Archimedes
The moment was now. Chedderfield and the others barely had time to chew their tough jerky before the army began their advance. It was a wild scene, like an unstoppable flood of ants, the enemy's forces marching off in perfect unison toward the east, leaving only the tall leader with a contingent of a hundred brutes, conscriptors, and other twisted creatures. Not wasting a second, Archimedes looked to his companions and with one knowing nod, they lunged forward. They sped across the ground, charged weapons poised and skills at the ready, but then only twenty feet from their target, a dozen four-inch-wide bone spikes erupted from the ground towards Archimedes and Chedderfield, forcing them to suddenly halt right before a broad five-foot-tall row of bone spikes formed a wall between them and the tall muscular general.
The horned leader raised a clawed hand, and with an eerie silence, his monstrous entourage spread out in a wide circle surrounding the group. “Have you come to kill me, the great and mighty Atilius, thinking you would cut the head off the snake? How foolish. I am not the head of the snake but the entire dragon. I alone am enough to crush your pitiful resistance.”
“You’re a zombie. That means you weren’t even strong enough to stay alive during the opening stretches of the apocalypse, and you think you’re strong enough to face off against us?” Archimedes replied as he gripped his spear tightly and prepared for battle.
“It was not I that died, but my weakness was cut from my bones so that I might stand before you here as perfection incarnate, the true potential of man,” Atilius bragged. “It is not death you are resisting, but the future and hope. A resistance that I will destroy for your own good so that you too may shed your fragile mortal forms!”
“You’re mistaken about something,” Archimedes replied as he continued to edge closer to the undead general. “You haven’t shed your mortality. Even now, you’re only”—he looked down, mentally measuring the distance between them—“about two dozen feet from death.”
“Enough! Do you—”
“ENOUGH INDEED! Let’s begin this fight already!” Archimedes shouted, letting out the hisses and hoots that the Sirrusu would often make as a battle cry.
Manuel Chedderfield has selected you as his Ward. It is recommended that you stay within 10 feet of Chedderfield.
With a chorus of identical hisses, even Chedderfield doing his best to mimic the sounds, the sirrušu shot off like arrows, streaking toward Atilius. But before they could reach him, half a dozen lanky, chitin-covered creatures with no eyes leapt from the hell-cursed army to intercept them. The monsters waved their legs like daggers, slashing with deadly talons and assaulting the sirrušu minds with treacherous mental powers that Archimedes could feel even at a distance. The sirrušu responded with incredible agility, spinning and thrusting their weapons in a flurry of motion as they tried to defend against the monsters’ attacks. The staff-wielders blasted away at the creatures with magical bursts of searing energy.
“This is a fight between us, not those filthy alien interlopers. This is a battle to determine the fate of humanity as I educate your flesh with pain and force, teaching it exactly how flawed your form is!” Atilius shouted.
Meanwhile, Archimedes and Chedderfield reached Atilius with nothing barring their way, as if it had been his will all along, and with almost mystic synchronicity, Chedderfield chopped at the creature’s knees with his vibrating black macuahuitl at the same time that Archimedes lunged forth with his spear pointed directly at Atilius’ chest.
But Atilius was ready for them. He blocked the spear thrust with a simple yet devastatingly effective swing of his forearm while Chedderfield’s macuahuitl bounced off his hardened skin harmlessly.
“Pathetic. Is that the best you can do?”
Atilius spun around, his fist a blur as he lunged toward Archimedes. In the nick of time, Chedderfield managed to position his shield to deflect the blow and throw the mighty monster off balance. Archimedes took the opening and surged forward, the tip of his spear glowing with energy as he thrust it straight toward Atilius' unprotected side. The weapon glinted in the gray light of the morning sky. With a powerful thrust, the tip of the spear flew toward Atilius. Sparks erupted as it glanced off the general’s chitin thick skin, leaving only a thin scratch. As if nothing had happened, Atilius threw back his head and let loose a menacing laugh.
