Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 53: Sewer

Pain, there was only blood and agony. And rage. When Erec's axe slammed into the monsters, they shattered. They'd split, and their shards would fly. Their jagged rocks dented his metal and tore into his skin as the fight wore on—but his Strength only expanded.

It wasn’t long before his swings had enough force behind them that he was able to split their heads clean from their bodies.

And if he’d failed, Olivia, with her prayers, was able to finish his disabled foes.

He tore through the camp, leaving the confines to join the battlefront. Each buzz in his head led to another fight, another challenge, for something else to test his war axe against.

His anger flowed freely as fires rocked the streets—Knights marched in droves to join the battle. Around him, allies maintained a defensive line.

Even though the battle was momentarily swung in their favor, more stone giants poured from the city. It was an endless wave of giants and those annoying smaller stone monsters.

They didn’t bleed like Erec wanted them to.

In the distance rumbled a larger one of the stone creatures—three heads hung off on long thick necks; it crashed through a building, sending rubble flying as it charged toward the defensive line. Several senior knights broke off their engagements and rushed the bigger threat. Yet that only freed their previous opponents to press the weaker Knights.

By the second, the momentary advantage on the battlefield was slipping away. There wasn’t the firepower, manpower, or right ground to defend.

It didn’t matter.

Erec swung his axe, cleaved it through another foe, and decimated more, littering the battlefield in the unsatisfying chunks of decapitated and shattered stone enemies.

At some point, Alister joined him and Olivia; those cackling tendrils cleaved foes.

Erec still had the space for his battles, to pick his fight.

Good, they knew better than to get in his way.

Hell burned inside, and he let out a victorious scream as a blinking dot pulsed on the edge of his vision—blood ran down from the split skin on his brow.

Its pain was only a feat of living, a well-earned badge to mark his success at war. They couldn’t kill him.

He was victorious.

He left behind another pile of rubble as he slew another enemy.

Finally, an order was broadcast over the battlefield. “Retreat!” Boldwick called—“Pull back and retreat south, towards the subway network.”

Erec traced the frustratingly loud noise to a man in Armor. He watched the figure promptly cut a fiery sword twice the size of a giant into one of the enemies, melting the thing into two halves.

Why retreat?

He hadn't had his fill.

Erec picked another foe, and another, and one more—until the ranks of the others in Armor began to thin. Olivia yanked at his shoulder, spouting nonsense about needing to leave.

[Go.]

The buzzing. And that other voice, deep within, grew in strength as it threatened to summon that cold fire to fight him. Both voices wanted to end this glorious battle. Despicable. Cowardly.

But…

Perhaps it’d be best to bend. These things were annoying to fight anyway; they didn’t fill the field with blood.

One of the giants stepped into his sight—a large broken old-world vehicle in its hand. Olivia wasn’t looking in its direction—no, she was searching for an escape route but didn’t see the attacker.

It would crush her.

He shoved the girl off her feet and launched himself forward in a burst of speed. The old-world scrap metal slammed into where they’d been.

Erec twisted his body as he reached the thing, digging deep. The cold fire bled into the inferno—but this time, they didn’t fight one another but complimented, forming a cycle of strength. He put it all into a single swing—his damaged Armor strained as the weapon tore through the air, crashing into the giant’s leg.

It formed a crater, taking out chunks from the rocky limb and causing the thing to stumble. Olivia looked at him for half a second and backed away.

She took the hint.

The hit wasn’t enough to end the enemy. It steadied on the good leg and glared at Erec.

Before it had a chance to retaliate, Alister threw himself at the thing, one of the blades stabbing into its obsidian eyes—only for it to swing blindly and clip the poor man, throwing him across the battlefield.

His body bounced like a flat rock tossed over the still surface of a water filter cavern, blood painting everywhere he skipped across the ground.

Erec swung again to pull the enemy's attention from pursuing the collapsed pile of metal the man had become. He shattered the leg further, but not enough to destroy it.

It slapped him.

He flew through the air from the pure force of the blow, smashing into the ground. The Vallum Armor tore and bent as metal poked into his back and hot blood poured free.

Erec struggled to his feet—pushing past the pain to stand.

He’d been tossed far down the street from the camp; it was in the dim distance. Flares of power, but the giant stood between him and his allies.

It charged right towards him.

Good.

Strength. More.

The hell pit expanded, his body straining as blood ran down his back.

Erec tightened the grip on his war axe a manic grin formed under his broken helmet. The inferno burned brighter than ever before—the sea of hell, an endless pit that seemed without limit. The heat pulsed through his veins, and his heart hammered quicker than a piston as the pain faded away.

He couldn’t feel his face. Yet every bit of his skin felt like it was burning.

The giant’s foot flew towards him as if it intended to crush him.

Axe met stone. The anger poured free as Erec caught the blow with the metal, its bodyweight and might pushed downward. Its pure killing intent hammered against him.

Like fighting a god. Glorious. Such unending force.

But he was equal to it. A scream left his lips as he shoved the foot back, as it failed to squish him. The steel of the weapon bent, and the shaft was giving free.

Before he could make his next move, a concussive force banged out and rocked the giant free, its face a crater of smoke as it stumbled back and tripped on its back. Erec’s ear rang, but he would seize the opportunity—he moved to charge the collapsed enemy, yet his leg gave, and he managed to fall into a kneel.

The giant moved to return to its feet, a shifting pile of rubble.

No. Erec pulled at the fire pit inside of him, but it was burning out.

