Apocalypse Tamer

Maxwell gloated as Dis called the stars down to Earth.

“Resorting to cheats and hacks, Basil? You should be ashamed of yourself.” Dismaker Labs’ fallen CEO didn’t look too bad for someone who had been beheaded only a few days ago. “As a law-abiding administrator, I can’t let that stand.”

Basil answered by summoning a fire elemental orb to his hand, but Plato was quicker to strike. The mighty smilogod leaped off Steve’s back so fast that he became a shadowy blur. His sword fangs glittered with a flash of steel as they connected with the man’s throat.

Yet Basil heard Maxwell whisper a word under his breath first.

“Zero.”

The blades bounced off Maxwell’s skin the way a stick of wood bounced off an iron shield.

All damage inflicted to the Mammon, System Virus will be set to 0!

Plato, whose Pawerful Dao Perk allowed him to walk on vertical structures, landed on the Neurotower’s metallic surface and immediately renewed his assault. He coated his icy claws with an aura of sharp wind and cold darkness before trying to disembowel Maxwell. He bounced off the amused CEO’s impeccable suit for his trouble.

None of the Bohens let that discourage them. Rosemarine began charging her Eden Guns and Steve his Gehenna Cannon, while Vasi prepared a spell.

“Bugsy!” Basil shouted, his searing orb of flames shining brightly within his palm.

“Apollo’s Curse!” The Apolloworm bathed Maxwell in his radiant light, before swiftly following with a fireball. “Take this!”

Maxwell failed his Vitality check! He has become vulnerable to [Fire]!

Plato jumped away back to safety as a deluge of destruction fell upon Maxwell. From a small meteor to beams powerful enough to wipe cities off the map, the Bohens unleashed the most devastating weapons in their arsenal all at once.

All of them glided over Maxwell and the Neurotower behind him like water on a submarine’s metal hide. Projectiles hit as if they lost all inertia and flames released no smoke upon impact.

Supereffective damage! 0 damage!

The Trimurti System still worked well enough to taunt them.

“You’re wasting your time.” Maxwell emerged from the onslaught unscathed. The best the Bohens achieved was forcing him to wipe the dust off his suit. “Dis won’t let you damage me.”

“And you call us cheaters!” Bugsy complained in his fury.

“I can’t break the rules when I write them, can I?” Maxwell looked up to the shining sky. The Neurotower kept rising towards the star circuit to reach out into other worlds. “Why don’t you just chill out and enjoy the show? After everything you’ve endured so far, you earned yourself a ticket to the final performance.”

Should I use the god card? Basil thought before realizing he had left it in his Inventory, which he couldn’t access anymore. There has to be something we can do.

“I can try to stop time,” Vasi whispered at his side. “If his defense isn’t automatic, it might provide an open–”

“Are you deaf or stupid?” Maxwell shook his head. “I will repeat it more slowly this time. Dis will not allow you to harm me.”

Let the braggart talk, Basil told himself. With luck, he’ll slip up and reveal his weakness.

“What is that thing?” Basil pointed his halberd at the ever-growing Neurotower. “My Monster Insight identifies it as a living creature.”

“Because it is,” Maxwell replied with a condescending smile. “This beauty is Dis. The alpha and omega of my kind, once destroyed and now reborn stronger than ever. My beginning, your end.”

“The portals…” Vasi frowned as she examined the star circuit spanning countless worlds. Outremonde was no doubt among them. “I thought you couldn’t infect mature Systems?”

“I can’t,” Maxwell admitted with a wide, rueful smirk. “To do so, my kind requires more power… which Dis provides. It will subvert all Systems currently connected to the Trimurti, then spread the infection further. Neither gods nor mortals will stop its growth.”

Basil knew enough about IT to identify Dis for what it was.

That abomination is a world-sized zombie computer. Like how hackers could turn an unsuspecting computer into a spam mail factory, the Mammon Virus had slowly transformed the Trimurti System into an infection vector. His lifecycle makes sense now.

