Battleforged
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Chapter 409 - Treasure Hunt XI
🕑 Added 2024-04-01 04:00:06 +0000 UTC“Anomaly acquired and locked, sir.”
“Purge it. Then secure the gate.”
The words washed over Eric in odd counterpoint to the brilliant flash of actinic color searing through his retinas, marking his flesh, his Danger Sense flaring just a heartbeat too late to keep from being perforated by a stream of plasma enhanced far beyond the limits off any weapon relying on physics alone.
You have been CRITICALLY STRUCK By X-Series T-III Hyperion Anti-material rifle!
Triple Deathstrike Perk IN PLAY!
2 Ranks of Deathstrike mitigated by Tier 2 Danger Sense!
Fatal Strike mitigated by Mithril hauberk to Critical Wound!
Hyperion Blazer Resiliency means that otherwise deadly burns went only skin deep, but you’re still running with a hole in your liver! both corneas have been flashed fried, and your skin has been charred crisper than a well-done steak!
It was all Eric could do not to scream from the agony of a hole seared right through his overconfident flesh, peripheral scattering of deadly, perk enhanced radiation leaving him feeling just as crispy-fried as when he had last jumped into an Orc Hell-Pit, where he had been barbecued to an inch of his life and beyond. Still, it was only thanks to having considerable experience with this degree of horrific pain that he was able to continue lurching and slamming through brick buildings that didn’t stand a chance against his monstrous Strength or Vitality as he tore through them like a bull in a china shop, desperate to escape the overwatch that his enemies had so skillfully put into place, his enemies coming terrifyingly close to pinning him and shutting him down for good.
Even blinded and wounded, even while desperately using Blood Mastery to keep from bleeding out like a stuck pig, he didn’t have time to plan any clever counters. He didn’t even have time to think as one caustic blast of plasma after another charred holes in brick and stone and floorboards and wherever he had been standing just an instant before, never fucking mind the advantages that infravision now so acute that he could sense his environment with his entire body, as if it was all a blurry heat-sensing eye so knew just where to weave and stumble before cool blue blocks of stone became white-hot with plasma after-images and Eric was juking back and forth and racing for all he was worth. Just that single glimpse of the cold sneer of his nemesis that had so easily blinded him, radiating such poise, power, and contempt, was now forever seared into his mind.
He wanted to scream at what a fool he had been, they all had been, to think for even a second that a few easy low level early encounters meant that they could cherry pick the entire delve.
He had realized from the start that this delve echoed all too closely the timeline that now effectively never was, at least for Freetown. Because in that timeline, the entire Blue Quarter had been ruthlessly taken down in just a handful of hours.
How?
How did the crown jewel of a faction known for both its fairness and tactical savvy, known to be equipped by actual Bronze platoons, get so easily taken out by just a handful of honey traps and tainted stew?
Bullshit. He should have KNOWN that was just spin. Hype covering a far darker truth.
That somehow Greed and Malice had arranged for entire platoons of not just competent but outright elite Bronze-tier mercenaries to invade Earth and position themselves for an absolutely devastating strike that had all but annihilated Blue Faction.
And he, like a complete and utter dumbass, had thought that some low level Confederate States of America hacks, along with a handful of just barely ascended Bronze thugs and a litter of bloodthirsty brainless humanoid grunts, had somehow pulled off such a deadly coup?
Bullshit.
Even Kevin and Jeff’s freaky tentacled abominations had been hideous, yes, and might have even taken down a couple of half-step Bronze grunts, but against Blue Corp’s disciplined organized crew? For them not to have put up a damned good fight against a couple oddball contenders who only gained such leverage in the chaotic aftermath once Blue Corp had actually fallen and disorganized chaos had ruled? Bullshit!
Kevin and Jeff might have been great mind-lording scavengers, but sure as fuck, they hadn’t initiated the initial coup.
“Target re-acquired.”
DUCK!
It must have been this very high level company he was now facing, the elite of the elite, that had served as the ice breaker shattering all resistance before other factions had swarmed the breach and made Blue Corp all but a past-tense, until Eric had rewritten that tale.
Only now he was back in an original version so real that the weapons and armaments his friends had claimed really DID work! To awesome and undeniable effect.
