Apocalypse Tamer

Chapter 127: Everyone vs Everyone, Part II

The miasma poured down Basil’s throat and sapped away his lifeforce.

Basil grunted. “Death’s Banner–”

Brina’s sword closed in on him in the blink of an eye.

“Accelerated Hasten!”

Were it not for his Chronomancer’s Perk allowing him to cast spells at an accelerated rate, Basil would have died on the spot. The speed burst provided by Hasten let him dive to the ground in the nick of time. Brina’s claymore cut through a wall rather than severing his neck.

The Horseman of War immediately followed through with a new swing. Since her claymore burned with the anti-magical blue flames that had stripped him of his buffs in the first place, Basil could not afford to parry it.

Instead, he threw a Water Elemental Orb at the ground. The liquid turned to steam when it touched Brina’s fiery blade, temporarily blinding her. Basil immediately followed through by opening his inventory.

A blue bus erupted from his hand and smashed into the distracted Brina.

The vehicle was propelled across the armory. Brina found herself trapped between a stone wall and the windshield as they clashed. She immediately threw her claymore through the latter; the weapon traveled across the vehicle like a harpoon, came out of its back, and nearly impaled Basil. The Dragonknight barely managed to dodge, and the blade ended its course halfway across the room.

Basil briefly glanced at the bus’ back as he formed an elemental orb of fire in his hand. The specially prepared vehicle was filled with explosives, steel shrapnel, and other joyful traps. The Dragonknight ran towards the nearest exit and threw the fire orb over his shoulder once he reached safety.

The resulting blast bathed the room in fire and steel projectiles. One bounced off Basil’s armor as he moved into the next corridor.

A tenth. Basil cursed as he read. All of this effort for a tenth of her health and a minute of respite.

Basil tactically retreated rather than stand his ground. He knew Brina would catch up in a short time, so he began reapplying his buffs.

“Flash of Prescience, Runestorm: Water…” Though Brina’s strike didn’t prevent him from renewing his buffs, doing so burned through his SP reserves at an accelerated rate. “Savage Rune, Monster Cure.”

His last spell was meant to heal his allies from Belphegor’s foul smog, but a red system screen immediately dashed his hopes.

Basil growled and summoned one of Rosemarine’s miraculous apples from his inventory. The fruit healed the wounds he had taken from Brina, but not the effects of Belphegor’s vile magic. It would likely stay that way so long as the Horseman of Death remained free.

Basil quickly figured out Brina's strategy. If she couldn’t slay him outright, the valkyrie would settle on disrupting Death’s Banner until it killed his teammates. The best option was to avoid a direct confrontation, track down his allies, and regroup.

“Everyone!” Basil shouted as he entered a broad hallway. To his horror, he found half a dozen rotting corpses on the ground; soldiers whose flesh had been stripped away from their bones by Belphegor’s miasma. He couldn’t even identify their factions. Twelve archways punctuated walls lined with marble statues of the Olympians. “Where are you?!”

Ghostly wails and spectral weapons answered his call.

Three translucent warriors emerged from the ground. None of them looked the same; one was an axe-wielding Viking warrior from an age long gone, another a knight in shining armor. The last was a hooded figure with a bow shooting a volley of purple arrows.

Basil deflected the projectiles with his halberd and then engaged the ghosts in melee. He cut through the Viking berserker with a lightning-quick swing—Mortifère immediately dispelled the ghost back into shapeless ectoplasm—and swiftly predicted the knight’s flanking move with Flash of Prescience. Basil parried the sword with his halberd, and the mere contact destroyed the specter.

Though these warriors were nothing to scoff at, they couldn’t last long against a Deathknight of the Sepulchre. Basil’s build was optimized to destroy ghosts, and none of them possessed a shadow of their master’s skills. They were slower, more fragile, less skilled, and a glancing blow from Mortifère was enough to exorcise them.

Or perhaps the Horseman of War was simply so dangerous that all warriors came up short compared to her.

Basil swiftly cut down the archer, only to quickly realize his mistake. A fireball flew over him and blasted the other end of the hallway. A stone archway collapsed atop a statue of Zeus and buried the exit under debris.

