Chapter 320

Al-Safa, Syria, 1:42 AM

Faarax turned to get some distance from me, but ran headfirst into one of the Constructs I materialized to block him. I struck him from above, driving my knee between his wings and the Staff of Raphael against his shoulder blades. He lost altitude, and I went with him.

We landed in the thick of the battle, crashing down hard on a Magmasaur. One of the warlord’s men kicked away the reptile he was fighting and shoved the barrel of his gun into my face. Without looking at him, I used Orbit on it just as he started pulling the trigger. The bullets went directly into his boss’ shoulder.

I flew into the air as the man stopped firing, a look of horror etched on his face, and swept his legs out from under him. He screamed as he fell, landing right in front of another Magmasaur. Despite his bullet wounds, Faarax flapped his wings and tried to escape again.

This time, a magnum appeared in his hand and he shifted so he could see me. He barely took time to aim before pulling the trigger. I Pushed the hammer, keeping it from going off as I lunged forward and grabbed his leg. He stopped cold, and I Pulled him in and punched him in the stomach.

Faarax grunted in pain as he fell onto a bed of Constructed spikes, and I dragged him off of it before throwing him towards the Seismic Plesiosaur. I was forced to Lift a Magmasaur to use as cover as chunks of sharp ice hurled towards me from another enemy. They turned the monster into a pincushion, angering but not killing the beast, and I sent it on a revenge mission.

The warlord’s damage was healed again. His spine had been pierced in several locations from where he had landed, which was more than enough to kill another of his men. I charged him, and his cannon materialized in his arms. Even though I threw myself to the side, there was no avoiding the homing attack at this distance now that Cheetah Sprint was over.

I managed to put up two Force Fields, but both were shattered as the cannonball came for me at nearly point blank range. It hit my stomach, which I tensed, and sent me backwards a few feet. A look of victory came across Faarax’s face as his attack seemed to work, but the projectile fell to the ground once it lost its momentum.

“Good effort,” I said, trying not to wheeze.

His grip on the cannon had become slack when he saw that it had barely inconvenienced me, and I was able to Pull it out of his arms. Since it had an owner I couldn’t use Entwined With The System to throw it into my inventory, so I did it the old fashioned way. I didn’t want him to have access to it again.

Especially since it hurt me more than I let on. Taking a cannonball to the gut was no joke.

With a roar, Faarax retrieved a cutlass from his inventory and lunged at me. I could tell from the way that he moved that he was under some kind of Sword Mastery ability, likely taken from one of his followers. His movements were mechanical in a way that made him easy to predict. I twirled the Staff of Raphael, catching the blade over and over again as my attention wandered to the biggest threat here.

The rivers of lava coming from the Seismic Plesiosaur’s wounds were starting to flow across the landscape as it slowly approached the fight. That was its lifeblood, but I knew it wasn’t going to run out anytime soon. Bleeding a monster out was anticlimactic and making the battlefield more hazardous was the administrator’s idea of a good time.

Where the Magmasaurs had no issue with the encroaching lava, Faarax’s men needed to be more careful. They were forced into a fighting retreat to higher ground. A few sent attacks my way, but nothing a Force Field or two couldn’t handle.

I started flying as I knocked Faarax’s cutlass away and kicked him backwards. He stumbled off of the high ground and stepped into the molten rock. The warlord flailed in pain as his instincts screamed at him to move. I held out the Staff of Raphael, preventing him from getting back to safety, and he continued to burn. It only took a few seconds of pained panic before he remembered that he had wings.

They spread, and I shackled them with a Construct. Instead of flying upwards, he fell flat on his face. Technically, he did succeed in getting to the high ground, but not in the way that he had hoped. Faarax flexed his wings as he screamed, breaking my creations, and swung desperately at my feet with his sword.

The attack was easy to avoid. I backed away, giving him plenty of room to get back up. He was surrounded by lava now, and it was getting higher. Faarax, pained and panicked, spread his wings and flew upwards. Shakily, he pulled up his magnum and aimed it at me.

I wasn’t looking at him, but instead nodded towards the thing behind him. A bottle of one of Bethany’s finest appeared in my hand and I quickly swigged it down without a care for the gun.

<<<>>>

[[Item]]

Arcane Breakfast Tea

When imbibed, restore 20% of your Mental Points.

<<<>>>

An ear-piercing screech caused him to turn around, shot unfired, as the Seismic Plesiosaur loomed over him. Its jaws were opened wide as it lowered its massive head, and its teeth clamped down around Faarax. A burnt leg fell into the lava as the boss monster shook before swallowing. Behind me, another of his men died.

