The Amber Sword

The Pendulum Golem’s body was creaking, yet he stood tall to speak to his companion, "My dear comrade, all this that is going on is a battle between the Planeswalkers. It had always been since the beginning of the century. And we can do nothing but to obey it. Master had pursued such a world her entire life, existences like her, who can simply utilize the Laws of the world. As such, we have nothing but revere against the entire system.”

The Pendulum Golem shook its head, "I may be powerful to most, but on the battlefield, we were no different.”

"You paranoid bastard!" Ina stomped the ground, pointed her finger at the Pendulum Golem and shrieked, "Pendulum Beast! you will regret this! I’ll defeat you this time and then I’ll step on your fictional vain on the ground, you stupid fool! Apprentice planeswalker, let us defeat that rin brain!"

Brendel glanced back at Ina. He more or less knew the reason she was so pissed.

The Pendulum Golem, nearing its final moments, stood with pride at its location. The two had been fighting one another for a thousand years, but instead of saying the two as archenemies, they were friends with varying ideals. However, it was beyond Ina’s imagination that it would be willing to give up its life.

Her heart was cold, some sort of indescribable rage boiling within her. She looked back and met Brendel’s sorry gaze, “Planeswalker?”

He was looking at the sky, or demise to be exact. The shadow behind the door was a myth, a creature that left its mark in The Amber Sword, The Destroyer of the Plains. An unbeatable god that was born since the start of civilization.

Just the mere presence of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn made the air so suffocating it was hard for Brendel to breathe.

"We can’t defeat this thing." he understood that his chances were zero in defeating that thing.

"I still have another Coliseum of Fate. It’s a Colorless Divine Card. It will certainly work on Emrakul. Can you defeat the Pendulum within thirty-no, twenty seconds?”

"You mean those...?" Brendel’s eyes turned to the remaining underlings of the Pendulum Golem. Three Devils, a few Death Sentinels, and the remaining were Nightmare Forges. Even the Devils posed a problem to him, no to mention the other troops.

It was best to run away in this situation. But looking at ina’s brightened gaze, Brendel found himself choking on his own words, "I don’t know. This will be difficult and I have no confidence in winning." The truth remained stuck in his throat.

"That’s good enough a promise. I’ll leave it to you I guess. It doesn’t matter if we lose or win, but I hope you’ll give it your all. Count it as me owing you one this time" Ina spoke softly. She arched her head back to look at the Pendulum Golem, her eyes lit up with dancing flames, "I will have to try this time regardless of anything. This may be the last fight between the two of us and I don’t want to leave behind any regrets."

"I got it," Brendel nodded. To be trusted upon by someone always made him feel pumped.

He placed his hand on the Cards once more.

The Pendulum Golem was watching like a bystander. It did not speak, but quietly witnessed the two as they made their final struggle. Under its control, Emrakul had already entered the battlefield. The pressure it emanated paled everyone’s complexion- all except for Andrea.

Ina looked at Pendulum Golem for one last time.

And then she threw her Card. Golden light enveloped all her summons, including Emrakul and herself. Brendel could not see what was going on beyond the veil. It was as if they got transported to another world, separated from them.

That might actually be good.

Brendel was relieved when the pressure was gone.

He currently had Ropar, two undead Archangels, Andrea, and the Wind Spirit Spiders and Holy Swords. How could he fight? On his deck, he also had Sprint Drive, Golden Battle flag, Ekronian Spellweaver, and Vampire Baron. But neither of them were useful in the situation. The best combination would be summoning the Vampire Baron to give Andrea a buff, but he did not have anymore Dark EP.

One second passed as his mental circuits fired.

Brendel looked up to see the Golem staring back at himself --The Archangels could fly and would be able to reach the Golem directly. However, the two of them were only level 20 elites and would not be useful. Even Andrea and Ropar could not best a Devil. His only way was to use the Wind Spirit Spiders and the Holy Swords to overpower the lightning orbs, but it was necessary to deal with the Nightmare Forges first. Even if he accounted for his own participation, he did not see his victory. Despite keeping up a poker face, his thoughts were fired at high speeds.

He did not manage to find a plan that would lead him to victory, but time was already running out.

"Screw planning. Let’s go all out!." He raised his sword and sucked in a large gulp of air, "Charge!"

Pillars of light smashed into the group of Nightmare Forges, in which multiple shots of lightning orbs were fired to counter it at the same time. The Nightmare Forges glowed a golden red, and exploded into a pile of metallic liquid. Meanwhile, battle sparks lit up the hall as the Wind Spirit Spiders fell like raindrops.

