Apocalypse Tamer 86: Man vs Devil (Patreon)

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Basil felt gloomy all day long.

He couldn’t quite explain it himself. Nightfall and the Christmas event were still hours away. Minions had reinforced the dungeon with traps and anyone getting in was in for a rude surprise. All in all, his team had found a sanctuary for the night.

Yet Basil felt like he was being watched.

The impression started innocuously at first, only to grow stronger after his conversation with Kalki. Basil often found himself looking over his shoulder when he walked through the castle’s corridors. Never once did he notice something out of the ordinary, but he could tell invisible eyes were staring at his back.

The castle’s main hall was large enough to accommodate even Rosemarine, though she had to destroy walls whenever she wanted to move into another area. Eddie had used the dungeon’s properties to summon a Christmas tree in the room, which Vasi and the others had promptly started decorating. Rosemarine put Fire Seeds on the branches, Shellgirl added colorful ‘shinies’ she had collected in Hungary, and Vasi set a star lamp at the summit.

“Like it, handsome?” Vasi asked her boyfriend with a smile. The star lamp glowed purple, like the witch magic it was made of. “I crafted it myself.”

“I just hope the tree won’t attack us,” Basil grumbled. It wouldn’t surprise him for a Christmas event.

At least everyone was in a festive mood. Bugsy was busy tending to a chimney’s fire to keep the team warm. Rosemarine coiled around the tree while watching her fire seeds like a mother hen. Shellgirl waited anxiously for the gifts in a leather chair too big for her, with Eddie and other vampires serving her drinks. Kalki played a Christmas tune to his familiars and an audience of undead.

As for Plato…

“This is the sword of kings!” Plato raised Joyeuse with overbearing pride. The blade’s light caused vampire servants to recoil and Renfield to whistle. “Only the worthy may wield it!”

Plato and the Vampire Castle’s Rakshasa Kitten, Renfield, spent five minutes smelling each other’s butt before becoming cat friends. As in they spent the last hours either trying to one-up their compatriots, debating whether dogs had souls, or getting high on their own sense of self-importance.

Basil had wondered how a Rakshasa Kitten could spawn in a vampire castle, but from what he understood, Renfield was a normal cat that worked his way up the food chain thanks to his overpowered feline Perk. There was probably an interesting story about how he ended up working for a vampire count, but Basil wasn’t especially interested in learning it.

“Gimme, gimme!” Renfield pestered the stronger feline. “I want to try!”

“Do you think you have what it takes?” Plato pointed the sword at Renfield’s heart. “What are your Haut-Faits, jeune félin?”

“I have slain hordes of bird-riding Mongol archers and cleansed the countryside of the mice plague!” Renfield boasted. “I have witnesses!”

“Plato, lend him the sword,” Basil said with a chuckle. Anyone who survived Mongol archers deserved acknowledgement.

“Very well, I shall give you the honor of touching my blade,” Plato said before presenting Joyeuse to Renfield. “But beware! Should you prove unworthy, it shall burn your hands to cind–”

Renfield swiftly seized Joyeuse by the pommel and swung it at the Christmas tree. A single needle fell on the ground like a leaf in the wind.

“See?” Renfield gloated. “I am worthy.”

“Hey!” Plato’s smug assurance turned to annoyance. “Why aren’t your hands burning?! Only those of royal blood can wield the sword!”

“I am the long-lost heir of a royal show winner!” Renfield boasted. “Mine is the divine right of meowness!”

“I think I understand why you can wield the sword, Plato.” Vasi chuckled. “Every single cat is a king.”

Whether her guess was correct or not, it infuriated Plato all the same; for when everyone was a king, no one was. The Rakshasa Kitten hissed in fury before attempting to recover the sword from Renfield. The two felines ran circles around the Christmas Tree in a mad dash.

“Five bucks on Plato!” Shellgirl shouted.

“I’ll take that bet!” a vampire servant replied. Before Basil knew it, almost everyone in the hall had chosen their champion.

“How does it even work?” Basil asked Vasi with a frown. “If I declare myself a king, will I be able to wield the sword?”

“I don’t know, my comment was a joke.” Vasi chuckled mirthfully. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if cats had a different conception of royalty than us. I’m sure they each consider themselves part of a large royal family attended to by human serfs.”

How could something that made no sense still loop back into being logical?

“Do you want a crown for Yule Night, Your Majesty?” Vasi teased Basil with a grin. “You can order one, if you’re so eager to wield Joyeuse.”

“I’ll pass,” Basil replied. “I ain’t gonna cheat on my halberd with a sword.”

