Amazon Apocalypse 4: Chapter 38

The Lich King turned dragon stuck. He was faster than the flesh and blood Torchdragon we’d fought moments ago, and not just because this one was at C-Grade. There was a certain fluid decisiveness in every motion that the old dragon lacked.

“Look out!” I yelled. Not that it was easy to miss the massive looming skeletal dragon in our midst.

“It’s got a second phase!” Kyle shouted in warning.

Myrina was the fastest to react, and suddenly, I was glad she’d swiped my sword. She held the blade up before her, blocking a tail swipe that would have shattered her old weapon. The blow probably should have knocked the wind right out of Myrina despite blocking the blow, but she was wearing my Mark One armor as well, and the extra strength and vitality it provided was of even greater use than normal in her skilled hands. She rolled to her feet, none the worse for wear.

Frank fared less well. He took the blow to the chest. While comfortable, the dirty, battle-worn collared shirt he was wearing offered little protection at all. He went flying and crashed into the ground, knocked out of the fight in one hit. I wasn’t sure if he was dead or alive.

“Come, my fallen kin. Rise and fight for me once more,” the Lich King growled, and suddenly, all the undead naga and skeletons we’d slain were enveloped in motes of sinister light. Their eyes lit up one by one, and broken bones melded together as the undead rose from their graves again.

Like before, only one of us could stand toe to toe against this dragon. Me.

I rushed forward with spells in hand. Doomseeker floated next to me, and I drew on mana of all aspects and the focusing tool embedded in the newly upgraded staff. A handful of mana bolts soon became hundreds, and I threw them at the dragon as fast as I could make them.

The Lich King waved a claw contemptuously, and a shield barrier sprung to life around him. I recalled my mana bolts and and followed up with a Void Cannon, but not before the Lich King took to the air. The bony appendages lifted him without the need for real wings. He slid out of the way of my incoming Void Cannon, and then swerved upward to gain altitude before turning around with deadly intent.

“Take cover!” I shouted, ducking low as the Lich King breathed sickly green and scarlet fire on us in a great stream.

Everyone who could move dove out of the way, and I charged another Void Canon. This time I struck home and impacted his shield, which broke like shattering a pane of glass. If the dragon had still been C-Grade, I might have knocked it from the air with that. But the Lich King merely had a few scratched bones to show for the explosion.

Still, this was a moment of opportunity. Before it regained its bearings, I unleashed every Mana Bolt I’d been saving up. Many missed. Others were too late and collided against a reformed shield, but a few slipped through and layered on a precious couple more Corrupting Marks. Some of my old marks were still there, though fewer after the dragon shed his flesh. But how much vitality did this thing have? It was B-Grade, and an enormous dragon at that. I feared it could survive my marks for far longer than any of us could afford to fight it.

“You and your allies shall make fine undead, and with them, I will conqueror new Earth in the name of the Chaos Gods!” the Lich King declared.

I checked my team ultimate. Thanks to the battle, it was nearly ready to cast, but it on its own wouldn’t win me any battles. Nearby, my allies were busy fighting the undead we’d already slain, and we were at half-strength already after sending off a group to take the wounded to the wall.

We were outmatched, outnumbered, and low on options. I fingered the rings on my left hand. It seemed like I’d have to use these things again after all. Hopefully my repairs would give them a few minutes of life before the protection gave way.

I lowered my voice and whispered, channeling the madness I’d taken into myself that day. I defied death and returned myself to life.

“Unholy Revelation...”

Power sprung forth from deep within me, surging through my bones. A wild grin split my face, and my chest was filled with an unquenchable need to take the world in my hands and rip it all apart piece by piece.

I sensed dark attention on me, eager to grab me by the soul and hollow me out like a puppet. My transformation into an aethersmith had made me aware of forces I’d previously been ignorant of, and now I sensed how my soul swelled with power. As Mania filled me, I looked more and more like a beacon in the void for anything to come by and examine, be it a void beast or chaos god.

Empowered far beyond the norm, my Corrupting Marks burned and blacked the Lich King’s bones. Sharky also swelled with power, expanding in size and ferocity. He was dealing with the newly resurrected minions, and with every passing moment, he chomped down on another skeletal naga or undead. His ever-hungry maw shredded their bodies and souls to the point that they wouldn’t rise again, even if the Chaos Raven himself descended to make it happen.

Despite Sharky’s new power, my allies were outnumbered. In my power-maddened state, I turned away from the dragon, ignoring it as I turned on the smaller enemies. These guys had to go, and the sooner the better.

I abandoned the fight against the dragon, leaving Sakura, Myrina, Kyle, Bridget, Marcus, Kerrie, and Sir Sandon to draw its attention. It was a hopeless battle for them, but they would have to endure. Myrina stood in the front, holding the line. Her Tempo of Battle ability increased her stats the longer a fight went on, so she was better suited than anyone else at coming right out of one battle and diving straight into another.

I would just have to hope she and the others could hold. These lesser undead would only take a few seconds of my attention.

