Last Drop of Hope Chapter 18 (Patreon)

Chapter 18: Dead Man’s Duel

Desperately, Aqua put her hands to the dying man’s face. Blood crusted her hands, stained her clothes, even flecked her hair. But she had no time to think, no time to stop. “Heal!”

The man gasped, the gash on his forehead knitting, his severed arm regrowing, his blown off foot reattaching itself. He looked up at her, tears in his eyes, and gave his thanks, his faith, to Aqua.

She had washed away a little of the pain, but there was more. Oh, there was so much more.

“Why does the world have to be such a horrible place?!” Aqua wailed, and scrambled on hands and knees to the next injured that had been brought to the trauma tent. This one was an orc woman, one she didn’t recognize, with her guts spilling out of her, her life hanging by only a thread. “Heal!”

All around Aqua, dozens of injured moaned, and though a steady line of those she had healed was returning to the fight, no matter how fast she worked, no matter how many she restored, there was always more suffering, more pain. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she worked desperately to somehow, against all odds, clear the backlog of injured.

Beside her, several other priests of the Axis Cult, along with medics and doctors trying to triage. Of course, low level priests couldn’t heal multiple trauma patients who were on death’s door. Aqua loved her followers and had faith in them, but there were limits, and thanks to the stupid rules being biased, you didn’t get experience for healing or making art, only dumb fighting. So after only one or two patients, they had to go lay down and sleep for at least half an hour to get enough mana back to hope to heal again.

Tears streaming down her face, Aqua finally stood up, looking to where the battle was going on. She couldn’t see it, they were underground in a bunker, but she could feel it. Sense the people dying, the people screaming in pain, praying to her for help. Feel the sorrow, the rage, the pain. It was too much. She couldn’t just keep healing one person at a time, it wasn’t working!

“I have to stop it, to make them stop!” Aqua growled, and stalked towards the exit of the bunker.

Before she could get there, Megumin was in her way, glaring up at her. “You can’t go outside! You have to stay here, where it’s safe!”

“But they NEED me!” Aqua protested, pointing towards the battle.

“So do they,” Megumin said, pointing back to the mass of injured in the makeshift hospital.

Aqua turned, biting her lip, bouncing on her toes, indecisive. She looked back to Megumin. “But…but we have to stop it! Stop them all! You’re my champion, you could fight too!”

“Much as I’d like to…” Megumin growled, scowling and looking frustrated. “Look, if you die, we’re all dead. My job is to keep you safe! So you stay here, and help!”

“I…I guess…” Aqua said, turning back to the injured, feeling utterly useless. She couldn’t possibly save them all…

Hurrying back, Aqua began to weep uncontrollably, even as she worked at healing those who were injured. Megumin continued to guard the door, along with Komekko, who was sitting miserably on an empty crate, Hoost perched on her head. Yunyun was attempting to help, to Megumin’s frustration, carrying bandages to the nurses and doctors, or doing what she could to comfort the injured.

“Should… should we help?” Komekko asked uncertainly. “They’re Outsiders, but…”

“We are helping,” Megumin assured her. “We’re guarding them. Send Houst out, look for stealthed blackhats. Because if they take out Aqua, this is all pointless. And we can’t be on guard if we’re playing medics.”

“Yeah, I guess. You hear that, Hoost?” Komekko asked, looking up at the bird perched on her forehead.

The big raven bobbed his head, but shifted uneasily from foot to foot, which looked rather odd with him atop his mistress’ head. “Yeah boss, but you see… they’re fightin’ a war out there, you know? A bird could get shot going out there! And me, well, you see, I got this allergy. Pain and suffering just make be break out in hives. Achoo! See, allergies are actin’ up just THINKING about that stuff.”

“Yeah, but I can just summon you if you get killed and you’ll be fine,” Komekko pointed out, frowning up at the raven, which was rubbing his beak with a wing as he faked another sneeze.

“Maybe later, boss. Allergies are just the worst. I think I need some corn and a nap,” Hoost protested.

“Yeah, but if I die, I can’t summon you anymore, and then you won’t exist, right?” Komekko asked, kicking her legs as they dangled against the side of the crate. “So you gotta find the bad guys so my sisters can beat ‘em up.”

“Uh, that is an excellent point, however…”

“If Aqua dies, the corn dies,” Megumin said bluntly.

Hoost immediately spread his wings and took off. “Great grains, why didn’t start with that?! You can count on me, boss! No one is going to get near the Corny Lady!”