“I’m surprised you don’t sleep with your weapon, but I’m thankful for the lack of a love triangle,” Vasi joked, though her grin faltered when Basil answered with a half-smile. “Is something on your mind, Basil?”

He almost told her it was nothing to worry about, but his girlfriend knew him too well. “That feeling of being watched just isn’t leaving me.”

“I’ve cast every spell imaginable, there is no hidden assassin in the castle.” Vasi frowned. “Although… someone could be observing you from afar with magic. It wouldn’t surprise me with all the enemies we’ve accumulated.”

That made sense. Kalki said he had sensed trouble afoot since they left Paris. “Think you can block it?”

Vasi shook her head. “I already protect us the best I can. I don’t even detect anything. If we’re indeed being scried upon, then the caster’s power dwarfs mine by a considerable margin.”

Not a reassuring thought.

Laughs interrupted the conversation; Plato had managed to catch up to Renfield and was struggling with him over Joyeuse. Shellgirl and others formed a ring around the two cats to watch the fight.

Basil himself had no interest in that. “I’m gonna go on a walk.”

“Outside?” Vasi asked.

“To the chapel,” Basil replied. “I’m gonna go pray.”

His girlfriend’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“Maybe later.” Basil took a sharp breath. “I’ve got things to say that must stay between the Lord and me.”

“I understand,” Vasi replied with a tone that implied otherwise. She wasn’t a fool. She knew what Basil intended, but she trusted him enough not to stop him. “Be careful with what you say then. Words are like arrows. Once fired, they can kill.”

“Nice analogy,” Basil replied with a smile. “Thanks. I’ll be back soon.”

Basil left the hall while feeling Vasi’s worried gaze on his back.

Surprisingly for a Vampire Castle, the dungeon had a chapel in the western wing. It was a small room gathering dust: its wooden benches had gone unused since the castle’s creation, the altar always threatened to crumble, and little sunlight managed to get past the stained glass. Basil had to admit it gave the dungeon a suitably spooky feel. The place mocked God by raising a temple to Him in a den of undead.

Basil walked to the center of the room, his steps echoing on a floor of cold, creaking stones. A rotten Catholic Cross stood above the altar with a defaced Jesus intertwined with it. The scene resembled a parody of the crucifixion, with the Messiah’s limbs merging with the instrument of his death into some kind of twisted tree. The stained glass window overseeing it represented the grim reaper seizing a toil of plagued victims.

There was nothing holy about this room. Perhaps it was why the gloomy feeling only grew stronger in it.

“Show yourself, coward.” Basil summoned his halberd to his hand. With his armor on, he looked very much like an elite heavy knight. “I’m alone. If you want to take a shot, now is the time.”

A tense silence stretched on for several seconds, but Basil immediately knew someone had listened to his words. An invisible pressure weighed on his shoulders. The air choked with the taste of ash and sulfur. The shadows lengthened.

“I will never understand,” two voices whispered at once, once deep and brimming with rage, the other cold and smooth, “why so many of you humans worship corpses.”

Basil raised his halberd in alarm, looking around the chapel until he found the source of the voices: the window.

The stained glass picture had reshaped itself. The grim reaper and his victims were rearranged into a terrible, demonic visage: that of a horned black beast with two mouths on top of each other and four ghastly eyes. They burned with hellfire as they looked down on Basil with otherworldly intensity.

Basil had already seen this visage in the past.

In Château Muloup, back when the Apocalypse Force ruled it.

“Why venerate those weak enough to die?” the voices asked in contempt. “What wisdom do the dead and defeated have to offer?”

The Maleking.

“You’re the Maleking,” Basil whispered in astonishment. “The leader of the Apocalypse Force.”

A demon lord of unimaginable power, and the ruler of the Four Horsemen.

“I am power. I am strength. I have been called countless names, though few lived to remember them. The Maleking is but one title among many.” The visage’s four eyes met Basil’s gaze. Their sight chilled him to the bones, for he instinctively understood exactly what he was staring at: a demonic being of infinite malevolence. An entity that Apollyon had called ‘Master.’ “I have been watching your progress with great interest, Basil Bohen.”

Basil clenched his jaw. “How can you talk to me?” he asked in incomprehension. “I thought you were sealed between worlds, unable to escape?”

“The Level Barrier surrounding your universe is weakening, child,” the Maleking replied. He sounded slightly amused by Basil’s incomprehension. “It is becoming porous enough that I can project my consciousness through it.”

“That’s impossible.” Basil’s hands tightened on his halberd. “We blew up thousands of Neurotowers and halted the last Incursion!”

