Universe's End

Chapter 225: Shields Don't Rust

“E.O.N, Aelia, and the Great Founders above,” Edward grunted, an unusually long outburst from the normally quiet man.

It wasn’t hard to see why, given that currently, there was a three-versus-thousandsbattle ongoing.

And they had the easy job.

“At least someone is having fun,” Violet shouted, engulfed in blue Dawnfire, kept to a level that she wasn’t burning herself up too fast.

“Hahahah!” A third voice cackled as a blur of prismatic lights flashed by. “Keep up!”

For Marcie, whose strength came from her fighting spirit, the stress of being stopped from rushing to the aid of their people, plus finally having the chance to let loose on a massive horde of monsters, was the exact combination of elements that really got her going.

The endless horde had one goal: to murder the Vanguard.

So they had one goal in return: stop the horde from reaching the Vanguard.

The Vanguard’s aura was like an unflagging bullhorn that enraged the monsters, rushing forward with frothing bloodlust, her skill never wavering for a moment. It was perhaps the only thing that prevented the horde from sweeping through any remaining survivors, assuming there were any, within the undercity, even with the three strongest of the Elite Four present.

“At least we aren’t dealing with that,” Violet said as fireflies coursed forward like a forest fire in the making, bursting low-tier monsters into more fireflies.

‘That’ was the tier eight former territory alpha and Khan of the Maw, the Blight Khan. Slain and then resurrected or reanimated, however the exact process worked, the Blight Khan was no longer as strong as a true territory alpha.

Not that it would matter for anyone other than a Founder, territory alpha, or one step below, it wouldn’t change that it would kill anyone else who attempted to face it down one-on-one.

As if to prove a point as massive clang rang out as a scarlet comet shot by, crashing through several buildings that still stood, before a figure pulled herself free from the rubble, dusting herself off as if she hadn’t just been struck head-on by a monster that could leave most equal-level opponents a red paste.

Spear, sword, bow, daggers, and several other weapons all orbited Edward like an automatic killing defense, which left some attention to spare, watching as the Vanguard shot forward at mind-numbing speeds, crashing against the oversized monster once more, as this time it was the one launched back hundreds of meters as a black fist crashed into one of its faces.

It was the first time any Ehkorrian, not counting those who had traveled with the Lord Founder to his volcanic base, had seen another Founder in action.

And it did not disappoint.

How is her body metal? Edward found himself wondering in the glimpses where she slowed for just long enough to catch sight of her.

Where the Lord Founder was a master of finesse and creativity, the Vanguard was a single-minded force of nature. Her weapons of choice were nothing more than her fist and shield, a wrecking ball in motion, almost the exact opposite of what Edward preferred.

Edward felt his gut begin to twist and knot, an ungodly feeling of illness settling onto him. Even as he blasted his aura, the effect deepened as he found himself stumbling, even Marcie slowing as the feeling, the very fabric of space feeling as if it were radiating blight.

And then it was gone, contested as an aura of unwavering steel put a stop to the effect.

Focusing once more on the sea of monsters attempting to overwhelm them, Edward was suddenly pushed back as a new opponent appeared, a Bane-Warped Fallen Blight Commander. It slashed out, as energy blades swept out, carrying the twin aspects of Blight and Void.

“Spear’s Tip!” Edward called out as he suddenly grabbed the haft of his strongest weapon that had also been spinning around him automatically, made by the Lord Founder himself. Thrusting the weapon forward, a carnival of lights and phantasms erupted alongside the spear, colliding with the blighted void attack. While one wouldn’t expect illusions to be effective for countering something along the lines of such an attack, illusions were all about what was perceived. If what the Fallen Blight Commander perceived was magic that needed to be overwhelmed, it would instinctively direct its attack to clash, wasting energy to overwhelm something that never existed.

Making it that much easier for Spear’s Tip to pierce straight through the skill, blowing it apart before piercing through the warped commander’s head.

Violet, meanwhile, had reached the point where she had enough fireflies generated that explosions of blue fire were ripped through the horde, like miniature nuclear bombs detonating en masse.

As for Marcie, well…. She’d gone critical. Accelerating, she’d take off, leaping with a flying kick that would tear through hundreds of monsters before landing, pivoting, and sweeping her leg outward as a crescent blade of prismatic ‘energy’ shot out. The most impressive part? It wasn’t even magic; the crescent blade was simply superheated air pressure.