“You have banished my Einherjars from this plane.” Brina blasted the doorway behind her with a second fireball upon entering the hallway. A pile of rocks swiftly cut off the last remaining escape route. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

Basil adopted a fighting stance. “Will I join them if you kill me?”

“If you are worthy of Valhalla, then yes.” Brina shrugged as she summoned a claymore to her hand. “You should look forward to it, brave soul. It is a great honor.”

“I’ll pass.” Though he remained defiant in the face of danger, Basil’s pulse quickened. His options were fast running dry. He could try to blow his way out of the trap by blasting the ceiling or walls, but that would leave him open to Brina’s attacks. He didn’t have a second booby-trapped bus to throw at her.

She’s more skilled than I am, but I’m slightly faster too, Basil thought. If I can’t afford to counter her strikes without endangering my team… then I must play all offense. Wyrm Spirit could give me the edge.

He still had one card left to play.

“Pèth.” Basil touched his fur cloak and called upon its power. “Activate!”

The artifact’s magic activated. His muscles ripened and his skin turned into a thick layer of fur. Sharp fangs grew out of his elongated maw and his nails extended into claws that could rip through steel. His armor’s shape-shifted to accommodate his transformation until he became the picture of a fantasy war bear.

Basil rarely used this transformation because his hands turned into paws, which prevented him from wielding weapons correctly. Yet to his surprise, his halberd easily stuck between his elongated thumb and other fingers. It should have slipped in between them, but it didn’t.

Pluto was smiling at him today.

His transformation amused Brina. “Are you a berserker?”

“I was once. I grew out of it.” Basil raised his halberd with one hand. He hoped his new strength would make the difference. “Let’s dance, Horseman. You need a hug.”

Then he charged with a roar.

It took a minute for Bugsy to dig his way out of the debris.

The Apolloworm emerged from under layers upon layers of rocks and steel. Only the sight of ruins welcomed him. The hall was a vision of devastation, with most of the neurotowers once supporting the ceiling now buried underground. The roof was gone, replaced with a cloud of purple miasma. Only the statues of the Trimurti remained more or less intact.

Is Mr. Kalki all right? Bugsy immediately checked up on his friend and let out a sigh of relief upon finding him and his girlfriend still unharmed inside their forcefield. We dodged a bullet on that one.

However, the absence of the rest of his team worried Bugsy greatly. Were they still buried under the debris? He closed his eyes and focused on his enhanced senses to better locate them.

He had no problem finding Rosemarine. The giant dragon was trapped deep under the rocks below, her breathing causing the rocks to shift. Bugsy detected the faint pulse of Plato near the statues, though he couldn’t see him.

And then, there was the mechanical figure sneaking up on him from behind.

Bugsy flapped his wings and leaped into the air. A metal fist impacted the ground right where he had been a second ago. The sheer power of the blow sent stones flying in all directions.

“Tremorsense?” the false god Ashok muttered to himself. A layer of lightning coated his cracked metal body. “No, something better.”

Bugsy tried to find a clever retort, but came up short. He was too worried for his friends' safety. “Where is the Boss?!” he snarled at the false deity. “Where are my friends?!”

When Ashok answered with a lightning bolt, Bugsy realized he shouldn’t ask his enemies questions. He should deal with them the Major Chicken way.

By roasting them to death!

Bugsy flew around the hall to dodge the lightning bolts and quickly countered with his Star Bomb. His maw opened to unleash spheres of molten plasma as hot as the sun’s surface. Ashok swiftly ran across the debris with inhuman speed.

Ashok moved as fast as lightning, too quickly for the naked eye to follow. But Bugsy did not need to see his enemy to predict him. His unique Gravity Field let him detect all movements in the air and predict the false god’s movement. A well-placed Star Bomb would blow him to kingdom com–

“Sin,” he heard Ashok speak in between two lightning bolts. “Envy.”

A sharp pain caused Bugsy’s mind to stop at a screeching halt.

The noxious pestilence permeating the air suddenly started corroding his chitinous carapace. The miasma seeped into his lava veins, ignoring the heat and the magical defenses. Fuming holes appeared in Bugsy’s wings and caused him to lose control of his flight. His strength and speed waned.

