Apocalypse Tamer

The notification hit Vasi in between two lasers.

Shellgirl has left the party.

“What?” Vasi squinted at the text, the shock so great that it took her out of the battle entirely for a second. “Shellgirl is–”

Two of Wyrde’s drones rewarded her inattention with a laser volley to the back. Beams of light pierced her waist and opened more wounds across her hole-riddled flesh.

Warning: Your Health Points have plummeted below half-health! [Apocalypse Force] blocked your SP regeneration!

Vasi muffled a scream of pain and retaliated with a blizzard spell. A storm of ice shards erupted from her staff at the swarm of drones closing in on her. Most hit their targets, but others bounced off the machines’ magically empowered metal shells. The drones shrugged off any damage and kept firing at her.

Rosemarine, who had been keeping Wyrde at bay with her Eden Guns so far, flew to her rescue. Steve, held up by her roots, fired a beam of searing lightning at the drone swarm and forced it to disperse away from Vasi.

“Begone, steel bugs!” Rosemarine flapped her wings. A gust of wind and mist erupted from her leaf-scales, purging the drones of their magical shield. “Begone!”

Rosemarine’s [Bacchanal Mist] canceled the drones’ [Elemental Rainbow] and [Hasten]!

The drones went from lightning quick to sluggishly slow. Vasi immediately rained fire and ice at them, destroying one after the other. Between her allies’ beams and her own, the Bohens cleared the area around them of enemies. The remaining machines retreated back to their mistress’ side, high above the devastated landscape.

You took 22 [Wind] damage from the field! Damage halved by [Fomor Lifeforce]!

The Maleking’s fires had turned into a sharp breeze slowly lacerating Vasi’s skin. Her strong affinity for the element and damage reduction made it barely noticeable, but the party would die a death of a thousand cuts unless they defeated the Maleking.

Is that what cost you your life, Shellgirl? Vasi glanced sorrowfully at the ground below. The Maleking carried his titanic hide to the outskirts of Athens, far away from the Neurotower. Vasi distinguished Bugsy’s beams of light searing the landscape, but she failed to pinpoint either Bugsy or her boyfriend. The distance between the two groups was simply too great.

“Miss Shellgirl is…” Rosemarine gulped in sorrow. She had seen the notification too. “She’s gone?”

“I don’t know,” Vasi lied, both to Rosemarine and to herself. She could hardly check how her allies on the ground were doing because of the distance and fog of war. She hoped Shellgirl had exited the party for a less-than-lethal reason. “But we can’t get distracted now.”

Unfortunately, Wyrde had exploited the moment of respite to cast new spells. A group of drones formed a magical barrier around their mistress to protect her. They formed five successive layers of forcefield, each a different color.

“Accelerated Piercing Spell,” Wyrde muttered to herself. “Accel Supercharge Spell.”

Wyrde’s next offensive spell will ignore damage reduction and inflict four times the usual damage! [Turbo: Magic] will increase damage by 30% and will pierce through all forms of Resistance!

“Stop her!” Realizing the danger, Vasi immediately went on the offensive. “Ancient Meteor!”

Steve was quicker to the draw, his Gehenna Cannon firing a mighty beam across the sky and Rosemarine did the same with her Eden Guns. Their lasers crashed against Wyrde’s magical barrier like waves upon a shore, pushing it back without breaking it.

Vasi’s meteor materialized above Wyrde and crashed against the forcefield. The barrier’s outer layers fizzled out for a second as the projectile hit with cataclysmic power, allowing her allies’ beams to penetrate deeper into the Grandmaster’s protective shell. Half a dozen drones overheated trying to maintain the shield, before shorting out and detonating in short order.

The outer two layers shattered under the onslaught and a pulse of blinding light followed in their wake. It did not matter.

The three other forcefields stood.

Grandmaster Wyrde’s [Magik Barrier] shifted her immunities!

