The moment his consciousness faded into the magic of the Iron Maiden, the world started to play its tricks on him. Lights and sounds invaded his fragile consciousness, left open by the Code Diving cocktail. Each haptic effect felt like the work of something greater operating on him; sensors recorded his actions and reactions, and images gave shape to his new reality.
A trench, a moldy smell, and a lot of dust going into his lungs.
That can't be right! Kave thought to himself, somehow, now feeling fear for the first time.
He was insane enough to insist on being the first Earthling to undergo this; however, he wasn't insane enough to wish to enter the world of the grim darkness of the far hopeless future if he had known it was this real.
The accounts of the Wartopians who took this trial before him—Hammerhead, Stone, and the others—all confirmed the existence of a hardcore battlefield designed to separate the wheat from the chaff. However, their accounts all failed to convey how real this felt. So real, in fact, that Kave felt thirsty, throat dry, and nerves agitated.
"Trooper!"
Then the voice hit him; he turned, knowing that the man calling for him would be the infamous Justiciar who appears in the Iron Maiden's simulation, the one who was cursed by every trooper who took this trial.
But to Kave, a Wartopia Lorebeard, Kave recognized the man the moment he laid eyes on him.
"Warwick!"
The name's echo reverberated in the room, earning Kave a menacing stare from the Justiciar. No, the High Justiciar, the Living Legend. One good leg, one peg leg, two mechanical arms, a cybernetic red eye, and one good eye that could make the entire Infernium shiver from fear and rage.
The man moved three steps towards Kave, and Kave could only be woken from his daze by the nonrhythmic step of the Justiciar. He immediately saluted the Justiciar, fist raised, foot stomping the ground, and guts burning from the unnerving gaze.
"Lord Justiciar Warwick, Sir!"
"Is that what Command has sent?" Warwick looked Kave up and down, a smaller frame than Warwick seemed to prefer, earning Kave a bad evaluation from the start.
This, too, was something unprecedented in the accounts of the simulation Kave had heard from the Wartopians.
"Sir!" Kave replied with a militant shout, knowing that no matter what he hears, he must always comply with a superior officer. That's what Elena had ingrained in him for the past month.
"Pick a Blazer and march to your doom." The black-suited Justiciar spoke and stared at Kave menacingly: "Be it on their hands or mine."
"Yes, Sir!"
Turn around, you'll find three weapons on the table, pick one! This was the account given to him by Hammerhead, and he was glad it was the one thing he expected to work correctly.
Now, he didn't have to worry about Warwick as long as he charged forward. His fate was to die a painful death in the trenches; it wasn't arguable in the Iron Maiden's simulation, but how he died is what would make the difference.
He picked the smaller Blazer, with a higher rate of fire, less damage, and more suitability to his style. Speed, reaction, short-range combat (if possible), and potentially light melee capabilities.
Kave had a strategy, and the moment he turned, Warwick was at the doorway of the trench bunker.
"To the trenches, trooper. AVE SOLARIUM!"
"AVE IMPERATOR!"
Kave shouted his war cry following Warwick, and he took the lead in the darkness, the Justiciar following closely.
"Sol Imperius lights the way!"
Warwick called, announcing the first wave of the hopeless rogue-like battle that was about to commence, his Blazer pistol aimed high, firing an energy charge that overheated it in an instant, lighting the world with a blood-red Blazer flare. Kave steeled his nerves, gritted his teeth, and aimed his Blazer forward.
""HAAAAAAA!""
With stomps and war cries, the enemy arrived before Kave's eyes.
"HERETICS! SEND THEIR SOULS TO THE FIRES OF HELL, PRIVATE!"
Kave didn't need instructions from Warwick on this. The first wave of the Trenches was identical in all accounts. Three heretics, two with corrupted Blazers, one charging with a war axe.
Kave had imagined this fight and played it in his head many times. His aim was precise in the field; he fought Gobs and Krants both in melee and with firearms; he wasn't afraid, nor was he weak, and so he fired.
Zzzt-zzzt-zzzt-zzzt!
Shot after shot, Kave fired in bursts, aiming for the farthest enemy first and breaking the strategy of his attackers right as he took down one of the rear gunners before diving into cover. With one down from the outset, Kave stepped back twice, dodging the axe swing of the rushing cultist, but before he could aim and shoot down the attacker, the cultist jumped him with a shoulder charge, faster than Kave anticipated.
It was clear to him how this would play out. The moment he was struck by the cultist's shoulder and faltered, the axe would swing while he was staggered, and put him down the same way Flint fought with his shovel. However, Kave waited for half a second until the heretic's body shifted its weight to one leg. At that moment, Kave simply kicked the heretic's knee, causing the heretic to stumble and fall on his face.
Kave immediately jumped to the side behind cover as three hellfire bolts passed right where he stood, and before the fighter could even get the chance to stand, Kave fired thrice at his right leg and arms.
"GRAAAA! DAMN #@$@#! CURSED #@#!^&!"
As the fanatic cursed, his insults were censored in real-time by none other than the Sacred Code. Heretical insults were always aimed at the Solarium and Sol Imperius, so it made sense that the Code would filter that. However, despite the grievous injuries, the heretic still stood up, a red brand burning on his forehead, its dreadful symbol burning ever brighter with blood fire.
The Brand of Satan!
Kave felt the rush of anger swelling in him; his teeth gnashed as he charged rather than shooting, burying his knee in the guts of the Satanist before pushing him down the trench, blocking the view of the other heretic with a Blazer.
