The Discarded, Half-Eaten Apple Core New Life

How to Kite your Boss

The weather was chaos. Winds reached 120 miles per hour, and volcanic ash sheared everything and anything in its path. Massive storms that made the Caribbean cyclones look like a gentle drizzle raged over Asia and Oceania.

All around the world, the survivors took refuge underground. Those women (and their two dozen magical pets) I met in Atlanta moved to Florida and vanished down a portal in the Bermuda Triangle that led to another world. Florida Man killed a Jabberwock and then ate it. Eww. He too led a bunch of refugees to the portals. Not a single human was left in North America.

The Infernali army stood on the destroyed Indonesia main island and bid their time. I used the lull to rebuild my Blimp force, add more weapons, restock the Mana bombs, refurbish the ones I had to grant them the armor bonus that would hopefully stop them from exploding too soon, and get everyone ready. The Jabberwocks were opening gates to bring more Jabberwocks to the field. And these would then warp in more monsters. Instead of six, they now had twenty Magnawalkers. Whose backs were crawling with the larger Damniablos I've ever seen.

I prepared all of my forces. I still loathed committing humans to the frontline. I didn't want anyone here to die. So I didn't. Instead, I used the dead. Keep that in mind.

When the Infernali army finally decided to move forward, I had a FOB on the ruins of Darwin. The even-more-ruined ruins of Darwin, for the entire Northern coast of Australia now were tall cliffs and broken hills. The bedrock itself had shattered under my relentless day of bombardment and it was all ruined now.

Yet, they came. Organized, they marched at the speed of their slowest combatant, which didn't include the Jabberwock. The tentacled dragon demon was a logistics unit, meant to stay in the rear away from the front lines. They also had no Wobby Dicks which made me thankful. Though I was better geared to deal with the damn Void Fly infestation, I wasn't interested in going through that again.

The ocean crashed as water from other parts of the world rushed in. Heavy rain blocked any visibility that depended on light. Mine didn't. East Timor no longer existed. The island nation had been beaten under the water and was now at most a shallow atoll.

I fired the opening salvo. Three thousand supermassive railgun cannons fired 25lb projectiles at the demon army. Shields sprung up, the glowing hexagons forming several layers that were mostly pierced by the railguns. The Damniablos would be worth their weight in Mana but I was confident I could surpass that. The railguns reloaded and fired again. A concert of sonic booms as the projectiles left the magnetic rail at speeds around Mach 4.

The Demon army advanced, wading through the troubled waters. I couldn't use the lasers. The rain curtain made them all but useless except if I wanted to feed more energy to the storm system by heating up the water. I staggered the railguns and now we had a steady shower of metal flying their way. The Damniablos took turns casting shields to defend their rides.

Firing at the Armagellykulls was useless. They sprayed a cloud of black ink in the air that lingered even despite the heavy rain. My projectiles vanished in that mist. Even my Domain couldn't make it go away. I didn't use the Mana Crystal bombs because I knew they would shield the bombs and make them detonate away from the target. The Infernali had adapted to my strategy so I needed to adapt faster.

The incursion a week ago was a probing strike. The monster's victory condition was much simpler than ours. Kill the World Tree sapling (an inch tall, look how much it grew). They didn't care about casualties. They didn't care how much we leveled up.

Meanwhile, we wanted to beat them back, defend the (immobile) sapling, and keep our casualties and fatalities to a minimum. As a bonus victory condition, leave as much of Australia as we could.

Dungeon vs demon, machine vs magical shields. As they moved into range, I added the smaller (but still huge) railguns to the mix. Then the Mana Crystal bombs. Let them waste their Mana shielding from my bombardment.

Hours passed. The demons advanced, under the watchful gaze of the Armagellykulls leading from the back. They were a dozen miles away from Australia now.

First blood would be ours.

Two of my hidden meteorological blimps floated up and behind the enemy lines. They flared beacons down on the ground and eight Galaxy Defenders teleported near the Jabberwocks.

"To battle!" Rta shouted on the comms. Millions of tons of steel and machinery stomped toward the tentacle monsters. Which were not so big, not so frightening anymore. As if they were swinging at vines, the sixteen Mecha hacked with their magical swords, slicing dozens of tentacles at once. The Jabberwock had no remedy, no time to react. One by one they were mowed down, cut at the base, and trampled on.