“You have, but the damage was already done. Large portals won’t unleash vast armies anytime soon; but many can now slip through the cracks.” The Maleking’s eyes let out a flickering light. “The barrier is still strong enough to keep my body out of your reality for now… but it won’t last forever.”

Basil greatly disliked the news, but he could read between the lines; no archdemon would drop in on his backyard as a Christmas gift. “Why are you here then?” he asked the demon as he lowered his halberd. “Are you just here to taunt me? Do demons uphold the Christmas Truce?”

“Truce? Not peace?” The Maleking chuckled. “Your people are wise. There is no peace between wars, only truces long enough that mortals forget the rules of nature. I shall observe it tonight.”

Basil knew better than to trust a demon lord’s word, but if the Maleking had wished him harm, he would have attacked without informing the Bohens of his presence. “I’ll ask you again: what the hell do you want? Clearly, you wanted to discuss something without being overheard.”

The Maleking didn’t deny it. “You have slain Apollyon, my Horseman of Famine.”

“It was a group effort,” Basil replied. “Rosemarine landed the killing blow.”

“A well-bred hound who kills a deer on behalf of the hunter is no different than a rifle on legs. Your minions followed your strategy and gained strength from you. We both know your tropidrake would have remained a pitiful wallflower if not for your guidance.”

The fact he knew about Rosemarine’s species bothered Basil. The Maleking had clearly been observing the team long enough to gather precise intelligence. “If you desire revenge for the bug, then get in line.”

“Revenge?” The word amused the Maleking. “Did you expect compassion and sympathy from me? If so, then you were not paying attention. I care nothing for Apollyon.”

How unsurprising. “No honor among fiends, eh?”

“The Apocalypse Force is one Horseman short,” the Maleking replied, ignoring Basil’s jab. “The slaughter you sowed in your wake pleases me. The throne of Famine is yours, if you desire it.”

“When you can’t kill them, recruit them?” Basil sneered. “Sorry, I’m fine being self-employed. I’m not looking for a boss, especially one that smells of brimstone and dead children.”

“You expect us to become master and servant?” The Maleking’s malevolent eyes squinted at Basil. “I do not rule nor seek submission. I offer guidance to those worthy of my interest, nothing more. If you expect rewards or threats from me, you will find yourself disappointed.”

His walk betrayed his talk. “If you don’t want servants, why did you recruit the Apocalypse Force?”

“I did not.”

Basil blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected that answer. “Huh?”

“I would have expected someone like you, who prays at the altar of a higher power and seeks their guidance, to understand my situation.” The Maleking’s eyes glanced at the cross on the altar. “The weak cower in fear of my judgment. The strong crave my might and seek to emulate me. As I left worlds full of carcasses, flies bred among the dead and followed in my wake. They worshiped me as the living apocalypse and organized under the banner of four warlords. Horsemen to herald my coming.”

“But you…” Basil struggled to process the demon lord’s words. “You don’t give a shit?”

“They are of some use to me and work to facilitate my ascension, but I never asked for help… nor do I need it,” the Maleking said with eerie detachment. “I am patient. One day I shall ascend to Overgod. Years and centuries are nothing to me. Your planet presents an opportunity, but should this competition end before its time, another chance will present itself one day. I am offering you Apollyon’s place because you have earned this honor, nothing more.”

“Well, that’s an interesting offer…” Basil lied through his teeth. “How about this? Go back in time before your people burned down my house, killed my velociraptor, murdered my orc friend, and wrecked Paris, and then maybe I’ll consider it.”

“Even if I could change the past, why would I do that?” The Maleking let out a dark laugh that shook the chapel. “Those events were good for you.”

Basil saw red. “Say that again?”

“Look at you, child.” The Maleking’s gaze grew almost unbearable, the pressure on Basil’s shoulders increasing. “I can see your past etched into your soul. A man bound to a life of mediocrity by a civilization shackled by money, vanity, and nihilism. What future did you have before the Trimurti System graced your universe? A quiet death in the woods, forgotten by all? A soul-crushing menial job just to get by, to fit in among the sheep?”

It disturbed Basil that the demon lord knew about his past, but he knew better than to show distress. This being would exploit any emotional vulnerability one way or another.

“Your civilization’s fall has set you free, Basil. War tested you, and you passed with acclaim.” The Maleking glanced at Basil’s halberd. “This spear-axe that you wield attests to that. You have become what you should always have been.”

Basil had seen enough movies to know where this was going. “Is this the moment where you tell me we’re not so different, and that’s why I should join you?”

