A Dwarf Attempts to Kill the Strongest Warrior in the Astral Plane Phase 3

Trinity devolved into chaos. The offense that broke in had reinforcements breaking out, and the defenders had reinforcements breaking in. Advancing from the head, the lion-esque demon general Maveleo pushed south to eliminate this infiltration team.

“Move in, destroy them!” He shouted. “Do not let them take your darkness! Fight for your master!”

This large rabble quickly liquified ahead of him as over a dozen naked protagonists blasted through the walls and took to them with nothing but their minds. It was far enough ahead for the general to not be noticed, and contemplate his life for a little bit before he eyed the fortress’s edge. As a commander, he had a responsibility to his Great Devil.

“Screw this, I’m out of here!” And so he left.

All the while, Nice and the others were shuffling around inside the ship’s midsection. If they had it right, they were 48 out of 49.

“Gah! There are too many naked guys around!” Nice shouted. “I can’t concentrate!”

“It’s like a rabble of panicking, magically gifted roosters,” Cordelia added. “We need to provide order.”

“They’re just scared because their weapons are gone,” said Kuroni. “That said, should we start tearing this place apart?”

“Do you realize how many demons are crawling around here!?” Noelle shouted. “If we don’t run, we’re dead!”

On that note, the fortress suddenly shifted. Everyone on board could sense the shift and sway of the monster’s legs regaining footing, its mechanical dwarven processes overwritten by alchemy, turning shadows into veiny, malleable parts. Xim outdid even herself, as she chanted spell after spell. The beast couldn’t move as fast as it used to, not without fresh protagonist souls to keep it running, but it’d still walk. She could corrupt the place in a month, especially if those goddesses would keel over already. Darkness compounds on darkness. That was what made Dark World Corruption a winning strategy.

“Akira, where are you?” She said telepathically. “Things are getting out of hand down there.”

“I’m working on it!” Akira grunted, his mind so feverish it came out as static. “Lay off me, you old hag!”

Is he struggling? She thought. What kind of mess did he get himself into?

The answer was a two-on-one duel against completely trivial opponents. He couldn’t keep the internal HUD down. Dwarf, Orc, level 63. 500 hp each. 55 defense. They had no special skills marked in the analysis page, no buffs aside from the passive the orc was rocking, and attack values that wouldn’t even do 2 damage to his body even without his enchantments. His flash step didn’t work properly, his fire roasted them slightly, and his thunder tingled. His instant death spells made them smell like charcoal. Even with his superior swordsmanship, he could not fell two combatants who by all metrics should’ve died in seconds.

“We gotta kill him instantly,” Mars grunted. “You have an angle?”

“I got one,” Dige pulled from the orerealm his old purple jeweled friend. “Death ray!”

The beam got a full spread on Akira’s body. He could feel the effects trying to snuff out his life force like a candle, but it was like breathing on a glass window. His soul was safe.

“You thought that would work!?” Akira asked, but was answered by a skull to the face. That glass window almost cracked. “You son of a bitch!”

Akira’s eyes refocused, and through that, he spotted a peculiar item underneath one of the bisected dwarf corpses. It was a rectangular cuboid made of fuses and clay-like shells with straps holding it all together. He noticed Dige’s eyes widen as soon as he picked it up, his boots flaring in anticipation.

“So that was dynamite you used?” Akira sneered. “Here, try some yourself!”

Dige grabbed a hold of Mars and flew off, but Akira had the aim of a pro pitcher and made sure it aimed for Mars. The Orc caught it with his free hand in confusion.

“What the hell is this?”

“Let go of it!” Dige yelled.

But Akira was faster and shot a pinpoint mind laser at the fuse. The beam itself should’ve skewered the orc through the heart, but a boring old explosive was good, too. Even after he dropped it, the blast was enough to catapult them sky-high.

“What was that?” Noel asked, feeling the earth beneath her rumble. “Was that an explosion?”

“Guys!” Khylee leapt to the ceiling. “There’s something fishy over here!”

“What is it?” Cordelia asked. “It just looks like a clump of bricks.”

“That’s dynamite.” Fuuma walked through the chaos, now with the dignity of a new pair of clothes. “Someone must’ve rigged this place to blow. They probably set it up so we can’t escape!”

“Does that mean-.”

“We need to get out of here now! Tell everyone to move upstairs and toward the head, away from the corruption!”

“Who died and made you master!” Tama snarked.

“Just do it! We don’t know the trigger mechanism!”

If there was one thing Fuuma was good at, it was barking orders, and the scavenging heroes slowly adhered to a chain of command and formed an organized retreat as the rear became overwhelmed with demons.

