Amazon Apocalypse 4: Chapter 44

My last two quests had burned away what was left of the amused curiosity I’d had earlier in my quests, leaving only grim determination. These quests were hard and getting harder, and if I wanted to make it through them all alive, I needed to stay focused and take as few risks as possible.

The first thing I did was throw down Sharky’s summoning circle. Enough time had passed since he was dispelled for me to summon him again, and I did so. He would have been nice to have in the wizard’s tower, though he’d never have fit in its cramped halls. Still, I was happy to see his familiar, hungry face.

“Sharky, patrol the area. There are monsters roaming the place, and I need you to eat them before they eat me.”

“Nom nom.” Sharky swam off to circle my landing site. With him on patrol, I finally had the chance to sit down.

I flicked through my supplies for anything I could use. There were a few stat-increasing foods in there, a couple of which would boost my stats. While I’d hoped to save some for Myrina, Bridget, and Sakura, keeping myself alive was a higher priority.

You have consumed an Ephemeral Fortune potion! Your luck stat has been permanently increased by 5.

You have consumed a Undying Troll King’s Everlasting Heart! Your passive regeneration has been temporarily enhanced.

You have consumed a Mana Surge gem! Your maximum mana has temporarily increased.

You have activated a Talisman of Protection from Disease! It will remain active for one day or until activation to protect you from a diseased-based attack.

Soon, I was as prepared as I could be, given my current resources. I had hoped to have the tools to assemble more rings of protection, but I just didn’t have the supplies for it. Still, I needed to be ready for battle.

Reluctantly, I threw on the armor I looted from the shop during my spy mission with the cultivators. I shouldn’t have given away all my Mark One armor to my troops, because now I was stuck with this. Still, given a few minutes, I could get this set in fighting shape.

I reshaped it to fit my body and added a few improvements while I digested my food. The real question was whether or not to use one of the experience pearls. Using too many of them was bad for long-term growth, but there would be no long-term growth if I died in the short term. I poured a careful eye over every pearl, examining it for the slightest contaminate or flaw. Two I set aside, but the others I could find no fault with.

In the end, I decided it was worth it. Given the proficiency points I was racking up, a few more levels wouldn’t hurt. I picked the smallest of the experience pearls and swallowed it.

You have consumed a massive experience pearl!

Your race, homo fatum, has gained 5 levels.

Your class, Sage of Forbidden Knowledge, has gained 5 levels.

I divided the experience evenly between my race and class and allocated my new stats. Then, finally, read the System’s latest quest.

Personalized training quest Part 7 of 10:

A Test of Ferocity.

Monsters on this shard have multiplied out of control and, if combined with nearby inhabited shards, would overwhelm all defenses.

Slaughter at least 80% of the existing monsters.

Time remaining: 4 hours and 33 minutes.

When I arrived, I’d been at five hours, so I’d already spent as long as I could preparing. A few monsters had attacked me already, and I could see more eying me from afar. Normally, Sharky was quite thorough with his patrols, so the fact that some slipped by meant there must have been a truly enormous number of monsters here.

Why were there so many? And where’d they come from?

Sharky was having the best time of his life as he gorged himself to his heart’s content, then gorged himself again. I followed in his wake, scouting and clearing up monsters as I did so. I was making liberal use of Soulchain Nexus to give myself a little boost, because I knew eventually I’d run into something more powerful than the D-Grades I was killing.

While exploring, I found a few signs in French that led to a beach, but I didn’t realize where I was until I found a world war two memorial. These were the beaches of Normandy. Some of Earth’s bloodiest fighting had happened here, and judging by the dense concentration of monsters, the effects of that war still lingered in the realm of the Kindling just beyond sight.

I was proven right moments later as something enormous edged toward the shore. It was made of rusted steel and bigger than an elephant, and it had a shape midway between a boat and a man. It stepped on shore and glared at me with eyeless metal sockets. This was some twisted abomination assembled from the traumatized soul bits that lingered in this area long after their death.