As impressive as their performance was, it was a good thing it wasn’t a proper wave; the large majority of the monsters were below tier seven, and they were little more than soft tofu to the three members of the Elite Four.

Imagine that, a horde of monsters accompanying a Siege Wave.

Except Edward didn’t have to imagine, that was exactly what had nearly caused the end of Ehkorrus almost two decades ago.

Grunting, Edward shifted his balance and swept his arm out, blades of a wide variety ripping through monsters before returning to his orbit. Unlike the Lord Founder, who could project what seemed like anything on the fly, Edward was limited to using real weapons, and the more diverse, the better. His signature skill, for which he owed his moniker, ‘The Quartermaster,’ reduced the pneumic strain of manipulating weapons as long as they were all unique. It also allowed him to learn to use all weapon types extremely quickly, but that was probably the less impactful part of the skill.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Another bane-warped fallen blight commander attempted to face him, and again it was cut down as Edward found himself momentarily lost in thought.

To think what this would be like if the Lord Founder hadn’t rescued Lady Tsarina from the Blight Khan.

Technically, Lady Tsarina hadn’t existed yet, but it was her lineage that the Lord Founder, alongside the Chief Protector, had stolen right out from under the Blight Khan’s nose. Perhaps they’d be assaulted by a flying stormcloud of bane-warped blight mites or some other form of derivative type monster.

Did the Lord Founder predict such a possibility? No… Unless?

It was hard to say. Edward, unlike some of the other members of the Elite Four, didn’t know the Lord Founder very well. He was an… odd man, to say the least. He had once overheard Kai Rong reference the Lord Founder to a ‘trickster god,’ and in truth, it was a rather apt description. It was impossible to tell whether what was a comment or an action of jest, and when the Lord Founder was being a visionary of unparalleled foresight.

Catching his thoughts straying, Edward was just in time to catch sight of the Vanguard blowing a literal hole straight through the fallen blight khan’s chest.

Founders.

“Bleh,” Zoey muttered as she shook the goop and guts off her hand. “You are one disgusting mother fucker.”

Already, the hole she’d punched through the oversized monster was stitching itself back together.

Annoying.

“You’re like one big ugly ass sandbag,” Zoey said as she avoided a titanic strike for its arm that could have bulldozed buildings back on Earth. “That hits hard as a mother fucker and has some of natiest aura I’ve ever felt.”

Based on the monster's description, Zoey was fairly certain it had once been stronger and more intelligent, but now it was just a lumbering bulk.

Still immensely dangerous, as just standing in its vicinity felt like it was eating away at her, but manageable, if only to someone like her or Rory, who would pull something out of his ass.

Sandbags, huh?

Without intending to, for a moment, the memory flashed before her eyes, her younger sister being scolded, she’d convinced one of the servants-

Help. One of the ‘help’ is what we were supposed to call them.

-to bring her a sandbag. Six years old she had been at the time, her knuckles bloodied but her smile wide like she’d been given a pony.

Until their Father had both the sandbag and the help who’d gotten it for her promptly removed.

“Whoa there!” Zoey said, pulled from the memory as several oozy, half-calcified spikes were shot at her, black and green and all types of nasty.

Avoiding the spikes, Zoey raced up its behemoth body and once more began laying into it, her fists pummeling the ever-living hell out of the giant monster.

“Just how durable are you?” Zoey asked, pot calling the kettle black.

In her defense, it was durable in a different

direction. Zoey was literally hard to hurt, whereas the monster was spongy to the touch -partially in thanks for being dead- but seemed to have an astronomical degree of vital energy constantly regenerating its body.Is it vital energy if it's dead? Necromatic energy? Is necromancy a thing? Ah, shit, I sound like Rory.

Gah, how do I counteract this?

If it were Rory, he would be lighting the hulking behemoth up with Heavenly lightning at this point.

Zoey, unfortunately, couldn’t do that.

Narrowing her eyes, Zoey frowned.

Why can’t I?

Oh sure, she wasn’t nearly as practiced with magic as Rory was.

But she was a complete novice anymore; she’d spent the better part of decades now practicing. And it wasn’t as if heavenly energy was something she’d been in short exposure to; it was Rory’s go-to element when dealing with anything with corruptive or toxic style affinities.

