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

by Ryan DeBruyn

  Listen, I bet any human who is up to date on sci-fi shows thought the same thing.

  Sela did respond after the panic died down, “I truly don’t know what the best way to handle it is. We have no military might, and while we may be able to learn some more information from our little friend, I don’t know how much help she will be.” Sela licked her teeth, and her face grew pensive. “We could always go back and try to destroy the beacon. Now that we have the Ottawa Golem Knights, they might be able to command the other boss golem to drop the beacon?”

  Rocky considered this and thought it was probably a pretty good idea but then realized Sela had continued talking, “… the old Gaian Military would have been a huge deterrent for any invading fleets. I think they had five Leviathans and an entire fleet. I mean, if the Kobold tells us a timeline, we might be able to build a few ships but nothing major.”

  It was Smith who chimed in, “Are there any other weapons that could deter invasions? I mean, we used to have nuclear–” He cut off as he looked around him in a dawning moment of comprehension.

  Sela shook her head, “Unfortunately, we don’t have any Epic or Legendary ranks to rely on. I mean, in a year, we might barely push someone into the Master rank, but that would be a stretch. Unfortunately, in those guilds there must be some very powerful upper brass, I think.”

  Rocky tilted his head. “What about Bathilda?” His voice sounded hopeful even to his own ears.

  “Not possible. Bathilda is very powerful, but she is under contract with Gaia, who will want more life on her planet. More life for Gaia means more Essence, she doesn’t care one-bit what race that life form claims.” She paused and then intoned, “My grandfather used to say, the concept of ownership was made by the weak to hold on to what they have. The strong never have to worry about property, for they hold everything if they wish it.” She took a significant pause, looking at everyone in turn, then breathed out, “Gaia is very much like that. This whole planet is hers, and we just live on it.”

  The group all nodded along with her statement, each finding their own meaning in the anecdote. Rocky chose to break the silence, “Well, is there a possibility of something ancient still being on the planet? Something like a military outpost or a defense system that just needs the power turned on?”

  Sela chortled, “Well, we would have to find Atlantis before we would know what may or may not have been left behind.”

  The group all shook their heads, all having heard of the myth of the Lost City of Atlantis, but Rocky had to wonder if it was somehow discoverable now that Ether returned. Perhaps they could find it, but where in the world would they even start?

  “My affliction just dropped off,” Amber punctuated as she shot back to her feet and dusted herself off. “Are we ready to go?”

  The group got to their feet and slowly made their way to the open exit. Sela raised a hand stopping the group. “If we leave this room it loses its status. Anyone needing to go to the bathroom or collect themselves, now is the time!”

  A few members, including Rocky sheepishly, took the opportunity to head to a faraway wall and relieve themselves. After they all returned, Sela nodded and moved forward in the lead, exiting the room into the new hallway. As soon as she crossed the threshold, a roar sounded, and bare feet slapping on stone could be heard echoing down the tunnel.

  Oh, great! Here comes the meat wagon.

  Surprisingly, what came into Zippo’s reddish light wasn’t Zombies, or perhaps they were Zombies, but they weren’t the Zombies Rocky had been expecting. Instead, these pale-skinned creatures were far larger than the hordes they fought recently. Each creature stood a full shoulders, head, and neck above Rocky, and he was six and a half feet tall. The creatures also moved much faster and had far superior coordination than the creatures they fought through to get to the place of power.

  Zippo didn’t hesitate, and as Rocky used Analyze, he cast another Fireball and launched it.

  Goliath Zombie

  Level 33

  Journeyman - Einherjar

  Health Points 1,400/1,400

  The Fireball splashed over the creature and crawled over its skin, splashing on to the other five who followed. Those were the ones Rocky could see, and the sounds from the hallway made him think a whole lot more were en route. Each creature did catch fire, but all that seemed to do was enrage them as they picked up speed. Rocky yelled, “Force shield!”

  Zippo’s hands shot forward, and the lead flaming Zombie hit the solid air a moment after, sending massive, veiny cracks spidering out in all directions. The second one hit the barrier, and it collapsed in a sound like a popping bubble combined with breaking glass. Sela tried her vines, but the creatures were so stable on their feet that the vine pulled taut then rang like a broken string instrument as it snapped apart.