Because they were being used by mercenaries every bit as deadly as the ones that had brought Blue Corp low… and Eric had managed to catch the ire of their leader. A dungeon monster… no, an exceedingly self-aware being who even understood that his entire unit was trapped in a city-sized containment, and was now eager to break free.
But first, their commander was determined to kill the invading anomaly, which would be Eric himself, before doing so.
You have been critically struck by Plasma Fire piercing 3 Building walls and 4 additional forms of cover. You have taken 1 additional critical wound!
Blood Mastery in effect. You have successfully avoided fatal bleed-out!
Unified Restoration Potency Surge in effect: You are regenerating at 140-fold your basic rate!
Eric choked back a fresh scream when yet another stream of plasma tagged him, and this was with himself protected by multiple buildings and levels of cover, and he couldn’t see any trace of his foe, never mind his mad stats!
He grimaced against the pain, overwhelmed by just how utterly outclassed he was by a monstrous opponent far beyond him in levels and Class power evolutions.
For him to think he had even a ghost of a—
You have successfully dodged Fatal Snipe-Shot!
You avoid panicked desperation!
You continue to juke and weave about the battlefield.
“Fuck!”
Eric was utterly outclassed. The monster he faced was a high level master. There was no denying it, or point in trying to deny it. Deadly as he might be at short range, his foe was keeping him at perfect distance and could spot him through multiple walls and barriers.
Forget his original plan to practice and hone his arcane arts. No chance in hell of doing that now.
Forget about even having a chance to do a clean sweep of this massive delve.
He’d have to do it ugly and pay a devastating cost in life force. He had been fucked from the second he had awoken, his doom all but assured, Malice’s paws on every dark twist over the last two days and there was NOTHING he could do about it except suffer through it.
Just as that dying fucker had no doubt intended.
But fuck if he’d make it easy.
Fuck if he wouldn’t at least TRY to pull a win.
Even if it killed him.
Or aged him to a withered old husk.
Eric suppressed a groan, already knowing what he had to do, the monstrosity he had to face as he was being herded into yet another killbox.
So instead he juked left, toward the brooding Aztec temple-looking edifice that did indeed worship every foul, corrupt, and soul-draining practice of predatory banking to a degree that would have had the Dark One himself, and countless payday lenders, green with awe and envy.
“Target re-acquired.”
Eric wanted to scream with frustration as, suddenly and completely counter to his sense of the battlefield and ability to predict his enemy, the Doom-Squad was hovering before him once more. Both the cold-eyed captain of this entire Eric-slaughtering shit show, and the four, count them… four tank-mechas linked together and generating such a monstrous force-field around the monster Classer that Eric knew he didn’t have a chance in hell of breaking through.
Not without embracing arts that would rupture the entire rift… as he desperately weaved and dove past deadly blaster fire yet again.
“Bravo Company! Target has shifted objectives! He’s heading for the bank! Intercept at all costs!”
Eric’s heart pounded as his acute perception and Universal Translator picked up the high pitched frequencies that were, in truth, the only reason why he was alive… his singular edge against these monsters.
“Understood, Captain. Will be at Berth and 6th street in seventeen seconds. There’s no way in hell he’s getting in that—”
The man’s voice cut off in a burst of static and screams that changed absolutely everything.
***
The cold-eyed killer hunting down far too annoying vermin blanched when he realized he had been played. Before being rocked midair when a pressure-wave caused even him to lurch back and curse, cold grey eyes widening at what met his gaze.
“Temple command, do you copy?”
“We copy, Lord Rin. Report.”
The captain glared at the oddly warping bubble of screaming reality and darkness where his prized squad had been, just seconds before.
“Target has broken free. Repeat. Target has broken free. And we have another anomaly.”
“Shit. What’s the nature of this anomaly? Is it like the other?”
Lord Rin gave a shuddering shake of his head as he gazed at the steadily growing rupture. “No. It sure as hell is not.”
***
Eric refused to scream as he charged toward his death, encountering a second squad just as nightmarishly over-prepared as the first, a singular impossibly deadly sniper along with a trio of hyper-reinforced force-field generating Tank Classers that had effectively linked together, forming the ultimate force field.
