[Current Balance: 4,755,411,970,700 Mon]
---
"FIRE!"
Caroline's shriek tore through the tense throne room, a command that unleashed hell.
The world erupted.
A deafening, rolling thunderclap of cannon and musket fire exploded from every direction at once. The air itself seemed to shatter, ripped apart by a storm of lead and iron. Dozens of swivel guns unleashed clouds of grapeshot, turning the space around Alaric into a churning vortex of deadly metal. Hundreds of muskets fired in a single, coordinated volley, their lead balls converging on his position from the balconies above.
It was an inescapable kill box, a perfectly executed trap designed to obliterate any target, no matter how skilled, with sheer, overwhelming firepower.
But Alaric just grinned.
He didn't move. He didn't dodge. He didn't even raise a hand.
He simply stood there, a calm island in the heart of the inferno.
An invisible, shimmering dome of pure chakra flared into existence around him, no larger than a few feet in diameter. It was his most basic defense, a subconscious application of his immense power.
The grapeshot, the musket balls, the cannon fragments… they all slammed into this unseen barrier. The impacts were furious, a deafening drumbeat of metal on energy, but not a single projectile passed through. They flattened, ricocheted wildly, or simply dropped to the floor, their momentum utterly negated.
The initial volley ended, leaving the throne room choked with thick, acrid smoke and the ringing silence of stunned disbelief.
Through the haze, the palace guards and the enthralled courtiers stared, their eyes wide with shock. He was still standing. Unharmed. Untouched. The dust and debris from the shattered roof settled around him, but his crimson coat didn't have a single new speck of dirt on it.
Caroline's triumphant smile faltered, replaced by a flicker of genuine confusion and alarm. "Reload!" she screamed, her voice a little shrill now. "Fire again!"
But Alaric wasn't going to give them the chance.
"My turn," he said, his voice quiet but carrying easily through the smoky room.
He moved.
He didn't use Swift Release. He didn't need to. His base speed was already beyond their comprehension. He flowed forward, a blur of motion, right into the ring of elite guards who were just beginning to recover from their shock.
This was Taijutsu. Pure, brutal, and breathtakingly efficient.
He wanted to keep them alive. He wanted to see if Caroline's influence could be broken without a massacre. So, he held back his killing intent, his movements focused on incapacitation, not annihilation.
The first guard lunged, his curved sword aimed at Alaric's neck. Alaric slapped the blade aside with the back of his hand, the force of the blow making the guard's arm go numb. He spun inside the man's guard and delivered a single, precise jab with his knuckles to a pressure point below the ear. The guard's eyes rolled back, and he crumpled, unconscious before he hit the floor.
Another two attacked from the sides. Alaric ducked under their synchronized slashes, his hands shooting out to grab their wrists. With a smooth, powerful twist, he used their own momentum to slam them into each other, their heads connecting with a sickening thud. They dropped in a heap.
He moved through them like a force of nature, a dance of non-lethal destruction.
A palm heel strike to a nose, sending a guard staggering back, his eyes watering, his balance gone.
A quick, sharp kick to the side of a knee, buckling the joint with an audible pop.
A spinning sweep of his leg that took out three guards at once, sending them crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
He was a ghost in their midst, untouchable. He disarmed them with contemptuous ease, twisting swords from their grips, sending them clattering across the marble floor. He used their own bodies as shields, as weapons, as obstacles. He never stopped moving, a constant, flowing whirlwind of controlled violence.
The guards on the balconies frantically tried to reload their muskets, but it was too late. He was among them. With a single, powerful leap, he was on the upper level, a crimson demon appearing in their ranks. He moved down the line, a blur of motion. A chop to the neck here, an elbow to the temple there. Men dropped like flies, their muskets falling from nerveless hands.
The cannon crews, seeing him coming, abandoned their swivel guns and drew their swords. It made no difference. He dispatched them with the same brutal efficiency, his fists and feet a whirlwind of perfectly aimed, non-lethal strikes.
The throne room, which had been a perfectly orchestrated death trap, became his playground. He fought his way back down to the main floor, leaving a trail of unconscious bodies in his wake. He moved through the remaining guards, his pace never slowing. He was a storm they could not weather, a force they could not comprehend.
It took less than five minutes.
When the dust finally settled, the grand throne room was a scene of utter chaos. Hundreds of guards lay scattered across the floor, on the balconies, and in the doorways, groaning, stirring, or completely unconscious. Not a single one was dead, but not a single one was standing.
Alaric stood in the center of it all, his breathing perfectly even, his clothes immaculate. He looked towards the dais, where Caroline stood, her face pale, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and disbelief. The Apple in her hand was pulsing frantically, its light casting an erratic, sickly glow on her face.
"Is that all you've got, Caroline?" Alaric asked, his voice was calm, but it held a chilling edge. "A few hundred puppets? I was hoping for a real challenge."
Caroline stared at him, her knuckles white where she gripped the Apple. Then, a strange, unsettling smile spread across her face.
"Oh, Alaric Jonathan Kenway," she said, her voice a sweet, poisonous sound. "The game has only just begun."
And then, he felt it.
A wave of energy, cold and unnatural, washed out from the Apple. It swept across the throne room, over the bodies of the fallen guards.
And they began to get up.