Somehow, Hoost managed to salute with one wing while flapping, then headed up out of the bunker.

“You know, when you took Summon Familiar, I didn’t think he’d be that opinionated,” Megumin said, frowning at the glowing purple feathers that floated down in Hoosts wake. When they hit the ground, they dissolved in a flash of violet light, turning into motes of energy that faded away.

“I like him! He’s a nice chicken,” Komekko said happily. Then she frowned. “Wait, what’s Aqua doing?”

“Dammit, what NOW!?” Megumin snarled, turning back around. As she did so, her foot splashed into a puddle, and she looked down to see a glowing blue puddle lapping at her boots. As her gaze slowly swung up, her jaw dropped open.

Aqua was hovering in the center of the room, still weeping uncontrollably. When people said “cry me a river” the expression was usually a metaphor. In Aqua’s case, she had LITERALLY cried enough to create a small river, which was turning into a lake. At first, Megumin panicked, thinking that the injured soldiers were going to drown. A closer look, however, showed that anyone the glowing water touched was soon back on their feet, even the corpses. Wounds were being knitted shut before her eyes, and the blood and mess of the wounded was being washed away in the tears of a goddess.

“Um, um,” Yunyun said, frantically looking around as the room slowly flooded. “Do we…do we stop her?”

“Why?” Megumin asked with a shrug. “It’s doing what we wanted her to do.”

Hopping down off the crate, Komekko stuck a finger in the water, then put it to her lips, to her elder sisters’ horror. “KOMEKKO!”

“What? It’s sweet! Try some,” Komekko suggested and held up her finger that was dripping tears.

“That can’t be sanitary!” Megumin said, pushing Komekko’s hand down and feeling faintly ill. “Tears are salty and stuff.”

“A-and all the other stuff, l-like the blood,” Yunyun hastily added, taking out her canteen and offering it to Komekko. “Rinse your mouth out!”

“But Aqua purifies stuff. It’s just water,” Komekko said but took a swig from the canteen anyway.

“Weird that we got used to drinking that, I guess,” Megumin agreed.

As they chatted, Aqua slowly stopped crying, seeming to cheer up out of the blue. She smiled around at the various people kneeling in the water before her. “Thanks for all the prayers! I see everyone’s feeling better now, so I don’t have to be sad! Now we can-”

The ground suddenly trembled, and Megumin cried out as the lights flickered, a deep roar shaking the room.

“W-what was that?!” Aqua gasped, looking about in panic. Behind her, Megumin noticed that water continued to pour out, apparently from the air. Had Aqua just cried so hard she created a fountain? And when would it run out?

“Artillery shell,” one of the veterans grunted as he got to his feet. “Must have been a stray shot, we-”

The earth bucked and heaved again, and Aqua let out a wail of despair. Then a continuous roar as the ceiling above them shuddered.

“W-what’s happening?!” Aqua blubbered, already crying again, though not to the same extent.

“They’ve zeroed in on you,” Megumin said grimly, drawing Gram and facing towards the exit. “And they’re trying to pin us.”

It had been a long time since Beldia had waged a proper war. For over a hundred years, he’d been ensconced in his fortress, not doing much of anything aside from exploring his endless collection of porn and finding new women to ogle. Even that, however, got old, especially when he couldn’t actually do anything. The urge remained, but there was no equipment. And with no mana, he couldn’t even torture and enslave them and raise them as Death Knights, so what was even the point?

But war…war was what Beldia had been raised for. He had been a knight in life, and while he had been executed for raping the wrong woman, he really should have just stuck to lowborns instead of a noblewoman, he had been one of the kingdom’s best generals in life. Those skills had transferred, and once the Devil King had brought him back in unlife, Belida had been a major force in slaying the gods and bringing about the dark triumph.

And not just because he was a terrifying force on the battlefield personally. Oh no. Belida understood how to fight.

And he’d kept up with things. Tanks and blackhat teams were different from knights and sorcerers, but it all boiled down to the same thing: Logistics, positioning, and morale.

Right now, he was beat on the morale front. His troops were aggressive, trained, and well equipped, yes, but they were largely green. The other side wasn’t composed of veterans either, but they were the Axis Cult, and the Axis Cult didn’t break. The battle had also started with his forces in a horrendous position. He had a long grind ahead of him if he played according to their rules, one that involved assaulting an entrenched position. He could wait for Hans to join in, but where was the fun in that?

So, he probed. He baited, he waited. And after a couple of hours, he found his point of attack.

