and began to worry about her since she was someone that had other-world blood in her.

“So now we get to the part that matters… Who are going to be our seven saviors?” Detra wondered while drawing a line on the ground with a stick a crossing it six times. She then proceeded to write the names of all the seven sins on one side while leaving the other half empty.

“Seven saviors…?” Joseph repeated.

“Yes! Knucker’s game will be a fight with his seven sins and will end with him facing the crossbow mage… So we still need seven warriors on our side to fight for us!”

Leona came closer and stared at the names until her eyes locked into a specific one, the one that destroyed the temple of the east, “Gluttony…”

Daren also took a look at the list and gazed at one of the names, “Wrath… Ugh… Just thinking about how hard it was to harm that old man gives me chills… Even after all that Evlin did to him the guy still managed to survive…”

“Come on people, give me something!! I need details, strengths, weaknesses, something that will tell me how to defeat this batch of idiots!” Detra begged while waving her hands.

“Auren commented that the Wrath guy seemed to get stronger by feeding on people’s anger…” Evlin commented while remembering her encounter.

“That’s right…” Leona added, “Lady Hana told me that all the demons get their power from the sin they represent… As such, I imagine that Gluttony gets his power from people’s desire to eat or something like that…”

“I see…” Detra mumbled, “So in order to organize the best matchup, we need to pick our players so that they won’t increase the demon’s powers… In this case, the one to fight Wrath should be the calmest person in our group… While on the other hand, sending little lady Dia to fight Gluttony would put her at a disadvantage…”

Claire looked at all the sins for a moment and started to laugh to herself, “So basically, if we let Joey get anywhere near the demon of lust, we are all doomed…”

She turned around to look at the annoyed face she assumed the boy would make, but much to her surprise, he seemed to be lost in deep thought.

“That’s not all…” Daren added, “Remember that the demons all have been turned into half-dragons by Knucker… So they all can only be killed by terminal fire… And since Evlin will be Knucker’s opponent… That only leaves three more people, Dia, Marcus, and Ellie…”

“Right… They all seem to have some dragon powers as well…” Evlin agreed, “Wrath had dragon scales which made his skin near impossible to harm…”

“Gluttony had a dragon’s lungs so he could breathe fire from his mouth and even eat or set himself on fire…” Claire noted.

“We also saw Envy on the west temple, and he had dragon wings which pretty much turned him into a wind mage…” Daren commented.

“Mmm… Anything on the other four?” Detra asked, but they all just shook their heads in denial.

She kept looking at the list. Seven demons, seven sins, seven dragon powers. She kept looking and analyzing and trying to come up with the proper strategy to deal with this. They had little to no information on lust, greed, sloth, or pride, so Detra would need to work on assumptions for how to set up her warriors.

“Can I ask to be the one to face Gluttony?” Leona asked while raising her hand.

Detra looked at her like she had just heard Leona ask to cut her own arm off, “Are you kidding me?? You want me to send the fire mage to fight someone that eats fire???”

“I managed to use terminal fire as well, even if it was for just a short moment! If I can master this power, I’m sure I’ll be the best match against him!”

Detra rubbed her chin, “I don’t know… Dia and the young miss can absorb energy… They would probably be better choices-”

“Please!” Leona begged, “He destroyed my home! He almost killed my friends!”

“Ah…” Detra whispered, “Revenge… It always comes down to revenge with you people…”

Detra took one look at Leona’s expression and realized she had no intention of backing down on this matter.

“You said you could use terminal energy?” Detra asked.

“I managed to use it for a brief moment, yes… I have magic power and blessed power in me already… If I can just access to cursed energy again, I know I can beat him!”

“Very well… That does give me space to use the girls somewhere else… Congrats, you will be Glutonny’s opponent.”

“Thank you!” Leona replied while bowing.

“Could you please not talk about ‘using’ my niece so casually…?” Evlin commented.

“Sure, sure… Anyway… ” Detra said while returning to her planning, “That’s one taken care of…” Who could possibly deal with Wrath… Who’s the calmest one in this group…?”

“Probably Ria… But she can’t fight without Auren… Plus, she doesn’t have access to terminal fire…” Daren answered.

“Right… The terminal fire part will be a big problem if we try to make it so all seven of the ones fighting will have access to it…” Detra realized.

“Why not just pair people up?” Xadi suggested.

“Pair up…?” Evlin repeated.

Xadi then jumped down from Joseph’s head and grabbed the piece of paper that had the rules of Knucker’s game in it, “It says here that we can use any weapon we want… Three of you guys can become weapons, right? Instead of trying to find a way to get everyone to access the terminal thingy, why not pair people up with the weapon kids? They all have the power already, right?”

“That’s… Honestly not a bad idea… The power of a living weapon does work better when used in a team than when used alone… Marceus was a great fighter on his own, but he was always even stronger when fighting with one of his candidates by his side…” Detra commented.

“Of course it’s a good idea, it’s my idea after all!” Xadi boasted.

“Right… And whose idea was it to send the young miss to fight Mia alone Which resulted in that crazy girl stealing control over the crossbow mage’s body and almost taking over the world?” Detra added.

“Details, details…”

“Let’s see… So we have three terminal weapons… and one terminal mage…”

“Three terminal weapons?” Evlin repeated.

“Oh, right… I forgot to mention… ” Detra said, “Dia can turn into a weapon too now… She’s basically the young miss’ champion…”

“Wait, what!!??” Evlin gasped.

She looked at the young girl and Dia reacted by raising her arm and turning it into a red metal blade.

“What in the world…??? When did that happen???”

“Focus!! We still have work to do!! We still need to pick out who will fight who…”

“Well… How about you, Detra?” Joseph suggested.

“Me…? What about me?”

“You can be pretty calm and collected when you need to be… You spent half a year hanging out with us after all… I’m sure this Wrath guy would be a piece of cake compared to it… Why don’t you fight him?”

“Mmmm… True… I do have my patience tested on a daily basis…” Detra agreed while suddenly meeting eyes with Dia, “And the young girl herself is also surprisingly calm all things considered… She could be my partner!”

“Eh!? Me!? With you??” Dia gasped while pointing at herself.

“I assumed you would have wanted to team up with Ellie or Marcus…” Evlin commented.

“While that would indeed be lovely…” Detra admitted, “Neither of these two are nearly as collected as young Dia over here! It’s decided then! We shall face this Wrath demon! Thank you, youngster Joey! This might be the first time you ever spouted something useful from your mouth!”

“Uuuhh… Thanks… I guess…”

And so the discussion went on. Detra and the rest of the group continued to discuss who would face whom and what weapon they would use. They tried to take everything into consideration. Personality, mental stability, combat style, weapon affinity, all in order to set up the best possible match against Knucker’s demon dragons.

Evlin would ask for a little bit of time every now and then and try to get in contact with Ellie and Auren, who would in turn report that they had already located Ria, Ashley, and Marcus, much to Evlin’s relief, and were now trying to fly over one of Ria’s teleportation spots to meet up.

Everything seemed to be going well, with the sole exception that nobody seemed to have heard any news on either Gustav or Sphinx.

Part 2

While the planning progressed on the island of the north temple, on the other side of the world, near what used to be the temple of the south, a young blond man riding a golden-winged beast with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle was having a private conversation with one particular girl.

“You have a lot of guts coming back here after all that happened…” Gustav commented while glaring at her.

The girl had a look of absolute defeat, as if all life had lost its meaning and she now was just waiting for the sweet scent of death to release her from her prison.

“Hey… Mr. Horse… Long time no see…”