Apocalypse Tamer 110: Man vs Blackcinders (Patreon)

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It felt so good to be rescued for once.

Simeon’s [Paladin Halo III] empowered you with a [Regen] effect, buffed all your stats, and granted you Resistance to all Ailments for five minutes! [All for One] spread the effect to your Guild!

Simeon and Benjamin flew straight at Blackcinders. The former engaged the dragon in close combat with a spear and sword of light, while the latter attacked from afar with eye-beams. Blackcinders threw a Big Bang attack to keep them off her back, which granted Basil a moment of respite.

“I need… to get out…” Basil grunted as he dragged him across the lunar landscape. The heightened gravity weighed on his shoulders and prevented him from jumping away, but it appeared to only affect a localized area. He needed to escape it on foot. “A little more…”

Blackcinders’ Big Bang spell illuminated the blackened sky. Benjamin turned into his shadowy form to avoid being consumed by the flames, while Simeon powered through them. The paladin’s spear grazed Blackcinders’ chest and left a wound before the Unity general punched him aside. With the reinforcements temporarily repelled, Blackcinders dived down towards Basil to finish him off before he could escape the gravity well.

A magma blast coming from the ground forced her to retreat.

“Boss, we’re here!” Bugsy emerged from the cloud of dust with Plato and Shellgirl riding on his back. The former immediately used the opportunity to rob Blackcinders of her power. One look from the feline turned the dragon’s crimson circuits back to their inert state. The Unity general slowed down.

Plato stole Blackcinders’ buffs with [Catnapping]!

At her wit’s end, Blackcinders raised a hand at Bugsy’s group. “Gravipull.”

The same telekinetic force that had propelled Basil backward earlier now pulled Bugsy, Shellgirl, and Plato to Blackcinders. The trio was flung at her in spite of the heightened gravity.

While Blackcinders opened her mouth to incinerate them with her breath, Shellgirl reacted quicker. “Open inventory!”

A Shell-corporation tank truck materialized between Shellgirl and Blackcinders.

Taken aback, Blackcinders failed to cancel her Gravipull effect in time. The truck rammed into her chest before swiftly exploding in a fiery explosion that propelled her backward. Her breath of light missed the group and her gravity spell was canceled.

Basil struggled not to cry in joy as Bugsy, Shellgirl, and Plato landed back to the ground unharmed. “Shellgirl, I’m so proud of you.”

“I learned from the best!” she teased him back. “Now get her, tiger! We’ll cover you!”

That was the plan.

After a harsh struggle, Basil reached the limit of the heightened gravity zone. He immediately felt the weight lifted from his shoulders and instantly took flight after giving Blackcinders a quick glance.

Blackcinders, Star Tyrant

Level 78 Elite [Dragon]

Faction: Unity (High Command).

HP: 18543/28880.

Regular attacks were starting to take their toll on the dragon, but she still had plenty of gas left in the tank.

Worse, increasingly powerful tremors tore the lunar landscape asunder. Rifts widened in between facilities. Unity bases exploded as members of Maure’s demonic army and Bulgarian armed forces engaged dragons above them. In spite of the mutineers’ call to action, forces loyal to Blackcinders still fought to protect their superweapon.

There was so little time left.

Thanks to Bugsy, Plato, and Shellgirl shooting down meteors that could have harmed him, Basil closed in on Blackcinders. The cruel wyrm struggled to keep Simeon and Benjamin off her back without her buffs. Steve charged up the Gehenna Cannon on the ground, waiting for the right opportunity to blow her out of the sky.

Sending Simeon flying back with a swing of her tail, Blackcinders failed to dodge as Basil impaled her through the chest. His halberd pierced all the way to the ribs and reaped another four thousand HP.

You have brought Blackcinders below half-health!

Basil removed his halberd from her flesh and readied himself for another strike. No sooner did he raise his weapon than he noticed something strange bursting out of the dragon’s body.

Bubbles.

Hundreds of pitch black bubbles floated off her scales like tar jelly. They quickly grew in size from no larger than a thumb to bigger than Basil’s fist.

“Dark Matter,” Blackcinders rasped.

Basil immediately retreated with a back jump. Too late. The bubbles violently burst open, each of them unleashing a blast of eldritch black light. The air around Blackcinders simmered under the sudden pressure and the blasts built up in a chain of destruction. A bubble exploded close to Basil and bathed his armor in its energies. He felt cold, so terribly cold as the fell power bypassed his protections and irradiated his flesh.

154 [Darkness] damage! 154 [Frost] damage! [Blind] negated by [Paladin Halo III]!

Blackcinders’ tail swept Basil and sent him crashing against a falling meteor… or so he would have, had shadowy hands not grabbed his chest and carried him out of the way. Basil looked over his shoulder to see Benjamin Leroy holding him.

