Amazon Apocalypse 6: Chapter 33

I watched over the others while they slept. I didn’t need that kind of rest too often anyway, so I would be fine even if I stayed up all night. The brief rest I’d gotten lying beside Bridget would do me for two or three days at least.

I went through the plan several times in my mind. This would be a difficult mission. Without me, it might even be impossible. Planting the explosives, sneaking past the guards, and escaping would all be exceedingly difficult at D-Grade.

Fortunately, I hadn’t handed this job off to anyone else. I was here and planned to make the most of it.

The sun rose, and with it, our opportunity arrived. It was Sunday, which was the least busy time on the base, though that didn’t mean the guards were lax. Based on Abby’s investigation, we’d only have a few minutes to work with when the overnight guards switched out for the morning guards.

I really did want to steal some conventional explosives. Considering how the nascent divinity had soaked up my spells when we were fighting, I was worried even my heavy-hitting spells might not take down the memorial with any speed.

Besides, this was definitely going to attract a lot of attention, and if we wanted to leave the military base with enough soldiers to fight at our side, we needed to take care of this problem before they could raise the alarm and mount a proper defense.

I waited until just before dawn and found the explosives just where Suzie said they would be. Supplies were catalogued every week, but one of the officers walked through the warehouse late every evening and might notice unless I nabbed the explosives moments after he was finished touring the place, so that was what I did.

I left the explosives for Suzie to pick up and plant. By the time I was done, she and the others were awake and preparing for a big day. It was still before dawn, but they were up anyway. The girls were quiet as they prepared themselves.

Charlie seemed more relaxed than the others, and he probably would have slept in if I hadn’t dropped by to nudge him awake. He woke with a start, but I shushed him. He was with the officers possessed by the nascent divinity, so sneaking out was harder for him, but not impossible. I suspected the other officers had been avoiding him ever since he started acting extra possessed, so if any noticed him leaving, they pretended they didn’t.

Charlie quietly got into position, and I doubled back to check in with the girls.

“I checked in with Charlie. He’ll be in a position to cover you girls,” I said to Suzie and Abby.

“You checked in on him already? But it’s only been a few minutes since you were last here with us.” Abby frowned.

“I’m fast. Don’t worry about it. Meghan, are you sure you can handle the distraction on your own?” I asked.

Meghan’s cheeks flushed, but there was a firmness in her gaze. “You can count on me.”

“Then I’ll be playing backup. If anything goes wrong for any of you, just yell for me.” I wished them all good luck, and then we were off.

***

Suzie’s operation was a quick and smooth success, mostly thanks to the fact that I set things up for her. With Abby’s help, the two women laid down a series of explosives next the memorial that were sure to take it out. We were planting about as much as we could get away with.

It would be spotted by the end of the day, but we would hopefully be able to get away with leaving it there for a few minutes. Meghan wasn’t quite ready with her distraction. The more military personnel she could draw toward the refugee camp, the less my team would have to fight while I finished off the Corrupted Natural Divinity in the shadow realm.

When the shy young woman had voiced her plans to me, I’d been more than a little shocked. Before she’d volunteered for this part of the mission, I’d been planning to give this role to Charlie or Abby, but Meghan assured me she was ready and willing.

I dropped in on her to find the show was about to begin. She saw me looking and waved as she hefted a bottle of alcohol. It was already open, and she’d clearly taken a few sips from it. At first, I thought it was just for show, but now I was pretty sure she wanted the liquid courage.

Meghan took one last long sip, then pulled the tie from her hair, letting it fall loosely over her shoulders. After, she repeated the process with her top, letting it fall to the ground as well. Her pants followed next. Pretty soon, there was a naked and beautiful woman with a bottle of alcohol in one hand, a staff in the other, and nothing else on her.

Disrobing drew quite a bit of attention. Women were shielding their eyes, men were pretending to shield their eyes, and quite a few refugees were pointing and laughing. Meghan’s cheeks were flushed, though she really had nothing to be embarrassed about. As someone who reached the D-Grade, her body had been sculpted to perfection several times over.

I could tell more than one man was just as interested in her as he was confused. And if Meghan’s exhibitionist moment wasn’t enough to catch everyone’s attention, the words that followed were.

“I, Meghan the Invincible Witch, challenge all of you to a duel! Whoever can take my drink from me gets to keep me. Do any of you dare accept my challenge?” Meghan shouted. Before the crowd could respond, she started shooting ice spells into the air, left and right.

The crowd started screaming, some running toward her, some running away. Meghan started blasting people with her ice spell, freezing them in place with her least lethal ability. I’d had some worries at first, and my initial inclination had been to summon Sharky and fake a monster attack just to be sure the military was busy. But from the roar of the sudden crowd in the refugee camp, that wasn’t necessary.

“Out of my way! I’ve always wanted a sexy witch girlfriend!” shouted a young man.

“Those tits would be wasted on you, kid! Let an experienced gentleman have a crack at them!” said an older man.

“I don’t care about her. Just get me that booze! I haven’t had a drink in months!” shouted one woman rushing for Meghan’s bottle of alcohol.

