Sam checked his health bar one last time before he left the place. His health reduced by two bars and Sky's health reduced by one bar. This is not because they are injured.

It is just the exhaustion of energy.

Sam reappeared in the chair and once again entered the battle zone for his next move. This time, it is a pawn against another Knight of Kartikeya.

This Knight was a female and is mounted on an eagle-like beast.

Sam couldn't fly on a beast by himself, because he is a pawn, but he has a hoverboard and when the knight was feeling complacent and was trying to toy with Sam, who has already dodged quite a few attacks, he suddenly took out the harbinger and zoomed to the top. He didn't attack her, instead, he took reaper and sliced the bird on its belly.

His sudden move made the bird screech as it crashed into the ground.

The Knight this time is an archer and she is quite good from the top, but now that she crashed into the ground before she could recover Sam already sent a barrage of sharp wind blades from his sword that she has no other way but to dodge it.

But this made the beast which was behind her and already lost, most of the health takes the full brunt of attacks.

Sam fought for a while, but was still taken down by that woman and before he dies, he was able to reduce the health to seven.

Since the beast is also gone, the woman's health was reduced to half.

Sam came back and game continued.

One after another the chess pieces are being removed. But the problem is for every pawn on Sam's one of the bigger pieces of Kartikeya was being removed.

But not before one of Sam's knights, a bishop and rook were gone.

After several moves, Sam was left with three pawns one rook, one bishop, one knight, the queen, and the King.

As for Kartikeya, he was only left with a single pawn, a rook, the king, the queen, and an almost dead Bishop with half a health bar.

Sam is clearly in favor of winning, but he is not least bit happy.

From start to finish, Kartikeya is playing in an extremely leisurely manner. It is almost as if he is a spectator.

This made Sam quite nervous. After all, he is playing with a commander of gods. Many lesser gods and even some higher gods have to follow his orders and what kind of commander should he be if he can lead such forces? Clearly, Sam is not cocky enough to think he is on the same level.

He never thought, he was best at commanding. He might be good, but that is not one of his excelled arts.

That is why he trained the soldier differently. To every possible scenario so that he doesn't have to try and command for every obstacle they encountered.

But now the greatest commander of all is losing to him in a chess match; at least that is what spectators would think.

Sam, however, thought otherwise. He is not keen on thinking that he really has that much ability.

Kartikeya finally moved his queen.

The queen has twenty health points and is a fifth-level Nascent. So, Sam is quite nervous to his dismay, he moved the queen to the same line as his pawn. Definitely trying to take this out. Sam didn't like it. This pawn is the closest to the other party's place.

Once he advanced, he could have another queen. So, he didn't want it to be destroyed.

He quickly thought of something and looked at his other pieces.

He also moved his queen and placed it on the same line as his own pawn.

He is quite confident that he can take down the queen with his own queen with ease. And he is quite sure that even Kartikeya knows that, so he is willing to see if he would take the risk.

And as he thought, the other party didn't, but he has a peculiar light in his eyes and started moving his rook to the remaining pawns.

This time, Sam didn't care and move his pawn one step forward.

Kartikeya has locked the pawn in a horizontal line and Sam in a vertical one, so there is no need for him to move.

Now Kartikeya didn't focus on the pawn and started dealing with the remaining two. The first pawn that encountered the Rook was dead just like that and could barely reduce the Rook's health by three points.

Sam moved the Pawn once again and after this only one step remained for him to advance and his pawn would be promoted.

He felt like something is fishy. No matter how he looked Kartikeya's game was almost over. There are not many ways to turn the game around.

At this moment, the rook dealt with another pawn.

But this time, Sam with paranoia didn't let the rook stomp. When the rook neared him, he just self-destructed himself and almost all of the health bars of the Rook were gone. There is only one health bar left and even a pawn would kill it easily.

But Sam only has one pawn and it is his move. He moved it and got a promotion.

The queen.

Sam thought that he would have to face an incredible hurdle, but there is nothing here.

As he thought and played the game, all of the remaining pieces of Kartikeya are gone and the only the king remained.

Sam didn't go anywhere near the king all this time. King can only move one step, but except for a queen and the king himself, all the other pieces are useless.

At this moment, Kartikeya said.

"I forgot to mention a rule. If only two kings remain. They would directly go to battle."

Sam was surprised as he didn't know what to say. At this moment, he felt like something isn't right.

He moved the Queen directly to the King and started a battle.

And as soon as he entered the battle stage, Sam was shocked. Because the person in front of him is Kartikeya himself.

He has a spear in his hand and he is playing with it.

Sam felt vigilant and took out his staff and ran towards him. But Kartikeya was extremely laid back as if he didn't see him coming, but when Sam swung the staff, he accurately blocked the attack.

Sam didn't stop and continued attacking, after some time, he went to his light elemental fusion form. With ninety percent partial fusion, he started attacking his opponent as if his life was dependent on this one battle.

But Sam didn't manage to deal any proper damage to Kartikeya, it as if he is playing house. He is extremely relaxed.

Sam tried his best to ignore that expression of his and kept on attacking.

After some time, just when he was about to change the form of attack, kartikeya made another move and Sam felt like he was being attacked by a dozen spears. There are more than a dozen spear images in front of Sam and he could barely see Kartikeya's silhouette behind the images.

He jumped back hard to evade the attacks, but as soon as he lunged back, one of the dozen moved and pierced Sam directly in the abdomen.

Sam felt shocked and all the spear images disappeared.

Kartikeya was visible in plain sight as he stood in a stance.

Sam activated his eye technique immediately and felt the energy ripples, the next instant he would be torn apart once again. The small reduction in the health bar of Kartikeya and energy ripples are sufficient for him to assume that.

Sam didn't bother waiting and completed his hundred people light elemental fusion as he separated from the spear. But he was too slow. Just before the spear was out of his body, the energy ripple came even his fusion body was not spared.

But he still gritted his teeth and looked at Kartikeya coldly as soon as he came out. He didn't die by that energy ripple but was severely damaged.

He suddenly expanded the fusion body as much as he could and converted everything into lasers and burned all his energy left, he would die by the end of this attack, but he is not willing to go down with a fight.

Kartikeya spun his spear as he blocked the laser beams, but as he danced with a spear, two laser beams managed to breach at the end of Sam's breath. One of them hit him in the armpit and the other one hit him in the inner thigh creating two scalding marks and one health bar completely.

But there are still twenty-nine more left.

Sam felt a sense of Deja Vu.

It is the same as the previous palace of inheritance where he was against Monkey King, who beat his ass just as easily.

At least that fight is not to die like this one.

Sam looked at the board and his remaining pieces.

In the process of eliminating Kartikeya's pieces, he lost his Bishop. Now only his rook, the second queen, the king, and the knight was left with half health were left.

He is not completely confident that he could finish Kartikeya even if they are on equal levels. So, he has to find a way to use this chess game in his favor. After some thought, he finally had an idea which is rather risky. But the risk is not him losing the game, rather something else.