Within the ‘rain’, Ropar and Andrea clashed with the Pendulum Golem’s Death Sentinels and Devils. A beam of light flashed across the hall-Brendel had used the Sprint Drive card on the two of them. With that power boost, they decapitated their first victim, a Devil, in an instant.

At the same time, Brendel was facing off against his own opponent as well. It was the Devil with a gigantic sword embedded in green flames, the one who fought against the Platinum Dragon from before. The Devil was about as strong as a Platinum Angel, his sword swipe sent a sharp pain ringing in Brendel’s ears. He did not dare take the attack head-on and thus stepped back before activating the Nine Luminaries Sword Art. The sword cut through the illusion, pausing momentarily when the attack ended. With that slight opening, Brendel, with all his experience, activated the Dash skill atop the sword and did a flip before landing behind the Devil’s back.

As he was still mid-air, he swapped positions with one of the three illusions. Inheriting all of the original’s skills, the three illusion dashed at the monster from different directions. However, the Devil was a creature that matched Veronica’s skills with the sword. It shrieked and forcefully pulled back his sword, and then swung it over his head. All the illusions disappeared.

But Brendel was already directly behind the Devil. He raised Halran Gaia, shouted as he cleaved the Devil’s back. However, the Devil possessed the Steel Element Power that it used to shield his back. The blade was repelled upon contact, leaving only a faint mark at the beast’s back.

But things did not with just that. He used the Art once more to conjure seven illusions that struck a singular spot, and metallic clashings echoed throughout the hall. However, the last strike connected, purple colored blood unique to Devil’s oozed out, causing it to scream in agony.

"Shut up! What are you screaming for?! Never would I have believed that a mob from back then would be so hard to deal with right now!." Brendel cursed because he found his sword embedded into the devil and was impossible to be removed. At this moment, another Devil had rushed to help its subordinate.

"My Lord!" Ropar warned.

"En?" Andrea suggested if he needed any help.

"Don’t mind me! Go and destroy the Pendulum Golem!" Brendel bellowed furiously, attracted the attention of two other Devils. This was his only shot at winning. He held onto his sword and sacrificed his chance to dodge. He took up the full brunt of the attack.

“Puuh.” The sword embedded itself into his torso.

"Gaaaaah!" Brendel screamed as the fires were burning his insides up. An Elemental Attack was really scary. Just one sword hit almost sent him to meet his maker. The Unyielding Talent activated and his vision began to flash red, full of warnings that his health is hitting the bottom line.

Between gritted teeth, he blasted the Berserk skill and activated the inheritance of the Dragon of Darkness doubling his stats, and his strength increased several times. He roared out loud as he pulled out his sword from the corpse, the sword edge still sticking with purplish goo and muscular structures. Brendel’s eyes were bloodshot as he used all his strength to swipe at the Devil behind him. The poor fella probably never expected someone who would fight in such a barbaric manner and did not anticipate the need to dodge. His face took on the brunt of the Piercing Skill that was followed by the Nine Luminaries Sword Art: Triple Slash-- and it burst open like a smashed tomato. After all, it did not have the steel element.

-53460 XP received. It was really comical for the notification to appear at the moment. Brendel had no more strength to bother with it anyway.

With one swipe, he resolved one of his biggest issues here. But he did not come out unscathed as well. He seemed as if he were on the verge of collapsing into the pool of blood that formed around him. With one hand to drag the Halran Gaia, he used the other to gulp down a Health Potion No. 7. His wounds were patched up, but it was clear that he lost too much blood. He was panting heavily, only to see another Devil turning to look at him.

Despite both of them being gravely injured, they were itching for battle.

However, Brendel did not lose his sanity and slowly retreated, attempting to have some distance away from it. He could see the tag team of Andrea and Ropar getting close to the Pendulum Golem and was about to strike him down. Victory was soon in their grasp, but none of them expected the flash of darkness that came from the Pendulum Golem’s hand, and the entrance of another Devil into the battlefield after the light show. One that looked exactly like the Devil that Brendel had struck down.

That bastard can revive the dead!

Brendel’s fell into despair. He had spent all his Cards, but the enemy was just too much for him to handle. He had given his all and, unregretfully, he had held up to his promise. Truthfully, he did not feel any abhorrence against the Golem. Between the two, he only felt respect for his opponent. His skills were uncomparable to the monster’s, so there was no one to blame for beside Brendel himself.

All that’s left is the final struggle.

