Chương 63: Chapter 56 - The Paradise base

Liu and Henrik both half glared at me, half stared at Siegfried.

"Fellow anti-daoist, that was not the plan," Liu said.

"And who is that?" Henrik asked.

"You follow whatever plan you want. I'm killing her today." I looked over my summons. Ashy had already turned into the sword, floating around innocently. Astarielle wore her usual dress, and Siegfried had his all-black suit with a greatsword strapped to his back. He drew the sword, stepping toward the gate.

"I will carve the path."

"If you face the choice between letting her go and killing her, then kill her." I stepped toward the gate. High above the base, four suns burned orange. The prophecy said four suns would lose their light. So, the numbers matched. Across the base, in the window of the gate tower, Peace was still talking to her officer. Then, mid-sentence, she stopped. She turned her head. She pressed a button on a nearby console, and the alarms blared.

Across the whole swarming yard, over four hundred people and eleven mechanized units turned in the gate's direction. Oh, come at me, all of you. Siegfried had cost fifty million mana to summon. Time to see if he was worth the cost. Liu exhaled through his nose, slowly, as if the heavens disappointed him personally. He rolled his shoulders. Golden light began to seep up through his skin like dawn through paper.

"Then this one shall accompany you into foolishness. May the Heavenly Dao guide our path."

"I want it stated for the record," Henrik said, planting his staff, runes crawling up the obsidian, "that this is tactically indefensible, strategically premature, and that I am participating exclusively because your foolishness makes non-compliance even worse." With a hypersonic boom, Siegfried vanished, reappeared at the gate, and swung upward. The gate blew apart, torn from its hinges, its wings thrown into the air with a deafening shockwave. Astarielle released six fireballs at the tower.

They hit with a series of explosions. Crimson flame consumed the tower. Peace slipped out, shielded by the crystal, vanishing behind the wall. I put Ashy and Astarielle on automatic resummon. Ashy flew after Peace. A flak-cannon turret on the wall turned, caught her mid-flight, and blew her apart. I sprinted forward. Liu ran as if on air, golden light forming underneath his steps to support him. Henrik shot straight up, flame bursting around him as he rose into the sky. The base returned fire.

Cannons roared, mechs rushed toward us, and every automatic defense opened up at once. The barrage hit my shields, stretching them. A stray shell blew Astarielle apart.

"Wee!" echoed from above me as Ashy resummoned and flew forward once more. This time she kept behind Liu, leaving him to tank the flak cannons. Fire and explosions echoed from everywhere. The base was scrap metal all the way down—welded plating for walls, gun nests hammered onto stacked containers, catwalks strung between rooftops, an absolute mess. Smoke rolled over it in sheets, and everything it touched turned the same shade of rust.

From what I could see of the defenders, most looked like post-apocalyptic raiders and carried melee weapons. The rest had firearms. Leather and scrap plate, bones and road signs beaten into armor, war paint where helmets should have been. Paradise recruited from every floor, and apparently from every floor's fashion scene, too. A unit of thirty raiders swarmed Siegfried. Every swing of his blade sent a handful of them flying. Some cannon fire hit him too. Most of it didn't seem to cause any damage.

Some did, tearing out a chunk of his shoulder or arm. The damaged flesh and suit reformed in barely an instant. Under flak-cannon fire, Liu reached the wall and started destroying the turrets with open-palm strikes that burst with golden light. High above, fire condensed into meteors that began descending on the base. The anti-air defenses turned, shooting at them. A few rockets launched, too, some at Henrik. He fired a barrage of lightning at the rockets. Two exploded midair.

One got through, detonating next to him. It sent him spiraling down. He crashed somewhere inside the base. I got close to the battle line. A unit of twenty raiders dropped in on me. I snap-summoned a hundred worms. Detonate. The explosion sent body parts flying. I ran through. Finally, I reached Siegfried. And I glimpsed Peace's crystal far back in the courtyard.

"That way!" I shouted, pointing. He threw apart a dozen men, pushing in that direction. He could have gotten there with ease himself. But he also needed to make sure I got there too. After all, if I died, he'd be unsummoned. And I didn't have the mana to tank something like this forever. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Hell, I was already down to about seventy million, half of what I'd had five minutes ago.

Ashy and Astarielle resummoned near me. Both likely blown apart somewhere in the earlier fire. In a tighter formation, we dove into the enemies. I had Ashy float around me, slashing away at whoever got into melee range. Astarielle fell into a cycle of casting a spell, getting blown apart by gun or cannon fire, and resummoning to do it again. We had to have a serious combat tactics discussion later. Our progress stalled, enemies everywhere, and every few steps, a fight. On the battlements, Liu fought three mechs.

His golden strikes tore chunks off their armor but couldn't one-shot them. Henrik reappeared floating over the base's inner ring, wrapped in shields, torrents of water and wind swirling around them, tearing apart whoever got close. Fire burned at a dozen spots around the base, some from Astarielle, most from the meteors. The complex turned out to be a proper fortress.

Structured into wedges, each one its own killbox, with a whole lot more bio-mechanical robots, or suits of armor, I couldn't tell which, waiting inside. Amber light pulsed through tubing that ran along the walls like veins. Paradise's trademark. The whole place felt less built than grown. I pulled on Yushi. She appeared in an instant, already around, just invisible.

"Damian-sama?"

"Find a path to Peace."

"Given the current situation, negotiations are off the table, so you might have to wage war on Peace." She giggled alone because this wasn't the time for jokes. As I glared at her, she covered her mouth with her fan. The little cloud appeared above her, raining down on her.

