Chapter 24 - Eradication

Even as the slaughter and resurrection of the Ogre played out above her, Marrie Gauld did not once look at it. She had seen the Ogre die before, she knew it was pointless to observe. All she saw was her home, burning before her. Without hesitation her little legs carried her toward it, even as the other villagers fled the scene. She ran right past Blüt’s severed leg, navigating the quickly collapsing walls of her home.

Only one person saw what she saw, only one other person had the vision to look beyond the spectacle of the Ogre and toward the burning inn. Clint Morgans. He was not driven to fight or to weep by Marrie’s earlier cry, but to act. He could see clearly that Marrie was going to get herself killed. He ran after her, ignoring the battle next to him and heading straight for the inn.

Blüt finally got sight of his assailant. A half-elf. Easy enough to crush, he expected. He put the spellcaster out of his mind for now, tracking them would be hard enough with the nuisance of a swordsman at his feet. Even though he was simple-minded, he could still prioritise.

Sol looked up, red eyes flaring as they met Blüt’s. He stood resolute, watching for Blüt’s next move. The monster threw a punch. It was the simplest possible attack, but his sheer size and strength rendered it incredible nonetheless. His fist came down like a meteor toward Sol, eclipsing the moonlight above him and leaving him shaded by its sheer immensity. It wasn’t hard to gauge its force, the wind whistled around it, its size and speed displacing the air as it came straight down onto him.

Sol threw his sword aside. It was well-forged, but such frail metal could not handle such strength. His muscles alone stood a much better chance. He braced himself, concentrating all his power into his arm. He pulled back, taking a deep breath before snapping it forward. His small fist met the gigantic one above him, a great cracking sound permeating the air as the two forces collided.

Sol’s strength was almost as absurd as Blüt’s, especially in his current adrenaline-addled state. In the second collision between the two, their immense powers battled for supremacy, shockwaves tearing backwards through either’s arms as the damage was distributed between them.

The prince was sent scraping backwards, tearing treads into the ground as he was pushed back by the recoil of their collision. He panted, allowing his arm to drop. The bones within were fractured for sure, judging by the shooting pain he was only half-feeling, thanks to the adrenaline coursing through him.

In contrast, Blüt remained still but his arm snapped back. He roared in pain, similarly injured. Unlike Sol however, his pain subsided quickly, allowing him to throw a follow up, bringing his arm down like a hammer toward Sol.

This time he dodged, an implicit acceptance of defeat. It was immediately apparent that he could not win this fight. He could feel it in their clash that he was weaker. Even if they were reasonably well matched, Blüt was trying far less. No matter what Sol did, his attack strategy came down to strength, and in that regard Blüt would doubtlessly outmatch him every single time.

This didn’t even account for the damage taken. One or two more hits like that and Sol’s arms would snap. Even if Blüt would take comparable damage, he’d inevitably heal. As Sol’s swings weakened, Blüt’s would remain just as powerful. He simply could not win in a hand-to-hand battle.

His only other option was to reintroduce his sword, which he doubted would be a functional method of attack a second time. He had the advantage of surprise then, which he had long since lost. If his sword ever clashed with the Ogre, it would certainly shatter, and he didn’t have the speed or wit to dodge the way Luna or Clint could, the beast’s gigantic limbs would eventually catch and crush him.

In a one on one encounter with Blüt, Sol would die for certain. Ten times out of ten.

But thankfully, this was not a one on one. Luna had a plan. All he had to do was fight his best, punch his strongest, and not go down until he broke.

He wound his shoulder up, stepping once again into Blüt’s range. “Come on Ogre. Can’t you do better than that?”

Clint burst into the burning tavern, eyes quickly tuning out the glowing orange of the flames and the suffocating grey of the smoke so he could see clearly what was before him. He had only one target: Marrie Gauld.

The house fell apart around him, rafters snapping and dropping in chunks, allowing the contents of the rooms above to drop through after them, a rain of once-beloved furniture crashing down from every angle. It was an incredible task to evade, but Clint was one of the few people in the world who could. Even as smoke filled his eyes and lungs, he did not allow a single hazard to escape his sight, reaching the stairs with no harm done.

He covered his mouth with his hat as he made his way upstairs. It was once Marrie’s living space, only two rooms, a bedroom, which had already fallen apart and came crashing onto the floor below, and a sitting room, largely crushed by the initial drop of firewood that came through the roof. Marrie was in the latter, curled in the corner, sobbing, even as the bonfire beside her grew larger and more consuming.

She clung to something square. A picture, it seemed. Clint didn’t question it. He had no time to. He rushed over to Marrie, taking her into his spare arm quickly. The Auf had no time to protest as she was swept up, but one look at her saviour was enough to snuff out any potential anger. She just buried her tear-stained face into his chest, holding her breath as he struggled to find an escape route…

Sol’s left arm hung loosely at his side. His bones were so thoroughly shattered by his clashes with Blüt that they were effectively reduced to powder. Still, he remained confident, a smile plastered on his face despite his agony. Luna had a plan, and it would soon come to fruition.

Still amidst the alleyways away from Blüt, Luna was frozen, irises glazed over and body stiff. Tears rained from her wide open eyes, hand unconsciously covering her mouth. Something was amiss with the plan.

Minutes earlier, it was all going perfectly. They had forced a significant regeneration out of Blüt, and through that, were able to generate data for her hypothesis, which was simply the following; If Blüt’s healing is magical, then it could be stopped by destroying his brain. After all, magic must be controlled by the mind, as all things are. Just as your breathing, your heartbeat and your blood flow all cease upon brain death, the flow of mana does too. Luna’s plan relied upon this fact. All they had to do was prove it by casting Detect Magic. If Blüt registered as magical, she would know instantly that his healing was magical and that destroying his brain would kill him.

