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The Gamer Chapter 1755 – Vs Macuil 4 – Owed to Death
🕑 Added 2024-09-21 12:33:20 +0000 UTC
The Creator Puppet slowly sank against the wall.
John’s third body was half-disassembled. Materials had been ripped out of it as War needed them. Most of them served a temporary purpose in the forging at best. The rider was forging a dagger, that much was clear. The spine of Huitzlipochtli served as the handle. An incandescent mixture had been attached to it, fusing further with the red bone with every strike.
Impurities shattered off the surface and were left on the floor of the ancient workshop. “HOTTER!” War demanded. Hailey hurried from the anvil to the coal basin, throwing fresh fuel into it before grabbing the ventilation system and powering the simple machinery with her superhuman strength.
Ares placed the tip of the weapon in the coals and stomped across the room. Wordlessly, he took a wooden bowl filled with an alchemical liquid from Delicia. He poured it into a container already filled with other liquids. The alchemist kept on tinkering on another batch.
“A piece of this…” Lorelei whispered. Scarlett followed the sick seer’s order, using AM as an extension of her hands to take bits and pieces of the various materials they had scattered out. It was all brought back to the anvil, where War took a single look at it and then grunted approvingly.
“Tongs,” he ordered. Hailey hurried back on over, grabbed the instrument and lifted the dagger from the fire. It was not that War needed her because he couldn’t touch the half-forged weapon, but that he needed it to remain still as he worked the new materials into it. Already, the Godmaker Refuse and Celexiums were part of it, as was Elementium, Mithril, a variety of specific other elemental metals, and, through the fuel used, a large variety of expensive woods.
War grabbed the weapon and dunked it deep into the container. In it was a mix of the Mythical Ichor, alchemical oils, and Nahua’s own plagues. The dagger surfaced, still crudely shaped, and was put back into the fire after a short inspection.
John watched it all from the sidelines. There was no choice for him there. Intact, the body may have been able to swing a hammer properly, but he had been taken apart and would likely sacrifice more before the weapon was complete. Such was 10% of the reason why he had left his third body there.
“We’re losing,” he said out loud.
“Of course you are,” Zelos answered.
Glory had rescinded even the upkeep on the spell that kept him in the prime of his undeath. The wraith was translucent now, just greenish blue ghost surrounding bones. Even his armour had lost all of its lustre.
“I’ve exhausted all major lifelines and what little I still have to give could not be enough. My major buffs have run out,” the Gamer continued. “Macuil possessed the body of the titan Atlas, animated by the parts of the Grim Reaper he has already digested and the secrets he has learned from you. He has realized that he can win as long as he just plays for time. He’s at the absolute height of his power. Nothing could stop him now.”
The one intact arm the Creator Puppet still had stretched forwards and summoned Inkaryl. The weapon manifested upside down. John let it sink to the floor, the cruel tips sinking into the ancient ground.
“Would I have the strength to deliver blows mighty enough, this weapon could end even the undeath of Atlas,” John revealed, the words made Glory twitch where he sat.
“That is impossible,” the rider muttered.
John shook his head. “It has an enchantment to end even the most powerful of immortality effects. It is the first Mythical weapon of this world, unparalleled – and it chose that it can only be wielded by me. A shame. It makes our situation impossible and as desperate as it possibly could be.”
“He… heheheh…hahahahaha! Impossible?” Glory’s voice was shaking with fear and desperation. “Impossible?!” he croaked, shaking off the anxiety. “Yes, impossible!” he shouted, to himself, animating his instincts. “Ninian, will you ride with me one last time?”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Zelos,” Famine groaned and got up. “We were always going to die together.”
“THEN LET IT BE TODAY!” Glory grasped and grabbed the handle of Inkaryl.
The mace rang like an angry bell, shouted like a distorted choir, rang like a wind chime in a storm, screeched like a mistuned violin, clacked like a broken piano, and beat like the heart of a man high on adrenaline. Pulsing and distorting without moving, the Mythical weapon threw its anger at the foremost of the Horsemen, the Grand-Marshall of Death, denying the unrightful hand to wield it.
What could possibly be more Glorious than to overcome that limitation?
__________________________________________________________________________
John had not thought that he would ever live out the opening of God of War 3.
‘That’s an odd thought to have right now,’ he told himself and kept on climbing. The scale of Atlas was even more ridiculous now that he had made it onto the back of the hand of the being. It was far from the first time that John had interacted with entities of this size, but that did not make Nathalia or Stirwin an okay thing to exist in the confines of the Abyss.
Like a louse, John grabbed onto whatever hairs there were on the arms to stay put. The Skittersteps helped, their Adhesive Soles always assuring he at least wouldn’t fall. He preferred not flailing in the winds though.
Their situation was dire. The Ascension buff had run out and with it the Overclock. As much as John wanted to activate the Secret of Mana one next, the enemy was simply too far away for John to deliver a meaningful strike with his increased power.