With Soulchain Nexus active, I reaped a small but noticeable boost in stats from each kill. The effects were multiplicative with Mania, so by combining the two, my power increased dramatically. But C-Grades were exponentially more powerful than B-Grades. Even if I killed a thousand of these undead naga and skeletons and extinguished their souls for good, I wasn’t sure it would be enough.

I cut through them, wasting no time on anything besides a few slashes as I hacked with Arcane Blade. Thanks to the slew of bonuses coursing through me, my body responded faster and quicker than ever before. The last of them dropped dead, and though the fight had lasted scant seconds, my allies were already overwhelmed.

Kyle laid motionless on the ground with a claw-shaped rent in his chest. Sickly black magic crawled along Bridget’s arms as her daggers fell limp from her grasp. Sir Sandon’s body burned with dragon flame, and his knightly armor dripped from his body as molten metal. He stood firm with his shield braced as he guarded the wounded. He would already be dead if not for the anti-magic sigil he’d copied from Sir Barclay’s men. Given the state of his wounds, I wasn’t sure if he’d make it.

But worse of all was Sakura. She was stuck in the dragon’s maw, moments from being bitten in half at the waist.

For all her strength, Sakura was only barely able to hold the jaws open while Sir Sandon and Myrina beat ineffectually at the dragon’s neck. Crimson light outlined Sakura’s body in giant form, signaling she’d used her ultimate ability to save herself. She had a scant few seconds before that ran out, after which she’d be bitten in half.

No spell would save her, but I rushed forward anyway. Normally Mania left me half mad, but the fear in my heart from the thought of Sakura’s death cut through my distorted perception of reality.

I used Shadowrealm Stride to close the distance faster, but there in that shadow realm there was no dragon, but a raven. It was as large as a skyscraper, and it turned to me with eyes like a bottomless abyss. Cracks spread across the rings on my fingers, and if I stayed here for even a few heartbeats, the rings would break beyond any hope of repair.

I dashed forward anyway, using Mana Overload to push the rings beyond their normal limits. The cracks spread even faster, and I’d need to replace the rings by the time this fight was over, but that was an acceptable loss.

Right before the Chaos Raven swept over me, I left the shadowrealm and switched to Eldritch Augmentation. My Multipurpose Glyphs lit up in a circle all around me, and the half I hadn’t already activated all sprung to life at once.

I jumped toward the Lich King as the glowing glyphs transformed into my prototype armor. Each piece wrapped around me, encasing me from head to toe in a thousand pounds of enchanted steel. Last to appear was the enormous sword I’d made for my Doomblade persona, though this time it was covered from hilt to pommel in the same strength and armor penetration enchantments I’d used on my rapier.

But that on its own wasn’t enough. I used Mana Overload again, straining the enchantments on my armor to breaking. For a moment, I thought I’d pushed the armor too far, but something within the armor responded. For a brief instant, the armor almost felt alive, like I’d awoken something that dwelled within it, and it was just as hungry for blood as I was. Perhaps I hadn’t taken Machine Spirit Awakening in vain after all.

The overdrawn enchantments doubled in power again, shifting from adding three hundred raw strength stats, to six hundred, to more than a thousand. Between my bonus stats from Soulchain Nexus, Awakening the Inner Beast, the fourth layer of Mania, and all the food-based buffs Bridget had crammed into the lot of us before the battle, I was riding a battle high no C-Grade ought to have.

In one mighty swing, I cleaved the dragon’s head from its neck. Sakura fell, rolling and gasping for breath as she and the head rolled across the open ground. Some of the dragon’s teeth had pierced her skin and her stomach bled, but not enough to take her out of the fight.

“I-is it dead?” Sakura wheezed.

I helped her up. She was wounded, but she'd survive. No notifications appeared, and I wouldn't be fooled twice as I turned back to the undead dragon. Mana Bolts filled the air around me as I resumed my attack.

The eyes on the severed dragon skull still glowed, and the head floated back into place on the dragon’s skeletal neck. Sakura swore, and I would have as well if the maddening call of Unholy Revelation hadn’t pushed my mind beyond its limits. I wasn’t sure I could think straight enough to form words. But I heard what Reluna shouted.

“I've done it! I’ve cut its connection to the Chaos Raven! Its level will drop by the minute. Just hold on!” She shouted before joining the battle herself. It seemed her work with the ritual diagram was finally done. I confirmed what she said with a quick examine.

Avatar of the Chaos Raven (Level 214)

He had already dropped a level and would drop more the longer we fought.

The Lich King snarled. “Drain my power, will you? Then your lives will be cut that much shorter!”

Dark spells circled the undead dragon, filling the air with all the power he’d wielded as a human lich, but now in the body of a dragon and backed by the power of a B-Grade. I raised my sword again, and my armor threw sparks as I pushed it to its limits.

An arcane blue sword met a dragon claw cupping a sickly black and green fire. We clashed, and I was thrown back, but not before shattering the dragon’s shields and casting a few more Mana Bolts.

