Chapter 147: Chapter 138: The moment of truth approaches

Green’s body flew backward, the plasma projectile made a new hole in her head. The shockwave that followed shattered the woman’s upper torso along with her power armor. The dead soldiers at her feet were pushed into the concrete ground, their bodies popped like balloons inside their armors. The plasma ball flew further and crashed against the walls of the main spire, leaving a burning mark and a small crack.

"Why the haste?" Two voices spoke in unison, and something flowed from Green’s body. Two her identical copies slipped from her legs, leaving the ruined body to disappear behind them.

They charged at Aranea, each splitting in two as they closed on her, circling to surround her. Using the view from the soldiers’ lenses all around the square to plan her next move, Aranea has jumped, firing the rail gun into the ground before her, using the shockwave to propel herself away from the closing blades. The warlord landed on her feet, seeing how one of Green’s copies toppled with a snapped leg. Two more had followed after her, one starting an overhead slash, the other trying to make a thrust.

Aranea sidestepped the thrust, piercing Green’s side with her own claws and twisting the claws within, feeling how the unusually sturdy ribs were turning into bone dust under her pressure. She drew the clone in front of the overhead slice and cursed as the body vanished into thin air. The pain that followed this hit was very real. Aranea frowned, feeling a shallow cut on her left shoulder, her armor had failed to stall this attack even a little. And in the next moment, the cameras in her power armor went offline. The entire system that linked countless lenses from all power armors within the fortress just crashed, leaving Aranea blind to anything happening behind her.

The Green was too close for Aranea to fire once more and dodge the last copy. She smashed one of Green’s lenses with the stock of her rifle, sending the copy away. The last one closed on her, bringing the sword to her neck. The warlord expected this, letting the blade fly before her, and kicked the woman behind her legs, grabbing the woman’s head with her paw.

She let her claws out and rammed the clone into the ground, creating a small crater in the stone with Green’s head, using the momentum to pierce the helmet with the claws. The moment Aranea looked up, she saw three more Greens before herself, striking at her. And this time she had no time to dodge.

A crimson beam pierced the center Green, melting the iron helmet. The slash of the right Green was blocked by the steel blade that appeared before Aranea’s eyes, saving her from a certain demise. The last one jumped over Aranea, landing to face the incoming reinforcements.

"Keyl!" Aranea laughed, seeing him standing next to her, the sword in his paws. "Nice to see you!"

"You seem to attract trouble, Ari," Keyl said, hurling her father's sword at her. "Are you ready to get close and personal?"

"Born ready." The Aranea secured the rail gun behind her back and took the sword in both arms, dropping the sheath.

Greens were on them in moments, forcing the two to meet back-to-back. She had never expected this damned woman to get even faster. Three Greens had attacked them, and Aranea found out that she could only keep one at bay, and barely at that. 

Green’s blades weaved and danced around Aranea’s sword, never once allowing the warlord to enter the contest of strength. The cruel blades aimed to get to Aranea’s fingers, trying to slip past the crossguard. The warlord wielded her weapon with both paws, frantically blocking the incoming strikes and trying to…

Wait a moment. Aranea calmed herself, blocking a thrust that was aimed at her gorget. Calmly, she went on the counterattack, beating aside the second blade and kicking at the woman’s abdomen. The claws on her feet pierced the metal armor and flesh beneath, causing the copy to twitch a single time and disappear. Aranea turned around just in time to see how the knight captain was dealing with his foes.

He took the first blade on the small shield around his left arm, crossing blades with the second Green. Both still had a free arm with a blade and felt like they had pinned their prey. Instead, a shot came from within Keyl’s cross-guard, spearing the face of one woman. The second one tried to retreat, only to find out that her leg was pinned down by Keyl’s armored boot. Bringing his sword down, the knight captain has opened the remaining Green like a tin can, slicing her clear from the neck all the way to the pelvis.

"And now you're dead." They both turned after hearing Green’s voice.

One of her copies had gotten past Leila's pack's two wolfkins, killing them in the process. Each time the soldiers downed a Green, two more sprung from her body, never once slowing her advance. The woman made a thrust with her wrist blades, aiming for the half-wyrm’s heart.

Danulka leaped forward, pushing Leila aside, and groaned from pain, feeling both blades piercing her stomach. Green has lifted the wolfkin, almost baiting the others to try and fire at her. Aranea saw that Green’s wrist started to make a turn, preparing to finish off the wolf hag.

"Who else would you try to take from me?" A steel paw, encased in flames that were coming from her fingers, grasped Green’s hands, melting them away. Olesya let her soldiers catch the badly injured Danulka and headbutt Green, sending the copy knee-deep into the ground. The warlord turned her back on several Greens who stood before the wolfkins. "Get Danulka to the medics."

"Is it wise to ignore me?" Another Green whispered, leaping at the distracted warlord. The attack was stopped by Annie, who jumped over the soldier, kicking away Green’s head.

"Ignore?" Olesya shifted her gaze to Greens. Her visor did not allow Aranea to see her face, but Olesya was speaking in an ice-cold voice. Her shoulder cannon shifted, pointing at Green, "No. I will kill you as many times as it takes for you to stay dead."

"You and I have a score to settle," Aranea told Green, reaching out for the rail gun. "Pay up."

