They came in the morning. Seven boats, wildly different models and paint jobs, pulled into the Guild Hall barrier. ‘Man, I must have really pissed him off,’ John thought as he looked at those vessels. Bearings, being an in-land company, did not have ships of its own. The ones John saw in front of himself were mercenary vessels or, and that was the true testament as to how much the Gamer must have riled up the alchemist, the ferrying vessels of the local Fateweavers.

Because of Magoi, Collide had pretty good relations to those guys, so he doubted they were going along with this. The question was then whether the people maintaining the mobile barriers were people Bearings had hired or the original crowd pressed into service.

‘Best play it safe and not blow up the ships,’ John thought. Even accidentally, he didn’t want to worsen relations with people he wanted to integrate in his organization down the line. Sipping on a cup of hot cocoa, he looked at that.

At his side, Rave was doing some stretches in her battle suit. Aclysia was going through her arsenal to make sure everything was in order. Metra was checking the edge of Qiada, rubbing off some dirt. Nia and Beatrice stood there passively, weapons at the ready and prepared to engage with anyone that landed. The only person not preparing was Eliza, who was instead grumbling about not being able to be part of the carnage.

“S-shouldn’t we prepare?” Seth asked, out of breath from storming up to the yacht’s sun deck. “Those are… I don’t know how many people!”

“About 200, if I had to take a wild guess,” Magoi commented. The ferries, making up the majority of that little fleet, were jam packed with people. None of which could leave now that the High Fateweaver did not want them to.

The only boat that didn’t seem to be fully loaded was a nutshell of a vessel. True, it was golden, quite beautiful, propelled by a powerful magical engine and looked comfortable, but it could have only held three people at the maximum. The sole man on there wore full-body armour and had his arms crossed. John narrowed his eyes when Observe failed, he would have to stay aware of that one.

“Anyway, I already prepared,” John told his first vassal. “Your job here is to make sure there is a protection force for any straggler that comes through and threatens the civilians.”

“A-are you saying you are going to beat 200 people with just you six?” Seth asked. “That’s crazy, we weren’t even able to win against the smaller force that attacked the Enclave!”

“Yeah, about that, remember how I said that I had a plan back then? This is part of the plan,” he told the man, who looked sceptical about that claim. John also handed the cup of cocoa to the air right next to him, where Sylph popped up in her big form to finish the rest. “And technically, we are ten fighters. You have to subtract Eliza and add all my elementals except for Stirwin.”

“JOHN NEWMAN!” the shouting voice of a certain Asian spearman suddenly rang out of the speaker system of the largest of the enemy vessels, one of the three that wasn’t a ferry. “WE HAVE COME TO ACCEPT YOUR SURRENDER. BEARINGS WILL TAKE YOUR HEAD BUT LEAVE THE REST OF YOUR PEOPLE TO BE SOLD ON THE ABYSS AUCTION. THAT’S THE BEST DEAL YOU WILL GET!”

“Mhm, it would be rude not to answer, wouldn’t it?” John asked everyone.

“Ja, but the guy doesn’t really deserve being treated with manners,” Rave stated.

“As the mistress said,” Aclysia agreed.

“Whatever,” Beatrice didn’t care.

“Can I please just bash something over the fucking head already?!” Metra asked, sick of this game.

“The direct answer then,” John raised a hand and his MP dropped straight to 0. A blue sphere formed and flew diagonally to the sky and above the centre of the fleet. Once it was there it quickly started growing, from the size of a basketball to that of a grown man. At almost 5000 mana invested, Arcana Strike charged into availability rather quickly. “Seth, unless they brought someone at the Primarch level, this will barely even qualify as a battle,” the Gamer declared, and then the attack descended from the heavens.

With supersonic speed and a sound that reminded John of the beat of an old techno song, the mass of pure arcane power hit the water, missing the largest boat by a few metres. Water was evaporated or carried as tiny droplets by the shockwave as the explosion, purple and blue, expanded outwards. In a stream of ripping particles, half of the boat was simply eradicated. The rest was sucked in by the water filling the hole that had just been created.

Veils of arcane remains, like layers of blue satin, formed at the impact site as everything was silent. “Just try to keep the ferries intact and leave the people that surrender,” John gave a few final instructions to everyone.

“Sure thing,” Metra growled with a dangerous smile on her face and jumped over the railing, only to appear again above one of the ships and engage the whole crew on her own. Salamander, Sylph and Undine didn’t have any reason to wait anymore themselves and went out to confront the fleet in their own ways.

