Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 117: An Expected Catastrophe

A Demon Lord. The weakest of the [Raid Bosses] which went by that name, the name addendum of ‘Least’ being literally the weakest possible version of any given monster, but this was still a peak Tier 6 monster with all the toughness, anti-army abilities and other fuckery that came along with being a [Raid Boss].

“Wait here, coordinate with the others, attack that thing in concert.” Isaac ordered, fixing everyone in the room with a stern look “I’ll see if I can buy you the time needed to properly go after that thing.”

As an S-Ranker, he had the authority to make that an order. Unfortunately, there was a second S-Ranker in the room, an [Archer] with a [Class] that turned historical artefacts into weapons of monstrous power who wielded his family’s ancestral bow and said [Archer] was unwilling to follow this ‘suggestion’.

So Isaac cracked his [Aura] like a whip, causing the man to flinch back as Isaac glared at him “This isn’t a game where we can afford to go off half cocked. Neither can we assume a summon powerful enough to trigger a message like that is weak enough that the military can stop it. I have a powerset that lets me get there quickly, and is perfect for going against individual, powerful targets. You work best in the back, highlighting weakpoints for others and destroying them.”

And that was all the time he could realistically spare to give instructions, now he needed to go after the monster itself.

Isaac began to run. He leaped through the first few buildings as such a long straight line let him gather a lot of momentum, then turned onto a wide street that lead in the direction he was going. Sure, he might not know where ‘Kijong-dong’ was on the map, but the prompt had told him it wasn’t that far away and that it was located north-north-east of his current position. Just heading in that general direction should let him find the beast in short order, Demon Lords weren’t exactly subtle, after all.

A fighter jet’s engine roared somewhere to the south east, while the sounds of detonations and angry roars came from the direction he was heading in, albeit at a vastly lower volume.

As he ran, Isaac reached into his spatial storage to pull out his prepared gear. The [Bracers of any Defense] he’d gotten from a Dungeon a few weeks ago, now modified to resist fire and with a custom holder for an inscribed core went onto his arms first. This way, he would use the core to access his storage without needing to go groping around for one in the pockets that might soon have been burned away, and he could always summon another core into the empty slot every time he used up the old one.

Then, the [Cloak of the Ulfhednar] obtained from the first even settled on his shoulders, increasing his Strength and Agility by five and Perception in ten points. Isaac had never used it before because he had no way of replacing or properly repairing it, preferring to save it for an emergency and, well, this situation definitely qualified.

The combat up north came closer and closer, and the head of the Demon Lord appeared over the horizon. It was a massive monster, more than twice as tall as the horrid beast Isaac and the others had killed in the final hour of the other timeline, rising a full 50 meters above the ground. A crown of nasty-looking spikes rose from its skull, two massive bull’s horns adding another three meters to its height, black flames wreathing its natural weapons and bathing them in a horrific light.

Flashes of light smashed into its hide, taking out shallow gouges as Hunters engaged, and an armored figure bounced off the beast’s chest, falling back down to the earth as a flaming meteor. These were the people who, for whatever reason, had been closer to the border were already engaged in battles and dying in droves.

Meanwhile, a constant staccato of explosions rang out as mines blew before the advancing demon, its flaming [Aura] igniting and detonating the explosives within. Even a series of missiles that had been unleashed by a fighter jet exploded harmlessly over a hundred meters short of their intended target.

Now, modern munitions should not just be cooking off like that because they got lit on fire because they used stable explosives. Hell, you could light a stick of TNT on fire, hold it in your hand and be perfectly until the flames started licking at your fingers.

But this was no ordinary flame, it hellfire, dark as the starless void that birthed cosmic horrors and even merely looking at it gave even Isaac goosebumps. This crap didn’t give two shits about how fire ‘was supposed to act’. It moved against air currents, burned stuff in ways it in no way should be able to and could ignite the very life force of those it injured, striking wounds that were inordinately hard to heal and going so far as to shorten the lives of those who were unable to put it out in time.