They never gave Green a chance to retort. The blazing hot beam slammed into the first rows of her copies, driving them back with fire and fury.The shardguns fired by the wolfkins speared the multiplied bodies. A few Greens who managed to get close to the soldiers were met with Annie's blinding fury and her armor-piercing knives, leaving only limbs in her wake. Some Greens tried to flank the wolfkins, tried to get to the nearby buildings to spread out and attack anew. Aranea liquidated most of them with her economic shots, never letting any of them get close to her. The ones that had escaped her wrath were downed with laser beams from Leila’s pack.

They fired and fired, filling the inner square with the raging sound of their weapons, ruining the concrete, exploding Green, melting her, bisecting her, thinning down her numbers more and more, not allowing the killer to leave or hide to recuperate her numbers.

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"Enough of this!" Green roared, raising one of her blades. The air trembled around the edge.

"To the side!" Aranea shouted to the troops.

Green brought the blade down. It made a slight, gentle contact with the ground before bouncing away without leaving a cut. Then a gap appeared, a roaring five-meter-deep gap that charged toward the troops, ripping armor from those who jumped aside too late and stopping a few meters behind the packs.

"Saw this, freaks?" Greens' voices filled the fallen silence, all of the remaining copies had air trembling around the edges of their blades, "I doubt that your tiny brains can comprehend this, but this was done with the sound vibrations. And now to end this cheap charade… Yeek?"

The last words came out more like a gasp of pain than a surprise. Greens, all sixty of them, fell to the ground, missing everything beneath their left breast. Only their heads, left arm, and shoulder, were left, everything else was gone. Blood and intestines poured from the torn gaps in her power armor, followed by the organs and lungs.

Before Aranea could comprehend what was going on, the shield above the fortress went offline. The shield station blinked once before all the lights in its main entrance went off. Aranea had lifted her paw, preparing to lead the group inside, when she heard heavy footsteps coming from the inside.

A massive figure was coming from inside, holding something in one of its hands. The being had the torn chest plate from the ruined power armor. The sleeves and leg armor were destroyed, torn asunder by the mighty pale flesh that pushed from beneath. When the being came closer, Aranea heard a tearing sound, and a short, fat tail broke from the being’s back. Its flesh, the one that was visible, was covered by layers upon layers of scars.

The figure came out into the light, looking at Aranea with one blue and one white eye before turning its contemptuous gaze toward the others. In a three-fingered clawed hand, it held Green’s ruined body by the nape of her neck. The body twitched, sucking in air madly.

"You…" Green rasped, "I know we have our differences, but…"

The being lifted her up, bringing her closer to his giant snout. The law opened, and the being closed its fangs on her head, cutting off a weak scream and popping the head like an apple between its many mighty fangs. The copies on the ground screamed, their heads turning into a bloody mush. Their screams lasted for no longer than a second, and soon all of them disappeared into nothing. Without a hurry, he stuffed the rest of the dead body in, cannibalizing the remains in front of everyone.

"I always wanted to do this." The being told them, wiping off blood from the snout.

"Grug?" Aranea stepped forward, not believing her eyes. His voice sounded assured, calm, and even arrogant—nothing like his shy and beaten voice from before. His posture was regal, the posture of someone used to giving commands. Yet it was he, without a doubt. This was Grug.

Grug spread his arms and flexed, breaking the remains of his power armor with his muscles, showing the horrible and tortured flesh beneath. Letting the broken pieces of metal fall from him, Grug started walking toward the soldiers, putting both arms behind his back. He smiled, and the flesh of his body shifted, devouring the scars and leaving pristine skin in its wake. Only six scars in the shape of a half-moon were left on his snout, marring the otherwise suddenly handsome-looking visage.

"Grug? No, puppet, Grug is Grug. A weak, silly, and kind-hearted being, the one who was never saved," He pressed a palm to his mighty chest, making a bow, "I am King. And I will be the apocalypse to set things right."

"Apocalypse?" Aranea frowned, "Set things right? What are you…"

The skies screamed, and she looked up. A crack appeared above, parting the few clouds above the fortress. She had seen portals before, of course. But all of them were small.

What was opening above the fortress right now—this tear in reality, no less than a kilometer in length—had filled her with dread. Untold quantities of air were sucked in and released at the same time, filling the air with the sound of the mightiest tornado. She looked at Grug, or King, as he called himself. He did this. He turned the shield, and now…

King smiled at her pleasantly, stepping forward.

"Open fire!" Aranea roared, snapping everyone out of their shock.

King pointed a finger at her, and a ball of kinetic force threw her off her feet. His massive figure shifted, spewing blues from his shoulders. The creatures climbed from within his flesh, leaping at the wolfkins from his shoulders, hips, and even from his chest. A green mist rose around him, devouring bullets and gunfire fired by the defenders.

She saw how he raised a leg, stomping down, his physical force amplified by the kinetic power, very similar to the one that Yasen had used. Weakened by the green devouring mist, the concrete and steel beneath him gave in, opening a new chasm in the ground. A chasm leading to the demolition cannon, the weapon that was stored for years beneath the fort.

"You will not get away!" Aranea stood up and slashed a blue's head before herself. She and Keyl charged after King, leaping down into the darkness of the underground hangar.

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