Steve chose this moment to attack. Activating the Gehenna Cannon, he shot a beam of light across the sky. Blackcinders fled in a desperate attempt to dodge, but the ray successfully vaporized her left wing and caused the Unity dragon to lose altitude.

Basil activated his double-jump to go after her, only for the horizon to brighten in fire and light. Massive explosions rocked the Lunar Cannon and started earthquakes. Part of the superweapon’s barrel collapsed under its own weight.

“What’s happening?” Simeon asked as he rejoined Basil.

“It worked.” Benjamin opened a System screen and checked the information. “The dual damage from the Field and our sabotage compounded. The Lunar Cannon can’t process the accumulated power anymore. It’s running amok.”

Basil didn’t need a degree in engineering to understand how this would turn out. “Is it going to self-destruct?”

“Yes. The energy will accumulate in the barrel, but instead of firing it at Earth, the Lunar Cannon will unleash it in an explosion the size of a small country.” Benjamin squinted at his allies. “We have to evacuate now.”

“Not before killing Blackcinders first,” Basil rasped. Short of one wing, the dragon failed to maintain her flight. She managed to land on her feet, her sheer weight blowing moondust in all directions. “If she escapes today, she will try again later. She won’t stop. Ever.”

So long as she breathed, Blackcinders would hound them relentlessly. She would never give up on destroying Earth. One way or another, she had to go.

“Agreed,” Simeon said. Steve, Bugsy, and the others were already rushing toward Blackcinders on foot. “Let us share the news with our allies and finish her off.”

“Understood,” Benjamin replied as he typed on the System screen. “I’m mass-messaging everyone.”

Basil sent a warning to his team through the Logs and flew after Blackcinders. He received no answer from either Vasi or Rosemarine; both hadn’t yet returned from their forced trip into the upper atmosphere, though the latter’s field remained active so far.

Seeing them arrive, Blackcinders fired a Big Bang at Basil’s group. They spread apart to dodge the projectile and soon all three of them circled the dragon from above. It turned out to be a terrible mistake.

“Heavy G.” No sooner did Blackcinders say the words than gravity increased in a vast radius around her. Basil, Benjamin, and Simeon were all pulled to the ground amidst a cloud of moon dust. The dragonknight and the paladin landed not too far from each other, while Leroy crashed a dozen meters away from them.

224 [Physical] damage! You have fallen below half-health!

Though Basil’s wounds healed on their own thanks to the Regen effect, he was once more a sitting duck. He managed to get back to his knees and fired an Elemental Orb of water at Blackcinders. Simeon threw his spear, while Benjamin once again resorted to his eye-beams.

Only the last projectile hit its mark, and Blackcinders deflected it with her last remaining wing anyway; the rest didn’t get past two meters before the heightened gravity pulled them toward the cracking ground.

Blackcinders glared at Basil and opened her mouth. Light built up inside her gullet.

“We need to get away!” Simeon grabbed Basil by the shoulder and tried to pull him to safety, but both stumbled due to the increased gravity. Bugsy and the others were shouting their leader’s name in the distance. They were still half a crater away, too far to help.

Seeing the danger, Benjamin expanded his shadowy arms until they became as long as a football field. The heightened gravity pulled them to the ground, yet their unnatural growth pushed them onward. “Take my hands!” he shouted as Blackcinders prepared to breathe death upon them. “Hurry!”

Acting quickly, Basil and Simeon both grabbed one of Benjamin’s hands. The programmer swiftly retracted his elongated arms and pulled his allies to his position. A second later, Blackcinders unleashed her breath of light. A mighty burst of energy erupted from her gullet and vaporized the spot where Basil and Simeon used to crawl a few seconds ago. Benjamin had pulled them to safety just in time.

Basil sighed in relief as he and his allies escaped a certain death.

But then Blackcinders turned her head towards them.

Her draconic lungs did not pause to inhale. In spite of all the wounds Blackcinders had accumulated, she kept pumping out her destructive breath. The light annihilated all in its path, from rocks to plants, and grew ever closer to their position. Blackcinders’ eyes shone with murderous wrath.

Gathering all of his strength, Basil tried to jump away with his allies. He failed to even stand up before the heightened gravity brought him back to his knees. His eyes widened in despair as the light of death gained ground on them. Simeon uttered a quick prayer, and Benjamin sighed in resignation. He alone seemed at peace with the idea of dying today.

“Destroy it, Basil,” he said. “The System. Destroy it all.”

Basil failed to understand what he meant, until he realized Benjamin’s hand was still squeezing his own. “No,” he said, panicking. “Ben, don’t–”

Benjamin Leroy extended his arm again. This time, however, he did not pull his allies closer to him. Instead, he pushed them as far away from Blackcinders’ beam as humanly possible. The programmer remained trapped in his spot by the heightened gravity, unable to escape its pull.