“Accelerated Delayed Incantation.” A massive orb of magic over ten meters wide formed before Wyrde, its colors those of a shining rainbow. The forcefield protecting her expanded to accommodate the projectile’s ever-growing size. “Accel Prismatic Orb!”

The orb vanished from sight in an instant.

Grandmaster Wyrde has cast her spell forward in time! It will hit its target in the future with perfect accuracy!

Vasi cursed under her breath. An invisible sword of Damocles now floated above her and her allies’ heads, ready to strike anytime.

“I can’t break through!” Rosemarine complained. “It’s unfair!”

Her barrier adapts to any element we use, Vasi thought, her mind frantically working on a solution. The God-Card was still petrified and Wyrde would turn it back to stone the moment the witch removed the petrification effect; her other allies had their hands full dealing with the Maleking; and neither magic nor brute strength could break past the forcefields. I could try to get around them with Grimalkin Gate… but it will burn through my SP and I can’t recover them. It’s all or nothing.

But at this point, what other options did she have? With all the buffs Wyrde stacked on her last spell, it would kill one of them. The Bohens couldn’t afford to stall.

Vasi was all in.

“I have a plan! Focus your projectiles on one point and fire at all!” Vasi activated her staff’s doublecast feature. “Grimalkin Gate!”

Vasi expected Rosemarine to laugh gleefully at her prompting, but the dragon remained eerily focused on the task at hand. She fired three beams of enchanted pollen, one from her mouth and two from her cannons, and focused them on a single point.

Vasi opened the first gate before them, and another inside Wyrde’s forcefield.

The Grandmaster immediately figured out the plan and canceled her forcefield to increase her mobility. This allowed Steve to snipe at her with its own cannon. Wyrde was forced to disperse her drones and fly away to dodge the attack.

The Grimalkin Gate unleashed Rosemarine’s own projectiles upon the Grandmaster, but she proved too fast. Her wings carried her out of the beam’s line of fire and she swiftly began to cast a new spell.

“Accel Prisma–”

Wyrde didn’t finish her sentence. A new rift in space opened right before her eyes, much to her shock.

Vasi’s second instance of the spell activated, allowing her to manifest a second set of doorways. She used them to redirect Rosemarine’s attack back at Wyrde, forcing her to fly upward to avoid a direct hit.

She failed. Rosemarine’s redirected pollen beams hit Wyrde’s metal tail before she could get out of the way. The Grandmaster’s biomechanical scales rusted away centuries in the span of a second and exposed skinless flesh. Rot consumed that as well and then the bone, until only a bloody stump was left.

Supereffective hit! 3435 [Wood] damage!

The Grandmaster’s shriek of pain and outrage drew a smile from Rosemarine’s face.

Vasi didn’t share her joy. The magic in her blood weakened with each new spell, but no new influx of power came to compensate for what she lost. They had to hit Wyrde hard and fast, or else she would eventually adapt.

Warning: You have spent over half your SP!

“We have her on the backfoot!” Vasi shouted, burning through her magical reserves. “Keep firing! I can’t sustain this tactic for long!”

Vasi opened new gates across the sky in quick succession, redirecting Rosemarine’s attacks again and again and again. Unable to catch her breath, Wyrde flew in an irregular pattern and danced around the beams the best she could.

Using all her wits and focus, Vasi attempted to anticipate the dragonlord’s flight. She opened a useless rift in front of Wyrde, baited her into flying up to dodge, and then created the real one right above. The surprised Grandmaster ended up shot in the leg.

Supereffective hit! 3435 [Wood] damage!

Once again, Rosemarine’s pollen consumed steel and flesh alike. The power of nature overcame the Unity master’s technological implants until nothing but a bleeding stump remained.

The victory was short-lived. Wyrde roared to the heavens. Red particles erupted from her metal scales, and her wings started to flap so quickly that they became nearly invisible.

Wyrde’s [Overgear] buffed her stats!