Bugsy crash-landed near a crumbling neurotower and bounced off its forcefield. His enhanced senses became a curse rather than a boon: it only sharpened the pain and made Bugsy acutely aware of the poison consuming each part of his body.

“I have… I have to fight on!” Bugsy hardened his resolve and faced the approaching Ashok. It would take far more than that to put him down! “You won’t hear me scream!”

“Far from it,” Ashok replied. He closed the gap between them in a flash of light, his fists raised for the kill. “I mean to save you.”

Save yourself from this! Bugsy thought as he unleashed a stream of plasma from his mouth. A sea of flames covered the world, yet Ashok simply leaped over it. Bugsy immediately opened his jaws and attempted to bite him mid-flight.

His mandibles snapped around Ashok, only to be blocked by strong metal hands. The false god’s weight forced Bugsy to the ground and the two of them began wrestling among rocks.

However, Bugsy immediately felt something unnatural swelling within him. A warmth hotter than his own lava.

Huh? Bugsy thought in confusion.

“As I guessed.” Though Ashok’s mask remained expressionless, the glee in his voice betrayed his true feelings. “Apollo calls out to his father.”

Light swallowed both fighters.

Bugsy opened his jaws to breathe flames, but no plasma came out of his gullet. Lightning traveled through his exoskeleton and numbed his muscles. His nerves no longer answered his brain’s commands.

Ashok’s metal hands were starting to fuse with Bugsy’s mandibles.

What… The words formed in Bugsy’s mind, but his mouth wouldn’t bring them to life. What is this?josei

“This is polymorphosis,” Ashok explained calmly. “I’ve been fascinated by this phenomenon since I discovered it… the fusion of souls into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.”

Like… Ronald? Bugsy tried to focus, but his very thoughts slipped away from him. Pictures of burning battlefields, of summary executions, and the torture of poor humans flashed into his mind. Things he had never seen; memories that weren’t his own.

“Hypathia attempted to gain this power by combining two essences, but she made a foolish mistake.” Ashok’s voice became a distant echo with each passing second. “She refused to surrender her individuality, and thus failed to achieve Nirvana. But though you are my enemy, creature…”

Bugsy’s eyes darted at his legs in panic. His chitinous exoskeleton started to take on the texture of metal. The lava coursing through his veins ionized into lightning.

“I accept you,” Ashok whispered serenely.

The enemy was infecting him.

No, no, no… Bugsy panicked. If Ashok absorbed him, he would go after the others! I refuse! I refuse!

A System screen flashed before his eyes like a message of hope.

The Boss was still fighting, still protecting his team from afar.

Bugsy could not let him down.

I have to resist! Bugsy called upon all his willpower to fight back. Though his body still refused to answer his commands, the lack of pain from the miasma allowed him to focus. Where Ashok threatened to overwhelm his mind with his vile memories, Bugsy focused on his own. He reminisced about tending to the house’s garden, about the warmth of the campfire while his team shared a meal on the road, about their triumphs and sorrows.

It did not stop Ashok’s infection… but it slowed it down.

“This is foolish,” the false god said with condescension. “Our two essences belong to the same pantheon. You cannot stop this process.”

Perhaps the fight is hopeless, Bugsy conceded in his heart, but it’s not a good enough reason to throw it!

The ground below them split open as if to answer his wish.

A colossal maw of leaves and fangs erupted from under Ashok. The metal god was forced to release his grip on Bugsy to dodge, which freed the Apolloworm from his influence. The lightning and metal infecting his body both melted away back into flesh and lava. Bugsy did not immediately regain enough strength to move again, but he could finally breathe.

Rosemarine was emerging from the rubble, though she only managed to free the upper half of her body. Ashok retreated under the shadow of Vishnu’s statue, his body crackling with lightning.

“I hoped you had perished under the rubble,” the false god said. “It would have been wiser for you to stay down.”

“I am a plant,” Rosemarine said proudly. “I sprout and bloom!”

She opened her mouth and attempted to devour Ashok alive.

