Chapter 80: Man vs Apollyon

A sandstorm of radioactive dust swirled over the ruins of the Louvre.

Vasi fearlessly flew into the cloud, facing strong warm winds and burning sand. The air itself was charged with energy. Basil felt an invisible force enter his lungs, his flesh and blood. The nuke’s radiations expanded outward from the impact point to poison all things.

[Sandstorm] weather! [Wind] and [Earth] elements will be strengthened, [Water] will be weakened, and visibility will be slightly decreased!

[Irradiated] ailment! You will lose 1/16th of your maximum HP each minute and be unable to heal! The ailment can only be lifted magically.

[Death’s Banner II] negates HP damage.

Basil’s magic protected his team from the fallout’s passive damage, but not from the lack of healing. He prepared to cast Monster Cure II to lift the effect on his allies.

“Don’t,” Vasi interrupted him. “Even if you cure us, the ailment will return within seconds so long as we breathe this toxic dust. Pace yourself.”

“Yes, keep some SP for that sweet banner protection,” Plato said. “We’ll need it!”

Basil nodded slowly before checking upon his Special Points. He had around half of them left in storage, but Death’s Banner cost him ten per minute; Elemental Orbs would demand more.

He missed Kalki’s regenerative buff.

“Here he is,” Vasi warned as they approached the center of the sandstorm. The ICBM had transformed the Louvre into a crater of rocks and molten sand. Their nemesis knelt in its midst, struggling to breathe.

The blast had peeled most of Apollyon’s exoskeleton away and exposed the corpselike, festering flesh underneath. Layers of purple metal had melted off the Horseman of Famine’s body. Circuits and cables embedded in the monster’s skin let out jolts of electricity at random. One of the two mighty cannons that had shot down the ISS less than an hour ago had turned into scrap on the ground; the other remained attached to Apollyon’s shoulders, though with most of its circuitry exposed to the outside world.

The Horseman of Famine gasped for air. Although he had survived the neutron bomb’s blast by the skin of his teeth—an achievement in itself—his injuries were severe. The radioactive sandstorm bothered him as much as the Bohens. Without most of his exoskeleton, he reminded Basil of a cicada struggling to shed off its old worn skin.

The Horseman of Famine noticed the Bohens’ approach and glared at them with his four fiery eyes. Basil immediately felt his strength slipping away as Apollyon’s magic affected him.

[Famine] Ailment! All physical stats debuffed for ten minutes! You will lose 1/16th of your SP per minute!

[Death’s Banner II] negates SP damage.

“What… What weapon was this?” Apollyon rasped. Beyond the anger in his eyes, there was fear. “You greedy fool… have you sold your soul to the Unity for power?”

“I would rather die,” Basil replied as he raised his halberd. Plato prepared to jump off Vasi’s broom while the witch muttered a spell. “That bomb was a pure Made in Earth product. Accept no substitute.”

Neutron bombs were among the weakest of nukes in terms of payload. A stronger ICBM would have vaporized Apollyon instead of leaving him on the brink of death; though the Bohens probably wouldn’t have been around to celebrate either.

“I never imagined… you monkeys could craft something so powerful.” Apollyon rose to his feet and pointed his remaining cannon at them. Power built up within its depths. “But not as mighty… as this!”

“Hasten!” Vasi cast on Basil. Time slowed for him as they moved right above the Horseman, the spell spreading to all team members through One for All.

“Gehenna Cannon!”

Apollyon opened fire in mindless rage. A stream of blinding light erupted from his remaining cannon, so powerful that the air itself simmered from the heat. Vasi flew as fast as a fighter jet and escaped the blast. Apollyon pivoted in an attempt to reorient his continuous beam, but the witch managed to approach the cannon closely enough for Basil and Plato to make the jump.

The duo landed on Apollyon’s shoulder, braving the searing radioactive dust corrupting the air. Plato started cutting through the cybernetic cables running through the titan’s skin, while Basil struck his cannon with his halberd. His weapon cut through steel and circuitry alike. Electric jolts sparked out of the device, only to be safely absorbed by Basil’s thunderbird armor.

