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Apocalypse Tamer 116: Man vs Adaptation
🕑 Added 2023-02-09 09:31:03 +0000 UTCPrevious Chapter
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Brina opened hostilities with a twitch of her hand. “Rain of Swords.”
Basil had become used to enemies announcing their attacks’ names—he did the same with spells and Perks to better focus—but never before had he heard one so literal. Hundreds of swords materialized above the battlefield, from thin rapiers to heavy claymores, and fell to the ground faster than raindrops.
“Disperse!” Plato shouted a warning. The team immediately split to avoid the bombardment. A claymore hit the ground only a few steps away from Basil with enough strength to leave a small crater.
With the Bohens separated across the plaza, their enemies sprang into action. Brina immediately rushed at Basil after switching her sabres for a thundering, lightning-coated spear. Belphegor shouted at his thralls to attack the team with shining eyes and–
—---
When time skipped forward again, Brina was no longer visible.
Reacting purely on instinct, Basil sidestepped to the right. His reflexes saved his life. Brina fell upon the spot he previously occupied and impaled it with her spear. Lightning burst from the tip of her blade in a flash of light.
Though Basil’s armor made him immune to the lightning element, he wasn’t keen on taking a hit. The Horseman of War had already proven capable of bypassing his defenses. Instead, he charged with his own spear and aimed for the heart.
Flaming chains flew at him from the right, forcing Basil to interrupt his attack and deflect them with his shield. Two skullfire minions of Belphegor moved to flank him. Basil killed one with a single strike of his spear and parried the second’s attempt at whipping him with burning chains. The distraction allowed Brina to remove her spear from the ground and charge at Basil. He barely managed to deflect a blow with his shield; the sheer force behind it pushed him backward.
“Weapon Flurry,” Brina said. She repeatedly thrust her spear so fast that Basil’s eyes struggled to follow its movements. He parried one weak blow with his shield, then a second, only for the remaining skullfire to distract him with a well-placed swing of its chains. This allowed Brina to pierce through his defense and stab him in the shoulder and the hip.
Supereffective hit! 431 [Physical] damage and 180 [Fire] damage! 431 [Physical] damage and 180 [Fire] damage! [Lightning] damage absorbed! You recovered 360 SP!
Powering through the pain and deflecting a sixth and seventh strike, Basil leaped into the air rather than keep engaging Brina in close-combat. He fled upward above the battlefield, only for the relentless valkyrie to unfurl her wings and pursue him. The skullfire started throwing fireballs at Basil from the ground to assist her.
A glance at the ground told Basil that his team didn’t fare much better. Hellfire elementals encircled Plato, who struggled to cut his way out. Belphegor and Vasi traded offensive spells, with spheres of darkness clashing against ice storms, while Shellgirl and Bugsy repelled a group of skullfires with water and light. Yet no matter how many of these creatures they killed, more appeared to take their place.
Realizing the danger of being overwhelmed, Shellgirl switched tactics and summoned another Pandora’s Box. She threw it amidst the enemy troops. “Hey, look at my treasure!”
Her trap did the trick. Madness spread to the skullfires and elementals, who immediately stopped attacking the team to rush at the chest.
“Nice try!” Belphegor chuckled as his eyes shone with dark power. “It won’t work again!”
His undead thralls glowed with fell power, and the madness overtaking their mind was swiftly banished.
Belphegor removed his allies’ status ailments and debuffs!
Basil cursed as Belphegor’s troops rallied to their master. The battle was not going well at all–
A dagger grazed his left arm, the sharp pain forcing him to focus back on the fight at hand.
“Can you truly afford distractions now?” Brina taunted him. A swarm of twenty daggers floated around her like birds of war. “I will ask again. Tell me where your master is and I will make your death quick.”
“I don’t even know who you’re talking about!” Basil snarled in anger. He turned around and deflected incoming daggers with his spear.
“Liar!” Brina lunged at him and closed the gap between them in the blink of an eye. “I can smell the stench of Walter Tye all over you!”
“Walter?” Basil’s brief moment of confusion nearly cost him his life as Brina threw her spear at him. Using his superior maneuverability in the air, he bent backward, the weapon grazing his left cheek, and countered with a thrust of his own. He targeted the chest, and his aim was true.