The dinosaur’s orange and black eyes, each wider than I was tall, focused on me as it opened its jaws and screeched again. Faarax was tumbling down its throat, burning the whole way down. I began charging my Dragon’s Breath as I flew forward. It was time to take down the boss.

I spun in midair, Constructing a hammerhead on the end of the Staff of Raphael. I doubled up Orbit on the weapon and connected with the Seismic Plesiosaur’s mouth. The force caused it to recoil, shaking its head as I nearly dislocated its jaw. After eating two things that looked just like me, it no doubt thought I would also be easy prey.

As if I was going to allow that.

Still, it wasn’t my top priority. Dragon’s Breath was ready, and I flew under its head until I was a few feet from its neck. If these Half-Angels were anything like Coe, then they needed to make a gesture in order to eat holy energy. Faarax was currently being crushed and burned on his way down the monster’s gullet, unable to do anything but suffer.

Golden light erupted from my mouth, piercing through the Seismic Plesiosaur’s rocky hide. It attempted to scream but could only gurgle as I killed two birds with one stone. Lava spilled from the fissure I was leaving in its neck, covering Faarax even as I kept the beam focused on his head.

Behind me, his followers started falling in droves as the constant damage killed him over and over again. Normally, I would have lamented the excess loss of life. Not here, though. Each of these men willingly followed a known war criminal, and even admired him enough to offer their lives in his service. Faarax might have been the worst of them all, but that didn’t mean they were saints.

The Seismic Plesiosaur backed away as the front of its throat was sheared open, shaking wildly from the unceasing onslaught. I shifted with it, sensing which way it would move by reading its dark orange aura. Faarax’s descent continued as the lava weighed him down and the monster’s body reacted, but his head remained in the beam.

I only took it off of him when the dinosaur’s head thrust towards me in an ill-fated gambit to make me stop. Not closing my mouth, which would have ended the attack, I flew under its jaw and struck again. The beam of holy energy wrecked the landscape as it went wild, and the Seismic Plesiosaur recoiled again.

Seconds later, I was back in position to continue my assault against the boss’ neck. It didn’t take much longer before Faarax ran out of lives and he stopped regenerating. The lava blood started claiming his body. He was done.

My Dragon’s Breath swept lower after that, piercing through the Seismic Plesiosaur’s torso towards  its stomach. If Ha-Yun had managed to stay alive, then I was going to be damn sure that she was taken care of.

The dinosaur turned in an attempt to flee from the hole I was carving through it. Panic laced every bit of its aura as it was smart enough to realize that this was a losing battle. Twice now I had proved that I could smack it around, and it didn’t seem to want to try a third. The lava coming out of its body intensified, becoming proper geysers.

I flew in front of it, moving much faster above ground, but I knew it was going to submerge soon. Following the boss through the terrain would be a bitch, so I needed a knockout punch now. Despite the heat of the battlefield and the debuff I was about to suffer from, I activated Overclocked Body.

<<<>>>

[[Skill]]

Overclocked Body

Remove the limitations of your body. When you activate this skill, double your Strength and Dexterity stats and lower your Constitution by half. This skill can be activated once per day for the same number of seconds as your altered Constitution stat. You gain the Extreme Dehydration debuff, taking 50% more fire damage, for the duration and for a number of minutes equal to the number of seconds Overclocked Body was in use afterwards.

<<<>>>

My Dragon’s Breath’s beam intensified and widened as it became stronger. The attack’s effect was based on my stat total, which had just been enhanced by a couple hundred points. I didn’t stop there as the Seismic Plesiosaur lowered its head. Every one of my Starstones activated at once and went careening for the boss’ neck where it was thinnest. 

The fire damage wouldn’t do anything, but that was only half of it. Each one of the twenty-three Starstones slammed into the beast like a meteor, destroying chunks of its rocky hide with each strike. I continued to focus fire on its body as I cut through its chest to its stomach.

All at once, the head and neck crashed to the ground, unmoving. I kept Dragon’s Breath going, however, before I felt something sinister in the air. The moment I did, I closed my mouth.

Without warning or preamble, the ground I was flying over shifted and spun into another rock worm. This one was smaller and faster than the ones before. I attempted to ascend further into the sky, but I was caught by surprise and its lamprey mouth clamped down on my leg.

I barely managed to pull my sock and shoe into my inventory before it began to grind.

I grimaced as my flesh was flayed from my bones. It took me less than a second to find the rock worm’s master.

