Ernst shook the captured elven spear.
Channeling a trace of magic into the runes etched along its shaft, he activated its mechanical sequence. The long weapon instantly shrank to a manageable one foot in length.
Ernst calmly stowed it away in his tactical pack.
"Alright, Prince Nuada," Ernst said, adjusting his cuffs.
"You are now my prisoner. And as a captive, you must act like one. Lead me to the Golden Legion, and I will spare your life as a reward."
Nuada hesitated. His golden eyes flashed with humiliation, but his mind raced.
The human was here for the Legion. If he led the human to the dormant army, perhaps he could find an opportunity to turn the tables.
"Very well," Nuada nodded stiffly.
With the false belief that an honorable warrior wouldn't harm him needlessly, the Prince willingly took the lead. Outwardly, his face was a mask of gloomy submission. Inwardly, he was seething.
'I will remember this disgrace, Nuada vowed silently.
'When I have the chance, I will shatter your body into a thousand pieces. No... that is too merciful. I will let you live to endure the cruelest punishment imaginable.'
Ernst couldn't read minds, but he didn't need to. He inferred exactly what the Prince was thinking from the subtle tightening of his jaw.
Ernst sneered internally. He hoped Nuada would prove clever enough not to overplay his hand. If the Prince tried something foolish, Ernst wouldn't hesitate to spill royal blood in the sand.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, the massive rock formations around them were actually a hundred dormant giants. Nuada approached the torso of one and tapped a rhythmic, magical sequence against its stone abdomen.
With a deep, grinding rumble, the stone split open, revealing a dark tunnel. The two stepped inside.
The tunnel gave way to a sprawling, subterranean expanse.
The stone walls were illuminated by bioluminescent roots and shimmering, ethereal plants.
The distant, rushing sound of water hinted at a massive underground river flowing through the dark.
As they progressed deeper, Ernst kept a watchful eye out.
He remembered the lore of this place, the Angel of Death, a winged entity with eyes on its feathers, who could foresee the past and future, resided down here.
Ernst hoped to encounter the creature, but the cavern remained quiet. He was left slightly disappointed.
Eventually, the narrow path opened up into a breathtaking, colossal chamber.
—-----
The Golden Chamber
There they were.
Standing in perfect, silent ranks were thousands of massive, circular metal constructs.
Three to four meters in height, the clockwork soldiers of the Golden Legion stood completely dormant in their deep sleep.
It was a mesmerizing sight of ancient mechanical engineering. For a brief second, Ernst's attention was genuinely captivated.
Nuada seized the microscopic window.
The Prince bolted, retreating at an incredible speed. Once he was at a safe distance near the cavern's exit, he turned and fled down a secondary tunnel.
The echoing sound of Nuada's footsteps snapped Ernst out of his reverie. Setting aside the dormant army for a moment, Ernst gave chase.
He wanted to see exactly what kind of trap the Prince was running toward.
Ernst trailed the Prince into a damp, echoing cavern dominated by a rushing underground river.
Nuada stood at the water's edge. He produced a glowing, emerald-green bead from his robes and tossed it into the rushing current.
The Prince turned, a vicious sneer replacing his former submission.
"Did you truly believe I would surrender so easily to an ant?" Nuada mocked.
"Our interaction was merely a matter of convenience. Now, human, I will make you regret every breath you've taken."
"Is that so?" Ernst asked calmly, coming to a halt.
"I'm genuinely curious to see what gives you the confidence to make such grand statements."
Just as Ernst finished speaking, the water erupted.
A massive, green, vine-like tentacle whipped out of the river. It was followed by a towering behemoth.
A magical treant, a fusion of dark magic and aggressive plant life, ascended from the depths. It stood over twenty meters tall, its body woven from thick, crushing vines and jagged bark.
Nuada laughed triumphantly.
"Regretting your arrogance now? It's too late. I will repay the shame you've brought upon me a thousandfold! Go, my servant! Crush him!"
Following the Prince's command, the colossal treant lunged.
It possessed three massive, trunk-like legs that rooted into the stone, showcasing an immediate, terrifying regeneration as vines snapped and instantly regrew.
Ernst leaped backward, maneuvering around the giant stalagmites with liquid agility.
He effortlessly evaded the massive, sweeping tentacles and thorn-whips that shattered the stone pillars into dust.
Despite the sheer scale of the monster, Ernst appeared completely relaxed. He even casually addressed the Prince while dodging a lethal strike.
"Hey! Haven't you realized the difference in our strength yet?" Ernst called out.
"You're incredibly naive if you think you can handle me with an oversized houseplant."
"Do not underestimate my creation!" Nuada shouted.
"I cultivated it personally. It is ten times sturdier than a regular elemental and boasts incredible self-recovery. Unless you can obliterate it in a single strike, it will regenerate endlessly!"
As if confirming the Prince's boast, the treant ripped a stalactite from the ceiling. Its own branches splintered and shattered from the exertion, only to rapidly knit back together within seconds.
