Chapter 1234 – The Fate of Another Kingdom 20 – Tyrant’s Fate
It was not looking good for John.
It was not looking good at all.
His HP down to 20%, a loss of another 5% of the total despite his absurdly increased mana regeneration. Minutes ago, Arkeidos had caught onto the fact that the earlier attack was just bravado. Since then, their game of cat and mouse had continued.
To make matters worse, the tyrant had caught the Mandala Sphere. “An impressive tool. I would love to study its designs,” he stated, while the many tentacles of the Extension struck his surface without effect. Holding it by the core, the tyrant still stood atop the kraken horror’s head. “I will glean what I can from its wreck.”
Arkeidos crushed the heart of the Mandala Sphere in his hand. Arcane light exploded outwards, parting the fingers slightly for one moment, before his grip loosened deliberately and he threw the lifeless object before John’s feet. It clacked and bounced; the tendrils motionless on the floor. ‘Scarlett is going to kill me,’ John thought and raised his eyes to the horrific monster and his steed, approaching him rapidly. ‘Not that I’ll have to worry about that at this rate...’ He grinned wildly, embracing the fight for his life in all its seriousness.
The absence of additional bodies made him feel vulnerable, like he was missing entire limbs, yet it also allowed him to laser focus. Where speed of body and strength of limb failed him, the Gamer could always count on the quickness of his mind. Leveraging his abilities to the maximum, that was how he faced every challenge.
‘I have two more minutes,’ John thought. That was a lot of time in combat terms, yet barely any time at all realistically. Metra, Apotheosis, and the maids all seemed to do well, but what was that worth really if they won and then couldn’t reach him? Aclysia and Beatrice could teleport to him, that was all he had. When the Overclock ran out, he would no longer have the mana to sustain the elementals.
All of it was worthless anyways if they ended up giving Arkeidos’ other bodies the time to restore themselves and then help out this main one.
Magus Step was once again the lifesaver. Any gamer would have complained about how broken an instant teleport on a low cooldown was. Arkeidos was too much of a godlike tyrant to care about such balance concerns, as he brought around the kraken horror.
It happened faster than John could run and faster than Magus Step came off cooldown. The shark-like jaw of the horrific creature closed around him. Sharp teeth rammed against Particle Skin and diminished his MP swiftly.
Just as the teeth started to cut into his HP, Magus Step became available again. Immediately, John teleported out. Anywhere was better than in the maw of the beast, but he was now right before its claws. Behind him, having predicted the Gamer’s move, landed Arkeidos.
Stuck between a tyrant and his steed, John went to face the weaker of the two opponents and ran towards the kraken horror. The tentacles writhed in all their shrivelled, disgusting mass. Arkeidos’ steps beat after John.
Then a surprised grunt.
A gargling scream.
John did not dare check what was happening, as the kraken horror moved up and over him. Taking the created path, desperation overpowering scepticism, John kept on running until he had a Magus Step stack build back up. Only then did he dare to turn around and check.
Arkeidos was blocking a strike from the eldritch beast. With hatred, it gurgled. Hatred that turned into a submissively lowered head, once Arkeidos sent a bolt of necromantic energy into the beast’s head. Barely had the body language of the creature started to relax when Arkeidos’ concentration was disturbed by a series of memories blasting out of his insides.
‘Apotheosis,’ John realized and continued walking backwards. Metra had won, Apotheosis was winning, the maids were pushing their own advantage created by the rebound. John watched from a distance while Arkeidos struggled repeatedly, not just to keep control of his body but the beast before him on a leash.
John regenerated his mana at a distance and waited for the inevitable. The display of his sins concluded, then green, blue, and purple exploded from him in quick succession. Red was delayed. That only left gold. ‘What happened to Jane?’ John was immediately worried.
There wasn’t much of an opportunity to stay worried. “Truly capable!” Arkeidos thundered, jumping back onto the head of the beast. In his hand appeared the mace that he had dismissed to fight the maids earlier.
Two of which appeared by his side just as the Emperor charged at him. “”We’re here, Master!”” the two draconic women announced, ice and lightning playing around them. Immediately, they charged towards Arkeidos.
‘Apotheosis, come he-‘ John ordered.
‘No, I will watch this play out,’ the five-type Combination responded with sadistic glee. ‘Surely you can survive the little bit of time I have left? I tasted his sin to sustain myself and it aided you plenty.’
It absolutely did, yet John could not help but shout in his mind. ‘Fucking rebel mechanics!’
Arkeidos aimed his mace once again, to be immediately struck by a prismatic javelin. “All that’s... great...” he pushed out as he forced wind magic to stabilize his fall once again.
“SILENCE!”