Blackcinders’ breath swallowed Benjamin Leroy.

He was vaporized in an instant.

When his extended arms crumbled to dust, Basil knew Benjamin wouldn’t come back from this. He and Simeon landed on the ground while Blackcinders finally ran out of breath. Of Benjamin Leroy, only a sphere of darkness remained. Pluto’s godly essence had been freed by its wielder’s demise.

Blackcinders squinted in wrath at Basil upon realizing he had cheated death once again.

Then she immediately gathered her breath for a second onslaught.

“I win,” Blackcinders said as her gullet lit up with deadly radiance.

The ground burst open at her feet and flames erupted from below. A column of fire struck Blackcinders in the face, and a volcanipede’s shape burrowed out of the ground.

Bugsy’s [Turbo: Fire] bypassed Blackcinders’ Resistance!

The surprise attack caused Blackcinders to scoff smoke rather than light. Basil immediately felt the gravity effect weaken with her broken concentration. The roar of engines thundered as a large shadow passed by him.

Steve violently tackled Blackcinders, with Shellgirl and Plato riding upon its shoulders.

Blackcinders’ hands grabbed those of the Steamobile as it pushed her back, both heavenly nearly matched in terms of strength. She opened her mouth in an attempt to blast Steve’s chest, only for Shellgirl to nail her left eye with an artillery piece. It burst open in a shower of blood like a fruit, a wound that drew a scream from the ancient dragon.

Without the heavy gravity pinning them down, Basil and Simeon lunged at Blackcinders from both sides. Both knights struck one of her heels with their weapons.

Supereffective hit!

Though she had weathered the pain without flinching so far, Blackcinders finally stumbled under the strain of constant battle. Plato used the opportunity to leap from Steve’s back to her own. His fur shone with a crimson aura; the same power he had stolen from Blackcinders now let him land a blow on her. “Tiger king to the face!”

Plato rammed Joyeuse through Blackcinders’ skull, right between the eyes.

The dragonslaying blade pierced the wyrm’s scales and gored its way to the brain. Oily blood spilled over Blackcinders’ head. The light within her gullet died out like an extinguished candle.

Supereffective hit!

“Agh… agh… gra…” Blackcinders raised her head and let out a roar of savage pain. “RHARHG!!”

Blackcinders’ screeching wail was followed by a savage thrashing. She first trampled the ground, forcing Basil and Simeon to retreat so as to be crushed underfoot. Then she violently headbutted Steve with all her might. The blow sent Plato flying and tossed Shellgirl off the Steamobile’s shoulder. Blackcinders smashed the Gehenna cannon with her head again and again, cracking Steve’s armor and slowly beating him into submission.

“Rhargh!” She roared, unable to form words in her fury. Gone were the tactics, the cold-blooded focus, and the carefully controlled cruelty. Her mask of control had slipped to reveal the bestial reptile lurking underneath. “Agh! AGH!”

Blackcinders threw Steve back with a violent push, and then threw herself at Basil with berserk rage. He barely managed to leap out of her way as her hands smashed against the ground. Bugsy burrowed out of the moon rocks to throw a magma bomb in her face. Snarling as lava devoured her flesh all the way to the bone, Blackcinders grabbed the volcanipede, lifted him above the ground, and then savagely slammed him against a rock. It mattered not that Bugsy’s blood melted off her flesh on contact. Like a crocodile holding on to a bull even as its horns gored through its scales, she refused to let her prey go.

Basil threw his halberd at Blackcinders’ right hand. His weapon severed it off from the arm, freeing Bugsy from her grasp. The dragon wailed in agony and desperation while a fountain of blood erupted from her wound.

One more! Swiftly summoning his halberd back to his hand, Basil jumped towards Blackcinders’ throat for the final blow. Just one more!

“Graviforce!” Blackcinders roared in her fury.

A wave of power stronger than a hurricane burst from the dragon. The ground split open beneath her feet. Plato, Bugsy, Shellgirl, everyone was blown away. Steve stumbled to the side, nearly crushing Simeon under its weight. Basil himself bounced off a moonstone rock and landed a few feet away from Pluto’s essence.

“Agh… dragons…” Blackcinders rasped as she stumbled to her knees. “Dragons… over all…”

The sight was as terrifying as it was disturbing. Blackcinders was down to one eye, with half her melted skull exposed to the outside world. Wounds cried rivers of blood in a dozen places across her immense body. She gasped for her and threatened to fall over with each step. She was a mangled corpse that refused to die.

And yet she still lumbered after Basil with murder on her mind.

“Dragons…” Energy gathered in Blackcinders’ last hand for a final Big Bang. “Over all…”

She got her wish.

