Chapter 104: Interlude: The Reaper's Due

Chapter 104: Interlude: The Reaper's Due

In slightly more than a second, a beam of light hotter than the suns surface traveled across the void of space. Nearly four hundred thousand kilometers separated the barrel of the gun from its target.

So many elements were taken into account. The rotation of the Earth. Gravitational interactions. The risk of deadly blowback as power far greater than any atomic bomb was concentrated on a single point. It was a test run, and one did not fire an orbital weapon of such devastating potential lightly. When the Lunar Cannon was unleashed upon the country of Bulgaria, it was at its minimum capabilities.

That was enough.

The beam traveled at the speed of light. Like an arrow piercing chainmail, it punched the magnetic shield protecting the Earth and continued its course through the atmosphere.

The one bad thing about a giant laser cannon from space was that it was never built for accuracy. Blackcinders would have preferred to open fire at Basil Bohen personally. Not knowing his location, and with the local dungeons energies interfering, she had her engineers target the city center. Shumens train station, used by the Knights of Saint-George to relay supplies and troops to other cities, was selected as ground zero.

Since the apocalypse began, Shumen had become a hub for refugees across Eastern Europe. Populations coming from Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and so many other places thought they had found a safe haven there under the protection of a powerful Guild.

They were wrong.

The station was a place that seemed frozen in time since the fall of communism. It took years to build this building, and a nanosecond to wipe it off the map.

As the beam hit it, the impact generated a ball of plasma more than a kilometer wide.

The light burned hotter than the sun. Everyone touched by it was gone in an instant. Flesh was incinerated. Bones were vaporized. Concrete turned to dust, and iron to ionized particles blown by annihilation winds. There was no screams, no colors nor sound.

Instead, there was light.



The fireball eventually slowed as atmospheric pressure pushed back against the sudden rise in temperature, but the wind couldnt stop light.

Everyone too close to the explosion was blinded, most of them permanently. The humidity in their eyes evaporated. Their eyelids were scorched. They couldnt see what was to follow, but they most certainly felt it.

After the initial explosion, a thermal pulse expanded outward and set everything in its vicinity on fire. Plastic, clothes, flesh, woodeverything that could burn, burned.

In this world ruled by the System, those with Fire Resistance and high Vitality were advantaged. This was the case with the Bohens. Nearly four kilometers separated them from ground zero. Bugsy, whose enhanced senses and Hasten buff allowed him to react in time, regained his full size and shielded his friends with his fireproof body. His chitinous carapace absorbed the heat as he coiled around them like a snake. For Shellgirl, who was vulnerable to Fire and all the more at risk due to Dismaker Labs latest cruelty, his action meant the difference between life and death.

The civilians around them were all set ablaze. They became candles in a sea of flames.

Roughly one-hundred and a half thousand people took refuge in Shumen. The Unitys engineers aimed for a fifty-thousand kill count at a minimum for the initial strike.

They exceeded their target.



Bugsy could absorb fire, but not a shockwave.

The System had rewritten the rules of physics to follow its own alien logic. Some things, however, remained the same. A blast of this magnitude always invited a pushback. The atmospheres pressure fought back against the sudden increase in temperature from the blast. This resulted in winds stronger than a hurricane spreading outward.

Bulgarian architects were good. Constructors, however, so often prefered to take the easy way. Many paid cheaply for material, chose shortcuts over quality, and ignored safety norms. Shumen was no exception. If most of the citys buildings had been built according to high-quality standards, some might have resisted. Instead, the wind blew them out away.

Apartment blocks snapped like Kit Kat bars. Concrete towers fell over. Burning trees flew away alongside cars and bicycles. Districts were flattened in an instant. Gas stations detonated, as did army ammo depots. A sandstorm of searing dust and embers spread over the region.

The shockwave weakened as it expanded, but for Shumen it made no difference. Only its dungeon on its silent hill stood strong before the apocalyptic blast. The rest of the city was turned into a smoking pile of rubble as a firestorm covered it all.



