Amazon Apocalypse 4: Chapter 50

Princess Eowyn continued to disrobe as she spoke, as though she feared I wouldn’t believe her unless she showed all of herself to me.

Soon, I sat at my desk while a blushing, naked princess wrung her hands anxiously before me.

“The truth, Sir Hero, is that I’m fond of you. Not just in the way the knights are either, but in the way a woman and fond of a man.” Soon, she laid bare her feelings for me, and my heart ached at the sound of them. Her naked body was doing my groin no favors either. While Eowyn lacked the supernatural beauty many of my companions had, a few weeks of celibacy was really testing the full limits of Iron Will.

While I waited for her to finish, I tried to figure out what to say. In that moment, I realized I preferred killing dragons and Demon Generals to breaking bad news.

“Eowyn... I’ve suspected you were a woman for a while. Not just you, but number of other knights are as well.”

Eowyn turned her gaze up from the ground, eyes wide. “You knew?”

“I suspected. Remember, you grabbed my leg quite tightly when we first fought, and you weren’t wearing much armor armor. I knew that wasn’t the chest of a man pressed up against me.” I gave her a slight smile.

“Ah... that. And you say there are others dressed as men among the knights too?” Eowyn’s frown deepened.

I shrugged. “Others I suspect, sure. I’m not going to pry. All the noble houses took heavy casualties during the earliest phases of the fight against the Demon King. Many families are in your position with no male heirs to reclaim their lands. So if their lines are to survive, the remaining daughters must bind their chests and take up the sword themselves. I suspect many young knights are not the adolescent boys they pretend to be.”

“That... would make sense. Perhaps I should speak to some of them and let them know they are not alone. I know such knowledge would have eased my burden.”

“A worthy challenge. But you came here to speak of us. I think I know what you want from me, but I fear I can’t provide it.”

Eowyn glanced at her naked body. She had the physique of a warrior, leaner and more muscular than most probably thought ideal for a noblewoman. She hung her head sadly.

“I know I can not compare to the High Priestess. Still--“

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “The High Priestess hangs around me for show. Oh, she’s offered herself to me sure enough, but I’ve refused her. I suspect that after I leave, she’ll get herself pregnant and claim she has the son of the hero in her womb, or something along those lines. Such a child would have a hefty claim to rule. She would have preferred the real thing, but she's clever enough to make do.”

“But... you haven’t given her a child?” Eowyn asked.

“No. Nor do I intend to. She is a beautiful woman, but I won’t father a child only to abandon it. Besides, I have a rather powerful bloodline within me. Any child of mine could end up being a crisis not unlike this Demon King.”

My Fate Harbinger bloodline would be passed to my descendants, and the raw bonuses it offered were nothing to scoff at. Even if a child of mine inherited nothing else from me, that power alone might be enough to dominate this weak and isolated realm. And I knew for sure I'd feel guilty enough about a pregnancy to leave a small treasure trove of goodies, and a small treasure trove from me would be enough magical riches to forge an empire.

Eowyn fidgeted, though I saw the corners of her mouth turn into some combination of pleasure and annoyance as she realized the High Priestess had complex plans that ran deep.

“But that brings us back to you and me. I suspect you would like me to stay here with you? Perhaps restore your kingdom by your side? Helping you while you ruled and building a great dynasty together?”

Her eyes lit up, and she looked about to speak. “Yes. I love you, hero. Everything about you is--“

I cut her off with a wave. “It can't happen. I am here to complete a quest, and once that quest is done, I will be whisked away. My own desires don’t factor into this. And truthfully, even if I could, I know I can’t stay here. The universe beyond this realm is bigger than you know, and there are a lot of people counting on my return. I’m sorry, Eowyn, but any relationship between you and me would be doomed to fail.”

Eowyn’s shoulders slumped, and she seemed to lose a little life. I had hoped to leave before anything like this cropped up. I wasn’t sure why the System had given such a lengthy quest, but perhaps this was meant to be part of the challenge.

“I’ll go then...” she bent to pick up her discarded clothes.

I shook my head. “No, sit. You say you love me, but you hardly even know me. No one here even knows my name.”