"You think you can defeat me with such a meager attack? I am invulnerable to your pitiful weapons," Atilius taunted them, laughing scornfully again as his opponents scrambled away. He threw a blindingly fast punch that caught Archimedes’ jaw, sending him hurtling backward into an unsuspecting Chedderfield. Atilius moved like lightning, whipping his body around into a roundhouse kick aimed for the center of Archimedes' chest.
Just as Atilius was about to deliver another devastating blow, a yellow and red streak flew across the battlefield. Hot Sauce had leapt into the fight, using her staff to block Atilius's attack before knocking him backward with a swift kick.
Hot Sauce’s strike barely interrupted Atilius, only slowing his assault before he charged forward again. His first attack moved so fast that she didn’t get a chance to deflect it before it connected cleanly with her face, sending her body spinning through the air. She slammed into the ground, groaning from the impact and holding the side of her head as she looked like she was trying to recover from the concussion of the blow.
Atilius’s face twisted with fury as he ran up to finish her off, his fists smashing into her, raining blow after blow on her body. Her scales, already red from battle, were drenched with her own blood. With one final punch, he landed a devastating uppercut that sent Hot Sauce flying back, knocking her unconscious. Atilius gave no signs of stopping as he hoisted the unconscious lizardwoman into the air, her body weak and limp like a rag doll in his grasp. Dangling her by her left arm, Atilius grabbed her right arm in his free hand and pulled on each of her limbs, stretching her arms taut until Hot Sauce let out an agonized cry. Skin, muscle, and tendon tore as Atilius ripped her left arm off with a firm, quick tug, only to toss it to the ground like a discarded toy.
Chedderfield and Archimedes, having recovered from the hits Atilius had landed on them, moved as quickly as they could to save her. Chedderfield used Meat Slam to close the distance to the monster in a second, his shield glowing orange as he held it in front of him. He struck Atilius in the back, staggering the monster. The orange glow from Chedderfield's shield burst on contact, covering the hell-cursed general and stunning him.
Taking advantage of the brief opening Chedderfield had created with his Shield Bash skill, Archimedes opened his mouth wide, activating Fire Breath and releasing a raging torrent of fire, the orange and yellow flames dancing across the back of Atilius, who screamed in agony as the heat singed his skin. The fire released from the flame attack grew in intensity and covered Atilius’s body like a blanket, refusing to be extinguished. His flesh began to char, the ghastly smell of burnt skin filling the air. The heat from the flames was unbearable, and Atilius roared in agony as his form began to take on a monstrous shape, his body wreathed in fire and smoke.
Chedderfield, using the brief moment the monster was distracted from the pain of the fire to back up, then activated his Acid Breath attack as he sent out a searing stream of acid, dousing Atilius and the ground around him. When the acid touched the flames still immolating the hell-cursed general, the skills combined in a booming explosion, causing Hot Sauce and Atilius to be blown forward, but thankfully away from each other as their bodies skidded across the ground. The smoke and ash produced from the combusting acid in the air quickly turned into a sickly green mist, settling onto Atilius's body like a blanket of tiny needles, burning and melting away the thick leg armor he wore.
Atilius staggered to his feet and immediately barreled toward Archimedes and Chedderfield. For a moment, it looked like the hell-cursed monster was unstoppable, with neither their physical attacks nor their skills hurting it. But just as Atilius was about to reach them, they noticed a fatal flaw in his exterior: luminous streaks of bright red from exposed muscle tissue peeked through the cracks in his hardened skin.
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“Weak spot!” Archimedes shouted as he pointed with his spear at the cracks in the monster general’s previously impenetrable skin.
Chedderfield moved like a blur, his shield raised as he charged forward, smashing into Atilius’s attacks on purpose to create an opening, while Archimedes drove forward with his spear, its tip glowing eerily with energy as he sacrificed his health to charge up an attack. When it connected with one of the tears in Atilius's skin, there was the splattering sound of ripping flesh as the wound exploded outward, and Atilius screamed in agony as he stumbled backward and fell to the ground.
Almost immediately, the general’s body healed itself, the skin and flesh regrowing rapidly to fill in the gaping hole that Archimedes and Chedderfield had just created, patching up all the other scratches and tears at the same time.
