Number One Commander - Chapter 74

Luon who noticed the timely attacked jumped away from the command table. The blade drove itself in the table. However, it had caused no harm to the functionality of the device. Unlike everything else in this simulated world the commander’s table was treated as something called an immortal object, which disallowed any signs of destruction to occur on it.

Looking at the attacker Luon began to frown, he wondered why was she here when she should have been on the opposite side of the map commanding the battle as his opponent.

It was at this moment he realized that their opponent’s movements became lackluster compared to the initial half of the game, around the time before he had eliminated the drone which allowed him to turn the tides of the battlefield.

Luon came to the conclusion that Arisa who was still the commander had abandoned her duties after that moment, and silently made her way towards his base. Luon wanted to ask why would she recklessly do so, but instead of asking he merely stared at her in silence.

Arisa pulled her blade out from the command table and said, “Looks like your senses aren’t dulled by the fact your preoccupied with commanding, as expected from the person who noticed the weak point of my teams unit composition.”

“I took in consideration that there might be an assassination attempt on me. However, I didn’t expect that you will do so personally. So you surprised me, just a little bit,” replied Luon as got himself ready for battle.

“If I had Keyral do it instead, there was a lower chance in succeeding, so to ensure that you will die I personally came to an end you, aren’t you glad?” said Arisa as she smiled while preparing her stance.

“I am honored,” said Luon as he charged towards her.

The two exchange blows, both of them wielded swords as a series of clashes echoed throughout the surroundings notifying the nearby allies of an attack.

After about a minute the small enclosed area which was next to the Crypt of Heroes was surrounded by allied units.

Just as they were about to aim at the intruder, Luon backed away from his engagement and yelled, “Stop! Let me handle her.”

It wasn’t that he wanted to battle her head on, he was worried that their attacks would destroy the Crypt of Heroes in the first place. Arisa was consistently sticking next to the building like glue making it difficult for Luon to use large-scale attacks like explosives.

Arisa could have already won if she had carried a repository of explosives, but this act would only garner hatred from her peers as it was a dishonorable way to win. Cheap strategies were already looked down upon and to blow up the base for the sake of victory was the worse it can get.

Which is why Arisa who was prideful of her abilities sparred with Luon while using the Crypt of Heroes as a safety shield from ranged attackers.

Arisa who allowed Luon to calm his men down said, “I see you recognize the situation you’re in.”

“Of course I have a clear idea of what’s happening on the battlefield, otherwise why would I be the commander?” Luon replied as if saying it was just plain obvious.

To his positive remark, Arisa only stood aside and gave him a smirk. The look she gave him made Luon think that she was looking at a fool. It was one of her bewitchingly tricky looks that told him that she was up to no good, and his thoughts were dead on.

It was at this moment one of Luon’s communications officer rushed into the scene and said, “Reporting! The frontlines have collapsed!”

“What! Explain it to me in more details,” Luon appeared shocked. They should have been able to easily win without Arisa in the big picture of things as well as the big worm and Belle both dead. The last thing he remembered was that their forces were clearing up the remnants of their opponent’s strengths. Luon had left Gizmo command of the scene who was piloting one of the robots that were used during the raid of the town.

The communication officer hurriedly replied, “Just moments ago we received word that an army of robots suddenly appeared underground and destroyed the Mobility division, the air forces were repelled by the sudden appearance of anti-air defenses. We are no longer in control of the base!”

“This…” Luon looked over at Arisa who smiling the entire time. He only understood the big picture now.

Arisa shrugged her shoulders as she said, “You underestimated Shizuka’s ability to build robots. Unlike you who was restricted to having factories build robots, she had both factories and robots building robots. I can safely assume that most of yours were remotely operated by humans, they say that the production line is dependant on the worker, obviously for fixed operations robots would build several times faster without tiring.”

She stepped beside the command table as her hand slowly caress it, she then said to Luon, “Without you being unable to summon anything without me stabbing your back, the match will end in my victory without doing anything. My team’s robot army will soon overwhelm yours, and your production facilities are useless without you being able to summon more supplies. I see you have a lot of points left over since you budgeted a lot of points around. If you had summoned something instead of saving, you might have won the match.”

Luon became silent. Indeed he had budgeted a large sum of points, it was to the point where he could almost summon a hero unit. He was confident, overconfident of his success only to be brought down to earth by the simple act of disabling the command table. The power he had once had was lost, and the tides of the war changed. Luon was placed at a significant disadvantage for the first time of his life. It was at the point where he was clueless about what to do next. He stood absentmindedly in front of his opponent.