  Rocky stepped forward and slashed the air using Dark Blade, trying a single charge of the skill. One of the other Zombies, still on fire, took the horizontal slash to the upper thighs. The blade spell cut flesh and tore into the creature until they could hear it scratching against bones. The creature, however, hadn’t remained idle; it reached down and grabbed the blade with both hands, then… turned it, vertically. Suddenly, the creature was holding the dark phantasmal slash in front of it in flaming, skinned, and bleeding hands, as it fought back against the skill.

  At first, Rocky couldn’t understand why it had done what it had. Then the other Zombies, a few still burning, swept by it on the sides. Breathing out in shock, he cast his Shadow Clone and prepared for a hard fight by dropping into a ready fighting pose, sword above his head. Smith cast a Spirit Ball which hit another creature in the chest and stopped it dead as it slowly sunk into its skin. The one he struck looked down at the smoky white ball in confusion as the others streamed around him, continuing to advance.

  In his ready position, Rocky waited and swung as the newest frontrunner came into range. His blade met with an outstretched arm and lopped it off cleanly. He sidestepped and used his lowered hips to knock the massive creature off course. It careened off his hip and into the wall as he swung a return upward stroke at the next approaching Zombie, attempting to break the charge.

  He fought desperately from the chaotic center of three Zombies, one so completely ablaze his fat was dripping out of gaping wounds. Amber, his clone, and he were in a rough triangle, and each enemy attempted to wrap deadly, long, pale fingers around any body part they could. His Shadow Clone was on his left, barely holding them off of his rear with his two black daggers. Rocky managed to ‘disarm’ another one and stab the burning one in the eye before he felt the inevitability of disaster.

  Surprisingly, it wasn’t him who broke the tide of the battle. It was a screaming Goliath Zombie as it exploded into flying shrapnel that destroyed three of its brethren who were in tight confines. Since those groups were being held back by Amber and Sela, a recent addition to the line in cat form, it, unfortunately, meant that they also felt the sting of bone shrapnel. Luckily, their armor and raised arms, or paws, took the worst of it.

  Smith realized at the same time as Rocky that it was the one he had hit with the Spirit Ball. From that point on, the group changed tactics. Smith immediately hit another Zombie with Spirit Ball, and the group slowly retreated, trying to cluster more Zombies around the unlucky undead. This hallway was far wider than the previous entry halls, and they only had about ten feet of the length before it would open back up into the cathedral space.

  Rocky tried to estimate the time and guessed it had been about twenty seconds from the time the ball had sunk into the Goliath until the first explosion. With slow steps backward, the group swiped out, trying to trip up the massive monsters. At the count of seventeen, he turned and yelled, “Run!”

  The group took off in the other direction, attempting to cross the cathedral room to the other entry hallway.

  Cool kids don’t look at explosions. Cool kids don’t look at explosions.

  A scream sounded behind him, followed by another soun
dless explosion, which really ruined what he was going for. However, when he made it to the other hallway and turned around, he saw chunks of creatures populating the doorway into the cathedral. Two legs were still upright in the space, and they both slowly tumbled to each side as he watched.

  Then a horde of the creatures began streaming out of the doorway. It was shocking to Rocky, but he was glad Smith kept his cool. Smith shot three Spirit Balls into the horde that erupted from the mayhem, all of them fanning out. Rocky resumed his count and shouted to Zippo, “As the lead ones get here, Force Shield!”

  “I’m out of Ether!” Smith shouted as soon as he finished. That meant that after this, they would have to try to hold them back and slaughter them some other way. Zippo timed it perfectly, and the group's charge was broken in the doorway. The group started their slow retreat down the skeleton section hallways and at the count of nineteen, Rocky commanded, “Cover!” and put his arm up over his eyes and head. Three screams rose to a crescendo, and then he felt a few bones ping off his Nanoweave covered arm and frontal armor.