The rest of them made their way down to the shore to greet whoever managed to land. To the enemies’ credit, they were keeping a cool head. It was likely too normal to be greeted with some number of explosive shenanigans when invading a mage’s territory.

Despite having his vessel destroyed, Zimmothy was the first person to land on the island. By using the kickback of his spear as an underwater acceleration, he managed to propel himself right onto the shore. “Your trickery ends here!”

“Sure,” John rolled his eyes, saddened by the fact that the Arcane Echoes he had placed on the rim of the island had run out already. Seemed like his AoE skill had only so long it could stay, even in rune form. It would have been funny to see his grandstanding be ruined by a wave of arcane energy.

“You may have surprised me last time, but I will have my revenge!” Zimmothy declared whirling his spear around in a way that was intimidating but entirely useless in terms of actual fighting.

“I will assist!” a blubbering voice echoed from the water as a webbed hand gripped onto the edge and pulled up a large, muscular body. He had green and blue skin and lips so thick that John immediately thought of a perch.

It was the fishman that originally had inhabited this island together with his band of robbers. “Remind me, Tash,” that wasn’t his name, but the Gamer wouldn’t even try to correctly pronounce Tshshshsh, “did I or did I not warn you to stay on the low?”

“Screw you, my family has been hunting here for a hundred years!” the fishman declared as his comrades dragged themselves out of the water. Another fifty or so enemies on top of the ones still about to land. “We will just kill you and go back to plundering the weak!”

John closed his eyes. The fishmen and Zimmothy saw that as their moment to attack, letting out a warcry and beginning their charge. Tash and the spearman were followed by a small army, webbed feet slinging over the stone of the walkway. Raised fists and weapons came for the Gamer, still standing there with his eyes closed.

A silver-white cleaver sliced through Tash’s stomach like a hot knife through butter, breaking the spine and splitting two more fishmen in the wider arc of the attack. Blood and guts flew through the air, lifeless bodies fell and left John to whisper, “You made this choice, I will not spare anyone twice,” as he opened his eyes again to golden light enveloping Zimmothy.

The spearman may not have been of any risk to John but he was still strong enough to not get one-shot by Rave’s attack. Jumping backwards, he blinked rapidly to get his eyesight in order. The funky Lightbearer gave him that time to put up her headphones, cat ears sprouting, and assume a stance. “Congratulations, you killed the weakest link!” Zimmothy shouted and then engaged Rave again.

It looked to be a quick combo, one bullet shot to propel him forwards, a thrust at her chest and a second round fired from between wherever the forked tip would hit. He only got step 1 finished.

The moment Zimmothy’s spear closed in on the techno lover, she moved with the precision of an expert martial artist. Shoving aside the spear directly underneath the blade with her left arm, she raised her right in an open palmed uppercut. It was the pure routine of triggering the shot anyway that saved Zimmothy, as he instinctively reinforced his negative momentum to disengage.

The open palm flew by where his face had just been, a focused beam of light exploding upwards turning the hair on his head frizzy. The attack could have broken his neck or turned his head into charcoal, either way it was deadly.

When Zimmothy landed, he smirked, sure that his enemy was throwing all their strength at them. That smirk soon froze and died completely as he watched in complete horror as Aclysia, together with the other girls and background support from John in the shape of Shardbound sniping at the enemy ranged forces, mowed down his allies.

“Where are ya looking in the middle of a fight?” Rave wanted to know, catching Zimmothy completely off-guard. A sloppy spear strike missed the mark completely, the Lightbearer ducking underneath and then swiping away the spearman’s feet. The aura around Rave flared up intensely as she focused her powers and brought down her foot.

Zimmothy brought the shaft of his spear between his shoulder and the descending sole. However, it wasn’t just any stomp but a proper martial art technique, a derivation of the Shatter Step. Muscles filled with mana (although martial artists preferred to call it Ki to separate themselves from the mages, despite it being the same power in origin) and reinforced with Copernicus’ blessing, the attack burst through the metal shaft and broke the spearman’s dominant shoulder.

Then the aftershock rippled out. Golden light that transformed into kinetic energy on impact with any ensouled object expanded the relatively small impact area under Rave’s foot into something thrice as big. It was if a professional had just slung a golf ball at him and then another one had smashed a volleyball on the exact same spot, amplified by a large magnitude.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Zimmothy screamed dropping half the spear. “You bitch, what the fuck?!”

