"Mhm? Do you need something from me?" asked Phocylides with a wide smirk. Ashikunz gritted his teeth in anger at the sight of him.
"I'm helping you; you can't do anything to me…" Phocylides laughed softly. "And whatever you'd try… it would never be enough to even harm me."
"Hey, try to calm down…" said Mantblast as he walked over to Ashikunz and positioned his hand over the other Krukin's shoulder. "He has made us win multiple battles, explained a lot of stuff to us… and is constantly preparing plans in case humans attack us…" Mantblast sighed deeply before speaking again. "We can't actually do anything against him."
"We could have done the same…" Ashikunz closed his eyes and whispered something as he tried to calm down. Phocylides, who had clearly heard these words, took a step closer to Ashikunz. "What did you say? You should talk louder…"
Ashikunz, who finally couldn't take it anymore, broke down and began to yell at everyone. "WE COULD HAVE FUCKING DONE THE SAME! DO WE REALLY NEED A HUMAN ALLY? WE JUST NEED TO KILL AND DESTROY THEM ALL!!" shouted Ashikunz as he began to run, and he pushed Phocylides in front of him, making him bump against the wall and spit up some blood.
"Ashikunz!" shouted Poisudonom at the sight of his brother going away.
"Incessant," said Phocylides, annoyed, after he spat some blood onto his purple dress.
'I can't believe it… they are trusting him too much… he has helped us… but why do we even need a human to help us? Receiving help from the ones we're in a huge war against…' Ashikunz was running away with tears flowing down his face, without even noticing which path he was taking. He ran through the caves of the Black Planet without an actual place to go.
'We're supposed to get revenge on them… the humans have treated us so badly. With Phocylides's words, we know what they were about to do if we hadn't attacked their camps that day three hundred years ago…' With tears still flowing down his face, Ashikunz shook his head.
'He was the one who told us… even if I hate him… I can never convince the others that we have to push him away…' As Ashikunz kept running non-stop, he suddenly bumped into something metallic.
"Ouch…" Ashikunz fell to the ground, and while touching his forehead with his hands, he opened his eyes again and noticed that he had ended up in the magazine—the place where the Krukins kept everything that they had gathered in their travels to other planets, which could range from simple gifts to things they had stolen.
Ashikunz had bumped against a red armor. 'The necrotic armor…' he thought, his eyes remaining fixed on the object. Next to it, there was even a red spear, named as such because of its color.
The armor, in fact, was a beautiful red with some black shades on it as well. 'We received this from the Puzzies as a gift…' Ashikunz recalled that day, over two thousand years ago, when they received this armor as a gift from that race, who were known in space for their abilities in combat.
'They called it one of their strongest armors…' Ashikunz remembered that because the Krukins had helped the Puzzies in a huge fight to defend their planet, this race had gifted them this armor. 'How did it work?' Ashikunz tried to remember what that race had told them, and after a few seconds, everything returned to his mind.
'Oh right… they told us that this armor was able to upgrade all of your physical stats by a lot… and… oh right! It worked based on your stamina; you would be almost unbeatable… in fact, once your stamina was at 100 percent, it would be impossible to pierce it…'
Ashikunz suddenly touched the armor with his finger, and a cold shiver ran through his whole body. 'It's almost like this armor is alive in its own way and has a resistance of its own…' As his finger passed slowly over the armor, a word surfaced in his mind.
'Weakness…' Ashikunz suddenly remembered that this armor was able to remove the main weakness of the creature wearing it. 'The weakness of us Krukin is heat… if we were to enter the desert, our skin would start to crack, and we couldn't even last one minute before turning into ash and dying…'
Suddenly, the expression on Ashikunz's face changed, and a serious look appeared. 'If we really want to attack humanity… this is the only way.' Ashikunz glanced around and remembered that all these weapons couldn't be used in this war.
'Someone like Rhihamr has imposed a ban on all of us… we can't use any of the weapons in this magazine because they are far too dangerous, and each of them can create irreversible damage…' Ashikunz looked at the weapon that Rhihamr had used once, and as he remembered the strength of it, his body immediately began to shake.
'Rhihamr is using another weapon now… it is a new hammer… but…' Ashikunz remembered that around four thousand years ago, Rhihamr had done something incredible with his old hammer, but while the others were praising him as the strongest warrior, the Black Defender was the only one who felt a massive sense of guilt.
'Phocylides came into contact with this magazine… but Rhihamr has always done what he could to prevent the human from entering and taking any of these weapons…' Ashikunz, with his hands shaking, suddenly grabbed the armor.
'But if we really want this war to end… it's the only way…' Without hesitation, Ashikunz was finally able to calm down, and as his body stopped shaking, the Krukin started to put on the armor.
"ARGHH!!" The moment Ashikunz positioned the armor over his body, he suddenly felt some wires inside the armor pierce his skin and slowly enter his flesh, connecting directly with his blood.
"It hurts!!" he shouted, falling to his knees with his hands over his helmet, which felt like it was directly entering his head. He couldn't be sure, but he almost heard something touching his brain. In fact, some wires from the helmet passed completely through his head and ended in his brain.