Plus, there is a big ole well of heavenly energies nearby.

She was, of course, referring to the oversized snake corpse that looked like it could eat a school bus for a snack.

Finally, she’d been getting more practice with adding pneuma into her fighting style; her Seismic Impact needed pneuma, after all.

If all I’m doing is adding a bit of flavor, surely I can manage that.

Putting some distance between herself and the fallen blight khan, Zoey raised her hands overhead, interlocking her fingers together.

“How did his chant go? Oh yeah, something like this.”

Grinning and very glad Rory wasn’t around to hear her, Zoey began to chant.

“Illapa, Narukami, Chaac, and Indra! Heavenly Impact!”

At first, her hands turned black as she channeled her durability and pneuma to activate Seismic Impact.

It was a moment later that the shock blue lightning arced over, drawn from what remained within the corpse of the oversized snake, coating her blackened hands with a blue electrical field.

“Hot damn,” Zoey whistled. “That’s more like it.”

Fists infused with heavenly energy, her smile waned for a split second.

Yeah, I can’t hold this long.

She had next to no pneuma investment; she was basically relying on nothing but the natural increases gained from having eight ascensions under her belt and some piddly amounts of practice.

Well, no time to waste.

Racing forward, Zoey was on the fallen blight khan in a moment, utterly laying waste to the oversized monster. She felt an immense sense of satisfaction as her fists, coursing with heavenly lightning, burned away not just its flesh, but its aura seemed to wither away like a fire elemental from water.

Knowing that she was on a time limit, Zoey completely abandoned self-preservation as its aura and oozing pustual blood burned at her, trying to reduce her to a lump of decaying flesh.

But she was the god damn Vanguard, and that wasn’t going to work on her.

Deeper and deeper she tore into the monster, as even her sword-steel skin began to fail against the sheer intensityof the blight energy within. To continue without stopping would be to put even her life at risk.

Pushing herself as far as she could, where surely she would be forced to pull back and catch her breath, Zoey finally activated it, her damage nullification skill.

Ten seconds.

Over a span of ten seconds, she would drop from full damage immunity to something like seventy-five percent nullification at the ten-second mark, before vanishing entirely.

It’s enough.

Fists tearing through its body like a high-power excavator, Zoey could sense something thrumming with power only a little deeper in.

Nine seconds.

She had an idea as to what it was; they’d gathered quite a few over the years after all.

Eight seconds.

If it wasn’t for her damage nullification skill, Zoey could tell this deep within its body would have been like licking a nuclear reactor, utterly steeped with blight and void energies.

Seven seconds.

“Why the fuck do you have to be such a fuck-off large monster?” Zoey growled under her breath.

Six seconds.

A ‘rib cage’ appeared in front of Zoey, which was both good and bad news.

The good news was that it meant she was a hop, skip, and a jump away from her target.

That bad news was that there was a god damn rib cage in her way.

Fuck it.

Striking the bone with her fists, she felt her own bones being reduced to shards and splinters.

Five seconds.

With a flurry of blows aimed with expert precision, her fists smashed through after only a moment.

Four seconds.

Her hands were looking less and less like hands by the second, but it was right there.

Three seconds.

Tearing through the last bit of flesh in the way, Zoey’s eyes widened for a split second.

Holy mother of pearl, that is the mother of all monster cores.

Monster cores that they had retrieved in the past had usually been no larger than a fist or the size of her head.

This one was the size of her.

Laying what remained of her hand on top of the core, Zoey yoinked it, the monster core vanishing into her inventory.

Probably couldn’t do that if it were actually alive.

With two seconds to spare, the aura of blight and void that had managed to chew its way down to bone in some spots throughout her body, even through the damage nullification, vanished.

Relaxing, Zoey heard the muffled sound of the titanic corpse crashing to the ground from within the rather disgusting, albeit safe, fleshy interior of the fallen khan.

With the fallen khan now twice fallen, Zoey squirmed and crawled her way out from its body, following the path she’d burrowed in.

Emerging, Zoey flopped on her back, lying atop the utterly gangrenous monster.

And the worst part?

Zoey sighed, staring up at the ceiling far above.

“Not even the grossest thing I’ve ever done.”