Eowyn’s eyes sank lower at the reminder that she and everyone else were still simply calling me 'hero', but she sat next to me anyway. Her bare skin pressed against my side.

“Let me tell you my name and where I’m from...”

So I told Eowyn my story, starting with Earth’s integration and how I became the Shardking of Crownhill. I didn’t hold back anything, even my relationships with Myrina, Sakura, and Bridget. I thought she’d be dismayed by the idea that I already had three women in my life, but she took the news without surprise.

I told her of my battles across Themyscira, about the strange and fantastical world of Glacia, where the God-King built a wizard’s tower so tall it pierced the moon. She even seemed amazed by the wonders of old Earth, where ships the size of castles carried the liquid remains of ancient dinosaurs and fueled our civilization.

I also told her about the Chaos Gods, and the things they’d done on my world. I also voiced what I’d found on her world, and how I thought things fit together.

“As I thought. What is a war of life and death for us is simply another battle in a march larger conflict for you. Ours is but one world of many you must save.” Eowyn looked thoughtful at the news.

It was nice to cast aside the need to hide things and act a bit more like myself after days on end of playing the perfect hero. Eowyn ate every word of it up, and soon I could see morning light peeking over the horizon.

“I probably should have let you get some sleep,” I realized when the day was nearly here. I rummaged through my satchel and came up with some instant coffee and the last bits of food from Bridget that I had remaining. I handed both over to Eowyn. She’d need the buffs to survive the fight to come.

“This is delicious!” Eowyn said as she gnawed on some leftover pasty bar of oat-sprinkled something. I’d found the bars too sweet, but apparently, Eowyn liked them. She ate as she dressed, and soon, I was sending her back to her tent.

“Good. Now try to get a bit of rest. Today is the big day.” I saw the look she cast me at those words and laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to disappear now. You’ll see me again before this is through.”

Hopefully, it was early enough in the morning that this no longer counted as a late-night visit. Otherwise, the knights on duty might get strange ideas about me and the so-called prince.

***

I got some sleep myself, though I needed little of it. When I arose, I felt refreshed and renewed enough for my final day on this last quest.

This had been a strange one. Despite the enemies being weaker than the previous missions the System sent me on, this quest had been far more laborious and taxed me in ways besides mere combat.

Perhaps I should have abandoned the thought of leading knights into battle and charged headlong at the Demon King alone. That certainly would have been faster, though it would have left even more chaos in my wake than I was already leaving. I had assumed being these people's hero meant leading them, but maybe all the System required of me was slaughtering my way through their enemies.

I shook such thoughts aside. What was done was done.

We marched, and though we spotted scouts monitoring our advance, none came out to halt us. I kept watch for an ambush, but it was already too late for such a strike to stop us. The knights were traveling in their armor and were ready for battle at a moment’s notice.

Soon, the castle was on the horizon, and we encircled it. My allies seemed more nervous as they saw the final bastion of evil so close at hand. This would be no easy fight.

It was less impressive than I thought, but only because my standards were far too high. I couldn’t expect a medieval society to construct a castle like Valkyrie’s Watch. Prior to becoming Demon King, the man who ruled these lands was a lord of modest means, but with a proud and lengthy history that was slowly falling into irrelevance as the gold mines his family relied on turned up fewer and fewer prizes.

Though his pact with the Chaos Gods had brought him many boons, it hadn’t built him a new castle. At least not soon enough for it to matter. But the walls were well manned with an army undead, along with a number of mortal soldiers. Even for an army as large as mine, attacking it headlong would be suicide. Only I would have survived the charge.

The fortress sat atop a rocky mesa overlooking the surrounding lands. Three rows of walls studded by towers lining the only viable pathways up the sides of the mountain, and each tower supported fixed balistae and no shortage of murder holes for archers to shoot through or defenders to pour down hot oil onto the attacking army. The castle was ready for an attack, but we wouldn't give the opportunity to make use of those defenses.

“Bring forth the siege engines!” I commanded, and soon, great trebuchets, built to my specifications, were erected one by one. The bombardment commenced, and every stone large enough for the task was gathered from the nearby rocky countryside and loaded. I implanted each with one of the enchanted trinkets I’d been working on the previous night.

