Chapter 18: Dust claims dust—and we die too

While Liahan had been inside the Deity’s realm, the battle raged in the world outside on four fronts. The first was in close quarters with the beast itself, as Roplock led his platoons in the fight against the multitudes of Corroded that kept emerging from the Deity’s mouth.

Almost all streets were desolate, as the flickering lights from the buildings looked like a heart rate monitor that was beeping for the city in coma. The neglected neon lights from roadside establishments down the square lit up the one corner of town with the most life and death tonight. Billboards from the nearly distant freeway overlooked the scene, images of some grinning pop star, tech adverts, movie posters, and what not.

In the centre of it all stood “Death’s Gate,” the Deity of Corrosion, upright like a tree, having taken root in the heart of the city. From its branch-like appendages that jutted out of its towering stature, fruits of malice blossomed and gracefully dropped down on the concrete ground — Corroded.

Their screams tore through the night as they leaped upon the surging masse of agents that had gathered at the grand banquet of carnage.

The wind never stopped. It ravaged through the avenues incessantly, from East and West at once, colliding in violent crosscurrents between the trembling buildings. There was a certain hostility in the air tonight, as it plagued the damned agents with an intensity far greater than that of ten cyclones combined. The howling gusts of decay clawed on the back of every soul unfortunate enough to be in town that evening, as the winds seemed to grab at something deeper than the flesh.

Lieutenant Roplock raised his hand, causing the squads to halt for a bit.

“We’re taking far too many losses… Listen up, you all. Change of strategy,” he said with his loud booming voice that caught the ear of everyone present.

He gestured as he beckoned the agents around him to form a front line. He then turned back to face the other members of his Division and ragtag rookie volunteers, as he said, “Follow the front line in parallel forms. Mark the first Corroded in your line of sight that’s closest to you. Keep distance in mind.”

He then raised his hand to gesture at those in the very back, as he said, “Last four lines in the back, form two files and make your way past the formation to the other side. Be quick and stealthy as you move. I need you to target their blind spots.”

The agents fell in line with Roplock’s formation, as the soldiers at the front dealt with the attacking creatures. With a sudden haste in his voice, noticing the weak links, he said, “I need five men on each corroded. Four from front, and one from back. First line, space out a little. Good. Leave pockets for melee fighters to pass through. Alright, now back liners I need you to ready your heavy weapons, and fire when I tell you to.”

Heavy boots ground against the dark street, the indomitable Ravens as unrelenting as the winds that clanged against their armoured bodysuits. The Vitalis infused rocket launchers loaded, and they went off right as Roplock screamed “Fire!”

The blasts took out the first wave of the beasts, which slithered and staggered along the alleyways. Vitalised by the Deity’s power, they bellowed in madness.

Roplock aligned his Vitalis flow as he felt the Deity’s thumping heartbeat. He knew that the best time to strike would be during a diastole. He signaled yet again, as he felt the tendrils relax — the fighters opening fire again as Vitalis bullets rained down on the savage monsters, puddles of blood and guts staining the road.

As the heart contracted, Roplock clenched his raised fist, signalling them to cease. The front line put their barriers up, as the next wave of Corroded dissolved into a rusty shadowy goop.

Wave after wave, the agents tirelessly continued this pattern of attack, with Roplock stalking the lines. He caught a rookie by her collar as the wind nearly carried her off her feet. He slammed her back in position before he swerved around to slash a lunging Corroded in one clean motion.

“Hold!” he yelled, as he noticed a sudden disturbance in the atmosphere. He looked up at the beast, as its soaring length began to throb harder and faster. The tendrils beneath his feet began to pulse more violently. The winds seem to grow wilder.

“What on earth are those two doing…?” he muttered, “Break the wings already, damn it!”

His brown eyes focused back on the situation in front of him. He shook his head, as he pulled his coat tighter around him. He ran ahead as he screamed, “It’s the final stretch. Forget all formations. Just go wild… Let’s do this, fellas!”

