by Neven Iliev
“Better?” asked the succubus in her own voice.
“Much,” confirmed Keira with a nod. “Now, let’s get out of the Overlords’ range, and quickly. This is still a war zone, so mind your corners and watch our flanks!”
“Yes, Ma’am!” replied the troops in unison.
As they began making their way through the ruined city, they quickly realized what the Decanus meant by getting ‘out of range,’ as the collateral damage caused by the two Overlords was far-reaching indeed. Their calamitous clashes sent ice shards, ripped up trees, half-molten rocks, and bits of buildings flying for almost two hundred meters in every direction. Thankfully, none of them landed anywhere near the unit as they were skulking from building to building, but having such massive pieces of debris flying overhead was not exactly a calming factor. Neither was the devious succubus in their midst, but the knowledge that their Decanus had a firm grasp on her leash somewhat eased them.
On the other hand, Kora’s assistance was much better received. After all, if a fiend was going to attack someone, they would smash them in the face immediately rather than stabbing them in the back. Plus, having someone as plainly powerful as her on their side was extremely reassuring. Seeing her plough through blocked streets and collapsed houses made her physical strength abundantly clear, even if she was hardly what one would call ‘subtle.’ She was a bit distract seeing as she kept stealing glances at the ongoing Overlord fight in the background, but she was hardly the only one in the group to do so. Whether it be curiosity, wariness, or fear, all of the soldiers and adventurers gawked at the spectacular fight every now and then.
And by the look of things, the epic brawl was about to reach its climax.
“AAAAAAAARGH!”
Nagnamor let out a booming scream. At some point, Liusolra managed to rip off or destroy the skull-adorned cuisses that protected her opponent’s legs, allowing the arachnid half of her avatar to stick its mandibles deep into his hairy thigh. The upper half turned into a sort of amorphous blob that was wrapped around his arms and weapon, restraining their movements while snuffing out his protective flames.
“Ha-ha!” she laughed mockingly. “I’ve, like, got you now, loser!”
In the next instant, the archfiend felt Liusolra’s fangs drain much of the magic permeating his body. His strength rapidly fading, Nagnamor could not break out of her hold. It wouldn’t be long before his body gave out and he was sent back to the Beyond, given the rate at which that glutton was practically drinking him up from the inside. The match was over, no matter how one looked at it. All things considered, Nagnamor still ended up having a lot of fun throwing down against an opponent of near-equal power. Even if Liusolra only fought by proxy, she was still a worthy challenge.
“Aaaaaah, that’s the stuff!” she cooed in delight. “You, like, taste so good that I literally cannot even!”
However, there was no way Nagnamor would allow himself to suffer defeat gracefully. All fiends were sore losers by default, and being an archfiend and an Overlord on top of that meant he was the sorest loser of them all. And the one person- the one thing he didn’t want to lose at any cost was that insufferable little bug. Therefore, he decided that if he was going to go down, he would do so with a bang.
“YOU WANT MY MANA SO BAD?!” he bellowed with a seething rage. “FINE THEN! TAKE IT! TAKE IT ALLLLL!”
“Wait, what are you-?!”
“LIBERO FACILISIS LIGULA, IN ELEMENTUM PULVINAR MI TINCIDUNT VESTIBULUM!”
Nagnamor suddenly began chanting, his un-words causing the very world to tremble and quake. Seemingly realizing what was going on, Liusolra redoubled her efforts to finish him off as fast as she could. She slashed him with frozen blades and ran him through with icicles the size of towers, but the archfiend’s vitality was unmatched even among the Overlords. Even in his wounded and weakened state, it was frankly impossible for the Stalker Queen to deplete his life force quickly enough. Her magic was first-class when it came to ensnaring and weakening her opponents, but she lacked the pure destructive might necessary to quickly finish off the Overlord of the Flaming Legion.
“PORTTITOR INTERDUM DICTUM EGET LACUS! ORCI VARIUS NATOQUE PENATIBUS ET MAGNIS DIS PARTURIENT MONTES, MAURIS URNA SAPIEN ALIQUAM!”