A space ruptured right above Blackcinders head. A circle widened in the very fabric of reality, revealing the colossal shape of a plant dragon and a winged witch riding atop her shoulder.

“Eden Guns!” Rosemarine giggled as she crossed the portal.

In a malicious twist of fate, Blackcinders–who had killed thousands with an orbital weapon–found herself bombarded from above by another dragon. Three beams of magical pollen pierced holes in her back, her neck, and her head. The black wyrm’s body shattered to pieces and violently fell to the ground in a rain of blackened blood.

The skull landed a few feet from Basil. Even in death, Blackcinders’ remaining eye glared at him; so he gouged it out with his halberd.

“That was for Mom,” Basil said. And Benjamin.

Congratulations! Your party earned 18,900,000 EXP (3,150,000 for you). You have earned four levels (total 72). Shellgirl can now undergo her metamorphosis!

Bones rained from the heavens.

Skulls and skeletons suddenly materialized above Blackcinders’ corpse. They fell by the hundreds in a white tide that nearly buried the Bohens. Shattered human skulls, the broken bones of dragons, and the mummified remains of beasts great and small drowned Blackcinders’ corpse under their terrible weight.

How many were there? Basil couldn’t know. Thousands perhaps? They formed a pile, then a mound, then a hill that dwarfed even Steve in height. He thought they would never stop coming; though eventually, they did. Together they formed a ghastly monument of death and destruction. A butcher’s tombstone.

Plato squinted in horror at the sight. “What is that?”

“Her hoard.” Shellgirl spat, her voice dripping with disgust. “A hoard of death.”

In the end, Blackcinders only knew how to kill.

Noticing the hand Basil had severed earlier, Steve crushed it under its wheels with a furious roar. None complained. Though Blackcinders’ bones might have made for good crafting materials, Basil wouldn’t have used them anyway.

The world was better off without any trace of Blackcinders in it.

“Hera’s Grace!” Rosemarine’s body unleashed a green pulse of magic in all directions. Basil’s wounds closed on their own, as did those of his allies.

“Grimalkin Gate,” Vasi told Basil after closing the portal. “Told you I would catch up.”

The Coven Spell? Basil had almost forgotten she could use those. “I thought teleportation effects didn’t work on the moon?”

“I’m not teleporting around, handsome,” Vasi replied with a smirk. “I’m taking a shortcut.”

If only she had been a second quicker… Basil couldn’t help but bit his tongue as he grabbed Pluto’s essence. The black sphere of power was all that remained of Benjamin Leroy.

The man had committed a great many sins. Though he had never pushed the Lunar Cannon’s button, his actions in summoning the Trimurti System to Earth indirectly led to many more deaths than Shumen’s destruction. Benjamin Leroy and his cohort had ruined the world.

And yet… out of all the members of Dismaker Labs, he alone had owned up to his mistakes and tried to rectify them. He had blunted the last Incursion the best he could, worked tirelessly to protect what remained of humanity, and perished with honors saving others from death.

Basil hoped that God would take mercy on him. Perhaps Benjamin Leroy hadn’t earned himself a ticket to Heaven… but hopefully he would avoid the fiery jaws of Hell.

“We need to leave, Ser Bohen,” Simeon warned him. Another earthquake shook the moon while the Lunar Cannon glowed brighter than the stars.

“Yeah,” Basil agreed as he handed the essence to Vasi for safekeeping. He opened his Logs feature to see a message from Neria Elissalde.

NERIA: Basil, we are teleporting you all out. Victory is ours.

BASIL: Neria, Benjamin… he…

NERIA: I know.

Not knowing what else to say, Basil closed his Logs. A red glow surrounded him as the Lunar Cannon imploded on itself. The Unity’s crown jewel detonated in a fiery burst of cosmic power right as the Bohens and their allies teleported away.

They were brought back to Earth in the blink of an eye. The shadow of their artificial Neurotower grew starker as the sky glowed. For a second the moon brightened like the rising sun as a colorful explosion covered part of its surface. From the ground up, it appeared like Earth’s satellite was shedding a tear.

The light expanded and then dissipated. Within a minute, nothing remained. The currents of power and steel structures that once scarred the moon’s surface were gone. The near side was immaculate once again.

The camp erupted in cheers.

Quest: Mooooonwreckers! completed! Your party received 7,630,000 Bonus EXP (1,271,666 for you)! You have earned a level (total 73)! The [Moon Shield] item has been added to your inventory! Bugsy Alphonse Venture can now undergo his final metamorphosis!

Though he couldn’t shake the bittersweet feeling in his mouth, Basil raised his fist and echoed his countrymen’s joy.

The Unity was defeated, and Bulgaria was safe once more.

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