Desperate not to lose their momentum, Archimedes and Chedderfield lunged at the general with the same combination that had worked before: activating their Fire and Acid Breaths in combination, and as the two skills connected yet again, there was once more a blast that sent their ears ringing and dirt and smoke flying in all directions. But when the smoke cleared this time, Atilius was still whole, his skin having taken on a blue glow. Their combined attack seemed to have had no effect on him. He just stood there, staring at the two. Somehow, Atilius had developed a resistance to the devastating blows he had just endured. What’s more, the explosion hadn’t even moved him an inch.
“Did you think the same trick would work twice in a row on me? Only you unevolved barbarians wouldn’t know how to fix your vulnerabilities, suffering the same nonsensical attacks over and over again. You’re just asking to die.” Atilius laughed as he got to his feet, unfazed.
“How . . . How can that fucking be?! Fucking cheats!” Chedderfield cursed.
“What the hell?” Archimedes said, also voicing his confusion. There wasn’t even a single scar or burn on Atilius’s body from the attack. A sinking feeling of dread hung in Archimedes’ stomach as he tried to work out how—and even if—he could defeat the bastard.
“For all that crap talking you’re doing, I don’t see you moving much anymore though,” Chedderfield snarled at the hell-cursed general. “What’s the matter, you stiff fuck. A little hurt there?”
Hearing his friend mocking the general, Archimedes at first expected the general to rush over and beat the ever-living crap out of Chedderfield, potentially even killing him in a single combination like he had almost done to Hot Sauce, but he didn’t. He just started slowly walking toward Chedderfield ominously like he was a hockey-mask-wearing horror film monster on his way to cut down horny teens in a cabin.
“Look at this slow-moving fuck. Just how badly hurt are you?” Chedderfield continued his taunts as he backed up at about the same speed the general was moving forward, yet the general didn’t speed up at all.
“He’s low on health, he might be close to death,” Archimedes noted as he watched the interaction.
The taunting and mockery caused the general to try and prove them wrong as he started to run straight at Chedderfield, his hand pulled back as he wound up the same hit that had knocked Hot Sauce out in one shot. "You wretched and impudent flesh! I shall flay you to the bone before you are remade!"
Not wanting to see his friend smashed by the attack, Archimedes used Leap Rush with his spear attack, slamming uselessly into the side of Atilius with the point of his spear, which failed to even penetrate a single inch, but the hit was still hard enough to pull the hell-cursed monster’s attention from Chedderfield long enough for his friend to shield himself from the incoming attack.
Even as Chedderfield blocked, fully prepared to handle the blow to the best of his abilities, he was still sent sprawling back by the hit. Archimedes soon followed as he was forced to use his spear to stop an incoming hit the moment Atilius turned his attention back to him, knocking him ten steps back before he was able to regain his footing as his heels dug into the ground.
“Fuck that hurts,” Chedderfield complained, looking over at Archimedes. “You got any ideas to finish this bastard off, or you just wanna trade blows with the pendejo till he runs out of steam?”
“I got nowhere to be,” Archimedes laughed as he racked his brain for a solution. He knew that a long, back-and-forth slog with the general was an impossibility. Either the general would receive reinforcements soon, or the base would fall, and everyone would die. He had to do something soon.
“You believe you have the strength to battle me forever without respite? I will slay you with one more strike,” Atilius promised as he charged once more at the pair.
Chedderfield raised his shield, ready to block the attack to the best of his abilities again, but Archimedes, seeing the incoming attack, decided to go for a hail mary.
Before the general could reach them, he pushed Chedderfield out of the way, activating one of his abilities as he used his spear to attack with all of his might. Except, instead of attacking Atilius, he struck himself instead, stabbing himself right in the gut before wrenching the spear around to create even more damage.
Atilius reached him, throwing his own attack at Archimedes to finish off the now-wounded man—but nothing happened. A glowing white light erupted from Archimedes, blocking Atilius’s attack like a large cloud of goo that slowed and dampened the once potentially fatal blow to the point of stillness before it could ever even reach Archimedes.
“What the hell?” Chedderfield asked even as he leapt back into action, pulling meat out of his pocket and throwing it at Archimedes while changing his class.