A small piece of crystal jade and monster core would be sufficient to hold an enchantment to turn simple rocks into powerful explosives. The trebuchets did their work, turning ancient castle stone into new castle rubble in a matter of hours instead of the months it would otherwise take.

By the time we were done, the outermost layer of the wall lay in ruins, and the other two weren’t far behind. We abandoned the horses at the base of the mesa and began our march. Arrows came down on us as we marched, but between shields and arrows, they were no match for us.

Besides, the people in the castle had bigger problems than us. Toward the end of the bombardment, I’d urged Sharky to swim behind enemy lines and cause chaos within their fortifications. As a result, most of the walls we passed by were undefended.

“Those magic stones of yours are fearsome, hero! Those men back there looked like they were torn in half by a ferocious beast,” said a knight as we passed by the first row of walls.

“I only had so many of those things. Don’t count on using them again,” I replied. That level of magical siege technology was something I wouldn’t want to leave on this world when I left.

“Prepare to run from here! All together, charge!”

I led from the front, shrugging off attacks from the few remaining ballistas and archers. When a pair of undead came forward with a barrel of hot oil, I flashed my Divine Seal at them and turned them both to dust, along with any others nearby. If any humans tried the same feat, I’d take them out with Mana Bolts before they could do much damage.

Thanks to shattering the castle’s defenses from afar, we had a far easier time storming the inner courtyard than we would have otherwise. Doing so still required clambering over rubble and makeshift barricades, but a bit of quick swordwork soon cleared the path.

The blood of chaos cultists and the bones of the undead mixed together, and both soon sank into the mud as a thousand steel-clad boots marched over them and seized control of the castle.

There were more of the local breed of demons here, and a few of them were nearly as strong as the Demon Generals. I watched Eowyn challenge one on her own and stand her ground, giving me the chance to slice off its legs from behind.

“Finish him.” I nodded to the fallen man-turned-demon.

Eowyn braced her sword against her chest, jumped, and threw herself blade down upon the demon’s chest. Her sword pierced straight through reddened Chaos God-blessed flesh and sliced the demon’s heart in two. She nodded at me in thanks, but could voice no words as she panted to regain her breath.

I turned toward the main keep, eyes narrowed. From the look of the large doorways, the throne room would lie just beyond those doors.

“The throne room awaits. Any who’d join me, come.” I raised my sword and pointed.

Eowyn jumped to her feet, exhaustion forgotten. Not to be outdone, High Priestess Calista fell into step behind me. We came to the door. I reached beyond the door, using telekinesis to lift the iron bar holding it shut. There was a small mechanism holding the door shut as well, but a single boot rent it asunder as the doors burst wide.

Sure enough, behind the door was a throne room, along with an entire army of Chaos God blessed warriors, all of them as strong as a demon general.

“The famous hero has finally come to my door. You know, the gods told me you’d come for me.”

Demon King (Level 182)

The speaker was a lean-looking man, which was a surprise considering the blessing the Chaos Gods were handing out made most people far larger than before. He must have been tiny when he was fully human. Now his skinless filled most of the throne he sat on. His robes were worn thin, but looked like they'd been lavish three generations ago. Despite being the lord of a castle halfway fallen, the Demon King smiled at me.

And in front of him was an entire group of what might once have been his personal guard. They still wore the tattered remains of armor, though most of the pieces no longer fit. Each and every one of them had received a Chaos God blessing, and their bodies had grown huge and monstrous accordingly. Like the others outside, these guys were only a few levels lower than the Demon Generals I'd already fought.

“You stand no chance against my forces, hero! At last, gods from beyond this world have recognized my abilities and rewarded my accordingly!” The Demon King cackled uproariously. He looked like he wanted to continue boasting, but just then, a huge Void Leviathan burst through the other side of the room, tendrils flaring as he snatched the Demon King in his jaws and started to chew.

“Ahh!” High Priestess Calista screamed.

“What in the abyss?” Eowyn cried in surprise.

“Good boy, Sharky! I could tell he was going to be annoying. Grind him up while we take care of these guys.” I turned to my companions. “Ignore the giant ghost shark. He’s on our side.”

