Excise: A Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG (Ether Collapse Book 2)

by Ryan DeBruyn

  But now victory is–

  He stopped instantly when he saw the piles of unmoving undead begin sliding towards each other like groups of puppets being dragged by cut strings. As each one joined a central point, they began to melt together, flesh crawling and bones cracking. Rocky felt his stomach give a heave from the noises that they were emitting but forced down nausea as he clicked his radio. “This is Eagle Eye. Do you guys see this? Over.”

  Sela’s voice responded, “Selaphelia Ardensai here. They are forming Abominations. It’s a common Necromantic Champion. We must retreat. Over.” Rocky pursed his lips at the woman’s words. She was the expert in situations like this, but what the hell was an Abomination.

  In answer, the first blob began to take on a humanoid form but aberrant and bulbous. Its head was a ball of flesh with hundreds of eyes facing all directions. Its mouth was a grotesque, hinged apparatus with thousands of human teeth placed haphazardly on any surface inside the gaping crevasse. Its long, thick, blue tongue even had human teeth covering it like scales. Its arms formed next and were entirely fleshless, made only of bones shaped into a hook on the left side, and a massive, three-fingered claw on the other. Its belly was bulbous and round like the nightmare had overeaten, making it all the more abhorrent and hideous. The legs were utilitarian and stunted, which might be the only thing that would save the retreating army as the first blob finished forming a twenty-foot-tall, aptly named Abomination.

  It shambled forward in a freakish hobble, and Rocky shuddered at the sight. Immediately, laser bolts began striking the creatures ineffectually. He wanted to go help with the retreat but realized that he was already behind the creatures. He and his clone still had a chance to complete the mission. “Eagle Eye is continuing with the mission. Over.”

  Radio chatter went deathly silent before Sela whispered, “Be smart and deadly, Rockland!” In her voice, he heard restraint. He heard something unsaid, but he couldn’t be sure what it was. A background disagreement from Joe on Sela’s radio com was heard before Sela released her depressed mic button.

  Rocky adjusted his mic’s volume then turned to face Chalk River. He mentally sent to Azoth, “Keep an eye on the retreat of the army and the path in front of me when you can!”

  Azoth sent back, “Will watch and attack if needed. Sela says to keep the dumm-mee safe. Sent it with image of you. What dumm-mee, Rocky?”

  Smiling to himself at the birdbrain, Rocky ran, leaving the question unanswered as he charged headfirst into danger; he wasn’t sure if he truly was a dummy for this yet.

  Azoth had sent Rocky a mental image of the Dragon from the sky, but it wasn’t until he actually saw the Dragon begin growing from what looked like a small lump far off in the distance to something more akin to a natural hill that he considered a question that had gone unasked. What had raised those Abominations? He almost turned around on the spot, considering that there must be a very powerful enemy behind him possibly wiping out the army.

  Yet the radio still was clipping out muted orders and sounded like an organized retreat, so he didn’t. Instead, he kept up the jog and considered what he might be able to do to free the quickly growing and quite intimidating creature in front of him. It turned out that this particular Dragon was simultaneously like every story Rocky had ever read and different than all of them.

  Yeah, it was a massive lizard with wings, a long sinuous neck, and a barbed tail. Sure, it was beautiful and majestic with equal parts of colon clenching fear and awe-inspiring majesty. It was actually the eyes and emotions that clearly rolled off the creature that Rocky hadn’t been expecting. The thing was massive, probably bigger than the Albino Crocodile Draksus had been, and even at a distance of at least five kilometers, Rocky could feel waves of anger coming off of it. Mixed in with that anger though was a clear fear and a sad inevitability that made his heart clench with injustice. This powerful, majestic, graceful, and deadly creature was resigning itself for an inevitable fate—the death that it thought it had beat all odds and overcome as a whelp but now knew it was staring into the jaws of.

  Tao said that these creatures are some of the most hunted in all of the universe.