Brina did not dodge. Instead, the Horseman of War caught the spear with both hands. She grabbed the shaft and held it with a giant’s strength.
“Do you even know who you’ve allied with? What you’ve allied with?” Brina spat in disgust. “Walter Tye is a godslaying traitor, an undead abomination, a murderous knave, and an enemy of all that is sacred and pure. He has cursed all of the nine realms with undeath and he will do the same with yours.”
“Says the invader bringing destruction to my world.” Basil countered by trying to thrust his spear forward again. “Look at your allies. Demons and talking corpses, all of them!”
Brina tightened her grasp, both of them putting everything into their contest of strength.
They tied, and the spear lost.
Basil’s eyes widened in shock as Birgha’s shaft snapped in two, he and his rival each holding one half. Next thing he knew Brina headbutted him with all her strength. Neither his armor nor his intangibility stopped her.
276 [Physical] damage! You have fallen below half-health!
The blow pushed Basil down toward the ground. By the time he regained control of his trajectory, his enemy had positioned herself right above him.
“If you had watched your teammates die,” Brina said as she summoned two war axes to her hands. “If you had watched all of your comrades suffer a gruesome fate before your eyes… wouldn’t you do everything in your power to avenge them?”
“I would swear an oath of vengeance, that’s true,” Basil replied as he threw an elemental orb at her. “But not at the cost of innocent lives.”
The end did not always justify the means.
“Then you are either naïve or a better person than me.” Brina dodged his projectile and dived down toward him like a falcon. “Whatever the case, I have made my choice.”
“Yes, you have.” Basil jumped upward to meet her in close-combat, intent on opening his inventory and dropping a vehicle on her face. “The wrong one!”
Brina countered by throwing one of her war axes at him. Basil did not dodge. Taking a page from her last attack, he predicted the axe’s course and caught its shaft in midair. Knowledge immediately filled his mind.
[Holy War Apotheosis] activated! You gained perfect proficiency with axes!
Now it was Brina’s turn to be surprised. Basil threw a water elemental orb at her in mid-flight, anticipated her moving to the side to dodge it, and struck her in the chest with her own axe by surprise.
Critical hit! 1885 [Physical] damage!
Not enough, Basil cursed as Brina recovered. Their axes danced in the sky, each clash a note in a deadly song of steel. Nowhere near enough.
“Mmm.” Brina seemed vaguely impressed that he had managed to hurt her. “You might be worthy of Valhalla after all.”
“I’ll send you to Hell first!” Basil inhaled, and breathed out his corrosive breath at her. Poison blew over the valkyrie’s face, forcing her back and briefly distracting her. “Runestorm: Water!”
Liquid swirled along the edge of his axe, but he failed to hit his target. Brina teleported a few feet away to dodge the supereffective hit.
“You are justified in trying to defend your world from us,” the Horseman of War conceded. “But it would be easier if you simply surrendered Walter Tye to me.”
“And let you get away with your crimes?” Basil snorted. “How many lives did you trample to become a Horseman?”
“I have lost count.” A brief look of guilt passed over the valkyrie’s gaze. “But I would kill far more if it would give me the power to fulfill my oath. Strength is the winner’s justice.”
She spoke like the Maleking. That alone convinced Basil to answer her arrogance with overwhelming power.
“I’m so through with your self-righteous lot,” Basil said before calling for reinforcements. “One for All!”
The last member of the Bohens answered his call with a fearsome roar. Her flower wings unfurled above the plaza in a shower of petals. Even Brina appeared briefly intimidated by her appearance.
“Mister!” Rosemarine raised her cannon-arms joyfully. “Who am I killing today?”
—-----
This is getting tiresome, Vasi thought as yet another skullfire transformed into Belphegor. And exhausting.
“Why?!” Plato complained as he and his allies surrounded the reborn Horseman of Death. Shellgirl, Bugsy, and Vasi flanked their enemy from all cardinal directions. “Why? Why won’t you stay dead?!”
Considering her friend had only two extra lives left, Vasi more than understood Plato’s frustration.
“Come on, don’t tell me you’re tired already?” Specks of darkness gathered in Belphegor’s palms. “We’re just getting started!”
Getting started? They had killed him three times in a row already. Bugsy burned him and half his troops alive with his combo, Plato beheaded him in a sneak attack, and Vasi dropped a meteor on his head. Each time the Horseman had returned from the dead. At least they managed to clear the plaza of minions for the time being.