The only difference, Eric thought, as he weaved and dove in all directions, including racing up and down the adjoining buildings as plasma fire road and spat massive rents and holes through blacktop and brick walls… was that this second squad hadn’t reached the point where they could generate the incredibly potent forces and fields boosting their defensive abilities so monstrously and be airborn while doing it. They had to be on the ground. But the T-3 Hyperion cannon being fired Eric’s way was so damned lethal that Eric’s absolutely insane 875 Quickness, Speed Racer, and Battletime perks were only reasons why he wasn’t dead already.
Yet the Captain’s second-in-command didn’t look fazed at all as a screaming Eric closed.
No doubt because he was a veteran of a hundred battles and dozens of desperate natives and fools trading their lives for one final attack that would be completely countered by the impossibly potent force-field between Eric and his prey.
And that remained the squad leader’s final thought as the Liutenant squeezed his trigger for a final round of plasma fire that tore right through Eric’s abdomen…
But not before Eric had swung his blade faster than he ever had before, revealing a secret so desperately hidden.
A secret that threatened to shatter a realm, to destroy this miniature world, as his sword suddenly lit up with higher order concept of transcendent flame.
The Lieutenant had time only for one final blink.
Before his head and shoulders were flash-frozen, save for an impossibly narrow, impossibly hot line of oblivion that had blazed right through the still stumbling corpse, just a heartbeat before impossibly extreme temperature and pressure differentials caused the entire frozen half of the corpse to explode like a shrapnel bomb that of course did absolutely nothing to its master architect or the party tanks still gazing Eric’s way with stunned disbelief.
Phoenix Strike! You have struck your opponent for 36X base damage!
No opposing defenses are in play. All defenses have been pierced by a Transcendent Attack!
Your opponent FAILS to save versus Oblivion!
You have OBLITERATED your opponent!
WARNING UNSTABLE RIFT HAS BEEN FORMED!
“No shit!” Eric wheezed to himself with a cold chuckle as a certain asshole captain’s blaster managed to tag him from behind. But not before a roaring Eric managed three additional cleaving blows as fast as 875 Quickness could whip his reality-defying rift-slaying blade through the air, and three more impossibly tough Elite-tier Bronze who had warded themselves with a starship-grade defensive barrier crashed to the ground in explosions of bitter cold ice and transcendent flame.
And Eric dared to imagine that he saw a flicker of actual dismay on the captain’s face even as his internal interface shrieked warning that the anomaly behind him had only grown.
“Of course it has!” he bitterly thought, now racing towards the captain much like a mosquito, buying himself only a single eye-blink’s worth of confusion when Eric weaved and juked IN THE AIR as if he were on flat steady ground as he raced through the air to his target, losing only a piece of his calf as plasma fire tore through his leg and then he was finally close enough, even if the coldly glaring asshole commander who had most certainly orchestrated the butchery off Blue Corp’s elite forces in a life no longer lived finally cracked a smile, knowing that there was no way in hell Eric was avoiding getting his brains blown out as Eric felt triple perks lock about his soul as he raced through the air, totally out of cover and his enemy was now coldly squeezing the trigger one final time.
“REPUDIO!”
The word cracked through the air like an endless gunshot as reality itself twisted and snapped under the twang of such extreme pressures that it had managed to erupt interdimensional gates, not that long ago.
So it was more than enough to cause the commander’s squeeze to result in nothing more than the crack of his own weapon when it shattered under the man’s suddenly desperate, confused grip as he began to fall to the earth, as did his entire quartet of now powerless shield-tanks falling right alongside him.
But not as fast as a roaring Eric, racing through the air and not giving a FUCK about anomalies as the air behind him shrieked and howled with his latest rupture, yet not his last, as his blade, crackling with higher order concepts of creation and destruction cleaved right through Commander Asshole’s furious, desperate countenance before the entire frozen corpse of a statue burst in an explosion of icy shrapnel an instant before his three liutenants erupted in ice and flame no matter their desperate shouts and imprecations.
Eric paid the shower of blazing ice shards that had been his toughest opponents no more mind than he did his Interface congratulating him for eight elite tier Bronze kills, though no fresh cultivator ranks, and a skill up of one of his most prized arts even as he fled certain doom from the ever growing rip in local space-time as his as he now raced all out for the temple just as fast as he could.
Congratulations! Phoenix Strike (Ice Fire) Is now Rank 12!
