Broker
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Chapter 298
🕑 Added 2025-04-30 16:01:29 +0000 UTCTo the surprise of absolutely no one at all, the ghouls that Hero Crusader had mentioned during her briefing were worse than any of them could have imagined. The extra details on the denizens of Dharan hadn’t helped prepare them either. Not for how strong the things were, but how grotesque they were. Nietz swept his hand to the right and knocked another one of the shambling horrors down. It had the face of a person with a distended upper head, its eye sockets huge and hollow.
He grimaced when its body crunched against the ground. “I almost prefer the Brutes and Skinks,” he growled and whipped around to snap a kick into the chest of another approaching him from behind. “You almost done over there, Kong?”
“Just- about!” Kong shouted back, and Nietz heard a sickening crack followed by the bang of something heavy hitting a cabinet. Furniture collapsed, and wood splinters scattered everywhere.
One bounced off Nietz’s eye, and he blinked a few times, swatting a ghoul that came at him from a low angle down and into his knee. He pushed its lifeless body off of him. “Easy!”
“Sorry! Wood is weaker than I thought!”
Nietz rolled his eyes and brought his fist back to crush the nose of one that came at him from behind. “What’s wood when you can punch through concrete?”
“Ha ha! Fair point!”
Nietz shook his head and turned to the door, where two more were hanging back, their slack arms and open mouths adding to the disturbing illusion. They ‘looked’ like zombies. Anyone with eyes could tell that it was entirely possible these were the remains of those who died in Dharan. It was a cruel trick, though. According to the briefing pamphlet, the ghouls were actually a kind of mimic or shapeshifter and took on the disfigured appearance of corpses they’d seen or created. Monsters didn’t leave bodies. They ate them.
Nietz glanced towards Kong again, his comrade snapping out another kick that shot a tiny pale-white bolt of force in the direction of a ghoul in a summer dress. He turned back to the pair, and they started to move, snarling as they reached for him. He raised his fists like a boxer and frowned. Can’t be that hard, right? He thought and threw a punch at the air in front of him. Then another, and he let the mana move through him this time, allowing evolutionary imperative to take over. Nothing. The third punch released a small crack of force that collided with the closest of the pair, its head exploding on impact.
“Heh,” Neitz chuckled, and the next punch came out even sharper. This time, the burst shot a hole straight through the last ghoul’s chest. It crumbled.
“Hey! Copycat!” Kong shouted.
Nietz lowered his hands and looked his way with a smirk. “Quit being so flashy then!”
“Flashy’s my thing!”
A heavy footfall from upstairs drew their attention, and they saw Hammond poke his head into the living room of the dilapidated home. “Y-you two sound like you’re done. Need any healing?”
Nietz shrugged and raised his eyebrows at Kong, who gave him a deadpan look and shook his head. Nietz looked back towards Hammond. “Nope, we’re good.”
“Great. Patches is tired from helping out all the heroes we’ve passed by,” Hammond sighed, looking visibly relieved.
Kong hopped off the table he’d been standing on and made his way to the door. “Should we try going further in? This isn’t stopping until we beat the boss anyway.”
Nietz nodded, “Right. I think we’ve cleared enough of a path for those coming up behind us. We don’t want the others to get too far ahead.” The strategy only helped those behind them if they kept pushing forward, and it only did them any good if they actually made it all the way to the end. He rubbed his neck. Nightfall isn’t going to be easy, though. We should push hard and then secure a place to camp out. This isn’t going to be finished in a day.
The trio made their way outside and into the street. The fog of morning had passed a little, and they were pleased to see more of the street ahead of them. A few bulky hounds that were traipsing down the path spotted them and turned to run only to get impaled by a pair of spears that landed on them from above. He glanced up to see a woman land on top of a distant building as another spear appeared in her hand. She slung it over her shoulder and waved at them before darting off.
“Oh hey, that’s Dragoon!” Kong said brightly before clicking his tongue. “Dah, she left.”
“You know her?” Nietz asked as he nodded in the direction of the deeper parts of the city, and they kept walking.
Kong raised his eyebrows. “Athletica International, Miss July? Damn right I know of her.”
Nietz rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s what you meant.”
“What?” Kong said, raising his hands. “She’s gorgeous!”
Nietz shrugged and kept walking, keeping his head on a swivel as they passed a few more wrecked houses. No signs of ghouls, though. Kong squinted at him from the side and grinned, “...Not your type, huh? Huh?”
