299 CHANGING THE RULES OF MOVEMENTS?
"Can you change the rules of the game to let your unit pass through the defending enemies to reach the King?" Yun-Yun asked.
"Yeah, like how you turned stone into water to trap the Demon Spider when we were in the cave in Sodom's ruins", Petunia reminded.
"I may have access to some basic programming language of this realm from the Giga Codex but changing the rules of this fucking chessboard requires a major rewrite of the program… it's not something that can be done during this game", Leo explained.
"You must come up with something", Yun-Yun urged him.
Then an idea came upon Leo.
With deliberate precision, he summoned an ethereal keyboard in his mind, its translucent keys glowing faintly. His mind moved with practiced swiftness, as the keys on his imaginary keyboard lit themselves as if they were typed on, rewriting the intricate magic codes of the chessboard's domain.
"What in the abyss are you doing?" Ramses barked from his King piece, his tone a mix of anger and incredulity.
"Yeah, what the hell are you doing, we need help here. Just come into one of our spots and help us", Rabama urged.
"That is a possible move but not the best. I cannot get engaged in your spot, I'll be stuck in there until the battle is resolved," Leo explained to him.
If Leo got himself engaged in battle with the enemy, he would have put himself into a bind. There was a chance Ramses had a move he did not expect.
Watching Leo's strange actions, Ramses sneered, his confidence brimming. "You can't outwit the power of my chessboard!"
Suddenly, Ramses started to cast a spell. Figures emerged in the spots of his chess pieces, strengthening them.
Rocks and pebbles started to appear on one of the chess blocks that soon gathered. The rocks merged and transformed into enormous hulking stone being.
On another chess block, a colossal and devious insectoid being appeared, its body covered in thick and tough metallic black armor, its face a wicked blend of an ant and demonic horns.
Ant Man and Pebble and other demonic units joined the battle.
"Damnit, how did the emperor summon more fighters into battle before the battle is resolved?... and such monsters at that?" Bara asked worriedly.
Those ghostly figures that Ramses summoned were the demons who resided in his soul.
But there was one unsolved problem. How did the demon spirits gain their physical menacing forms?
"Those are demon spirits… how can they have physical forms?" Yun-Yun asked.
"They appear so effortlessly", Petunia noted.
"How…", Leo asked before muttering, "if it was so easy for demons to conjure their physical forms, demons like Lusifar would not go to great lengths to possess others."
"Hahaha," Ramses laughed before replying, "since you will all die soon, let me tell you a secret… souls that enters my chessboard will gain a physical form. Those are the rules of my chessboard."
Those demons from the emperor took physical forms once they were placed on his chessboard.
"You are bloody cheating", Leo shouted to the emperor.
"This chessboard belongs to me, I set the rules to my favor… I will never lose", Ramses replied to him.
Leo's instinct was correct.
If he went to help any one of his units, Ramses would summon more demon ghosts into his battlefield plot until his strength is overwhelmed, and all this could be done at relative safety to himself.
There was another reason not to get engaged in other plots, Ramses could always terminate the game early if he was losing and run… as long as he wasn't engaged in battle.
That was probably the rule of the game, Leo believes.
"I'm losing this bloody fight if you don't do something now", Bara complained as she was struggling to fight against the emperor's general and the newly arrived demons.
"We're not doing any better", Ramana said.
"Even I cannot defeat so many demons at once", Gubana admitted.
The black side was winning the battle with the recent infusion of the demon reinforcements. The situation is getting severe on Leo's side.
"You cannot engage with any of these units, you must engage the King directly, that is the only way to stop him from escaping", Yun-Yun advised.
"Yes, the only way to win now is to get the 'King'," Petunia said.
Leo didn't want Ramses to escape.
He continued with his programming. But there was no way he could change the rules of the chessboard to allow his unit to move through other units blocking him.
"This is impossible. It's impossible to make this pawn unit cross through the other units. It's not in the rule of chess, I couldn't change it easily", Leo complained again.
Then Petunia thought of something.
"Doesn't the Knight pass through other units in the game?" Petunia suggested and asked.
A thought came to Leo.
"You are a genius… the Knight can jump over other units in its natural course", he replied before adding, "There is no need to change the rules of this game. That would be too complicated."
A heartbeat later, the solitary white pawn suddenly defied all expectations, leaping over the defensive ranks of the Black Rooks and Bishops and landing squarely in the King piece's territory.
The pawn apparition on his chess unit transformed into the apparition of a Knight.
"What?!" Ramses roared, his face twisting with a mixture of rage and terror. "How did you infiltrate into my King's place?"
Leo's voice was calm, almost mocking.
"Simple. I rewrote the description of my piece from 'Pawn' to 'Knight.' Knights have the unique ability to jump over obstacles," he explained.
Changing the rules of the game to allow units to pass through other units was difficult and almost impossible for Leo. But a simple change of description… that was a different matter. It was easy in fact to do that.
"Yeah, why didn't you think of that earlier?" Petunia asked.
"Impossible!" Ramses stammered, his gaze darting toward the chessboard above. The apparition of the solitary white pawn above the chesspiece had shifted—its form now unmistakably that of a Knight.
And that unit was now engaged with the opponent's King.
"You're meddling with the very rules of my domain! How is that even possible?" Ramses shouted, his voice laced with desperation.
Leo stepped closer, his aura cold and unyielding.
"The better question is not how I did it," he said, his voice dropping into a menacing whisper, "but how you'd prefer to die."
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