Another wave of concussive force rocked the area; the giant fell over dead as half its head was missing.

A man walked past Erec’s side, not from the direction of the camp but from the city. He wore no armor; only a dust-stained and grease-covered jacket clung to his body; his right hand held a long steel object with a barrel, its end still smoking.

He barked out a laugh and spat on the ground.

“Steel fuckers got their ass beat, huh?”

Erec stared at the man with bleary eyes, body swaying. That sea of fire was retreating; it was like he’d used up all of that inferno at once for a couple of seconds of temporary power. And now, he’d run out of fuel.

The man raised the steel weapon towards Erec as smoke still trailed from the barrel. “Don’t get no dumb ideas. Not fond of you steel bastards, nor the red robed Goddess beggars. Just came to see a show.”

“W-who…” Blood ran down his back, and his body shook. VAL stabilized his Armor, where it still functioned, as it became the only thing keeping him from falling to the ground.

He could feel the pain again.

“Aw, shit. Looks like your buddies are disappearing, unlucky for you,” the guy waved the weapon towards the fighting ahead of them. It had gotten quieter. How far had he been thrown? It was hard to focus, hard to hold himself together. He felt like he was watching things happen through a lens, like when he’d seen the goddess from space…

The man tilted his head and walked towards him; a rough hand with a tattoo of a two-headed snake reached in his direction.

“…Help…” Erec got out before he fell over.

— - ☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —

The first thing he noticed was the smell—an awful reek of decay and putrid rot. Erec took a deep lungful of the scent.

It was beautiful; it meant he was still alive, no matter how horrid it was.

The second thing he noticed was the light; a small fire burned not too far away. Erec tried to get to his feet—the wound on his back was caked in blood and reopened, but he made no progress. His hands were bound in steel manacles.

[Ah, welcome back. Do not panic]

Whistling to himself was the man with the two-headed snake tattoo; a glint of steel shined near the fire. It had a long barrel and mechanism near its grip. A ranged weapon of—

A gun?

Such a weapon would get you thrown out of the Kingdom if the priests suspected you’d fired one. They were found hidden away in old cities, though rarely working models. But, they shouldn’t have been able to do what they’d done to the giant.

It could kill an average man easily enough, though.

A tiny blinking light pulsed in the corner of his vision. He found it hard to care, at the moment, what it might say.

The guy glanced at Erec and spat on the ground.

“Aw, the brat’s up, huh?” he said, standing up and grabbing the weapon, only to crouch near Erec and yank his head up by the root of his hair.

More pain. But it gave him a good eyeful of the bastard. That scraggly hair around his face spoke of months without a proper shave. He had awful yellowed teeth and bulging red veins on the whites of his eyes.

And a cocky grin, he waved the gun in front of Erec’s eyes. A weapon that slew a stone giant, even when it should’ve been impossible.

The bastard leaned too close, close enough to smell his rank breath that spoke of rancid garlic and spoiled meat.

“Who the hell are you?” Erec asked, squinting. This guy, clearly, did not come from the kingdom, which was baffling in its own right, had Boldwick not mentioned such a thing to be possible.

Though maybe he was an exile. He looked the part.

“Haha, aint you a lil bit like an overgrown roach? Thought you might die with the wounds, but they stopped bleeding, aint they? Was out for a day or two, maybe. Hard to say.” The guy shook his head. “Better, suppose. Maybe can fetch a price. On top of getting to keep your shit, like I win twice.”

“…Keeping my shit?”

“Slow lil fucker, aint ya? Yeah, finders keepers, and all that. Beats being a corpse, but of course…” the barrel of the weapon pressed against Erec’s head, and a wider smile grew on the guy’s face. “…We could change that now, ‘twen the two of us if you act like a whiny brat. Easy fix.”

Erec fought hard to kill the instant rage of anger in him—his vision flooded red. His wrists strained against the steel binding.

[Comply. I would suggest you bide time.]

One… Two… Erec started to count, as the barrel of the gun left his head. He twirled the gun as Erec’s chin slammed into the ground, no longer held by the hair.

“’What sorta price do they put your life at? Maybe they’ll give up more of those steel things—though, hard to get’em to work. But maybe Maria, she’s handy with techno-babble-shit. Hey, aint that right, you gap-toothed bitch?”

He said the last bit with a shout—and aimed the gun towards a scrawny figure Erec hadn’t noticed before. A small woman nodded several times in a row, darting out like an animal from the shadows of the fire. Her hair was a ragged mess, and her eyes darted between him and the man in the disgusting coat.

She reached out on the floor in supplication, crawling towards the fire and proffering her hands toward the man pointing a gun at her—palms up as her fingers wiggled ever so slightly. Begging?

He stomped on the outstretched hands as she let out of a cry of pain—before retreating back to the shadows. He chuckled to himself as she vanished.

“Needy. So needy. Alright, kid, I’m going to yank you up, and we’ll have a bit of a mosey. Talk to your friends, and see if they’re keen or not about you breathing. Sounds fun, aint it? Hey, kid what do you think you’re worth? I reckon the heartless fuck’s tell me to end you.”

Erec didn’t answer that. No, he fought hard to keep the anger down since it’d do nothing but end his life. It was a full effort. Made even harder as the man yanked him up by the collar and dragged him down the sewer tunnels. But if he didn’t, if he broke, if he let it slip for a minute…

That gun would be pulled and it’d end him, just like it ended the giant with ease.