One of Wiz’s flanks had held a little too well, and a pocket had developed. Beldia had tried falling back, but they refused to budge at first. Then, he’d made gains in the center and turned to cut off and envelop the pocket. That had resulted in Wiz rushing to save her troops, tender heart that she was. It had been a mistake. Her pocket could have held for a while, but Beldia was now giving the Wiz troops that had tried to advance to rescue their comrades a thorough drubbing.

And then he’d sensed it. The mana. The power. The sheer, unparalleled might of a Senior Goddess, using her powers in a completely unrestrained fashion. Aqua. She was even more foolish than Wiz when it came to war; she should have been much, much further back. Beldia focused all his energy, all his troops, on getting to Aqua. His superior gear and numbers punched through the center that had been weakened to reinforce the flank, and he began a great slaughter.

His troops were more mobile, so he was able to advance quickly, leapfrogging over lines of defense, and then doubling back to pick off pockets of resistance. All of it was focused on one thing: Getting to that accursed goddess. It was working, too. He had her pinned down now with a sustained barrage of artillery, and his troops were getting to striking range. For now, however…

Gathering up the ambient mana, Beldia grinned, his once nearly emptied reserves swelling to nearly full. He gestured to the corpses of his fallen troops and bid them rise. With a moan and a clatter of bone, zombies, wights, skeletons, and even a bodak, rose at his command. He pointed his blade, and they shambled forward, the endless ranks of the dead.

“All too easy,” Beldia chuckled, resting his blade on his shoulder.

He wasn’t interested in killing Aqua. Clearly, he needed to capture her. Yes, covering the world in an undead nightmare was nice, but he needed a private game reserve of humans. There would normally be the danger of Aqua killing him, she was easily capable of that, but he had living minions aplenty. He’d figure out how Sylvia and Wiz had kept the goddess chained, and do the same.

Perhaps every few centuries he’d let her out and have a proper war. He looked out across the smoky haze of the undercity and watched as a pair of hover tanks ambushed a column of ShopWiz armor. Despite their inferior numbers, their maneuverability and firepower overwhelmed the ShopWiz forces in short order. They left only burning wreckage behind him, and Beldia grinned.

“Glorious.”

Laughing, Belida strolled towards the opposite flank. He had no desire to get any closer to Aqua: He had mortal pawns for that. Wiz was now trapped in that pocket, and Beldia also didn’t feel the need to face her. It was unlikely she could kill him, she was the Ice Witch, not the Water Witch, but again, why take the risk? A little action was one thing, get the old ichor flowing. But he’d been alive for almost a millennia. No reason to end the streak now.

He found his troops besieging a small water treatment plant, or what had been one. Ironic, that. Ah well, he’d made damn sure there was no real running water here, so no danger to him.

“C-CEO Belida!? W-we weren’t expecting you, sir!” one of the nameless goons he employed stammered, the man nervously saluting.

“What seems to be the problem, Captain?” Beldia said, eyeing the improvised fortification ahead of them.

“Well sir, um, we were making headway, until…” the officer wilted further, and Belida turned his head towards the man, his baleful gaze causing the man to pale.

“Until…what?”

“Well sir…t-three of the Axel Security officers, including Chief Swatti…they, um…”

Beldia stomped forward, his head rotating in the tank at the center of his metal body until it glared down at the gnat of a human. “They what?”

“They…betrayed us, sir. Switched sides…w-we’ve attacked three times, but she has Ford and Shin in there!”

“Ford and Shin,” Beldia murmured, turning away. “Ah, yes. The two curvy female officers. They were supposed to be that ugly sow’s finest.”

“They, uh, they are, sir. Don’t know how they didn’t become blackhats,” the captain admitted, swallowing nervously. “Well get them out, don’t worry.”

“You failed me, Captain,” Beldia said absently.  With a casual swipe of his sword, he cut the man’s head off. “There’s a price for that.”

The man slumped to the ground, but before he even hit the dirt, he was already picking his head up, the eyes now glowing with a red light. “Fortunately, I am merciful. Gather your men. I haven’t gotten a decent workout in ages.”

Casually, Beldia began to stroll towards the Axis strongpoint. As he got closer, small caliber rounds began to ping off his armor, then an RPG. He snorted. He was made of Adamantium now, and essentially immune to any weaponry. Nothing short of a thermobaric bomb could stop him, and he’d likely survive that too.

Then the first fireball impacted him, and Beldia laughed. “Yes, yes, that’s more like it! Come at me! You don’t even understand what immunity to mid-level spells is, do you?! I can’t even feel that!”