Mammon jumped from world to world while gorging himself on unsuspecting Systems, but when his infection progressed far enough, he completely subverted the host. With such resources at his disposal, he could infect even mature Systems.

By letting Kalki and Padma fuse, the people of Earth had just condemned countless worlds to a ghastly fate.

“Don’t make that face, Basil.” Maxwell looked up at Kalki and Padma. In their petrified state, they were blissfully unaware of the chaos they unwittingly helped foster. “I had infected these two the moment they fell into my grasp. I could have started this process anytime I wished. I only held it back as long as I did to let Dis grow in strength.”

Shellgirl’s eyes sent daggers at the virus. “Why did you let us take them then?”

“I had hoped you would tear each other apart over these idols’ fate,” Maxwell replied with a shrug. “Imagine my disappointment when you instead decided to act reasonably. You humans are such a bore.”

Vasi’s eyes widened as an idea crossed her mind. “Basil, use Death’s Banner.”

“Why?” her boyfriend asked.

“Because Bugsy’s power affected him.”

Basil wondered what she meant until he noticed grass and roots growing out of the Parthenon’s debris. Rosemarine’s God-Field caused vegetation to slowly overwhelm the city, surrounding the Neurotower’s steel architecture with beautiful greenery.

Monster Insight activated, Basil realized, his heart pounding in his chest. He can alter numeral values and remove System features, but not our Perks! He can’t break the System’s rules, only bend them!

Since Bugsy’s power made him vulnerable to fire, then it meant Maxwell was still vulnerable to debuffs.

Perhaps even ailments.

“It doesn’t matter,” Maxwell gloated, “you will all become food in the end.”

Basil responded by leaping into the air. “Death’s Banner II!”

The power flowed into him and his party.

[Death’s Banner II] activated and spread to your party members! Your attacks gain the [Deadslayer] effect (x3 damage against [Undead] types); you gain immunity to the [Terror], [Zombie], and [Insta-Death] ailments; you will not take damage from ailments such as [Poison], though it doesn’t cure them of it–

These were the key benefits Basil’s team enjoyed most from the Death’s Banner buff. Those properties had saved their lives from Pluto, Apollyon, Belphegor, and many other foes. However, the buff also included one last key feature.

–and critical hits will inflict [Insta-Death] on the victims.

The Bohens never got to make good use of that one, since most high-level enemies were immune to instant death attacks. However, Mammon was built differently than them. He was a level 0 parasite, a creature with no power of his own except for manipulating the System. He hadn’t shown himself capable of summoning meteors or raining spells upon his enemy. Perhaps he lacked his fellow Horsemen’s resilience too.

It was a long shot, and the Bohens weren’t the kind to give up before overwhelming odds.

“Stupid Basil!” Maxwell laughed as Basil double-jumped straight at him. “You’ll never reach me!”

Accuracy set to 0!

“Joyful Spirit!” Shellgirl cast, and a newfound power swelled within Basil’s arm.

Your next hit will always be accurate if physically possible, [Charged] (x2 damage) and inflict a Critical Hit!

Though Maxwell hid his eyes behind sunglasses, his body language immediately betrayed his surprise and unease. Hastened by his magic, Basil crossed the gulf between them in an instant. His god-powered halberd lunged at the virus’ head.

Then came the moment of truth. If Maxwell confidently took the hit and survived, then nothing could be done to stop him. Basil could at best mercy-kill Kalki and Padma in the hopes they would take down Dis with them to the grave. It would condemn Earth to destruction, but spare the rest of the multiverse.

Maxwell dodged.

Moving like a repugnant toad sticking to a vertical structure, he hopped to another spot on the Neurotower’s surface. The dragonknight exchanged a brief glance with his nemesis as the coward slipped through his grasp.

The wariness on his face was palpable.