  A confused array of emotions struck Rocky in the chest, making his heart stutter and then beat out like a war drum. If he could help it, this injustice, this systematic slaughter, this game-hunting would not stand. Maybe Dragons were deadly creatures, and perhaps policing their numbers was a necessity if you wanted any sort of population to thrive on a world, but to see the intelligence in its bright blue eyes and simultaneously see its kicked dog, shaking form set something off inside of Rocky. He allowed the cold magma and his inner demon to seep into his veins as he felt his mouth click shut and form into an angry line.

  He continued to close the final few kilometers and activated Stealth as he dismissed and re-summoned his Shadow Clone. His clone entered Stealth almost instantly, seeming to flash like a flickering light in the corner of Rocky’s eye. Around the form of the Dragon a group of eight Necromancers still stood with staffs planted firmly into a small spell circle that surrounded their feet. Each one was spaced out around the Dragon evenly, making a circle with a circumference of a kilometer. If he wasn’t so angry, he might have taken some time to come up with a better, safer plan, but with his blood pumping hot, he pulled out and transferred four recently purchased plasma grenades to his clone. He literally lobbed each grenade into the air beside him, knowing that empty space was where his clone ran.

  These, too, disappeared as his invisible Shadow Clone juggled and caught the things. In his mind, Rocky formulated a plan and calculated spacing between the Necromancers and the Dragon. It would appear there was little to no room for error on their throws. He smiled grimly and Analyzed the Dragon first and then the cultists.

  Bathilda the Darkscale

  Level 112

  Epic-Firespit

  Health Points 13,102/55,405

  —

  Devoted of Apothis

  Level 24

  Apprentice Irradiated Necromancer

  Health Points 175/175

  Seeing the level of the Dragon made his eyes widen as he circled around to the left and again sent his clone to the right. The level of the Necromancers, though, was what he expected after his recent fights, so once he reached a position that he had clear line of sight on four of the eight minions of Apothis, he quickly depressed the activation button on two of the four grenades. Then he lobbed one to his left at the farthest chanting minion and one to his right at the mirrored position. Trying to have everything trigger as simultaneously as possible, he quickly depressed and threw his final two at the translucent-skinned Necromancers closest to him.

  As soon as he finished, he activated Dark Cloak and dropped to the ground, hoping to avoid the shrapnel and flying debris that the grenades were likely to dislodge.

  As the explosions chimed off with a split-second delay between each one, Rocky felt a wave of superheated air buffet his back and press him into the soft soil. As soon as the pressure was released, he had pushed off the ground and was trying to survey the damage. As the smoke cleared, it was like a nightmare slowly resolved itself. First, the bottom of four black robes began to materialize out of the ground as the smoke ascended, and then the Dragon behind them began to slowly take shape, his eyes fixed on Rocky’s position.

  The four Necromancers would have been enough to make him quail normally, but a Dragon’s eyes made it even worse. He sure hoped that the Dragon wouldn’t join the fight on the enemy’s side, or he was already dead. He bunched his legs and sprung forward towards the four figures who he had only succeeded in moving slightly off of their spell circles. They must have had an outward protection in place!

  One yelled out from amidst the group, “Defend Apep’s prize. Smite his enemies into his eternal darkness!” His voice carried all of the tones of a dying toad’s last croak and made Rocky’s skin prickle with goosebumps as he charged. He loosed two throwing daggers from his bandolier and let them fl
y, hoping to distract them like he had with many of the other single Necromancers he had fought earlier. Two of the creatures held up hands, and the daggers vanished in a puff of smoke; Rocky heard himself curse under his breath.

  He felt his Dark Cloak react to something that attempted to strike him from behind a moment later, and his own thrown daggers flew through the air, just missing him before clinking off of the ground in front of him. “Seriously?” he groaned. Two hands of the other Necromancers extended, firing shadow bolts in his direction. He careened left. The two bolts hit the ground, and he simultaneously felt his Shadow Clone die. His anxiety doubled. If he didn’t finish this soon, he would be facing eight instead of four.