Second-tier Core saturation is now at 69%!
WARNING! UNSTABLE RIFT WILL REACH CRITICAL ENERGY STATE WITHIN 79 SECONDS!
Eric wanted to howl with bitter mirth as he desperately raced for his target, completely ignoring the obvious entrance of the massive temple of doom before him even as he sensed the hideous pressure wave of the awful entity that he knew could obliterate his mind in a heartbeat growing ever closer.
Forced to accept that he already knew just who is ultimate opponent absolutely had to be.
The one opponent who seemed all but designed to counter all of Aurelia’s decendants masterfully.
The vile warped being, Malice’s lastborn mutated son with the blood of Lythid Squid-brains pumping through his head, awaited him within.
Had Eric played it cautious and entered the entrance, trying to stealth his way through, perhaps he could have managed to make it to the treasure vaults below, had he kept his mind utterly blank of anything save existing in the moment, just as he had while Soul Riding a hundred different revenants, not that long ago. And perhaps that’s how he should have handled the whole damned Delve, seeing if blood worms and this unique environment would actually allow him to slip free of supposed Necromantic Strictures that he didn’t even know for sure applied to him.
But as it stood… he now had less than 80 seconds to face his greatest fear and eliminate it, or die in the process. And thanks to the flash of a certain furious contender’s final thoughts before forming this rift with his dying hate… he thought he knew exactly where the bastard was hiding.
So instead of an hour skulking in the bowels to avoid a foe that would of course be waiting right where Eric least expected it…
He slammed his hand against the Soul Steel reinforced hellish temple to higher order usury and snarled the word that had broken so many souls free of eternal torment once before.
“REPUDIO!” And softer, even knowing that this was but a mirage of reality, a projected pocket realm, he whispered… “Be Free.”
And the absolutely indestructible Soul Steel that should have repelled any delver too stubborn to go through the standard entrance and face whatever traps and ambushes lay within… the Soul Steel resonating with tortured screams in the ether even now, disintegrated in sparkling motes of light so fast that Eric was as stunned as the pale faced Contender who was now gazing at him with a blink of confusion from the ruins of what looked like a high end suite, complete with Blue Corp holo-entertainment system and electromana-friendly gaming rig.
Eric’s heart was pounding, now finding himself facing a startled boy that could so easily have been Eric’s cousin lurching out of his seat, the monitor split to show the bank front entrance and the kill sight of the final band of elite mercenaries that had drilled so many fucking holes in Eric that still hurt like hell… and now reality was warping hideously, strangely, in a thousand eerie undefined colors both at Eric’s back and on the computer screen.
As for the boy... he looked so normal, so familiar, that it caused Eric’s stomach to knot. Save for the odd hour-glass shaped pupils of someone with Lythid blood in his veins… A single odd trait that with just a single pair of contacts or aviator shades could be so easily hidden. Shades the kid was even now putting on as space began to warp and buck in flashes of screaming light and bleeding howls all around them, System Interface messages screaming warning that rupture was imminent, and Eric immediately felt the startled, terrified thoughts of a boy who somehow hadn’t sensed the tormented screams trapped in the Soul Steel at all, despite his class.
A high school junior. At most.
HE was just a freekin’ kid! No older than the girl who had flirted with him at the ice cream shop! What did Eric think he was—
“FRAGOR!” Eric shouted, embracing the attack he had kept so close to his vest, refusing even to use it on the battlemech mastermind who had come so close to killing him, even if it would have made Eric’s life SO MUCH easier with less holes perforating his abdomen. But he hadn’t. He had saved it for this very instant. Only daring to unleash his final trump card here and now. Against a kid. No matter the searing sharp dagger of shame he felt, the horrific feeling of regret.
Refusing to look away from Inky Dark eyes that, for all he knew, were just desperately lonely and looking for a friend.
Eyes that now widened with dismay, disappointment, and killing rage.
Eric felt it then, the sudden awful, AWFUL pressure bearing down on his mind from directions he couldn’t even fathom or conceive of as blood spurted from every orifice of his skull.
Yet right before his FRAGILE Sylvan brain with no natural defense against Psionic attacks was crushed to oblivion, the skull of Zacharia Lex Richardson, who might well have been Eric’s half-brother… who certainly looked like a half-brother, as much as Eric was horrified to admit it... exploded in a spray of crimson gore.
