Artificial 3: The Valla Chronicles

Chapter 5: Too late

(Neil's POV)

Time to perform a test run,
I fight off a small group of Dusk Tribe soldiers by using Herman in the traditional bo staff martial arts,
mid ass kicking,
I split Herman into a large pair of nunchucks and start going all Bruce Lee on them,
even mimicking his famous waaatah at the end.
I parried and counterd the swords, daggers, axes,
maces and the occasional arrow shot at me,
to finish my test run,
Herman ignites himself in Hellfire, not even scortching my hands that weild him then he splits into smaller pieces held together by a demonic chain and I use him like a whip before finishing them off with him back in bo staff form.

Now that I had a bit of fun,
back to business at hand,
I walk up to a metal door and see a four digit code lock,
so I spent roughly a minute at guessing the combination,
and then I heard a click.
"At last, the shenobi infltrates the capital."
I close the door and go down the stairs, sense their were a lot of people out and about and not soldiers,
I turn into a shadow form and hide in a barrel and roll in plane sight,
at first,
I could sense odd looks,
but people wrote it off as a breeze or a run away barrel that went down a hill.

I roll some more when people aren't looking and navigate the back alleys, once at the castle,
I shadow crawl like spiderman up the side of the castle wall and enter through a crack in the window and reamerge in human form.
The inside was poorly lit with little to now light other than candels and some bad light bulbs about to go out,
other than that,
there were coutches and chairs almost everywhere,
and also a giant red rug for the flooring as far as the eye can see.

I hear some voice,
so I hide behind the staircase and stealth take down when they pass by and shadow their mouth so they don't call for backup,
I may be on duty,
but my Tribe's golden rule is no senseless killing and no startinv wars,
yeah,
the Wind Tribe is Allies with the Light Tribe but,
in reality, we were just hired mercenaries that take 50% of the loot earned in warfare.

I ascend several floors,
and of course,
my target's scent is skyrocketing, followed by loud explosions and the sound of yelling and screaming,
there was yelling everywhere,
servants providing status updates to the Chief via rune and damage reports involving the castle,
welp no point in being stealthy now. I attempt to ascend up a lift when an ambush comes out,
this time these soldiers coverd their weaknesses with shields so using Herman as a flamed whip or even as a bo staff was rather difficult so I fried them with a lightning shadow rune and reduce a few into ashes,
once they were killed,
everything was going smoothly on the lift until the mechanical contraption stopped pulling the lift up.

"Chief! We have the outside intruder pinned in the lift shaft, requesting reinforments on the fiftith floor and forty ninth floor!"
Moments later,
more soldiers teleported above the lift and below the lift,
a pincher attack with no means of escape, or so they thought,
I phase through the shaft and cut the rope, sending a hanful of soldiers most likely to their death or at the least knocked out.

I scale up the lift shaft to the next floor and low and behold their's a map of the castle, their were a bunch of labels and I followed the floor levels up to the alter, I then look around and phase through another combination door ense I only have so much time before I loose my target,
in the next room their were several church pews and a celebrity red carpet leading to a dragon shrine like alter.

It was a pitch black dragon with amethyst gems for eyes,
it looked intimidating,
and yet I saw aura radiating from the statue,
seeing as I didn't have the time, I go around and march upstairs to a wide spacious room,
and I was instantly on guard.
"About damn time you cought up buddy, I was waiting for you bored out of my skull."
The Demon Lord I was hunting down says so casually.
He was resting his foot on the balcony just watching me.

"Oh? My apologies for keeping you waiting, ya know that was quite the welcoming party you cooked up, and I had to keep your guests entertained and all."
He gets up and dangles his feet over the balcony now and extends a hand out, creating a silver white rune that had a blank image,
next thing I know,
the same rune appeared in the center of the room as a large gorilla like creature with its limbs on fire spawns out of the rune,
it was about fifty feet tall if I had to wager a guess.

"The hell kind of rune is that?!"
I say as I instinctively enter Demon Form and draw my Chokuto in reverse grip.
"A creation rune allows me to create anything I put my imagination too, the only limitations are I can't create moons, stars and planets...... yet. Well, sense you're here, entertain one more guest, and I'll play with you again after I collect another Legendary Weapon. Buh bye!"

He waves then teleports out of the room. I fly around the room and use hit and run tactics,
kept it at a distance when it punched or kicked,
especially when it breathes fire at me,
it was a long and hard fought battle, but in the end,
I cut off its arms and legs after so many slashes over time,
and finally,
I end the beast with a stab to the heart,
the beast dies instantly,
and its body gets reduced to dust.

An intercom goes off over head,
a frantic voice saying an unknown enemy has escaped to the higher floors,
blown oassed their defenses and is killing anyone in his way,
I ascend a floor and shadow crawl on the ceiling,
letting any enemies run into the next room,
the bastard had the balls to get me to distract the enemies.
Now it's his turn to have waves if enemies come after him.

At the very least,
it will slow him down.
I stealth crawled up each individual floor,
and from floor fity to seventy-five, there was nothing but carnage and diced up bodies,
I come across another lift and like the one prior the rope was cut so I shadow crawl up the shaft a whole twenty four floors, approching floor ninty nine, I attempted to enter the throne room but it was a special locked door as I needed three key cards just to enter,
I look behind me at all the cut-up corpses and decide it would be easier just to walk through the door,
apon doing so,
I see the Chief's son dead against the pillar with a sword rammed through his chest and the Chief himself being choked out from his throne.

"Demons like you piss me off. They think they can do whatever they want and not give a damn. Hell, you sent your son to kill me and looked at what happened? As a father, have you no shame?"
The Demon Lord says as I ascend the stairs and look across the massive room to the Demon Lord.
"You're as low as a Demon can get, and I'm here to make a change, to fix this broken system and unite the Artificial race, even if it means killing a lot more Artificial Demons to do so."

The Chief chokes out some words, mainly calling the Demon Lord a naive boy,
and as much as I should stop this, my moral compass forbids me from interfering as the Dusk Tribe's Chief is my Tribe's arch nemesis.
"Poor choice of words."
The Demon Lord breaks the man's neck and then takes an eerie looking sword from his hands.
The blade was black and bronze, looking with a purple crystalized eyeball right below the blood groove.
The blade itself was black with a bronze cross guard,
mostly maintaining its Eroupean look. The Demon Lord looks back at me with a pissed off expression but softens a little bit,
he doesn't say anything as he points this Legendary Weapon at me.
No doubt he intends to test run it on me, I draw my Chokuto and prepare myself for a legendary battle.