Then a beam of blue light stabbed out, and he grunted. That burning sensation, the icy pain… oh, it had been so very, very long since he’d felt that. He didn’t like it, didn’t enjoy it, but it was the price of doing business. “Axis. I’m going to enjoy slaughtering you.”

The priest he faced was apparently almost mid-level, judging by their output of holy energy. Then again, they could just be an extra fanatical one. Priest’s strength was almost directly tied to their faith and the power of their patron more than their own ability, which was asinine. Aqua’s faithful had always been extra annoying, as her primary domains were Water and Healing, both of which were especially effective against the undead, enough to bypass his damage reduction and immunities.

Still, they’d need a dozen or more priests of that level to harm him, or one of the proper lineage. She’d run out of faith soon enough.

More rockets, Molotov cocktails, wind blades, and bullets bounced off Beldia, but it was the few stray Turn Undead spells that actually hurt him. Still, even at his slow pace, his large strides ate up the ground, and he was there in less than a minute. He opened up with his minigun when he was inside a dozen paces, far closer than needed, but he wanted to savor the screams.

He hosed down the building, cackling as the walls crumbled at the assault of his tungsten rounds. He fired off a few rockets as well, just for flavor, and the front of the building collapsed. He grinned, at first, then frowned. He couldn’t sense any death. Actually, he sensed…

The dust began to settle, and a white light blazed through. A giant figure in dark armor, with the Nytetech symbols defaced, and the seven-spoked wheel of the Axis drawn in their place, stood before Beldia, shield raised. They were panting hard, but their Sanctuary spell had been powerful. Too powerful for merely mundane ammunition.

Beldia slowly raised his cannon as the barrels spun down. “Impressive. Who are you, warrior?”

Shield held high, the figure took a step forward, drawing an axe that blazed with a holy aura. “I am Lalatina Ford Dustiness. And you shall harm no one else here, monster.”

Fear gripped what was left of Beldia’s heart, and he took half a step back. A high noble, here?! That was impossible! He’d wiped out the bloodlines ages ago! Now that he was looking, he could sense powerful artifacts present, which explained the Sanctuary spell.

Then he saw she was bleeding, her armor cracked, with several holes in it. The fool was barely on her feet. A high noble name, but the blood was weak, thin. She couldn’t be more than level three. This would be a slaughter.

“Well. A worthy fight at last.” Beldia detached his cannon and tossed it to the side. He drew his black blade again and pointed it at the woman. “Come, knight. Face me, and die.”

The crack of a pistol sounded, and Beldia almost laughed. That couldn’t possibly-

The glass around his head cracked as a round hit it. That should have been impossible. Calling it glass was an understatement: It was made of the heart of an ice dragon, a substance so durable it had lasted for centuries after the last dragon had been slain. Forged by Beldia himself, it was imbued with so many layers of protective magic that nothing, especially not a low caliber pistol shot, should have been able to harm it.

“She won’t fight alone,” a second voice called, and another woman in armor and wielding two pistols stepped around her companion. “I am Claire Symphonia. And you die here and now, Beldia!”

Two. Two high nobles. And an Axis Priestess. Beldia should have run, retreated, let his minions handle this.

Instead, he laughed and spread his arms wide in welcome and exaltation. “Finally! A worthy challenge! Our battle shall be the last great conflict of this age! Come, heroes! Come and break yourselves upon my blade! Your ancestors tried me, and I found them lacking! COME AND FACE THE ALL SEEING EYE OF DEATH!”

With a roar, Beldia charged, and the two nobles leapt forward to face him.

“Reinforce!” Tina cried out, even as the black blade descended towards her shield. She only knew a handful of spells, none of them offensively oriented. That suited her fine. Claire was her sword, she the shield. Her shield glowed with power, but when the dark sword of the cyborg monstrosity struck, the metal squealed, and a large cut bit into the top of the shield.

With a grunt, Tina twisted it, trying to wrench the sword away from Beldia, but it was no use. Despite her strength and all the long hours of training she’d endured, despite even the sudden surge of power she’d felt ever since she foreswore herself and became a Crusader, she could have no more budged the hilt in Beldia’s one-handed grip than she could have held up the sky.

Still, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t the sword. She was the distraction.

“TURN UNDEAD!” Cecily shrieked, and the blue blaze of her spell struck Beldia square in the chest, where the malevolent head floated.