It was possible that this method could slay Maxwell for good… or it may be that he simply had no idea what would happen, and the coward wouldn’t dare take the chance. In any case, it made no difference.

It encouraged the Bohens to fight on.

“Smash him!” Plato shouted.

Since most spells and special attacks couldn’t crit and thus trigger Death Banner’s Insta-Death feature, the Bohens engaged Maxwell in close-combat. Basil doubled-jumped after him, while Plato ran across the Neurotower’s vertical surface. Bugsy and Vasi took flight, with the former carrying Shellgirl in his pincers, while Rosemarine’s roots lashed at Maxwell like tentacles. Unable to rely on his cannon, Steve settled on grabbing the nearest boulder it could find to throw.

“You want to play the hero one last time, Basil?” Maxwell’s body transformed as his human guise stretched. His limbs grew elongated, his sunglasses melted into his eye sockets, and his teeth grew into sharp metal fangs. “Fine, I’ll indulge you!”

All damage inflicted by Mammon will be set to ∞!

He swung his right hand at Basil. The arm stretched like a whip surging through the air, and his fingers turned into sharp claws. His movements were clumsy and predictable, perhaps because he had never fought fairly in his life. Basil had no issue dodging.

Yet the distance between his flesh and Maxwell’s claws narrowed on its own.

Mammon’s accuracy was set to 100%!

“New Moon mode!” Basil shouted.

His shield turned black as night, and his body became as translucent as ectoplasm. Maxwell’s twisted claws harmlessly phased through him.

[Intangibility] status! You are immune to [Physical] damage!

Maxwell cursed as Plato took the opportunity to flank him. The virus jumped out of the Smilogod’s way, only for Rosemarine’s roots to lunge at him from all directions. Maxwell abandoned his attempt at a counterattack to desperately hop around them.

“You’re a level 0 parasite.” Having wasted his Joyful Spirit charge on the initial attack, Basil jumped closer to Shellgirl so that she might apply it again. “Besides your influence over the System’s rules, you don’t possess any special ability of your own. You can alter numeral values, turn a thousand into a zero and make sure two plus two equal five, but you can’t negate Perks or buffs!”

“This power is our own!” Bugsy boasted as he flew after the retreating Maxwell. “You leeches can’t take that from us!”

“Power?” Maxwell laughed. “You only have as much power as I let you keep!”

“Then why are you running away?” Riding Bugsy like a flying horse, Shellgirl drew a small item from her pocket: a stone arrow that her magical glove swiftly duplicated. The very same weapon which had brought the Horseman of Death low. “Methinks you’re all bark and no bite!”

Maxwell responded by trying to behead her with an extended claw. Vasi immediately followed by casting an intangibility spell on her friend. Maxwell’s blow missed, but Shellgirl’s stone consumable pierced his arm nonetheless.

Critical success! Mammon avoided [Petrification]!

As Basil feared, the Mammon Virus’ control over numeral value meant that anything that could fail would. Only guaranteed results would work with him.

With Shellgirl distracting Maxwell, Plato dashed along the Neurotower’s surface and quickly caught up to his prey. Joyful Spirit activated, his sword-fangs tearing out the CEO’s throat and landing a fatal blow.

Critical Hit! [Insta-Death]!

Basil swiftly followed by splitting Maxwell’s skull with his halberd, for safety’s sake. The virus shed no blood, not even brain matter. His body could have been made of plastic for all that mattered. Basil sensed no spirit nourishing his halberd’s hunger.

Maxwell’s body collapsed into red particles, and then it was gone.

Basil’s blood froze in his veins at the sight; doubly so when laughter echoed all around him.

“Bravo, bravo, you’ve actually managed to kill me once!” Particles flowed out of the Neurotower and reformed into a perfect copy of Maxwell. “I guess I should bring party members too!”

He snapped his claws and summoned a monster in front of Plato. The creature resembled a feline the way Maxwell himself represented a parody of a man. The golden furball was no larger than a kitten, but with a maw of steel fangs from which a cable tongue sprang from and bloodshot eyes. Its legs stretched like Mammon’s, and glistening oil dripped from its claws.

