Amazon Apocalypse 6: Chapter 51

I put away my notifications for reaching the peak of B-Grade for the moment. I would check out what the System had in mind for me when this crisis was over. The first thing I did was send a mental command to Sharky to return, followed by a verbal command to Reluna. She was out of range for the System's party interface, but not for good old-fashioned radio signals.

I gathered from Reluna that there had been a sudden increase in undead activity, and Sharky had already caught the scent of a large group swarming the city.

"How many did you see, again?" I asked Reluna for clarification.

"Hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions. No wonder the groups we were fighting seemed so endless," Reluna replied.

I grimaced. That was a bad sign.

Originally, I thought it was merely this compound that was being surrounded by undead, but now it was clear that the entire city was being surrounded. It was a good thing I'd finished those outer walls, otherwise everyone pushed out of the corporations' private defenses would be doomed.

But the situation was still salvageable. All we had to do was hold the walls. These undead weren't too strong. Crownhill had held fast against greater odds.

Except back then, I'd had the elite warriors of Crownhill guarding the wall. Those were people who'd faced down certain death by my side more than once. This time, I'd have... who?

Sakura, Reluna, Sharky? Hopefully Nakano, Kogai, and whoever else they could muster. The wall I'd just built was enormous. If the horde was as big as Reluna said, it might take us days to clear, and even the tiniest breach would lead to a slaughter among the low-leveled people on the outskirts of the city.

I rummaged through the Bonelord's remains to retrieve my Divine Seal, then was off to the walls. I hoped to run into Nakano on the way, but he must have made it back to his headquarters with whoever he could save from the party.

Hopefully, he'd gotten most of them out of there. My fight had reduced the party venue and most of its surroundings to piles of debris, so there was no way to count bodies in any short amount of time.

I killed a few zombies already in the city on my way, but it looked like the corporation people were dealing with them, or at least those corporation people that remained. It seemed about half of the big buildings were empty today.

I arrived to find zombies already swarming the walls. About a third looked like the bodies of Earthlings, but a few were of clearly non-human origin. I wasn't sure if they were from previous stages of the integration or if they were brought over from off-world.

Corpses could be shipped in bulk using bags of holding, and I knew there was a market for such things, since Myrina had a habit of selling the bodies of people she killed as easily as any other type of loot.

I could easily imagine a faction like those undead I'd just dealt with buying up a million corpses, bringing them here in storage, and then having them reanimated locally to produce an army that could dominate this shard, and maybe all of our new world once the integration was over. All they needed was a local faction to open the door.

Zombie Used Car Salesman (Level 8)
Zombie Corporate Drone (Level 12)
Zombie Orc Woodsman (Level 13)
Zombie Moonelf Farmer (Level 14)

Zombie Troll (Level 23)

After a brief survey of the enemy, I unleashed a wave of spells. Five hundred attacks launched all at once, vaporizing just as many attackers. I used Eldritch Blight and Soulchain Nexus right after, hoping to spread my Corrupting Marks that way.

If I was able to get the ball rolling on a bunch of damage-over-time spells, perhaps I could wipe this whole horde out relatively quickly. Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed a moment later as something flared up in the crowd of undead.

A flash of death mana massively reduced the spread of my afflictions through Soulchain Nexus, and those that did spread were being countered so their effects would take minutes instead of seconds. That didn't sound like much, but minutes was all these things needed to throw themselves against the walls and do some damage before they died. I scanned the crowd to figure out who or what had done so. I soon found the culprit.

Priest of Undeath (Level 102)

I killed him quickly, and my marks resumed spreading. Unfortunately, there was more than one Priest of Undeath. I cursed as I realized the undead army had my best bet for wiping them out already countered.

Things weren't all lost. These enemies were pitifully weak, and even if I was stuck with only my Divine Arsenal spells, I could wipe out five hundred at a time like a small army of mages. It would just take time, and be relatively low-danger compared to my usual exploits. But that didn't mean I didn't want help.

I looked around and found the construction workers I'd hired over the last few days. They were still putting finishing touches on the walls, mostly because I hadn't figured out what to do with them now that the job was done. If I fired them, they'd starve to death.

