Chapter 58: Man vs Chase

Their pursuers caught up to them in the late afternoon.

Basil heard them coming long before they actually arrived. The rumbling noise of thundering war drums and the howl of wind instruments announced their arrival. Disturbed birds flew from the east, giving the party an advance warning.

It’s not the best battlefield I could ask for. Basil checked the terrain one last time. A broad, shallow valley opened up before him. Alien wildflowers grew under the shade of stony hillsides. The steep slopes of a narrow pass rose a few kilometers away, its width barely large enough to let the Steamobile through. The road should join up to the national highway beyond this point, which would give Basil’s crew more space to maneuver. The pass will be the hardest part.

The rest of his team had taken up positions. Vasi flew on her broomstick to secure the sky and Plato hid under the cover of invisibility to act as an ace-in-the-hold. Bugsy and Shellgirl remained inside to manage the Steamobile's howitzer, with a crew of Fire Seeds occupying the vehicle’s windows with Kalashnikovs. Basil didn’t put much weight on the low-level plants’ accuracy, but they could at least provide suppressive fire.

As for Basil himself, he rode Rosemarine with an entire arsenal stored inside his inventory and the bloodlust to make full use of it.

“Here they come, Basil!” Vasi warned from above. “From our right!”

“How many of them?!” he shouted back.

“A dozen!” So not the entire force. “They have fliers!”

As if on cue, their opponents showed up under the alien sky.

A squad of five winged white horses flew over the valley. A warrior in stylized armor mixing Greek hoplite and knightly aesthetics rode each of the pegasi; all of them wielded spears and javelins. A squad of centaurs rode under them with great longbows, their hooves crushing wildflowers as they stomped their way into the valley. Their fur was black as coal and their faces hidden behind red helmets.

Sagitarius

Level 18 [Beast/Humanoid]

Faction: Metal Olympus (Amnisiades)

The Pegasus riders, meanwhile, all had class levels in classes like Spearman, Cavalier, and even Shieldmaster. None of them reached level twenty, but the Bohens had lost too many friends to Players to underestimate them.

Basil assessed the situation. The fliers complicated matters, but he trusted his girlfriend to take care of the aerial force. The absence of vehicles in the raiding party, and the fact the sound of the war drums remained distant, indicated these soldiers were mere scouts.

“I’ll take the pegasi, you deal with the rest of them.” Vasi snapped her fingers and magical energy gathered in the palm of her hand. “Wanna see which of us can take out the most of them? The loser pays for the next date.”

“Challenge accepted,” Basil replied with a bloodthirsty grin.

“Can I play too, Mister?” Rosemarine asked with enthusiasm.

“Of course, dear.” Basil summoned a potion from his inventory. Thick green ooze swirled inside the flask. “I brewed this for you.”

“Let the reaping begin!” Rosemarine shouted joyfully. “A harvest of blood and guts!”

“That’s my girl.” Basil tossed the potion in the air and Rosemarine’s tongue swiftly grabbed it. She devoured the flask whole and roared. Her muscles burst with new power as the elixir took effect.

[Mr. Hyde’s Performance Booster] buffed all of Rosemarine’s physical stats for ten minutes!

Rosemarine charged to the tune of Basil’s war cry. “Fire at will!”

The howitzer thundered and unleashed a projectile. A cataclysmic explosion tore two centaurs to pieces, leaving a fuming crater in their place. The pegasus riders swarmed Vasi while their landbound allies raised their bows at Rosemarine.

Basil licked his lips in anticipation. He always liked horse steaks.

Keeping his halberd stored in the inventory for later, Basil summoned an AK-47 and empowered it with a Corrosive Rune. He was never a good shot, but his Skill stat, which had steadily increased after many level-ups, improved his accuracy tenfold. One of his first bullets hit a centaur in the chest and slew him on the spot. A second shot an archer’s arm before he could return fire.

The other centaurs managed to cover the distance between Rosemarine and them. Their fiery arrows harmlessly bounced off the tropidrake’s scales and Basil retaliated with a bullet volley, shattering knees and spraying guts all over the road. The dead centaurs crashed on the ground, never to rise again.

“Damn it!” Basil cursed. He couldn’t manage a headshot even with an assault rifle! “I got three and a half!”

