Arknights: I'm Pretty Strong With Minecraft — Chapter 104

Chapter 104: The Patriot, Go See It For Yourself

Ivan closed his eyes, carefully tracking the volatile shift in his bloodstream. The Originium Arts that had just invaded his system flared up, sending a jagged stinging sensation crawling through his veins like a swarm of microscopic needles. He steadied his breathing, forcefully clamping down on the discomfort. Yet, beneath the pain, a surprising realization surfaced: his body was actively connecting with the Originium energy, adapting to the hostile magic rather than rejecting it.

“Come on,” Patriot’s voice rumbled through the shattered passage. It sounded like an ancient war drum, every halting syllable carrying the crushing weight of centuries. “Ivan… only… the living… can distinguish right from wrong.”

Ivan opened his eyes, a sharp glint of resolve cutting through the gloom. “Let’s go, Ender Dragon.”

“Finally! I’ve been waiting for you to say that!”

Fierce purple light erupted in the Ender Dragon’s eyes. An eerie, abyssal glow bled from her jagged horns as a storm of fine, violet energy particles began to orbit her body.

Across the corridor, Patriot slowly raised his massive, battle-scarred shield. Every gouge and blackened scratch across its surface was a silent monument to countless brutal wars.

Ivan and the Ender Dragon exchanged a single glance before launching themselves forward. Their silhouettes blurred, intersecting in mid-air to form a deadly, graceful arc. They slammed feet-first into Patriot’s raised shield with the force of a falling meteor.

The sheer kinetic impact forced the towering Wendigo to slide backward. His heavy metal sabatons carved deep, shrieking trenches into the deck plating until his back slammed heavily against the reinforced bulkhead. The metal wall buckled instantly, caving in to form a massive, human-shaped crater as spiderweb fractures violently ripped outward.

“So… so powerful!” Amiya gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth, eyes wide with shock.

Ivan landed in a smooth crouch. His right hand snapped to his hip, drawing the Fox Moon Blade. The cold, polished steel gleamed hungrily in the dim corridor light. In his left hand, he gripped the Blade of the God of War, its heavy, imposing hilt feeling entirely weightless in his grasp.

With a flick of his wrist, Ivan cast out his Fishing Rod. The translucent line whipped through the air in a tight arc, flawlessly hooking the hilt of the Blade of the God of War. Simultaneously, the Fox Moon Blade hummed, projecting dozens of ethereal Phantom Swords into the air, all locking their tips onto the Wendigo.

Yanking the fishing line, Ivan whipped the heavy blade forward in a devastating centrifugal strike. It crashed into Patriot alongside the relentless barrage of Phantom Swords, generating a blinding, metallic storm of slashing energy.

A deafening explosion rocked the passage, kicking up a choking cloud of pulverized concrete and dust. The entire street-level deck shuddered violently beneath their feet.

“Is it over?” the Ender Dragon asked, her glowing purple eyes narrowed at the swirling epicenter of the blast.

Ivan stared intently into the dust, his brow creasing. “His aura hasn’t dropped a single fraction.”

The smoke slowly drifted apart, revealing Patriot’s towering silhouette. He was still standing.

Worse, the horrific wounds across his armor were knitting back together at a visible, sickening rate. Jagged, crimson Originium crystals pulsed with a sinister light inside the gashes, writhing beneath his armor plates as if they possessed a mind of their own.

Kal’tsit’s sharp, clinical gaze locked onto the phenomenon. “That is active Originium!” she warned, her voice tight. “The crystals are forcefully repairing his damaged tissue. At this fusion rate… the infection has likely replaced the vast majority of his internal organs.”

Unfazed by the damage, Patriot slowly leveled his massive spear. Crimson Arts began to violently compress at the weapon’s tip, screaming with unstable energy.

“Resist me!”

With a thunderous step, Patriot hurled the spear. The sheer force of the throw cracked the deck open, tearing bottomless ravines through the steel floor. Wherever the projectile passed, the ground slagged and deformed, emitting a high-pitched, agonizing screech of melting metal.

The Ender Dragon planted her feet and took a deep breath, her chest expanding. She unleashed a roaring torrent of thick, violet dragon breath. The abyssal flames collided head-on with the spear in mid-air. A blinding flash of light erupted as the breath actually managed to deflect the massive weapon off its trajectory.