The beam weakened as the barrel channeling it heated up. Small steam explosions rocked Apollyon’s shoulder before a larger one blew up most of his cannon. Basil and Plato were almost thrown off the Horseman by the blast, but hanged on by stabbing his flesh with their weapon.

Apollyon let out a screech loud enough to wake up the dead as his Gehenna Cannon fell to the ground at his feet. The droning buzz of his swarm echoed his call for help in the distance.

“Soldiers, come to me!” Apollyon snarled. He raised both his hands; the left attempted to catch Vasi in the air and the other moved to squash Basil and Plato. The duo dodged claws larger than the both of them combined by running towards the head while Vasi elegantly danced around the Horseman’s blows. She retaliated with a fireball that hit Apollyon in the mandibles. The blast broke one and caused the titan to hiss in pain.

“Not so tough without your exoskeleton, eh?” Plato taunted Apollyon as he and his best friend climbed up the Horseman’s head; a part of his body that was over twenty meters tall and many times larger than the Bohens’ former house.

“He’s just a glorified turtle,” Basil mused. “Hard outside, soft inside, better off eating lettuce!”

He immediately regretted his taunt as giant wasps entered the sandstorm to support Apollyon. They launched a rain of poisonous darts at the Bohens. Vasi had to abandon her assault on the Horseman to dodge, while Plato and Basil deflected the attacks with their weapons.

Apollyon grabbed one of the flying insects with one hand, brought it to his mouth, and swallowed it whole. To Basil’s horror, a patch of flesh on his chest started to regrow the metal exoskeleton.

Apollyon regenerated some HP/SP!

“He’s eating his troops to regenerate!” Basil warned his team. “Kill his mooks before he can touch them!”

“Go be a hero, I’ll take care of the small fries!” Plato replied as he gracefully leaped off Apollyon. In spite of the immense height, the tiger club managed to softly land on a wasp’s back by altering the winds with his sword. He cut the monster to ribbons and then leaped on another. Plato rampaged among the wasps like an acrobatic, tiny harbinger of death while Vasi assisted him with her own spells.

As for Basil, he continued his climb relentlessly. Apollyon tried to squash him with both hands, but thanks to Hasten, he dodged all attacks by running across the monster’s skull.

“Get off me, Bohen!” Apollyon snarled. “Stop hiding and face me!”

“As you wish.” Cutting into Apollyon’s forehead with his halberd, Basil used the weapon as an anchor to position himself right in front of the left side of the titan’s face. Two eyes out of four glared at him with malice. “Elemental Orb: Fire!”

Hanging on to his halberd’s shaft with one hand, Basil raised the other at Apollyon and unleashed a blast of holy flames straight into his eyes. All of them were already damaged by the nuke’s radiation, so his flames incinerated the dried orbs to ash. The Horseman shrieked as half his sight was robbed from him.

Warning: you have lost more than half your SP!

“Sonic—Argh!” A jolt of electricity traveled through Apollyon’s throat before he could complete his attack. “Argh…”

“Can’t use most of your Perks with damaged tech?” Basil mocked him as he climbed to the undamaged side of Apollyon’s forehead, intent on completely blinding the giant bug once and for all. “The portal is still open, if you wanna run away crying!”

“There are fates far worse than death, Bohen… You know not what my master is capable of.” The Horseman of Famine let out a screech of defiance. “I will not leave this planet to face him in disgrace.”

“On that, we agree,” Basil said as he prepared to fire another orb. “You won’t leave this planet alive at all.”

Apollyon responded to the taunt by shaking his head in an attempt to throw Basil off him. The Tamer struggled to hang on to his halberd as he was swung in one direction and then to the other like a pendulum. Worse, a great shadow loomed behind Basil. He looked over his shoulder and watched on as a giant hand moved to squash him. Time accelerated the closer the claws approached him.