The moment he felt the other Satanist emerging from cover and trying to find an angle to shoot, Kave switched to automatic firing and unleashed a volley at the two heretics, felling them in one trigger squeeze.
"SHINEEEEEE!"
Unleashing the weeb within, Kave shot the nearest Satanist into a sieve, enough for the one behind to get shot through the first, ending the first wave rather quickly.
As the bodies fell and disintegrated, Kave stopped firing with a face frenzied with madness; only the voice of Justiciar Warwick sobered him, bringing him back to his surroundings.
"Decent fighting, Trooper."
The Justiciar walked out of cover, his Blazer no longer overheated, and just as the others had retold, he found a table where three items lay.
"Supplies!" Warwick exclaimed and gestured to Kave to approach, "Pick one!"
Kave lowered his Blazer and walked with steady steps towards the table to find that it had a Blazer cell, a short Solar Blade, and a gun sight. Looking at his weapon, he found that its charge was almost depleted, and even as a melee specialist, he wouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight.
Kave took the Blazer cell, and as expected, Warwick hoarded the other two items.
It was understandable why the Wartopians who had done this trial before him were all left annoyed with Warwick, but knowing the lore, Tristan Warwick was a walking arsenal, more machine than man, always pulling an extra weapon from somewhere and changing his prosthetics into all kinds of bizarre weapons.
Back to the present, Warwick raised his pistol once again and announced the second wave with a flare beacon to the sky.
"Sol Imperius ligh…"
Or he was about to.
Before he could even announce it, a strong wind blew by, causing the Justiciar's dramatically peaked cap to fly off his head, but it held itself back with some ridiculous tech that Kave didn't even have time to examine. He was looking up into the dark crimson sky, where something started to unsettle him greatly.
But as if his fears and traumas had been made manifest, something large and dark crossed the sky above him, as if a large plane were flying by in the darkness of night without the sound of engines, but then, he heard wing flaps that caused the dust around the trenches to stir. Only when his eyes finally made sense of the shape flying in the darkness did he realize what it was, rendering him frozen like a statue.
"Get your bearings together, Private!"
Justiciar Warwick shouted at Kave, but as Kave was in a daze, the Justiciar broke his training instructor persona and immediately reached for Kave with one hand, dragging him behind cover, in what could be considered a major deviation of character for a guy like Warwick.
The ground still shook, and a tremor reverberated through the trenches. Kave's legs almost gave away, flashes of something terrifying crossing his mind. A vision of a world breaking, people dying in a maelstrom of Void and Rift, disintegrating the world's bones.
And dragons, dancing all around the tree.
"PRIVATE!"
Warwick's shout brought Kave's mind to sharp attention. Looking beside him, he saw the Justiciar glancing behind cover, his Blazer still aimed at the sky. Then he raised it and shot into the distance.
"Sol's light breaks the void!"
It was then that the beacon flare brightened the world once again in a blood-like color, and initiated the second round of the simulation with one huge variation that no one could have anticipated by anyone inside or outside the Iron Maiden.
A Dragon.
Not a Hell Wyrm, not a Voidrake, not anything that resembled a dragon in Wartopia's vast bestiary. This was a classic unapologetic dragon, an exact replica of something Kave had once seen for a brief minute when every aspect of his life came shattering down during D-Day.
It stood far away at the edges of the far trench stenches that Kave hadn't reached yet, and it didn't roar or announce its presence dramatically as in movies. Just as it had done when it descended upon Kave's neighborhood, it stood silent, examining things with its eyes first.
"Forward, Trooper!"
But as if unbothered by the whole thing, Justiciar Warwick pushed Kave ahead. When Kave looked at him to protest, there was a gun's muzzle pressed against his face.
The Justiciar didn't even speak; he just stared at Kave with the same calmness as the Dragon, and there was only one word uttered in his crooked voice.
"Forward!"
Or the alternative was to be shot in the head. Kave's entire being shivered, and his madness was subdued by a greater madness. He looked ahead to see the death that had claimed his parents, and looked back to see death coming at him either way he chose.
But it wasn't the end of it; it was far from the end.
"HAAA!"
Just the beginning!
"Cursed $&+:!"
"Hail Satan!"
"Kill them all!"
Satanists came on like a flood, dragon fires breaking through the void of the night as the large monster took to the air and started attacking the surroundings indiscriminately.
Kave aimed the Blazer forward and screamed as he emptied its charge, felling four of the Satanists by himself, before running into cover with the Justiciar, who was aiming his gun at the sky and shooting at the Dragon.
Just then…
Boom!
A fireball fell from the sky, and the Justiciar was blown to ashes, leaving Kave alone in the trenches, with a piece of metal clinking beside him from the direction of the explosion.
Kave looked to the side, and it was a machete-like blade with a fiery edge, a Solar Blade, the same one that had been taken by Warwick from the previous level.
Now, it fell to Kave, who immediately picked it up, and as he rose with the blade in his hand, something started to click within.
≪ Your [Sanity] has improved! (II → III) ≫
A smile twitched gradually on his face, finding that even in this virtual hell, the System was somehow able to reach him.
His highest skill was his Senses, and he simply closed his eyes to focus for a second, only to feel the presence of four assailants converging on his location from behind the corner of the trench.
Kave didn't think; he charged and jumped over an obstacle used as cover, only to land in the middle of the four Satanists.
All they had were Blazers, and without melee fighters among them, Kave was a wolf amidst the sheep, hacking and slashing like a madman, ending the second wave, with a dragon roaring through the sky and the Sacred Code scrambling for anything that could put the simulation back in order.
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