Nagnamor’s crimson flames spewed out of his neck and skull, breaking through Liusolra’s brood. They rose high into the air, forming an extremely ominous pillar of radiant fire that seemed to extend past the clouds.
“NEQUE AT PLACERAT BLANDIT! NAGNAMOR UTRICIA PRAESENTUM!”
“Hey, no fair!” exclaimed Liusolra in a frustrated panic. “I’m not, like, done yet!”
“YEAH, WELL, LIKE, FUCK YOU!” he yelled back in a mocking tone, then uttered the word of power to finish off his incantation.
“ARMAGEDDON!”
In the next instant, Nagnamor self-destructed, releasing a wave of unimaginable, blinding heat. Everything within a hundred meters of the Overlord, Liusolra included, melted into glass. A half-kilometer radius beyond that became a black desert of ash. The rest of the city as well as parts of the Rainy Woodlands were all set ablaze by an unquenchable inferno that threatened to envelop the entire forest. What clouds remained overhead were now completely gone, allowing the afternoon sun to shine down onto the newly-created wasteland unabated.
This was the power of Armageddon – one of the Four Great Apocalypse Magics. Much like the Ice Age unleashed by Liusolra on the town of Bootlick, it was a Spell that only an Overlord could use. It was their final trump card and the biggest threat they posed to civilizations caught in their wake. Among the Four, Armageddon was the most outwardly devastating. It would have engulfed the entire city and then some instead of only half if the fight hadn’t severely depleted Nagnamor’s energy.
It was still more than enough. Not only had Armageddon annihilated the other Overlord in a flash, but it also put an abrupt end to the battle for New Whitehall. Which, much like the duel between Liusolra and Nagnamor, ended without a definite winner. Looking at the heavy losses incurred on both sides as well as the state of what was left of the city, even calling it a draw would be incredibly optimistic.
On that day, both the Republic and the Empire had lost magnificently.
And yet, it still wasn’t over.
Part Five
*RRRRUMBLE*
A patch of ash within the newly-created black desert suddenly began moving and shifting. A large slab of superheated stone that survived the Armageddon Spell steadily rose to the sound of Kora’s grunting.
“Nnnnrryah!”
With a final yell, she threw off the thick, flat rock that was easily four times larger than her, allowing the other survivors to breathe once more. The scalding, ash-filled air was far from lung-friendly, however, making them choke and cough uncontrollably. One of the Druids in the unit somehow managed to cast a Soothing Rain Spell, conjuring a small, gray cloud immediately overhead. The curative rainwater pouring down from it not only helped restore everyone’s HP, but also purified and cooled the air to make it more breathable.
“Koff! Koff Koff! Everyone alive?!” yelled Keira while looking around.
“I think we lost the two-timing short-ears!”
“Oy! I’m not dead yet, Holt!”
“Tch, just my luck.”
“Arms, is Mr. S alive?” she turned towards the fiend.
“Uh, yeah. The boss is still around.”
“… Do a handstand to prove it!”
“Oh for the love of-”
Kora did a perfect 10-point handstand using only her frontal pair of arms.
“There, satisfied?”
“Yes, thank you. What about the VIP and wounded?”
“VIP’s safe and sound, Ma’am!”
“Some of the magic users passed out, but they’ll pull through!”
As the reports rapidly came in, it quickly became apparent that everyone was present and accounted for, even if not entirely fit for duty. Once the group’s immediate concerns for their comrades’ w
ell-being were taken care of, they finally began to take in the devastation around them. The desolate, lifeless scenery was so silent that even their own uneven breathing sounded unnaturally loud and grating.
Keira rose to her feet and looked towards the center of all this destruction. The ground in a large radius around Nagnamor’s last location had turned to glass. Like a muddled diamond, it glistened and sparkled in the sunlight. Its impure nature and rough, uneven texture gave it an eerie, foreboding shine. The others followed the redhead’s example and stared mutely at the glass field as the reality of their situation sunk in.
“That’s…” one of them spoke, his voice shaking. “Isn’t that where…”
“Yeah,” confirmed Mikey. “If the Dec hadn’t told us to relocate… We’d have been right in the middle of that.”
