EU: Chapter 037 | Pinaka Outsources Pinaka

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“Khahk!”

“Ack!” One after another, the clones of Pinaka screamed as the Human soldiers burned them. Hair and feathers on the arrows had already burnt off due to the heat within the fort.

As the battle progressed, the string snapped, and the quill caught fire, rendering their offensive capability to a minimum.

“Argh!” A clone shouted and swung down a bow at a human as it went up in flames. The human managed to burn up the clone, but was now bleeding from the head.

“They seem endless!” A soldier cursed as he swung his hand with force, moving a wave of fire through the corridor to burn four clones.

As the flames dissipated, the clones stood still, no longer able to move. Their eyeballs had burst while their skin hung low, dripping like cheese. None of them were dead, but it was better if they were, for they were suffering from fourth-degree burns.

“However many there might be, just kill them.” Another soldier shouted from the side. He stood beside the entrance to a room where their clothing supplies were stored. If necessary, he would set them all on fire, providing enough flames for the soldiers to use in their battles. He was a senior, having grey sideburns, and one of the most experienced veterans of the fort.

“I don’t understand.” The soldier shouting now was the one who had given fourth-degree burns to the group of clones before, “How are there so many Elves?”

“We probably killed more than a couple hundred by now…” The soldier paused, eyes widening in disbelief to see the veteran had stabbed a bone sword through his chest, “Why…?”

“Don’t worry about it.” The veteran was a Pinaka Clone with authority. The bone sword extended out of his index finger and carried his authority. It casually moved through the soldier’s body like it was butter and diced him up into pieces.

“Whoa!” Suddenly, a sea of flames bombarded it. Without hesitation, the Pinaka Clone lashed out with its hand and created another clone, to whom it transferred its authority.

As the clone with the veteran’s appearance was burnt to a crisp, the new Pinaka Clone conjured up a soldier’s leather uniform to cover its body, changed its appearance and hid amidst the clothes.

“Set everything on fire!” A terrified soldier shouted, having witnessed the veteran kill the other soldier, “Only fire is your ally!”

If there was just a clear enemy, the soldiers would have fared well, considering the training they have been put through. However, from time to time, one of their own would suddenly kill the other. This caused suspicion to brew amidst the fighting soldiers.

He drew the flames burning on the wall to wrap protectively around himself. The flames also covered his three friends, touching and dancing under their control. As the flames remained in contact with all their bodies, they could trust each other, “The enemy cannot use fire, even if they look like they are one of us!”

“That’s right! Fire is our ally!”

“Trust in fire!”

As they amped up their confidence levels, a crowd of Elves rushed out of the clothing room, bows drawn, shooting arrows without missing a beat.

“Guard!” The soldiers thickened the protective covering around them and watched the arrows rapidly burn up.

“Cough!”

“Gah!”

One after another, they coughed due to fumes. Since the arrows didn’t seem to be working, the Elves rushed into the flames while ripping out their chests, ensuring their blood sprayed out as they were burnt.

This way, instead of being charred, they generated a lot of toxic fumes, quickly flooding the interior of the fort.

The fumes caused the fire to grow weak. And as if to further mock them, the fire turned into a stream and flowed towards one spot.

“Dammit!” One of the soldiers plunged his hand into the stream and struggled to pull out a smaller stream of fire from it, “Someone’s drawing all the fire away from us!”

Swoosh!

The corridor dimmed as the tiny flames were snuffed out by the flumes. Spontaneously, the soldiers felt a chill as they heard footsteps drawing close, in increasing numbers. Every second, the number of footsteps seemed to be increasing.

At the fort’s exit that led to the Lava Moat’s bridge, Pinaka watched his Pronto Staff absorb most of the flames in the vicinity, “Great!”

The Sun Stone was filled with fire now, unable to absorb any more. Pinaka pointed it towards the Lava Moat, “Release it.”

[Spell: Torch]

A fiery gush of fire blasted out in a conical shape and slammed into the Lava Moat, brightening up the place. The reddish glow in the region intensified as the Sun Stone kept releasing the fire stored in it.

“Died again?” With a wave of his hand, Pinaka created another clone with his authority and watched the latter charge into the fort, spawning a group of clones during the process. Less than twenty seconds later, Pinaka had to create a new one.

Between the bridge and fort stood Pinaka. On the other side of the Human Gate stood a clone with authority. Both were constantly spawning clones that rushed into the fort.

The final clone with authority was busy sneak attacking the soldiers in the fort and was doing the most damage. And of course, dying repeatedly as a result.

The battle lasted for less than twenty minutes. Once Pinaka used the Pronto Staff to absorb most of the flames burning from the walls, the fire wielded by the humans grew less potent. This meant some of the arrows passed through the flames and reached their necks.

Most of the humans suffocated to death, trapped within the fort. Only those fighting next to windows managed to hold on. However, even they eventually tired out and were swarmed to death.

“You…whoever…whatever you are…you’ll regret making us your enemies!” The last soldier choked on his blood and collapsed amidst the corpses of his brethren. Standing before him were over twenty Pinaka Clones, all suffering from varying degrees of burns.

“Haah…hah…ha…gah…gaaah…” One of the clones was a bloody mess. It stared at the pile of semi-burnt corpses before it and then stared at its hands covered by blood, “You…I…Murderer!”

“I KILLED EVERYONE!” The clone went insane and got its head chopped off by a new clone with authority.

“Is this what we need?” Another clone shouted, tears streaming down its eyes, “Huh? We’re no mere murderers now.”

“We’re serial fucking killers!”

“If you can’t handle it, come here.” The clone with the authority said and extended its hand, “I’ll put you to peace.”