The absolute command of the Horned Rat broke the howl of wind and the network of all thoughts. John glanced to the side, seeing the god and Lydia step out from a corridor that was impossibly adjacent to the tower. Without hesitation, the queen leapt after her beloved and the Horned Rat followed.
John was not sure if that was advisable, especially as sound returned to the world. In the seconds that passed before it did, he could look around. Falling at numerous distances besides and above him were his allies and loves. Metra, Lydia, Aclysia, Beatrice, the Horned Rat, Eliana, Lydia, they were only the first to arrive.
“All that’s great...” Arkeidos channelled his power once again. The mist exuded by his soul flickered like a dying candle, then exploded with the determination of the undying spirit.
“Silence!”
The command of the Horned Rat carried less weight this time around, even the god must have known some limits. Arkeidos’ concentration was impeded, his words slow. “Stems... from...th-“ With no warning and an alien aura, Nia appeared before the chanting tyrant and rammed her sword into his chest. Part of the spellwork was eliminated, then she vanished again, his mace cutting through the air. “...Stems from...!” Arkeidos managed to cling onto much of what he had already woven, his mace pointed at one of the walls of the tower. “...the powerful’s misery!”
A little piece of hell was once again manifested in the world as a torrent of wailing faces and crimson fire. Terrible as it was to behold, intimidating as the heat was, John stared confused at how completely it missed not only him, but the numerous other people that were falling with him. In black feathers, he found the answers. Nightingale flew with them towards the end of it all.
An approaching silver light illuminated the inside of the tower completely. Whether it was that or the Emperor’s willpower that tore through the illusion the goddess of night had put upon him, Arkeidos screamed with a mixture of emotion that was unclear. Joy, rage, desperation, injured pride, gratitude, it was impossible to pin down what was the dominant one.
His mist burned down to black smoke that pitifully trailed behind him, Arkeidos mustered what little power remained to fly straight at John. The blades of the mace all returned to their original colour, no mana for fancy tricks remaining inside its wielder. Similarly, no one was close enough to John to immediately help him, not even those with wings trying to catch up desperately.
“CAN YOU SURVIVE FIFTEEN MINUTES WITHOUT ME AROUND?!” Momo shouted, as she met him from below, ripping him to the side before Arkeidos’ mace crashed into him.
“I COULD TRY!” he screamed back over the howling wind.
“THEN TRY!” Arkeidos demanded, chasing after them. Momo flew the two of them off to the side, where she, just like John, spotted another one of the corridors. Rave and Moira stood there, the former grabbing the latter as they all descended, claimed by this extreme pull downwards. Some distant protesting noises reached John’s ears, as Moira was whirled around thrice and then thrown between the Gamer and Arkeidos.
The sacred shield Gaia had bestowed upon the Warden’s line served its purpose once more as it blocked a descending strike that would have caught John and Momo.
Finally, they sailed past the base of the pillar and reached where the first dome had been. At the extreme speed they were falling, John only had a few seconds to look around a battlefield dominated by his coalition. They cheered and they had plenty of reason to.
Finally, those that could manoeuvre in flight had consolidated around John and brought those that couldn’t with them. As one cluster, the Gamer’s allies blocked every desperate attempt Arkeidos made on his life and retaliated with sword, fist, magic and skill. What the allies and the remaining Ironborn saw was a near beaten Emperor and the victorious elites of their side.
What followed behind them was a falling star of silver.
At the end of the Secret of Mana Overclock, one Skyfall could be used for free. It was as if all of the mana expended in the past ten minutes was all spent for this one spell and if it had been summoned with a ten-minute delay. It was a cataclysmic event waiting to happen.
“PROTECT YOURSELF!” John shouted at the Horned Rat and Nightingale, the two in this falling party that did not have friendly fire protection. Down below, the end of their trip came into view: a cracked black sphere connected to, or originating, the Eternal Iron veins that fed the pillar above.
Unable to even fly, Arkeidos fell below all of them. Faster than they all fell, the Skyfall overtook them as the tyrant passed the outer edges of the orb’s valley.
John felt like time slowed down. As if the sheer power of the arcane explosion was warping the laws of physics around it. The Skyfall slammed down right at the middle of the sphere. The force was contained between the jagged walls for a moment. Then, the fractures started to spread. Like crystal was prone to, once the first crack showed, a spiderweb of them showed. Souls cascaded out, found a rapid end in the silver that swallowed them. The silver that swallowed Arkeidos’ final armour, as the last semblances of energy left it.
Then, time returned to normal. The massive explosion shook the absurdly enormous cave, set loose dripstone that had been solid for decades, blasted away stone and metal that hung between massive pillars and some of the pillars themselves. The force of the impact created winds that pushed everyone back up the shaft for several metres.
Before they fell again, at a normal speed.