Wanting to leave behind no regrets, he looked at his hand. He had the Vampire Baron, Ekronian Spellweaver, the Silver Colt, and the Golden Battle Flag. He could not summon the Vampire Baron, The Ekronian Spellweaver and the Silver Colt were useless as well.

But he had a tingling feeling about the Golden Battle Flag. The Card was given to him by the Tumans. While their time together cannot be considered short, he had never used it before. After all, the card was really trash. It required 5 Light EP to activate, and yet it could only increase the level of all his summons by “one”.

The difference between one level did not really matter a lot. And while the card was not too expensive to activate, he did not really have a lot of LIght Land Cards.

Normally, he never cared to look at the card. But upon studying it, he paused for a few precious seconds.

Wait a second. The Alliance of City-states I?! How can this card be the core of the deck? How is that possible when it merely raises the levels of my summons by 1!

Brendel was confused. How can that Card be the core of his deck? The Alliance of City-states had always seemed to be an unorganized deck having Cards like The Mercenaries of Lopes, The Golden Mine, and the Sprint Drive. There just does not seem to be any powerful Cards in the deck and it cannot even compare to the Paradise of Adversity. Even the Flame Tribe and the Visionary Artifact decks were better than it.

He was hesitating, but time was running out. Whether or not it was a core Card or not, it could raise his summons’ levels by one. And that was enough for him. He was trying not to have any regrets in his life as he took out the Card that he had and was about to activate it.

That was when it happened.

The normally emotionless Pendulum Golem had a shocked expression on his face.

He stared at Brendel unbelievably and even dropped the staff in his hands.

"You..!" It bellowed, sounding defeated somehow.

“Me?” said a shocked Brendel as he continued, “What is it about me?”

The Pendulum Golem pointed to the Card in his hands, accompanied with a terrified look, "Legendary! How can you have a Legendary Card?! Impossible! You’re just an apprentice! That’s impossible!"

If it was not for the seemingly incredible act that he was playing through, Brendel would have thought it was mocking him. The Golem was definitely in a winning position, but now it looked as if he was about to lose the fight. Even when Brendel felt that the odds were all in his favor, the Golem was unfazed. But now...

He stared at the card in a daze. How can this Card even be strong? But Brendel was a smart person. He noticed the Golem’s odd expression and knew that something was definitely amiss. While he did not know what it was, he raised the card high up in the air.

It was then.

A blinding golden light flashed across the place, a rectangular flag with the white emblem of the Alliance of the City-States appeared in his hand, shining with golen light. He was standing soaked in blood with Halran Gaia in his right hand, and a golden flag in his left. His appearance, under the light of the Flag, had a striking resemblance to a general.

Then, a miracle happened.

Within the radiance, Brendel could see all the change that was happening to his summons and comrades. Ropar suddenly grew out a bone armor that covered his entire body, with spikes protruding out of it. The trident in his hand also became a hot red halberd with runes inscribed onto it. His flames rose in temperature, and Brendel knew that he could finally unlock his Elemental Power.

A high-grade Fire Elemental Power.

Meanwhile, Andrea’s evening gown had changed into a lavish dress that seemed to be for a princess. A befitting set of chest armor was matched to it, along with a pair of dark gauntlets. Her shoes had also changed into a pair of high heels made of steel. Her eyes, one with green and the other with red, was burning with flames under her battle-state. It was evident that she unlocked her Elemental Powers as well.

But the biggest change happened to the Wind Spirit Spiders. When Brendel arched his head up, he did not see any Spiders. There were only Wind Spirit Dragons there, a pseudodragon. Albeit being only level thirty or so, with their numbers, they could make up any weakness they had individually. The Holy Swords, on the other hand, turned into armor befitting the marvelous dragons.

"This...”

Brendel suddenly went blank. Was there such an epic change when the level was increased by 1? Am I still dreaming after being knocked out by the Devil? Or perhaps there was an error with the Planeswalker’s system? Just before he was about to check the system’s menu, he could hear a terrible screech.

"Brightman’s Flag! The Alliance of the City-states! Planeswalker Tuman!" The Pendulum Golem seemed like he was about to tear his face apart as he glared at Brendel, "You....... You’re Tuman’s apprentice!"

Brendel was still in a daze. That was because he had opened the Planeswalker’s menu from his system. In that instant, he understood the true effect of the Golden Battle Flag.

The Wind Spirit Spider and Holy Sword Cards had turned into silver, while the Fireclaw Chieftain and Andrea’s card had turned into a gleaming golden. He could hear his heart rumbling, So this what it meant! So misleading!