NOVEL FROG 171 - Showpiece of Work
Over the near two months of my time in this world, I had been somewhat accustomed to pain. A certain amount of near-deaths and plenty of cuts and bruises. All physically survived, albeit with some lingering mental exhaustion - I was sure.
And so, as the large axe broke through my left clavicle and embedded halfway into my chest, the tall demon standing in front of me probably didn’t expect me to smile.
“Quickest way to my heart isn’t my stomach, it seems,” I said, blood spluttering from my mouth.
His head exploded - probably from the sniper rifle rather than my terrible joke - and the weapon sunk away from the wound with a terrible slurping sound.
Ren appeared beside me, hand against my back as my ace created a protective dome around us. Only lasted ten seconds, but without concentrated healing, I had less time than that to continue existing.
“You’re not allowed to die until we’ve desecrated that throne, asshole.” The elf pooled her mana into her heal, the delayed burst causing my skin and bones to graft back together. Almost as painful as the split.
“I’ll not die until this entire world stands and applauds me.” I wavered, but my grin seemed to comfort her. She then vanished to be replaced by her dove, as I brought a healing potion up to my lips.
Disgusting, but necessary.
Not only had I almost had my heart torn in two, but slightly further in the other direction, and I would have lost my left arm. Something I didn’t think even Ren’s healing would be able to fix. While there was plenty of magic I could weave single-handed, the amusing idea of having a rotating barrel prosthetic armed with twenty scrolls like some kind of shotgun-arm wasn’t a healthy thought to have right this second.
Barrier dropped and my purple magic cards circled around me as I healed. Slicing through the demons who thought I might be an easier target when injured. Incorrect. I turned my head to see the spellcaster readying up to disable my skills once more.
I shook my head slowly.
His chest exploded, fire consuming him from within and setting his long robes alight. The demonic cannon dropped behind him by my ace card had fired off a lit lantern.
I tried to flex out my left arm as Demonic Regeneration patched up the last of the external wound. Ached like crazy, my muscles still bearing the brunt of the trauma.
If anything, the pain just made me… angry. I’d been able to ignore and quell it for most of the time that we’d been in hell, but that feral hatred for demonkind started burning back within me, as if placed there by the axe itself. Purple electricity sparked around me.
They feared me, and I’d let them. Become what they abhorred and ran from. Except they wouldn’t be able to escape. An unknown voice echoed deep within me from somewhere else, assuring me I needed to kill all demons. So I would.
Demon ace below me as I jumped up into the air and activated
What remained of the army were small dots now. Occasionally, a slim beam of golden light flashed through, bursting through several demons before a crackle of radiant lighting snapped between others like fireworks. Wolf became a comet snaking through the night sky as fire burned a trail behind his charge, trampling and impaling scores of the gathered monsters. The white blob of Roger mopped up behind him and made sure the elf wasn’t flanked.
There were patches of deep red. Some green and yellow from spells cast of bile thrown up. A sprinkling of white where bones had emerged from the melted fleshy parts of some demons. Reflective metal picked up some light. Two lines of purple darting around as I weaved through the remainder of the army. Not really much of a painting of anything other than war. One that they were losing.
I looked over at the palace. Some temptation within me wanting to zip over there right now and burst through the roof. How difficult could it be to kill one more demon?
It would only take getting caught out like with the spellcaster, and I’d have no backup plan. It had been a while since I was a solo showman, and for good reason. I half expected the king, princes, and remaining elites to come pouring out from the palace to assail us. Join the fray and fall in short order.
But they had some common sense in staying put and maintaining control of their battleground. If it were me, I’d put all sorts of traps and preparations around the doors leading into the throne room. Oh, it would soon be me.
All I needed to do was… get rid of the trash.
Switched positions with my demonic ace down on the ground, and dropped my wings and horns away. I had gotten a good view of the battlefield and knew we were getting close to overrunning all that remained.
Just needed one last push.
I grinned and let the hate overtake me. Burst forward in flashes, as if my brain only cared to see the death-blows. Cards blooming just in front of my hands as though they were punch blades, I ducked and weaved - slashing out and cutting through demons. Dropped
Cast a spell scroll of [Random Element] which added 10% damage of a random element to every attack that landed. A whistle passed my ears as one of Ren’s shots scoured the air just beside me.
Despite the anger and ache vibrating through my body, I felt… calm and…
I stopped, my next card not having a target. Looking around, I spun on the spot to look for something standing upright and breathing. A handful of demons escaping into the palace, but other than that… there was an uncomfortable silence to the area.
Hundreds of corpses littered the warm ground. Pulses of heat from the dotted lava pools making the air suddenly very stifling. It was a macabre sight that would have cracked and broken a Max from the past. These days, the only thing preventing me from writhing around amongst the shattered bones and disemboweled figures with the elf was the fact we had more corpses to create.