I vaguely remembered giving them some nonsense jobs to sweep the walls and fix the roads just to keep them busy until I figured out what to do with them long term. Suddenly, I had a very real and much more immediate task for them.

"You all are being drafted. Take the tools I've made for you and get up here on these walls!" I yelled.

I expected half of them to run in terror, or at least tell me where to shove it in the face of an undead horde. But maybe nearly two weeks of doing what I told them all day had them following orders by instinct. Or maybe suddenly getting shelter and regular meals again had restored some attachment to society.

It was only a dozen at first, but word spread, and soon hundreds, then thousands followed. More were coming by the moment.

"How are we supposed to fight those things?" a man asked on the wall beside me.

"Like this." I grabbed the stone-shaping tool from his hands. I'd made and distributed them by the thousands, and most of my workers had one. I pointed at the rubble in the city behind us, used the tool to grab a chunk of rock, then used the same tool to fling it forward like my arm was a catapult.

The crude stone projectile wasn't much, but it could deal some serious damage to a low-level undead. For those things, just crushing the skull was enough to put them down.

I passed the tool back to its owner, and he copied me. Soon, they were flinging a few thousand projectiles out every few seconds. There was plenty of rubble within the city walls to throw. All together, they still couldn't take out as many undead as I was slaying with every volley of spells, but every bit helped, and their actions allowed me to spend more time targeting those Priests of Undeath so I could start spreading my afflictions and deal with this army all at once.

One minute turned to ten, and we were holding strong. To my surprise, I discovered my workers were starting to kill more undead with each passing moment. I realized they were gaining levels.

While it took me days of work to gain a single level from such weak enemies, my workers were almost all under level 10, which meant they were gaining levels left and right as they killed zombies stronger than they were, one after another.

This was exactly the sort of crucible that had turned Crownhill's survivors into true powerhouses, only this time things were on a far larger scale with far superior defenses.

A decent portion of my workers had run off instead of following their comrades to the walls, and I'd written them off as cowards and traitors until the moment some of them returned. Maybe they weren't cowards after all. They'd just gone back to get weapons.

"Let me up!" one of them said, jogging up with a rifle over his shoulder.

He took a position on the walls and started picking off undead. The rifle made short work of low-level zombies, just like I remembered from early on in the integration. While guns had lost their value against anything at my level, they were still quite effective at the F-Grade, and pretty soon the rifleman and people like him were catching up to the rock-throwers.

In fact, our numbers were growing by the moment. It seemed like people were filling the walls by the thousands now. Suddenly, we really had an army to defend the city, and things were looking up. By the time Sharky and Reluna arrived, the undead might be thoroughly routed.

I ended up taking a step back with all my spells to conserve mana. That big fight against three B-Grades had burned through my reserves, and killing five hundred undead again and again was doing a number on me, mitigated only by the temporary stat boost I was getting from kills through Soulchain Nexus.

I pulled back and focused only on taking out the C-Grade Priests of Undeath, who wouldn't be brought down by thrown stones or rifles. They appeared to be the ones controlling the undead army, so every one that died turned a huge cluster of the attackers into a mob of leaderless zombies.

When another group of people came, I felt my heart lift with pride. This city could really pull itself together during a crisis. Hell, by the time this battle was over, enough low-level people might have gained levels sufficient to form a faction outside of the corporations, counterbalancing the sheer amount of power they had and forming a much more stable society when the dust settled.

But my rising spirits were dashed a moment later when I realized part of the people coming to join us weren't here to help.

A group of thirty had hidden among the crowd. I'd glanced over them at first since they looked like anyone else, but examining them revealed they were from one of the major corporations. And I was pretty sure they weren't here to help.

Corporate Enforcer (Level 45) x30

They rushed the city's gates and rapidly overpowered the defenders there. By the time I realized what was happening, several of them were already working the winch to the gates.

"No!" I cried as I realized they were about to let the whole undead army past the wall we'd worked so hard to build and bring them into the city.

I tried to charge up some more mana bolts to take care of them. Given their low levels, these guys wouldn't be much more difficult to kill than the zombies. The problem was that they were in the middle of a crowd of my own people. They were dressed the same and looked the same, and I had to watch very carefully to distinguish friend from foe.

