397 Chapter 397: Asterisk War II

\"Ha ha ha! I've finally summoned my Castellan at last, Richard Huang!\" Wilhelm crowed. \"I've been looking forward to this! My robot versus your monsters…who will win?\"

I raised both my hands in surrender. \"It's your victory, bro.\"

\"Oh, come on…don't be like that. I'm expecting quite a lot of things from you!\" Wilhelm sneered. \"Go, my Castellan!\"

\"You call that a Castellan?\" I responded as I backed away from the robot, who dismissed its shimmering barrier. \"Where is his shieldbreaker missiles? His seigebreaker cannons? His pair of twin meltaguns? His plasma decimator? His volcano lance? He doesn't have any of those, he's not a Knight Castellan.\"

\"Don't go adding the Knight on your own!\" Wilhelm shouted in exasperation. \"You've been playing too much Warhammer 40,000! Ever since the nerf to the Castellan, when they bump his points up by 100 and reduced his maximum ion shield save to 4++, he has fallen out of the meta! Nobody uses the Knight Castellan in a competitive setting anymore! The meta is being dominated by Iron Hands or Raven Guard or other Space Marines now!\"

He then chuckled and gestured toward his Castellan, who conjured a massive weapon. A hammer materialized in his mechanical hand, and the huge robot casually rested it on his metallic shoulder.

\"But at least we'll be showing you the true power of a thunder hammer! They may have bumped the points of the thunder hammer up for Characters, but I can still turn my Castellan into an enhanced Smash Captain!\"

\"Oho…\" I closed my eyes briefly and straightened myself before smiling. \"No doubt you'll be a worthy opponent.\"

Then I drew both of my swords.

\"Heh…looks like Richard Huang is drawing both of his real swords for the first time in this team match! Does he have a plan up his sleeve?\"

I ignored the commentator and focused my eyes on the Castellan, who was still resting his hammer on his armored shoulder. We squared off, our sight not leaving each other, as if waiting for our opponent to make the first move.

The tension dragged on. Even the spectators had fallen silent, and I could practically sense them holding their breaths.

And then I charged forward. The robot responded in kind, his thrusters flaring as he seared a path across the arena to meet in the middle. His hammer smashed downward, and would have crushed me to a pulp had I maintained my current trajectory.

But I was more flexible than that.

I dove to the side at the last moment, evading his thunder hammer by a hair's breadth. Then I caught sight of a flicker from the Castellan's glowing green eyes and instinctively raised both Hei Yue and Bai Ri, crossing them to parry the massive hammer blow that he threw in my direction. With a grunt, I was sent crashing several meters away.

Striking the ground with a grunt, I rolled to soften the impact and throw myself back up to my feet, but the Castellan was towering above me, his hammer raised.

\"I've predicted all of your movements, including your evasive patterns and attack strategies, and programmed them into my Castellan!\" Wilhelm crowed triumphantly. \"There's nothing you can do!\"

\"We'll see about that. Black Tortoise!\"

Water gushed around me as a chibi Black Tortoise materialized over my shoulder. Raising Bai Ri with my left hand, I conjured an ice barrier that shattered almost immediately the moment the Castellan's hammer crashed into it, but it absorbed most of the blow and bought me more than enough time to escape.

I didn't just escape, though. Weaving through the deadly rain of frost fragments, I lunged forward and thrust Hei Yue at a gap in the Castellan's defenses, right at his midriff and before he could bring his bulky, unwieldy hammer down to protect himself.

The Castellan didn't need his hammer to parry my sword. Instead, a shimmering blue barrier appeared between us, deflecting my lethal blade to the side. I wasn't able to cut through it, but I persisted, using Black Tortoise's spells to freeze the barrier and cover it in ice.

\"It won't work!\"

At the side, Wilhelm laughed, dismissing my efforts to freeze the barrier. He was right, if my goal was to freeze the barrier…but it wasn't.

\"?!\"

Vermillion Phoenix soared above the distracted Castellan and incinerated him with flames from behind. The robot shuddered and crashed to a knee as he endured the inferno, his systems smoldering from the sheer heat.