And before Eric could even scream in horror, regret, or dismay, he felt the world shredding to impossibility as every quark and atom of this reality simultaneously ruptured.
Yet before he was pulled into the hideous black void between space and time and ruptured rifts as he had been once before, he was surrounded by a sudden flash of bright light as a fresh barrage of interface messages flickered across his mind’s eye.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have successfully defeated the final boss of Delve TIRA-37846e!
For successfully stabilizing this rift with a first clear, you and all linked party members successfully drawing potency from this delve have been awarded 3 Attribute points in Strength/Quickness/Perception/Spiritual Energy/Psionic Potential. Those party members who lacked such attributes HAVE THEM NOW and may FREELY boost their Psionic Potential and evolve their classes to Psion Knights with appropriate training!
NOTE! ALL PREVIOUS PARTY MEMBER BOTTLENECKS HAVE BEEN LIFTED! Whatever insignificant specs of galactic flotsam they were before, they have dared to bind their souls to the fate of a TERRAN CONTENDER with UNLIMITED potential!
Eric could sense it then, the flood of power and potency flowing into his companions, they too being inundated with the same messages as he had been. Yet, oddly, for all that he felt nothing but sweetest exhilaration mixed with horror for the youth he had been forced to kill… even if he had just been a shadow of an actual living being… he sensed his companions’ distant screams, their bodies and minds transformkinf in ways that were perhaps beyond what they would have knowingly been willing to endure, not understanding the cost of truly pushing past ones limitations… limitations in accordance with ones natural proclivities. Limitations that kept one safe.
Limitations that had just been ground to dust as each and every party member was reforged, all in the blink of an eye.
And then came the most important message that Eric had been waiting for.
Desperate for.
A message upon which the fate of an entire city depended upon.
NOTE! As a Contender capable of walking the Path of Rulers, you may shape Delve TIRA-37846e as you see fit!
Standard Delve: This echo of a time that never was will continue to enjoy the Unique properties of highly sophisticated Arcane arms and armaments of an electromana paradigm! Expect to engage with a wide variety of opponents from level 25 Gnoll champions to a Level 80 Deep Bronze Commander! Enjoy the opportunity to claim some of the deadliest armaments any dungeon delving Mech-Warrior could hope to claim! Just be sure to play it smart and escape before the Commander gets wind of your artifact grab and enjoy the opportunity to make a KILLING! (Note This priceless Delve is Lunar aspected! Priceless treasures and one-of-a-kind artifacts reset every full moon! This delve is now STABLE! There is zero chance of Dungeon overflows terrorizing the local region with Bronze-tier power armored echoes of a time that no longer was!)
Advanced Black-tier Delve: This echo of a time that never was will continue to enjoy the Unique properties of highly sophisticated Arcane arms and armaments of an electromana paradigm! IT turns out that Commander Grishum was far more ruthless and brilliant than even his former overlords had realized, quickly taking hold of the populace and facilitating unorthodox means of production to revolutionize a Freetown that never was for his own ends! Expect to encounter multiple squads of potent Bronze-tier Mecha Specialists sporting the deadliest T-3 Miniguns and Anti-material rifles to be found anywhere in this corner of the quadrant! With Shielding specialist and expert tactics, they’re sure to prove a challenge for even the most dedicated and jaded Deep Bronze Delvers! Of course the rewards are commensurate with the risks, with a full artifact reset every 7 days! Do you dare take Commander Grishum on?
Warning! This dungeon DOES have the opportunity to overflow if Grishum’s forces aren’t cut down by at least 50% at least once per year. On the other hand, it’s quite likely that a brilliant tactical genius could sense and appreciate the daring Contender who would forge such a dark wonder into being. Who knows? Perhaps a yearly tribute of high tech gear made in his pocket realm slave-forges will find itself in a certain Blue Corp holding account, a tribute that will only grow as Commander Grishum’s territory increases as one of the VERY FEW paths by which living dream can earn the right to ascend in a newly blossoming world is forged! - Will you be Commander Grishum’s hidden champion, or his ultimate nemesis, raiding and pillaging his resources to supply your own future armies every week? - The choice is yours!