It was an undeniable fact that the catgirl’s decision had saved them. They’d have still been caught up in the blast if the Decanus hadn’t demanded that everyone seek shelter inside another basement the instant she heard that chanting start. It was no easy task getting underground and establishing a bunch of magical barriers in a matter of seconds, but they somehow pulled it off. If either the call to retreat or its execution had been any slower, they wouldn’t have gotten off as easy as they had.
Not that things were fine and dandy. The unit was covered in soot, mentally and physically exhausted, disoriented, and disheartened. It was unclear whether what they had been through over the last ten-to-fifteen minutes was lucky or unlucky, but given that they were all still around to debate the point implied the former. No, thinking about it from start to finish, their continued survival was more than a matter of luck.
It was a miracle made possible through the effort and intuition of Decanus Keira Morgana. The beastkin’s unerring judgments had saved their lives many times, but this felt like providence. Looking upon the redhead’s silent figure and sorrowful expression as she stared across the ruined landscape was a beautiful yet solemn sight, made all the more poignant by the soft pitter-patter of summoned rain. It was an ephemeral scene every artist worth their paintbrush would strive to immortalize. There were no such individuals around, of course. Keira’s troops could only empathize with the redhead’s grief at all the lives she had failed to save.
In actuality, the girl-shaped monster wasn’t mourning a bunch of faceless meals-on-legs, but the loss of Hilda’s equipment. Boxxy planned to sneak it out of that basement once the Overlords were gone, but couldn’t do so when the place was covered in glass. Furthermore, it wasn’t something as unreliable as intuition that told the shapeshifter what Nagnamor’s Spell was going to do. It recognized some of the words in the chant thanks to Ambrosia’s ongoing language lessons. Hearing the Overlord proclaim something about ‘rendering the air aflame’ it immediately ran underground and used its unwitting subordinates to fortify its position. Much as Boxxy guessed from the chant, Nagnamor’s Spell had literally ignited the air around him. Thus, relatively little of Armageddon’s heat seeped into the ground, allowing Keira and her unit to emerge from their hidey-hole largely unscathed.
However, it soon became clear that they were far from the only survivors. Hundreds of troops from both sides began slowly emerging from the ashes. This vaguely bowl-shaped black desert coupled with the unbroken sunlight from above made each and every survivor stand out like a sore thumb, even to the untrained eye. In fact, one of them raised a lot of dust as he made a beeline for Keira’s unit, and judging from his armor’s colors he wasn’t an ally. He was no pushover, either, if his running speed was any indication. A quick scan with Eagle Eye told the redheaded ranger exactly who this madman was.
“We have an incoming VIP!” she shouted. “Look alive people, the war isn’t over quite yet! Syme, how’s the Comm-crystal?”
“Utterly busted, ma’am!”
The elven Warrior held up a shattered piece of crystal to illustrate his point.
“Damn! Alright, take half the unit and get the injured out of here, VIP included. The rest of us will provide cover. And Syme, do not turn back, no matter what. You hear me, Legionnaire?!”
“Loud and clear, ma’am! You heard the Dec, lads and ladies! Start moving those legs if you don’t wanna lose your heads!”
The man quickly picked out a dozen or so troops and began retreating as ordered. Neither he nor those with him felt right leaving the Decanus behind again, but they no longer had room to complain. If their Goddess of Victory told them to do something, then they just had to go and do it.
“Arms, you’re up at the very front. He seems to be a melee combatant so make sure you body block him and hold him down!”
“Whatever you say, boss-lady!” replied Kora while banging her fists together.
“The rest of you wait until Arms has immobilized the target and then blast it with all you got! I don’t care if you wipe her out too! That goes for miss Snack as well! Don’t pull any punches and really pour it on!”
“Huhuhuhu. With great pleasure!” Xera smirked.
“Oy! At least try not to hit me!” the fiend complained, and was summarily ignored.