Wyrde’s speed increased. She was in one place one moment and in another the next, flying away before a Grimalkin Gate could fully open.

“Damn it!” Vasi cursed under her breath. “She’s adapting!”

Wyrde’s remaining drones attempted to defend their mistress. They swarmed Vasi’s group, charging up lasers. Steve proved quicker. The machine turned its Gehenna Cannon at the drones and set the sky alight. His mighty ray pushed back the drones’ own assault and vaporized those that couldn’t fly away in time.

Two drones managed to close in though. To Vasi’s surprise, however, they did not open fire at the group. They instead rammed against Steve at full speed and vanished from sight upon hitting its shielding.

Castling Drones merged with Steve Roadwonders through [Interlocked Technology].

What’s going on? Vasi wondered at this strange turn of events, but she had no time to investigate. Her attempts at hitting Wyrde had turned into a desperate struggle to keep her too busy dodging to spellcast.

“I knew this design seemed familiar!” Wyrde glared at the Steamobile as she zigzagged around Vasi’s gates with grace. “You dare steal my technology and use it against me?”

“How dare you use it against others?!” Vasi shot back angrily. The terrible sight of Shumen burning to ash flared in her mind, vivid and raw. “Your general blew up an entire city! She killed thousands of innocents and nearly destroyed this world!”

“I am willing to concede General Blackcinders might have overreacted,” Wyrde replied with the most insincere tone Vasi ever had the displeasure of listening to. “But the fault lies with you for triggering her.”

“Triggering her?!” Vasi choked in outrage. “You’re blaming us?!”

“I understand that your limited frame of mind cannot conceive utopia.” Wyrde suddenly changed her flight pattern. Much to Vasi’s confusion, she flew away from the team rather than trying to close in for the kill. “Your primitive instincts make you lash out at your salvation. But I assure you.”

The Grandmaster’s drones suddenly retreated. Before Vasi could wonder why, Wyrde pointed a claw at Steve while flying away.

“All I have done, all that we dragons have done, was for your own good.” Wyrde’s glass eye flared with a blue hue. “Trigger self-destruction sequence. Concordian State Zero.”

Her words drew a steely, painful screech from Steve.

Violent bolts of crimson lightning erupted from its shielding and swiftly bounced off its teammates. The machine released enough steam to heat up a sauna, as if boiling from the inside.

Grandmaster Wyrde ruptured Steve Roadwonders’ core through [Interlocked Technology]!

A poison pill. Vasi had traveled with the Steamobile for so long that she had forgotten what it was made of: a Unity dragon’s shell and a Gearsman Titan’s heart. The drones were a poison pill! Detonators!

“Mr. Steve, calm down!” Rosemarine’s roots struggled to keep the Steamobile up in the air as it thrashed around, trying to free itself. “Please!”

Vasi’s eyes widened in terror and darted to the Avatars standing atop the Neurotower nearby. If the blast was as large as the one that wiped Bucharest from the map…

Was Wyrde willing to endanger the entire planet to save her scaly skin?

Vasi’s mind raced to find a solution, any way to stop the self-destruction sequence. But she was no Technomancer; each second she wasted caused more bolts to rise from Steve’s body. She barely had enough SP for a single spell.

Steve’s single eye met Vasi’s gaze.

The machine had never spoken a word in its entire existence. It had no facial expression to translate, and no sign language to interpret. Yet when it turned its gaze to Wyrde and then back at Vasi, the witch immediately understood what it was asking of her.

“Are you sure?” she asked sorrowfully. “There has to be another solution.”

Steve pointed at a spot on its wheels, its hand breaking from an internal explosion swiftly afterward. Bolts and screws flew out of its shielding. The heat within its body kept rising. It would soon reach critical mass.

Vasi recognized the spot which the machine pointed at. Her boyfriend had to wipe away his own mother’s blood from it. Steve spoke no word, yet its thoughts were clear to its teammates.