  In the opening that afforded them, Rocky dropped new MKZ turrets and heard the batteries begin ionizing and firing. The shots hit the lead Goliaths and singed a few holes in them but otherwise did little damage. In moments, the Goliaths knocked over and destroyed any functionality the turrets had and kept charging. In response, he growled and hucked a few grenades with underarm bowling throws at the corner of the hallway where the wall met the floor, hoping that they would make it the full twenty feet to the entrance but at least past the soon to be flattened MKZ turrets.

  Smith chugged a second Ether potion, and Rocky declared, “If this works, try to avoid more of those. No need to get or stack the debuff higher.” At his mental count of five, he again covered his face with his arm.

  This blast was much more powerful than the Spirit Ball assisted explosions. It rocked the group as two miniature suns bloomed, one at the entrance and another fifteen feet away. Rocky felt the blast punch him in the chest and push him back on his behind.

  When he stood up, he could still hear the angry slapping of feet, so the group continued this tactic, using Spirit Balls every fourth wave and grenades the rest. It took what felt like an entire day and twenty of their plasma grenades but probably was actually only an hour before they were left with two final creatures to dispatch. A paltry two Journeyman creatures were not as bad, and together, Amber and Rocky tag teamed them with support from his Shadow Clone. Once they swept them up, Rocky breathlessly huffed out, “Mind burning the corpses, Zippo? We don’t want them to be raised into super Abominations”

  Zippo nodded, finally having something to do. His fire had only seemed to make the creatures more dangerous, and Rocky even heard the kid muttering about making his Fireball explosion as strong or stronger than the fusion grenades.

  He began burning the creatures as the group caught their breath and cleaned bits of bone, brain, blood, and viscera off themselves. Rocky felt his gag reflex come to the surface when he discovered a tooth lodged in his beard beside his mouth and further when he found a shard of bone sticking into his butt and skin like a splinter.

  Talk about a pain in my ass!

  Sela was probably the worst of the entire group, her feline hair liberally coated and tangled in copious amounts of gore, but she seemed to ignore it with ease. Rocky cast Dark Mend on every member of the party, dropping his Ether bar below half again before it started its slow climb back up. He’d been healing and chugging the Ether Draughts that entire time.

  The group walked slowly through the cathedral room, ensuring that Sela and Zippo didn’t miss any loot or cremating any body. The last thing they wanted was to be caught in the middle of an ambush. For loot, the bodies gave a few pieces of cloth material and some nonenchanted weapons. The occasional corpse contained ruby or other ‘valuable’ stones, but those seemed uncommon in the sixty-plus bodies they looted.

  As they neared the exit door, Smith stepped forward. “Hold up. Now that I have Ether, I should try to raise two spirits if I can.”

  Smoky mist began rising from the center of the gore until they formed two misty copies of the Goliath Zombies they faced. Rocky felt a smile touch his lips; they had tanks again. With plodding deliberation, Sela and Zippo cleared corpses until they were standing back in the exit hallway.

  Sela moved back into the lead at this point and took a few tentative steps forward down the sloping hallway. Another hundred yards in, there hadn’t been a single trap, and the group's tension was palpable as they waited for something else to occur. What felt like hours but was definitely only ten minutes later, the group reached the next cathedral chamber. Rocky wiped the sweat from his forehead and realized he was holding his breath.

  He shook himself, starting with his head and then moving to his body and finishing with his hands; he saw most others in the group do the same. It turns out that being deep underground, waiting for an attack can be a little disconcerting. Sela looked back to the group and shifted back to human. “Well, we must have killed all of the creatures at once. Does everyone have full Ether?”

  Everyone nodded, so once again, they linked hands and walked forward into the room. As soon as they crossed the threshold, they heard a grinding begin again as the entrance sealed itself behind them. This time, the room didn’t have a stage, and the walls were ringed with weapon racks—all of them were empty except for two, which held a massive axe and sword. Leaning against the wall between the two, a truly huge humanoid lounged, arms folded.

  A deep, thundering, Nordic voice reverberated from the cross-armed figure, “Finally, a worthy challenge! I have been getting very sick of battling those brainless Goliaths.” The figure stepped forward, and Rocky used Analyze.