Wrathful Slaughter Elemental (Level 183)

The angry elemental crawled onto the beach, but it wasn’t alone. The sands shifted, and water sloshed to the side to reveal three more of similar make.

“To me, Sharky! Pull one of them off.”

Sharky circled back around as I confronted the three peak C-Grade monsters.

I tried to get in close with Arcane Blade on the assumption that these things were slow enough for me to dodge and weave around them. That strategy proved too high a risk for me though. Rusty or not, the armor plating around the legs of each Wrathful Slaughter Elemental was tough enough that my enchanted blade barely cut into them. The only chance I got to really cut one open and do some damage was when they bent low to smash me.

The humanoid head seemed to be more fleshy than the rest of the monster, so that was the best target. To that end, I switched to ranged attacks.

I rained down Mana Bolts on the three elementals, giving ground but dealing damage to do so. They were slow enough that as long as I kept my distance, I could keep hitting them while staying out of danger.

The only issue was these weren’t the only hostile monsters on this shard. Plenty more undead crawled out of the water, looking like drowned men in military gear. Others, with only half a body, hauled themselves out of the sand.

On the hill behind me, I heard loud cracks split the air. Things that felt like phantom bullets pelted me from the side. Normally, Sharky would have dealt with these perimeter foes, but he was busy fighting one of the powerful Wrathful Slaughter Elementals so I didn’t have to deal with all three at once.

Something small, like a fish, but with a human skull for a head lunged out of the water at me. I grabbed it, and instead of killing it, inflicted it with Share Curse to draw some of these enemies away from me. It swam off, and some of my pursuers followed it.

Just when I thought I was safe, a severed undead hand sprung to life amidst the sand and wrapped around my ankle, pinning me in place nearly long enough for one of the elementals to pulverize me. I took the first few blows on my makeshift armor, straining the existing enchantments to the limit with more mana than they were ever designed to take.

The armor gave way, but not before I got an Arcane Blade through my attacker’s eye. That finally dropped one of the massive elementals, and the other went down to Corrupting Marks a few seconds later. Then I helped Sharky with his, and the metal monsters were finally dead.

Those three were the toughest foes I found on the Shard, and they were also tough to take down. After that encounter, I made my way inland to fight smaller foes. I figured I’d rather kill ten times that number in D-Grade monsters than deal with more of those hulking things. Enemies of that size and scale would have a decent chance of hacking their way through Crownhill’s defenses if there weren’t elites to counter them.

I could see why the System couldn’t integrate this space until somebody like me thinned the monster population down to size. If this shard was combined with something like Dan’s group of survivors, they’d be finished. Even the Torchdragon would have died in a straight up fight against those things.

Eventually, I stumbled across undead wearing modern clothes instead of military gear. These had a much fresher look to them, and I figured this was probably where the integration survivors made their last stand before they were overwhelmed by the monsters.

Interestingly, the bodies weren’t all human. Lithe men and women with pointed ears and exotic skin tones that reminded me a lot of Reluna were among the human survivors, and it looked like they died fighting side by side. There was also a brawny green-skinned race that looked like goblins, but bigger. Apparently, the monsters had been so overwhelming on this shard that the factions the System wanted fighting one another banded together just to survive them a little longer. In the end, though, the alliance just hadn’t been enough.

Eventually, 80% of the threats on the shard were dealt with. Those big guys had taken off twenty percent on their own, but the bulk of what I’d killed had been D-Grade and lower monsters. While the fight hadn’t been as sudden or intense as against the wizard or the cultivators, there had been a lot of fighting there, and I was feeling it in my entire body.

Quest Completed: A Test of Ferocity.

Your Death Curse now provides an experience bonus to monsters slain.

