Chapter 96: Annihilation Incarnate (2/2)
Ninety lesser Tears ringed the horizon, and every single one of them was still weeping Terrors into the night.
Aidan cracked his neck and walked toward the nearest cluster like a man heading out to mow a very hostile lawn.
These were smaller things, Legendary-rank at their worst, spilling out in packs of three and five and ten. After thirty Final Stage Divine-rank monsters, they barely registered as resistance at all.
Shadowfrost Oblivion answered the first pack before it finished forming ranks, a single arc of the scythe sweeping through four bodies at once and leaving them frozen mid-stride, ice climbing up through the broken ground beneath them.
Fourfold Cataclysm handled the next cluster, lightning and metal and flame and wind folding into one compounding burst that lit the whole ridge white and cleared an entire Tear’s spawn in the same breath it took to throw the punch.
A pack of clawed things tried flanking him through a shattered ravine, and Aidan simply let the scythe’s Gravity aspect answer, folding the ravine’s loose stone down on top of them before they finished the maneuver.
A single winged straggler tried fleeing skyward, and Silence caught it mid-climb, the mute current swallowing its wingbeats until it dropped out of the air entirely, too surprised by the sudden quiet to remember how to fly.
A trio of hulking, horned things tried a coordinated pincer that would have worked beautifully on anyone who hadn’t just spent the last hour disassembling something thirty times their size. Fourfold Cataclysm turned the pincer into three separate craters instead.
’Cheaper every time.’ Aidan moved to the next cluster without slowing down, stepping over drifting motes that used to be monsters. ’Mastery really does earn its keep.’
He worked through Tear after Tear with the flat, efficient rhythm of a man doing chores rather than fighting a war, the scythe finding throats in the dark and the compounded aspects clearing whole packs at once, the count of open wounds in the sky dropping steadily behind him.
Sixty Tears left. Then forty. Then twenty, and the packs pouring out of the remaining wounds had thinned to stragglers, weaker things that barely slowed his pace at all.
That was when the sky lit up in colors again.
Finn came arrowing down out of the dark, scales bright and steady once more, flames trailing blue and gold behind it in a streak that lit the whole canyon like a second dawn.
[I RESTED. I am BACK. Did you save any for me?]
"Twenty Tears left, buddy." Aidan grinned up at the approaching fish. "Knock yourself out."
[FINALLY. Do not tell Arthur I said this, but killing things is more fun than winning underwater football.]
"Your secret’s safe with me."
Finn didn’t bother with restraint this time either, not with the fight already mostly won.
Its light bloomed outward in a wide, joyful wave rather than the desperate storm from before, and aurora-colored fire rolled across the last twenty wounds in the sky. The lesser Terrors caught beneath it didn’t so much die as simply stop existing, dissolved into harmless motes by a happiness that happened to also be a weapon.
The canyon walls lit gold and violet and a blue that had no proper name, and for one strange, beautiful moment the ruined battlefield looked less like a war and more like a festival that had gotten badly out of hand.
Aidan caught the last few stragglers on the ground with his fists alone, purely for the fun of it, wind and lightning threaded together into quick, economical strikes that needed no name at all.
He and Finn closed the final Tear together, Aidan’s fist and Finn’s light landing on the last of it in the same instant, and the wound sealed shut with a sound like a held breath finally releasing.
The night side of the nameless planet went quiet for the first time since the crystal shattered.
[OUTBREAK CONTAINED.]
[Main Quest complete: Prevent the Terror Outbreak.]
[Reward: 50 x Omni-Slot Machine Tickets.]
Aidan let out a long breath of his own and looked up at the wounded, healing sky.
Finn drifted down beside him, scales dimming to a satisfied glow rather than the exhausted grey from before, and nudged against his shoulder with something that in a fish passed for affection.
[Good hunt.]
"Good hunt," Aidan agreed, scratching behind one fin. "You did good, buddy. Both times."
[Finn: I am going to sleep for approximately one hour and then demand a full account of everything I missed while resting.]
"Deal."
He turned a slow circle, taking in the full scope of it. Cracked canyon walls, three collapsed Divine-rank Tears still smoking faintly, ninety more sealed shut and healing overhead, and drifting motes settling like slow snow over a battlefield that had nearly taken out an entire solar system a few hours ago.
His Digicard chimed with a tally he hadn’t bothered checking, his Contribution Points reached insanely high, but Aidan didn’t know that just yet.
’A galaxy consumed. A hundred Terrors, thirty of them Final Stage.’ He exhaled, feeling the night’s weight properly for the first time. ’And Earth never even knew how close it came.’
’And I got an insane reward.’ Aidan grinned as he checked his Inventory attached to his Transcendent Player status, and seeing the fifty stacks of shining tickets.
’Using all of this will surely give me enough Talent Stones to upgrade my Power Bond to SSS-rank!’
But he didn’t dwell on it now. There was still work standing across the courtyard.
...
The corrupted branch master hung suspended in a web of Jovan’s power, alive, breathing, and thoroughly beaten. Every attempt at escape folded back into whatever experiment Jovan was currently running on him.
"How’s the hybrid holding up?" Aidan asked, leaning against a broken pillar.
[Jovan: Stable at thirteen percent now. He complains less than I expected for a man being repeatedly not-quite-killed.]
"Complaining takes energy. Sounds like you’re running him dry."
[Jovan: That is precisely the point, yes. He held admirably for a corrupted Final Stage powerhouse. I suspect the Terroreign influence is making him stubborn rather than resilient, which is a distinction I intend to keep testing.]
"Don’t test it into the ground. I still need him whole."
Aidan reached into his storage ring and pulled out two giant T-bone steaks, raw and marbled and easily the size of dinner plates, setting them down on a flat stretch of stone.
He crouched, flicked a thread of flame from two fingers, and got a proper cooking fire going right there in the wreckage, the smell of scorched meat drifting strange and homely through a canyon that had been a war zone twenty minutes earlier.
"Two more minutes, Jovan." He turned the steaks with a lazy flick of his wrist. "Thank you."
[Jovan: Take your time. I’m rather enjoying this.]
Somewhere behind them, Arthur’s head swung around at the smell, dragon eyes going wide with immediate, undivided interest.
"Not for you," Aidan said without even looking. "These ones are for after the interesting part."
Arthur made a sound of profound betrayal and settled back down to sulk, though his eyes never quite left the fire, tail thumping against broken stone in slow, hopeful rhythm.
Somewhere overhead, the last violet stain in the sky finally faded, and the nameless planet’s ruined canyon fell into something that almost passed for peace.
Aidan started devouring food quickly to recover as much as possible before using the Shadow Phantom Genesis Art.
[Player Aidan. The first target you chose is already corrupted. This could lead to trouble.]
’No worries. I’ll still suppress the technique’s corruption even if it gets a boost from this hybrid. Both will be dominated, as they should.’ Aidan’s eyes glinted with cold determination.