Somewhere in the deep depths, Vel could hear the battle shift darkness’s way, and there was even something sneaking past her. She couldn’t stop, not until the soul was completely revived. She only had enough strength for one more.

Dige and Mars landed on the southernmost tower. Despite the distance, they could feel all sorts of shrapnel flowing through their veins, bleeding their bodies dry. With a huff, Mars got back on his feet, but then stumbled. His eyes were slowly fading back to black.

“Everything’s getting…so heavy…”

It was as if everyone felt the switch flip. Far away in another dimension, in the Soul Lighthouse, Marine fell to her knees and collapsed. She offered everything she could, from herself and her sisters. Anything else, and they would die instantly. For now, they were just going to die slowly as withered husks, their bodies unable to hold the fabric of Glynn’s World’s existence in order. Xim felt the winds of fate change, and a voice in her head egged her on. Keep going.

Oi, Mars,” Dige hushed. “Get up, hurry!”

A Flash Step went for the orc’s neck, and Dige could barely block it in time. His axe clattered against Akira’s weapon.

“I felt that,” Akira grinned. “He believes in me now. Damn, I figured it out, but I guess that means I can forgive you now.”

Akira unleashed a flurry of blows, and he could feel his power taking over. These random encounters couldn’t hold him back anymore. He just had to slash his way through, rely on his healing and swordsmanship to dice the dwarf to pieces. Over several seconds, he cut chunks off the enemy, plinking off parts of his health bar. Akira paid no mind to it. He just let the basic combat system do the work. That was, until Dige grabbed him, trapping his arms in his grip.

“Hey, let go!” Akira snarled.

“No!” Dige squeezed. “I won’t let you hurt him! He's my friend!”

Dige’s exertion activated his boots, and the two shot into the air like a rocket, wrestling for supremacy.

Xim could see the two from a distance, but effectively ignored them. Trinity was almost ready to move.

The infiltration team secured an escape route, even as hordes of demons surrounded them on three sides.

Shige’s soul struggled to take shape. With the goddesses out of commission, Vel was left without the vital healing magic.

Fura awoke on Swell’s shoulders, who hoofed it on solid ground. She demanded they turn around.

Mars pulled himself up to one knee, his eyes still flickering with his goddess’s blue.

“C’mon, stop them,” Marine coughed, moments away from falling unconscious.

Gunch found a strange object on Trinity’s core. It looked very stealable. “Shiny…I take.”

Click.

Akira dropped his sword a while ago. While the swordsman had an infinite number of spells that could eliminate the dwarf instantly, his frustration focused on the physical, as he spawned a master thief's knife. Thus, the ascent consisted of repeated stabs into Dige’s side, aiming for his heart. The dwarf was losing blood, and his muscles were losing their strength, but his health remained at 1. No matter how much he stabbed with the poisonous blade, it wouldn’t hit 0.

“Why!? Why won’t you die!?” Akira screamed. “Everything says you should be dead now! How are you defying the laws of reality like this!?”

“Ye keep talking about those stupid numbers!” Dige grunted. “But I tell ye, those numbers are wrong! I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of the others, but yer blades, they’re dull as shite!”

“Shut up!” Akira flexed his muscles and finally broke free. His powers allowed him to levitate in the air, while Dige fell.

However, in that moment, Dige pulled out a simple 6-round revolver, the one Fuuma helped him make, and fired.

For a fraction of a second, the realm shuddered to contemplate what would happen. Akira himself felt the time dilation. The bullet was leaving Dige’s sphere of influence and entering his. Would it maintain Dige’s sense of reality, or would it favor him? The bullet impacted him, straight in the forehead, and the universe thought. Akira’s HUD flickered with uncertainty, full health, 0, full health, 0. He was alive and dead at the same time. If there were branching timelines, it would branch at this exact moment, but still, the man refused. He was Akira Asahara, and a bullet to the head was not good enough to end his life, so he concentrated with every fiber of his being to make sure reality contorted this way, that a normal human could survive a bullet to the head if he forced that reality, and once that belief set in, the bullet cracked his skull, but then diverted up, flying off somewhere in the distance. He won.

And then he looked down, and a flying orc was swinging for his throat.

“Oh shit,” Akira thought at superhuman speed. “Is this it? Have I actually gotten stronger?”

Akira’s body exploded the moment he was decapitated, sending the two flying in separate directions, and at that exact same moment, a chain reaction overtook Trinity. The spider exploded with a light so luminous it could be seen from outside the realm. Everything was absorbed in a blinding white light.