I looked through my character sheet and found that I did indeed get an experience bonus from slaying monsters. One that would carry over to everyone around me or in my party, too. Perhaps I’d finally have a reason to join Myrina, Sakura, and Bridget on their monster hunting expeditions. Given the effect of the bonus combined with the effects of my curse, I would get half normal experience from the monsters, while my companions received double the normal experience points.

That was all the time for analysis I had, though, because moments later, the System swept me off for another quest.

***

Personalized Training Quest Part 8: A Test of Magic.

Chaos has laid claim to a nearby minor pocket realm, and their dark weavings corrupt it. Teams of other promising guardians work to reclaim this world from chaos, but someone with the right skills must breathe the smoldering embers to life again.

I vanished from the monster-covered shard to find myself completely surrounded by some of the most powerful B-Grades I’d ever seen.

“This is who the System gave us? He’s only C-Grade!” someone protested.

I blinked, seeing a woman with silver hair and a fierce expression. She had a slender stabbing sword on her hip, and her armor was some of the finest work I’d ever seen.

“If the System says he can do it, then he can. He was sent here during a training quest, the same as the rest of us.” A man shrugged.

He seemed a bit older than the others, looking more middle-aged instead of youthful like the others. Considering he was B-Grade, he had to be at least a few hundred years old. And at the moment, he and the others were frowning down at me.

“Did you just come out of a battle?” the man asked.

I looked down at myself, suddenly conscious of my tattered armor, clothes, and the terrible state of my gear.

“More than one,” I admitted, reaching into Morgathor’s satchel for some spare clothes.

“You’re a brave one. Most of us plan on quitting our training quest as soon as we finish the third. But you, I take it, are aiming for the sixth?”

“I’m on my eighth quest now,” I replied.

The man’s expression went slack for a moment. “Eighth? Surely you jest.”

“Don’t lie to us. The last few missions of any training quest are only for those with a death wish.” The woman scowled. I only noticed now how tall she was. She stood half a head taller than I was and knew how to use that height to glare down imperiously at me. The purple skin and twin horns on her brow just made the glare all the greater.

There were more murmurs all around. Apparently, reaching the eighth quest in a series like this was quite an accomplishment.

“They were Job quests, I’m sure, right? You’re a skilled Artificer or something? That’s what we need.”

“I have been known to do a bit of artificing now and again,” I admitted.

“Ah, so your previous quests must have been crafting quests? Job quests?” the horned woman nodded to herself, seemingly coming to her own conclusions. The rest of the gathered B-Grades seemed more likely to believe me after hearing those words, so I had no intention of disillusioning them.

“Alright,” the man began, turning began, turning back to me. “We fought our way to pocket realm’s core. We killed the Void Demons trying to corrupt it, but none of us have the ability to get rid of the actual corruption. The System sent you to do that. Think you’re up to the job?”

“Yeah, I can do that.” If sorting out strands of mana was all that was required, I could do that without much issue. I was able to pluck out strands of different aspect mana even as a regular artificer, though my Power of Nature racial skill admittedly was a bit of help on that front.

“Good. Give us a few minutes to prepare. I have a hunch that as soon as you start, the rest of us are going to have to fight more Void Demons.” The man pointed me toward the crystal, then turned to join the others. It seemed like everybody else knew each other, leaving me the odd man out. I got the impression that these were elites from famous families across the multiverse, and if I was any good at networking, I’d be doing my best to ingratiate myself to them.

But instead I focused on my task at hand. My quest would be a lot shorter than the ones these guys were given, so it’d be best to leave them with an impression of competence. If I ever ran into any of them again, I’d chat with them then. Besides, the only thing I could think of that would get their attention was dropping the Samhain Clan’s name, and given my current strained relationship with Cyra, I didn’t want to think about them much.

When the man I’d spoken to gave me the signal, I began working on the pocket realm’s core. The thing looked much like a monster core to me, only blown up to enormous proportions.