I don’t want to add another friend’s stain.

“Mister Steve…” Rosemarine whispered in sadness. “No…”

With no time left, Vasi granted his final wish and cast her final spell. “Accel Grimalkin Gate!”

Steve freed itself from Rosemarine’s grip and fell through a portal. It reappeared kilometers away, right above the fleeing Wyrde. The dragon’s drones instantly gathered around the falling Steamobile in a final attempt to defend their mistress.

They could not stop the explosion.

Steve’s core detonated in midair, and the Unity’s most dreadful weapon was unleashed upon its master. The Steamobile shattered into a thousand pieces. A pulse of cursed energy followed in their wake, piercing through the drones’ forcefield and turning their metal to stone.

You have run out of SP. You are no longer protected from [Lightning] by [Aegis of Zeus].

The Grandmaster took the pulse to her face, her arms raised to protect herself. The light obscured her from Vasi’s sight.

If Wyrde survives this, we are all dead. Vasi frantically turned to her last, desperate option: the God Card. Steve had brought them very little time. However, a look at the petrified item immediately told Vasi repairing it would be no easy task. The Grandmaster’s magic was strong; too strong for any normal potion to work.

Vasi could only think of one desperate gamble.

“Rosemarine, I need blood!” Vasi tossed her now useless staff aside and bit her own hand. “Your blood!”

Dragon and fairy blood individually possessed miraculous properties. If she combined them both, Vasi should be able to craft a remedy for the petrification magic. The witch had never crafted a potion in such circumstances, but she had no other option left.

Vitality check successful! Grandmaster Wyrde avoided [Petrification]!

The dragon still lived, but her drones had turned to stone down to the last. They fell from the sky alongside Steve’s remains and shattered onto the ground. As for Wyrde, she immediately turned around and charged back at the Bohens, her glass eyes brimming with murderous anger.

Please let it work, Vasi thought upon spilling her own blood onto the God-Card. Gods, please let it work. “Rosemarine, I–”

“Vasi!” Rosemarine shouted in alarm. “Above you!”

Vasi looked up at her incoming death.

A beautiful sphere the color of the rainbow appeared above her head, as bright as it was large. The future had caught up to the present.

A great shadow flew in the projectile’s path. Pristine wings of leaves shielded Vasi, and roots protectively swirled around her in an impenetrable bush.

Rosemarine did not hesitate.

She intercepted the prismatic orb for Vasi and paid the price.

A terrible storm of elements surged from the impact point. Flames hotter than the sun’s surface, winds sharp enough to cut through mountains, frost colder than the void of space, spikes of thick hard rocks, pressurized water, and blinding lightning. Rosemarine took them all.

“Mister… where are you?” Rosemarine gargled as the light swallowed her whole. “I… can’t see… you…”

9380 multi-elemental damage!

The storm tore Rosemarine to shreds.

A shower of golden blood and guts fell upon the land, staining Vasi’s robes and wings along the way. Rosemarine’s chest was vaporized alongside most wings and roots, her head blasted off her body. Vasi watched it fall to her left in disbelief until it crashed into the ground below.

This is a nightmare. Vasi blankly stared at the severed head staining the earth with blood, at petals carried by the winds across the wasteland. I… I must wake up.

It took a notification to shake her out of disbelief.

Rosemarine Eglantine de la Barthes has left the party.

“You forced me to do this, fairy lord. You forced me to do this.”

Tears of sorrow and rage poured from Vasi’s eyes. They turned to the cause of all this suffering, screaming vengeance.

“You deceived this child and led her astray from the true dragon path.“ Wyrde formed another prismatic orb in her hand and aimed for the kill. “This is all on you.”

Vasi’s fingers trembled with burning anger. She glanced at the card in her hand, stained with her friend’s blood and her own. “The true dragon path, you said?”

[Archwitch Brew]activated!

