Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 238: A Wave of Fangs and Claws

A massive creature the size and shape of a fighter jet led the way, blasting past them at well over the speed of sound, a dozen bolts of acid unleashed from its mouth.

Amy was forced to anchor herself to the ground with magic to avoid being flung away by the wind whipped up by the dragon’s passage, while Isaac just phased briefly to not get tossed around like a leaf on the wind.

Then, a second creature of the exact same type dropped past from above, forcing them to defend themselves again, from both the wind and another shotgun blast of acid breath.

That was new. That had been a deliberate choice by the Dungeon. Shit.

Acid was just as good, if not better, than fire and fucking with regeneration, but this place knew Isaac was immune to flames. So it was sending creatures that breathed acid after them.

At the same time, the dragons whipping past were tempting them to take pot shots, wasting their limited mana.

And all around them, any acid shots that weren’t blocked by Amy’s shield splattered across the ground, just waiting for one of them to step into the flesh-melting puddles.

“We’re leaving!” Isaac snapped as two more of the speedy dragons whipped by. Staying in place too long would leave them hemmed in by a sea of corrosive liquid while more of the flying pests bombarded them.

They rounded the last bend, almost at the exit, only to come face-to-face with a giant, mottled green, dragon that had just finished unleashing its breath weapon down their path of egress, a nasty combination of acid and venom, truly sealing the place. As if the solid plug of ice that filled the original entry room hadn’t been enough.

So leaving was out of the question. They’d be sitting ducks trying to get through there, forced to stave off the acid and toxins while being bombarded by the lizards.

And hacking their way through the ice would be even more dangerous, with the corridor being perfectly shaped to funnel the breath weapons towards them.

That settled it. For some reason, the Dungeon had it out for them. These places weren’t allowed to block the way out, and any Core that decided to alter its defenders to better beat delvers was one step away from becoming a serious threat.

Isaac pulled one of the emergency beacons the Guild gave away freely and triggered it in the “something’s seriously wrong, someone with decision-making authority better get their ass down here” configuration.

They would probably be able to beat this place, but chances were, it would have to be destroyed and who knew what crap the Dungeon could come up with if they had to dive in a second time. Best case scenario, the “rescue party” contained someone with enough authority to declare the Dungeon a bust, and order its destruction.

Because if he decided to pull that trigger on his own and turned out to be wrong … it would be very, very bad.

Unlike most of the dragons, which had stayed out of Isaac’s melee range, this big toxin factory had its head resting on the entry platform.

Big mistake.

[Phantom Step], Balmung glowing like a noonday sun from countless [Piercing Strikes] went through the beast’s eye, and then, the sword ignited, flooding the inside of the dragon’s skull with hellfire.

Without making a single sound, the monster collapsed, dropping away into the chasm, trailing flames from an empty eye socket.

One big dragon down, but judging from the roars that echoed through the room, there were several more of the large beasts out there.

Back down the stairs, it was, staying in any one place meant death.

An agile, small-ish beast buzzed past, freezing over the stairs in front of them with a blast of its breath. Isaac leaped over the patch with ease, but Amy didn’t react in time and slipped. A hastily-cast levitation spell caught and carried her over the “trap”, but this mess was nothing more than a preview of messes to come.

With flying being all but impossible off the stairs, Isaac was pretty much useless. Throwing blades was possible, as were flame spells, but he was still primarily a close-range fighter. Flying kabars to carve through wings, knives tossed into gaping maws only to be transformed into his giant blades to tear the monsters apart from the inside. Effective, but not nearly as much as his normal attacks and it was quite a bit more expensive than normal.

Also, while his mana regeneration might be high, his build was still focused on finishing fights quickly, rather than a running battle.

Amy was doing a whole lot more, war spells lighting up the sky with titanic chain reactions that obliterated entire swarms of weaker beasts, and once, she even shoved a dragon’s flames back down its gullet and held them there until the creature popped.

She was incredibly effective … while her mana lasted. Once it ran out, they’d be in real trouble.

Scratching sounds reached Isaac’s ears from above, and after a moment, he realized that several drakes were scampering around up there. Well, going back would be even harder than before.

“Should there be this many dragons around? I feel like we’ve already killed this place’s regular complement twice over!” Amy asked, sounding irritated.

“You’re right.” Isaac said grimly “I’m pretty sure this place has been holding back for a long time.”

Their running battle had taken them halfway down the spire by now, and the area in front of them was covered in pools of acid, small areas of ice ready to ruin their footing if they weren’t careful where they put their feet, and toxic gasses hung in the air, just waiting for them to forget to hold their breath or blow it away. Traps laid well ahead of time.

And then, the first drake came scampering up towards them, teeth gleaming as it opened its jaws to unleash a stream of acid. It choked on cold steel before it could do anything and Isaac promptly kicked it over the edge, but it was bad. In time, any position they stayed in for more than half a minute would become uninhabitable from the constant bombardment, and now, these non-flying enemies were killing their forward momentum.

Sure, there were fewer and fewer flybys as the dragons switched over to long-range bombardment, which might have indicated the horde was thinning, but that might just have been a mind game.

“How are you on mana?” Isaac asked.