“We’re a bit too busy to have locker room talk,” Nietz grunted.
“H-he prefers shorter women,” Hammond said. “Spunky and cute.”
Nietz rounded on him, heat rising to his face. “Hammond! The hell, man?”
“Hah! Let me guess. Got someone holdin’ a torch for ya?” Kong asked.
Nietz scowled at him before smiling ruefully. “Yeah, I do.”
Kong looked like he was about to say something serious when he paused in his steps. His eyes turned fierce, and he raised his fists. Nietz turned to follow his gaze and spotted a single figure moving out from a side street. It was tall, aggressively lanky, and eerily thin. Its body was an off-brown color that shimmered a little bit as it floated through the air only to stop in the middle of their path. The creature turned its body in their direction. No eyes, no mouth, just a flat wicker surface. It raised a hand ending in spindly, claw-like fingers, and flames rushed across the ground towards them.
“SCATTER!”
–
Sonya and her team parted into a line as they stepped through the portal. She crossed her arms and surveyed what stood before them. Most dungeons were either some kind of natural space or a reflection of their surroundings. There were a few unusual exceptions, such as the one where Bandit had met Inky and the dungeon attached to the East Coast training camp. The former had been some sort of messed-up funhouse, while the latter had also possessed ruins of some strange lost civilization.
This, however, was a Heroic dungeon. All bets were off.
The space before them was vast, an immense snowy field dotted with patches of ice and jet-black rock formations. In the distance a single mountain towered over everything with its peak surrounded by a ring of luminous blue mist. Reminds me of Shanghai in the previous timeline. That one had been sunnier, though, and had sported crazed martial artists.
Her lips thinned. You know, in retrospect, we really should have gone through that library. We might have found more like the one that Kera found. I should hit that dungeon when it pops this time around.
“I’m guessing that’s our target?” Kingshark grunted, pointing towards the mountain.
Sonya narrowed her eyes at the peak. “Probably. Don’t be surprised if it’s just decoration or a lesser part of what we’re dealing with.”
“Lesser?” Mephisto chortled, “It’s a glowing mountain!”
Sonya turned and looked at the devil-man with raised eyebrows. “I warned you about these, didn’t I?”
Mephisto’s toothy grin fell, and he nodded gravely, “Right. Sorry.”
“We have company,” Blackrazor rumbled to her right. She cast her senses out but didn’t feel anything immediately. Then she felt the snow shift just once. Her eyes widened when she realized just how much snow was around them.
“Mephisto, the snow!” She shouted and hopped back a pace, spreading her arms out and conjuring up a ring of her glowing spears.
Mephisto lowered his hands to his sides and cupped them before throwing his head back. His jaw worked and his lips moved, but no sound came for a heartbeat. Then his voice permeated his surroundings, reality reacted, and snow began to vaporize in a growing ring around them.
Melt.
The response was immediate. The ground shook, and a howl of fury followed. The snow burst in several directions and gathered around itself, extending into a single long limb that stretched towards the sky like an obelisk. It slammed its enormous palm on the ground before pushing and pulling a titanic body out of the snow that seemed to gather towards it to help it take shape. She turned on her heel as three more took shape in a ring around them: four snowy humanoid monoliths. They’ve got to be at least a hundred feet tall each.
Her lip twitched, and she grinned. “Bring them down.”
Her friends responded as one, “Yes ma’am!”
Sonya whipped her hand out towards the titan in front, and her spears flashed out towards it in a staccato of bursts, reforming at her side as each one shot out. She riddled its body with spears from its leg all the way up to its head before she launched off the ground, shooting towards the mountain’s head like a comet. The titan barely reacted, raising one arm up and revealing that its hand was made up partially of those black rocks scattered across the icy field.
“Piercing damage is no good on its own!” she shouted. “Blackrazor!”
“My poison is enough,” his voice hissed through the air, and she glanced to see ribbons of black rise up from the ground around his titan like slow-moving serpents. They lashed out and grabbed its limbs and head, wrapping around them and squeezing as Blackrazor vanished and reappeared, cutting, and vanishing again. Each cut he left behind flared with heat.
Sonya smirked and turned back, pulling her fist up before driving it into the base of the highest spear on the titan’s body. The strength of Cybernetic Paragon was on full display as its head exploded, the shockwave rocking through the weakened spots between the spears along its body and creating one long fissure. It stumbled backward before swinging up at her with its club-like hand, and she whirled, punching it as well.