Vasi was too busy dodging javelins to answer him. She hastened herself to outpace the pegasus riders, moved above them, and then countered with a snap of her fingers. A mighty burst of wind and ice shards erupted from her hand. The projectiles tore off their mount’s wings while the wind pushed them to the ground. The entire squad crashed into the valley to their death in the blink of an eye.

“I got five,” Vasi replied smugly. “Ten, if the mounts count.”

“Nah, they don’t!” Basil grinned. “Nice new spell!”

“New spells, plural!” Vasi shouted back with amusement. “That one isn’t even my best yet!”

Basil prepared to tease her a little when he heard Bugsy shouting from inside the Steamobile. “Boss, I sense enemies at the front!”

Basil turned to face the narrow pass before them. A jeep driven by a hoplite cosplayer had emerged from it. A second soldier stood on the roof with a rocket launcher pointed straight at Rosemarine.

Damn, they were trying to block the pass! “Rosemarine–”

“I’ve got them, Mister!” Particles of light gathered around Rosemarine’s petals, the unnatural starry sky above them glittering in response. Rosemarine’s strong Light affinity allowed her to benefit from the field’s buff effect, even with the sun blocked from view. “Sunbeam!”

The Metal Olympus soldier opened fire first, a rocket flying out of his bazooka. A beam of light poured out of Rosemarine’s mouth and vaporized the projectile, the vehicle, the people aboard, and a good chunk of the pass. The tropidrake stomped the ashes of her enemies without slowing down.

Basil tensed up as the sound of war drums grew louder. He couldn’t see much within the pass, but he expected the bulk of the enemy force to await them on the other side. His hands tightened on his AK-47.

“Turn left when you exit the pass, Rosemarine,” Basil ordered. “Plato, are you still nearby?”

“I’m waiting,” his cat replied, utterly invisible. “I hear them, Basil. They’ll catch up to us in minutes.”

Rosemarine pulled the Steamobile out of the pass and onto National Road N21.

The hills behind them were swiftly replaced with a vast plain of abandoned farm fields, meadows, and the rare trees in-between. A damaged road cut through the landscape under an alien sky. There were no villages nor settlements to be seen around, except for a few crumbling ruins of old houses.

A Mad Max raiding party welcomed Basil’s party.

As Bugsy predicted, two dozen vehicles chased after the Steamobile. It was a ragtag bunch of Peugeot 208, Dacia Sandero, bikers, and even two customized cargo trucks. Almost all of them were staffed with Ancient Greece human cosplayers, but their troops included a few monsters too. Winged women with electrical whips served as their air force alongside a duo of pegasus riders, and a monstrous one-eyed giant stood atop one of the trucks with a wide axe. The other truck was equipped with loudspeakers boosting the music of a bard crew and wardrummers.

Cyclops Maneater

Level 27 [Giant]

Faction: Metal Olympus (Amnisiades)

Harpy Huntress

Level 15 [Avian/Humanoid]

Faction: Metal Olympus (Amnisiades)

It was impossible to miss the marauders’ leader. Artemis-Apollo glowed above her troops like the morning star in the night sky.

The creature took the shape of a splendid, curvaceous woman with marble skin and hair of gold styled in an elegant bun. Silver pieces of armor covered her breast, hips, and legs. Six great wings of sunfire carried her above the land she sought to rule. All in all, she appeared like a goddess descending from the heavens. A longbow of light materialized in her hands and she pointed it at the Steamobile as if it were a boar to be slain.

The real fight started now.

Basil quickly assessed the situation. A good kilometer separated the Steamobile from its pursuers, but the smaller vehicles swiftly gained ground on the slower Rosemarine. Basil doubted a direct howitzer strike would take Artemis-Apollo out, so better to bleed out her forces before keeping her for last.

“Bugsy, Shellgirl, blow up the Bards to debuff them!” Basil barked orders. “Vasi, we need a speed buff!”

“On it!” Vasi raised a hand at Rosemarine. “Hasten!”

Time dilated around the tropidrake as she rushed onto the road at twice her normal speed. Basil had to hold on to her not to fall off. The ground trembled as the chase’s next step started in earnest.

Artemis-Apollo opened the hostilities with an arrow of light aimed at the Steamobile’s armored wheels. The vehicle shook from the impact, but the metal shielding resisted the attack.

Rosemarine’s burst in speed allowed her to outpace the larger vehicles, but not the smaller ones. The faster cars and bikes separated into two groups racing across the grassy plain. One moved to the Steamobile’s left and the other on the right in a pincer maneuver. The Fire Seeds lying in ambush opened fire from their sniper holes to delay them. Bullets pierced windows or bounced off metal roofs in short order.

