Chapter 174: Game of Chess

Kinzo islands, Uklov.

The country of Uklov was in the extreme southeast of the Neutral Continent. It had the waters of two oceans on its east and south ends. At east there was the Miran Ocean and at south there was Ganzam Ocean.

Though the oceans were present, they weren't exactly close to the coast of Uklov. They were a hundred thousand kilometers away from the coast of Uklov.

Uklov was joined to the oceanic waters via two seas. Kinzo Sea connected the east coastline to Mira Ocean and Lörsht Sea connected the south to the Ganzam Ocean.

Kinzo Sea was named after the large chain of islands present on it. They were naturally the Kinzo islands. The islands were in a circular shape and spanned across an area of 50,000 km².

Looking from a bird's eye view, one could see a vast city with many buildings at one end, greenish blue water containing a massive island which was in a circular shape with a lake in the middle and finally at the other end there was deep blue waters. It was the coastline of Uklov, Kinzo Sea containing the Kinzo Islands and then finally the Miran Ocean.

Space fluctuated near the lake in the middle of the Kinzo islands, and Lucas, dressed in the Abalax World Academy uniform, teleported out of thin air. He took a look around and realized he was in the right place, so he immediately began running in the direction of the south, stopping only when he reached in front of a cave.

Looking at it, he said with a smile, "people who would walk at this place would definitely go into the cave out of curiosity and in the coming few years, many would do this. However, who would've known that..."

Lucas approached a tree opposite of the cave and lit it on fire. The tree turned to ashes within a few seconds due to Lucas, then he bent down and scattered the ashes around to pick up a certain black object from it. Looking at it, he continued his words, stating,

"...who would've known that there was a treasure hiding just in the opposite direction, inside a tree? This is so well hidden, it's as if it is a part of the tree in itself. I must thank that one kid who, for fun, lit this tree on fire and got this box and his parents, being smart enough to realize that this might even be a treasure, took the appropriate action."

Lucas inserted his spiritual sense into the black box, which emitted a silver beam of light that went to his forehead directly. He had his brain filled with a lot of information about this box and understanding all of it, he smiled and muttered,

"There's indeed a lot of things in it. However, it's sad that I can't have it. Nevermind, it's not something that I covet too much anyway. I shall go give this box to that man and get to Liam as quickly as possible."

....

Lith's dorm, Abalax sky island.

The movie had just ended a few minutes ago, and Lith and Arya were seated at a table across from each other, playing chess.

It was Arya's idea to have Lith play chess with her. They had spent roughly two hours watching the movie, and she thought Lith should now focus on studying a bit. Chess seemed to be a good idea in her mind as it was a game the two could play together and she could also test as well as teach him many things through it.

Lith had the white pieces whereas Arya had the black ones. She purposefully chose it like this, so Lith would make the first move.

Lith went with a standard opening to move the center pawn first, and Arya followed suit. The battle for the center four squares began, with Lith dispatching his knight to protect the center pawns and Arya dispatching her bishop to do the same.

The pawns of Lith and Arya were placed in the center, facing each other, and both were given defense. Lith made a bold move by moving one of his pawns diagonally next to the center pawn, and Arya, not willing to leave a chance to capture Lith's pawn, moved her own pawn diagonally.

Lith had his captured pawn covered with another one right beside it, which he moved and captured Arya's pawn, which she used to capture his own.

The board now had both kings facing each other defenselessly, separated by a long column of black and white squares. Lith had the chance to give Arya's king a check with the help of his queen, but he refrained from doing so.

Instead, he moved his center pawn and gave Arya's bishop a threat of getting captured. Lith knew that early in the game, as well as war, going for the king was an idiotic idea. Heavy security is present at the start and going after the king is straight suicide. One must have the patience to look at the bigger picture and not rush like that.

So, Lith, instead of giving a threat to the king, went after one of Arya's bishops, which was earlier defending the pawn. The bishop of Arya was defended with another pawn and Lith's pawn would be captured if he tried to make a move on it. However, both players understood one fact well that losing a bishop was a big loss as compared to losing a pawn.

The risk wasn't worth it. Arya therefore moved the bishop forwards to another square and Lith's pawn was now free to move towards enemy territory once again. The sacrifice of this pawn was inevitable.

It was moved with the intention to give a threat to the bishop and capture it, but if failed to do so, move it further into enemy territory to lure out another pawn or troop and have it captured by the knight defending the pawn.

It was a cruel tactic, as the pawn would be sacrificed by any means. Its only job was to capture or get captured or lure the enemy troop out to have the other troops from the same side capture it. In common terms, such pawns were called cannon fodders and there was a large number of such pawns used in real life wars. It was sad, but nothing could be done about it.

After Arya called her bishop back, Lith quickly moved his knight and captured a pawn present at the 3rd place from the left hand side in the 2nd row of Arya's side.

Doing so, Lith not only captured the pawn, but he also gave a threat to the rook present at the top left corner of the chessboard as well as put the king in check.

This knight was also given a small defense by the previously moved pawn and even though the queen was present in the diagonal square to the knight, trying to capture the knight would only lead to the demise of the queen as it would be captured by a puny pawn.

The queen was in a helpless state, like the rook and the king who got a check. Just a pair of knight and pawn had brought them to such a miserable condition, leading to an extremely tense atmosphere now.