Amazon Apocalypse 5: Chapter 65

“You’re the one who snuck into my vault. I will interrogate you long past your death until you reveal which of my rivals you work for. Your soul will know no rebirth,” Vayly Vaust said. Mana gathered in her palm.

Naturally, I had no intention of battling Vayly Vaust. She was A-Grade and, by all accounts, a mighty one. Knowing what I did about the creators of the Systems, administrator families like the Vaust family probably found all sorts of ways to engineer unique and extremely powerful bloodlines into their family lineage.

Normally, B-Grades like me would avoid the attention of people like this, because doing so would almost certainly mean the B-Grade’s death. Unfortunately, it was too late for that.

I reached into my Instrument of Fate ability, which I still hadn’t fully explored. For all its raw power, my Incarnation of the Apocalypse Dragon Signature Skill wouldn’t save me here.

Eventually, I latched onto something familiar. Time slowed, and something like Time Stutter activated, but more organic, stretched longer, and generally more powerful. That gave me a moment to think as Vayly Vaust curled back a finger and prepared to strike.

Powerful energy was gathering there, and when she flicked her finger forward, it would carry a lance of energy that would turn my chest cavity to dust. That was to be avoided at all costs.

Luckily, I had another ability meant to save my ass in situations just like this one. Living Paradox. I looked inward and discovered it was about to activate independently, which was a relief. I helped it along, then used up the rest of the time dilation I was enjoying to fling a few spells at Vayly Vaust.

The void mana was as thick as tar, thanks to her superweapon. Now that I could take in the battlefield, it looked like some sort of arc cannon lined with equal parts runes and functional technology.

It was pointed at an array of Black Beast Sect pagodas, most of which were in ruins. Millions of black-robed cultivators drifted lifelessly through space, but occasionally I also saw the beautiful and exceptionally tall bodies of women from the Eternal Spring Sect.

Others were still alive and were still fighting with automated defensive golems that resembled the Architect golems I’d found in the city buried under my house. For all the power she had on display, it seemed like Vayly Vaust was fighting alone. Perhaps she’d had a few of those guards I’d run into alongside her, but if she did, they were dead now. With so little support and only the defenses of her space station, it was no wonder the cultivators decided the Vaust family was the easiest target in their quest to destroy the System.

Living Paradox finished activating, and I vanished, only to be replaced by a double. A thousand possibilities flashed through my eyes as the System reached up from behind and below me to examine my skills and find some way out of this for me. I sensed far more of the System’s attention on me than when I used this skill. Maybe that was because it was now part of a Signature Skill, or maybe that was because the System was right beneath me and knew we were getting out of this together or not at all.

My body double suddenly appeared and opened a void portal right in front of him. When Vayly Vaust’s attack shot out, the energy beam vanished into the portal.

I blinked. That was it? I could have done that!

Thankfully, the body double didn’t vanish after that simple deflection.

Vayly Vaust scoffed, and the energy beam was followed up by a dozen more, each of which was dispersed in a similar fashion.

That, at least, was something I didn’t know how to do. I could cast Aegis of the Void once, but it had a lengthy cooldown. Whatever the System was doing while controlling my body double was a trick I hadn’t learned.

Vayly Vaust stared at my body double like I might look at a cockroach that had somehow dodged every stomp. She’d been angry before, but now she was equal parts baffled. How had I deflected so many A-Grade attacks at once?

“How are you not dead?” Vayly Vaust demanded.

Then, my doppelganger did something I’d never seen from a Living Paradox creation before and lifted a hand and gathered mana.

“Oh no...” I grimaced. Stealing her copy of the System probably pissed her off, but this was really going to hit a nerve. The battlefield around us seemed to grow quiet, as if both sides were staring in shock at the B-Grade fighting an A-Grade.

The mana around my body double moved in unfamiliar patterns, both in this dimension and in higher realms. I’d noticed before how thick the void mana was in this place, and whatever spell the System was casting using my body was using it up in huge quantities.

I took a step back, though I was more like a soul than a person at the moment while Living Paradox did its thing.