Ashikunz was now laying on the ground in agony. "It hurts a lot… it feels like my whole skin is being transmitted somewhere else…" The pain Ashikunz was receiving was immense. It felt as though his original skin was being completely shattered by the blood that burst forcefully out of his skin. While all of this was happening, Ashikunz's organs shifted forward, his eyes elongated, his bones surged outward, and his heart was pulled by his skeletal frame while beating extremely fast.
His original skin wasn't there anymore; it had been completely shattered, and his new skin had become the armor itself. "WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME!!" shouted Ashikunz in torment.
"Shit, where did he go?" whispered Rhihamr, who was worried and, along with the others, had started to search for Ashikunz, except for Phocylides, who sat down on one of the chairs, annoyed.
Suddenly, Rhihamr heard a cry coming from the magazine, and without any trouble, he understood that it was the scream of Ashikunz. 'No…' Rhihamr's whole body began to shake in fear as he looked at the entrance, terrified.
"No, no, no!!" he yelled as he began to run toward the magazine without any hesitation. 'I'm sure he hasn't gotten hurt just because he bumped into something… please… don't tell me…' Rhihamr rushed forward in terror, and what he saw in front of him made his heart completely shatter. He fell to his knees with a heartbroken look on his face.
"Why was it there? Me and Leobruns had hidden it in the perfect place…" These were the only words that were able to come out of Rhihamr's mouth the moment he noticed Ashikunz in the armor. The pain given by the armor had stopped, and the Krukin was standing on his two feet, holding the spear.
"Ashikunz!!" shouted Rhihamr. Ashikunz turned around as he finally heard the other Krukin.
"Rhihamr…" whispered Ashikunz, traumatized by what had just occurred.
"We could have found another way to win this war… why…" Rhihamr was at a loss for words, remaining shocked as he saw his brother walking slowly forward.
"Someone has to be the one to defend our mother… I'll go and kill these humans." Ashikunz passed slowly next to Rhihamr while the Krukin spoke with his hands covering his eyes.
"They aren't even attacking us anymore… it has been at least twenty years since their last attack on the Black Planet… we don't even have to fight anymore… we can simply go away and end all of this…" spoke Rhihamr, tears flowing down his face. But Ashikunz shook his head.
"Phocylides told us that they would simply follow us again… no matter where we escape… this is a war… and ending with one of the two factions winning is the only way… there aren't any other ways," answered Ashikunz in a lower tone.
'I hear a lot of resentment coming from you, Ashikunz… I know you don't even want any of this…' Rhihamr gathered the remaining force left in his body and returned to his feet. "It will just be worse… this armor isn't as easy to control as it seems," he said in a reassuring tone, but Ashikunz never turned back.
"I know…" said Ashikunz. He couldn't control the strain in his voice, and Rhihamr could hear that he was in immense pain. "But… I can't turn back now… it hurts… I feel like I'm about to die…"
"Then stop, please… you don't have to do all of this… fighting and going into the desert will just hurt you more and more!" shouted Rhihamr, waiting for Ashikunz to turn back. But the other Krukin simply took another step forward, almost reaching the exit of the magazine.
"But our mother needs to be saved… going away will just mean that they will follow us… we have to end this fast… and I'll be the first one to go and kill them all… I'll start with a city… then the others will follow too." With that, Ashikunz emerged from the magazine. Even if his expression was unreadable under the armor, Rhihamr understood it completely: not even Ashikunz wanted to do any of this, but it was almost like he was being forced by circumstance.
"I'm sorry…" Rhihamr, unable to accept it, slammed his hands onto the ground. "Even if he is able to resist… who knows which enemies he will fight… there will surely be someone who will be able to cause enough damage and make him tired… I don't want to lose anyone…" As Rhihamr remained on the floor with tears flowing down his face, someone entered the room. As the Krukin raised his head, he noticed him: it was Phocylides.
"He didn't even want to listen to me… he simply walked away… meh, at least he took the armor." As Phocylides stopped in front of Rhihamr, he looked down at him with a disgusted expression.
"You had hidden it well… I almost couldn't find it…" whispered Phocylides. As the Krukin heard these words, his expression transformed. He surged up from the ground and grabbed Phocylides by the neck with his massive hand.
"YOU POSITIONED THE ARMOR THERE?!!" Rhihamr shouted in fury in front of Phocylides. As he held the human's neck tighter, Phocylides's face turned purple as blood stopped flowing to his head.
"There…" These were the only words able to escape Phocylides's mouth while he pointed to a hammer mounted on the wall. Rhihamr, in his anger, tilted his head to look at it. The moment his eyes met the weapon, his grip loosened on Phocylides until the human collapsed onto the ground with a massive red mark left around his neck.
'At least they explained to them why Rhihamr doesn't want to fight at all…' With a wide smirk, Phocylides returned to his feet. "It isn't my fault if it was as clear as the sun that he wanted revenge on humanity more than almost all of you…" whispered Phocylides as he looked at Rhihamr. Rhihamr hadn't even listened to him; his gaze was fixed entirely on the hammer, his face frozen in an expression of sheer horror.
"Tch… incessant." With that, Phocylides turned his back on Rhihamr and began to walk away, leaving the Krukin alone in the magazine with the horrific memories tied to that hammer.