I watched for nearly a minute while Meghan blasted people with spells and held her bottle of booze over her head. I realized nobody had called the military police in, so I cupped my hands and shouted.

“Call the guards! Somebody get those military in here to put a stop to this riot!” I yelled. Thankfully, someone repeated the call, and soon most officers, both off-duty and on, were rushing to investigate the strange scene. No doubt the rumor would spread like wildfire.

I was a bit worried about Meghan, but she seemed certain she could get herself out of this easily enough. I doubled back, met up with Charlie, who’d been delaying the next guard shift at the memorial building, then gave Abby and Suzie the signal.

Kaboom!

A massive explosion rocked the area, throwing stones and chunks of the memorial just short of the occupied buildings.

“That probably woke it up. You two look like you’re investigating with everyone else.”

“Is the thing you mentioned dead now? I’m not seeing this divinity thing anywhere.” Suzie’s head whipped around left and right as she held a dagger in one hand.

“Not yet, but it will be. Try not to get yourselves killed in the next few minutes.” I finished speaking to them, tore off my cloak, and drew my sword. It wasn’t the cheap thing I used for my D-Rank adventurer disguise, this was my real sword, crafted from enchanted adamantium and the rib bone of an Apocalypse Dragon.

Before either of my companions got a good look at me, I stepped into the shadowrealm. There, I found the monster I’d been waiting for wide awake. Before me was a mob of shadowy, misshapen human creatures forged from half-remembered memories and extradimensional energy.

Corrupted Natural Divinity (308)

I let out a low whistle. This thing had gained three levels in less than two days. Even in the middle of the crusade on Ladwick, I’d had a tough time keeping such a pace. I was extremely lucky I’d spotted this early, because it could have turned into an very dangerous problem if allowed to keep growing. That divinity in this thing's name wasn't just for show.

As one, the shambling horde turned to me. Perhaps it was the damage we’d just dealt by blowing up its anchor, but now the humanoid figures had lost all semblance of individuality and were now sticking together like lumps of soft wax. Arms brushed against torsos, merged, and formed a grotesque whole until what resulted was more like a tower of vaguely human flesh than anything else.

My head went back to what the Goddess in Jade said about A-Grades wanting to eat this thing. The thought of her perfect lips chomping down on this disgusting pile of goop turned my stomach.

I activated Mage Armor and was enveloped by a barrier of mana. I reached out to my old Elemental Phalanx ability too, though that ability had evolved when I sacrificed it to my Instrument of Fate Signature Skill.

Mana of various aspects swirled around me as Instrument of Fate called it to my side. It didn’t look like much now, but I knew on instinct that fortune and happenstance would allow these motes of mana to absorb attacks meant for me.

I reached out for my other Signature Skill, Incarnation of the Apocalypse Dragon. My teeth grew a little sharper, and my eyes keener and more predatory. Behind me, my shadow let out a roar of triumph as it stood, looking for a moment like a real shadow as it mimicked me from behind.

I took a deep breath as fire filled my throat. Sunlight blossomed in my offhand, and I breathed fire on the exposed tendrils of the natural divinity while simultaneously throwing the Sunlight Spear I held in my off-hand.

What followed was a battle, but only in the same way that fighting the wilderness creeping into my yard before the integration was a battle. Wherever I went, things died. Dragon fire scoured the ground of the shadowrealm, turning it more into a world of flames than one of darkness. My sword cut through shadowy flesh again and again, slicing through my enemy like a weed wacker.

Despite my best efforts, there was a lot of this thing to take down, and I could only stay in the shadowrealm so long. If I had tried to fight this thing before destroying the memorial, this battle would have been impossible.

Despite being one entity, my Corrupting Marks were taking effect as if I were fighting a horde of weaker enemies. I had only had three spells to deal with big hoards like this. One of them was my fire breath, which I was already using. Soulchain Nexus was another, and I’d activated at the start of the fight, though these things were proving resistant to its effects.

The third and most powerful area of effect spell I had was Eldrich Blight, and so far, I’d been wary of using it. But now it seemed like I had no choice.

I activated the spell, and just like in the outside world, a rift to the void tore open in space behind me. Corrupting energies flooded out of it and scoured my enemies with more Corrupting Marks by the second, no matter their power.

That spell was the leverage I needed to start knocking these things down. Once I could detonate my Corrupting Marks quickly, I was able to get Soulchain Nexus to spread faster, and the chain reaction spread like wildfire.

But as I’d feared, using Eldrich Blight here in the shadowrealm came with a price. Void monsters had taken notice. Even in the physical world, some of them were willing to cross over. Here in the shadowrealm, they were even more interested.

“Shadow, if you know what’s good for you, defend that portal!” I yelled at my draconic shadow. It was busy feasting on the corrupted natural divinity.

Unfortunately, just because it was my shadow didn’t mean I had control over it, and it preferred the natural divinity as prey over the void creatures. They were small for now, but I knew there were things in the void that could give even A-Grades trouble. Fortunately there were only small bug-like creatures for now. I would need to make sure I closed the portal before I let anything bigger in.