Each one of them granted our forces a grand total of 640 levels. Once they were finished with the Jabberwocks, I teleported the Mecha back. The Rangers, both senior and junior were cheering on the comms. They had just received a windfall of levels.

I waited. My artillery kept firing. I had to admit, they came prepared. As the first Magnawalkers set foot in Australia, I had killed just a handful of Damniablos.

"Galaxy defenders, go," I commanded. The sixteen gigantic Mecha, still coated in Jabberwock blood rushed forward. The guns kept shooting, now with improved accuracy, using the giant robots as spotters. "Rta, sound the horns."

"I'm not saying that line again!" The Valkyrie protested.

"Just do it!" I flipped the comm channel with a thought, "Marshall, come here and set a raid."

She blew a magical horn. The Infernali weren't the only ones who could summon troops. Hundreds of Einherjar crossed the gates Rta created, ready to fight for their world once more. But these weren't the Viking barbarians of ages past. No. These Einjerhar still wielded swords and axes and shields but also autocannons. Also, all of them wore power armor. We took years training them in Valhalla.

The [Wasteland King], Lord Marshall, came and invited everyone to a raid. Einherjar and Ranger alike.

I spent my DM casting Enlarge Einherjar on them. Almost a million points of DM and they became twice the size of a normal person. Their equipment also grew with them. Another million. And another. And another six million. Each Einherjar now was eighty feet tall. Why not burn ten million more? A hundred and sixty-foot warriors. You got it. I stopped at 320 feet.

The dead warriors crashed on the Infernali army. They feared no death. Should any Einherjar collapse, they would be reborn tomorrow in Valhalla.

I sat back and watched. It was a mass of steel bodies, painted in the most diverse colors, fighting the demons. From above, my bombardment was incessant. The giant Einherjar piled up on the Magnawalkers, hacking, stabbing, chopping, and shooting.

The Armagellykulls fired a combined volley of their dark disintegrating goop. The Rangers triggered the shields on their machines and blocked the black substance ahead of them, making it rain on the infernali army beyond them. The effects were immediate. Chunks of Magnawalker and dozens of Damniablos died to friendly fire.

Then the casualties started to pile up. An unlucky Einherhar was bitten by a Magnawalker and crushed under powerful jaws. His Power Armor blew up, knocking a few teeth out of the massive demon's mouth. Another ten warriors seized the opportunity to stab at the monster's head.

Some Magnawalkers tried to fire their squirrel pods. The gap in the shields proved fatal as bombs rained down and blew the Damniablos apart. Soon, a hundred armor-piercing Railgun shells dug huge holes in the demon's massive body. One of the Rangers kill-stole the monster as his Mecha chopped the head off, using the same maneuver I had used a week ago.

I didn't care.

> For killing level 800 World Boss, Magnawalker, in a Raid, you gained 72,000 Experience.

> You gained 3 levels! +84 Intelligence (In), +75 Wisdom (Ws), +84 Willpower (Wp), +60 Clarity (Cl), and +54 Hardness (Hd). You have 75 Attribute Points.

It should've been 7,59756053827948E+056 even split 4,000 ways but hey, I'll take it. Also, I didn't get the MVP award. Bummer.

*

*

The battle raged on. Dozens upon dozens of Einherjar died and were sent back to Valhalla. I gained five Skill Ranks in War-Standard of the Worthy. We killed another five Magnawalkers, fifteen levels for everyone but the Einherjar who had already been defeated. Three Galaxy Defenders were crushed and forced to de-combine. I Replicated the missing parts and had the Planetary Defenders whole again. They waded into battle, hobbits among the giant Einherjar.

> You gained 15 levels! +420 Intelligence (In), +375 Wisdom (Ws), +420 Willpower (Wp), +300 Clarity (Cl), and +270 Hardness (Hd). You have 375 Attribute Points.

> You learned the Perk, ...

Later. I could review the Perks later.

Then the dozen Armagellykulls decided enough was enough. They raised their many tentacles, focused, and squirted disintegrating goop everywhere on the battlefield. Demon, Einherjar, Mecha, it mattered not. Everything got disintegrated despite the shields.