The wild drafts of air seemed to swallow his silhouette, as he charged headfirst into the swarm of Corroded. The agents followed their leader, diving into the eye of the surging storm.

—

Gut wrenching, spine chilling, screams echoed through the streets, like dying cries of the city that crumbled down to dust tonight. The wind was already bad enough for those up North, but the Eastern and Western fronts tonight were anything but quiet, under the malevolent assault of the flapping Wings that razed the world’s most beloved skyline down to shreds.

There were two new towers in town now that the other buildings seemed to bow down before. The pair of the Deity’s wings that was continually tearing the city asunder, had risen on the two opposite ends as all life that dared to live was fed to the gaping mouth up north, carried in its stream of gusts.

And, beneath the cracked roads of asphalt and concrete, were the vessels that carried the Leviathanous beast’s lifeblood from its mouth to its heart down south. The winding veins of death itself pounded and pulsed against the quivering earth, gleaming with the souls the Deity feasted on.

Lt. Col. Elise Beiker spat onto the battered boulevard her troops stood on. She immediately regretted it as small tendrils sprouted out of the ground and sucked it up, and grew a little in size.

“Ugh. Nope. Ewww,” she recoiled.

Division 9 had secured the perimeter of the East Wing. Snipers had readied themselves at the windows of the smaller sturdier buildings. Heavy gunners had set up camp in between the buildings.

The wind in Icksfree Avenue was flying a lot of burgundy flags this night, the uniform neckties, the colour of their division. And above them the wing loomed.

It was layered with plates of bone that looked roughly cobbled together on sheets of sinew, along membranes that stretched thick and thin as they connected against the tree-like base of it that jutted out of the ground. With every beat of the Deity’s heart that resonated through the city’s expanse, the wings flapped in unison, as the hurricane-like winds cross-spiralled inward, and the screams of newly birthed Corroded that sprung out of its roots filled the sky like the debris and souls that its whirlwinds sucked in.

The city-floor was polluted with the root-like tendrils that snaked out of the Wing’s base, as thick as busses, smashing in buildings and people in their way, ecstatic in their newfound sentience as the Deity fed more.

Elise cracked her neck, as she pumped Vitalis into her lower back, her muscles flaring up as she Warped her anatomy to suit the needs of this battle before her. If she had longer hair, now would’ve been the perfect time for tying it up in a bun and looking badass. Unfortunately all she could for now was giving it a slick back, before she spoke out loud for her subordinates to hear — the gusts making it hard to be heard.

“Alright, I’m sure you all don’t know what the fuck to do here. Well, neither do I. Grab your guns, take aim, and just shoot at anything on its body that looks strange.”

There was a slight silence that followed. Not for long, as the winds continued their non stop howling.

One of the new recruits sheepishly raised his hand, as he said, “Umm, ma’am… The entire thing looks strange.”

“You got it!” Elise said, as she gave him a thumbs up. “Fire at will. Fill it with holes.”

On Elise’s command, the gunsmen all steadied themselves as they locked their aim on various parts of the ginormous wing.

“Open fire on the count of three… One. Two. Three!”

For a distant spectator, the avenue would’ve seemed to explode in that split second that followed right after Elise’s count of three.

A round of bullets charged with Vitalis fired at once. The air flared up with explosions of varied colours as chunks of the wing got blown off.

An ungodly roar filled the air as the Wing momentarily stopped. It convulsed violently. The veins began to pump harder, faster, and louder, as the Wing regenerated.

“Shit. It’s no use…” Elize said, right before a stray tentacle slammed against her leg, catching her off guard. She quickly pulled up a barrier of Vitalis against it, as she stumbled back onto solid ground, regaining her balance.

Another raised itself to weigh down on her, but this time she was onto it. A soft snarl escaped her, as she kicked her feet off into midair, flexing her calves and hamstrings at superhuman strength. She landed back onto the root itself that squished under boots as she began to sink in it, the throbbing flesh felt like wet concrete.

