Chapter 123: TARGET ELIMINATED

James emerged into a vast chasm, perhaps fifty feet off the red rock floor, the cliff-like walls rising a mile before disappearing into metallic-blue mist. The scale was mind numbing once more; it seemed the demons couldn’t pass up an opportunity to go big.

The air was cold and acrid. Everywhere James looked he saw fallen boulders, some shattered in half, drifts of rust-red sand, and then the cliffs which undulated like curtains as they extended straight ahead and behind. The fog roiled overhead, completely obscuring the sky.

Olaf fired up his Circle of Protection and Righteous Obelisks appeared, revolving slowly in place and boosting his stats by a cumulative +175. His Empowering Light raised that another +50, the combination of which made Bless Green feel insignificant.

“Oh damn,” whispered Serenity, marveling. “Let’s never leave these obelisks ever again.”

Yadriel laughed with sheer exhilaration. “How much more godlike can we get, yo?”

James forced down his own euphoria and drew his pistol. He activated Deadeye and sighted down the length of the chasm.

Far ahead, barely visible in the oily mist, rose a wall. Or a natural cliff? It was hard to say, though it crossed the chasm and blocked it completely. He thought he could see movement along its top, amidst ragged crenelations, but he wasn’t sure.

“Too bad, folks. We gotta move to the blockade.”

“You see it up ahead?” Serenity raised an autocannon and frowned. “There they are.”

“What they blockading?” asked Denzel. “Us?”

“Us,” agreed Jason, tone firm. “But not for long.”

“Might as well take it slow,” said James. “We’ll drop the obelisks but keep everything else up. Be ready for attacks from above. Jason, you cover our six. Let’s move up till we have a better view of what we’re up against.”

The Castrum Mortis had emerged last from the Ruby Grove, and hearing James’s command began to move forward. It was weird, bizarre how the inhuman scale of their surroundings made the sixty-foot-tall war machine look small. But there was no denying its power as it strode ahead, its huge feet crushing rocks, its guns and turrets casually scanning back and forth as it progressed.

They floated forward within Olaf’s Circle.

“Question,” said Miriam, half raising her hand. “Why are we relying on Olaf’s Circle? We can all cast it, can’t we?”

“Shit, you’re right.” James snorted. “Old habits. Let’s see what happens if we all raise one.”

A second later more white fire flickered into existence, distinct rings which began to revolve around them in different directions, each band of white fire leaving trails in its wake. When it had been just Olaf’s Circle, it had remained static, parallel to the ground, but now all seven revolved around them, passing over and under each other, so that James felt as if he traveled within a righteous orbital sphere.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” grinned Denzel. “Nice one, Miriam.”

Who only ducked her head and tucked her hair behind one ear.

James kept the pistol up and aimed straight ahead. The huge wall hove into view. Its face was rough like a cliff’s but without any markings, cracks, ledges, or other distinguishing features. Just two hundred or so feet of solid red rock. A huge gate was embedded in its base, large enough for the Castrum to pass through and blocked with twin doors of solid black iron.

Along the top were battlements of rough and ready spars of stone. Amongst them he saw Nem6’s, crimson-skinned and behorned, their bodies bulging with muscle, their elongated skulls and burning eyes distinct.

Of course there were thousands of them.

“Looks simple to me,” said Serenity, lowering her autocannon. “We clean the top with Nova’s and then Jessica’s Big Boy marches through the door. We fly over the top and see what’s on the other side.”

“Can’t be that simple,” said Jason. “Can it?”

James bit his bottom lip and raised his pistol again. “This is Level 8. It has to be tougher than the previous ones.”

“Perhaps Nem6’s are tougher than anything else we’ve fought?” asked Denzel. “Maybe we’ve gotten so strong we just can’t tell the difference.”

“Maybe,” allowed James. “Let’s keep up the slow approach. If they’re going to surprise us with something, I want to see it coming.”

They flew on at a steady pace, the Castrum marching beneath them. Each member of Crimson Hydra burned bright with Angelus Armor, wore their Aureate Buckler before them, and blazed with Empowering Light.

Their approach wasn’t subtle.

The Nem6’s atop the huge wall began to prance and cavort. They held long spears which they thrust into the air, and now James saw a central platform high above the black iron doors which extended out from the wall’s edge. Nem6’s were gathered upon it, out in the open, and black flames ringed its sides.

“What’s that?” asked James. “That platform?”

Serenity narrowed her eyes, sighting down the three-meter-long autocannon then frowned. “There’s a big one in the middle. Only one wearing robes. He’s cutting Nem6 throats as fast as he can and throwing them over the side. They’re falling all the way to the ground and bursting open on the rocks.”