The spell that formed looked like a mana bolt. That was how small its presence in mundane reality was. But in truth, the extradimensional structure of the spell was more akin to a battleship, with all the firepower that entailed. Shimmering lines of dense spell architecture filled the Kindling Dimension beyond perception. There was so much of it I couldn’t even see it all, but what I could see revealed line after line of picture-perfect spellwork, like lines of text off a printer. It looked like a spell of baffling complexity engineered by a caliber of the magic wielder that no longer existed, either among the cultivators or the System users of the modern era.

The spell flew forward, and Vayly Vaust tried to swat it away like the mana bolt it appeared to be. The spell struck the back of her hand and swallowed it. In an instant, her flesh was gone. The same was true of the space it once occupied. There was a perfect lightless void where her hand made contact with the little spell.

And that void was growing. A moment later it crawled around Vayly Vaust’s arm, drawing her into it. She didn’t realize how dire that attack had been until the spell reached her elbow.

“What magic is this?” Vayly Vaust gasped, now with a note of fear in her voice.

Living Paradox ended a moment later, and I switched back into place with my doppelgänger. I reached out and grabbed a piece of scrap and threw it upward, which flung me back toward the consoles beneath me.

As I descended, the System’s avatar still flickered in and out of existence. She didn’t even seem to notice me as I returned to work fixing errors and resuming the data transfer that would save both our asses.

I pored over the consoles, figuring out what was holding up the download this time. All the vital hardware was intact, though, so I was at a loss as to why we weren’t finished yet.

“Mhmm! Mmmm!” I tried to yell to get the System’s avatar’s attention, but there was no air in space to yell with. I ended up just flailing my arms and waving them. But her avatar ignored me in favor of staring at Vayly Vaust struggling to pull her arm from the all-consuming black sphere that was sucking her into it.

“Tyrant Vaust, you die by my hands today,” came a familiar voice. I turned and saw the Goddess in Jade. Her words rang out in my mind, despite the lack of air. I really had to figure out how they were doing that.

Her cultivator robes were in tatters, and she held a broken sword in one hand. Her skin still held the same golden glow it had before, but now it was marred with several deep gashes. She glanced at me momentarily before taking her broken sword in both hands and slamming it into Vayly Vaust’s back.

Vayly Vaust bucked, helpless to defend herself with one arm trapped. She tried to reach behind her with her free hand, but the Goddess in Jade’s broken sword was buried dead-center in the middle of her back, and she couldn’t reach the handle.

Green light flowed from the Goddess in Jade and into the sword, and from the way Vayly Vaust’s expression twisted, I knew whatever was happening had to be extremely painful. She bucked and arched to throw the Goddess in Jade off her, but Jade held tight as she turned to me.

“Carter, what are you doing here? How are you even here?” she shouted.

“Mhmm! Mhmmm!” I shouted back with the last bit of air I had.

“Get out of here while you still can!”

The Goddess in Jade was flung off a moment later as Vayly Vaust activated some sort of high-level defensive talisman. It created a burst of crimson light that threw Jade back. Then she reached for her hip and drew a round cylinder. When she activated it, I realized it was one of the laser swords Mimiko and I had found while going through Architect ruins on Ladwick.

With it in hand, she chopped her trapped arm off at the shoulder, finally freeing herself from my spell. The System’s expression shifted to one of disappointment, and she finally noticed me jumping and waving in front of her.

“Oh, the data transfer is finished. Congratulations, your quest is completed.”

Blue light enveloped me, and soon I was transported away in a wave of blue light. The last thing I saw was the Goddess in Jade clashing with Vayly Vaust, though this time, the latter was down to one arm. As I vanished, I prayed for her victory.

***

Quest Completed!

Rescue the System.

You have liberated the System node imprisoned by the Vaust family.

Within the Sanctum Mystic Realm, you will have access to a unique version of the System. As promised, she will now provide any reasonable form of aid, up to and including her initial promises of Limitless wealth, supreme cosmic power, infinite opportunities, and anything your heart desires.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I flopped backward onto the gravely-speckled packed earth of Ladwick.