The house of Aleskandra Bohen was no exception.

When the shockwave hit Shumen, the poor woman was traveling from her home to the Steamobile, a cake in hand. Aleksandra Bohen was an optimist. She had survived communism, poverty, her husbands death, and the apocalypse. She walked down the street thinking of her son. She hoped he would return soon.

When she saw a Mercedes Benz thrown at her, she could only freeze like a deer in the headlights.

The Germans were good at making cars. When the shockwave sent it flying at bullet speed, the Mercedes stayed in one piece. It seemed so surreal, so sudden, that Aleksandras mind came to a screeching halt as it tried to process the situation.

Steve, the brave Steamobile, saw the danger and moved to protect its charge. It put all its energy into its wheels. The colossal machine surged forward at full speed. It is a sentient vehicle that knew no fear. It knew what had to be done, and it acted without thinking.

It worked.

Steve was just quick enough to intercept. The Mercedes Benz bounced off its shielding and missed Aleksandra Bohen. For a second, the Steamobile allowed itself to roar in victory.

But when the shockwave hit, Steve was tossed to the side.

It fell on the very person it was trying to save.

When over a thousand tons of metal crushed her into a bloody paste, Aleksandra Bohen didnt say a word. In fact, she didnt think of anything. Like so many across the globe, her life ended so quickly that there was no time for sorrow or regrets.

The reaper rarely waited for last words.



From her base on the moon, Blackcinders observed her grim work on a hundred screens.

Her gearsmen on the ground provided her with a constant live streaming of the situation. Thousands of mechanical soldiers surrounded the burning firestorm that had once been called Shumen.

Other dragon commanders watched the devastation at her side. Some were smiling and laughing. Others were in awe of the Lunar Cannons power. Many more, the youngest ones, gasped in shock and horror. Untested dragons were still nave enough to think the lives of lesser races had individual value beyond their usefulness as a means of production.

Blackcinders was different. She felt neither joy nor remorse at ending thousands of lives; not even a fleeting sense of accomplishment.

In fact, she felt nothing.

Your message couldnt be delivered. Aleksandra Bohen has left the Guild.[Berserk] ailment negated by [Lethal Vigil].[Berserk] ailment negated by [Lethal Vigil].[Berserk] ailment negated by [Lethal Vigil].[Berserk] ailment negated by [Lethal Vigil]![Berserk] ailment negated by [Lethal Vigil]![Berserk] ailment negated by [Lethal Vigil].

His people needed him.

For some of his countrymen fought for their lives even in this hellscape. Basil knew it as he watched the horizon. Explosions rocked the outskirts of the city. He could hear them all the way from there. A colossal metal frame as tall as Apollyon walked through the smoke in the distance to the tune of artillery fire.

Gearsman TitanElite Level 60 [Artificial]Faction: Unity.

The same creature that attacked Bucharest now threatened to destroy what little was left of Shumen.

Vasi walked up to her boyfriends side, her voice brimming with concern. Basil

Rosemarine, Shellgirl, with me. Basil leaped over his beloved dragons back. There was no time to waste. Vasi, Plato, Bugsy, you go after Kalki. Exfiltrate him.

You want us to split up? Plato protested. This is madness!

Our priority for now Basil squeezed his halberd so tightly that he heard his knuckles crack. Our priority is to save as many lives as we can. Kalki must survive or we all perish anyway. Well take care of the gearsmen and secure a safe route out of the city for the survivors.

Vasi nodded slowly before climbing on her broom. After a short moment of hesitation, Plato leaped behind her back. Well rejoin you as soon as we have him, Vasi said. Good luck.

Good luck. Basil extended a hand to Shellgirl. Lets go.

Im with you, Shellgirl replied. Basil seized her hand and pulled her to Rosemarines back.

They charged into battle without a word.

Fire.