You have lost your status as Ward.
Archimedes snapped up the undead flesh Chedderfield had tossed at him even while still ripping and tearing his abdomen open with the spear, even to the extent that his 220-point health bar was nearly gone before he could even swallow an ounce of meat.
Chedderfield’s finger glowed green, and he touched his Archimedes. The green glow suffused Archimedes’ upper body, and Archimedes felt a flood of relief course through him as nearly a fifth of his health bar was restored instantly.
Even with the healing, his health was still dropping faster than the flesh was healing him.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Chedderfield asked, only for his eyes to light up as he realized what was going on and why Atilius’s attack had been frozen. Archimedes didn’t even have to say the word run before his friend, having figured out Archimedes’s strategy, had started to bolt in the opposite direction, using his Meat Slam skill to run toward Hot Sauce, grabbing the lizardwoman up before continuing to flee.
As Chedderfield bolted, Atilius, trapped in the white cloud that Archimedes’s skill had created, flexed his muscles with a roar. “You think I can’t handle you? Fools!”
“That’s what your mom said.” Archimedes chuckled at his own joke despite being unsure if he would live through the self-inflicted damage over time gnawing at his health bar. Then the Holy Shield’s special silver-tier upgrade effect, Retribution, activated.
All of the white energy, the damage that he’d taken from repeatedly tearing apart his abdomen, exploded in a ten-foot radius around him as using the pain and damage Archimedes had taken while the skill had been active and dealing it to everything around him as the effect unleashed itself like a nova in all directions, decimating the general on contact. Archimedes let go of the shaft of his spear after releasing the white energy and quickly reached into his pocket and started stuffing his mouth with undead conscriptor flesh as fast as he could to stop the bleeding. He had physically destroyed himself, but as he looked around, he saw Atilius's body, cracked and broken, black blood pouring out from his skin and every orifice. He knew the gambit had been worth it.
Atilius looked at Archimedes with wide eyes and groaned one last word, "Impossible." His body then collapsed in on itself, and a platinum skill card and a gold equipment card appeared above his corpse.
Chedderfield was by Archimedes’ side the next moment, having returned as fast as he had left. He began tugging at Archimedes, trying to get him to his feet. “We have to get out of here. They’re all going crazy!”
Archimedes had been so wrapped up in the last moments of their enemy that he’d failed to notice what was happening around him. The once-disciplined army of zombies and other monsters had descended into chaos without their leader to guide them. The mental backlash of the general’s death had killed a third of the conscriptors, which then killed a third of the creatures they were controlling as well, and half of the remaining monsters began running amok and attacking each other in a frenzy.
He saw the sirrušu heading toward them. All across the distance, shots were being fired randomly into the air. Spells flew all around him. Screams of terror echoed through his ears as the evolved monsters began destroying and killing each other. He knew he should be doing something, but he could hardly move, lacking even enough strength to fully remove the spear from his gut as he watched this utter madness unfold before him.
Chedderfield hastily grabbed Archimedes with the help of Brightscales, the two of them hoisting him up such that each was holding a shoulder.
“We need to get the fuck outta here now!” Chedderfield told him, “Those bastards will sort their ranks soon, and then they will hunt us down, and you are in no shape to fight them!”
“But— But!! We can’t leave!”
“Bro, stop it. You’re way too fucking hurt to fight them!” Chedderfield insisted as he looked over at the other sirrušu, trying to motion with his head for them to leave.
“No!! Wait!! We . . . We need to—!” Archimedes tried to steady himself, reaching his hand toward the army.
“We need to leave!” Chedderfield insisted again as he took a moment to use Healer’s Touch once more to restore more of Archimedes’ health. “Come on, siru-who or whatever you call yourselves! Help me!”
“No!! THE CARDS!! THINK OF ALL THOSE CARDS!” Archimedes finally managed to yell, the healing giving him enough vigor to voice his concern as he switched classes and activated Auto Loot. “Take me to the cards, brother! Let me loot one more time!”
“I’m going to kill you . . .” Chedderfield did not look amused as he stared at Archimedes, a look of pure indignation on his face. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”