How long until more arrived?
Bugsy cleared his throat. “Vasi, I’m… I’m starting to run out of Special Points.”
Vasi couldn’t fault him for it. Bug’s fire vulnerability-nova combo had killed more monsters than the rest of the team combined, but it cost him more SP than his native regeneration could keep up with.
Worse, Basil had summoned Rosemarine in the sky above them. If her boyfriend felt the need to call for reinforcements and leave the rift unattended, then the other Horseman was pushing him into a corner.
Vasi formulated a last-chance plan. “Bugsy, at my signal, you pin him to the ground,” she said. “Don’t kill him.”
She hadn’t used this spell before, but circumstances called for extreme measures.
“Don’t kill me?” Belphegor chuckled as he turned to face Vasi. “Come on, don’t be a tease!”
Plato immediately lunged at Belphegor with his sword raised for the kill. The feline moved quicker than lightning, but so did his enemy. Joyeuse sliced the ashen ground as Belphegor dodged. The Horseman leaped at Vasi with hands shrouded in darkness.
Bugsy immediately moved between them and charged at the Horsemen, whose eyes glowed–
—---
Time skipped forward and Bugsy was thrown backward. Belphegor had vanished.
“Vasi, to your left!” Shellgirl shouted a warning. The witch turned her head to find the Horseman–
—---
Right in front of her.
Vasi barely had time to shield her face with her arms before a cloud of dark mist swallowed her whole. The noxious, shadowy smoke phased through her like a ghost and chilled her to the bone.
604 [Darkness] damage! Belphegor’s [Netherworld Pulse] pierced through your resistance and damage reduction! You have lost 302 SP!
The pain was terrible, but Vasi endured it. No agony could break her focus.
“Time runs for you, but it waits for me!” Vasi declared before activating her ultimate spell. “Za Warudo!”
Her magic covered the world and plunged it into silence.
All movement, all sound, all of time, came to a screeching halt. Smoke and clouds froze in the air without knowing why. The burning wind paused to gather its breath. Rosemarine’s Eden Guns fired a half-formed beam of pollen at a flying woman they would never hit. Basil himself was paralyzed in the middle of a fall, a battered knight wielding a broken axe. The color gray covered everything under its veil.
Everything except for Vasi.
Belphegor had become little more than a statue. He faced Vasi with a wicked grin, with Shellgirl rushing at him from the left and Plato from the right. The darkness summoned from his own hands was now no more real than an illusion.
“Five seconds,” Vasi said as she counted time. She moved out of the way of Belphegor’s attack, but remained close to him. “Four… three…”
The fairy witch cast another spell in the frozen time. A cold wind surged out of her palms and trapped Belphegor’s own in a layer of ice.
“Two…” Vasi counted as she froze both of the Horseman’s arms. “One…”
Time resumed in a cacophony of sound and color.
Belphegor, who suddenly found his arms heavier than stones, stumbled forward. Plato immediately stabbed him in the back with Joyeuse, the impact throwing him to the ground.
“Shellgirl, submerge his legs in water,” Vasi ordered while Bugsy recovered from the last assault. “Don’t kill him.”
“On it!” Shellgirl unleashed a stream of pressurized water at Belphegor’s leg. Vasi instantly cast her frost spell on the liquid, freezing it solid. Belphegor’s lower half was soon trapped in a thick chunk of ice that only expanded upward.
“Immobilizing me? Oh noooo! Noooo!” Belphegor’s screams were as high-pitched as a cat crying for food; no offense to Plato. “To think you’re the only people in my century-long existence to figure out such an obvious weakness! Curse you!”
Realizing the danger, Vasi doubled down on freezing him. Too late. The Horseman of Death’s body heated up and melted away the ice.
“Just kidding!” Belphegor laughed, his body now as hot as lava. “Here I go dying again!”
His body exploded in a shower of flames and molten wax. Bugsy’s Alexicacus protected his team from both effects, but Vasi cursed nonetheless when a crater appeared where her enemy once stood.
“Why? Why doesn’t he run out of lives?” Plato complained angrily. “This is unfair!”
Vasi’s mood only worsened when her boyfriend crashed to the ground not so far from her, a sword impaling him through the stomach. Her heart pounded hard in her chest in fear.