"This way." She pointed. Siegfried noticed, instantly changing direction. We headed that way. Sparks and spells flashed around Henrik. He floated above the battlements. A man in a trenchcoat, sword in one hand, jumped above him and slashed. The cut exploded, shattering half of Henrik's shields. It sent him crashing onto a roof. I recognized that man. Floor 22, the Paradise branch office. He'd shaken my hand, interviewed me for a job in the mines, and handed me a pamphlet about the end of the world. Liberation.

Peace's equal. I glanced around. Liu was on the other side, carving his way through the defenses. And I had no summons to spare. Henrik remade his shields, forming an orb of lightning above him. It blasted at Liberation. He blocked most of it with his blade, the rest hitting him without causing damage. With his free hand, he drew a pistol and fired at Henrik. The bullet pierced every shield and Henrik's gut. He stumbled. Power swelled around him and burst into a nova.

It annihilated the roof they stood on, the nearby wall, and a hundred yards of space with everything in it. Liberation withstood it, blocking with the sword. Only his coat smoldered. Henrik, floating again, raised the staff. A spectral dragon's head appeared above him. It opened its maw and unleashed a torrent of flame that blasted through the base, melting steel. Liberation pushed through the flame to its flank, jumped at Henrik, got above him, and slashed. The clash of power boomed through the air.

Henrik fell, landing on the ground swept clear of enemies by his own blast. Energy flashed around him for another spell. Liberation shot him again. The bullet pierced his hand, disrupting the spell into a violent explosion. Liberation pushed straight through and slashed at Henrik's throat. He blocked with his staff. The blade cut through the staff, deflected, and slashed him across the chest. Blood burst out. Liberation rammed him with a shoulder. Henrik stumbled, falling to one knee.

Liberation raised the gun and shot him in the head. Henrik's form shimmered, despawning. The first of us fell. I filed the guilt next to everything else I'd deal with later. And later was getting crowded. We made it into a building. The horde thinned in here. The hallways were clean, brutally so, scrubbed metal under amber light, with posters bolted to the walls at intervals. EVERYONE HAS A PLACE IN PARADISE, above a smiling family of miners. Even mid-firefight, the font managed to look smug. We sped up.

Siegfried carved the path as if the defenders were nothing. Every slash of his sword was a hypersonic boom that ended the existence of everything in front of him. Yushi led us through the complex. We ran. From the courtyard, cannons turned and fired at us. They annihilated the wall, blasting us with explosions and shrapnel. Ashy and Astarielle got blown apart. I tanked it with my shields. We ran into another building, through it, and out onto a courtyard.

Peace stood up ahead, one building away, on a platform between it and the next. Liu had just landed there, launching a blast of golden qi. The crystal blocked the attack, a force field snapping into its path. Peace glanced at me and ran on. Liu bolted after her, sliding around the crystal. Liberation landed in his path, slashing at his throat. Liu swayed back under the cut and created distance with a straight kick. Yushi pointed at a door to the side. An interception path.

Siegfried went through the door shoulder-first. The entire frame ejected from the wall. Another door and a long hallway. Peace ran down the stairs on the far side, vanishing into a group of raiders that had just poured through. We bolted after her, Astarielle launching crimson bolts over our heads. The raiders choked the hallway. While Siegfried unclogged it, I caught the duel through the windows. Liu dodged an incoming stab, sidestepping, turning his own palm strike into a qi blast.

Liberation rotated with the motion, avoiding the attack, aiming the gun with his left hand. Liu stayed off the gun's line, spinning in for a kick hidden by his flowing robes. Liberation threw the gun up into the air, grabbed the sword with both hands, and slashed. The air around them exploded, tearing apart the golden qi and Liu's robes. Blood burst from across Liu's chest. Liberation caught the falling gun, aimed, and fired. Liu slid away from the bullet, bolting into close quarters on a surge of golden qi.

Liberation met him with a knee. Liu slipped around it, smashing his palm into his midsection. Golden energy exploded around them. But Liberation didn't move, bringing the sword down. It severed Liu's shoulder, cutting deep into him. Liu jumped back, blood spraying. Liberation followed with a stab. Liu sidestepped straight into the gun's line. The muzzle roared, and the bullet pierced Liu's chest. As he stumbled, Liberation spun and cut off his head. Liu's entire body shimmered, forcefully extracted. Zeroed out.

Then this one shall accompany you into foolishness. He'd said that not ten minutes ago, smiling, light seeping through his skin like dawn. The foolishness had been mine. The head had been his. Two emperors gone inside a few minutes, by the hand of a single man. Liberation was not messing around. Siegfried, Astarielle, and Ashy cleared the path through the raiders. We ran on, Yushi pointing down the stairs. Astarielle spun up a large spell.

Streaks of crimson flame curved around the corner and hit the wall at a seemingly random spot. Somewhere ahead of us, a whole section of the building collapsed. Together with Siegfried, I ran down the stairs, the succubi behind me. We reached an underground chamber. Half of it lay buried under the freshly collapsed ceiling, courtesy of Astarielle. And Peace stood on our side of the rubble, thirty feet away, with only her crystal, three men in raider-style armor, and two mutated dog-like beasts. Got her.

With a smirk, I stepped forward. Peace raised her hand. The crystal expanded, as if half-shattering into a halo. A pale field bloomed from it, washing over us. All my contact with mana vanished. My shields died. My summons disappeared. In a split second, I stood alone. The smirk froze on my lips. Well, fuck