“Mother of fuck!” she yelped, as she quickly pulled the custom designed high calibre handguns she kept hidden inside of her jacket, as she shot at it, using the momentum of the ricochet to jump out of the goopy slimy mess.

The situation was worse than dire, as she looked around to see the tentacles attacking the snipers, reaching out to their nests inside the buildings. The agents, unaccustomed to close quarter combat, were struggling against the Deity’s strength which seemed to grow by the second. More Corroded sprung out from the portals that had opened across the city that connected between realms of the human and the undead.

“I’ll be damned, this Cthulhu son of a bitch is smart…” Elise muttered under her breath as she surveyed her surroundings.

—

Meanwhile, Deputy Lt. Lupin Datres stood at the balcony of some apartment, directly above a departmental store that had a worn down “50% off” banner flapping vigorously against the rough uneven winds.

He looked over at the Division 10 agents that had gathered in the streets of the 6th Residential Block. They waited for his command.

One of the rookies turned to her senior with an eyepatch as she asked, “Excuse me, but… What exactly is the Lieutenant trying to do here?”

He stifled a laugh as he replied to her, “He’s trying to look cool. Wait and watch. He’s about to deliver some epic speech.”

She looked unsure as she turned back to Lupin who nodded to himself, a slight grin on his face. He inhaled deeply, his ponytail whipping the air dramatically against the wind behind him. The tail of his coat, and the purple tie around his neck swayed wildly, with the bright light from the tall streetlamp across the street illuminating his robust figure. He certainly wasn’t losing any points for style.

He coughed to clear his throat, as the Deity wing that had sprouted out of the children’s park down the road flapped mercilessly against the wind.

“Agents of PRECIPICE,” he began, as his deep voice echoed through the streets, carried to every corner by the savage crosscurrents of wind, “This evening we stand upon the precip—”

A sudden strong gust caused a Corroded to crash against the balcony he stood on, causing him to jump to the side in surprise. One agent from down below casually pulled on his cannon, blowing it apart in one charge.

Lupin sighed as he wiped the Corroded blood and guts off his face, as he took centre stage again. He glanced at his suit now ruined, as he looked down at the agents saying, “Thanks guys. That was 200 dollars.” He shook his head, before he resumed his epic speech from before.”Anyways, as I was saying… Tonight we stand upon the… erm… edge of destiny. A climactic battle awaits us all. Symbolic of the bleak future that awaits the newer generation, the Deity’s wing has taken root in that children’s park. It’s a symbol of death, despair, and—”

His speech was cut off yet again, as the streetlamp broke off the post, and flew straight in the direction of his face. Another agent from below blew it up into pieces that served only to stain the Deputy Lieutenant’s suit further. He looked back down on the agents as he continued, “And god fucking awful city planning… You know what, fuck all this. Plant the bombs. Let’s get going.”

The agents nodded, as they got to work. The agent with the eyepatch turned to the rookie as he said, “Told ‘ya.”

As Lupin kept his eyes on Division 10, the Explosives Division did what they do best. Within a matter of minutes, the entire wing was rigged with explosives with enough power to take down an entire mountain. These, of course, were specially engineered — charged with Vitalis energy to ensure minimal damage to the surroundings, and inflict the most harm on the undead.

“Fall back,” he commanded. He jumped off the balcony, to enter the scene in style. However, he didn’t quite stick his landing, and ended up spraining the tendon on his left leg.

“Yeowch…” he grunted softly as he got up, dusting his trousers. His face was slightly red from the embarrassment. It was nothing his subordinates weren’t used to. They just let out a collective sigh.

With a light shrug Lupin took the detonator from one of his boys, trying to play it nonchalantly as he pressed the red button.

Perhaps on instinct, the tentacles seemed to lash up and outwards, but it was too late for them as the bombs beeped into a huge blast, clouds of smoke and sparks blossoming in the sky, little flowers of life that bloomed in the garden of death.

Bone and sinews rained upon the agents as the bombs worked their magic. However, it wasn’t much use as Lupin had come to the same conclusion that Elise did.