“DEADEYE!” Claire’s pistols cracked in rapid succession, and while sparks and chunks of glass sprayed from Beldia, he was undeterred.

“Is that all?” the CEO laughed. With a flick of his wrist, he sent Darkness tumbling away, her shield ripped from her hands. She barely avoided bowling over Cecily, managing to tumble back to her feet.

As she did so, she felt a rising sense of horror and looked up to see Claire desperately backing away, her guns firing faster than should have been possible, and putting out more rounds than they could have reasonably held. They did nothing to slow Beldia’s sudden surge of motion, and his black sword flickered out, striking at Claire with speed that defied the CEOs bulk.

“INTERCEPT!” Tina wailed, and she was hurled across the battlefield faster than she could blink, barely interposing her fire axe between that terrible blade and Claire’s guts. She didn’t try a direct block, instead chopping at the blade as though it were a tree with all her might. Her swing managed to drive the sword point down and away from Claire, who rolled out of the way.

Somehow, Claire managed to reload during the roll, and she came back up, guns blazing.

Even so, Tina was fighting for her life. She had only her axe now, and the fall of Beldia’s blade was relentless. She hacked it away from herself with desperate ferocity, the steel ringing like a bell as it struck at that terrible midnight sword.

Beldia was clearly not even trying, coming at Tina with lazy swings that nonetheless were both deadly accurate and impossibly strong. Even with all her might, she was barely holding him off, desperate to buy just a few more seconds for Cecily and Claire to whittle the monster down.

Another spell splashed off Beldia, rounds sparking off his armor and head case. Backpedaling, Tina tried to steer Beldia away from her allies, but she was doing too much at once. She tripped over something, a rock, a crater, a fallen body part, she didn’t see. It did have the one saving grace of causing Beldia’s latest stroke to go wide, but she landed on her back, hard, the scream of Claire ringing in her ears.

The first stroke fell upon Tina like an avalanche, and she flung herself to the side, desperately rolling out of the way. But despite the force of the assault, Belida recovered too quickly, the sword coming down again, and Tina couldn’t arrest her motion fast enough to prevent herself from rolling right into it.

She thought she was dead, until two shapes hurtled in, crashing into Beldia with a roar of “AXIS!”

Beldia staggered back, and a shotgun roared as Chief Swatti unloaded at point-blank range. Her daughter hacked away with a heavy combat machete, the kind blackhats used to carve one another out of power armor. The two orcs' assault was relentless, ferocious, and perfectly coordinated. They even attached two charges to Beldia, then jumped back, as a giant explosion went off, tossing Tina up in the air and back.

“You OK, kid?” Swatti asked, landing beside Tina and dragging her up to her feet.

“Fine, is he-” Tina gasped.

“Not dead, get ready to-”

Whatever Swatti had been going to say was cut off as a black blade rammed itself through her gut. She vomited black blood, then was picked up and flung away by the sword, her body ragdolling through the air until it slammed into the wall of the building behind them two stories up, then tumbled down.

“MOTHER!” Brunhilda screamed. “NO!”

She attempted to charge again, only for Beldia’s sword to sweep through the air, neatly bisecting her, the top of the line blackhat armor offering no more resistance than tin foil. The two halves of her body tumbled past Beldia, leaving a spray of gore and guts in their wake.

“Tch. Pathetic,” Beldia sneered, casually flicking his blade to the side, the blood on it leaving a wide spatter on Tina’s armor. “Low-level monsters have no place in a duel of this caliber. Now, shall we continue?”

Bending down, Darkness picked up her fallen Chief’s shotgun and hefted it. It still held a couple rounds. She was breathing hard, and looked over to Claire, who looked shaken. Cecily was kneeling on the ground, a dazed and vacant expression on her face, hands pressed together in prayer as tears slipped down her cheeks.

“Ah, a pity. It seems your priest wasn’t able to keep up. Mind Down is a terrible condition to have. Oh well, she won’t have to worry about the headache that comes from it. She’ll be dead in a few minutes. But you two…you’re high nobles. Surely that’s not all you’ve got?” Beldia cackled.

In response, Darkness numbly raised her gun and fired. She’d been aiming for the leering head, but as always, her aim was off. Her round pinged off his chest armor, though really, it probably didn’t matter. “Go to hell.”

“Ah, but my dear, I am in hell. Don’t you see? I RULE HERE!” Beldia declared, raising his hands up to the heavens.

Which was when the ceiling exploded, and a great boulder crashed down, slamming into Beldia, as a fiery streak screamed down towards Tina.