“Looking for me?” Macuil asked mockingly, a body of his bursting out of a nearby pustule. John blasted it apart with a simple Arc Lance.
A second pair of arms wrapped around John’s back. A hand slammed on the Gamer’s mouth. Fingers forced their way between his lips before turning liquid. The second Macuil body cackled behind him.
“Finally.”
Fire burned the body of the god of gluttony off the Gamer’s back. “John!” the apocalypse elemental shouted out, landing next to him. The arm under them moved, Atlas winding up for a punch. John spat out the rotten sweat disease in his mouth.
It was too late, way too late. The miracle had been that, with Particle Skin offline, it had taken this long.
“Just another timer,” he groaned. The other fighters on his side were getting fewer and fewer. Rave was not out, but she was down, the disease having taken what stamina she had remaining. Nia could scarcely do anything, remaining at the brink of Fading. Malady and Norahnon were both out. Since their return, Sylph and Stirwin had been squashed by Atlas and Macuil’s many outgrowths.
The god of gluttony was no longer playing with them, he was bringing his powers to bear in the most effective way possible and overwhelming them with sheer numbers and resilience. Moira did not have much longer either. Momo was running out of mana. Undine had long since run out, currently using her Unleash in a desperate manoeuvre to try and do something.
It only made her a bigger target. The titan moved quicker now that he was host to Macuil, grabbing the writhing, eldritch mass that was the abysstide elemental and ripping her off him like she was a starfish latched onto him. Trenches were left behind and quickly closed by oozing purple. Undine was smashed into the wall of the underground dome, killing her in an instant. A temporary death, thankfully.
‘At this rate, it won’t be temporary for long,’ the Gamer thought and kept on climbing. He had no specific plan after getting to the head, he just knew that was the best use of his time at that moment. The only combatants on his side that were still fighting well were the Artificial Spirits; immune against the disease and highly regenerative, they made for an excellent counter to Macuil’s strategy. It was too bad that it did not matter when they were this outclassed physically. Ehtra and Beatrice were circling the worm-face above. They were mere flies buzzing around a serpent.
And then, it happened.
The compartmentalization of John’s mind gave him a two-seconds warning. A tired smile on his face, the Gamer muttered, “And here comes the hero.”
“ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST! FOR THE ENEMIES OF DEATH – NO – MORE – DAWNS!”
Glory descended from the sky, a prismatic meteor of elemental wrath. Time and space magic had never been the rider’s primary power, he had said so himself – it had always been to do what was the most glorious in any given moment.
Inkaryl continued to howl against the unchosen hand gripping it, but beat like a mechanical heart all the same. The blades of the weapon turned a radiant gold, bolstering the elemental chaos around the rider on his horse further.
John was quite happy he had not even made it up the forearm, when he watched Glory impact on Atlas’ skull.
The scale of it all belied how quickly things moved. The head of the undead had been hit with the equivalent of a nuke, cratering a skull that was older than the first gods. It did not shatter – it cratered, the power such that even the solids behaved as if they were liquids. The megatons of impact from this speck of dust that had hit the mountain rippled down the entirety of the living landscape.
The animating light inside Atlas’ one intact eye vanished.
“WHAT?!” Macuil roared.
The entirety of the titan began the keel over. ‘Oh shit, oh fuck!’ John cursed in his mind when he realized he was on the side of the arm headed for collision with the ground. Even if he had enough HP to survive the landing, he would be buried under thousands of tons of titan flesh. ‘Really, that’s how I die, because I climbed up an arm without a plan?!’
“Would be kind of poetic, wouldn’t it?” Momo asked.
“No,” Beatrice disagreed.
The two maids had activated their cooldowns simultaneously. Both were needed to get John off the surface the wind was pressing him against. On fairy and dragon wings, the Gamer was carried, soon hovering far above the battlefield.
And for a solid while, they did just watch.
Laughing with all of his bravado, Glory rode on prismatic elemental energy, exchanging blows with Macuil as Atlas collapsed. Attack for attack, the Horseman blew chunks out of the parasite, diminishing the size of the god massively each time. Each blow was less legendary than the last.
Glory had not just wallowed since the Grim Reaper had been devoured. No, the leader of the riders was perhaps the only person in the Abyss that could claim that despairing was the tactically sound option. All of that despair was finding its outlet in the current situation, and as the odds became less impossible, so did the rider’s power wane.
‘Alright, time I finish this off,’ John thought. “The secrets of mana unlocked!”
Did John Newman think well of desecration of the dead? No.
Did John Newman think he was a sadistic person? Yes.
Did John Newman love turning the tables? It was not among his admirable qualities.
“COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE!” John shouted and began a devastating bombardment. All of his MP with every second of its regeneration was turned into falling stars. Falling at minimal speed and at maximum damage, the first couple of impacts from Skyfall massively widened the hole that led from the island above into the sealing chamber. Everything after that was a cataclysmic rain of silver arcane on the body of a being that did not deserve the treatment, but involuntarily hosted one that very much did.