  Ragnar

  Level 45

  Journeyman – Vanir

  Health Points 2,900/2,900

  Boss

  Rocky couldn’t help but step back as he saw the bloodlust and glee in Ragnar’s face. It was the first time he’d seen anything like it. He could tell from that one look that it didn’t matter how much pain Ragnar was in, he would be having fun. To prepare for the battle, Rocky summoned his Shadow Clone and got into a ready stance.

  Ragnar smiled and held up a hand. “Hold! I have a proposal. Would you care to hear it?” Rocky felt his face crinkle, and he sneered accidentally, not trusting the Apep-aligned creature. Ragnar saw this and belted out a laugh before calming and continuing, “I do not like my situation any better than you do, young man, but Apep consumed my world untold millennia ago. And it has been a long time since I have been spat back out of his chaotic darkness. Give me the chance to follow my true path to glory again.”

  The group looked at each other, not understanding what the boss was getting at. Sela, however, tilted her head and crossed a fist over her heart before bowing her head. Ragnar’s eyes opened, and he mimicked the gesture, saying, “Blood and sacrifice teach more thoroughly than time!”

  Sela raised her head, eyes resigned. “No fight is inevitable until it begins,” she whispered, then turned to Rocky. “May I borrow your sword?”

  Unsure what was happening, Rocky tilted his head and looked at the sword he held in his hand. “Sela, what exactly is going on?”

  “He is proposing a duel. It is a duel to first blood drawn. The victor can ask a boon from the defeated within reason,” Sela calmly explained while pulling one of her daggers and still holding out a hand for the sword. Rocky looked around at the others who all looked as apprehensive as he did about the situation.

  “Why don’t we just fight him normally?” Rocky asked.

  Sela’s mouth twitched up on the sides, and she whispered, “We might do that anyway if he wins. I do not follow the path of the warrior. Experience tells me that this may give us a safer and easier option.”

  Ragnar pulled the massive sword from the weapons rack and was doing some stretches and warm-up exercises while he waited. Rocky swallowed and held out his sword to his Ancestral Guide.
Sela took the blade and handed it right back. “Make it lighter and finer, but keep it the same length.” He did as she asked until she was satisfied. Then she took the sword back. Once it was to her liking, she performed a few stretches and swings of her own. When she was done with her own warm-up, she smiled broadly at Rocky’s sword, and he felt his eyebrows rise.

  As Rocky watched, Sela looked to Ragnar and crossed her mithril dagger with the Soul Blade, Dark Tidings. Ragnar touched the flat of his massive, notched sword to his forehead and then sprang forward at Sela with a speed Rocky hadn’t expected. He watched as Ragnar chopped down with a vertical swing that Sela sidestepped effortlessly.

  To his surprise, Ragnar’s blow seemed clumsy and off-balance. However, Ragnar smiled broadly and stopped the wild swing halfway to the ground. His front foot was set at an angle, and he pushed off of it to change the strike to a horizontal blow at the retreating form of Sela. Sela firmed her lips and used a cross guard to catch and then deflect the massive sword.

  The power from the strike forced her to step backwards, which made a follow-up strike from her impossible. Ragnar pressed forward, bringing his sword to a vertical position in front of him before stepping towards Sela with his left foot. He turned his wrists as he moved and brought his left elbow in close to his body. The effect was that his blade turned, and his step into Sela’s space brought his sword in a fast twist at her right side.

  Instead of deflecting as Rocky expected, Sela stepped to her right, Ragnar’s left, and the blow missed her by inches. She shot out with Dark Tidings, and Ragnar torqued his waist. The ringing of sword on sword clanged and reverberated through the room. Now though, Ragnar was off balance, and Sela struck out with her dagger in a piercing strike.

  Ragnar released the sword with one hand and deflected Sela by striking her forearm with the back of his. Sela grunted but turned the deflection into a roll, coming back to her feet in a ready position and back in balance again. Ragnar didn’t put his hand back on his massive sword and, instead, began wielding it as if it was a one-handed sword instead of the two-handed long sword its massive size warranted.