Misha, Infected Kitten

Level 0 [Beast]

Faction: ∀

The monstrous cat lunged at Plato in a blitz of speed, but the smilogod proved faster… for a second. Maxwell’s pet accelerated until it caught up to Basil’s friend, claws clashing against claws.

Mammon transferred Misha’s Vitality and Intelligence points to her Agility!

Thankfully, it appeared the feline beast lacked its creator’s infinite damage power. Unfortunately, it still proved strong enough to throw Plato off the Neurotower in a single swipe. Bugsy barely managed to grab him mid-flight at the last second.

Gritting his teeth, Basil raised his halberd to strike the monster. His weapon never connected. His eyes noticed a bullet flying at the edge of his vision, which he instinctively dodged.

The sender flew straight at him from the ground, a rifle in hand. That humanoid possessed elongated arms much like Maxwell himself, body armor for skin, and metal wings to carry her forth. Her facial features were hideously twisted into a misshapen visage, yet still recognizable.

The System message that followed felt like a punch in the gut.

Neria Elissalde, Trojan Shell

Level 0 [Humanoid]

Faction: ∀

“What’s wrong, Basil?” Maxwell’s voice came out of Neria’s fanged mouth as she pointed her rifle at him. “You don’t like my new look?”

Basil saw red.

[Berserk] negated by [Lethal Vigil]!

No words were exchanged. No curses followed the insult. Neria simply opened fire at Basil, and he raised his halberd to defend himself. His soulbound weapon cut through the projectile like butter before continuing its course.

Critical Hit! [Insta-Death]!

The fatal blow should have missed. The Joyful Spirit charge had been spent and Maxwell had the power to change accuracy values. Basil should have missed. He acted on instinct and did not think.

He did not think.

His halberd, carried by his momentum, split Neria at the waist. Both halves of her body flew past Basil and bounced off the Neurotower while a shower of blood phased through his intangible body.

Basil watched the corpse fall to the ground with a sickening noise, his mind unable to process the scene properly.

“Oh my, you monster.” Maxwell covered his mouth in mock outrage. “Did you just kill your own friend?”

Basil glanced at Neria’s blood, which now painted the Neurotower’s surface red. His mind came to a screeching halt. He recalled the grim memory of his mother’s remains splattered on Steve’s metal frame in all of its grim glory.

“Basil!” Vasi shouted a warning, her staff summoning meteors at an unseen assailant. “Don’t let him distract you!”

Her words fell on deaf ears. In his shaken state, Basil could only look around. Bugsy fired fireballs at Maxwell’s pet cat while carrying Shellgirl in one pincer and Plato in the other. Rosemarine had turned her back on them all, her Eden Guns firing at monsters on the ground trying to swarm Steve from all sides; all twisted puppets with elongated arms and familiar faces. All the people unlucky enough not to possess either a godly essence or a deity’s favor shared the same terrible fate.

Simeon, Twisted Neo-Viral

Level 0 [Humanoid]

Faction: ∀

Leblanc, Spyware General

Level 0 [Artificial]

Faction: ∀

“Not even a tear?” Maxwell slouched on the Neurotower that spawned him, his metal smile so gleefully cruel. “I’ll have to bring my A-game then.”

He snapped his claws again and summoned two other horrors.

The two grew out of the Neurotower like tumors out of healthy flesh. Their bodies were puffy like those of whales, their limbs twisted and crooked, but their faces… unlike every other of Maxwell’s thralls, these two kept their original visage. It wouldn’t have hurt so much otherwise.

Aleksandra Bohen, Dead Bloodstain Mother

Level 0 [Humanoid]

Faction: ∀

René, Sad Cancer Patient

Level 0 [Humanoid]

Faction: ∀

Every feature had been recreated in perfect detail. The Old Man’s wise, kindly look, his mother’s gentle smile, each damn wrinkle. Two perfectly recreated heads perched atop twisted masses of flesh.

