Chapter 43 I Need No Shield.

  Shamesh flew through the underground complex at the speed of a professional sprinter. He had memorized the map easily enough and followed it faithfully until he came across a gated off section. There was another fully armored individual guarding an iron security door set into the large grate-like wall that blocked his progress. Following his instructions, Shamesh flew feet first into the guard’s head. Shamesh didn’t weigh a lot, but he hit the person in their closed helmet so hard and so quickly, that their helmet sounded like a gong as it slammed against the iron bars. The guard was unconscious instantly from the impact as Shamesh lowered himself to the ground. His Shroud spell had shattered upon contact with another person but that was fine, there was no one else around to notice him. He cancelled his flight spell as well while he yanked the keyring from the guard’s belt.

  Finding the skeleton key that didn’t look like it had any enchantment marking on it, but was practically vibrating with them internally, Shamesh unlocked the door and walked through. Once on the other side, Shamesh closed it behind him. If he hadn’t, then after ten seconds, the entire area would go into lockdown. Lockdown was a series of reality walls and reinforcements that would be applied to everything around him. The protection would not be complete, because there were dozens of wards that would counter any magic cast in order to prevent escape via teleportation or disintegration of the barriers. Unfortunately, the wards meant that Shamesh couldn’t speak but he would make do.

  Shamesh approached the next gate and unlocked it with the iron key that was covered in silver enchantments, but when he unlocked it, he turned the key entirely around once, and then back halfway, so the teeth of the key were facing upwards. He then pulled the key back out through the illusory top of the lock and pulled the door open. On the other side of the door he was met with a small waiting area and a clerks counter with two people behind it. He walked inside and closed the door behind himself. He had the keyring clutched behind his back as he slowly walked up to the counter like he belonged there. The two people behind the counter were chatting with each other and hardly noticed the entering customer as they joked around.

  Right as the pair moved to look up at him, Shamesh vaulted over their desk and grabbed both of them by the face at the same time. With all the physical might of his Isaac and mana granted form, Shamesh slammed the back of the clerks’ heads into the wall behind them. Both were out instantly with heavy brain trauma and potentially skull fractures.

  Shamesh grabbed a key from under one of the now toppled stools, that the pair were using, and grabbed the other clerk’s wrist and began dragging them to the next security door. He wrapped the unconscious clerk’s hand around the handle and used the key. This one was disguised as a regular skeleton key but actually needed to be pushed entirely into the lock to disengage it. As long as the key remained in the lock, the room wouldn’t go into lockdown.

  The unconscious clerk’s hand was a necessary part of the security system but, once the door was unlocked, the clerk was no longer needed. Shamesh dropped the unconscious person and stepped over them as he pulled open the security door and walked inside. Once through the security door, Shamesh was met with a short walkway and then the vault door. He strode over to the massive steel vault door and placed his hand on the dial. Twice around to the right, stop on eight, once around to the left, stop on twenty eight, twice around to right and then stop on five. The large mechanical lock disengaged with a loud clunk. With both hands on the handle of the vault door, Shamesh heaved open the last obstacle separating him from his objective.

  —

  Lenna ran down two flights of stairs. Whenever she saw someone that did not instantly look like the scum of Primatia, she would shoulder slam them into a wall. Most survived, most, but none of them would be causing much of a problem for a little while. Those that did were left in two or more sizzling chunks. Eventually she found a solid steel door with a window of steel bars. Unfortunately, it opened towards her so she couldn’t just shoulder bash that down as well.

  Lenna brandished her sword and in three cuts, one vertical and the other two diagonal from the door handle to the opposing top and bottom corners, she relieved the door of its integrity. Lenna kicked the triangle cutout section in the middle of the door with everything she had and it flew into the room eliciting a scream of fright and agony. Lenna ducked through the opening and cut down a person to her right who had immediately swung at her with an ax. Her blade went through the haft of his two handed ax and half of his chest without slowing. It did, however, abruptly stop in the middle of the man’s heart as Lenna turned to regard him.

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  “More scum.” Lenna grumbled as the life fled from the man’s eyes and he dropped to his knees. Lenna stalked over to the woman that was now pinned under the triangle cutout from the door. Next to her, on the floor, was a bullwhip that was still slick with blood. “Occupation?” Lenna questioned the woman who just stared up at her blazing form with pure terror.

  “Torturer!” Someone yelled from the next room over.