“Damn it, not now,” Basil complained. The Hasten spell was running out. “Curse your intense but short duration!”

Basil attempted to rise up his halberd’s shaft and escape back to Apollyon’s forehead, only for the Horseman to shake it again. Basil was almost thrown off into the void. He barely managed to hold onto his weapon as Apollyon’s hand fell upon him.

The Horseman’s palm was the size of a house, and just as heavy. Basil raised his free hand instinctively as if to stop his incoming death, but he might as well have wrestled with a mountain. An enormous mass of flesh pressed him against Apollyon’s forehead and crushed him under its weight. Basil used all his strength to push it back.

He failed.

Basil screamed in pain and agony as his body was squeezed between Apollyon’s hand and face; the greatest pain was in his free arm, which he had foolishly raised to push back the tide. The forearm’s bone cracked in a terrible, sickening noise. Basil’s vision blurred as he felt his body crushed under the overwhelming weight. His breath escaped his squeezed lungs.

Critical Health! Critical Health!

“I… expel…” Basil used the last of his strength to mentally open his party system. He needed to expel his party before they died with him. “Release… every–”

An explosion rocked Apollyon’s hand. Basil felt the blast travel through the monster’s fingers and the pressure squeezing the life out of him immediately lessened. Apollyon’s hand moved away from his forehead and fell on the ground… along with the rest of the arm.

Barely hanging on to his halberd with his remaining functional hand, Basil managed to look over his shoulder. Dozens of Fire Seeds were climbing up on the titan like ants and clustering at his body’s joints. A few of them still burned on Apollyon’s elbow, the rest of their kindred having blown themselves up to sever the Horseman’s arm. Apollyon wiped them off with his remaining hand before they could mutilate him further.

“Boss, we’re here!” Bugsy appeared at the edge of the crater, exhausted and carrying Shellgirl on his back. Both of them looked quite bruised; Bugsy had magma scars on his exoskeleton and one of Shellgirl’s tentacles had been severed. Basil suspected it didn’t bode well for the Steamobile, especially since some bugs had broken through the army’s encirclement. Neither was Rosemarine visible anywhere even as her brood swarmed Apollyon.

Nonetheless, Basil’s party members immediately joined the battle. Shellgirl unleashed volleys of ice spheres at Apollyon’s wasp escort while Bugsy carried her on his back as a mobile platform.

At this point, Vasi switched targets and fired a spell at Apollyon himself. Shadowy spikes grew out of his chest and shattered the regrown parts of his exoskeleton. Being now on the verge of death and having swept away the Fire Seeds trying to suicide-bomb him, the Horseman attempted to seize one of his own wasp allies to regain his health. Shellgirl acted quicker and slew Apollyon’s would-be meal with a well-aimed ice pearl projectile.

“Boss, we’re coming!” Bugsy looked up in defiance at Apollyon, only to falter. “We’re… here…”

“Bugsy?” Shellgirl asked, only to be violently thrown off the centimagma’s back. Bugsy left her behind and scurried towards Apollyon. “Bugsy!”

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Bugsy has been [Charmed] by Apollyon’s [Bug Crown]!

Basil’s eyes widened in panic as Bugsy offered himself to Apollyon, his mind dominated by the Horseman’s power. “Thank you for the appetizer,” Apollyon rasped mockingly as he raised his remaining hand to catch the centimagma. “It is much appreciated!”

“Monster… Cure!” Basil cast through his teeth, his magic spreading to his allies and healing their wounds.

[Charm] ailment lifted. Bugsy will be immune to [Bug Crown] for 24 hours!

The Horseman of Famine’s control over Bugsy was instantly lifted, with the Centimagma looking around himself in confusion. Noticing the giant hand moving to seize him, he used Agility Up to slip through Apollyon’s fingers, much to his rage.

