The sword felt like a lead ingot in his hand.
Borin, with the grim reluctance of a man following a distasteful order, had handed him a simple steel arming sword. To the giant warrior, it was likely as light as a dinner knife. To Arthur, it was a clumsy, heavy, and utterly useless length of metal. The plate armor, which had felt merely cumbersome in the tomb, now felt like a mobile prison, chafing at his neck and restricting his every movement.
He was a symbol. A porcelain figurehead being shoved into the front lines of a meat grinder.
As he was marched through the cavernous, torch-lit corridors of the hidden fortress, the reality of Gideon's gambit settled in. This wasn't a test. It was a sentence. An execution cleverly disguised as a heroic last stand. The few soldiers they passed, clad in mismatched leather and steel, gave him wide-eyed, reverent looks. They saw the golden-haired hero from the legends. They didn't see the terrified, calculating man inside, whose heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He's using their faith as the murder weapon, Arthur thought, his mind a cold oasis of clarity in a sea of panic. If I die, it's a hero's tragic end. If I refuse to fight, I'm a coward, and his political position becomes unassailable. A perfect, no-lose scenario for him.
They arrived at the breach. It was a wide, jagged hole torn into the western wall of a massive cistern cavern. Sand and rock poured in from the dark tunnel beyond, forming a treacherous slope. A dozen soldiers stood behind a hastily erected barricade of stone and sharpened metal, their spears trembling. The air was thick with the ozone stench he remembered from the battlefield and a new, acrid smell, like burnt chitin. A high-pitched, chittering screech echoed from the darkness, a sound that grated on the nerves.
Gideon gestured grandly with one hand. "Behold, Hero. Your battlefield. The vanguard awaits its commander."
Borin stepped forward, planting his feet wide and gripping his axes. "I will hold the center," he growled, a promise and a challenge.
The soldiers looked at Arthur, their faces a mixture of desperation and awe. This was his stage. Gideon had handed him the script and expected him to play the part of the sacrificial lamb.
Arthur didn't move. He didn't raise his sword. He let his eyes sweep over the scene, his mind dissecting it not as a soldier, but as a strategist assessing a hostile boardroom.
The barricade was too thin in the middle. The spearmen were clustered, their backs to the cavern walls, leaving no room to maneuver. Their morale was brittle. One good shock and they would shatter.
"This is not a defense," Arthur said, his voice quiet but carrying an unnatural weight. "It's a eulogy."
A notification, unseen by anyone else, shimmered in his vision.
[Unique Trait: Heart of a Tyrant has been passively activated by the user's intent to command.]
Gideon's one eye narrowed. "What did you say?"
Arthur turned his head slowly, pinning the Minister with a gaze that suddenly felt ancient and incredibly heavy. The feigned confusion was gone, replaced by an aura of absolute, chilling authority. The System wasn't just a screen; it was a current, and he could feel its power flowing through his voice, his posture.
"Your 'vanguard' is a death trap," Arthur stated, his voice cutting through the tension. "You two," he pointed to two spearmen on the far left, "get up on that ledge. Now. Your spears are useless in a crush but deadly from above. You four," he gestured to the cluster in the center, "split into pairs. Reinforce the flanks. Use the cistern walls as an anchor. You will not break."
The soldiers hesitated, looking from Arthur to Gideon, their captain forgotten.
"This is no time for speeches! They're coming!" Gideon hissed, his composure cracking. "Take your place and fight!"
"My place?" Arthur took a step towards the Minister, forcing the older man to instinctively recoil. "My place is not to be a fool with a sword, getting in the way of men who actually know how to use one. My place is where I can see the enemy, read their patterns, and direct our strength. That is how Kaelan won his battles. Or has your hatred for the man made you forget the legend, Minister?"
He had him. It was a classic political trap. To argue against strategy was to appear incompetent. To argue against the 'legend' was to appear blasphemous to the soldiers.
Arthur turned to Borin. "You are the center. You are the rock. But a rock is useless if the tide simply flows around it. Hold them, but do not charge. Let them break upon you."
He then faced the soldiers, his voice dropping into a commanding register that demanded obedience. "I am not asking you to die for me. I am ordering you to live for this city. Follow my commands, and you will see the sunrise. Now, to your positions!"
Galvanized by his unshakeable confidence, the men scrambled to obey. Gideon stood frozen, his face a mask of pure fury, utterly outmaneuvered.
Just as the last soldier took his place, the first creature burst from the tunnel. It was a horrifying thing, the size of a large wolf, with six scythe-like legs and a segmented, iridescent carapace like a beetle's. Sand flew from its powerful charge.
"First beast, Borin!" Arthur commanded. "Let it come!"
The Sand-Reaver shrieked and charged the center. Borin met it with a roar, one axe swinging in a low, brutal arc that shattered its front legs while the other came down like a guillotine, splitting its armored head.
Two more scrambled out, veering for the flanks.
"Flanks, hold! Brace spears against the wall!" Arthur's voice was a lifeline of cold logic in the chaos. The soldiers, anchored as he'd ordered, met the charge, spears sinking deep into the creatures' softer underbellies.
From above, the two spearmen jabbed down, forcing the Reavers into the kill zone.
It was working. It was a brutal, ugly, and desperate affair, but it was a controlled chaos. Arthur watched, not as a participant, but as a conductor, pointing out a weak leg, a moment of hesitation, an overextended claw. He felt a familiar thrill—the thrill of bending others to his will and watching his plans unfold to perfection.
After a grueling ten minutes, the last of the initial wave lay dead or dying, its ichor pooling on the stone floor. The soldiers were breathing heavily, but they were alive. They looked from the monster corpses to Arthur, not with reverence now, but with a raw, dawning respect. Borin wiped green blood from his axe, giving Arthur a curt, appreciative nod.
Gideon was seething, his trap not only foiled but turned into a stage for his rival's triumph.
Before anyone could speak, a new sound echoed from the deep darkness of the tunnel. It was a low, guttural chittering that vibrated through the stone, a sound a dozen times louder and deeper than the shrieks of the smaller beasts.
Borin's face went pale under his beard. "That sound… Gods above, no."
Arthur felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold stone. "What is it?"
"A Broodmother," the big warrior rasped, his knuckles white on his axe handles. "They never come to the surface."
As if on cue, the blue screen flared in Arthur's vision, drowning out the cavern.
[URGENT QUEST ISSUED: THE TYRANT'S FIRST DECREE]
Objective: Survive the Broodmother's assault. Seal the breach.
Reward: Unlock Class [Sovereign], 1x [Skill Point].
Failure Penalty: Permanent Death.