Everywhere Vasi looked, she could only see fire. Flames spread across the ruins of the city, carried by warm winds and dust storms. Vasi put her scarf over her mouth to help herself breathe through the smoke. Plato looked around at the sea of fire as they ascended towards Shumens dungeon; Bugsy climbed up the hill on foot, his legs digging into stone like clay.

The most terrible thing was the smell.

Vasi couldnt hear any screams coming from the sea of flames, but the stench of calcined meat was ever-present. The smell reminded her of Basils cooking, of warm meat roasting in an oven. Once she had found it appetizing.

Now?

Now she struggled not to throw up.

They must pay. It was the first time Plato had sounded so calm, so dead inside. They must pay for this.

They will, Vasi agreed. There were crimes too great to be atoned for.

What happened today was one of them.

In her childhood, she had been told about the historic Battle of Crom Cruach, where the armies of Outremonde gathered to prevent their worlds destruction at the hands of a powermad Fomor queen. This tyrant had threatened to destroy the land with Arrows of Light that could scorch the land to cinders, or so her mother told her. Vasi had never connected to this story before. Tales of burning cities and widespread destruction were words to the wind. She could imagine them, assemble them into a picture, but they couldnt disturb her; no more than a breeze could.

Experiencing the destruction, the pointless devastation, the utter loss of life, was something else entirely. Now Vasi understood why tales failed to properly represent the horror of ancient battles.

There were no words in the multiverse that could properly describe such tragedy.

Shumens dungeon oversaw the city from atop a hill. The fortress of steel and concrete had weathered the apocalyptic destruction well, though its surface was now blackened by dust and embers. There were no defenders patrolling in the skies around it, nor shielding its ramparts.

That alone was cause for alarm.

Dungeon: Founders of the Bulgarian State MonumentLevel: 45.Faction: Swords of Saint-GeorgeField Type: [OVERRIDDEN].

Overridden? By what?

By whom?

The dungeon only had one entrance: a set of iron gates surrounded by giant, cubical statues of ancient warriors. The shockwaves had defaced half of them and the doors laid wide open. It wasnt what caught Vasis attention.

The feathered corpse burning on the threshold did.

Garud? Vasis eyes widened in shock as she recognized Kalkis mount. Garud!

The magnificent bird lay on his back atop a broken steel door, his wings broken. A smoking hole burned where his chest should have been. His eyes, usually so bright and confident, were now devoid of life.

When Vasi landed her broom next to Garud, Plato leaped off to examine the corpse anyway. The witch didnt say a word. She already knew it was too late.

Garud! Bugsy shouted in horror as he finished climbing the hill. Is he

Yes, Plato confirmed. The feline sat next to the corpse with a mournful look. Hes he isnt breathing.

Vasi touched the creatures beak and immediately pulled back her hand after a jolt of electricity coursed through her hand. The corpse was still charged with electricity.

Lightning.

Garud hadnt been killed by fire or wind, but by lightning. And from the way the corpse lay on the ground, he had been thrown through the doors from inside.

I hear thunder within the building, Bugsy warned. And and screams.

There was only one Faction that could possibly know Kalkis location at all times and enter a dungeon through a backdoor.

No, Vasi whispered. She took a step towards the steel gates. No, no, no.

A System notification flashed before her eyes the moment she crossed the threshold, confirming her worst fears.

Zeus-Ashoks [God-Field: Titanomachy] changed the field to [ThunderOlympus].[Physical], [Lightning], [Fire], [Wind], [Light] and [Mythic] elements are strengthened.[Soul], [Earth], [Water], and [Darkness] elements are weakened.All [Lightning] attacks will be [Charged] and inflict twice more damage.[Xenia]: Non-[Metal Olympus] factions cannot make use of the Logs feature or use teleportation effects within the [God-Field].

The Unity wasnt the only of their enemies to make its move tonight.

Metal Olympus had come to collect Kalki.