"Well, you've done an excellent job with the botany," Ernst admitted, ducking under a sweeping vine.
"It would certainly take considerable effort to beat this thing to death with my bare hands. So, I'll opt for a simpler approach."
Displaying remarkable agility, Ernst danced around the cramped space. The treant's relentless attacks couldn't even graze his coat.
Utilizing the brief window he created, Ernst reached into his dimensional pack and withdrew a heavy, highly customized weapon.
It was a bulky, metallic rifle of his own design. He hoisted it onto his shoulder, aiming the heavy barrel directly at the treant's center of mass.
Prince Nuada, having roamed the human world for decades, recognized firearms. He scoffed.
No conventional human bullet could inflict lasting damage on the elemental.
Given its super-resilience, it would recover from ballistic trauma in seconds.
Yet, a prickle of unease ran down Nuada's spine.
The weapon looked completely alien, and Ernst's absolute confidence exerted an immense psychological pressure.
"Nuada, do you know what happens when you concentrate light to tens of thousands of times the intensity of the sun?" Ernst asked conversationally, his finger resting on the trigger.
"It's called a laser. It can cut through almost any known matter on this planet. Do you think your magic tree can withstand it? Or perhaps you don't even grasp the concept of focused photons. You've been left behind by the times, Prince. You are destined to be drowned in the ocean of history."
Ernst pulled the trigger.
A blinding, intense beam of concentrated light shot from the weapon's emitter.
It pierced the treant's thick, bark-armored chest instantly.
With a smooth, sweeping motion, Ernst dragged the laser beam horizontally across the monster's midsection.
The superheated beam sliced the twenty-meter giant cleanly in two.
FZZZT.
The weapon sparked and smoked in Ernst's hands as its internal power cell burned out.
It was a disposable prototype, destroyed by its own output.
The treant didn't even have time to roar. The top half of its massive body slid off its severed trunk and crashed backward onto the stone floor.
"No!" Nuada screamed, completely stunned by the ease with which his ultimate trump card was destroyed.
As the treant's dismembered corpse settled, an unusual, magical spectacle unfolded. The creature's concentrated life force bled into the sterile stone.
The two massive halves quickly took root, sprouting glowing flora in the dark cavern.
Within moments, the corpse grew into a lush, vibrant micro-forest.
Ernst casually discarded the ruined laser rifle, feeling a slight twinge of regret over the lost prototype.
He approached the new, glowing foliage, marveling at the intense biological energy. He reached out with his senses, locating the epicenter of the vigorous life force.
He walked into the dense center of the flora, right where the heart of the treant had been severed.
Digging into the roots, his fingers brushed against smooth, warm glass.
He pulled out a glowing, emerald-green crystal.
"This is truly remarkable," Ernst murmured, examining the gem.
"It is identical to the Wood Spirit Crystals described in Eastern mythology. Wearing this over time could grant near-immortality, cure absolute diseases, and extend a human lifespan by at least a century. If I can parse this energy and absorb it directly, it will drastically accelerate my own cellular regeneration."
Ernst slipped the priceless crystal into his pocket; his mood significantly improved.
He turned his attention back to the Dark Prince.
Nuada had dropped to his knees. With the death of his treant, all his hope had evaporated. Accepting this brutal reality was breaking his mind.
"How could this happen?" Nuada whispered to himself, staring blankly at the ground.
"I finally located the Golden Legion. Once I secured the crown, I would have commanded an invincible army. I would have utterly defeated the human race. I was only one step away from ruling this world. Why... why was I given hope, only to have it cruelly destroyed?"
Ernst walked up to the broken Prince, catching the tail end of his pathetic self-pity. He actually laughed.
"Stop daydreaming, Nuada," Ernst scoffed.
"Do you truly believe the Golden Army could conquer all foes and hand you the world? After living for thousands of years, are you really still this naive? Were you kicked in the head by a donkey as a child?"
Ernst's harsh words immediately ignited the Prince's fury. Defeated and broken, he couldn't tolerate being mocked by an ant.
The Golden Legion was his obsession, the final, sacred source of his royal pride.
Nuada stood up, glaring into Ernst's eyes, and shouted, "It is true! The Golden Legion can never be vanquished! Humans are no match for them, no matter how many armies you field! If it weren't for my father's pathetic soft-heartedness, yielding at the last moment to sign a peace treaty with your kind, we would already rule the world!"
Ernst shook his head with a look of absolute, pitying disdain.
"Honestly, I feel sorry for King Balor. To have a son as stupid as you..." Ernst sighed.
"While I don't know the exact politics of why your father abandoned the war, I am absolutely certain it wasn't out of 'soft-heartedness'. You don't build a machine of genocide if you're soft-hearted. It was a decision forced upon him. He saw something you didn't. He saw that you couldn't win."
"That is a lie!" Nuada screamed, his face twisting in denial.
"It's impossible!"
-------------
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