The mere fact that pocket realms had a core brought up troubling questions. Where pocket realms alive? Was the Mucaria pocket realm the Dragon Lodge inhabited inside the stomach of some enormous monster? I wasn’t sure, but whatever was going on here, purging the void mana from the core would probably be a big help.

I stripped away the void mana seeping into the core and drew it into Doomseeker. As I did so, I could hear the B-Grades behind me start fighting. Monsters were attacking, and these were far fiercer than the voidlings I was familiar with. Looking back over my shoulder, some seemed suspiciously similar to Sharky when he went full Void Leviathan with tentacles coming out his mouth and spikes on his back. Each and every void demon was also just as hungry as Sharky.

For a while, I’d considered summoning him again. He hadn’t been destroyed yet, so he was still roaming the beaches of Normandy, devouring everything in sight. In the end, I decided against it. He’d likely be killed by friendly fire within a minute, considering how similar some of these Void Demons were to him.

I eliminated all the void mana in the pocket realm core in short order, but my quest didn’t end. I stood there blinking in confusion for a while until I realized the corruption went far deeper than the B-Grades guarding the area realized. Removing the void mana was just the start.

Just adding void mana on its own probably wouldn’t have distorted the core much at all. If I was reading the mana correctly, it would have expressed itself as spatial disturbances spread across the pocket realm. While hazardous to human life, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. In fact, some void mana was necessary to make a barrier at the edges of the pocket realm, though the aspect there had shifted enough that most would call it spatial mana.

The problem here was the fact that someone had restructured parts of the pocket realm’s core to continuously refine and produce void mana, and then spawn in void monsters. Maybe some powerful intelligent void race had gotten their hands on this thing for a while but hadn’t had time to finish.

The point was that this thing needed a lot more than to merely be drained of void mana. It needed magical surgery to excise the corrupted parts of the core, followed by a complete reconstruction of the pieces that had been replaced.

This was going to be a lot more work than I thought, but I’d signed up for the job, so I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

Unfortunately, the B-Grades fighting on the front lines didn’t understand the nuances of the project.

“You done draining the void mana yet?” asked the woman who’d confronted me when I first arrived.

“There’s more to it than that!”

“But how long until you’re finished?”

I grimaced. I had no idea how long this would take, considering the complex aethersmithing involved. If I wasn’t an aethersmith, it wouldn’t have been possible at all. The more I looked extradimensionaly, the more I realized the bulk of this core existed outside of standard space and time. I couldn’t give an estimate for when I’d be finished before I’d even finished mapping out what I’d need to change.

“An hour!” I suggested rounding upward to give myself extra time.

“You have half that,” she replied.

I grimaced, then got to work with as much speed as I could muster. Mana flew around me, gathering and flowing in strange patterns. My mind sunk into the task at hand, and my job and my instincts guide me. I tried things I’d never even thought of before, unsure where the ideas came from or how I knew they’d work. Perhaps the System was helping me, or perhaps I simply knew more than I thought, but bit by bit I purged the corruption from the pocket world’s core.

“How much longer?” the man from earlier asked. He was closer now, as were the others. They’d fallen back several times while I worked. There were bigger things than Sharky out there, and all of them were very hungry.

“Almost done... now!” I shouted as I slapped the last piece of my new creation into place. Bright light flared from the realm core, and the world trembled around us. The void monsters screamed in pain and frustration as they failed in their mission, and a wave of blue light washed over us all as the System took hold of this region of space again.

“Took long enough for some simple mana purification. For a moment there, I thought our line was about to crumble,” the horned woman grumbled.

“There was a bit more to it than that.”

The man clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for your help, crafter. The name is Jazon Jestario, of the Jestario family. Perhaps one day we’ll cross paths again.”

White light surrounded me before I could reply, and soon, the System swept me off again for the even greater challenges it had in store for me.

Quest Completed: A Test of Magic.

Your affinity for all mana aspects has increased.

Your familiarity with Masterwork-level magical constructs has increased, and any magical creation of legendary rank or higher made by you will be further enhanced.