…

Standing next to the bridge while covering his ears with a pair of mufflers was Pinaka. He was releasing another stream of fire into the Lava Moat through the Pronto Staff. Surrounding him were twenty clones, stationed to protect him.

Irrespective of how much he could steel himself, Pinaka had his morals. Once the adrenaline rush ends, his guilt and humanity would slam into him like a truck. Irrespective of how much he had resolved, his mind would get worn down eventually.

Hence, he followed the time old fact, “Ignorance is bliss.”

Pinaka knew the slaughter that was happening within the fort. However, he didn’t personally see it. That was significantly better on his mind, since he could cope with his current state of being.

He didn’t have a strong imagery of any human’s expression, especially their eyes at the moment of death. Those eyes full of hatred, regret, emotions cranked to the extreme, words spewing out like venom; it would be impossible to forget them.

Hence, he ignored the majority of it and only behaved like a kid shooting the stream of fire into the lava moat.

“It is done.” A tired voice resounded as the third Pinaka with authority—the one actively fighting within the fort—walked out with a team of clones he had just made. They were pushing a cart filled with both Human and Elven corpses.

The group pushed the cart into the Lava Moat, causing a sizzling sound as the fluid content in the corpses caused steam.

One after another, the group brought in carts filled with corpses and dumped in the lava, so much that a section of it began to cool down.

Pinaka released fire onto the section until there were no traces of the cart or the corpses. There was just lava as before.

Boom! Kaboom!

Loud rumbles echoed through the fort as the clones held a large log of wood and rammed it into the walls. The tip of the log was shaped to resemble the fist of an Ogre. After cleaning up the corpses, they were leaving behind traces of Ogre activity.

Pinaka wanted it to seem like a group of Ogres had targeted the place.

His intentions were like this: The Human Gate sustained varying levels of damage. All the humans in the fort were killed. Their corpses were dumped in the Lava Moat. And most of all, Pronto was one of the victims, which meant the Relic was back in Ogre possession.

The clones cleaned up the corpses and blood from the fort and dumped everything in the lava moat. Following that, a Pinaka Clone created blood of one of the humans it had touched before and sprayed it across the place.

It was followed by the blood of the Ogre Pinaka had touched in the prison. Upon touching someone, Pinaka’s authority allowed him to create their bodies, which was what he employed here to spray the place with Ogre and Human blood.

There was no trace of Elven activity throughout the place.

Cherry on the cake—there existed a small metal piece at the edge of the Lava Moat. It was part of Pronto’s metal carriage.

Pinaka had placed this piece to serve as a clue, leading the humans—who will investigate the place later—into believing the entire carriage had been dunked into the lava moat by the Ogres. The piece left behind would tell that story.

Bang! Bang!

A group of Pinaka Clones took turns swinging a stone hammer propped by a wooden handle. They targeted the altars carrying Sun Stones. If Ogres had succeeded in destroying the Human Gate, they would obviously not leave the Sun Stones behind.

By the time the two Sun Stones were removed, another group of clones returned. They had been busy leaving Ogre tracks from the Human Gate that led into the dense, T’Hara Forest.

Once they returned, all the clones unhesitatingly jumped into the lava moat. They all bit their tongues during the plunge to fall into the lava unconscious.

‘I could just leave.’ Pinaka thought as he eyed the empty Human Gate. He could easily escape into the T’Hara Forest now, if he wanted to, ‘However, for my bluff to work, I need to ensure the Ogres invade the region within the Lava Moat.’

“For that, we need to move.” He muttered as he pointed forward with his Pronto Staff while being piggybacked by a Pinaka Clone who had been granted with the authority of two Control Factors.

[Spell: Wood Ski]

The Pinaka Clone began to skate through the forest while Pinaka coolly sat on its back. His right hand carried the Pronto Staff while he extended the index finger of his left and made it touch the wood platform made by the Spell of Wood Ski.

The third Control Authority was with him. And using it, Pinaka turned the wood platform into a mixture of leaves resembling the forest floor as the Pinaka Clone skated past.

Since the clone was the one moving, Pinaka could conserve his stamina. That was his biggest cheat. By making his clones wield his authority, Pinaka retained most of his stamina. When the clones tired out, he simply swapped out the authority to new clones.

And those clones were all made by the clones with his authority. All Pinaka did was create the two clones with his authority at the start. ‘This is what it means to control a swarm!’

The clone soon moved past the section of the ash road where Pronto’s Metal Carriage was buried within. The Ogre Race’s Relic of Sky Boulder too was within it. As they moved past, Pinaka glanced at the spot, ‘Good! I cannot spot any differences.’

There were faint tracks left behind by the metal carriage. A group of Pinaka Clones had already extended those tracks all the way into the lava moat.

Pinaka didn’t worry about leaving behind any evidences, for he used a total of four inspection teams to check everything. Each team had around ten Pinaka Clones who used all their capability to inspect, check, and double-check every arrangement.

It seemed overkill, but to ensure he didn’t slip up anywhere, Pinaka resorted to it. ‘Besides, I didn’t even use my power to make them. The clones with my authority did.’

With the three from the Human Gate and the two he had beforehand, Pinaka now possessed five Sun Stones. ‘I’ll return one back to that soldier in the prison.’

It was evening by the time Pinaka arrived nearby the Ogre Gate. A glance in its direction and he was stunned to see a floating island drawing close, ‘OH! Is that a Level 3 Ogre?’

‘That is extremely convenient for me!’ He mentally roared in laughter.

Authors Notes: Gangnea Daily Article 37: There is physical evidence in the bodies of members from Race for the respective Levels. Level 2 Humans have a more vibrant hair and eyes as compared to Level 1 Humans.

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