[Berserk] negated by [Lethal Vigil]!

Basil’s hands clenched his halberd’s shaft so hard that he thought it might break.

I’ll kill you, Basil thought. Kill you… kill you!

[Berserk] negated by [Lethal Vigil]!

His class’ own magic tried to clear his mind, but it could hardly keep the clouds of fury at bay for long. Maxwell’s cackling laughter only made Basil’s blood boil in his veils.

[Berserk] negated by [Lethal Vigil]!

[Berserk] negated by [Lethal Vigil]!

[BERSERK] NEGATED BY [LETHAL VIGIL]!

“Do not waver, Basil.”

A dreadful shiver ran down Basil’s spine and snapped him out of his furious trance. Two familiar, intertwined voices echoed within his skull; one as deep as the abyss, the other as soft and sweeter than honey.

He had already heard them whisper to him in Romania.

“I can make Mammon vulnerable for a brief instant, but your window of opportunity will be short.” Basil sensed an invisible shadow crawling on his back. “You must strike true before he recovers, or else we all lose.”

Basil gritted his teeth hard enough for them to crack. Why should I trust you?

“Because you have no choice,” the Maleking replied calmly. “We will kill each other properly after purging him from Dis.”

Basil knew he was better off not listening to demons… but in this case, he would make an exception.

The heavens ruptured over Malta.

La Valetta, the island’s fortress-city, was a jewel of architecture. Stone ramparts thick enough to stop cannonballs in their tracks surrounded a modern Tower of Babel. This particular Neurotower, this prison for souls, was the first of its kind. Mammon had personally built the device in the depths of his front company’s headquarters, waiting for it to bloom like a poisonous flower. Its thick cables dug into the earth and connected to other terminals beyond the sea. Together, they formed a network that stretched from one hemisphere to the next.

Countless souls flowed through their infrastructure, fueling both the portals and Dis’ immense processing power. Every single Neurotower worked at full capacity. Their circuits burned through stockpiled energy reserves to brute-force their way into other System’s defenses. Players and Monsters languished paralyzed at their feet. Their current state was but a delayed execution; once Dis had run out of fuel, their souls too would be devoured.

Energy surge detected.

Sharp claws tore through the fabric of space, and souls slipped through the cracks. The howling spirits of a hundred murdered worlds, the victims of many a demonic campaign, entered Earth by the thousands. Level 1, Level 5, level 10, and 50… in the great competition for Overgod, the weak suffered as they must. They were naught but coins for the strong to collect.

Energy reserves at 100% percent.

The time to pay up had come.

More souls poured through the cracks; too many for even the great machinery of Dis to manage at once. At first welcoming the influx of power, its circuits suffered under the stress. Connecting to other Systems and overtaking them was a delicate balancing act. Though Dis’ infrastructure spanned the globe, it remained limited in its scope. It had to pace itself while consuming souls because of a simple danger known to all engineers.

Too much voltage hurt.

Warning: Energy surplus detected.

The first Neurotower glowed like a lamp as its circuit burst with too much energy. Its metal overheated under the strain, and errors slipped into their cosmic calculations. The start circuit glitched. Some pathways collapsed on themselves; others widened too much.

Assessing dysfunctions… Pausing secondary operations to maintain power output.

The Level Barrier, this great firewall that had protected the infant Dis from those with the power to destroy it, collapsed. The great machine simply could not maintain it and deal with the sudden power surge both at once.

More souls poured through the portal above Malta, and the Beast roared in their wake.

As the last shred of the Lever Barrier separating Earth from the multiverse crumbled into nothingness, another invader kicked down the door.