The two would have shot skeptical glances at me if not for the demons charging us right then. Eowyn held her sword in a defensive stance, and Calista started casting. I dove straight into the fray, sword flashing and spells springing from my fingertips. Arms and legs came off like grass before a weedwhacker.

Blood slickened the stones beneath me, and my heart pounded in my chest. A few of the demons cut grooves into my armor with axes and blades, but none more than that.

But the demons were a secondary concern. I expected an ambush from a familiar foe, and when he finally revealed himself, I feigned surprise.

“Necrotic Oblivion!” a bony hand pointed in my direction, and a sinister purple light shot from the hand of the lich I’d already fought and defeated once.

“Hero! Look out!” High Priestess Calista yelled at the top of her lungs. She swung her staff down, channeling what healing magic she had in my direction. Not that it would have done anything if I was struck with a spell like that.

I had already blocked the spell, but I intentionally racked up dust in the air to buy myself a moment for a surprise attack of my own.

“So much for the famous hero...” the lich cackled. He would have boasted more if I didn’t emerge from the shadowrealm a moment later and run him through with my sword.

“Got ya!” I growled as I used my sword as leverage to pin the undead to the ground. I channeled spells, and Corrupting Marks piled up more by the second. Ever since fighting the Lich King that first time, I’d been mentally rehearsing how to deal with liches. The moment this guy tried to flee his body, I’d bind his soul up in his own skull and destroy him for good.

“Attack, you mindless beast! Save me!” the lich shouted. I only had a moment to wonder what he was talking to before a familiar dragon burst through the walls.

Undead Windblade Dragon Fleshgolem (Level 173)

Losing its head had cost the dragon ten levels and its life. From the looks of things, the lich I was fighting had done his best to revive the beast by sticking a particularly large bull’s head where the dragon’s head had once been, but the whole thing just left the Windblade Dragon looking like a poorly repaired broken puppet.

It opened its boney mouth at me to breathe fire, but instead of flames, all that came up was a river of bile and stomach acid so acrid I feared it would melt the flesh off my bones just by splashing on me.

The attack forced me to jump clear, and soon I was dueling both lich and undead dragon. Behind me, Calista and Eowyn were holding their ground against the few remaining demons. Behind them, other knights were streaming in, and so long as they didn’t die, they’d win.

The Demon King was busy with Sharky. By some infernal miracle, he’d escaped Sharky’s jaws, though not without having his guts torn open. He was strictly on the defensive, and I trusted Sharky to hold his own.

The fountain of bile forced me to roll aside, abandoning my sword and the skewered lich. I reached into Morgathor’s Satchel and withdrew another of the cultivator swords I’d swiped as a replacement.

“Ever since that last fight of ours, I’ve been hoping for a rematch. You caught me by surprise last time. You will not be so lucky again!” the lich cackled.

I drew my blade and focused. This was the battle the System wanted to throw my way. To fight a powerful lich and a dragon at the same time and show it how far I’d come. And that was just what I planned to do.

The lich pointed a bony finger at the dragon, then to me. “Dragon! If you want to go home instead of being left in this pathetic pocket realm as fertilizer, kill him!”

The lich rolled to his feet clumsily, and red lights glowed within his skull. His hands filled with more sinister magic, and the dragon reared back to join him.

I’d already activated Awakening the Inner Beast to boost myself and my allies. Now I resorted to Mania. As Blood Frenzy took hold, I felt myself go from determined to outright hungry for battle. Nearby, Sharky roared as new power flowed into him as well.

The lich channeled three spells in quick succession, and the dragon spewed more bile. I dodged the bile and deflected the worst of the three spells with another cast of Aegis of the Void. I bisected the two weaker ones with Arcane Blade, and their mana splashed over my armor without causing much harm.

Then, I lunged for the lich. He was already wounded and would be far easier to finish off than the undead dragon.

I rushed him, ignoring a swipe of rotting dragon claws on my armor as I hacked and slashed. A cast of Voidling’s Embrace shot from the ground and restrained the dragon for a moment while I took the lich’s arm off at the shoulder with a few well-placed swings.