Void Scavenger (Level 91)

In the end, I had to switch targets and take out the void scavengers while directing the portal at the remaining clusters of Corrupted Natural Divinities. I no longer had the time to craft powerful elemental attacks with Mana Arsenal, and what I was firing now was more similar to my original humble Mana Bolt than any of the fancy spells I'd copied from my time in the Dragon Lodge.

Thankfully, even such weak spells were usually enough for lower-leveled monsters thanks to my high proficiencies and the amount of mana I could squeeze into even the humblest of spells. Hundreds of them were orbiting my head like a storm of magic, and they were flying in all directions about as fast as they formed.

I felt the effects of staying in the shadowrealm too long around the time the last of the natural divinity was dying. I cut off Eldrich Blight, threw out a last barrage of spells to take out the remaining Void Scavenger, then stepped out of the shadowrealm.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been in there, but stepping back into the physical world was a bit like getting a breath of fresh air after staying underwater for far longer than was safe.

I took a few heaving breaths as I shook off a wave of dizziness I didn’t know had overcome me. My vision blurred a moment, and I didn’t come to my senses until a thunderous bang sounded in my ear.

I looked to my left to find somebody standing over my shoulder with a rifle pointed at my face. I didn’t recognize the man, but he’d just fired a bullet at my head execution-style. Now, he was staring at the exploded shrapnel of his gun in confusion.

At this point in my life, getting shot at point-blank was far from enough to harm me. Mage Armor and Living Paradox hadn’t even triggered. The remaining cloud of ambient mana from Instrument of Fate had been more than enough to jam the gun and cause a malfunction.

I turned to the man who’d tried to kill me.

“Are you still possessed?” I asked. I was both surprised and confused. The Corrupted Nascent Divinity should be in its death throes.

He drew his sidearm and tried to shoot me with that. It would have exploded in his hands, but I conjured a Sunlight Spear faster and blasted a hole through his torso first. I stepped aside before he could collapse on top of me, but I still ended up getting a splash of blood on myself.

My head was pounding and my vision was swirling, and only now was I finally able to focus on my surroundings.

“What the hell happened here?” I looked around at the destroyed courtyard. We’d blown the place up, but I’d seen the aftermath of that explosion, and this was far from enough to cause so much damage.

The guy I’d just killed was far from the only one in the area. Several others lay dead nearby from some battle that occurred recently. Thankfully, none of the bodies were people from my team.

Had my battle spread over from the shadowrealm? I’d been throwing around a lot of mana, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if some of it had slipped into physical reality. Big changes in the shadowrealm could affect the real world, and the battle I’d just fought would have been enough to turn this whole base into a pile of rubble.

I spent a minute manually tweaking my brain chemistry with my Kindling Architect powers, which mitigated the shadowrealm symptoms for the moment. When I could see and hear properly again, I sensed gunfire in the distance.

I rushed over to find my subordinates hunkered down in the middle of a bloodbath. Gunfire was going off left and right.

I corrected myself a moment later when a helicopter flew by, guns blazing and drawing a trail of fire and destruction across the military base.

Charlie had positioned himself above the girls. He’d been shot several times, but with his constitution, shrugging off bullets wasn’t a big deal. As a D-Grade who specialized in taking hits, even these guns likely felt more like paintballs than lethal weapons.

Abby and Meghan were clinging tight to one another, with Meghan wearing Abby’s coat and little else besides her staff.

“What’s going on?” I yelled over the gunfire. They turned to me.

“Himmel, you’re alive!” Charlie said, almost hugging me, but then doubling back when he saw I didn’t have my cloak on. His eyes saw his team leader, but his other senses must have felt something else. I sensed a bit of tension in all of them as they looked at me.

“Don’t worry, I’m not possessed.”

“Thank goodness. We thought the same thing that happened to all the military officers might have happened to you,” Abby said.

“They’ve gone nuts,” Suzie explained.

“Worse,” Charlie added, voice grim. “They’re extra possessed. I don’t know if we’re getting out of this one, everyone. Sorry for dragging you all into this.”

I blinked and looked out over the chaotic battlefield. What they said was true. The fragments of the nascent divinity were going ballistic inside their hosts. It was like the flailing of a dying man as they tried to fight a battle that had already been lost.

It looked like about half of the military guys had recovered from their possession, but the other half were already too far gone. The two sides were currently fighting it out. No wonder the Goddess in Jade warned me to make sure I got all of this thing. That was easier said than done.

As I was taking in the scene, the helicopter I’d noticed earlier took a hit from a shoulder-mounted missile. It spiralled through the air, trailing fire as it headed straight for us.

“It’s been nice knowing you guys!” Charlie yelled, throwing himself between us and the burning helicopter. He was big enough that maybe he’d shield the girls from the worst of the crash landing, but it wouldn’t save him.

I pushed him aside moments before his valiant self-sacrifice.

“Himmel, no!” Meghan yelled, voice full of fear.

I caught the falling helicopter in my hands, turned, and winked at her.

<Note>

Back! Back I say! Stop trying to tempt me. I know you were thinking it. These girls are destined to be side characters. They will not be joining the harem.