“Thank the heavens. I can finally breathe again.” I took in a few great, big, heaving breaths. That was a relief in more ways than one. Air flowed into me, and tension flowed out of me.

Getting out of there had been a close one, though I had a feeling the System had been done with the data transfer for a while before I got its attention. It was probably hoping to see Vayly Vaust die. Maybe it was still waiting and watching with eager anticipation.

“I hope you’re happy with that, System. And don’t think I won’t call you in to return the favor...”

Slowly, I climbed to my feet. I still had a bit of pep in my step as I went to where Mimiko would be waiting for me with an open mystic realm.

I was glad I made it back in time. This whole planet was going to be teleported close to Glacia soon. I wouldn’t even need to do anything to get a ride back, just relax and enjoy a job well done.

Or rather, that’s what would have happened if things had gone to plan.

“You’ve got to be kidding me...” I sighed as I realized Mimiko wasn’t nearby. This was the place I'd left from, and where we were supposed to meet.

She must have left and closed the portal behind her, just as I told her if something went wrong. And despite my hopes and all the points I’d put into Luck, something had gone wrong.

I peeled my ears, hoping to hear her somewhere nearby. Instead, I heard shouting and the kind of metallic clashing that only came from a battlefield.

I cursed. What was it now?

I made my way toward the source of the noise. Sure enough a battle had broken out. Blood pooled across the ground. Glacian legionaries fought and died at the hands of mysterious robed foes, and unfamiliar ships hovered overhead.

I scanned the battlefield to figure out who was fighting and what. One side was naturally one of the occupying legions. From the banners, I realized it was the thirteenth legion. Back when I’d been fighting on Ladwick, this legion had been under the command of Legate Morin. I was shocked there were so many legionnaires still alive, considering what I knew of his leadership abilities.

The enemy was harder to place, at least at first. They weren’t cultivators, of that I could tell at a glance. They had a much more mechanical air about them and their equipment, whereas cultivators wouldn’t touch a contraption more modern than a loom. The space vessels flying overhead were also a giveaway. The four-sided blocky contraptions looked more like genuine space vessels than the flying pagodas cultivators favored.

Who were these people, and why were they here?

I resolved to find out. I joined the battle in a sudden storm of spells and violence. Most of the combatants were only D or C-Grade, so the sudden addition of a B-Grade combatant on the side of the thirteenth legion marked a dramatic shift. I even heard a cheer go up among their ranks as a few recognized me.

The thirteenth legion had been losing decisively prior to their arrival due to the presence of an enemy B-Grade, and I went straight for them. Up close and personal, I finally got a chance to examine the enemy.

Unidentifiable Entity (Level 271)

The System was of little help, but as I got closer to the robed individual and saw the wires running up and down his arms and the dim glow of lights within his robes, I realized what I was fighting. These were the heretics, the same as Lady Velicia and her friends.

“Yield or your forces shall be destroyed,” the heretic said in a mechanical voice.

I chuckled. “So you’re scavengers, is that it? When the System’s forces or the cultivators were here, you were too scared to show your faces, but now that the two of them are busy killing one another, you show up to steal the prize. Tell me, what are you here for?”

“That is none of your concern,” the heretic replied.

But I was pretty sure I already knew why they were here. The heretics wanted only one thing that I knew of, and somehow they realized I had it despite, all my efforts to hide. I’d thought it was the Vaust family or the cultivators poking around my mystic realm for clues, but maybe it had been these guys.

Did they know where I was hiding the System Planetary Hub? Or had they simply noticed the huge data transfer I’d sent like an arrow pointing to this planet?

Whatever the case, it seemed that I wouldn’t be going home quite yet.


<Note>

I mentioned this in the comments on Wednesday, but I'm going a little further than I thought. I finished 66 and felt it left too much hanging for the next book, so I'm extending things a bit by adding some content from my outline I intended to cut.

Probably another 2-3 chapters after this, if I can keep things fast-paced and use page space efficiently.