They slowed further.

“What?” Jason raised his M4. “Shit, you’re right.”

James focused. He made out the large guy in black robes. He had a jagged knife which he slashed across the throat of each Nem6 that stepped up before him. They were willing sacrificial victims. He was killing a couple every second, forehand slash then backhand. Assistants grabbed the corpses as they fell and tossed them over the side.

“What the actual fuck?” asked Denzel, lowering his gun. “He on our side?”

“Yo, you kidding me?” asked Yadriel. “’Course he’s not on our side.”

“Then?”

Nobody spoke. The mist barely hid the huge wall now, and James could make out the pile of corpses before the doors.

“Maybe they’re trying to gross us out,” said Yadriel reluctantly. “Like, thinking we’ll get cooties at the sight of the dead and run away.”

Now it was Denzel’s turn to stare at him.

“The guy looks frantic,” said Jason. “He’s not wasting any time.”

“Whatever he’s doing we should stop him.” Serenity raised her autocannons. “Let’s try the range on these babies.”

Serenity opened fire.

Both autocannons blazed to life, their rounds flying forth, covering the half mile between them with ease. Serenity’s whole body shuddered continuously as she frowned and sought to improve her aim. The rounds flared as they flew through the air like tracer rounds. They hit the lip of the wall, causing huge chunks to blow out. Serenity tightened her aim and raked the rounds over the platform.

Every Nem6 but the priest exploded into huge chunks of flesh. The priest, however, wrapped a bubble of black flame around himself and ran for the battlements.

“Bastard,” hissed Serenity, tracking him. The 30 mm rounds drummed into the flaming sphere and then tore into the first ragged merlon of red rock, causing it to explode.

“TARGET DESIGNATED,” boomed the Castrum, and opened fire with his Vault Cannons. The four mounted turrets unleashed fire on the distant wall, honing in on Serenity’s target, and the huge lance that he wielded in his right arm hummed to life for the first time.

The length of the stock rippled with gold power, and then there was a monumental hiss and a beam of Aeviternum laser flashed forth.

It carved a line twenty yards wide along the top of the wall, slicing through the battlements and demons who stood behind them.

In that flash, several hundred Nem6’s died, and watching through his Deadeye pistol sight, James saw the Nem6 priest’s defensive sphere rupture as the huge demon was cut in two.

“TARGET ELIMINATED,” boomed the Castrum.

“Fuck yeah!” said Denzel, pumping his fist in the air. “Now do that to the rest of them.”

“ACKNOWLEDGED,” the Castrum bellowed, and once more its lance blazed to life.

“For real?” asked Denzel, clearly taken aback.

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The lance hissed viciously again and once more a laser of golden light flashed forth. This time the Castrum swept his arm from left to right. The laser cut through the crenellations across most of the wall and killed the demons behind it.

A second later some of the rocky tops of the merlons slid off to collapse to the ground hundreds of feet below. Most, however, just settled atop their severed bases.

“Damn,” said Denzel.

“Hold up,” said Serenity, still watching through her Deadeye. “Now the fuckers are cutting their own throats and throwing themselves over.”

“Guess they figured out who they dealing with,” grinned Yadriel. “Word’s getting around.”

James frowned. He watched through Deadeye’s magnification as scores of remaining Nem6’s stepped up to the edge of the wall, slashed their talons through their necks, then leaped, bleeding out, to fall into oblivion.

“What the fuck?” he whispered. “We need to get there. Whatever they’re doing we need to stop -”

A huge flare of Infernum roiled the air hidden above the metallic-blue mist. It felt like a massive hand pushing down against his Spiritual Exaltation, and the Wing itself bobbed down under the pressure.

“What was that?” cried Miriam.

“Maintain Circles!” Olaf jockeyed his Wing forward. “Do not drop them!”

James glared at the fog. It writhed like a storm watched in fast forward. The Nem6’s kept killing themselves, a waterfall of bodies falling over the wall’s edge.

“Sinister Blockade,” James whispered. “Serenity, Castrum, kill the demons before they can off themselves!”

“CONFIRMED,” boomed the mech and this time its four Empyreal Cannons and laser lance opened fire all at once. Serenity leaned back, raised her autocannons, and opened fire.

“The rest of us, close in!” James urged the Wing forward. Jelly, tether Serenity’s Wing to mine !

Done!

They flew forward, high over the boulders and sandy floor, trying to close the half-mile so they could bring their own Benedictions and Miracles to bear.