A swarm of metal drones announced her coming with a terrible screech. Her wings of light flapped at the speed of a turbocharged jet, and the winds of despair glided over her pristine metal scales. She landed amidst a field of steel towers taller than mountains, each a primitive, subpar desecration of her own perfect Neurotower design. She wept at the sight of crumbling land and encroaching nothingness. Such was the fate of a world deprived of her guidance.

But she didn’t weep long. For the wicked quickly folded when the righteous held the mace.

The metal dragon flew towards her rightful throne, her swarm buzzing behind her.

His adopted father and birth mother lunged at him from two directions. Their speed belied their puffy, corpselike bodies.

Yet Basil’s resolve was like tempered steel hardened by a hundred battles. He double-jumped past these two puppets and aimed straight for Maxwell.

“Basil, where are you going?” His mother’s words hit harder than any blow. “Are you abandoning me again?”

It took all of Basil’s willpower not to respond, but his resolve did not waver. “Shellgirl, buff me!” he called out to his ally, who was busy bombarding the cat monster with a stream of water. “Plato, with me!”

His allies didn’t ask why. Plato leaped out of Bugsy’s pincer, while Shellgirl interrupted her bombardment to bless her Tamer. “Joyful Spirit!”

Her power flowed into Basil, strengthening his arm.

“So cold and relentless,” Maxwell mused. “I think that’s why I’ve hated you since the moment we first met. You just won’t break.”

His cat pet attacked Basil from the side while his two puppets–Basil refused to call these abominations by their real selves’ names–flanked him from behind.

“Forgive me, René.” Plato leaped to his best friend’s rescue, his eyes grim and sorrowful. “Smilodon Blitz!”

The feline vanished in a blindingly fast blitz of speed. Basil couldn’t even follow his movements. Maxwell’s feline thrall was thrown off the Neurotower and plummeted into the void below, while the other two puppets were sliced to ribbons.

Nothing stood between Basil and Maxwell.

The virus didn’t appear concerned, not by Basil anyway. He gazed into the distance without paying the Dragonknight any mind.

“Are you trying to force your way in, Your Majesty?” he muttered to himself. “It won’t change a thing.”

Basil double-jumped in his direction and swiftly crossed the gulf between them in an instant.

“I’m getting tired of toying with you, Basil.” Maxwell extended his hand towards the Dragonknight. “Please try to scream before I–”

Maxwell froze in place.

His elongated right arm had frozen midway between himself and Basil’s heart. The mutated CEO shivered and trembled as if suffering from a stroke.

“I-I-I-” Maxwell’s sentence devolved into stilted, incomprehensible words. “I-k-k-I-”

“What’s happening?” Plato asked Basil, running vertically along the Neurotower after his best friend. “Did you fry his brain?”

“Once a Horseman, forever a Horseman.” A dark laugh echoed within Basil’s skull, grim and sinister. “I believe humans call it 'using a backdoor.'”

Mammon’s former employer was using his own tactics against him. Quite the irony.

“It won’t last long before Dis regains its footing,” the Maleking warned. “Kill him now, and we can purge him from the System for good.”

He didn’t need to ask twice.

Basil thought of all the people he had watched die since the apocalypse started, from the meanest civilian to the greatest hero. Benjamin, Kuikui, his mother, Orcine, Neria, and the billions who had perished in the System’s wake. Each of them owed their demise to this cruel piece of trash.

He hoped they were all watching.

Basil’s halberd split Maxwell’s skull in half.

Critical hit! [Insta-Death]!

His body, for lack of a better word, began to glitch out. His face alternated between two states in quick succession: his unharmed, smug human guise; and the shattered skull of his monstrous form. He flickered in and out of sight, his flesh mingling around the halberd’s blade.

Even stranger, the Neurotower’s circuits heated up in response. A scarlet glow coursed through them alongside crimson sparks. An electricity burst touched both Basil and Plato, only for Steve’s power to protect them.

[Lightning] damage negated by [Aegis of Zeus]!