The spear careened into the distance, detonating with a shockwave that flattened every barricade and obstacle within a several-hundred-meter radius. Left behind in the corridor, lingering purple particles continued to eat away at the surroundings, corroding the heavy blast doors into sizzling, bubbling pits.

“How was that? Wasn’t I amazing?” The Ender Dragon panted heavily. Her face had gone a sickly pale, and the fierce glow of her horns flickered and dimmed.

Ivan closed the distance in a flash, wrapping an arm around her waist to support her swaying frame. “Amazing. But what’s wrong? Are you alright?”

“I finally understand why the others aren’t coming out right now,” she muttered with a weak, bitter smile, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead. “Manifesting my power out here drains me way faster than back in The End. Sorry… I need to rest for a bit.”

“Go take a breather,” Ivan said, his tone softening. “I’ll handle the rest.”

Nodding, the Ender Dragon gently pulled away and limped over to Amiya’s side.

Ivan turned back to the towering Wendigo and took a slow, steadying breath.

“With thought as the edge, will as the sheath. The heart unmoved, the blade already sings.”

A massive array of Phantom Swords materialized behind his back, fanning out like a pair of brilliant, unfurled wings. Each translucent blade pulsed with a cold, ethereal light.

Ivan swept his hand downward. The swords rained upon Patriot in a merciless deluge, accurately piercing through the gaps in his heavy armor with a grating, sickening sound of tearing metal and flesh.

“I cannot… stop fighting…” Patriot’s deep, rumbling voice pushed through the onslaught. The Originium embedded in his flesh flared with a blinding, desperate light, reacting to his sheer, unbreakable will. “Otherwise… their pain, their resentment, their sorrow… and their sacrifice… would all lose their meaning.”

Defying all logic, the giant stepped forward. He threw a massive, desperate punch aimed straight at Ivan’s head. The sheer velocity of the strike tore the air apart, the wind howling around the crushing blow.

Ivan didn’t dodge. He simply raised his left hand and caught the mountain-shattering fist in his open palm. The resulting kinetic shockwave blasted outward, sweeping away every piece of loose rubble in the corridor, but Ivan’s feet didn’t shift a single millimeter.

“You lose,” Ivan stated, his voice perfectly calm.

Unnoticed in the chaos, the Blade of the God of War was floating silently behind Patriot’s head, its razor-sharp tip pressed exactly against the base of the Wendigo’s skull.

“Borrowed Rosmontis’s Originium Arts for that one, by the way,” Ivan added with a faint, dry smile.

Patriot froze. He remained silent for a long, heavy moment before slowly lowering his arm. A deep, rattling sigh escaped his lungs.

“The outcome of this war… I hope you… can bear witness for me.” He looked down at the young man. “Kill… me.”

“I promise you,” Ivan replied, his tone losing its casual edge, turning solemn.

Before the final word even faded, Ivan moved. The Fox Moon Blade flashed into a streak of silver light, driving cleanly and accurately straight through Patriot’s heart.

“But,” Ivan whispered, “you should really go see it for yourself.”

Time seemed to grind to a halt. A fragmented montage of a long, agonizing life flashed through Patriot’s fading consciousness.

‘Helen…”Grozny…”I can finally… go home…’

He closed his eyes, ready to embrace the cold dark.

Suddenly, the Totem of Undying that Ivan had slipped him earlier activated. It spun wildly, emitting a high-pitched hum before detonating in a burst of blinding, emerald-gold light.

Golden, geometric patterns erupted from the epicenter, crawling across Patriot’s massive frame like living vines. The death he had welcomed was violently rejected. Instead, his ruined flesh began to knit together at an impossible speed. Even the deep-rooted, crystallized traces of Originium corrosion were aggressively purged, melting away and being replaced by healthy, unblemished flesh and blood.

“I told you. Go see it for yourself.”

Ivan sheathed the Fox Moon Blade with a sharp click. He looked up at Patriot’s utterly bewildered expression and offered a small, knowing smirk.

The golden particles slowly drifted away into the air, revealing Patriot’s perfectly restored chest. Only the jagged, gaping hole in his heavy armor remained—the sole proof that his death had not been an illusion.