The dragon tried to breathe bile on me, but in its undead state, I was a better dragon than it was. I used Firescourge Breath to drive it back. My three dragon abilities were all active at once, and with a bit of help from Lightsculptor’s Brush, the undead dragon saw something much like itself in me, only far larger and fiercer.

It let out a pathetic mishmash between a roar and a moo and took a few steps backward, buying me some room to breathe.

The distraction wouldn’t last forever, but it was long enough for me to finish off the lich. He cast a shield around himself, which I shattered with Void Cannon, followed by a quick barrage of Mana Bolts that tossed him on the ground. I sliced through him again, twice more with Arcane Blade, then snapped my fingers and detonated my Corrupting Marks.

As I suspected, he tried to abandon his body and flee this world altogether. The way he’d arrived had probably been less elegant than my teleportation in, and he’d come to this realm in spirit alone.

But if he thought his soul could slip through my clutches, he was wrong.

Tendrils of magic wrapped him up, sucking him back into his former skull. I’d left it alone compared to the rest of his ravaged body for this purpose.

“There will be no escape for you,” I said as I captured his soul in his skull. Once he was trapped and whatever ability was pulling him away had completely failed, I shattered the skull between my fingers, killing him for good.

Then I picked up my sword and turned to the undead dragon.

“Your turn.”

The dragon turned and fled. I had half a mind to chase it down and finish it, but undead as it was, it would probably rot away and die within the month without a necromancer to maintain it. I let it go and turned back to the fight in the throne room and the final battle that awaited me against the Demon King.

Only when I searched for him, I couldn’t find him.

“Where’s the Demon King?” I asked.

Sharky spat out half a thoroughly gnawed demon body. He’d been bitten clean in two, and what was left of him had a thousand tooth-shaped puncture wounds in it. Amazingly, he was still alive. He let out one last dying gasp.

“Impossible. The gods didn’t tell me you’d be this powerful! I was cheated! Lied to! What kind of trickery is this? Hero, I’ll bargain with you. If you--“

I twirled my sword around, inverted it, and plunged the tip straight through the Demon King’s eye.

Demon King (Level 182) defeated!

“Quest completed. It’s been a pleasure serving with you all.”

I turned and waved to my panting and blood-splattered companions. There were a full hundred knights in the room now, and most of them were looking at Sharky warily.

No notifications appeared, and I wasn’t teleported away.

“Hero, is... is it done?” High Priestess Calista asked.

I looked around. “I don’t see any more Demon Kings here...”

I snapped my fingers in sudden realization. “Maybe I have to chase down that undead dragon after all. Sharky, you’re on the job.”

“Nom nom...” Sharky swam off, which was a good thing since having him at my side wasn’t exactly doing the hero image I’d cultivated any good. I thought this was going to be the final battle, so I hadn’t been too concerned about it until now.

While Sharky chased down the dragon, I went straight to the Demon King’s chambers in case I missed something.

I found his personal diary there and read through it quickly. His story was about what I expected. He’d been a weak and pathetic lord who hadn’t the slightest idea how to restore his family’s power and influence, so he’d turned to dark powers from beyond the world. In other words, the Chaos Gods.

He’d sold his soul and that of pretty much everyone he could convince to join him to the Chaos Gods, all for immediate power. In exchange, he was to turn this entire realm into a faith-generating battery for them. Eventually, they would also start sending aspiring cultists and human sacrifices over to the chaos cults. It was all the sort of macabre work I'd come to expect out of them. But why the Chaos Gods chose this world in particular still eluded me. Was it just because this place was outside the System's purview? But if that were true, I wouldn't be here.

I had Sharky’s notifications active while I poked around the Demon King’s stuff, so I sat up immediately when I saw the notification I’d been waiting for.

Your summoned Void Leviathan has devoured an Undead Windblade Dragon Fleshgolem!

“Hell yeah, Sharky! Quest completed.”

I waited for the System to teleport me home. Still, nothing happened.

“Well, crap...”


<Note>
Whew. Bit of a longer chapter. I thought about sneakily cutting it in half and pretending the first half was a bonus chapter, but in the end I decided to give it to you guys all at once as I intended while writing it.

And yes, we will see the end of the quest soon. The tournament arc and Cyra is just around the corner. But we do have some loose ends to tie up here first.