First blood was on Basil’s team, for the howitzer thundered and blew up the bard truck in one strike. The vehicle exploded in a fiery detonation that shook the entire region.

Artemis-Apollo immediately retaliated with an arrow of sunfire targeting the Steamobile’s cannon. Her aim was true and her projectile exploded in a rain of flames on impact, but the vehicle resisted the attack. The howitzer retaliated with a precise shot. The fake goddess managed to hit the projectile in midair with another arrow, detonating harmlessly. Cannon and archer exchanged volleys without any of them managing to break the deadlock.

“Bugsy, reload faster!” Basil heard Shellgirl shout from within the Steamobile; her frantic voice barely cut through the sound of howitzer rounds fired in the skies. “More shells! I can’t shoot without ammo!”

“I do what I can with my mandibles!” Bugsy shouted back. The centimagma’s role was to reload the cannon while Shellgirl adjusted the aim. “We don’t have much left!”

After blowing up another howitzer round with a well-placed arrow, Artemis-Apollo’s wings shone with a silver glow. Rosemarine let out a squeal, alarming Basil.

“Rosemarine, what is—” Basil’s eyes widened in surprise as a crescent moon mark materialized on the back of Rosemarine’s neck.

Artemis-Apollo’s [Huntress’ Moon] marked Rosemarine as the hunt’s target! Rosemarine’s chances of avoiding attacks have been halved for one hour, and her odds of suffering from a critical hit have been doubled!

Since Artemis-Apollo couldn’t destroy the vehicle, she targeted the dragon pulling it!

“Her range is insane!” Basil attempted to scratch off the mark just in case, and only managed to make Rosemarine giggle. At least she enjoyed it… “Alright Rosemarine, I’ll cover you.”

With their boss providing suppressive fire and shielding them from the howitzer, the Metal Olympus raiders assaulted the Steamobile from all sides. Vasi cast her shadowspike spell on the back of the road, impaling a Dacia and forcing other vehicles to take a detour to avoid destruction. A Peugeot bypassed the Steamobile and approached Rosemarine from the left. Basil saw it coming and stored his AK-47 back in his inventory.

A rocket launcher of justice swiftly materialized in its place.

Basil pointed his weapon at his attacker with a gleeful grin and pressed the trigger. The driver barely had time to blink in horror before a rocket blasted his car to kingdom come. The burning metal husk flew into the air and crashed off the side of the road.

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“Four and a half!” Basil boasted. “I’m catching up, Vasi!”

“Shellgirl and Bugsy have the highest kill count,” Plato muttered behind him. A Peugeot approached from the left, filled to the brim with low-level warriors. “My turn. Luck Up!”

Basil didn’t hear nor see his invisible cat’s attacks, but he witnessed the throat of a Peugeot’s driver sliced open by a blade of air. The vehicle veered off tracks and was crushed under the Steamobile’s wheels.

“Ah, four in one strike!” Plato boasted proudly, before his voice swiftly turned from triumph to annoyance. “Birds incoming!”

Basil looked over his shoulder. With their master keeping the howitzer occupied, the harpies and pegasus riders moved to encircle the Steamobile from above.

“Vasi!” Basil shouted, but his girlfriend had already intercepted the fliers. An aerial duel began in the starry sky. Harpies attempted to throw Vasi off her broom with their electrical whips, but the witch kept her distance and bombarded her foes with fireballs.

Unfortunately, Vasi was one woman facing a full squad. She danced around the opposition, but struggled to even keep the fliers from approaching too closely. Noticing her struggle, Artemis-Apollo dodged a howitzer round instead of blowing it up and instead targeted Vasi.

Basil’s heart skipped a bit. “Vasi, arrow from the south!”

His girlfriend heard him and avoided a light projectile at the last second. However, the interruption allowed two pegasus riders to bypass her. They dived upon Rosemarine from above with murderous intent.

“For the mistress!” The two riders shouted as they raised their javelins. The maddened glint in their eyes made Basil shiver. “Long may she reign!”

“I should have brought a guillotine,” Basil said as he swiftly switched his rocket launcher for his more practical laser pistol. Bolts of field-empowered light flew next to javelins. Basil managed to wound a rider in the shoulder, but failed to stop him from throwing his weapon.

