The next few fights progressed in a similar manner. Tai would smash every alien that came out to face him. He was merciless and didn't allow any of them to live. Despite how action-packed were his fights he seemed to be keeping up the tempo just fine.

After every kill, he performed his little ceremony. Faced Zor'xal and spat on the ground, then paid his respect to Ashal Kal Anur.

He was counting on the official to stop the whole thing, but despite his efforts, the alien didn't seem so keen about that. t probably had something to do with the appearance of Nall, the Calludin.

We also just couldn't celebrate his victories in the way he deserved, since the grief after Boris was too fresh and too strong. Some of his colleagues, though, were very cheerful. The rest remained quite reserved. Few people from arc were just scattered around, attempting to be alone, and grieving.

Tai eventually returned and was greeted by the crew from his gate, and also got a few nods of respect from other people, but nothing more than that.

Since the fights ended I noticed that Adam was walking between the more influential figures in our large group, and quietly collecting the people. Then he made his way towards me. I was sitting in my corner, on the ground. He grabbed a chair and pulled it to have something to rest on, next to me.

The other slowly followed, gathering around as well. Among them was Nobuo, Will, Tai, Edward, Gavriil and both, Petro and Paulo Silva.

- I know that you probably don't want to listen to me right now, but I think we should discuss what's next - he started.

- He is right - said Nobuo. - We lost the respect of the official. We should do something to regain it. We need a strong move. What Tai did today was good, but not enough.

- I think that Zor'xal showed him that he takes this very seriously by bringing that alien, so he doesn't want to end this anymore - said Tai.

Few people wanted to say something, but the door to our waiting room opened, and Katri Xel Avakadaisu showed herself.

- I need to talk with you - she told to everybody in the room.

- Come here - said Will - and invited her with a gesture.

She nodded and made her way towards us. After her, more people started to gather around to listen.

- I have bad news - she informed, as she finally joined the partial circle surrounding me. - The Calludin was only part of Zor'xal's plan. He is stalling now, but he made an effort to pull out the strongest warriors he could possibly think of from all of his planets. He even reached out to other parts of Ixan empire to get forces strong enough to deal with you.

I just snapped. I couldn't take it anymore. It was irrational, but for some reason, I made her the center of my anger about what happened.

- How the fuck can we believe you?! You change your attitude and say those things when Zor'xal is for sure listening to everything, and don't even try to tell me that he doesn't have some kind of surveillance in this room.

- He does - she admitted before others could step in between us. - But it doesn't work on me, and on top of that we turned it off in this place.

This quite surprised everybody. She sighed.

- I'm part of a larger group that works in the underground of the Dispurian empire. Maybe we can't do anything to the emperor himself, but we have our quiet revenge in hiding people he wants to find and meddling a bit with the information flow. He uses the AI to spy on everybody, but we managed to access the source code and change it. It doesn't activate with certain people around. I'm among them. On top of that, I asked to turn it off here. That's why I can say whatever I want about him.historical

- Won't he find out? - asked Adam.

- No. We took the necessary precautions. The footage and sound from this room are edited in real-time, so if he ever wants to look at it, it will be changed. The AI itself is doing that. Besides the people who would show it to him are also part of the group. Not all races out there are violent, but that doesn't mean we can't do anything. W can have our little revenge too.

I snorted. I was still angry at her, but now I lost my excuses.

- Do you have any ideas what we could do? - Adam asked her.

- Sadly no. You were so close to winning this. The closest I've ever seen. So close that I was actually believing you will pull this off.

- It's not the end yet - said Nobuo. - We still have plenty of warriors, and we can win it.

- He is right. It's not over till is over - agreed Edward.

- Peter, can you fight? - Will asked me.

But before I could answer his question, Gavriil butted in.

- If he goes out there right now he is going to kill that fucking frog, and everything will go to hell.

I didn't deny that. I couldn't even look properly at the holoprojection of the emperor without getting pissed off. If I were to see his real face, I probably couldn't stop myself, nor I would want to. He deserved to be butchered alive, and one day he was going to get what he deserved from my hands.

- Do you know exactly what we can expect from the forces that are coming? Is he even allowed to do that? - asked Adam.

- He is, and I don't know. I can't help you more than what I just did.

The fire mage nodded.

- Thank you.

- So what's the plan? - asked Pedro.

- We do what we've been doing from the beginning - said Tai. - Just this time put your hopes of getting alive from this place into your pockets. It's a deathmatch from now on.

- And we are not losing it - added Edward.