"Exactly," Lanmar nodded, the ivory of his teeth flashing in a savage grin.
"Imagine a group of ten thousand humans randomly picked, fighting against three other races which had their ten thousand mbers properly trained and strictly selected... You have zero chance, kiddo, just accept your fate and surrender to the inevitable..."
John raised a hand to stop the talkative Lanmar, pointing at a grand realisation he threw casually at him. "You are telling there are ten thousand of each race in here?"
"Yes, that’s the threshold," Lanmar thought John and others were falling into the depths of despair, so he took the chance and added more weight to their misery.
"Ten thousand exactly, not a single one more, not a single one less! Imagine, ten thousand elite Bulltors versus ten thousand randomly picked, soft-skinned humans. It’s not a war; it’s a one-sided massacre."
"And that also includes humans in the pocket trial we are currently in?!!" John asked again, this ti his eyes were shining brighter than ever with the sudden and pleasant realisation.
"Ah, about that," one of the Bulltors read through his leader’s intentions, so he tried to act smart and joined the talk, wanting to crush the last spark of hope.
"In this trial, there are four races: Humans, chanical hivemind beasts and insects, Bulltors, and Drogers. Aside from you and the Drogers, the pathetic fallen races, this trial’s competition fell under only the two of us: Bulltors and the chanical hivemind beasts and insects!"
Seeing the Bulltor’s words left a heavy impression on the five humans, making them fall under a heavy, suffocating silence. Another Bulltor mistook the silence for sothing else—total despair.
"Just give up, humans and Drogers have no chances at all! By now, the entirety of your race population must have been either killed or enslaved by magical contracts by us or the chanical hivemind beasts and insects. You are the last stragglers, the forgotten crumbs of a failed species..."
"Enslaved by magical contracts?!" John’s heart suddenly clenched, and he tried to fake it as hard as he could, putting a scared, trembling look on his face. He needed to know more about this magical contract.
Seeing his face drop and the strong front he put on since they t him lt under these words made Lanmar puff his chest with renewed vigour. The power dynamic was shifting back in his favour, or so he thought.
"These are contracts given to us by the hidden force behind the trials," he paused, trying to give his next words the weight and impact he wanted.
"See, just using one drop of blood from you over one of my contracts, and you’ll be forced to say the truth, do everything I order you to, and never betray ! In brief, it’s a privilege given to higher species like us, not to so fallen races like you who are only fit to be tools..."
"I bet these are quite pricey!" Reading through John’s act, Cissel was the fastest to chi in and help. She widened her eyes, playing the part of the terrified girl perfectly. "They must be quite rare! Surely you don’t have many of them?"
"No kiddo, they are not!" Lanmar puffed his chest even further, slowly standing up as the end of his torture and embarrassnt was drawing near in his eyes. "They are quite cheap, and all of us coming here must buy lots of them!
We know the importance of eting a fallen race—not you, of course, you humans are useless and weak! But those Drogers... They are masters in blacksmithing, a really skilled race which adds lots of value to anyone taking them in.
They are quite smart to know on their own they’ll fail, so they announced it... They won’t compete against anyone, will serve the ones winning any pocket trial, a great bonus for any winning race, and a huge luck to end up in the sa trial as them. We use the contracts to ensure their total loyalty while they forge our weapons..."
John’s features shifted instantly. The panicked, pale mask he had been wearing dissolved, replaced by a fierce expression that chilled the air more than the fog ever could.
"So, in other words," he drawled, his voice dropping into a dangerous calm tone, "if we take those contracts from you, we can use them to turn every one of you into our minions."
The words hit the Bulltors fiercer than the brown fog lightning. Lanmar, who had been halfway to his feet in a display of returning confidence and authority, froze. He slowly sank back to the ground, his face draining of colour as if his very soul were being stolen away.
John didn’t give him a chance to recover. He leaned in, closing the distance until he was whispering directly into Lanmar’s ear. "Think about it, my dear Lanmar. These contracts will force you to follow , fight for , and work for until the day you rot.
So, here’s your choice: do you want to be the leader of my new squad of Bulltor slaves? Or should I demote you and let you spend the rest of your pathetic life as a worthless piece of filth, taking orders from one of your subordinates?"
John didn’t keep his voice low for the last part. He made sure every captive heard what he said. He stepped back, standing with the relaxed posture of a true victor, watching as the weight of their situation finally crushed the giants’ spirits.
"Never!" Lanmar roared, though his voice shook with a terror he couldn’t hide. "Don’t give him anything! Even if they kill us, our race will hunt them down! They will make them suffer for this insult!"
"Tsk." John didn’t even blink. He glanced at his teammates, seeing the sa gleam in their eyes. "Go and search the bodies of the ones I killed earlier," he commanded, gesturing casually toward the battlefield. "My dear Lanmar says they ca well-prepared. That ans they must be carrying storage devices similar to ours."
Lanmar burst into hysterical laughter, the sound jagged and desperate. "Hahaha! You won’t get a single scrap! Our storage devices are blood-linked! You can’t access a single item without our approval. And the ones who are dead? They’re even worse! You can’t exactly ask a corpse for permission, can you? Hahaha!"
The other ten Bulltors joined in the laughter, a mocking chorus intended to discourage their captors. They were certain the magical contract’s absolute binding rule was an impenetrable wall against a John and his friends.
"Linked by blood, you say?" John’s eyes shone with an intense light. Rather than discouraging him, Lanmar’s revelation had provided the lead he needed. "That’s not a problem at all. In fact, it makes things easier. Go," he told his friends, "collect every storage device on the field, including the ones from these eleven right here."
John pointed a finger directly at the golden bracelet on Lanmar’s arm. The gesture was so confident that the leader’s laughter died in his throat.
"I won’t give you permission! Not even if you threatened to kill , not if you killed everyone!" Lanmar scread, thrashing his bound arms as Luke approached to strip the bracelet from him.
"Shut up!" John’s roar silenced the giant. "Who said I needed your permission? You keep calling us a fallen race... Let show you just how terrifying this fallen race can be."
John moved to a spot as his friends began piling ornants, bracelets, and belts in front of him. Fifty-three Bulltors had crossed into their territory; John knew that if he could crack these devices, the rewards would be monuntal. There was likely even more loot scattered back in the fog where the others had fallen.
He looked down at the pile of storage devices. ’Let’s try a blood handshake first and see,’ he thought, his mind already spinning about different scenarios.
’And if my blood handshake doesn’t do the trick, I’ll just write a hacking script. I’ll brute-force my way to hack whatever protection thod is used on the storage devices until they all open to .’
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