Chapter 28
All Hell Breaks Loose, Literally
Endgame part 1
While Alura and Iluna are exploring their temporary hiding spot and considering their options, Alura opens a trap door and with her enhanced night-vision, thanks to the Greater Vampire Bat part of her heritage, she slowly and carefully retreats, advising Iluna that they can't stay there any longer.
“And why can't we? This is a nice, quiet place under a literal ton of rubble. The army out there won't be finding us...”-Iluna
“Because there's a literal ton of ancient, sweating, unattended dynamite directly beneath our feet! Jade did clear out this room earlier of the stuff, at extreme risk, but the range of his abilities is only a one meter radius, and the room directly under this one was apparently out of his range. It's likely that if we even breathe too hard, the stuff will blow! I'd rather not take on those kinds of odds, and if the army starts launching fireball spells at this place, just to be sure we're not hiding here?”-Alura
“Right. Take your hand?”-Iluna
“Of course, yes!”-Alura
Alura uses her [Darkness] magic to once again teleport through the shadows, to the one place where they might find safety, even temporarily, the cave entrance of the mine, now buried under dirt and stone, thanks to the actions of the recently deceased Baron Royce. Unable to remanifest in the entrance, due to lack of space, they journey deeper and deeper into the cave through the shadow space, until they arrive at where Jade entered the world. Only then do they have enough room to reemerge into normal space.
“Wow! Looks like this is where Jade came into our world.”-Alura
“It must have been a truly frightening experience, ripped from his world through unknown means, transported elsewhere, and waking up not only in a dark, wet, and foreboding location, but missing his body, trapped in a giant marble, nobody around to tell him anything.”-Iluna.
“Yeah, but he did it! Just goes to show that my man's the best of the best, eh?”-Alura
“Can't argue with that! But how do you think he got out of here?”-Iluna
“Well, we can't do it the same way! The main entrance is sealed! Let's take a look around, shall we?”-Alura
“Indeed. HOLY LIGHT!” says Iluna as she casts a simple light spell.
You have learned Divine Light magic: Level 1.
“Nice. Oh. Look what we have here, a convenient little column we can use to climb upward! Must be how Jade first got his little look around before deciding to head to the mine's entrance!”-Alura
“A fair assumption. We won't know for sure until we finish climbing up there. Oh, and no fair flying either. We don't want to catch the attention of the local wildlife.” Iluna states as she points at a giant vampire bat. “Just because you're part vampire bat doesn't mean they're going to be friendly.”
And thus the girls begin their climb...
Meanwhile, for the Sydonian army...
“Damn it! I thought you were my elites! Can you not even find two simple women in a timely manner?!”-King Arthorious Sydonia III
“Sire! This area's much too large with too many hiding places! We'd need to break up into groups of no more than 5 to search in anything even remotely a timely manner...”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“NO! We know one of them is a high-level assassin profession. Small groups would be easy prey to pick off! Let's search and destroy the big places first and then go progressively smaller one by one, shall we?! Gah! DO I HAVE TO DO ALL YOUR THINKING FOR YOU?!!”-King
“By your will, Sire!”
“Competent subordinates are so, so hard to find!”-King
A few minutes later...
“Sire! We've found a building, mostly intact!”
“It's about time! MAGES! Begin bombardment!”-King
“AT ONCE, SIRE!”
It doesn't take long for one of the fireballs to slam through the stone rubble, bounce once or twice and then crash through the floor, right into the stored and highly unstable dynamite.
KA-BOOM!!
The shockwave causes an explosion that blows the mages and infantry back and then implodes what's left of the building, leaving nothing but a smoking crater.
“That should have gotten them, right?!”
“YOU IDIOT!!” The king proclaims before smiting the foolish soldier in the head, repeatedly.
“EEK!!”
“Did you get a kill notification? No? Then they're still alive somewhere! Do you have a brain inside that head of yours?! I hear a loud hollow bell ringing! I HOPE FOR YOUR SAKE THAT'S YOUR HELMET I'M HEARING!!”-King
“Yes, Sire! Forgive me, Sire! Have mercy!!”