Vasi’s crafting Perk activated, merging their blood together. The fluids washed away the card’s prison of stone and returned it to full power.

It was time for Wyrde to see the light.

“I call upon you, oh supreme god from another world!” Vasi’s words carried across the land and into the worlds beyond. “Great Calamity of all, Emperor of Outremonde and the Albain Mountains, mightiest of all dragons.”

Wyrde immediately realized her mistake and attempted to petrify the card again. Too late. The consumable burned between Vasi’s fingers, its power unleashed upon the cosmos.

“Vainqueur the Dragon!”

When Basil stared at the empty spot where his teammate used to stand, his first thought was: This hasn’t happened.

His second? This can’t be happening.

His third? I can undo it.

His fourth? I can’t.

[Permanent Buff] renewed [Joyful Spirit]!

The final one?

I have to make this count. Basil stood back on his feet, facing the titan who had slain his friend. The Maleking stepped over Bugsy’s starscorched flames, his eyes burning with malice. It can’t be in vain.

Lethal Vigil did not activate this time. No berserk rage clouded his mind. In fact, Basil’s mind had never been so sharply focused as it was now.

He raised his weapon and leaped into the fray.

Time slowed down around Basil. The wind lacerating his body, Bugsy’s flames, even the dust in the air. All seemed frozen to his eyes.

Yet even in this world of slowed time, the Maleking moved frighteningly fast. The titan crouched slightly, adjusting his stance. He lowered his sword and bent his knees. Basil recognized the pose as one used by iaijutsu practitioners before they unleashed a blindingly quick strike.

“I must congratulate you, warriors,” said the Maleking with bloodthirsty glee. “No one has ever managed to push me this far before.”

His praise washed over Basil without swaying his heart.

Basil could only use the Joyful Spirit buff once. A missing blow would waste the charge. He was quick, but his halberd’s range couldn’t compare to the Maleking’s titanic blade. The risks were too great.

He would need a tool with far greater range.

Basil stored his halberd in his inventory, much to the Maleking’s surprise. He double-jumped up and up, positioning himself above the demon lord. The two foes glared at each other, the air choking with tension.

“Clear the area!” Basil shouted at his teammates. “I’m using it!”

Realizing what his Tamer was up to, Bugsy quickly flew away as fast as his wings could carry him. Plato did not move, trusting his Counterstance. With no time left to waste, Basil opened his inventory.

Before today’s disaster, he had briefly teleported to France to check up on a theory of his. Once upon a time, Basil had tried and failed to add his house to his inventory. The System wouldn’t let him store buildings.

But there was something very interesting about Basil’s Holy War Apotheosis Perk.

Item selected: [Eiffel Tower].

It turned everything he touched into a weapon.

A three-hundred meters long spear of rusted steel materialized above the Maleking. Its shadow, many times larger than the demon king, obscured the sunlight. Basil’s hands grabbed the metal frame as the projectile fell, empowering it with his Perks and buffs.

“Runestorm: Frost!” Basil shouted like a maniac. His magic coursed through steel and imbued it with a layer of ice. “Eiffel Tower Spear!”

He could have sworn the Maleking’s eyes all widened in shock at his audacity.

Yet the demon king did not surrender himself to despair. He aimed from the falling steel tower and prepared to swipe it off the sky with a well-placed strike.

“Smilodon Blitz!”

A mad kitten bit into the Maleking’s leg. He left a small wound, but one that invited retribution.

As it was a direct assault rather than a counterattack, the Maleking’s ability activated immediately. His sword fell upon Plato with furious speed. The feline was buried under a tide of steel and searing dust.

Plato has lost all his extra lives! His next death will be the last!

Basil wondered why his friend would make this sacrifice, before quickly realizing why: the Maleking’s automatic counterattack ruined his defensive posture. His sword was stuck in the earth. The Maleking failed to raise it in time to protect himself.

The Eiffel Tower crashed against his chest, a spike of ice surging from its tip.