“Wow, sore loser much?” Rave pouted but just kept him pinned. She had already won, no reason to add more injury to injury. “Man, John really must have put up a good show if ya thought ya were good.”

“Show?” Zimmothy’s confusion was apparent on his face.

“I guess we can let the cat out of the bag,” John chimed in, walking over as the stragglers and those that surrendered were taken care of. “It was a trick.”

“What was?” Zimmothy’s pain fogged mind couldn’t, or didn’t want to, understand.

“Everything,” the Gamer opened up. “Every encounter since Thorne declared war on Collide, we have been losing on purpose. We were gauging your strength and waiting for as many of you scumbags to jump into a coalition as possible.”

“Why?!” the spearman groaned in confusion. John had to admit that he was taking immense satisfaction from the situation, although saying all of this to Bearings himself and slowly seeing his arrogant, fatherly demeanour drop over dinner, his awfully costly wine dribbling out of his wide-open mouth, would have been even better. This was a close second though.

“Because, this way, I can crush all of you at once,” John explained. “No more struggling, no more slow take-over. When I remove all of the old guard that stands against my influence, I can easily fill in the power vacuum. Granted, this is more brutal than I would have liked, but I have to work with the situation Thorne put me in.”

Revealing this part of the plan was something John was always going to do. The conspiracy theorists would eventually uncover some of the scheme that had been going on at this time. Collide so quickly losing ground but then winning again could, through the lens of history, only be seen as suspicious. Baiting people with half-truths that conveniently left out the actually immoral bit (where the war was initiated as a controlled explosion by the shadowy figure atop Thorne) was a good way to not only counteract that, but it hopefully gave John a reputation as a crafty tactician.

Some crazy theorists would still guess the truth, but it should sound unconvincing enough that its following would top off at the size of the gay fanclub for tampon sizes.

A perfect lie worked in perpetuity; if it fell apart under scrutiny of the slightest bit of investigation, it would be found, and John really didn’t want this dirty little secret to come out. It wouldn’t spell the end of him, but it could deal damage to the little reputation he had.

Zimmothy began to chuckle, “Man, what a great plan… putting your back against the wall. Too bad the big boss has sent a security measure with us.”

“Has he now?” John asked and looked over to the three invading ships that had finally made it to the island. Of the seven total, one had been destroyed by John’s initial strike, one was currently on fire, one seemed empty and on the last one bodies were flying overboard and into the water as Metra did her thing.

‘Come back,’ John told the three elementals still taking care of that last boat. Metra was able to do that on her own and John wasn’t arrogant enough to ignore a threat such as that. Two of the ships that had arrived were ferries and they extended large metal ramps onto the shore. Dozens of mercenaries came running, completely ignoring the carnage of cleaved bodies that greeted them. Either they were brave, stupid or on drugs. John’s guess was a combination of the last two.

“Can you three handle those?” John asked towards Rave, Nia and Beatrice.

“Sure thing,” Rave enthusiastically replied, picking up Zimmothy and throwing him somewhere where he wouldn’t lie in the way or danger of getting trampled to death. Beatrice nodded servantly. Nia just assumed a fighting stance with her weapons of non-existence, a curved dagger and a long-bladed spear, appearing as they always did, sleek, black and simple.

“Good, then we will see about that guy,” John stated, with his elementals returned and surrounding him, looking at the sole sailor of the last nutshell of a boat. He wore a scaled armour that looked like it was masterfully puzzled together from individual pieces. Golden, silver, white, black and bronze pieces of metal arranged in a crest that depicted a sword on a scale.

He had a sword and a shield of similar quality, both already drawn. “My name is Egan, last knight of the Just,” a stalwart voice rung out from underneath the elegant helm, the darkness of the visor illuminated by two amber lights. “Do I face John Newman?”

“Yup,” John stated, eyeing his mana bar. It was pretty empty, but he still had all the pre-build Mana Protection, so just working on regeneration as it came in should have been fine. “I find it hard to believe that anybody on the side of the ‘Just’ would fight on the side of Bearings and Thorne.”

“My reasons shall be clear once we have fought,” Egan declared, raising his shield and advancing slowly on his lonesome while the mercenaries to his side engaged with the three girls.