“Basil!” Vasi immediately rushed to her boyfriend’s side, though Plato was faster. The cat immediately removed the sword from his friend’s body while the witch removed his helmet’s visor. No sooner did she expose Basil’s face to the world that he spat blood at her. “We’re losing him!”
“Swallow!” Shellgirl materialized a golden apple from her inventory and shoved it down Basil’s throat. The dragonknight nearly choked on the fruit, but it healed his wounds all the same.
A song echoed high in the sky. Vasi looked up as she helped her knight stand on his legs. Rosemarine unleashed a storm of flaming petals at Brina, who was now covered in wounds and with an axe stuck in her shoulder.
However, the valkyrie was no longer alone. Ghostly, winged armored figures flew at her side: half a dozen specters of dead warriors wielding swords, axes, and spears. One among them fearlessly blew a horn through the petal storm and called his comrades to battle.
Einherjar’s [Skald Song] buffed his allies’ stats!
Vasi had heard valkyries collected the souls of the dead so they could wage war forever. She should have guessed Brina could summon reinforcements of her own. She should have.
“Rosemarine and I brought her down to half-health,” Basil sputtered as his wounds healed. “If we rush her now… I think we can end this battle.”
If so, their window of time wouldn’t last long. Rosemarine successfully blasted an einherjar out of the sky with her Eden Guns, but the other ghosts harassed her with their weapons. Brina herself removed the axe from her shoulder and charged at the dragon in an aerial melee.
“Vasi, can you stop time again?” Shellgirl asked as she distributed more fruits to the team. “If we can use it to get close, we can surprise her.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to wait,” Vasi apologized. “This spell’s cooldown is as great as its power.”
“We’ll manage without it,” Basil said before barking orders. “Bugsy, Vasi, fly with me. Shellgirl, buff–”
Her boyfriend never finished his sentence. He had noticed Belphegor reappearing above the plaza, using two streams of flames to propel himself upward. Vasi incanted a spell to shoot him down, but the Horseman paid them no mind.
He reserved his attention for his wounded teammate.
“You owe me one, Brina!” Belphegor raised his hands in a parody of a prayer. “My Life for You!”
His body turned to ash on the spot. A wave of green energy burst out of his body and swallowed the entire battlefield. Though it did nothing to the Bohens, Brina’s wounds instantly healed on their own.
Belphegor sacrificed himself to replenish Brina’s HP and SP! All her attacks will be [Charged] (x2 damage) for ten minutes!
The Horseman of War was back to full health.
“It’s a nightmare,” Plato commented as Brina rained swords upon Rosemarine. The poor dragon whined after a dozen blades pierced through her petal scales. “Please tell me I’m dreaming.”
Vasi chewed her lower lip in frustration. This was bad. Very bad. Even Basil looked as grim as the day his mother perished.
The Horsemen’s teamwork was flawless. Belphegor wasn’t too much of a threat on his own, but his refusal to stay down made winning against him impossible. Brina was the most dangerous one of the two, and though she didn’t appear to share her teammate’s immortality, her immortal ally could replenish her health at any time.
“I can try charming one of them,” Vasi suggested at her wit’s end. She had never kissed a girl on the lips before, but she would rather embrace Brina than Belphegor.
“It won’t work.” Basil shook his head in frustration. “They’re both immune to ailments.”
“Immune to ailments…” Shellgirl’s eyes widened. “Eureka! Eureka!”
“What?” Basil snapped in frustration.
“I know how to destroy that undead bastard for good!” Shellgirl replied with enthusiasm, though her smile quickly faltered. “But…”
“But what?” Vasi pressed her. Rosemarine could only buy so much time. “Shellgirl, what do you hav–”
—---
A pulse of dark power blasted Vasi as time resumed.
604 [Darkness] damage! You have lost 302 SP!
The blow threw the witch back and sent her rolling on the ashen ground.
“You know, I said Apollyon and I would have probably killed each other, and that’s true.” Belphegor loomed over Vasi with a murderous look. “But he was also my teammate. I can’t let you guys walk away after you put him in a body bag. It’s a question of principles.”
Vasi glanced at her surroundings. Brina and her einherjar were raining swords upon Rosemarine, pushing her back. Skullfires restrained Bugsy with chains, while other undead surrounded Shellgirl.
