397 Chapter 397: Asterisk War II (1/2)
\”Ha ha ha! I've finally summoned my Castellan at last, Richard Huang!\” Wilhelm crowed. \”I've been looking forward to this! My robot versus your monsters…who will win?\”
I raised both my hands in surrender. \”It's your victory, bro.\”
\”Oh, come on…don't be like that. I'm expecting quite a lot of things from you!\” Wilhelm sneered. \”Go, my Castellan!\”
\”You call that a Castellan?\” I responded as I backed away from the robot, who dismissed its shimmering barrier. \”Where is his shieldbreaker missiles? His seigebreaker cannons? His pair of twin meltaguns? His plasma decimator? His volcano lance? He doesn't have any of those, he's not a Knight Castellan.\”
\”Don't go adding the Knight on your own!\” Wilhelm shouted in exasperation. \”You've been playing too much Warhammer 40,000! Ever since the nerf to the Castellan, when they bump his points up by 100 and reduced his maximum ion shield save to 4++, he has fallen out of the meta! Nobody uses the Knight Castellan in a competitive setting anymore! The meta is being dominated by Iron Hands or Raven Guard or other Space Marines now!\”
He then chuckled and gestured toward his Castellan, who conjured a massive weapon. A hammer materialized in his mechanical hand, and the huge robot casually rested it on his metallic shoulder.
\”But at least we'll be showing you the true power of a thunder hammer! They may have bumped the points of the thunder hammer up for Characters, but I can still turn my Castellan into an enhanced Smash Captain!\”
\”Oho…\” I closed my eyes briefly and straightened myself before smiling. \”No doubt you'll be a worthy opponent.\”
Then I drew both of my swords.
\”Heh…looks like Richard Huang is drawing both of his real swords for the first time in this team match! Does he have a plan up his sleeve?\”
I ignored the commentator and focused my eyes on the Castellan, who was still resting his hammer on his armored shoulder. We squared off, our sight not leaving each other, as if waiting for our opponent to make the first move.
The tension dragged on. Even the spectators had fallen silent, and I could practically sense them holding their breaths.
And then I charged forward. The robot responded in kind, his thrusters flaring as he seared a path across the arena to meet in the middle. His hammer smashed downward, and would have crushed me to a pulp had I maintained my current trajectory.
But I was more flexible than that.
I dove to the side at the last moment, evading his thunder hammer by a hair's breadth. Then I caught sight of a flicker from the Castellan's glowing green eyes and instinctively raised both Hei Yue and Bai Ri, crossing them to parry the massive hammer blow that he threw in my direction. With a grunt, I was sent crashing several meters away.
Striking the ground with a grunt, I rolled to soften the impact and throw myself back up to my feet, but the Castellan was towering above me, his hammer raised.
\”I've predicted all of your movements, including your evasive patterns and attack strategies, and programmed them into my Castellan!\” Wilhelm crowed triumphantly. \”There's nothing you can do!\”
\”We'll see about that. Black Tortoise!\”
Water gushed around me as a chibi Black Tortoise materialized over my shoulder. Raising Bai Ri with my left hand, I conjured an ice barrier that shattered almost immediately the moment the Castellan's hammer crashed into it, but it absorbed most of the blow and bought me more than enough time to escape.
I didn't just escape, though. Weaving through the deadly rain of frost fragments, I lunged forward and thrust Hei Yue at a gap in the Castellan's defenses, right at his midriff and before he could bring his bulky, unwieldy hammer down to protect himself.
The Castellan didn't need his hammer to parry my sword. Instead, a shimmering blue barrier appeared between us, deflecting my lethal blade to the side. I wasn't able to cut through it, but I persisted, using Black Tortoise's spells to freeze the barrier and cover it in ice.
\”It won't work!\”
At the side, Wilhelm laughed, dismissing my efforts to freeze the barrier. He was right, if my goal was to freeze the barrier…but it wasn't.
\”?!\”
Vermillion Phoenix soared above the distracted Castellan and incinerated him with flames from behind. The robot shuddered and crashed to a knee as he endured the inferno, his systems smoldering from the sheer heat.
\”I'd be offended if you forgot about me.\”
\”?!\”
Vermillion Phoenix was forced to pause his spell and dodged to the side as a laser beam scorched through the air where he was hovering earlier. Teresa had lifted her beam rifle up to fire off a barrage of laser blasts in his direction, disrupting his spell. Seizing the opportunity, Craig rushed past her to pierce the Castellan's barrier with his cursed spear. However, Teresa raised her other hand, which was similarly equipped with a second, identical beam rifle, and fired off another barrage of lasers in his direction, forcing him to veer off and deflect them with his twirling spear.
\”Your opponent is me.\”
\”You say that, but you went and fired off at Richard's monsters,\” Craig pointed out with a grim smile as a bead of perspiration dripped down his face.
Teresa was not moved. \”Unlike you, I have the luxury of engaging multiple opponents at once. Such is the superiority of our technomagic.\”
\”Oh, I'm so going to enjoy defeating you,\” Craig growled before he drove his spear at her. She darted away, her thrusters flaring to pull her out of range of his deadly cursed technique, and holding him at bay with her constant onslaughter of laser pulses. Craig cursed under his breath as he continued to deflect and block the bombardment. I wanted to help him, but I had more important things to worry about at the moment.
The Castellan hurled his hammer at Vermillion Phoenix, forcing him to fly to the side. While he did so, I slashed at him, forcing him to conjure his barrier again. Spinning around, I wreathed both of my blades in azure ice before slicing down on him, leaving a layer of ice frosting over his pixelated barrier. He then countered with his hammer, forcing him back, but I leaped on top of his giant mechanical arm, ran along the length of it, and then struck at his head.
The barrier appeared once again, thwarting my attempts to decapitate him, and then I was forced to do a cartwheel in midair to avoid his vicious counterattack when his thunder hammer swung through the space where I had been moments before.
A couple of purple laser blasts from Teresa's cannons seared through either side of me, almost catching me unawares, and I was forced to dodge. The Castellan sought to take advantage of that opening, but Vermillion Phoenix intervened and incinerated the space between the huge robot and me, forcing him to conjure his barrier once more. The devastating flames licked and curled across the shimmering barrier, but they remained ineffective against his impenetrable defenses.