The wings would regenerate. The only way to take it down would be to break both wings at once, while cutting off all its veins to block the flow of energy.

That’s when a voice whizzed inside his head, clear and all too familiar.

“You still alive Lupes?”

An immediate grin played on his lips, as he replied back to her telepathically.

“Worry ‘bout yourself Elle. How’s the wing looking?”

“Shit’s in better shape than we are, that’s for sure”

“Yeah… Same here.”

“You know what to do next, right?”

“Oh yeah, I do” Lupin said, as he dug into his backpocket to pull out his Walkman, he set the opening theme from his favourite anime show to play on it. Plugging his earphones in, he turned to the bombing squad, with “Follow my lead.”

Raising his hand, he gestured the stray Division 8 members to go in forward and slash away at the tentacles, as he himself jumped into action. He synchronised his movement with the beats of the song that played in his ears, as he planted the bombs on the wing.

A horde of Corroded sprung out of the Wing’s underbelly, lunging forward at Lupin. With a cocky grin on his lips and a show of his yellowed teeth, he pointed his fingers at them as he blasted energy rays out of them. He yelled, “RAY GUN–!!” as the beasts exploded into goops of energy.

“Come on dude… That was way too on the nose. You might get sued for copyright infringement. Ray gun, seriously…?”

“Tooootally original move, trust me baby,” he said with a chuckle.

“Whatever. Okay. You ready?”

He gulped. “As ready’s I’ll ever be,” he replied.

“We have to do this in total sync”

“The very second Liahan weakens the Deity, right?”

“You know it.”

Lupin looked at the melee fighters keeping the tentacles at bay. He advised Elise to have her troop do the same.

—

The Deity’s heart seemed to beat with a crazy heightened pulse. Jacob Islodo had been fighting off the Corroded that gathered around it by himself. These were all A-rank or higher, and as he got rid of one, five more seemed to pop out of some portal from hell — attracted to the Deity’s heart, like moths to light.

He was exhausted, but he knew no backup could arrive here in time. His vision was starting to blur from all the damage he had sustained from fighting off the Corroded. He had been exerting his life energy to its very limits. He had gone through nearly his whole supply of artefacts to aid him in combat.

In all his years at PRECIPICE, he had never been so close to his own death. And yet, he had no fear in his heart. Only a little disappointment at not being able to spend more time with those he loved. It would be a hero’s death for him if he were to die here.

But he had a job to finish first. Destroy the Deity’s heart. His head felt like it would split from a sudden immense pain. In the split moment of his diverted attention, a Corroded with an extremely high presence pounced at him.

His reflexes were quick enough for him to realise the trouble he was in. But he didn’t have enough time to react.

It’s over. He thought. I’m dying here.

He didn’t resist. He let it come at him.

But right then, he felt someone shove him away, as the Corroded let out a loud shriek before getting eviscerated by a strong Vitalis punch to its gut.

Jacob looked up to see his saviour. It wasn’t somebody he’d met before, but one look at the man and he immediately knew who it was.

“Yang Ruoxuan?” he asked the tall older man.

The man looked at him with a slight crinkle along his deadpan eyes, as the faintest hint of a smile played along the edges of his dark cracked lips. “You’re smart, and talented in battle. No wonder Han likes you,” he said.

Jacob scoffed. “Likes me? Yeah right. I’m afraid our relationship isn’t that simple.”

“So I can tell,” he replied, as his calm and detached gaze fell on the Deity’s beating heart, now left unguarded as Yang’s very presence repelled all Corroded.

Jacob knew there was something about the man that was… different from everyone else he’d seen. In his time at the agency, Jacob had known many skilled Vitalis users. But Yang was like no other. His very presence seemed to be accented by some mightier, almost otherworldly weight to it.

“When are you seeing your daughter, you deadbeat?” Jacob asked him all of a sudden.

“I… I don’t know…” Yang replied, with a slight chuckle in his tone, and some emotion in his eyes. Perhaps it was remorse. Longing, maybe.