“Astrapios!” The metal god answered with a torrent of lightning. Rosemarine recoiled and shrieked in pain, with the high voltage burning away many of her leaf-scales.

His friend’s screams of agony filled Bugsy with renewed strength and fury. Forcing himself to stand up, he flanked Ashok and fired a plasma sphere at him. The metal god vanished in a flash of lightning and the boom of thunder.

Where is he? Bugsy closed his eyes and focused on his heightened senses. One moment he sensed the metal god on his right, only for him to move left before the Apolloworm could turn his head. He’s too fast!

“Sin,” he heard Ashok say, like a curse. “Envy.”

Rosemarine’s shrieks turned to cries.

“Rosemarine!” Bugsy opened his eyes in panic, and witnessed the miasma consuming his friend alive. The noxious smoke consumed her scales and left rotting holes in her throat. “H-Hold on!”

A metal fist punched him in the face at supersonic speed.

The blow caved Bugsy’s head into the bed of rubble below him. His skull cracked against a rock, which briefly filled his vision with stars.

“Without Mrs. Yaga, you are no match for me.” Ashok loomed over Bugsy like the shadow of death. “Polymorphosis was a kindness, vahana. I do not need you alive to seize your godly essence.”

Agh… Bugsy struggled to stay conscious as he felt strong hands pulling him away from Rosemarine. He still noticed the protective glow of Death’s Banner protecting the dragon from the miasma. Perhaps it was too late. The plant dragon had collapsed onto her chest from her wounds. Her innate regenerative properties healed damage from the lightning, but not the miasma. Agh…

“Sixty seconds…” Ashok counted time. “The effect renews itself each minute so long as your Tamer keeps it up, but it leaves you vulnerable to the miasma until then. Five more times should be enough to kill her for good. She won’t regenerate from this.”

He stripped Rosemarine of her protection, and her cries once again filled the hall. Ashok watched the scene from a safe distance. For a reason that escaped Bugsy, he didn’t blast either him or Rosemarine with lightning. The metal god instead scanned the area with a sharp gaze.

"Better safe than sorry," he said. "Aegiduchos."

A shroud of magical energy shrouded the false god's body, shielding him from all harm.

Plato, Bugsy guessed. He sensed the feline’s presence, though invisibility hid him from sight. He’s using us as bait.

After a few seconds, Ashok appeared to lose patience. He looked over the incapacitated Rosemarine and gathered lightning to land the final blow.

“Stop…” Bugsy pleaded. He needed to buy time until the invincibility effect ran out. Ten, eleven, twelve... “You… I know what you’re trying to do… I’ve seen it… inside your memories.”

Ashok did not stop gathering lightning. He did not even respond.

“You want to fuse… everyone… with him…” Bugsy pointed at Kalki with his mandible. Thirty second, thirty-one second... “You think… it will bring peace.”

“It will,” Ashok stated with confidence.

“You’re wrong…” Bugsy countered. Forty seconds... The right moment approached fast, as did Plato. “Nobody wants it… it’s nothing short of death!”

“Since when have mortals understood what is good for them?” Ashok replied scornfully. “The gods gave us a choice because they believed we would make the correct one. They will keep recreating the world until we succeed, for their patience is as deep as the sea.”

He raised a hand at Rosemarine at the fifty second mark.

“Mine is not,” he said.

Bugsy leaped at him with his jaws open in a desperate attempt to save his ally.

His reward was a divine lightning bolt to the face. Electricity powerful enough to fuel a human metropolis zapped him all at once, blasting off part of his exoskeleton and frying all his nerves.

Yet Bugsy powered through it all. “Apollo’s Curse!”

Bugsy was left too wounded to follow through with a direct attack, his charred body crumbling to the ground.

“Did you hope to follow through with your flames once Aegiduchos ran out?” Ashok’s head snapped to his left. “Here you are.”

He raised his palm and closed it on an invisible target. A sickening crack echoed into the hall as blood and brain slipped between his fingers.

The metal god had crushed Plato’s skull in midair at the sixty seconds mark.