Basil and Plato were nowhere to be found. Vasi’s heart skipped a beat in panic.
“I had some fun,” Belphegor said as dark energies gathered around his hands. “Please be a good girl and scream for me, would you kindly?”
It might very well cost her her life, but Vasi refused to lie down without a fight. “Blizz–”
She was teleported away mid-sentence.
The plaza vanished in a blink, replaced with a rocky hill overseeing Thessaloniki’s port. Steve’s metal frame replaced Belphegor’s wax figure. The Steamobile was still bombarding the rift from the outskirts with the Gehenna Cannon, though for each monster he vaporized from afar, two more fiends crossed over.
Basil Bohen teleported you with [One for All].
Her knight was here, alongside the others. Plato applied a paw to a smoking burn on his chest, while Rosemarine landed near the Steamobile while covered in wounds.
“Vasi, are you wounded?” Basil asked as he helped her rise to her feet.
“I’m fine,” the witch replied with a thin smile. “I wouldn’t mind some healing though.”
“I’m here!” Rosemarine glowed with green light and her power swiftly closed her allies’ wounds. “Hera’s Grace!”
Rosemarine healed you back to full health!
“It’s only a matter of time before they locate us,” Basil warned before turning to face Shellgirl. “You said you had a plan to deal with Belphegor?”
The mimic nodded. “Do you remember the Gearsman Titan? Its runecore petrification blast could bypass ailment immunity.”
Vasi quickly caught on. “You want to petrify Belphegor instead of killing him.”
“Do you think it would work?” Basil asked with skepticism.
“It might,” Vasi agreed. So far, Belphegor needed to die to activate his ability. If he could be petrified, his consciousness frozen in time, then they could potentially trap him forever.
“What if we used Steve?” Plato suggested. “He ate the Titan’s heart, right? Can’t we use that one?”
The Steamobile let out an engine roar of approval, but Basil shot down the idea immediately. “Activating Steve’s runecore would kill it,” he pointed out with a grim look. “And it only works on inanimate items or creatures with a lower level. Belphegor is five levels ahead of us.”
Even if it had a chance to work, Vasi doubted any of the Bohens would willingly sacrifice one of their teammates for the greater good. It wasn’t their way.
“I could craft another weapon lacking this weakness with the necessary material,” Shellgirl pointed out. “But… I’ll need time and resources.”
Basil’s jaw clenched. “How much?”
Shellgirl’s fatalistic expression was an answer in itself.
“Boss,” Bugsy said, looking at the horizon. “They’re coming.”
Vasi glanced in the direction of the city-center. Flying forms floated above Thessaloniki and moved straight toward the Bohens’ location. At their current pace, they would reach them in less than five minutes.
She turned to face her boyfriend, each reading the other’s mind.
“Sound…” Basil looked about to choke when he uttered these words. “Sound the retreat.”
They couldn’t win today.
“Boss, you can’t be serious!” Bugsy protested. “What about Bulgaria?!”
“I know!” Basil snapped angrily. The fury in his tone was enough to make Bugsy balk. “But if we can’t put these two down permanently, then they’ll kill us through attrition and ravage Europe anyway!”
“Not yet,” Shellgirl replied grimly. “They said they were after Kalki.”
Vasi nodded in agreement. “They won’t send troops to Bulgaria,” she told Basil. “They will make a beeline to Athens. If we can beat them to it, we can rescue Kalki and lay a trap for their army.”
Vasi herself wasn’t sure if the Horsemen would truly act rationally, for there was nothing rational about monsters wishing to destroy the world. But Basil had already suffered enough watching the Unity decimate his homeland. He didn’t need a reminder the Apocalypse Force might do the same.
Basil sighed in defeat. “Let’s go,” he said with a haunted voice. “Let’s… let’s go.”
Everyone climbed onto the Steamobile except for Rosemarine, who bombarded the flyers from afar with her Eden Guns to buy time. Afterward, they all retreated before the enemy could catch up to them.
As they drove away from Thessaloniki, Vasi gazed one last time at the pillar of fire linking this world to the Apocalypse Force’s own. According to the Incursion’s rules, it would stay open for three days. Seventy-two hours of monsters pouring out into this reality.
Greece would soon become hell on earth.
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Next Chapter
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A/N: yeah, this is but an appetizer of the dangers ahead in the last stretch of the competition.
