Chapter 158 (Patreon)

Searing pain exploded in Zac’s chest as a blade pushed into it. He was out of defensive charges from his gear, instead had to settle for desperately moving his torso slightly to avoid getting his heart skewered. The blade still slid in between two of his ribs, and he was seriously wounded though he avoided any lethal damage.

Cosmic energy started gathering as various thoughts were flashing through his head. Were the demons finally making a move on him? Did Ogras’ injuries make him impatient to seize control? Or was Janos just going rogue, just like Namys?

Zac coughed up a mouthful of blood as he scrambled to his feet, but the piercing sound of a sniper rifle made him quickly throw himself on the ground again, the wounds in his body only worsening. His vision was swimming but he desperately looked around to see what was going on.

Janos stood in front of him with a confused look on his face as he looked down at a large hole in his chest that was gushing torrential amounts of blood. Soon after the demon collapsed right next to him. Zac quickly looked to the origin of the sound and found Sap Trang rushing toward him with a determined expression, a smoking sniper rifle in his hand.

Each breath was torture, but Zac forced himself up again, and quickly took out one of his healing pills. It might not work against the miasma in his old wound, but at least it should help against his chest wound. He quickly swallowed it with a shaking hand as he brought out his axe with a somber expression.

The commotion caused both demons and humans to look over, and scene with a dead Janos and heavily bleeding Zac caused widespread confusion. The Valkyries scrambled to create some distance from the demonic warriors, while the demons confusedly looked at each other, hesitating what to do.

It didn’t take long before Alea rushed up toward Zac, but she was stopped by a huge fractal edge being directed at her.

“Stay back,” Zac coughed with a grim expression, blood still flowing down his mouth and from his wounded lungs.

Sap didn’t hesitate either, but pointed his reloaded gun at the poison mistress, all the while warily scouting the vicinity.  Alea looked startled but immediately moved back a bit with some sadness in her eyes. Ogras himself was still suspiciously absent, and Zac couldn’t spot him at either the battlefield or amongst the defending army.

A warm glow gathered in Zac’s chest and he took a few more ragged breaths as the pill worked its magic. However, he didn’t have time to really rest up as Janos' body bloated up and with an explosion of golden flames erupted into an inferno right next to him. Zac quickly grabbed Sap and flashed away with the help of [Loamwalker].

However, just as he reappeared some distance away another sense of impending doom rattled his mind, and he quickly threw himself and Sap to the ground. A freezing chill erupted in his legs, and he quickly looked down to find it skewered by a black icicle. His whole leg was turning completely numb from the frigid spike, and he wasn’t even able to extract it as it had completely frozen the area of his thigh.

With a groan he got back to his feet, ignoring the pain in his leg, and with mad swings intercepted a storm of small icicles following the large one. Zac looked around and finally found the source of the attacks. It was the rockman leader who Ogras helped him escape from earlier.

It looked like he was trying to fish in muddy waters and take advantage of the fact that the other two leaders were dead or gone from the island. However, while Zac was caught unaware by Janos’ betrayal he was in far better condition right now compared to when they met last time.

He had absorbed quite a bit of energy from the Crystals by now and could manage a short battle even with his wounded chest.

Zac unhesitantly pushed forward with [Loamwalker] and appeared right in front of the surprised golem leader with his axe mid-swing. However, the leader was a veteran fighter, and a thick wall of black ice materialized out of nowhere to intercept Zac’s strike.

A powerful shockwave erupted from the impact, and Zac had to grit his teeth together to net let out a whimper from the pain. His swings carried a tremendous amount of force, and the shockwaves only made his wounds worse.

A great boom resounded in the air, and a chunk of the rockman’s side was blasted away, causing blue blood to paint the ground. It was Sap Trang who had timed his shot perfectly with when Zac’s swing destroyed the ice wall. The leader managed to react fast enough to avoid his chest getting blasted open, but at least it wounded him. Thankfully this boss wasn’t able to completely stop the bullets like the Corpse Lord was.

The rockman roared and suddenly the area started trembling. Zac felt a new sense of danger as he saw the area rapidly freeze.

“Run!” he shouted as he activated his movement skill, deftly dodging an ice spear that followed by a veritable torrent of attacks that flew in all directions.

Zac’s shout had warned quite a few, but a few Zhix, Valkyries and demons were caught in the large ice storm the rockman created. Even the demon warriors caught inside soon succumbed after desperately having defended against the onslaught of ice spears from above and earthen stalactites from below. In just a few seconds the whole area was transformed into a confusing mess of icicles, ice walls, and jagged rocks.

Zac was forced to keep moving about using his movement skill, while wildly waving his axe to destroy the projectiles that kept whirling toward him. But the projectiles were in the hundreds, and he couldn't destroy them all.

Luckily the power of each individual projectile was limited, and with his Endurance they only created shallow flesh wounds. However, whenever an icicle hit the new wound on his chest or the festering one on his side he almost keeled over from the pain.

And it was at exactly one such time that the rockman suddenly re-emerged right behind Zac, giving him an acute sense of danger. He lifted his axe to try to parry whatever the rockman had planned, but suddenly a few spikes materialized around the two, and unerringly slammed into various spots of the Rockman.