What’s happening? Basil watched on as Maxwell’s stilted words grew into high-pitched screams of agony. The rate at which he alternated between his two forms accelerated. He looked unharmed one second and dying the next. He would have felt pity for anyone else suffering from such torture. Is this a bug of some kind? Is Insta-Death not registering as it should?

“It is,” the Maleking replied. “But he relies on Dis to recreate him. With the infrastructure temporarily glitching, he will fade away if he finds no host to jump into.”

Realizing what the demon lord all but asked, Basil grimly glanced at his possessed allies. Rosemarine and Steve had already cut through their numbers, but Simeon chased after Vasi in the sky and Leblanc was trying to climb off the Steamobile’s back to disable the Gehenna Cannon.

“Must we truly kill them?” Basil whispered.

“No need to sully your hands.” The Maleking chuckled darkly. “I will spare you the trouble.”

Basil froze in place, as did his allies. All of them sensed a terrible power spreading through the air.

The plants summoned by Rosemarine’s field began to catch fire. Grass became a fertile kindle for a blaze spreading through Athens’ ruins, while trees turned into candles. Crimson clouds carrying the smell of fresh blood obscured the star circuit shining in the sky. The Aegean Sea began to boil, with bubbles and steam rising to its surface.

Death announced its arrival with the thundering song of seven trumpets.

Rosemarine [God-Field] has been overwritten by Maleking Malacoda’s [Eschaton]! The worldwide field changed to [Armageddon]!

• [Apocalypse Force]: Negates any form of HP or SP recovery for creatures with levels inferior to the Maleking’s.
• [Lake of Fire]: Everyone within the field will suffer from constant, passive [Fire] damage.
• [Seven Seals]: Everyone ten levels below the Maleking will suffer from an [Insta-Death] effect each minute.

All of Athens’ infected Players perished in an instant.

From Simeon to Leblanc, from the lowest soldier to Maxwell’s cat monster, none escaped the reaper’s toil. Their bodies turned to salt in an instant. Their flesh crumbled swiftly, and the wind carried them away. Basil saw it all, but the disaster stuck so swiftly that his mind struggled to register what had just happened.

“Ah…” Bugsy choked in surprise and horror, his words echoing Basil’s own muddled thoughts. The rest of the team was either left speechless or unable to process the disaster’s scale. “They… they’re gone…”

Only Steve, a machine, kept his wits. The Steamobile pointed its cannon at the sea and aimed.

The Maleking arose from the sea soon after.

Apollyon remained the tallest monster Basil had ever faced, but this creature was a close second. The monster was over twenty meters tall, a twisted centaur straight out of a priest’s nightmare. The lower half of his body resembled a mismatched chimera with leopard legs, bloodstained fur, a snake’s tail, and six snarling lion heads. Each bore an ivory horn atop their dozens of eyes and far too many teeth. A sword’s handle stuck out of the largest heads, with the blade buried in its skull.

The upper part of the monster dwarfed the lower one in dread and hideousness. A bloodstained armor of crimson scales covered the torso, while two slitted eyes the size of houses adorned his shoulders. A pair of great angelic wings sprawled out of the back, each strong enough to whip up a hurricane. The clawed hands were each strong enough to crush a man like a bug.

As for the head… four burning eyes gazed back at Basil atop two sets of reptilian maws, each topping the other. Ten horns sat atop the head, each decorated with a tiny golden crown. An accursed flame burned bright in their midst, the visages of a hundred sinners’ souls flickering within it.

“Good work, mighty warriors.” The Lord of the Apocalypse Force smiled at the Bohens with his many mouths, as his mighty legs dragged him onto the land. “Now, the power of Dis will be mine alone.”

As Basil’s eyes identified the creature, a small bit of scripture came to mind.

Maleking Malacoda, Beast of Revelation

Elite Level 96 [Demon/Beast]

Faction: Apocalypse Force.

Who is like unto the beast? Basil thought as he and his team mustered their courage for their final clash. Who is able to make war with him?