Ha-Yun limped out of the hole I had made, ignoring the lava around her. The basalt armor she wore was red hot, but that didn’t seem to matter. Her silver halo was more solid than it had been before. That sinister feeling I felt had to have been her eating my energy from the receiving end.

It didn’t seem to have done her much good. I had probably shut it off too fast. She limped forward and it barely looked like she was holding on.

“Y-you,” she spat, rage and confusion swirling through her aura. “M-my Aaron!”

It was clear she wanted to say more, but she clutched at her head in pain. Whatever was going through her mind only made the rock worm grind harder and faster. 

The pain was hard to ignore, but I had the experience and mindset for it. Two Constructed drills appeared on either side of her head while a guillotine materialized above her wings. They attacked in tandem, Spinning hard against her ears while the blade Dropped through three of her six feathered appendages before losing momentum.

Ha-Yun screamed, and her monster faltered. I slammed down with the hammerhead still attached to the Staff of Raphael, breaking the rock worm enough for me to pull my bloody stump out of it. Without missing a beat, I charged.

The lava in front of the Rubble Rouser shifted as a wall formed out of the ground. I activated Shield as I slammed into it. Molten rock covered me, and I knew that it was going to cause massive damage if I let it touch my body thanks to the Extreme Dehydration debuff increasing fire damage by 50%.

Overclocked Body was still active, however, and my enhanced Strength allowed me to break through the wall. Ha-Yun recoiled in surprise when I passed her by and touched down. Twisting and shifting my entire body with two applications of Orbit, I swung and smacked her with the Staff of Raphael. Her body flew into the remainder of the wall before bouncing off.

She laid motionless in a crumpled heap as I scraped off the lava from Shield just before it broke. Some of it landed on me, but not enough to deal massive damage. I turned off Overclocked Body and tapped myself with Touch of Heaven to heal up half of my hit points and remove the debuff.

Unceremoniously, I reached down and pulled Ha-Yun’s corpse into my inventory. I took what was worth taking before returning her body to the lava. Without the rock armor, I could see the twisted look on her face. Pain, confusion, and suffering.

I sighed. “Faarax had this coming in spades,” I started slowly, my eyes panning across the battlefield. There were still some Magmasaurs left, but mopping them up with Constructed blades was a simple task. “But I regret having to kill Ha-Yun and Maahir. They deserved better than Aaron.”

<<<>>>

[[Patron Quest Complete!]]

They did, but you did what you had to do. The moment Ha-Yun came out with that Scottish accent, I knew that the most humane thing to do was put her out of her misery. You saw the Prime Doppelganger deal with your foreign memories, and that monster was built for it. There are plenty of cautionary tales about memory transfers that have gone wrong.

Ha-Yun was already showing signs of cognitive dissonance, and she thought someone she had never met before was her beloved. She wasn’t sane. I truly did believe you did the right thing. Maahir was probably not far behind.

You did a good thing, Ant.

Reward: 35,000 points.

<<<>>>

I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. A victory screen popped up, but I dismissed it immediately. I didn’t want to see how many murders I received credit for. The more player kills someone racked up, the more points they received from whatever their victim had saved up and spent upgrading their stats and class abilities. Quite frankly, that number didn’t appeal to me at the moment.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I agreed even if I didn’t like it. Then, I arched an eyebrow in confusion. “Wait, you can talk about them now? But they’re Half-Angels.”

<<<>>>

[[Patron Message]]

This is going to be a very morbid correction, but they were Half-Angels. Now, they’re corpses. I can talk about them as I please, even if I’d rather not.

<<<>>>

A thought ran through my head and I jerked up. “Can you talk about Glaraphel, then?”

<<<>>>

[[Patron Message]]

No, I cannot. Which means exactly what you think it means. It’s nice to see that you care, though.

<<<>>>

“I mean, a little. I’ve gotten used to him,” I mumbled, though I couldn’t help the smile on my face. Coe hadn’t destroyed Glaraphel back when he ate the Power’s halo, which meant he could still reappear. The only question was how long it was going to take, and that wasn’t going to be answered here. “Thanks, Sara. That is a bit of weight off of my mind. Can you tell me how Mercury’s doing?”

<<<>>>

[[Patron Message]]

According to Marishiten, he’s doing his best. Mercury should be ready to head back to the entrance by the time you’re done harvesting the Seismic Plesiosaur. Give or take some time, of course, depending on if he gets distracted or not.

<<<>>>

“Gotcha. Thanks, Sara,” I said as I turned to the huge boss monster. The lava coursing through its veins was still hot, but it was rapidly cooling off. Constructing a shovel with a sharp edge, I got to work as I thought about what had just happened. The parts were always better for Ash when they were fresh.