Maybe I should have wiped out everyone there and accepted a few loyal innocents dying if it meant saving the city. But in that decisive moment, I thought I could take them out before they took the walls down.

I killed the two opening the gate, but then they must have switched to their backup plan. An explosion went off, blowing the gate wide open and tearing the chunk of wall above it asunder.

I rushed to the breach to hold it, sword in one hand and spells in the other. Doomseeker hovered over my shoulder, pouring out mana en masse and helping me throw out just a few more spells every second.

The first thing I cast was Eldritch Blight, spraying every undead sprinting for the breach in our defenses. A wave of carnage swept out from me, and by the time my unholy portal to the void dissipated, I had a volley of mana bolts ready to follow it up, then flashed my Divine Seal to take out a third wave.

But then what I'd feared finally happened. I missed one. It was just a single level 15 zombie, but my blow had only taken off its body at the stomach, and there was enough left of it to crawl along the ground, grab the ankle of a defender wounded in the explosion, and pull him to the ground. I heard the sickening sound of tearing flesh as the zombie feasted on him.

"Form a line! Guard the sides of the walls. I'll hold the breach!" I yelled, but it was too late. Fear and panic spread through my workers-turned-fighters. It was one thing to rain rocks and gunfire down on them when they were on the other side of a huge wall. But when they could actually grab you, tear you down, and rip out your throat, holding the line took a whole new level of courage.

Worse, without me flying up and down the wall to clear any particularly large group with Priests of Undeath in it, other parts of the wall could soon be overwhelmed. I cursed once more.

If I didn't have to defend the city, I could have just flown overhead and rained down destruction for a few days until the whole army was gone, but how many people would be eaten by then? And all because a few greedy traitors set up a system of governance that blatantly favored them, then decided to flip the board at the slightest sign they might stop winning.

I kept scanning the area, looking for more traitors. I spotted a few here and there elbowing their way through the defenders. I didn't want to blast them apart right then and there and cause chaos in the ranks, but I hit them with a small and discreet strike, just barely big enough to deal a Corrupting Mark or stack of Hemorrhage and Destined Death.

They'd die in agony later tonight as they bled from their eyes and ears, covered in boils and unnatural sores. It was a better fate than traitors usually received.

But while I was distracted, another zombie slipped through. I got to him an instant later, but he'd been eyeing the people on the walls.

I rummaged around in my bags of holding and grabbed a few dozen swords and shields. These were top-notch gear for C-Grades and usually sold through Doomblade's Armory on developed worlds. Here, I tossed them around like candy for F-Grades. Unlike a lot of C-Grade gear, this stuff wasn't supernaturally heavy or impossible for F-Grades to wield.

"Take these and defend the stairs. Hold strong!" I yelled, still sealing the breach single-handed. I was killing around five hundred undead every second by this point. If Myrina's Amazonian superstitions about slaughtering low-levels en masse had any truth to them, I probably had a bit of bad luck in store after this.

A dozen brave men and two women grabbed the weapons I'd offered and took positions guarding the flanks. Most were already near level ten, and after killing one more zombie apiece, they hit it.

With them guarding the walls, I rested a little easier. We could do this. But while inspecting the walls, I saw something that made my heart drop.

Corporate Enforcer (Level 52) x37

Another group of traitors had appeared from deeper inside the city, and they planned to take out one of the other gates.

Where were the non-traitor corporate guys? Were they still cleaning up undead near the corporate compounds? We needed them here and now or the whole city was going to fall.

I fired a few long-range magical projectiles from the other side of the city, and that took out half the traitors then and there. But the onrushing zombie horde took advantage of the tiny weakness I'd revealed and surged forward even more aggressively than before.

Just before I decided to yell for my defenders to save themselves and give up on holding the wall, the help I'd been waiting for finally arrived. Another group of corporate enforcers rushed at the first, shoving them off the gate mechanisms and tearing their explosive devices off the inside of the gate.

A few booms sounded somewhere over in the undead army, and I squinted into the distance to see who was responsible.