“I can sense your godly essence, vahana,” Ashok said as the magical shield around him dissipated. His invincibility effect had run out, leaving him exposed.... but victorious. “Now that I have you pinned in one place, I can kill you for good after you regenerate.”

Bugsy scoffed. The invisibility effect hiding Plato’s corpse was swiftly lifted, revealing their trump card.

A very special belt was strapped to the feline’s waist.

Though his reaction happened in an instant, Bugsy could have sworn he heard Ashok gasp upon noticing the Shellgirl-made explosives. He still remembered the Bohens’ tactical discussion prior to the assault.

If Ashok feels cornered, he will teleport away like he did in Shumen, Vasi had pointed out. Considering how strategic and careful he is, there is only one time when he is likely to drop his guard.

When he believes that he has already won, Basil had guessed. I don’t think he’ll fall for illusions though. We’ll need live bait.

Plato had shrugged in response back then. That bastard owes me two lives already, what’s one more?

A torrent of flames erupted from the suicide belt, vaporizing Plato’s corpse and Ashok alike. The metal god’s vulnerability to fire spelled his demise. The blast melted the rock rubble while pushing back dust and miasma. Bugsy himself found the warmth relaxing. The fire melded back into his flesh and healed the wounds left by the enemy’s lightning.

Bugsy finally came up with a clever retort.

When you pay to win, he thought, you should always keep the receipt.

The miasma ceased to devour her flesh when time resumed.

Vasi gasped in relief as the painful purple rash on her skin stopped spreading; but though Basil’s healing magic flowed into her, it failed to cure the scars. She held onto her staff to avoid stumbling. A hand grabbed her by the arm to better help her stand. For a second, she mistook it for Shellgirl’s, until she heard his voice.

“Do not tire yourself, my dear daughter.” Her father’s shadow loomed over her. “Daddy’s here.”

For once, it sounded more reassuring than cringeworthy.

The sound of steel crashing against steel immediately caught Vasi’s gaze. Simeon had thrown Belphegor against Steve’s metal frame. The Horseman of Death’s wax body was covered in sword wounds and a rapier impaled both his legs like a shish kebab.

“I’ve caught this ruffian,” Braniño said. Vasi quickly noticed that the miasma didn’t seem to affect her sire. “I believe you needed him alive?”

“Get away from me!” Belphegor crawled on the ground in panic. Whatever happened to him in the stopped time, it had instilled in him a terrible fear of Vasi’s father. “Telepor–”

Braniño pointed a finger at the Horseman. “Accelerated Space Anchor, Reset Mine.”

A purple aura surrounded Belphegor and electrocuted him when he attempted to teleport away.

“Trying to run away, are you?” Braniño taunted Belphegor after the Horseman collapsed to his knees.

“A coward to the bitter end,” Shellgirl commented. She dashed at Belphegor with her stone arrows and stabbed him in the chest with one of them.

Though the stone projectile immediately crumbled to dust, Shellgirl’s gloves immediately duplicated a new copy.

“You miscalculated, Horseman.” Vasi cast an ice spell to bind Belphegor’s hands into stalactites, chaining him to the ground. “My boyfriend still holds out. Your teammate won’t save you.”

“I still have a way out!” A shadowy aura swirled around Belphegor’s body. “My Life For You!”

Remembering the way Belphegor had self-destructed in Thessaloniki, Vasi raised her staff to cast Za Warudo again in spite of the risks. Her Chronomancer father reacted quicker.

“Reset,” he said while snapping his fingers.

Belphegor’s body turned black and white for a second. The black aura surrounding him collapsed into nothingness, turning the Horseman back to normal.

“Ugh?” Belphegor looked around in confusion. “My Life For You!”

Braniño snapped his finger once again and the sequence repeated itself. A sinister aura shrouded Belphegor in darkness, only for time to rewind him back to his previous state. The Horseman’s clear panic filled Vasi’s heart with joy.

“What have you done to me?” Belphegor shivered, his voice breaking in his throat. “What have you done to me?!”

“I’ve cast an advanced Chronomancy spell on you,” her father replied with a smug grin. “Reset Mine forces you back to the same state you were in a few seconds ago. Your mind will remember what happened, but your body will rewind.”