\"I'd be offended if you forgot about me.\"

\"?!\"

Vermillion Phoenix was forced to pause his spell and dodged to the side as a laser beam scorched through the air where he was hovering earlier. Teresa had lifted her beam rifle up to fire off a barrage of laser blasts in his direction, disrupting his spell. Seizing the opportunity, Craig rushed past her to pierce the Castellan's barrier with his cursed spear. However, Teresa raised her other hand, which was similarly equipped with a second, identical beam rifle, and fired off another barrage of lasers in his direction, forcing him to veer off and deflect them with his twirling spear.

\"Your opponent is me.\"

\"You say that, but you went and fired off at Richard's monsters,\" Craig pointed out with a grim smile as a bead of perspiration dripped down his face.

Teresa was not moved. \"Unlike you, I have the luxury of engaging multiple opponents at once. Such is the superiority of our technomagic.\"

\"Oh, I'm so going to enjoy defeating you,\" Craig growled before he drove his spear at her. She darted away, her thrusters flaring to pull her out of range of his deadly cursed technique, and holding him at bay with her constant onslaughter of laser pulses. Craig cursed under his breath as he continued to deflect and block the bombardment. I wanted to help him, but I had more important things to worry about at the moment.

The Castellan hurled his hammer at Vermillion Phoenix, forcing him to fly to the side. While he did so, I slashed at him, forcing him to conjure his barrier again. Spinning around, I wreathed both of my blades in azure ice before slicing down on him, leaving a layer of ice frosting over his pixelated barrier. He then countered with his hammer, forcing him back, but I leaped on top of his giant mechanical arm, ran along the length of it, and then struck at his head.

The barrier appeared once again, thwarting my attempts to decapitate him, and then I was forced to do a cartwheel in midair to avoid his vicious counterattack when his thunder hammer swung through the space where I had been moments before.

A couple of purple laser blasts from Teresa's cannons seared through either side of me, almost catching me unawares, and I was forced to dodge. The Castellan sought to take advantage of that opening, but Vermillion Phoenix intervened and incinerated the space between the huge robot and me, forcing him to conjure his barrier once more. The devastating flames licked and curled across the shimmering barrier, but they remained ineffective against his impenetrable defenses.

\"Damn it. Craig, we're going to need to switch opponents!\"

\"I'm aware of that!\"

\"Like I'm going to let you!\"

Double purple laser beams crisscrossed the area between me and Craig, forcing our distance. The crimson spearman whirled about to thrust his spear at Teresa, but she let go of one of her beam rifles, which was automatically ensnared by a tiny mechanical clamp built into her power armor, and activated a close-ranged beam saber to deflect the weapon. Craig closed in on her, pursuing her, but she warded his strikes off skillfully with her beam saber while still somehow able to fire a couple of purple pulses in my direction when I attempted to attack the Castellan.

I didn't know why she bothered. I wasn't capable of penetrating the barrier of the Castellan. Perhaps she thought she could take me out with a lucky shot or something – that would make some sense.

However, if she thought I was an easy target, she had another one coming.

Pushing my glasses up my nose as I temporarily retreated, I reassessed the situation and rethought my strategy. Harrison's plan had bitten the dust, and like they all said, no battle plan survived contact with the enemy. That wasn't to say Harrison's schemes weren't correct. If we had been able to execute them properly, we might have scored a higher chance of winning. However, because it was the most efficient plan it was also just as predictable, and our opponents clearly had anticipated our moves and prepared accordingly.

The good news was that their plan to take our Craig didn't work out either, and he remained a dangerous thorn in their side. As long as he was still in the fight, neither Teresa nor the Castellan could take him lightly, which was why she was devoting so much effort into pulling his attention away from the robot.

\"Golden Kirin.\"

The ground shook tremendously as I pulled up my next trump card. Fire from above and earth spikes from below, the two spells striking out at the poor Castellan simultaneously. He smashed the earth spikes into oblivion with his thunder hammer while a shimmering barrier protected him from the rain of fire above. That had to be one hell of a defense there, to be able to withstand the full fiery might of Vermillion Phoenix.

His barrier was even stronger than Chang Cheng's Great Wall that I faced almost half a year ago. Chang Cheng himself had upgraded his barrier spells and become much stronger than before, but even with his increased protective spells I was hardpressed to say whether he was still the number one defensive mage. This Castellan certainly could give him a run for his money…or even quite possibly be the new number one.