The rocky finger exploded, shrapnel riddling the ground as she turned back and threw her hands up. The spears she’d thrown collected above her and condensed into a singular mass. She brought a column of light down on the massive being and smashed it into paste. Snow scattered as a moan of frustration rattled the air. She turned to see Kingshark wrestle his own to the ground at his full height. It fell onto its back, and he raised his hand over it, its snowy body melting as the water gathered and dispersed into the air.
When she turned to check on Mephisto, he was in the air, pirouetting around the sweep of a massive hand before landing atop the titan’s head. He slapped both hands atop it, and the snow began to turn black. Where nothing but a white mass existed for its face, a pair of glowing red eyes appeared, and the creature staggered. It twitched and convulsed before its entire body turned dark and it fell still. He stood up and crossed his arms, winking at Sonya from afar. The titan raised its arm and waved for him.
She chuckled, “Show off!”
“You dropped a golden pillar on that guy!” He shot back. “I don’t wanna hear it from you!”
She laughed as the wind picked up, and she turned back towards the mountain; the snow was gathering as far as the eye could see. Two more titans became ten, then twenty, the lumbering masses of snow and strength marching towards them. She grinned and rose higher into the air as her comrades moved to form up with her. Kingshark clapped his hands together and roared, his tendril-covered face trembling with barely repressed fury as he let his powers roil. Blackrazor’s shadow wrapped around her body before he stopped in the air next to her. She created a platform for him to stand on.
“Kingshark,” Blackrazor said. “Is our wager still in effect?”
Sonya raised an eyebrow as the eldritch supervillain glanced up and grinned. It was horrifying.
Y E S
“Very good,” Blackrazor said and created a pair of knives. “You will be buying meals then.”
H A H!
Blackrazor hopped off Sonya’s platform and charged, Kingshark stomping alongside him as the two of them raced to meet the approaching army of snowy titans. A new figure landed on the platform, and she gave Mephisto a rueful look. “What do you call that feature?” she asked as the black titan joined their friends in an onward rush towards battle.
“Corruption,” Mephisto said casually, checking his long black nails. “Not something I’d use on a sentient being. Those effects are not temporary,” he added darkly.
She pursed her lips and nodded before looking back as Kingshark suplexed a snowy titan in the distance. Blackrazor hopped off his shoulder and landed on the head of another and began stabbing away, purple mist rising from the wounds. “You joining them?”
“I like hanging back,” Mephisto said with a grin and raised his hand. “Besides. I have sweet darlings to handle the yucky stuff for me.”
Red rings of light formed in the air in front of the effeminate supervillain. Symbols formed along the inside of the rings, symbols that would be very familiar to someone invested in the occult. “Lekh, wa-ashmei,” Mephisto hissed, and a hand burst forth from the first ring. A metal-skinned creature of a ruddy-copper tone climbed out as if from a hole. Horns curled on the side of its skull-like face that was adorned with razor-sharp teeth. Dark red fire erupted from its eyes, and it roared before leaping out and onto the ground, dragging a chain with it that it whipped over its head.
More creatures - devils - poured out of the rings Mephisto had created and raced to join the others against the horde of snowy monsters.
“What the hell did you say?” Sonya asked, impressed.
“No idea. I don’t speak that language,” Mephisto said with a shrug.
She snorted, “Aren’t you Captain Dictionary?” she asked.
He threw his head back and groaned. “Oh my god, Sonyaaa. Have you been listening to Kera again?”
She laughed, “Sorry, hun. You know how it is, we girls talk,” she teased and raised her hand up and across her chest as if preparing to slap. She closed her eyes, and her armor shifted as she cranked up further along the course of her Regalia’s power. Ishtar wasn’t present, so she didn’t have the added benefit of parallel thinking going on and a running commentary with access to her senses. That doesn’t mean I can’t use my full might here. With no civilians, no dungeons to break, and no restraints, let’s see what I can really do.
Mephisto noticed. He hopped away as she stepped forward and swung her arm wide.
Light ripped in an arc in front of her and across the distance ahead. Her wild grin grew as a flicker preceded a series of tiny detonations, and a dozen titanic heads exploded. She clenched her fist and rose even higher into the air.
“I’M JOINING IN ON THE BET, BOYS!”
Comments
Marquess
‘“Great. Patches is tired from helping out all the heroes we’ve passed by,” Hammond sighed, looking visibly relieved.‘ Dark Souls reference, or just a coincidence?
Gemiae
Thanks for the chapter!