One by one, the unconscious guards stirred. Their groans ceased. They pushed themselves to their feet, their movements stiff, jerky, unnatural. The vacant, enthralled look was back in their eyes, but it was different now. It was deeper, more absolute. Their minor injuries, the bruises and broken bones Alaric had inflicted, seemed to vanish, their bodies moving without any sign of pain.
They picked up their fallen swords, their muskets, their spears. And they turned, as one, to face him again.
Alaric's smile finally faded. He stared at the reanimated army, then back at Caroline.
'Huh? The Apple can do that?' he thought, a flicker of genuine surprise passing through him. It wasn't just mind control anymore. This was something else. A form of rapid, unnatural healing, a forced puppetry of the flesh itself.
His gaze sharpened, and he looked at Caroline more closely.
And then he saw it.
She wasn't holding one Apple of Eden.
She was holding two.
One in each hand, both pulsing with a malevolent, synchronized light. And resting on the throne behind her, its blade gleaming with a faint, otherworldly light, was a sword he recognized from the Assassins' descriptions.
The Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi.
'Two Apples… and the Sword of Eden,' Alaric's mind raced. 'She didn't just find one artifact here. She found a whole damn arsenal. I wonder…'
The reanimated army of guards began to advance, their movements silent and coordinated, a wall of steel closing in on him again.
Alaric sighed. The time for holding back was over.
His eyes flared crimson, the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan blazing to life. He lifted his hands, his palms facing down towards the floor.
"KNEEL!" he commanded, his voice booming through the throne room with an absolute, undeniable authority.
He slammed his hands downwards in a sharp, commanding gesture.
BOOOOOOM!
The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic.
Every single soldier in the room, every guard, every courtier, was violently slammed to the floor as if struck by an invisible hammer from above. The force was immense. The simultaneous impact of hundreds of armored bodies hitting the marble floor at once created a deafening crash that shook the entire palace to its foundations.
Marble cracked. Armor dented. Bones, which had been unnaturally healed moments before, snapped under the immense, sudden pressure.
Alaric's Vulcan ability hadn't just pulled on their swords. It had grabbed hold of every piece of metal on their bodies—their armor, their buckles, their helmets, the nails in their boots—and yanked them downwards with irresistible force.
Caroline stared, her mouth agape, as her entire army was neutralized in a single, terrifying moment.
"W-What did you…" she stammered, her voice trembling, her triumphant composure shattered. Her heart skipped a beat as Alaric's burning, crimson eyes turned to her. For the first time, she felt a sliver of genuine, primal fear.
Alaric activated his Swift Release.
He vanished, reappearing a meter in front of her in the blink of an eye, his hand reaching for the Apples and the sword.
CLANG!
His hand slammed into an invisible, shimmering wall of force, stopping him dead. The impact created a visible ripple in the air around Caroline.
He raised his eyebrows, surprised. An energy barrier.
"Ha... ha... hahahahaha!" Caroline, recovering from her shock, let out a wild, relieved laugh. She had almost forgotten about the barrier, a passive defense generated by the combined power of the two Apples. "What are you going to do now, KENWAY!?"
Alaric stared at her, at the crazed, triumphant look in her eyes, at the way her face twisted with an emotion that wasn't hers. He sighed, the last of his hope for a simple rescue vanishing.
"I knew it," he said softly, his voice heavy with a sudden weariness. "You're not Caroline."
"Does it matter?" the thing wearing his cousin's face snarled. "How are you humans so weak to temptation? Do you know how I acquired this body? Huh?"
"Don't bother," Alaric grit his teeth, the time for talk was over. He cocked back his hand, pouring a massive amount of raw chakra into his fist until it glowed with a furious blue light. "You talk too much."
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
He punched the barrier.
The impact was deafening. The entire throne room shook. A gale of pure force erupted from the point of impact, sending the bodies of the downed soldiers, tapestries, and broken furniture flying across the room. The very air seemed to scream in protest.
But the barrier held. It shimmered violently, cracks of light spider-webbing across its surface, but it did not break.
"HAHAHAHA! WHO ARE YOU, HUMAN? From this host's memories, you are just a human!" Not-Caroline shrieked, her laughter echoing manically. "A hybrid? No, that shouldn't be... an artifact, perhaps? Has our kind finally created an artifact that defies the world!? HAHAHAHA!"
Alaric ignored her taunts. He stood his ground against the shockwave, his coat whipping around him. He looked at his fist, then at the shimmering, cracked barrier.
"Okay," he said quietly to himself. "Another one."
He took a long, deep breath, closing his eyes.
He drew upon a deeper power, the ancient, fiery energy that slept within him. The air around him grew heavy, electric.
When he opened his eyes again, they were no longer just crimson. They blazed with a golden, sun-like intensity. A scarlet pigmentation appeared around his eyes, and on his forehead and cheeks, intricate crimson tattoos flared to life, glowing with an inner fire.
Phoenix Sage Mode.
He cocked back his hand again. This time, his fist was enveloped not just in blue chakra, but in swirling, white-hot Phoenix Fire, so intense it warped the very air around it.
He looked at the barrier, at the crazed entity hiding behind his cousin's face.
And he punched.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!
The world went white.
CRACK.
.
Consider buying me a coffee!
patreon.com/kulark
I'm uploading dozens of chapters ahead there!