Arisa frowned from his lack of response she posed herself once more.

“Come let’s battle once again… but before we do I must get rid of a pest,” Arisa said as she threw a dagger towards a spot several meters above Luon. At a building nearby Luon’s location a scream echoed as the figure fell down while oozing blood from his body.

Luon looked over and found Gizmo injured from both the fall and the knife, looking over him Luon realized that he had only a few seconds left of life inside of him. As Gizmo was vanishing, he merely uttered one word to Luon, “Win.”

There was nothing else to say after that, Gizmo vanished signifying his elimination leaving only Thomas and Luon on the team.

The frontlines were screwed, the command table was disabled, and his units were lacking commands, yet in this situation Gizmo still told Luon to win. Somehow Luon managed to pull himself together, there was still a way to win this match, and that answer laid itself before him. All he had to do was eliminate Arisa. All he had to do was win.

Regaining his determination, he pulled out a second sword from his intraspatial bag and posed himself in front of Arisa. His courage and will of his team urged him onwards as he slowly uttered, “Here I come.”

The two began their exchanges once more, the useless soldiers could only watch their commander struggle with his opponent. Despite using two swords Luon still wasn’t able to make a breakthrough in their exchanges, it appears that Arisa had previously studied the technique and came to the conclusion that Luon was only able to counter-attack with it at this moment. The two were in a stalemate like before and the first to break it was Luon.

Luon equipped his NG-Arms while taking advantage of Arisa who had over exaggerated one of her moves.

Arisa responded the same and instantly equipped her NG-Arms to the dodge the blow, however, Luon was just pretending to aim for Arisa, instead of attacking her his real goal was the command table that was directly behind her, he quickly arriving by its side while using his sword as a stopper.

His nimble fingers made quick work of the user interface as Luon quickly pushing several buttons as if his life depended on it. Just as Luon was only a few millimeters away from summoning a hero to change the tide of the battle, a sword came flying from Arisa stabbing into Luon and impaling him on the Crypt of Heroes.

“You aren’t the only one with spare swords, did you not anticipate me throwing away my main weapon?” replied Arisa who brought out another weapon. Taking a closer look, Luon realized that the sword she was now grasping was the first sword that he had been tricked into giving to her. To be ended by his own weapon, Luon felt it was ironic.

Pinned to the wall Luon couldn’t avoid Arisa’s blow, if it were to land the match would be over with them being second. Luon wasn’t satisfied with such a position, but there was nothing he could do at this moment!

Just as Arisa arrived a few steps away from winning the battle, a shadowy figure suddenly appeared before Luon, blocking her attack. Arisa’s blade easily stabbed this intruder causing blood to come out as a result. Looking closely at the figure she didn’t expect to see this person act like this and Luon appeared to be even more shocked.

Thomas who was considered a non-combatant because he disliked the barbarous act of fighting took the blow head on in Luon’s stead while inside of an exo-suit.

Arisa who acknowledged the reckless act of Thomas became curious to what prompted him to act like so, she asked him, “You’re only delaying the inevitable, was this act worth it? Or did you just want to go down in honor as your friends have? The pain that you currently feel in exchange for monumental relief or rather a few seconds of more time, in all honesty, was it worth it?”

Thomas scoffed at her remark as he laughed and said, “Of course it was worth it after all this isn’t the only move that I’ve prepared for you!”

Using the exo-suit hands, he tightly grasped Arisa’s arm which was holding the blade impaled into him. Arisa who noticed this violent actions tried to pry herself free as she said, “Hey! Let go of me!”

Thomas’ exo-suit began to radiate a dangerous white and red lights flashing colors alternatively, it reminded Luon and Arisa of a gruesome scene where a soldier would take their opponents down with them by exploding the two together.

Luon suddenly thought, ‘Hey! I’m also in the explosion radius! Don’t tell me that you plan on having me die here too right?!’

Luon gave Thomas a look as to verify if his concerns were genuine or not, the latter who noticed this said to Luon, “Sorry Luon, but the winner here would be decided by whoever dies first.”

Seeing how Thomas had no solution to prevent Luon’s death the explosion happened without anyone’s interference. The screen displayed to the audience became white leaving everyone dumbfounded, and every member on both teams appeared on the stage. They merely looked at each other and the screen and wondered, ‘Who won?’