“What… What the hell are you?” None of Belphegor’s former bravado remained; only fear and confusion. “None of the time mages I’ve fought could pull that off!”

“You dare compare me, the greatest Chronomancer since Akhenapep, to some offworld trash?” The demon lord of Outremonde locked eyes with the terrified Belphegor. “I have no equal… and there is no escape.”

For once, Vasi was glad to call him father.

Shellgirl glanced at her stone arrows. “If his body resets, will he get a new Vitality check?”

“Yes,” Braniño confirmed. “The result should be different each time you stab him.”

“That’s a gacha game I can get behind!” Shellgirl raised her weapon. “Can you please keep resetting him until I hit the jackpot?!”

The demon lord snorted. “I do not take commands from the likes–”

“Dad, please,” Vasi pleaded. “Indulge us.”

“Of course I will help you,” her father told Shellgirl, his malice instantly replaced with sugary friendliness. “Go on, enjoy yourself.”

Shellgirl stabbed Belphegor again with a happy heart, though luck was not on her side.

Belphegor did the only thing a coward could do in his situation: he called for help. “Brina!” he shouted as loudly as his waxen lungs would let him. “Ashok! Help!”

“It is useless,” Vasi warned the Horseman. “No one is coming, and death will no longer be your salvation.”

Shellgirl punctuated her friend’s words with another stabbing attempt.

“Damn it, he’s tough!” Shellgirl complained.

“How many attempts will it take?” Simeon asked.

“Depends on his Vitality score,” Shellgirl grunted. She duplicated another stone arrow and prepared to stab Belphegor again. “I’ll just have to keep going.”

“The miasma will kill more with each minute wasted.” Simeon faced the Horseman and looked into his eyes. “Remove the weather effect now, fiend. You have my word as a Paladin that we shall take you prisoner rather than slay you if you cooperate.”

For a brief moment, Belphegor appeared to grimly consider the offer. He had finally realized there would be no way out of this bind.

“Everything you can do to me… the Boss will do double.” Belphegor’s desperate expression turned into one of resignation. “And I… I ain’t a fink.”

Belphegor’s fiery eyes turned pitch black.

“I trust my teammate!” he snarled in defiance as the miasma thickened. “She’ll kill you all!”

“Brina will kill you, and then the Maleking will destroy your shitstain of a world!” Belphegor’s words turned more high-pitched the more he shrieked. It seemed he had gained an ounce of courage while on death’s door. “The trumpets of Hell will announce his coming! Your skies will rain fire and a tide of blood shall wash your corpses away! You will see death on a scale the multiverse has never seen! You will all die, die, die, d–”

Shellgirl stabbed him in the head for the fourth time.

The arrow did not crumble to dust. Instead, its rocky substance merged with Belphegor’s body. Wax and molten steel alike took on a brown coloration, and then a mineral texture. The Horseman’s flames were smothered out like those of a candle that had run beyond its time. The malevolent undead, who had cheated death time and time again, suffered the same fate as the Unity’s countless victims.

Belphegor turned to stone in the blink of an eye.

They danced alright.

They struck and dodged and circled each other. His halberd left craters wherever it hit; her thrown knives stained his fur with blood.

Brina no longer attempted to parry him anymore, although it would have allowed her to dispel his buffs. She had guessed Basil would cut through her weapon in a direct contest of strength. Instead, she switched to throwing summoned knives from a distance, and then tried to close in with her claymore whenever he left himself open. She had yet to land a hit with her main weapon, but she steadily chipped at Basil’s health nonetheless.

Basil’s werebear transformation let him resist hits more easily, though he wouldn’t be able to keep it up forever.

He attempted to strike Brina with all his might once again. His halberd smashed a statue of Poseidon, gutted it like a fish, and sent marble shards flying everywhere. Yet Brina dodged nonetheless. Flash of Prescience allowed Basil to predict her movements, but even his heightened bear reflexes struggled to adjust quickly enough.