I checked myself for physical injury, but it was hard to tell since I was covered head to toe in blood and gore. My regeneration had patched up everything minor that had been inflicted on me - to the point that I barely registered the attacks. Left side of me still ached despite the wound suturing itself together - I’d need to give it a proper look after a wash.
Oh, to have a bath. A thing of distant memory. My body shed odd tears just thinking of clean and relaxing water. We never knew we had it so good.
“Need any more healing, trickster?”
I turned my head as the rest of the Party caught me up. The elf had a few more sprays of crimson across her, but had kept at enough distance to avoid most of the more visceral parts of the combat. Wolf was almost as covered as I was - although his fur had been cleaned off, leaving only the thick armor slick with the red stuff. Roger’s arms were bright scarlet, but other than looking exhausted, he was doing fine.
“System-wise I am feeling alright. I think just on an existential level I might be falling apart.” I gave her a glum shrug, which caused a spike of pain down my left side.
“Well, you almost died again, so be more careful of that.” She yawned and smeared blood across her face as she brought her forearm up to cover her tired expression. “There’s a cooldown and shit.”
I cycled back through my notifications to see if it had actually split my heart. There were a few low and critical health alerts I had long silenced, but nothing specifically telling me the organ was fucked. That was my Ren-loving heart, so it was a good thing she had saved it.
“I am maybe three hours from finally losing my sanity,” Wolf stated rather plainly. “Either we win and escape very soon, or I will become an untenable monster who will probably die in short order because I am old and suffering.”
A scowl upon my brow, I stepped over and dropped to my knees before him, grabbing his head to hold it against my chest. “I forgot what I was going to say to you on the way down here. Sorry, Wolf.”
“We’re all suffering, brother,” Ren assured him. “Together we will escape and live free again.”
The bear grunted, a little too polite to push me away from holding his face - even despite the circumstances. “I’d suffer a lot less if there was more opportunity to sleep, and if the two of you quit trying to breed for more than ten minutes.”
She shrugged in return. “Believe me, there are worse ways we could try to maintain our sanity than our deviant acts. Between that, my skill preventing certain mental afflictions, and Max’s corruption resistance - well, we’ve just about survived.”
“Good experience, too,” I added, finally letting go of the bear to stand back up. “We might just hit Eighteen after killing the king, just as Roger foretold.”
We all turned our gazes to the rabbit, who was standing off to the side with his arms crossed. A rather awkward expression that turned into a grimace as our attention focused on him.
“I may be a demon, but you three are fucked up.” He shook his head. “There needs to be a worse place than hell for shitheads like you all. No offence, Boss.”
“Some taken.” I rolled my eyes. Our wavering sanity aside, we were just a product of our environment. Excluding the fact that both Ren and I came into this world from the starter island as murderers, and with the intent to carry on that tradition on all that stood against us.
A worse place for us? Othea itself was pretty miserable. Behind all the springtime woodlands and quaint villages was a corrupt Player twisting anyone with some hate in their heart for the world into killers ready and willing to tear the System down.
If we didn’t stop the Lady and Crimson Shadows, she would eventually find a way past the barrier, and who knows how far she could go then. We didn’t want regiments of Level Twenty Players against us - or even the Crown. That said, perhaps regicide could become a new hobby.
I licked my lips, which just filled my mouth with the taste of demon blood.
“Plan, Max?”
With a groan, I closed my eyes. Roof would have been nice, but we didn’t really have a way of getting Wolf up there. Front or side doors were a non-starter, as they’d be expecting that. Part of me wished I could throw out my Domain and bring about a giant card to just slice through the whole building like I had against the titan zombie.
Didn’t have the strength for it - both in literal sense and my Power bar was still middling, despite all that I had done in that fight. While enacting such an exertion of my mana, it usually caused me lots of physical and mental damage to maintain it. I was already a ragged bag of loosely held together parts.
We’d just have to do this a little simply.
“Circle the building and find somewhere that doesn’t have an obvious entrance. I believe we have some scrolls that could create a hole in the wall without creating too much of a ruckus. Once we are in there, kill all the bastards.” I grinned as I stared at the palace, wavering in place slightly. “Focus casters and anyone capable of debilitating me.”
“Do you have to be the one that kills the king?” Ren’s eyes narrowed.
Wasn’t quite insane enough to think she’d want to betray me to steal the crown. Even though she wanted to become my demon queen, Roger wasn’t convinced putting on a crown would change her in that way - so she’d settled on just being an elven queen. Probably better than way, in the long term.
“You know it, moonflower. Unless it’s a matter of life or death, I need to claim the power myself fair and square.” Or at least, as fair as I usually played.
“Fine. Let’s circle the left side then, as it’s closer.”
I nodded, and we set off, just as I received a notification.
[Tanya: Max. We have news.]
[Tanya: Hope this isn’t a bad time, but you'll want to know this, I’m sure.]
[Tanya: The Lady in Red…]
[Tanya: Crimson Shadow has taken control of Candlekeep.]