Isaac might be functionally immune to ‘normal’ flames, but this hellspawn burned hotter than those damn Thermite Avatars and could partially ignore normal fire resistance to boot.

In others words, this was about to be a shitshow.

More and more explosions hid the Demon Lord from view as every military unit in the DMZ and general Seoul area opened fire, but nothing was getting close enough to do any damage. High explosives detonated harmlessly at range, the detonators in armor-piercing shells blew and fouled the trajectory of the munition, electronics fried while dumb munitions with explosives removed mostly missed and even when they hit, they barely inflicted any damage.

Fragmentation munitions might have worked, but they had to be detonated well outside their effective range or they’d blow automatically upon entering the [Aura], with the fact that the casing would be half melted by then utterly ruining the intended dispersal pattern.

Sadly, most [Raid Bosses] without the inherent toughness to shrug off modern weapons had ways of preventing them from being particularly effective.

A column of flame roared out of the demon’s clawed hand, wholly enveloping the plane. Mere moments later, the attack stopped and nothing remained of the pilot or their vehicle, both seemingly having been erased from existing.

“Everyone back, gather up and attack in a coordinated manner!” Isaac roared, but even screaming at the top of his lungs, few people heard him over the din of battle.

The Demon Lord staggered as a trio of metal slugs fired out of a piece of heavy artillery struck its chest, each projectile enhanced by a dozen different [Skills] as all the military personnel nearby pooled their abilities.

Sadly, the response to the most effective attack to date was swift and final. A clawed hand reached down, yanked a massive boulder out of the ground and hurled it in the direction the attack had come from, hellflame wreathing the rock as it flew. It hit like a godsdamned meteor, obliterating the offending heavy weapons and flattening everything within a hundred meters.

Isaac continued to charge forwards, using his [Aura] to smack anyone who wouldn’t immediately die because they’d been distracted, then yelled at them to get back. There were some civilians who’d been startled out of their shock and gave him grateful looks before fleeing, while Hunters or soldiers glanced at him guiltily and ran to wherever they were supposed to be.

Suddenly, the Demon Lord gave another furious roar and a flood of hellfire began to blast from its hands, covering the ground and flowing outwards as if it were a liquid.

This was the ‘gaining a little breathing space’ move of the Least Demon Lord that chased away the pesky little flies that were inflicting tiny little stings.

Of course, running through a literal lake of hellish fire was absolutely off the table, so Isaac took to the skies. He jumped, nullifying gravity’s hold on him while kicking off a telekinetically wielded Ka-Bar to control his movement.

A mid-range ballistic missile suddenly dropped out of the sky, aiming straight for the Demon, but it’s predictable arc made it a decently easy target.

Isaac phased as it blew, the massive shockwave passing straight through him. It would have done one hell of a number on him if he’d gotten caught by it, but it lacked any magic that could affect his phased form.

The monster’s eyes narrowed as it finally saw Isaac as a genuine problem that needed dealing with and raised its hand, another column of hellfire already forming.

Isaac flashed it a mocking grin as he flung himself to the side with [Wave Charge], then triggered the [Skill] again to fling himself forwards, parallel to the beam, Zweihänder aimed straight at the beast’s chest.

[Grave of Swords] triggered as the tip of his blade touched the monster’s chest and the world quaked. Every iota of power stored within that field of blades from all the monsters that had fallen within flowed into that single activation of the [Skill] as it was forced to contain an entity that it had never been intended to be used on.

A moment later, they stood there, glaring at each other in the vast space. It had expanded vastly with the increased power draw enforced by overdrawing the [Skill]. Countless blades had already been wiped out, and even as he watched, another one disintegrated into motes of energy with a sound of breaking glass.

But that was fine, that was why he’d gathered so many of them.

Now all there was to do was beat on that damn Demon Lord like a drum until it was either weak enough for the others to beat or the [Skill’s] timer ran out.