Two javelins pierced Rosemarine’s back and pierced her leaf-scales. She let out a scream of pain that made Basil wince. The enemy riders moved to strike again, but one of Plato’s wind slashes cut one pegasus’ wings and caused the mount to crash down onto the ground. Rosemarine blasted the other in the chest with a well-placed ray of light, killing him.

What’s wrong with these guys? Basil thought as he pulled out the javelins out of Rosemarine’s back and gritted his teeth upon recognizing a violet substance on their tips mixed with blood. The souvenir of Kuikui’s death flashed in his mind and soured his stomach. “Poison…”

“I felt nothing, Mister!” Rosemarine reassured him. A quick check at her status confirmed the spears had failed to inflict the dreaded ailment thanks to her high Vitality. Basil sighed in relief. “But Mister, everything’s slowing down…”

Vasi’s Hasten spell dissipated. Forced to slow down, Rosemarine could no longer outpace the slower vehicles. The surviving truck caught up to the Steamobile and allowed its cyclops passenger to leap at it.

“Mistress!” The giant, roughly six meters tall, grabbed the exhaust ports and smashed them with its axe. His maddened roars echoed with the autumn wind. “Witness me, mistress! Witness me!”

As if on cue, Artemis-Apollo’s eyes shone like the heart of the sun. The cyclops roared as his body surged with power.

Artemis-Apollo’s [Apollo’s Boon] buffed his Strength and granted him the [Regen] beneficial status!

“Plato, stop him!” Basil ordered as bikers with revolvers flanked Rosemarine. He had his hands full exchanging fire with them.

“Yeah, yeah!” With the invisibility potion running out, Plato became visible again right as he leaped at the cyclops’ head. His rapier blinded the creature. The giant roared in pain and frantically swung his axe in all directions in a vain attempt to hit the far smaller cat. “What’s your current count?”

“Seven… I think?” Basil said as a harpy fell onto the road—Vasi was racking up quite the lead. Three bikers attacked from this side, each a duo with a driver at the front and an attacker at the back. The closest vehicle was a Harley Davidson with a gunner passenger at the back.

Basil raised his pistol but the enemy proved to be the quicker shot. A bullet grazed his chest and was barely deflected by his ankylosaurus scale armor. Basil pressed the trigger in retaliation. His projectile blasted off the attacker’s head and threw the corpse off the vehicle, leaving the driver defenseless.

Critical hit!

Finally! Basil had succeeded with his first headshot! Encouraged by his success, he rose to his feet atop Rosemarine, held his breath… and leaped off the tropidrake.

The jump was risky, but rewarding. Basil landed on the Harley Davidson right behind the driver. The vehicle veered off tracks from the sudden shift in weight, but the biker managed to avoid falling off. He looked over his shoulder, his eyes widening in surprise behind his helmet.

“What the–AAHH!”

Basil swiftly threw the driver overboard and assumed full control of the vehicle. The Harley Davidson thrummed between his legs like a wild, savage stallion.

Inspiration suddenly seized Basil. He stored his pistol back in his inventory and switched it for his flaming halberd. Then he raised his favorite weapon above his head, basking in the feeling of the cold autumn wind brushing against his face.

“Perfect,” he whispered.

Basil roared as loud as his Harley, halberd raised above his head.

He charged after the bikers harassing Rosemarine. The first of them he cut in half with a swing of his halberd, rider and motorcycle included. The second drew a sword and clashed steel with him.

“Why are you so eager to die?!” Basil snarled before swinging his halberd. “You’re throwing your life away for a flying statue!”

“Once I slay you, the mistress will reward me!” The swordsman shouted as he parried the strike. “She’ll finally love me back!”

Basil’s superhuman strength caused the parry to backfire. The biker was thrown back by the blowback and crashed off the road. Basil’s respite didn’t last long, for the truck that carried the cyclops to the Steamobile attempted to run him from behind. Rosemarine rescued him by gathering energy and blowing up the vehicle with another sunbeam.

Something’s wrong with these guys, Basil thought as he drove next to Rosemarine. Her body gathered light energy once more. They can’t all be fearless fanatics.

“Sunbath!” Rosemarine shouted. Her body released particles of light, healing her wounds and curing Basil of his exhaustion. “Mister, I’m thirsty!”