“Useless lot! KEEP SEARCHING!”- King
And so the army continues on, blasting any rubble or ruin big enough to maybe hide someone inside.
Which takes us back to the events happening at ground zero of Set's invasion...
The lone air fighter on the fringes flies up to Set as the formation gets ready to move out but when right in Set's face, Set notices the writing on the back “Kiss My ASP!” shortly before it fires off its jet thrust filled with powdered aluminum and dicloride-pentoxide, producing an immense amount of thrust by burning rocket fuel.
“Who dares!! Troops! Kill that insolent fool!”- Set
The jet flies away at great speed as the others start firing upon it, only to have the blasts disappear when they get close. In the cockpit is none other than Jade, having the jet fly away as fast as it can. Then what did Set swallow?!
You have acquired resources, Deuterium, Tritium, Helium-3.
“Wait, what?! That's what they're shooting at me? Raw plasma made of fusion fuel materials?! Oh. This is bad! This is so very, very bad! I need to get out of here, yesterday!”
System Notice: Didn't you feed Set a decoy so you could escape?
“Well. There is that, yes, but what Set ate wasn't a 'decoy' in the strictest sense of the term.”
"MOVE ASIDE! I'LL END THIS LOUT MYSELF!”
As Set begins preparing to fire her breath weapon, all the raiders around her start collapsing, violently vomiting, some even have their skin start to melt off, flying ships start falling out of the sky, and the troops on the ground drop where they are. Set herself isn't faring too much better.
"What's going on?! What is that dungeon core doing to me?! That does it! I'm going to burn it out, here and now!!!”
“Oh, that poor fool doesn't realize what she's doing! She must have stolen these high-tech fighters from somewhere else, because she clearly doesn't understand the dangers of nuclear power! Ship, don't fail me now! MAXIMUM THRUST!!”
"Command acknowledged. Activating sub-orbital engines." The makeshift rocket engine and fuel tanks fall off as four fusion engines emerge from under the hull. “Initiating pre-flight check. Check complete. All systems operational. Initiating thrust.” In an instant the four fusion engines ignite, hurling out the products of Deuterium, Tritium, and Helium-3 fusion. “Ignition achieved. Maximum thrust.” The jet accelerates to supersonic speeds in seconds, achieving g-forces that would have crushed an organic pilot to paste and caused Jade's core to crack.
You have taken 10 points of damage. HP-10.
“Fusion engines? Oh, yeah. This is stolen tech alright!”
“Alert. Fuel supplies are critically low. Unable to maintain maximum thrust.”
"Computer. Where is the fuel stored?”
A schematic appears on a heads-up display (HUD) in the cockpit, showing several fuel tanks, all labeled with different fusion fuels, and their related facilities.
"Thank whatever deity is watching over me that the fuel tank's in range. I can fill it from my [Resources Inventory]. Let's hope I can keep this up long enough..."
Jade begins using [Analysis] to consume the air being compressed in front of the fighter to produce the fusion fuels and place them in their respective tanks to keep the engines running.
Mere moments after reaching mach 2, Set tries to use her breath-weapon again, causing the nuclear bomb she swallowed to reach super-critical mass, by slamming two 20 kg hemispheres of plutonium together and irradiating them with high-energy nuclear particles.
Jade now has the distinct displeasure of trying to outrun the explosive wave traveling at the speed of sound while he and his craft are being bombarded with all sorts of ionizing radiation, trying to keep the craft intact as he attempts his escape. And that's not the worst part.
The high-speed pressure wave and extreme temperatures, plus the high-energy radiation, all trigger nuclear fusion explosions in the rest of the crafts in Set's army, triggering a fusion chain-reaction that yields far, far more explosive force than Jade had planned for.
"Oh. This is so, so going to suck. The mountain ranges blocking this city from Deokk's mine may not be enough of a shield!"