Atlas’ hijacked corpse was made the target of a rain of projectiles that contended with Liakan’s Unleash for the gold medal in Abyssal carpet bombing – except that Liakan’s Unleash lasted a minute at the most between start and end.
John went for the entire duration of his Overclock. Ten minutes of uninterrupted devastation delivered to the corpse. It said much about the durability of the titan that he merely looked like he had been riddled with a machine gun by the end of it, rather than the scarcely sensical mountain of flesh he, by all rights, should have been.
Then the last one came in.
The final Skyfall came down from the firmament, zapping down in a streak of light that competed with Malady for the fastest thing that day. The universal purple fog in the chamber was incinerated as a whole, replaced with arcane radiation that melted the surface stones of the chamber, blew the hole yet further open, and made John genuinely worry for a moment whether or not he had just killed the present allies.
The explosion had the earth quaking like the steps of dozens of titans combined. It only lasted for a few seconds, outliving the blinding silver-white of the arcane impact. Everything was slow and yet went by incredibly fast. Adrenaline stretched the perception of time.
‘Everyone still alive?’ John poked through his mental connections.
‘We managed to move them to the edge of the dome before you nuked everything,’ Metra informed him. The maids, Momo and Beatrice aside, were with Norahnon, Malady, Zelos and Famine. Everything had gone according to plan.
Atlas’ chest had finally been destroyed by the last Skyfall. Bits of his spine and shoulder blades remained, otherwise the long-dead titan had been reduced to his head and limbs. ‘Really not proud of that part… although I am certain he would prefer being blown to bits over being gnawed at forever,’ John justified it all to himself, while Momo and Beatrice flew him down to the bottom of the neck stump. ‘Now if I was an arrogant god that is about to lose everything, would I be able to deny myself this opportunity to strike?’
John just finished the thought, then glanced over his shoulder. He, Beatrice and Momo all went wide-eyed when the plague naga was suddenly above them, in all of his initial grotesqueness. A lure the Gamer had wanted to be, but he had not anticipated Macuil turning clever enough to shut his beak after this many mistakes.
“I ONLY NEED YOU TO DIE! DIE!” the god of gluttony roared, three arms slamming Beatrice aside, another one grabbing Momo. The massive head of the chimeric god opened up, plague breath worsening John’s disease in an instant. A tongue stretched out, ready to pull John in and dissolve him forever.
Cliiiiiiiiiing.
The exceedingly satisfying sound of a gold coin reverberated in the air. It flowed through the tiny gap between god and Gamer. In its wake moved Hikari. The samurai stopped underneath the body of the god. All of his lifelines had been exhausted, all of his positional advantages and secrets undone.
Time seemed to distort around the samurai. It wasn’t that she was actually using time magic, but that her physical presence went so far beyond the understood. The Aura around her was just a thin layer, an outline of blue and white swirling together that reminded of the daystar blending through mist. She grabbed her second blade.
“Sunrise Style – Infinite Slash.”
The plague naga before them collapsed to the ground. While the body was still hitting the ground, the edges were beginning to fray, turning into dust. The only part of the god’s body that wasn’t affected by this was his torso. A diagonal line ran clean through from shoulder to pelvis. Both arms had been slashed across the same line.
“Huh?” Macuil produced a single confused sound, before hitting the ground.
Comments
Jerome Rose
"Since their return, Sylph and Stirwin had been squashed by Atlas and Macuil’s many outgrowths." You are absolutely right! Would've been awesome though. ^^
FluffyButt Sr.
Amazing fight. Just amazing. It really deserves an anime (hentai?) spinoff.
FluffyButt Sr.
Stirwin was taken out earlier
Giovani Gonzales
YES! I've waited so long to see John pushed to the point that he has to bring the full might of his harem, his stats, skills, allies, and intellect to bare. For a while the main way to give him challenges has been to limit the tools available to him like in the Iron Domain and the Azure Tribe. I think this is the first time John has had to use two overclocks in one fight.
Christian Krueger
ALL HAIL THE CROC
Cofi
What better way to achieve glory than to be stripped of immortality only to choose to join a battle you can't win with a weapon that doesn't want to be wielded by you, and still defeat an ancient reanimated titan. When we first got to know him I though Zelos was all talk, but Death chose his riders well. I also love how John finally has a fight where he has to go all out and use his overclocks. Probably helps that he's fighting someone who isn't bright enough to severely punish him for the overclock drawbacks.
Charles Bell IV
Now that would be the true showstopper and we already saw Macuil being terrified of Stirwin
Jerome Rose
Yeah, maybe he'll eat atlas remains. Should count as a celestial body. Omg... just realized he potentially had him equipped while he had secret of mana active. If he got enough reserves for the upkeep, which is unlikely, stirwin will become a really big boy.
Christian Krueger
or to get stirwins second meal. it has been so long since the first one, the boy must be hungry.
Jerome Rose
And now we have to wait for Monday? How am I supposed to wait that long, to see the reaper claw himself out of the vulture?
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