It wasn’t just a question of speed. Brina’s reaction time was simply inhuman. Her reflexes were not the result of the System’s guidance, but of decades—perhaps centuries—of constant practice. She knew how to evade each of Basil’s moves because she had seen them before.

Basil couldn’t beat her by fighting like a warrior.

He needed to fight like a madman.

Brina backflipped across the hallway and summoned her rain of swords. Blades materialized below the ceiling and swiftly fell upon Basil. The wisest thing would have been to dodge.

Instead, Basil Bohen jumped across the hallway.

Trusting Flash of Prescience to predict the course of the falling swords, the werebear positioned himself in a way that minimized damage. In a move straight from an action movie, he opened his mouth and caught a sword by the pommel. Immediately he sensed the System’s knowledge flowing into him.

Brina’s sword was his. Its sisters sliced through his flesh in half a dozen other places, but he powered through it all the same.

Even Brina looked shocked as he closed the gap between them. She raised her claymore as if expecting a direct clash with his halberd. He instead threw Mortifère straight at her face in a surprise move. The valkyrie instinctively threw her claymore back at the projectile with both weapons bouncing off the other.

And Brina found herself wide open.

Still carrying his stolen sword between his fangs, Basil swirled midjump and sliced through the valkyrie’s waist. Her own weapon cut a body path across her pristine skin. So strong was the blow that it flung the mighty Horseman backward and sent her crashing into a stone archway. The sword remained embedded in her flesh.

Then falling swords impaled him from behind and nailed him to the ground.

When all of one’s body hurt so much, pain started to lose all meaning. Dozens of blades pierced Basil’s flesh all the way to the bone, severing his nerves. Some would have hit vital organs without the enhanced muscle mass of his werebear transformation.

“Agh…” Basil’s breath left his throat sore. The very air tasted of his blood. “Agh…”

He struggled to even move, and Brina quickly went back to her feet after removing the borrowed sword from her body. Though bleeding profusely from her wounds, she summoned a spear to her hands and charged back into the fray without skipping a beat.

The worst part was that Basil saw her coming. He predicted her movement with Flash of Prescience. He just didn’t have the strength left to move out of her way.

The spear pierced through his chest and came out of his back. Neither his armor nor muscles stopped it. Basil’s scream of agony turned into a beastly roar, and he coughed enough blood to fill a Japanese pond.

If the werebear transformation hadn’t doubled Basil’s HP, he would have perished here and there. As Brina twisted the spear inside his flesh, he had to face the obvious conclusion.

Defeat…

Defeat was inevitable.

No matter what he tried, no matter the legendary equipment he had accumulated, no matter the skills he had sharpened across his journey, Basil Bohen simply couldn’t defeat Brina on his own. Perhaps he would have had a chance if he had been allowed to fight her as a Tamer, picked a better battlefield, or invested in stronger classes.

But though one could remake the world with ‘ifs,’ it did not change the ultimate result.

Need… eject party… Basil opened his System screen. Words appeared on it. Need… eject…

Basil’s eyes lit up with hope.

“You fought well.” There was a hint of respect in Brina’s voice, and ruthlessness too. “But this is the end.”

“I…” Basil grit his teeth. “I agree…”

He grabbed her wrist with the last of his strength and teleported them away.

Brina could have refused to follow him across dimensions, but that would have meant letting him escape to fight another day. She did not release him and thus signed her death warrant.

They crashed into a shelf full of potions.

“If I may, chief, I would suggest adding more refreshers to your army. It’s what made the dwarf catapult combo so effec–” A voice in the background stopped talking as they noticed the catastrophic crash. “Mmm?”

At this point, Basil’s vision blurred from the pain and his sense of hearing had dulled considerably. He struggled to recognize the speaker, though it sounded familiar.

“Is this a shop?” Brina glanced at rows upon rows of magical wares, from scrolls to artifacts. “What is the meaning of–”

The valkyrie froze upon catching sight of the counter.

Though his other senses failed him, Basil’s bear nose immediately identified the dreadful smell of death and fresh corpses coming from behind the counter. His blurring vision noticed two red eyes glaring at him from behind a board of miniatures. They were filled with cold anger and frustration.

Walter Tye did not like uninvited guests.