That was Nakano! He and his forces had finally joined the fight. Kogai was there too, and he jumped right off the wall into battle, while most of the Red Torii Group's elite fighters joined the defenders on the walls and started distributing more weapons.

I narrowed my eyes and realized some of the weapons were better than the rest. Was that Gobgob among them? What was she doing on the walls? She wasn't a fighter! But there she was, handing out swords, armor, and other gear to the defenders.

But what caught my attention most of all was the familiar aura I felt by my side.

"Hyaaa!" Sakura roared as she leaped into battle, war club raised and heart thrumming with battle fury. Each swing of her club sent undead flying a dozen at a time. The only limit to the carnage she wrought was the reach of her arms.

"Dad told me you were attacked!" Sakura yelled over the thrum of battle.

"We were betrayed! We need to hold the line here. If the undead get into the city, they'll wipe it out," I yelled back in reply.

I suspected whatever undead faction Walter and the others had made their bargain with had intended to flood this shard with weak undead reanimated locally. Afterward, they'd use this shard to take over every one they integrated with.

Given the population of old Earth, I was certain that any shard from our world they encountered would have plenty of corpses to grow an ever-growing undead horde. Heck, they might have already succeeded in their plot on other shards, and we were seeing the undead they'd mustered there facing us now.

The sudden addition of more high-leveled combatants sent a cheer running up and down the line, and my spirits lifted as well. I waved to them from afar and yelled while pointing at the other city gates, and they must have heard at least part of what I said because different groups broke off to defend the other gates into the city and patrol the wall. Pretty soon we went from barely holding on to standing strong.

The intelligence guiding the enemy must have come to the same realization I did, because I sensed a ripple run through the undead army. The tide of attackers slowed for a moment and started pulling back, which left me time to snipe a few more of those Priests of Undeath.

Then, all at once, a resounding voice rang out over the battlefield. It was heavy and full of malevolence, leaving no doubt that this was the mastermind behind this entire assault.

A great shadow rose over the land, shrouding the sky in darkness. A cold chill swept over our surroundings. A massive figure rose up, like a man clad in shadows but as tall as a building. The figure stared all of us on the wall down before speaking in a booming voice.

"Foul living creatures! Lay down your arms and accept the cool embrace of undeath! I, Maverik the Despoiler, lay claim to this realm in the name of my master, the Chaos Raven. Your foolish leaders have betrayed you, thinking they could be masters of me with their petty tricks. Little did they know, the moment they accepted the first shipment of undead agents, their souls were consumed from within. Now it is only a matter of time..."

Maverik droned on about how doomed we were. I focused on his level, and when I saw it I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Maverik the Despoiler (Level 389)

It was about time I had a lucky break, considering what a disaster today had been. Thankfully, Maverik seemed intent on giving his speech, so while he talked I started lining up my kill shot. If I was lucky I could end this in one big blow.

"...And that is why I, Maverik the Despoiler and supreme master of despair, do hereby declare that--hey, who's making that noise?" Maverik demanded.

I bent my ears to listen, and in the distance I could hear it too. There was the faint chittering of chitin against gravel. The noise sent a tingle running up my spine. The last time I'd heard that sound, Crownhill had been fighting against an incursion of void monsters.

But then I heard a voice. It was faint at first, but it carried quite a distance and was growing louder by the moment.

"Nom nom."
"Nom nom..."
"Nom nom!"

"What in the abyss..." Maverik the Despoiler turned to look and saw what I knew was coming. It was none other than Sharky.

"Wait... hells below, is that a fucking apocalypse beast?!" Maverik shrieked. His form suddenly shrunk, and a much smaller version of him darted into the sky to escape.

But it was already too late.

"Nom nom." Sharky surged forward, putting on a burst of speed. He sailed clear over the undead army with his jaws wide open.

"Chaos Raven, save me!" Maverik's voice trailed off into the distance, like he was being swallowed by a bottomless pit. As he had appeared, Maverik the Despoiler was gone.

Then, an endless chitinous horde of voidlings descended upon the undead army.

<Note>

Yay, Sharky to the rescue! But somebody should really tell the forces of San Francisco that the giant shark monster and army of void monsters are very friendly and 100% on their side (if they'll believe it.)