And so, upon seeing his heart begin to reconstitute, she cast Detect Magic. The ring of blue formed around her finger, began its scan and then…

Her vision went white, her mind blank, the world seemed to disappear from around her. There was a great magical force at play. One so powerful that it hijacked the very spell designed to detect it. In a moment, she experienced a lifetime. She felt the experiences of someone, whoever the source of this magic was. She felt pain, ungodly pain, sorrow the likes of which she could hardly comprehend prior. Her brain, her body, her very soul was overwhelmed by despair. And soundtracking it all, playing in her ears like the devil’s worst symphony: A young girl crying. She was there amidst the visions too, though her form exited the instant it entered her mind.

The entire nightmare took only a moment to pass, but she felt like she had aged years. By the end of it, her mouth and eyes hung wide open, her mind struggling to comprehend what she had just seen.

She knew only one thing. The source of all the suffering she had felt, the source of all the cries and all the sorrow… Was Blüt. He had to die. She had to kill him. Luna spat the incantation for Munditia, more furiously, and more powerfully than she ever had before.

No escape. The flames only grew higher and higher around Clint, the once homely inn now replaced by a close facsimile of hell. He weaved between pillars of flame, only to find himself confronted by insurmountable piles of rubble. Smoke pricked at his eyes. As incredible as they were, even they had their limits in such an environment.

In the smoke, the grim reaper waved, bony hand making itself known through the heavy fog around him. Once again, Clint was in an inescapable situation, due to die.

He had always believed that when the reaper came, time was up. Just as he did in the cave with the Hellhound. If he caught sight of death, he was to accept it. He had done so many times, but life always clung to him. He always made it out, even when he didn’t want to.

…Why was now any different? This time, he couldn’t accept the reaper’s presence, this time, it was not just him and his gun, facing death together. There was a scared, desperate woman he had to save. This was no place for a final showdown with death, and it was certainly no company for it.

Clint threw himself at the nearest wall, even as the flames crawled along it. He tucked his head in, put his shoulder out, and prayed it would snap before the flames licked past the leather of his jacket and onto the cotton of his shirt.

He threw himself at it, again and again, it groaned and cracked, but never broke. Embers spat at his face and hands, but he dared not flinch. He could feel the reaper behind him, floating out from the smoke and reaching its wiry fingers toward him. He would not allow it to reach his shoulder. He would not die here.

With one final burst of speed, Clint collided with the wood, breaking through like a human bullet. He hit the ground hard, rolling with Marrie onto the streets of Lillinberg.

Certain they were safe, he poked his head up. He saw the reaper’s hand still reaching out from the inn, through the hole in the wall he created, its twig-like arm beginning to stretch out from within…

The tavern collapsed, his destruction of the wall the final nail in the coffin for its structure.. It fell into a heap, sealing the reaper beneath it. The potential for death was gone now, and Marrie’s beloved home was nothing but a bonfire to warm the back of the great tyrant Blüt.

Marrie sobbed into the picture she clung to, weeping like a child. Clint took his hat and placed it over her face, allowing her the dignity of not being seen. As she looked down, he looked up. The light of the fire burned ever more orange, as now it was contrasted by the brightest, most impossibly potent blue that he had ever seen.

Even Sol stopped to stare at the spectacular orb above him. It was like a second sun, the entire town square bathed cerulean in its light. This was the highest level of Munditia he had ever seen. He wondered if even his father could cast such a mighty spell.

Luna panted, both hands raised as she guided the orb. As large as it was, it only barely eclipsed Blüt’s head. She still had to be precise. It was far harder without her staff, but there were no excuses now. That monster had to die, and she would be the one to kill it.

It’s common for one’s bloodstream to match the pace of one’s mana stream when exerting a great output of mana. This was evident in Luna’s body, her eyes were bloodshot and her heart was pounding like a hailstorm on a tin roof. She ran hot, seemingly hotter than even the fires around her. This Munditia was her everything. This Munditia would be the total eradication of the beast Blüt.

The Ogre himself could barely move in the presence of it. It was too late for any movement to matter anyway. It hovered just above his fat head, threatening to consume him the way he had consumed so many others. For the first time in his unending life, Blüt doubted his own immortality. He did not know if he would survive.

It was certain that he would find out, however, as the blue sun dropped onto his head, erasing his hair, skull, eyes, teeth, tongue, lips, ears, nose, his brain…

The Ogre’s colossal body fell to its knees, then flat onto its front, as if mimicking the prostration he had forced from the Aufs. The immortal was certainly dead then. Every limb that once moved with earth-shaking power now fell limp, pathetically flopping at the side of his grotesque body.

He lay there, buried beneath the metal box on his back like a headstone.

Lillinberg held its breath. Their titan had been felled! They were free! Justice had been done!

But Gallia is not a just place. It is not a just, nor good, nor fair nation. For no such nation exists. The entire world is unjust, it is cruel and it is never, ever fair.

First came the nerves, they squirmed their way out of his spine like a collection of worms, forming a scaffolding. Then the brain, which made itself central. Then the skull, a layer of protective armor, that thankfully censored the awful sight of his rebuilding innards. Then came flesh Hardy, dense, muscular flesh padded out his face and, with the addition of his leathery skin, brought the horrible visage of the godforsaken Ogre back to the world.

Current Party: Clint Morgans, Sol Dragoneart, Luna Dragoneart

Bullets Remaining: 5