The Castrum marched forward, firing continuously, and Serenity’s huge guns roared without surcease.

Yet still Nem6’s hurled themselves to their deaths.

There was another pulse of Infernum from the clouds, oppressive and vast.

“Shit,” yelled Yadriel. “What is that, man?”

James realized he was snarling up at the clouds. He could sense something up there. Something the Nem6’s were invoking, feeding with their deaths.

The Wing accelerated even faster. If he could just get close enough to drop ten Heavenly Assaults’ across the ruined battlements -

A reverberating roar thundered from the heavens and the blue fog parted as a serpentine coil as massive as a six-lane highway slid into view. It rushed by, its crimson and black patterning blurring, endless.

Crimson Hydra lost focus, everybody staring up, gaping.

James tore his gaze from the coil and fought for a little more speed, to close the gap. The wall was rushing up toward him, its top peppered with Smite-enhanced bullets and laser bursts. Nem6’s were boiling up from countless stairwells that led down into the wall proper, dying by the hundreds but plenty still managed to run the dozen steps to the wall’s edge and hurl themselves over it.

There.

James drank deep of his divine pool and dropped a dozen Heavenly Assaults across the top of the wall.

The huge bolts of lightning flared down from the foggy sky to slam into the crimson battlements, each bursting out wide enough to cover a city block. The entire length of the wall blazed silver and gold, and every Nem6 ashed immediately.

Gasping, James looked up.

The clouds were still roiling and seething.

The snake hadn’t disappeared.

Instead it roared once more, the sound akin to the very earth tearing itself open, and then its head punched down into view and came rushing like a runaway train toward their Wing.

It’s head alone was huge. Bigger than a two-story home, it looked nothing so much as a Chinese dragon, with countless thick whiskers curling away from its maw, its eyes blazing a virulent yellow, a crimson crest extending back over its skull and up along its spine.

The Castrum reacted smoothly and hit it with its Empyreal Cannons even as a slash of golden Aeviternum laser raked across its neck. The laser, however, only cut a yard or so deep through the huge crimson scales, that segment of its body immediately bursting to life with ebon aura.

Serenity wheeled about, raised her autocannons and opened up. The huge rounds tore a trail across the dragon’s cheek, blowing out scales, bone, flesh.

Olaf and Yadriel both screamed the same word of power, that dissonant command that made James’s entire being shudder.

Two Words of Slaughter.

“Aeviternum Hurricane!” yelled Jason.

James, his divine pool depleted below half, unleashed another six Heavenly Assaults, the first aimed at the dragon’s head, the rest rushing down the length of its vast body which continued to emerge from the clouds.

The combined effect was cataclysmic.

The Aeviternum Hurricane leaped into existence, rising like a twister from James as he sped into a dive, seeking to duck under the dragon’s head as it opened its mouth to spew forth an ocean of black flame.

The Words of Slaughter echoed like great booms, overlapping and hitting the dragon as one. The monster’s eyes dimmed even as the Aeviternum hurricane flensed the scales and flesh from its skull, just as James’s Heavenly Assault crashed down like a hammer on its brow.

James let out a yell of surprise as he pulled his Wing out wide, the dragon’s head jerking down and almost taking him out. The black flames washed over the Castrum Mortis and hit their overlapping Circles of Protection, all six of whose burning bands lit up as they strove to keep the Infernum-infused attack at bay.

A moment later the dragon plowed into the bottom of the ravine, dislodging boulders and a wave of crimson sand as it collapsed to the floor. Its head was little more than a burnished skull, the eyes and scales and whiskers burned away, and its serpentine body dropped from the heavens like a puppet whose strings were cut all at once.

The impact was prodigious.

The chasm shook as massive sprays of dust and sand were thrown up, and rocks dislodged from the cliff faces to tumble down as the roar echoed up and down the length of the ravine.

Four of the Circles of Protection had snapped under the fiery assault, but two yet held, revolving around each other as everybody gaped at the fallen foe. Coils as wide as interstates fell in great curls to the ground, the sound tremendous, the length of the monster staggering.

Jason pulled out of his dive with a whoop, his Wing gleaming gold and silver as he entered a drifting glide, his face lit up with joy.

“It is like we killed Jormungandr,” said Olaf. “The World Snake. Incredible.”

James let go of the breath he’d been holding. He was having trouble taking in the sheer size of the dragon-snake. It filled the bottom of the chasm beneath them like a discarded garden hose tossed into a wheelbarrow, endlessly overlapping itself.

But dead.

Layer 8, The Sinister Blockade, Defeated

Layer 9, The Hopeless Tower, Unlocked

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