Stable Pocket Rift With Survivors! – A dungeon rift mirroring a time that never was? Hardly anything so simple! This delve serves as a portal to the ACTUAL LOST version of Freetown on the very night of its pillaging! YOU now have a chance to rewrite destiny’s tablet and rescue the survivors of this lost city! Bring over seven hundred survivors through the rift to a new life with your heroic daring, or dare to found a community in a pocket realm that will now forever be your own. Now truly one with Terra’s fate, as is the pocket realm you yourself once forged into a world! (Even if this pocket realm is limited to a single square mile!)
NOTE! Due to your background, one further option is available to you!
Path of Consumption. - As a Crimson Contender, you have no use for the temptations of a pocket realm. Not when you can CONSUME it utterly! Who cares if this will lead to even greater territory instability?!? Embrace your darkest desires! CONSUME forevermore all the hopes and dreams trapped within this tiny pocket realm and grow into the Predator that the world is so RIGHT to fear! (Counts as a Lesser Territory) You may freely devour this territory for a PERMANENT +7.5 to Strength, +7.5 to Vitality, & + 5 to Soul Reserves!
NOTE! All boons will be further multiplied by all applicable titles and attribute multipliers!
BONUS BOON DETECTED!
Though you will have to bear the burden of each trapped soul you failed to consume during your clear, you will enjoy the grandest of prizes! That priceless boon that allowed so many impossible permutations of this delve to manifest in the first place! (Of course you can’t be sure it is what you think it is. All you know is that if it isn’t, Freetown’s fall... and intergalactic war (because you won’t take that fall sitting on your ass) are all but assured!!)
Knowing he didn’t dare hesitate even a second, Eric made his choice.
And the screams of desperate souls pleading for a savior, a champion, only to find themselves consumed to oblivion, were just as horrific as he had dreaded they would be.
Each scream clawed at his mind like fingers against the chalkboard of his soul as he frantically raced along endless bank corridors he desperately held together with his vision before it all faded to oblivion, feeling the fires lighting the wick of his soul blazing to fresh hot life. Devouring additional months even as his body infused itself with yet more monstrous power. Power that turned Strength and Vitality boons all the way to +15 in each, after modifiers, and another 8 points in Soul Reserves as well.
Yet even with Strength and Vitality now both in the 600s, it was all he could do to force shaking limbs to continue DOWN the funhouse mirror-filled hallway, having to pass so many images of himself old and withered with a shock of white hair… or glimpses of desperate men and women, even children, reaching out to him, begging him for help… yet when his hands desperately reached out to wrench at least one soul free of oblivion… there was no thing but wisps of shattered dreams laced with the bitter taste of regret.
Until he screamed. Screamed with such wrath and fury that could only be vented in a shout.
“FRAGOR!”
And the funhouse mirrors of regret and despair shattered, as did the fading whispers of Malicious intent, revealing that which something or someone had tried so desperately to keep hidden from him.
A sealed vault he just KNEW held the keys to an impossible fortune.
A vault sealed by nothing more than a simple combination padlock that he knew no force on earth could destroy.
So instead he spun the dial with trembling hands.
And this time, unlike the lock to a certain bunker vault, it was his birthday, not his sister’s, that opened the way to an entire vault filled with the breathtaking glitter of countless bricks of gold.
Eric’s eyes widened, flashing a smile of fierce jubilation but refusing to waste a single SECOND as he jammed his hand against the closest golden brick. Visualizing them as ALL being connected just a heartbeat before the image faded to dreams and bitter regret.
Yet before he tore himself apart playing the fool once more, he spat out his holdout soul-bound blaster rifle, not even bothering to secure it from fading into oblivion as he claimed the prize he prayed would be enough to save the city he had all but died to forge and defend.
Chapter 410 - Rescuing Freetown I
Comments
Hayden Stewart
transformkinf Typo in one of the paragraphs
e e
So how can this gold not work and he still has to rob new York instead? Using a fake on the comp rewards to hit the bank vault? Except somehow that doesn't work and he has to hit the other set of rewards and turn that into gold instead. And either that doesn't work or something else immediately goes wrong
Antony Haynes
Let's make Freetown permanently "safe" from goblin shenanigans so Eric can move on to other challenges.