“You owe it to her. Big time.”

“Yes… That I do,” he said.

“Go see her once the dust settles,” Jacob said.

“I will…” Yang replied.

“Alright, back to the thing at hand. How the fuck do I take it down?”

“You…?” he paused, as he turned to look at Jacob, “You think you can break its heart?”

Jacob looked at him, the resolve shining in his eyes behind the steel rimmed glasses. “Yes.”

Yang puckered his lips as he nodded slowly, his eyebrows raised as he took one good look at Jacob, before he said, “Okay… Sure. Here’s what you do…”

—

Elise’s entire uniform was drenched in gore, as her front line fired nonstop to disengage the tentacles from Lupin’s advice. The guy had a real knack for combat strategy as much as she hated to admit it.

She wiped the blood off her face, shaking the little shreds of demonic flesh from her boots, as she shuddered a little in disgust. “Eugh. I’ll need 20 baths to clean myself after all this. Well at least I have an excuse to not wear uniform now.”

It was around this time that the Deity’s pulse considerably weakened. The ebb and flow of energy through its thick and veiny expanse of tendrils seemed to lull for just a moment.

The Deity’s heart must have taken considerable damage, Elise thought. Now was their chance. Lupin’s voice floated inside her head.

“Who thought Jay would be our MVP… I’m surprised!”

“Does it matter who it is? We only have a couple minutes tops.”

“Kay, all set?”

“Mhm. On the count of three.”

“Ichi… Ni…”

“English, you fucking anime geek!”

“Fine, whatever. You count us down then!”

“No, you do it. But do it right!” Elise yelled back at him.

“Hey uhh Beiker… I think we have a bigger elephant in the room right now…” Fran interjected, a little tired from Elise’s constant bickering with Lupin.

“What is she doing…?” a rookie asked his senior.

“Oh she’s communicating telepathically with some guy on the other front,” she replied.

“You can do that?! Woah! Vitalis manipulation is so cool…!”

“Oh yeah, it is…” she said, as she turned to look at their Lieutenant Colonel, who gestured them to action.

“Fine. Whatever. Go. Fire. Now!” Elise exclaimed with a shrug.

The guns fired in the East. The bombs exploded in the West.

Blasts of potent Vitalis tore through the membranes and bones of both Wings, as the world itself seemed to spasm — the wind velocity spiraling into a climax before a quiet stillness settled gradually over the city.

Both Elise and Lupin stood quietly for a few minutes as they saw the massive structures collapse in front of their eyes. The piercing pressure of the maelstromic winds, and the deafening roars of the beast finally stopped.

“Holy fuckamole we did it!” Elise shook a little, from excitement, joy, and relief. She let out a loud laugh, as she turned back to her troops with a huge grin on her face. They smiled back at her.

At the west end, Lupin sat down on the ground, as he let out a huge sigh. “Wow, wow, wow… That was… epic!”

“For fuckin’ real it was!” He heard Elise’s voice in his head.

The rooted tendrils began to slowly shrink, and all the portals between realms closed, flickering out like the lights in the buildings — the aftermath of the Deity’s rampage.

It was still not over yet, the City was still in peril, and the Deity’s heart was still beating. But, it was still a battle that had been won by the agents.

“One hell of a Christmas this has been…” Roplock muttered as Division 8 fell back in ease,up north. He smoked a cigarette as the rookies began to clean up and move away the goopy carcasses of the undead monsters that were littering the streets.

Down south, Jacob’s energy emission, reinforced by Yang’s presence, had finally managed to crack the Heart as he split it in two with a Vitalis-sharpened finger nail.

“Ughhhh that fucking sucked…” he said, as he looked at the pair of glasses that he’d broken during the battle. He squinted slightly, before he turned back to face Yang. “What now, old man?”

“It’s all up to Han now…” he said.

> To be continued

Author's Note:
"Ughhhh that fucking sucked..." me having to write an action chapter for my action novel.

I suck at writing action. Sorry if it's not that good lol