Well, rankings and power levels were always in flux. Only narrow-minded readers thought that people would stay the same forever. I never understood why readers or some writers always thought the vilains, antagonists or rivals would for some reason remain at the same strength while the main characters grew stronger. Like…what were they doing in the meantime while the main characters trained? Slacking off? And why do readers love to assume that just because this guy (Craig, for example) was ranked lower now, he would always be ranked lower forever? I couldn't forgive those bastard commenters who insisted on calling him a mob or noob or trash character just because they couldn't pull their heads out of their asses and understand that power levels were never constant, rankings were never static, and statuses were fluid.

\"Ha ha ha ha! You can try casting all the spells you want, but you'll never be able to defeat my Castellan!\" Wilhelm shouted from afar. I wished I could take him out, but his puppet robot had placed himself squarely between me and his owner, and whaetever spells I threw at him would be intercepted by the dude's barrier. He had been programmed to protect Wilhelm no matter the cost, and with the durability of his armor and impenetrable barrier, I could see why his master wasn't worried about any damage the poor Castellan might sustain in the process.

At that moment, Craig was sent crashing several meters back when Teresa combined her beam rifles to send a single massive purple blast of light that broke through his defenses and scorched his arms. He rolled about in pain, and could only helplessly glance up as his opponent leveled her combined cannon at him.

\"Finally,\" she muttered.

\"Yup,\" I agreed.

\"?!\"

A flaming arrow exploded against her and would have taken her out if the Castellan hadn't throw his arm up to shield her with his powerful barrier. The flames engulfed the spherical barrier, which despite disrupting her aim and allowing Craig to roll away to safety, served its protective purpose. Spinning about, Teresa glared at me from behind the shimmering barrier.

\"That was close!\" Wilhelm murmured, resting a hand on his chest. He then reddened, and spluttered as he searched for an excuse to cover up his frantic gestures and worried expression, clearing his throat to conceal his embarrassment. \"If you get taken out, then there's nothing to stop the Demonic Spear from piercing through the barrier of my Castellan.\"

\"I'm sure that was the main reason you had your Castellan protect me,\" Teresa agreed, looking both amused and touched.

I wasn't going to bother with their romantic comedy, however, and this was the moment I had been waiting for. Both Vermillion Phoenix and Golden Kirin, already cued in onto my intentions through our mental and spiritual link, combined their spells and launched the Scorched Earth technique, engulfing the now vulnerable Castellan in molten lava.

\"Oh no! Damn it!\" Wilhlem yelled when his robot disappeared underneath red and black boiling magma.

\"Don't tell me this was their plan?!\" Teresa hissed. \"Attack me to force Wilhelm's Castellan to protect me with his barrier, and then take him out while he's without any defenses!?\"

\"No barrier is going to save you!\"

Hollering, Craig leaped upward and thrust his spear forward, easily cleaving through the shimmering barrier. Teresa was forced to whip out her beam saber to deflect his deadly cursed weapon away, and she was sent plummeting back to the ground. Her thrusters flared at the last moment, preventing an ugly crash that would have broken every bone in her body, and she soared away to relative safety, panting.

Meanwhile, the Castellan broke his way out of the boiling magma, his body armor smoldering and glowing red-hot. Huffing, he staggered toward me, his hammer swinging wildly around.

\"The hell?\" I growled. \"That robot's still not destroyed by that spell?!\"

\"Hah!\" Wilhelm looked immensely relieved. \"Looks like the durability of my Castellan's armor has surpassed the sheer firepower of your trump card! It's over now!\"

\"No, it might not be…\" Teresa swallowed as she landed beside Wilhelm, the jets of her battle armor spluttering. \"Your Castellan has suffered tremendous damage. I'm not sure he can withstand another spell like that.\"

\"Then what do you propose we do?\"

\"We have no choice…\" Teresa clenched her fists and looked down. Wilhlem raised an eyebrow, and then brightened up.

\"You're right! It's time for us to use our trump card!\" he turned back and grinned at me and a battered Craig. \"It's our turn to counterattack now!\"

\"Trump card?\" Craig repeated incredulously as he leaned on his spear. Tereas grimaced as she nodded.

\"Honestly, I would rather not use it if I don't have to. It's not a technique we use lightly. However, in order to defeat the both of you for sure, there doesn't seem to be any choice.\"

She then raised her combined cannon and fired a massive burst into the air. The next second, the whole arena vanished in a blinding light as hundreds of orange laser beams rained down upon our positions.