The Horseman looked around for more sacrifices and found none. Everywhere his drones fell. Plato had moved back to Vasi’s broom, the two unleashing fireballs and blades of wind at any bug entering their range. Shellgirl assisted them by firing projectiles from the ground like an anti-air defense while Bugsy carried her around the battlefield once again, although this time he remained careful not to approach Apollyon too closely. The Bohens party had grown into a well-oiled machine of a team.

No more reinforcement would come either. Neria’s troops had managed to reform the encirclement around the portal with a copious amount of artillery. Army choppers blew up fliers around the energy pillar, stopping Apollyon’s monsters from rushing to their leader’s side.

The Horseman faced his death alone.

“I will not fall… here!” Apollyon let out a roar of desperation. “Rampage!”

The Horseman’s body trembled with rage and his corpselike skin turned red.

Apollyon has gone [Berserk]!

Apollyon snapped to action with unnatural speed and strength for his size. He attempted to punch Vasi out of the sky, with the witch barely dodging by flying upward at full speed.

Apollyon’s sudden jerking movement threw Basil off his face, halberd included. He fell and fell from many stories high, the ground calling him.

“Basil!” Vasi dived down in a desperate attempt to catch him, only for Apollyon to relentlessly target her. The witch was forced to move to the side to avoid the Horseman’s snapping mandibles, her boyfriend continuing his fall. “Basil!”

Basil landed earlier and more softly than he expected. His body hit a soft cushion of feathers rather than sandy ground, and a melodious song echoed all around him. For a brief second, he thought he had perished and ascended to heaven, but the music sounded too Hippie-like for his taste.

[Irradiated] ailment negated Kalki’s [Song of Healing]!

“Sorry for being late,” a friendly voice said in between notes. “I had to fly around to heal the wounded.”

Basil realized he had landed on the back of Kalki’s avian mount, right behind the bard himself. The music offered no reprieve from the pain, but at least he would live for a scant few minutes.

Having traded his sanity for strength as Basil once did, Apollyon rampaged around the crater like a wild animal. He desperately attempted to bite and claw at Vasi, but the witch flew too fast for his slow-moving hand to catch up; he might have well been a giant trying to swat a fly. On the ground, Bugsy and Shellgirl had to run away in frantic terror to avoid being trampled to death.

A light at the edge of the crater attracted Basil’s attention, and that of the maddened Apollyon. An invisible shape became noticeable as a layer of dust covered its reptilian body. The head glowed like the sun as it gathered power.

“Sneaky toe attack!” Rosemarine shouted with pride as she finally announced her presence. Apollyon snarled back and raised his feet to trample her to death.

He wasn’t fast enough.

Rosemarine fired her beam first.

The ray of golden sunlight crossed the distance between the tropidrake and Apollyon in an instant before hitting the latter’s chest. Without his exoskeleton to reduce the damage, the light pierced one end of the body and came out of the other. The supereffective sunfire burned through Apollyon’s flesh and bones alike, leaving nothing but a smoking hole where the heart should have been.

Apollyon, whose foot was up in the air, never brought it down to the ground. Instead, sanity returned to his remaining eyes as his gigantic body stumbled. He fell to his back, first slowly, then suddenly. The Horseman of Famine collapsed like a mountain laid low by an earthquake with just as much power. Shellgirl and Bugsy barely managed to avoid being crushed as he hit the ground in a cataclysmic shockwave. The edge of the crater was flattened under Apollyon’s weight, with tons of sand and dust propelled in the air.

The aftershock could be felt from Basil’s position in the sky. Apollyon’s fall affected all remaining bug monsters in the area; the few surviving wasps fled in animalistic panic, while the rest of the swarm fell into chaos. The unified buzzing sound that followed Apollyon’s army collapsed into a cacophony of maddened screeches. The Horseman’s hold over his troops was broken in an instant, never to return.

Rosemarine let out a victorious roar. She had avenged centuries of plant oppression by insects and was proud of it. Basil’s allies echoed the victory with cheers of their own.

“You have raised magnificent friends, Basil,” Kalki said with a smile.

“No,” Basil replied with a chuckle, coughing blood. “They raised themselves.”