John didn’t like these ‘bash first, declare intentions later’ people, but if that was how it was going to be. ‘Let’s just go all out from the start,’ John told everyone, and Aclysia charged the enemy with Marath, the red glow indicating that she was sacrificing life force to power the weapon up.

She jumped, raising the enormous weapon over her head and bringing it down. What use was a shield against such a massive weapon? The knight’s action presented a different question as the answer. What use was such a massive weapon if she couldn’t wield it properly?

Instead of using his shield to block the attack, the knight employed a trick. With the flaring of a strong aura, Egan, without moving his feet, simply slipped two steps further in existence. It was limited to short ranges, but it was the closest thing to teleportation melee fighters had access to and it was potent.

Aclysia crashed into the ground behind him. Immediately, Egan turned to stab at her exposed back. Before he could do that, the knight had to block a fist crashing into his shield.

“Sorry, but could you not touch John’s favourite familiar?” Smlere asked with a shy smile.

The knight was left to owe her an answer, as he pulled back his shield a slight bit and then bashed her hand aside with it. The sword now came for her, but a mass of black water stream parted around the volcano elemental and assaulted Egan from both sides.

‘A bit boring, but the go-to combo just works,’ John thought as Sinflut carried the knight back towards the water. If they could submerge him, his heavy armour would weigh him down and allow Sinflut to finish him off quite easily.

Egan had other plans. With a valiant scream his one-handed sword sliced apart the stream itself. He stormed through the gap he had made, directly at Smlere again, shield raised like a battering ram. The girl with the molten braid was ready to engage him. The moment it seemed like they were about to clash, the knight drifted one step to the right. Smlere’s punch hit nothing, causing her to lose her balance completely, delaying her chase. Sinflut and Aclysia were on the knight’s tail, but they wouldn’t reach him before he would get to John.

John assumed a stance and waited. ‘Two can play the expectation denial game,’ he thought. The shield crashed into Mana Protection. Instead of letting it rebound, Egan held it firmly in place, arcane sparks flying from the place where the flat, enchanted metal collided with the magical barrier.

John may have been much slower than the knight, but he was the one dictating the pace of engagement. To that end, his opponent wasn’t fast enough to break out of the situation he found himself in. When the barrier was suddenly deactivated, Egan found himself stumbling just one step forwards, one graceless step that John evaded easily, getting around the knight’s shield and pointing the palm of Purgatory at him.

“If you know the slightest thing about me,” the Gamer said. “You know that I have a spell that could kill you right now.” He was referencing the Mana Blade stored inside the clawed gauntlet, as strong as three times his maximum mana pool. While that origin was unknown to the knight, anyone who watched the tournament fights could be aware of that.

“I do,” Egan stated. He could have still tried to break out, but Aclysia, Smlere and Sinflut now surrounded him. Without momentum on his side, the knight would have a hard time getting out of this situation. Instead, he stood there frozen and talked, “You did not kill your opponent mercilessly. That is good. Do you allow me to ask you three questions? I have to warn you, if you agree, I will know when you lie.”

“There is a spell like that?” John asked. That would be quite useful if he could get his hand on it.

“Only an artefact bestowed to the order by Justitia herself, it can only be activated by the worthiest knight, once per person, for three questions, only when they agree to it, two days from the…”

“Okay, okay, I get it, there are a lot of limitations,” John interrupted, then thought about it. “…Sure, ask away.” Ultimately, if he didn’t want to answer a question, he would just shut up about it. If he understood the flow of this conversation correctly, then, if he answered the questions of the knight to his satisfaction, they could stop this meaningless fight and get back to helping the other girls drive out the remaining invaders.

“Do you intend only the best for the people of this land?”

“The best I know how to do.”

“When will you lie?”

“When it does more good than bad to all people involved.”

“Do you wish to rule the world yourself?”

“I want to do the right thing, get credit for it and spend my days fucking and playing video games.”

That last answer seemed to throw the knight off, judging the pause. Nevertheless, he nodded. “Fine then, the last knight of the Order of the Just finds you worthy. I shall no longer stand in your way.”

“What the fuck, Egan?!” Zimmothy screamed over. “Bearings will not let you get away with that!”

“Bearings will soon be no more, so what do I care?” Egan declared as he pointed his sword at the spearman. “As payback for this fight, I shall help you remove these invaders! Then I will vanish again, but I will always watch you from the shadows and judge whether you stay just!”

“Fine by me,” John said.