Reluna had been channeling her own spell as well, and frost magic gathered between her fingers as she cast a bolt of chilling moonlight. They did no perceivable damage, but each spell that struck slowed the Lich King down a little more as frost spread across his bones.

The dragon took to the air, and I jumped in pursuit. There were no jetpacks or means of flight attacked to my prototype power armor, but even so, I felt something heaving me into the sky. I looked down to find Sharky’s back beneath me. He flapped his stubby fins and in complete defiance of gravity and his heaving bulk, they were enough to let him take to the air.

If there was anyone who survived a dragon’s wrath on this shard, they would be looking to the sky to see a knight in armor riding a flying shark and doing battle against an undead dragon.

As we took flight, I switched to spells for longer range, and the Lich King did the same. He opened his maw, spewing dragon fire and casting sweeping ways of rot and decay. I returned fire with Void Cannons and Mana Bolts of all aspects. We lit the sky around us as the fight dragged on. Sharky was unceasing and hounded the Lich King without fear. He snapped at the dragon with hungry teeth, headless of the danger or the damage he was taking. He would crush this dragon’s bones to dust or die trying. I was merely doing my best to hang on and throw spells when the chance presented itself.

The Lich King in dragon form was a better fighter than Dramonar’s soul fragment was, even mixed with the will of the Chaos Serpent as that fragment had been. There was a certain battle-ready edge about the Lich King that nothing that came from Dramonar could have come close to. Even if they’d been at the same level, this dragon would have crushed the flesh and blood one underfoot. The battle was fierce, and sweat beaded on my brow beneath my helmet as I fought just to hold on.

But a clock was ticking, and not for me. The Lich King’s level was dropping by the second. Worse, my Corrupting Marks continued to multiply. Destined Death ensured they dealt increasing amounts of damage by the second. He’d looked fine moments ago, but after the latest exchange of blows, the passive damage I was dealing had increased exponentially, and now it was leaving visible effects on his battered bones.

He wasn’t the only one to take damage. Between pumping far more mana through my armor’s enchantments than it should hold, and taking constant damage with it, bits and pieces were flaking off and spiraling to the ground below. But the difference between me and the Lich King was that beneath my armor was unblemished skin. The damage I dealt to him was coming back to me as healing.

I sensed him come to a decision. One that he thought would kill him. Maybe he thought my Corrupting Marks would vanish upon my death. Maybe he just wanted me to die alongside me.

“You were a worthy foe, Lord of Crownhill. Chaos Raven, lend me your strength!” the Lich King gathered dark energy, but not quickly enough.

I’d seen this ability twice over now. He wouldn’t get me with it a third time.

You have activated your ultimate Secrets of the Unseen.

I activated Arcane Blade, drawing my enormous enchanted sword once more as I sprung off Sharky’s back. He swam upward, pouncing like a tiger, and I jumped free of his back. The Lich King barely had time to glance up as I brought my sword down on the center of his chest. A color of blinding brilliance lit up around my sword, brighter than ever before.

Darkness descended from the Lich King’s spell, and the two magics warred in the sky. I detonated my Corrupting Marks to heal myself, draining more life from the Lich King as we tumbled.

The fall seemed to last an entire minute, though in truth it was likely far shorter. He clawed, and I thrust. We twisted, turned, and wrestled over the blade, but at the last moment, he was upside down and I rode with my feet planted on his chest.

He broke free of me for just a moment, glancing up to breathe flame at my descending form and then catch me in his jaws. I used Shadowrealm Stride, slipping out of physical reality for just a moment. The enormous black raven looked surprised to see me before I flickered out of existence again and back to the real world.

My sword cut through the Lich King’s head then, followed through his extended neck and back. When I finally hit the ground, the undead dragon split in two right down the center, and I had nearly come to a stop.

I fell to one knee as the last of my prototype armor crumbled and fell from my shoulders. My gauntlets cracked, and the protective rings beneath them were already dust. During that last attack, the only thing that had been protecting me from possession by the Chaos Gods was my raw willpower and determination to succeed.

I collapsed to one knee in the sand, and a series of System notifications flashed in my vision.

Congratulations! You have defeated and exterminated the naga.

Congratulations! You have exterminated the undead.

Congratulations! You have defeated the Torchdragon.

The naga and undead have been exterminated, and their territory is yours to claim. Several Torchdrakes live in hiding, and you may issue quests to exterminate them before they grow to maturity.

Death Defier slain!

You have defeated someone who has cheated death! This restoration of rightful fate pleases the System.

Several reward choices are available to you.





<Note>
Another bonus chapter! I knew I had to make this one happen, since this chapter is pretty tightly tied to the last one and I didn't want to break up the flow too much. Just don't count on one next Sunday.

I think I'm coming down with a cold and might need to burn through some of my stockpile, depending on how sick I get. I have some artwork I could post on Monday if I'm unable to get the chapter cleaned up enough to post between then and now.