The leader wailed in pain, and Zac took the opportunity to swiftly decapitate the man with a horizontal swing. A huge surge of Cosmic Energy entered his body, but Zac didn’t care about any of that. He quickly looked around and saw a grisly scene.

Alea stood some distance away, covered in blood from head to toe. She was impaled in three spots by frozen stalactites, and her whole body was heavily wounded from the uncountable small icicles that were rotating in the air. She had a strong constitution in order to handle her poisons, but not to the point she could shrug off attacks as Zac did.

Their eyes met and Alea gave a small smile before her eyes rolled up and she collapsed on the floor. Zac didn’t hesitate, but instantly moved to her side with [Loamwalker and scooped her up in his arms.

Since the Rockman was dead the ice storm ended, but the huge ice walls and rocky formations that trapped him were still there, forcing him to run through the maze.

If he was alone he might have just punched his way through or jumped over the obstacles, but with the Alea's wounds he didn’t dare to do anything so drastic.

As he ran he suddenly heard the familiar unfeeling voice.

[Mission Complete. Calculating Grade. Grade: B. Adding 4 hours of Contribution gathering. Incursions close in 30 minutes. Contribution store remaining time: 24 hours.]

It was the first time Zac actually heard the System’s voice when he completed a quest. Usually there were just prompts that showed his progress. He briefly wondered if there was some special reason for this, but he didn’t have time to mull it over as he was out of the icefield.

Zac and found himself close to the back of the battlefield. Most of the demons were still focusing on keeping the Zombies at bay, but a small defensive perimeter had also been created with a dozen demons standing prepared at the edge of the frozen field. Sap was standing next to them looking fidgety.

“Young man, are you alright?” Sap shouted as he ran up to Zac as soon as he emerged from behind a protruding rock.

The old fisherman was still carrying the sniper rifle around, warily looking down at Alea in Zac’s arms.

“Did you..?” he hesitantly said, seemingly afraid to continue.

A few demons were warily looking at him as well, their eyes darting between Zac’s face and the unconscious and bloodied demon general in his arms.

“Don’t look at me, look at the Zombies. Alea risked her life to save me, and thanks to her the last of the enemy leaders is dead,” Zac said with a hoarse voice as he carefully put her down and fed her a healing pill.

The demons relaxed somewhat then they saw the pill Zac fed her. It came from Rydel’s Cosmos Sack and was a well known top tier pill in the demonic factions.

“The quest is completed, the final leader is dead. You have four more hours to rack up as much Contribution Points as you can, but after that you won’t gain any anymore. You have another 20 hours to buy from the Contribution Store before it disappears as well,” Zac said. “The Incursions will close in 30 minutes. That means that the rockmen and the remaining Zealots will likely flee.”

He wasn't sure about the last statement, but he hadn't seen either since he returned from the wall. The rockmen had taken significant losses earlier, and they were also the force closest to the Undead incursion. Zac doubted they would be a problem, since they should have their hands full.

He was more worried about the zealots, as they didn't seem the type to just give up in the face of death from what he'd read about them. Crazed fanatics rarely took the most logical actions. But they were also missing, which was fine with Zac for now, as he needed to rest and Ogras was missing.

The demons looked ecstatic at the news and started to fight the endless undead with newfound vigor. With all three of the powerhouses gone the war was essentially over. There were some weird things going on, such as the betrayal of Janos and the absence of Ogras, but that could wait for at least four hours. Now it was time to reap some benefits.

Zac let two of the non-combat demons carry the unconscious Alea away, and sat down again with a sigh.

“Thank you for your help today. You have made huge contributions to Port Atwood in this quest. You don’t need to stand guard, go kill some zombies. They will give you a great boost in experience,” Zac said as he looked up to the old fisherman with his rifle.

“Young man, everything might not be as they seem. Those flames that the mute demon exploded into? They were the very same ones all the lizardman Zealots used. I lost sight of Janos as we fled back toward the wall, and he might have been replaced somehow,” Mr. Trang said after some hesitation.

Zac looked over surprised at the old fisherman who only shrugged his shoulders indicating he didn’t know. Zac could only pray that what the old man said was true, but for now there was no way to confirm it.

Soon Mr. Trang sped off without another word, putting the rifle into a Cosmos Sack. Left alone Zac once again started to focus on recovery, though this time he didn’t dare close his eyes. Instead, he kept vigil over his surroundings as he circulated the Dao of Trees.

He was still mentally wrung out from the battle with the Undead Lord, but he needed to do something to stabilize the wound in his side, even if his head was pounding. At least it seemed the Dao of Trees didn’t take much mental strength to passively circulate through the body, and the effects were noticeable.

As Zac sat down he opened his quest panel, and a wave of relief hit him as he looked over his quest.

Incursion Master (Unique) [COMPLETE]: Close or conquer incursion and protect Town from denizens or forces of other alignments for 3 months. Reward: Limited Structure depending on Grade, Town upgraded to Global City, status upgraded to Lord. Road to Hegemony opened. (3/3) [00:23:58:03] [00:03:58:03].

The quest was really complete. It was a quest he’d had in his quest menu for almost five months, and it was finally done with. Zac took a deep breath and looked up at the skies. 

There wasn’t any great joy in him from the huge accomplishment. Of course he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to keep fighting the waves anymore. But rather being excited about the rewards, he was excited about something else.

He could finally, and without worries, go about finding his sister.