  “Quiet!” A commanding voice silenced them with a loud rap on steel bars.

  “Good enough for me.” Lenna spoke and relieved the supposed torturer of her head before she turned to regard the commanding voice and its owner. Lenna was met by a man who was wider than a doorway and just as tall. He had a large beard but no other hair on his head. “A dwarven goliath, never thought I’d see the day.” Lenna commented as the man had to turn himself sideways to fit through the door and into the relatively small room that separated the cells from the rest of the underground complex.

  “You won’t see the next.” He replied and raised his fist. The man wore gauntlets that were reinforced with strips of adamantine that mirrored the skeleton of the man’s hands underneath. Other than the adamantine reinforced gauntlets, the man wore a set of enchanted chainmail, probably because nothing else would ever be able to fit him.

  Lenna looked up at the man a full foot taller than her and at least three times her weight, while she was in her armor. “Is that adamantine enchanted?” Lenna wondered while she settled into a fighting stance.

  “Is yours?” The mountain of a man replied and lowered his stance so it’d be easier to punch his shorter opponent.

  Lenna launched herself at him with a diagonal upwards cut backed with all of her aura and magically enhanced strength. While she did so she began chanting a spell. “The darkest-” Was all Lenna could get out before their first clash. A dull clank of metal on metal resounded as adamantine met adamantine. The back of a massive gauntlet took Lenna’s blow head on. A fist the size of Lenna’s head shot towards her face with far more speed than she was expecting. Lenna tilted her head and shifted her weight at the last second causing the fist to scrape against the side of helmet. “depths of-” She continued as she shifted into a lower stance and brought her sword into a high guard that aligned its blade with her opponent’s middle. Meaty claws scraped against the side of her helmet again as she just barely managed to get out of the way of the man’s open hand. It was instantly clear that he had planned on grabbing the back of Lenna’s head while retracting his extended arm.

  “ERRAAA!” The strongest man Lenna had ever seen bellowed as he made his next attack. The man’s left arm, the one that had been used to block Lenna’s first attack, shot up in an uppercut capable of tearing a man in half. Lenna shifted and tilted the tip of her sword downwards while stepping back into a different fighting stance. Her opponent’s fist skipped off the top of her sword and caught nothing but air.

  “my rage-” Lenna continued. She was about to try and counter attack, but before she could, the man’s left fist went from a missed uppercut into a hammer strike that slammed down on the top of her sword driving its tip into the brick floor.

  The man launched himself at Lenna at a speed that no one that large should’ve been able to move. She stepped back again into her regular fighting stance while bringing her sword back up into a high guard. Her blade was once again aligned with her opponent’s middle but this time her foot was solidly against the back wall. “are both-” She refused to stop casting her spell. She wished that the chant wasn’t so damned long, especially because there was a decent chance that she was about to take a hit.

  Lenna’s sword blazed even brighter as her opponent tried to knock it aside. An obscene amount of heat was transferred into the man’s left gauntlet that had made contact with her weapon multiple times and the steel beneath the adamantine struts began to visibly glow. He dropped his shoulder right before impact so it would impact Lenna’s face. Unfortunately for him, Lenna trained regularly with someone even faster and even stronger who also loved hand to hand combat.

  Lenna left herself open as she rotated out of the way of the incoming shoulder. Her left fist snuck up from his blind spot and drove into his hip with enough fire and physical power to drop a horse. Her opponent’s shoulder impacted the wall half an inch in front of her own shoulder only because her breastplate had skipped off the battering ram that was aimed for her head. Her opponent had tripped from her impact to his hip which is why his shoulder had even been at her chest height. Lenna had just barely managed to get her legs out of the way before his tree trunks barreled through behind the rest of his body. The brick wall that had been hit cracked and crumbled under the massive amount of force the man carried with him. Throughout it all, Lenna hadn’t stopped chanting her spell. “sword and-” She continued as she drug her blade across his middle while dancing away.

  Lenna’s sword abruptly stopped as a bellow of pain and fury rang out. She yanked on her sword but it wouldn’t budge. Right before she could plant her feet to try again, it was yanked from her hand and catapulted into the far wall. “armor,-” She continued despite the widening of her eyes in surprise. Her opponent shoved off of the wall and spun to face her. It was clear that he was favoring his right hip that she had hit, and his chainmail had been melted in a straight line across his middle, but he didn’t even look winded. Lenna finished her chant as she raised her fists to square off against him: “for I need no shield.”