Kalki had his bird land right next to Apollyon’s colossal head. He summoned a greenish potion from his inventory and poured it down Basil’s throat. “I hope this will work,” the bard said with a look of concern. The words ‘Heavenly or Guaranteed’ were written on his beverage’s flask. “I do not trust your angel’s credentials.”

[Irradiated] ailment lifted! You gained immunity to [Irradiated] for five minutes! You recovered 500 HP!

Green light swallowed Basil, healing his wounds. His vision returned to normal. His broken arm fell back into place. When Kalki dismounted from his bird, he helped Basil do the same. Vasi and Plato landed near the group while Shellgirl, Bugsy, and Rosemarine flocked to them.

“I did it, Mister!” Rosemarine said in triumph. “I roasted the bug!”

“That was amazing,” Shellgirl agreed. “You nailed him right in the squishy parts.”

“And you’ll get to eat him for dinner, Rosemarine,” Basil thanked his beloved tropidrake. He couldn’t think of a more appropriate fate for the Horseman of Famine.

“To end… like this?” The group turned to face Apollyon. Light flickered in the monster’s two remaining eyes, struggling not to fade away into the darkness of death. “Beaten by… vermin? I was… so close to greatness…”

“I’ll admit this could have gone either way,” Basil said. Apollyon had been the meanest, most powerful foe they had ever faced. Without the neutron bomb, they wouldn’t have been able to stop him at all. “But that’s what you get for underestimating us. You can only blame your arrogance for your defeat.”

“Arrogance…” Apollyon scoffed as his life slipped away. “I am the weakest… the gatekeeper. Before you were nothing, Bohen… but now that you have broken me… you will come to my master’s attention.”

“I don’t fear him,” Basil replied.

“You should…” Apollyon let out a heavy breath. “In the Apocalypse Force… you join or you die. The other Horsemen… will come for you. To recruit… or to slay.”

“Good,” Basil replied. The rest of his group nodded in assent and determination. “It will spare us the trouble of hunting them down ourselves.”

The System echoed his sentiment with a new quest.

New Main Quest: Apocalypse Not

Recommended Level: 80+

On four horses they came, under six feet they must go! You have declared war on the Apocalypse Force, and now it’s time to show them who’s the real one-man Armageddon! Defeat the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Force!

Reward: 24,000,000 + Holy Grail artifact.

“You have barely beaten me… and I am nothing but a worm… in the Maleking’s shadow…” Apollyon let out one last chuckle, before coughing sick purple blood. “He will burn this planet to the ground… I wish I could have seen that… Armageddon.”

Apollyon, Horseman of Famine, eternal foe of the Homeowners Revenge Association and bane of the House of Bohen, breathed his last. The light in his remaining eyes switched off and piles of treasures appeared atop his smoking corpse.

Your party earned 4,000,000 Exp and 2,000,000 Incursion Bonus EXP (total 6,000,000, with 1,000,000 for you). You earned a whooping 9 levels (total 52).

The house, at long last, had been avenged.

It filled Basil with an immeasurable amount of satisfaction. Although they had lost friends and suffered greatly to reach this point, Apollyon would never again threaten anyone else. That was the real reward, beyond the petty joy of revenge.

“The portal isn’t closing,” Vasi noted. While the bug swarm had fallen into chaos with Apollyon’s death, Basil’s monster allies struggled to keep them contained. Many drones retreated, but far more kept trying to break through the encirclement and infest Earth. “Why is it still open?”

“Wasn’t the Incursion meant to last a week?” Shellgirl asked with a sigh. “We aren’t paid enough for clean-up duties.”

“This is good,” Rosemarine rejoiced while licking her petal lips. “More food for us!”

“You’ve heard her, the job is not yet done.” Basil pointed his halberd at the rift. “Let’s throw these locusts back into the hole from which they came from!”

His friends and allies cheered all at once. For they understood that although they had a few days of containment ahead of them, the worst was behind them.

The Battle for Paris, no, for all of France, was won.

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