  The next barrage from the two who had teleported his daggers came as two shadow whips that attempted to wrap around him at the shoulders and waist. His Dark Cloak gave him a split second that he used to drop straight down and roll while simultaneously releasing his protective Dark Cloak skill. The whips closed around themselves, making the fog look like an exploding shadow ghost, and Rocky sprang back to his feet while reactivating the skill. He was right to do so as one of the four canceled his shadow bolt and lanced out with a blood field that highlighted his invisible form.

  He was going to have to take some hits if he wanted to close, and he split his Soul Blade into two short swords as he heaved himself forward, heading straight for the four at a half sprint. As soon as the whips cracked behind the group’s back and launched forward at him, he pounded his feet into the ground and increased his pace to his full sprint. His tactic succeeded and allowed him access to a deeper part of each shadow whip. He brought each hand down, aiming his short sword at the conjured whips and saw sparks of shadow flare to life where they made contact. In haste, he powered both of his swords with a single Dark Blade and released them, managing to sever the spells just in time as the pivoting tails of each whip fell lifelessly behind him.

  A quick glance told him his Ether pool had just dropped past the halfway point, and his brow furrowed in concentration. These next two attacks would decide everything. Did he go up or roll under? It was a gamble, and he knew it, but it was his only option. He chose to go over for one reason; in the air, he would still have some small ability to contort his body. Just as hands shot forward, he launched himself into the sky and formed his sword into a single long blade again. He had guessed right, it seemed, as two bolts flew just under his rising body.

  With a smile of triumph, he spun around his center and dropped another three charges into the blade, which consumed just over three-quarters of his remaining Ether, seventy-five points. The three blades of the skill pressed the four Necromancers’ bodies first into the ground and then ground them up, mixing the gore in with the soil underneath in a disgusting, churning display. It looked like a farming accident as it tilled the earth in evenly spaced rows. Rocky, who hadn’t fully been paying attention, landed directly under the Dragon’s head. Its mouth opened, and Rocky saw what he imagined would haunt him in the afterlife as row upon row of razor-sharp death stared into his soul.

  How in the hell did you forget about the Dragon!

  “There are far more than eight of them! They take shifts, you better have a greater plan than killing the eight to release me. They possess my contract item!” The Dragon’s voice was deep and old but smooth and buttery. Rocky stood still, dumbly staring at its unmoving mouth, trying to piece together how it had spoken without moving its ‘lips’. The act was alien to him, and during the next words, he noticed its throat contracting to form the words as its vocal cords moved.

  Like a giant parrot! Oh no! I hope I didn’t say that out loud!

  Luckily, he hadn’t, and the next draconic words snapped him out of his momentary stupor, “Stop staring at me and do something before you die during a rescue attempt!” He blinked and saw four approaching Necromancers kicking up dirt as they closed in. Knowing he couldn’t kill another four with twenty-five Ether he did the only thing he could think of; he pulled the three Heartstrings out of his bag and pressed them to a scale on the creature’s lowered and cowering chest. As his hand glowed, the Dragon sighed in ecstasy as it murmured, “Oh!”

  A moment later, its tail whipped out, and the four Necromancers turned from a threat to bloody mist floating in the air. Rocky swallowed, and the sound his throat made was loud in his own ears.

  Then the Dragon’s head whipped to the side, and it breathed a beam of blue fire down a hole in the ground. The sound was like a jet engine starting beside Rocky’s ear, followed by a sucking in of air and then a massive ‘whoosh’ as it went down the tunnel. The Dragon kept at it for ten seconds before she closed her mouth and ran her tongue along her snout.

  Then it glanced down at him and attempted a smile, but to Rocky, it looked more like he was about to be dinner again. Bathilda didn’t eat him however. Instead, with her mouth still closed, she ‘bellowed’, “Thank you for your timely aid, but I fear you have only prolonged my conversion.”

  Rocky might have sounded stupid as he asked the only question he could think of, “Can’t you just… umm… fly away now?”

