Chapter 23
All Hell Breaks Loose, Literally
Part 3
“Fluoro-what?!”-Alura
“One of the strongest acids known to man. Nasty stuff. Put me down, and leave this brute to me. Deal with the underlings as best you can, but this giant slithering reptile is MINE!”
“But, Jade.”-Alura
“Alura, dear, I love you. I really do. And I know you desperately want to help me, but this is a fight you can't be part of. At least not without suffering greatly, and I don't want that. GO! You can pick me up when I'm done.”
“Okay. Be safe.”-Alura
“Iluna. Help her. Keep her safe!”
“With pleasure.”-Iluna
With a heavy heart, the women leave Jade behind while they fly off to deal with the bulk of the invading army, leaving him alone to face the building-sized snake.
“And what is a glowing little ball of glass and stone capable of doing to harm this great me?!” sneers the gigantic reptile “I could end you easily, just like this!” and the giant snake pounces on Jade, trying to swallow him whole, only to find its head impaled from the inside on spikes of the hardest and most durable metals Jade has in his inventory, including titanium, adamantium, and the like, and all coated with Teflon, also known as Polytetrafluoroethylene, a polymer of Carbon and Fluorine which is notorious for being extremely resistant to chemical reactions and makes the “no stick” coating of modern cookware, all to mitigate if not negate the corrosive properties of the acid being spit out by the giant snake.
“qujklziop!”
“Like that, perhaps?”
“You annoying insect! I will squash you!!”
“And what happened to your composure and intellect, Your Scaliness? If one helpless little ball of glass like me can make you so mad, what does that say about the stability of your so-called 'glorious' regime?”
“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT! THE! FUCK! UP!! qwertyu ioplmnkj bhg vfcdsxza gihdvngka hlgqwuipl!!”
The giant snake, desperate to free itself from its new spiky ball-gag begins shaking its head with extreme vigor, slamming into buildings and the ground, and even tunnels through the earth at a few points, but this only serves to drive the spikes into its tongue, palate, and throat deeper, swallowing a bit of dirt that Jade couldn't [Analysis] away. All this serves to do is drive it even further into rage and madness.
“Why won't you die, you miserable marble! Iomgah!”
“Because I don't want to, you overgrown garter snake!”
System Notice: Chlorine Trifluoride Blueprint acquired.
“Now burn, you monstrosity, BURN!!” Jade proclaims before dropping a metal drum filled with ClF3 down the snake's gullet and then rolling out of the snake's mouth, deploying a makeshift parachute composed of spider silk to float down to the ground.
In mere moments, a giant geyser of flame erupts skyward from the snake's open mouth as the drum breaks open in the snake's throat, starting a metal fluoride fire and the rest of the ClF3 begins to burn the snake's flesh.
“What kind of alchemy is this?! I'm from the Abyss! No fire should harm me!”
“This is no usual fire! It fluoridates better than pure fluorine, and oxygenates better than pure oxygen. It can burn things nothing else can! You try to smother it with sand, it will burn the sand. You try to drown it with water, and the water explodes, then burns.”
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“I don't believe you! No fire can behave like that!”
The giant snake tries to smother the fire with water magic only to have the water explode and then catch fire as Jade stated it would.
““ghjachgaclticha!”
“I warned you!”
The gargantuan snake collapses and breathes its last with a mighty thud that shakes the ground with the force of a tremor level 1 on the Richter scale. Those soldiers who were not slain in battle by Iluna and Alura keeled over and died upon the serpent's death.
System Message: Emergency Quest complete.
Performance review: OUTSTANDING.
Criteria:
Casualties: None
Damage Taken: None
Damage Delivered to Enemy: 100%
Enemy Humiliation: Total
Manner of Death: Cruel and Unusual
Rewards Given: One Boss Monster slot, Spatial Anomaly Perk, Limited Time Avatar.
Dungeon “Jade” is now level 50.
Performance Review for Boss Monsters Alura and Iluna: Excellent.
Criteria:
Casualties: None
Damage Taken: None
Damage to Enemy Boss: None
Damage to Enemy Army: EXTREME, Leave No Survivors.
Rewards to Iluna: Birth defect preventing pregnancy, corrected. Level cap, removed.
Rewards to Alura: All captives taken by Sydonia raid from Furcadia have been repatriated, alive or dead, after scouring the Akashic Records. The guilty parties are awaiting judgment. You have reached level 50, choose your next profession, additional exp stored.
“I... I CAN HAVE KIDS NOW!! The reason I was thrown out of my family's house upon my coming of age, because I couldn't conceive an heir, has finally been fixed! PRAISE THE SYSTEM!!”-Iluna
“All... ALL OF THEM?! Every last one? Alive or dead? How, how many people? Those raids have been going on for dozens of generations!”-Alura
System Notice: Confirmed repatriation of 12,345,987 living people, including close relatives, by blood or marriage, of the kidnap victims. 159,547,231 dead returned to their birth town, or ruins of the same, for proper burial.
“That is going to be a major logistics nightmare for all involved, especially the kingdom of Furcadia!”
System Notice: The System has no sympathy for the illegal slave trade of Furcadia or any other citizens and wishes for those involved to suffer every possible logistical, strategic, tactical, economic, or whatever hardship as much as possible, but can not bring forth such suffering directly.
The System does have sympathy for the kingdom of Furcadia, a known victim of the practice, and has done everything possible to mitigate the disaster such a sudden influx of refugees and corpses will bring.
“Okay then. Nothing we can do about that right now. Let's get back to looting.”
Blueprint acquired: Black Mamba Kaiju Juvenile (incomplete).
Would you like to make Black Mamba Kaiju Juvenile your Boss Monster? Y/N
“No. Awesome, but way, way too big to be a practical asset, in any way. And, I hate his guts. There's no way he and I would get along, nor would he get along with any of my other Boss Monster companions. Still, the remains are absolutely fascinating. I didn't think all these silicon and aluminum polymers were even remotely possible!”
Elsewhere:
The leadership of Black Serpent emerges from the portal in a brand new world, an Earth, but apparently not THE Earth they intended to visit. They happen upon a desolate war-torn world where giant mecha fight invading Kaiju so regularly, it's almost like clockwork.
The King of Furcadia, Optimal Pride, and his minsters, not to mention the local governors, are running around like wild hens, recently decapitated, trying to handle the nightmare of the sudden appearance of over a million living refugees, and over 100 million corpses in need of disposal, even with The System's help.
The King of Sydonia, the Pope of the Holy Kingdom, and a few other places that were benefiting on the sly from the “cold” war between Sydonia and Furcadia have no such help and are instead wailing and gnashing their teeth as all the infrastructure they've built around the illicit slave trade, and dealing with the corpse byproduct dramatically collapses, especially the secret mass graves that all became giant sink-holes, causing untold levels of property damage, and The System has sent messages, real time, detailing the disaster to those affected rulers with exquisite precision, clarity, and detail.
“WHERE IS DEOKK?!! Why hasn't he reported in with that damn Traveler dungeon core and that rabbit-eared Boss Monster yet?!”-King Sydonia III
System Notice: He's dead.
“Fuck you and your high horse, System!”-King Sydonia III
System Notice: Tread with caution, Your Majesty. The System sees all and knows all, and your judgment hangs by a thread.