“Just about to take a potion.” Amy spat. Potions might instantly restore mana, but they not only reduced the efficacy of the next one you took but also killed your natural regeneration for the near future. If they started falling back on potions and didn’t win soon, they were dead.

“Hold off on that for a second,” Isaac warned and activated [Grave of Swords]. Not its regular “turn this battle into a one-on-one fight” ability, but the evolved effect gained at level 20, which let him seal off a fifty-meter diameter section of the battlefield alongside everything inside it.

Only a single flying dragon was in here with them, poor beast.

Several well-aimed thrown knives tore through its wings and sent it plummeting to the ground. Well, the bottom of the spherical [Skill], anyway.

“Leave it there, this place will collapse once all enemies are dead,” Isaac said, then asked “With ten minutes to prepare, do you think you can get us to the bottom safely? Not just alive, but completely unhurt. Even a twisted ankle could be fatal.”

“With ten minutes, probably.” Amy nodded “But those dragons are going to be preparing something as well.”

Isaac nodded “We’ll have to prepare for that. But if we can get to the bottom afterwards, we should be able to either finish this or at least hold out for reinforcements.”

He absolutely hated how this had turned out.

It was supposed to be a great source of XP and resources, with the small caveat of no flying or otherwise leaving the staircase until you were at the bottom. Getting hurt by a fall was normally a foreign concept to Isaac, even without mana he could simply maximize his surface resistance to slow his descent, then relax his body as much as humanly possible and trust his Fortitude to handle the rest. On planet Earth, it didn’t matter how how far he fell, he’d never get hurt.

Instead, it had turned into a battle against a massive horde, one that was actually risking their lives.

While Amy worked behind him, Isaac began to remove some of his emergency fallback items from his storage. This was actually the first time he’d really had to fall back upon them. He’d been in dire straits before, sure, but in those times, his gear hadn’t been strong enough to be worth taking the time to mess around with his storage. Fighters outlevelling crafters was a bitch.

But now, he had time, and with how slow leveling past the fourth Evolution was, the crafters had been able to catch up.

Once Amy had cast the most ludicrously overpowered feather-fall spell in history upon both of them, Isaac skewered the hapless dragon’s throat with a telekinetically controlled dagger and the world vanished in a wave of light and fire.

Temporary shields appeared and were blasted down in milliseconds, alchemical grenades exploded into mountains of sticky, fire-retardant foam that blocked paths of attack, and he briefly switched out his outfit for “Der Mittelfinger”.

The armor known as the ultimate “fuck you” on the battlefield unleashed every defensive spell carved onto its surface, tearing the closest dragon to pieces.

And standing in the middle of all this pandemonium was a single man, not moving at all for a long moment.

[Champion of Mankind: The Thinker], [Blessing of Innovation], [The Meaning of the Name], [Aura of the Desperate Seeker].

Every single thing around him was registered, multiple trains of thought from [The Thinker] letting him keep track of it all. [Blessing of Innovation] let him borrow [Skills] that allowed him to better model the physics of the altered gravity and finally, [The Meaning of the Name] brought it all together and showed him the path forwards.

Amy had already glomped onto his back and now that he knew where to go, he ran.

A cloud of conjured blades appeared and swatted the various alchemical explosives he’d scattered around his feet, each falling into position to inflict the maximum amount of inconvenience on the dragon they struck.

And then, he finally leaped out into the open air. An unfortunate lizard served as his stepping stone, combat boot squishing an eyeball and sending the creature spinning into one of its comrades. He ducked before the wing he was dodging was even in motion. A stream of acid splashed past his backside a split second after he’d marched across the dragon’s maw.

After half a second of half-running, half-falling through the press of bodies, they left the swarm behind them and just plummeted.

This Dungeon Core was a bloody sadist. Isaac was hardly scared of heights, but accelerating that quickly without actively doing anything to increase his speedwas disconcerting as fuck.

Two seconds after leaping off the staircase, Isaac landed lightly on the ground, Amy’s spell thankfully saving him from a fall that would otherwise have left him badly injured.

Amy let go of him and prepared another half-dozen infused [Magic Missiles].

Isaac just grinned, summoning Balmung into his right hand while wreathing his left in hellfire.

Using the last bit of runtime he had on [The Thinker], he unleashed a devastating barrage of fire, splitting up his attention to guide each and every bolt personally, aiming straight for the eyes of the closest dragons.

Suddenly blinded seconds before they reached him, they were vulnerable, defenseless, like lambs to the slaughter. The increased gravity that kicked in the second both feet left the floor meant that jumping was still a bit odd, but nothing Isaac couldn’t compensate for.

All of the pent-up annoyance at being nigh-helpless out on the staircase was unleashed upon his foes and those unfortunate enough to be in range died, half a dozen hacked apart by his brutally sharp blade in barely five seconds.

Behind him, Amy mostly spent her time dodging and using weaker spells to hobble her enemies rather than outright kill. A mana-saving strategy. In time, merely kiting the lizards would have let her recover enough to eventually finish this, and until then, they just had to find other ways to slaughter some lizards.

Isaac made sure to stay around so they could help each other in case of emergency but otherwise, they each had their own way of striking out at the monster’s buzzing overhead, unleashing their breath attacks during swift flybys.

That lasted for maybe another minute before a massive explosion from somewhere overhead announced the arrival of the long-awaited reinforcements.