“I agree that we are nothing alike. But does it mean we cannot find common grounds?” The demonic visage smiled with both its mouths. “You have fought my followers to avenge a slight Apollyon inflicted upon you. Now that he is dead, why keep fighting them? If you seek levels and greater power, the Apocalypse Force will provide.”

“You see, that’s why we’ll never be friends.” Basil sneered. “You murder entire worlds to feed your ego, I kill in self-defense or to protect innocents.”

“You can veil your actions under the cloak of self-righteousness, but your actions speak otherwise.” The Maleking chuckled darkly. “You have benefited from this apocalypse more than anyone. Beforehand you were nothing, but in this world of chaos, you are a hero. A champion acclaimed by all.”

“And I would be just as happy putting my halberd aside once it’s no longer needed.”

The Maleking’s four eyes observed Basil in silence for a few seconds before asking, “Will you?”

Basil’s teeth grit so hard his jaw started to hurt.

“Suppose this all ends tomorrow,” the Maleking said. “Monsters no longer appear to ravage the land. Your world is at peace and society rebuilds. Will you put your halberd aside and return to living in the woods as if nothing happened? Will you forget all you have seen and done?”

“Yes,” Basil replied firmly.

“Even if it costs you your friends?”

Basil tensed up and said nothing.

“Think about it,” the Maleking said, immediately exploiting Basil’s hesitation. “The cat is the only one who was present in your life before the System’s arrival. The witch came from another world, and the monsters only exist because of a certain fiend’s schemes. If the world were to return to normalcy, they would vanish. Would you truly be happy then?”

“Does it matter?” Basil replied, evading the question. “It’s not a choice I have to make.”

“For now,” the Maleking conceded. “But the Avatar of Preservation seeks to undo the destruction the likes of my Horsemen brought to your world. He might even succeed. Will you help him restore your world to its mediocre original state, even if it means losing your hard-earned power and companions? Perhaps you are correct and you won’t have to choose… but what if you are wrong? What if you could return the world to peace, save the worthless masses of your planet, at the cost of all you have achieved under the System’s guidance? What will you choose then?”

Basil was sick of questions; especially when they were uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure of the answer, but he refused to give the demon any satisfaction. “I’ll do what I must.”

Even he struggled to believe in his words. They didn’t fool the Maleking at all. “A tongue can lie, Basil, but the heart cannot. Those who do not know themselves can never hope to win. And if you only kill in self-defense, then why seek to make enemies of us? You have already lost comrades to my followers; even the cat lost half his lives. Do you want it to happen again?”

“Fuck you,” Basil snapped. He was just done with that arrogant monster. “You think you can threaten me? Threaten my crew? I don’t care which Hell you crawled from, I’m not afraid of you!”

“I am not threatening anyone, merely pointing out the obvious,” the Maleking replied softly. “The grudge between you and my Horsemen started with Apollyon, and now he is dead. If you do not want any of your allies to die in battle, then why seek it so fervently? The Unity is already besieging your homeland and your kin might perish crushed in a dragon’s jaw. Can you truly afford more conflict with my followers?”

Basil thought back of the villages in Hungary, whose people had been abducted by Apocalypse Force cultists. They had saved hundreds then; and yet so many other innocents suffered everywhere.

“No, I can’t afford it,” Basil admitted reluctantly. “But so long as you threaten people, we’ll keep fighting you.”

“Yet you spent months holed up in your home, never reaching out to save others before,” the Maleking pointed out. Basil bristled; looking back, he had indeed been acting selfishly. “You do not save them because life is sacred, but because they provide you with a sense of purpose.”

Basil glared at the devilish visage. “You speak nothing but lies.”

“Do I? You dress like a knight and act like one. You offer the wicked a chance at redemption, save the children and protect villages from evil… but what will happen once there are no monsters to kill? Or when the wolves will devour all those who could look up to you? What will you be then? Will you be nothing again?”

“I’ve heard enough,” Basil growled. He had forgotten the elementary rule of demon-hunting: that they could sweet-talk their way out of anything. “Get out of my castle. You can take your job offer and send me the rest of your Horsemen. We’ll stomp them into the dirt like Apollyon before them.”

“I look forward to watching your next battle,” the Maleking replied with a dark laugh. “But meditate on what I’ve told you, child… do not throw your new existence away. It is the only one worth living.”

Basil threw his halberd and shattered the window. The glass exploded into countless shards that spilled over the floor in a terrible cacophony. The pressure in the room vanished and the shadows shortened once again.

Basil glanced at the rotten cross one last time before leaving the chapel without a word.

He was better off killing devils than talking to them.

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