The massive jellyfish World Bosses then retreated. I tried to fire on them again but the same happened. They just squirted another cloud of disintegrating jizz and retreated from the battlefield.

I heard the song of the machines as the second batch of Galaxy Defenders came online. I had spares here and back at the base to the south.

"We chase?" Rta asked.

"We chase!" I commanded.

I teleported Marshall back to base. Then, setting the FOB on autopilot, we charged toward the Armagellykulls. Seventeen machines, valiantly wading in the knee-deep ocean, braving the mother of all tropical storms, chasing after fleeing demons too big to be comprehended by reason.

I flashed a beacon forward and Replicated chaff canisters. They exploded, sending metallic chaff everywhere in the cloud of disintegrating fluid. More chaff blew up and cleared the way for us. The shoulder and head-mounted Trapdoor Spiders kept shooting at the demons but the bullets and railgun shells were disintegrated in the way. We kept chasing them. We went past the remnants of East Timor and crossed the Banda sea hopping from island to island. Blasts of black goop flew our way and I placed shields in their path.

We were close now. Without the black mist, our guns were doing minor damage against the demons. I could taste the levels. I wanted to fire my jump jets and fly forward but I held back. We needed to do this in concert. Together.

Catching up with the Armagellykulls, we started hacking at the tentacles. With 340 people manning their own pieces of robot, there was always a shield in place to stop them from disintegrating our robots. Each massive tentacle cut caused a massive crash in the shallow sea.

The demons sped up their retreat. We gave chase. Unstoppable. Massive hulks of enchanted metal, humanity's last stand. Rta fired her jump jets and stabbed her sword deep into the skull made out of skeletons, piercing the black "brain" inside of it.

The Armagellykull started to react just like before. I also fired my own jump jets and equipped Sturdy Domain. My sword also sank into the demon and I set a law inside my Personal Domain. Disintegration, dimensional, and void enemy abilities did not work. The upkeep was heinous. Millions of DM per minute.

Yet we hacked. The other Rangers caught up and started cutting down the massive boss. I cast Banish the Iniquitous on the boss, burning massive portions of its body. The thing warbled and screamed. The others tried to squirt but they were also denied.

Finally, we had carved enough of its gelatinous mass to truly cleave the skull and brain inside. I felt the reaction as the monster tried to implode but my Domain laws kept it from happening. Finally, it happened. The brain blew up, showering us with black stuff. The aura that was stopping me from using my Dungeon powers vanished.

> For killing level 1500 World Boss, Armagellykull, in a party, you gained 48,000 Experience. You are the MVP. You gained 50 Attribute points.

> You gained 2 levels! +56 Intelligence (In), +50 Wisdom (Ws), +56 Willpower (Wp), +40 Clarity (Cl), and +36 Hardness (Hd). You have 50 Attribute Points.

Huzzah!

We did it.

The other demons all detonated. Around me, a circle with seven miles of radius was spared the devastation. But Indonesia and everything in a 320 miles radius were done for.

Inside the black sphere, on our own island of safety, I noticed I had lost contact with my qDCSC outside. The Galaxy Defenders all went into autonomous mode as the connection to the main pilots ended. The co-pilots, transmitting from Speranza, were online because I was the conduit for them.

As a precaution, I sent Larry to the Inner World. I had no idea what would happen next.

Minutes went by. Even my teleportation traps couldn't take me away from this place. Yet the pressure to disintegrate inside my Personal Domain never ceased. I had no alternative but to pay the upkeep to maintain the Rule I set.

Hours passed. The disintegrating field vanished as abruptly as it came. The oceans rushed to fill the void and massive waterfalls rained down on the magma below. The qDCSC managed to connect to the rest of the network and I assessed the damage. The FOB in Darwin was gone. And so were most of my blimps. And...

"My Lord!" Rta shouted. Her voice didn't come over the comms but from Valhalla. I cast my perception there.

"What is the matter?"

"The World Tree!" She wept.

In a panic, I shifted my senses back to base. I found a massive hole in the world, carving a half-circle on Southern Australia and the nearby portions of Antarctica.

The base, Marshall, the Guardians, the Rangers. None of them were there.

Nor was the World Tree Sapling.

> Quest Failed.

What had happened, was obvious. My nightmare was just beginning.

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