“Keep in mind,” Keira continued rallying her troops, “just because we’re covering the others doesn’t mean we’re throwing our lives away! We’re not just going to slow down that son of a bitch, we’re going to annihilate him! We set out an hour ago to ensnare and kill a VIP, and that’s exactly what we’re gonna do! So steel your guts and tighten your buttholes, because it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!”
“Oorah!”
The group that stayed behind to block the incoming threat consisted of fifteen bodies. One beastkin Ranger, two demonic familiars, one golem Paladin, a human Rogue, two Priests, a Druid, a Cryomancer, a Witch, three Wizards, and two Warriors. They quickly formed ranks to prepare for the incoming threat. A few of them realized the enemy could just skirt around them and head straight for the vulnerable VIP, but these concerns were discarded when the incoming threat stubbornly stayed his course even after they got into formation.
“Prepare barrage!”
At Keira’s command, those in the unit capable of ranged attacks began pre-chanting Spells and readying ranged weapons. After several tense seconds, the enemy entered their effective range.
“Loose!”
“Ice Spike!”
“Fireball!”
“Fire Blast!”
“Wind Cutter!”
“Frostbolt!”
“Reality Slash!”
A plethora of magic projectiles of various elemental alignments flew out, aimed squarely at the charging knight’s path. The man brilliantly sidestepped them all, slipping through the gaps between them with superhuman reflexes. He then leapt through the air in a grand arc, swinging his two-handed warhammer down right onto Kora.
“Draw!”
Rather than take it head-on, the fiend activated a defensive Martial Art. It caused her towering body to abruptly slide backwards across the ashen ground without breaking her stance. With his target no longer where it was supposed to be, the enemy’s heavy blow struck nothing but scorched earth.
“Straight!”
Activating the second part of the Martial Art, Kora’s body flew forward with the same dizzying speed, allowing her to deliver a full powered double-right-handed straight punch. One fist connected with the man’s shoulder plate while the other was a clean shot to his forehead. The heavy dual blow forced the man back, causing his feet to drag along the loose ashes for a few meters. His helmet was blown off by the impact, landing somewhere behind him with a soft thud.
“Well, well, well!” said Kora with a pleasantly surprised tone. “Fancy meeting you here!”
Indeed, the man who had just eaten one of her double-deluxe-knuckle-sandwiches was someone she had met before. He had a full head of blond, unreasonably spiky hair. His face showed him as only seventeen or eighteen years old. His attractive facial features and sky-blue eyes were marred with an expression that screamed of cold, seething hatred that sent chills down one�
�s spine. His blue-tinged and well-worn armor looked to be thicker on his left side, especially the shoulder, upper arm, and left shin-guard. In his hands was a pitch-black warhammer with a shimmering blood-red gem embedded in its head that gave off an ominous feeling.
“I heard you bit the big one, blondie,” Kora taunted him, “but I’m glad your bitch of a goddess cheated and brought you back! Now I get to skullfuck you personally!”
The human was Bernard Samson, Hero of the Hammer, and herald of Teresa, the Goddess of Truth and Justice.
“… So it really is you,” he muttered, his expression unflinching. “I thought I was just seeing things, but looks like the old man was right after all.”
There was no way he’d forget the damnable demon. Both of them had been right there at ground zero when Monotal was erased from the face of the planet. Any doubts Bernard might have had about the Republic’s involvement in the Calamity disappeared when he saw that evil fiend allied with them. Now certain in his purpose more than ever, he dashed forward while swinging his ominous weapon in a wide horizontal arc. Kora successfully blocked it with the armored gauntlets on both her left forearms. Her right arms were already raised in preparation for a vicious counterattack that never came.
“Raaaaaargh!”
Rather than fight back, she buckled over and stumbled backwards with a high-pitched scream of pain.
This development caught Boxxy by surprise. That fiend just screamed and doubled over in pain. The same demon that barely even uttered a grunt as she had limbs torn off, her face chewed off, and her body exploded time and time again. Her reaction was not just unusual, but downright unnatural. Indeed, looking at the arms that took the brunt of that attack, it was immediately evident something strange was going on. Both the flesh and metal on her forearms turned a lifeless brown color and began crumbling and falling away as if they were clumps of dried-up dirt.