Mythical Artifacts

Chapter 21: Battlefront

We tumbled to the damp ground. Surrounding us were thin, rocky pillars that rose higher than the hedges, circling a single pillar in the center. The hedges stopped right at this strange scene, and where they stopped, paths of dirt began. Indeed, we were in the maze, but this was a different part of it. Kiqy took out her compass, which was curiously pointing to the central pillar. So we were at the world's spawn point. She opened her mouth to mention it, but a lightning bolt struck in the distance, distracting her.

The pillars were made of different stonish blocks, making the pillars look as if they were on the verge of crumbling to pieces. And perhaps they were. Despite the strange monoliths, the space was mostly open. It strangely seemed like an ideal place for a battle . . .

Right. Supreme_moo had been preparing us for a battle. It was beginning to make a lot of sense. The only thing that didn't make sense was, if a battle was gonna happen, why wasn't anybody coming through the still-open portal? Were they letting us escape? Did they not want to come here?

As my teammates continued surveying the area, I sat down up against a pillar, facing the portal from a distance. Thinking. What had Supreme_moo done, abandoning us? Was it part of the plan, a part that he never told us about, or was he actually against us? I found it hard to believe that it could be anything other than how he had described it, from Hypixel's lies to everything about The Sword. It all had made sense. Surely Supreme_moo was still on our side . . . but that's not what it felt like.

"They're not coming," said Melon, as if it weren't obvious. "Don't they want to get us?"

"Unless it's a trap," said Typo. "I assume Supreme_moo was helping them all along. That wouldn't make sense, though. Nothing makes sense."

"I still wanna trust him," I said, "but you're right. None of this makes sense."

"It could be his plan," said Mine. "He could be on our side still."

"Put emphasis on could," said Kiqy, who was staring at the ground. Her eyes went to me. "Everything about this is worrying. I'm scared that they're going to come through the portal any minute, and we will be forced to either fight or surrender."

Right as she finished uttering surrender, they indeed came out the mouth of the portal. Rezzus landed gracefully on the ground, with enchanted — probably heavily enchanted — armor on and a similar diamond sword in hand. Then came Codename_B. RobityBobity. Hypixel. And to my surprise, eight more people came out, just as heavily geared. Twelve against six.

They did not hesitate. Even before they all came out, they began charging at each one of us in pairs of two. Coming toward me was Kualdir and Cherubily. Luckily there was already distance between us, otherwise I wouldn't have had time to start running — which is what I did. I tried running, away from the pillars and toward one path through the maze. But behind me I heard one of them: "There's a wall of staff a far way off." Oh, so that was how it was going down. We were stuck in this battlefield, with no way out.

I quickly turned around and lifted The Bow in their direction. I lingered momentarily, then released it, letting it fly toward one of them. It hit Kualdir's arm, making him stumble in his chase from the knockback. But it didn't seem to hurt him, as both of them continued toward me. I considered melee combat, but I kept at it with my bow, shooting arrow after arrow at them. The knockback prevented them from getting near, but eventually they took out their own bows — highly enchanted — and began shooting back.

For a while we exchanged arrows, as I tried to dodge theirs and they did their best to do the same with mine. We occasionally got hits on each other, evenly matched it seemed. Thankfully I had strong armor, making the pain minimal, but it kept growing slightly with every arrow that hit me. I felt sure that it was the same with them.