  A deep chuckle, or maybe a growl, sounded from Bathilda as she shook her head. “No, little man. They have my contract item. When I formed the contract to come to your world with Gaia, it was given to me, and I wore it proudly. Unfortunately, when I landed here, my pride got the better of me as one of these,” she paused, punctuating her anger-filled tone with another blast of fire down a newly opened tunnel and took a long pause as she pumped more fire into the cave mouth. “Sorry about that. This is how they got me the first time. You should get out of here now! They will keep opening entrances until I miss one. I should have flown away and regrouped, but I couldn’t fathom losing to a bunch of smelly undead!”

  Rocky blinked stupidly up at her as she spoke. Not much of what she was saying made sense to him, but he did put together that she couldn’t leave because she needed something that Apothis or his minions now held. So, after she blasted another tunnel with fire, he asked shakily, “What is your contract item? Maybe we can get it back for you.”

  “Necklace,” she started and surveyed him up and down, “but you are too weak to go against the head cultist, unfortunately.” She bashed a tunnel that had formed too close with her agitatedly waving tail and simultaneously bit another forming cave, crumbling both, but a moment later, they continued to push up along with two others. “Youngling, you must go now! I thank you for allowing me to fight on, but I cannot hold them for much longer! Take this.” A massive ring landed on the ground beside him, and he realized it must have been on one of her teeth. “Now, get out of here and come back with a weapon that can kill me if you want to help!”

  He quickly bent down and wanted to examine the ring, but the formation of two additional bumps made him reconsider. He placed his hand on the Dragon ring and as many fallen scales as he could before whisking them into his inventory. Then he looked sadly up at the Dragon as it continued to fight a losing battle. “I will be back, and I will save you! Hold on!” Then he sprinted away and asked Azoth for an update.

  As he ran away from the majestic creature, he could hear a deep bellowing, sardonic laugh reverberating through the air and earth.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sela

  Sela grimaced as another man yelled from somewhere, “Loading my last battery pack!” As soon as she saw the undead army forming up, she realized that this attack had been a mistake. After she and Azoth had made their surgical strike into the enemy’s base, it should have been obvious that they would have plans to stop an invasion or another such strike. She cast her vines again on an Abomination that had finally ripped itself free. Then used Analyze on it to see how the army was managing with this particular beast.

  Abomination

  Level 31

  Journeyman – Necromancer’s Pet Horror

  Health Points 1,250/2,142

  They were managing to whittle the creature’s health down, but often, it took mul
tiple shots to remove a single point of health from the creature. The tanks had long since run dry and were using what they had left of batteries to act as the vehicles for the retreat. Joe had been rather ingenious when he thought of this tactic for the squads of ten. Each member now rode on a tank as it slowly retreated from the oncoming constructs.

  One of the Abominations to her right lit up in a massive conflagration, and its skin began sluffing off as the fat underneath boiled. That would be Zippo securing their right flank. To her left, a massive soundwave buffeted a creature as its skin rippled, and a faraway, high-pitched screech wailed. That would be Joe securing their left flank.

  A full five minutes later, the two creatures expired, and Sela let out a breath as she cast another Nature’s Thorny Embrace on another freed Abomination. They only had fifteen of the remaining twenty-five to deal with, but the time between Zippo and Joe’s attacks was steadily increasing, showing that the constant chugging of Ether Potions was stacking de-buffs on to them faster than they could kill the Abominations. She looked behind her and saw that they had another two kilometers to go. Her spells were the least mana intensive, and she planned to recast and order a full retreat at the kilometer mark, hoping the Territory boundary would repel the stupid, undead creatures.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t likely since their master was probably pushing them on. However, the Ottawa Knights would be forced to join the defense at the border.

  Ionized bolts flew from all directions, striking the fifteen creatures that remained, and she growled deep in her throat. One of the dead creatures suddenly had a shade rise from its corpse and charge its compatriot from the back, showing that Smith was somewhere in the fight using his Spirit Walker skill. Again, it proved to be only marginally effective as the lower leveled shade, it seemed to be capped at Smith’s level, managed to shave off five hundred health points before being ripped apart.