“Here, but that’s my last!” Basil unstored another strength-boosting potion from his inventory and tossed it at the tropidrake, who devoured it whole. The enemy vehicles had been dealt with, though Vasi still struggled with the harpies and Plato couldn’t knock down the cyclops off the Steamobile.

It was the enemy leader that worried Basil the most. So far the false goddess had stuck to exchanging fire with the howitzer from afar, occasionally disrupting the group’s formation and empowering her allies. She was troublesome but not truly dangerous. Either Artemis-Apollo lacked Tamura’s firepower… or she was holding back for some reason.

She’s observing, Basil realized. Whereas Tamura threw summoned troops into the meat grinder without a strategy in mind, that fake goddess probed her foes’ defenses. She’s looking for a weakness and assessing our abilities.

The fake goddess finally found an opportunity. She glowed brightly and then multiplied. Basil could only stare in shock as the false goddess’ body divided like a cell into four different beings. They spread in a square formation and opened fire all at once.

The howitzer blasted one of the four goddesses to oblivion. The copy’s body faded away in a shower of light, but the three others hit the cannon all at once with exploding arrows of sunlight. Basil squinted as the world brightened on impact. The Steamobile shook and its cannon fumed. The howitzer didn’t return fire again.

“Bugsy!” Basil shouted as the three fake goddesses started covering the distance between them and the Bohens. “Shellgirl! Are you alright?!”

“We’re alive, Boss!” Bugsy shouted from inside the vehicle. “But the cannon, it’s broken!”

“Forget the cannon!” Shellgirl emerged from one of the Steamobile’s windows and climbed up on its roof. Her tentacle-cannons fired ice projectiles at the harpies surrounding Vasi. “Let’s clear the skies before the competition arrives!”

“Help!” Plato shouted as he leaped off the cyclops’ shoulder. His rapier had inflicted half a dozen wounds on the giant, but the monster kept thrashing around in a maddened rage. The cuts closed on their own and even the eye was slowly regenerating. “The cripple is healing as soon as I hurt him!”

“I’m coming, Mr. Plato!” Bugsy burst out of the Steamobile through a window and swiftly coiled around the cyclops’ chest. Both roared as they brawled.

The three remaining copies of Artemis-Apollo chased after the Steamobile in a V-formation. Unable to identify the real one from the fakes, Basil slowed down his bike and approached the one on the right.

“Basil Bohen, I presume?” the woman asked from above upon seeing him approach. Although it sounded far more melodious than in Dismaker Labs’ board recording, Basil immediately recognized her voice. “You and your dragon stand accused of murdering my brother Dionysus.”

“I didn’t know you and the snake were related, Miss Hypathia,” Basil taunted her back. “That, or you’re way into your character.”

“Oh?” She laughed, her cold white eyes squinting in amusement. “So you know the truth.”

“Yes, I know we should have exterminated all the nobles when we had the chance!” Basil sneered. “I’m sure you didn’t even work a day in your life!”

Basil had read the files compiled by the French army on Dismaker Labs’ board. Hypathia Masters de Kemmeter had been a typical socialite before the apocalypse, the heiress of some Belgian old noble family and a UNESCO ambassador. Dismaker Labs had been one of the many companies in which she took shares, with apocalyptic results.

“It is true I was a gentry once, but thanks to my hard work I have ascended to a higher level.” She smiled at Basil, who felt a strange desire stirring in his spine. “We don’t have to fight, my boy. I’m sure I could win your allegiance… with the right offer.”

Permanent [Charm] ailment…

Basil saw red. “Sorry, I prefer horns over wings.”

Failed! It failed miserably! You shrugged off Artemis-Apollo’s [Sin: Lust] Perk!

“Saddening.” Hypathia snorted and raised her bow of light. “Bah, I would have killed you anyway.”

“You remind me of a mermaid I’ve met.” Basil gritted his teeth in fury. Her retinue’s suicidal dedication suddenly made a lot more sense. “She too was so popular that she had to brainwash people into following her!”

“I have ascended to the realm of the gods.” Hypathia materialized an arrow of ice and fired it at Basil’s head. “It is the duty of humans like you to venerate me.”

“I only believe in one God.” Basil shattered the ice arrow with his halberd. To his worry, another copy was moving to threaten Basil and the last one floated above Rosemarine. “His names are the Father, the Son…”

Basil stored his halberd and switched it with his rocket launcher.

“And here’s the Holy Spirit!”

He pressed the trigger and set the sky ablaze.

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