Chapter 149: The Last Battle (1/2)

Victor had done drugs once.

It had been a surreal experience, which broke a friendship, made him a hero of Happyland, and allowed a mortal to access the realm of gods. Higher understanding of the universe through mushrooms.

It didn’t prepare him for his current trip.

Victor felt his soul separated from his body, his flesh taken over by alien sensations as the universe twisted and folded. The black hole which swallowed him, Vainqueur, and Crom Cruach transformed into a corridor of swirling light. Victor’s spirit moved inside a chaotic rainbow, his mind bombarded with information.

Images flashed inside this strange, spatial hallway. Visions of Happyland, of Heaven and Earth; pictures of nine realms linked together by a giant tree, of an ancient city ruled by an undead abomination; the vague, incomplete design of a colossal machine constantly rebooted; the sight of a crew of men, harpies, and minotaurs navigating an endless ocean, of martial artists meditating around a black lotus, of an alternate earth where potions could grant the power to rule the world.

Victor had heard many people call Outremonde a crossroads between realities. Now he understood why. The visions continued, from pictures of worlds straight out of the wildest works of science-fiction, to phantasmagorical dimensions which made absolutely no sense to his human mind.

These visions were but a mere glimpse of the endless multiverse, of which Outremonde was only a small corner.

The journey seemed to stretch for eons condensed in the span of seconds, only to end as abruptly as it began.

Victor’s soul and body suddenly resynchronized without warning, granting him back his five senses and motion controls. The lights of the infinite corridor were replaced with a starry sky, and the back of Vainqueur for some kind of marble platform.

Owing to his luck, the Vizier crashed against it face-first.

“Ugh…” Victor heard Vainqueur complain next to him, the dragon had landed next to his rider. Whatever space-time mojo they went through had removed some of their buffs, returning the duo to their original mortal forms. Perhaps their spells had simply run out of duration inside the time corridor.

“Your Majesty, are you alright?” Victor asked his friend, rising back to his feet.

“I am,” the dragon replied, shaking his neck and leg as he rose back up too. Having recovered from the emergency landing, Vainqueur looked at the skies. “Where are we, Friend Victor?”

The Vizier had no idea. He glanced around, and the more he saw, the more impressed he grew.

The duo had crash-landed on a large, circular marble platform the size of a football stadium, floating aimlessly in the void of space. Or at least a dimension that looked like space; the stars in the heavens glowed with weird and lurid colors, from green to purple. Crimson nebulae swirled in the shape of storms and hurricanes, while constellations rearranged themselves in an incredibly complex dance. Suns fell down like meteor showers on the horizon, while wonderful cosmic auroras provided light.

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

Victor turned away from the alien skies and examined the platform, the ground covered in ancient pictures carved in stone. Most represented scenes of dragons and fomors, or of ancient creatures which the Vizier didn’t always recognize. One carving represented the Dread Three, facing down an army of angels; another represented Mithras radiant, defeating a fomor as mighty as Mell Odieuse. Each god had a scene consecrated to their success, showcasing an epic feat.

Immense gates thirty-meters tall, made of an alien black metal, stood in the middle of the platform, closed, and locked.

What was this place?

A System notification answered him.

You have entered [Valhalla].

… impossible.

“Friend Victor, you told me one needed to reach level 99 to access this place,” Vainqueur said, having received the same notification.

“I thought so, and we aren’t high level enough yet,” Victor replied. “Mell Odieuse was, however. She must have accidentally pulled us in when she attempted to achieve divinity.”

“Did she succeed?” Vainqueur asked warily. The fomor was nowhere to be found, nor was her castle, but if she managed to become a deity...

“I don’t know.” The dracolich had tried to force her way through, and Victor had the feeling the System didn’t treat would-be cheaters kindly. “Maybe she died.”

The Vizier tried to check on his new private plane of existence, to see if they had managed to seal Crom Cruach before the apocalypse, only for his magic to short-circuit.

Teleportation and outside summoning impossible while a trial is ongoing.

“[Emergency Teleport]. [Magellan].” Victor frowned. “[Succubus Booty Call].”

Teleportation and outside summoning impossible while a trial is ongoing.

That was a hard rule. Victor pitied the summon-oriented adventurers who made it this far, only to find themselves deprived of any outside help. “I cannot transport us out,” the Vizier told his dragon partner. “We’re stranded there.”

“Stranded? We are where we should be, Friend Victor.” Vainqueur moved towards the gates with confidence, dramatically raising his hands to open them. “This is where we belong!”

Except the doors didn’t budge.

“I said, this is where we belong,” Vainqueur repeated, pushing further, to no avail. The dragon grew frustrated as the doors refused to open.

Victor attempted to help, knowing his [Skeleton Key] would help him overcome any form of magical lock. But neither his feeble hands nor his perk could overcome these doors.

Level insufficient. You cannot achieve [Apotheosis].

Only the thirteenth may pass.

“The thirteenth god?” Victor asked.

“I have not journeyed so far to be stopped by closed gates!” Vainqueur snarled, punching the doors to no avail. These gates could not be opened by anyone short of level 99, and V&V were short dozens of them.

Now, if the duo couldn’t pass the gates nor return home through magic, what could they do? Buffing Vainqueur and casting so many spells in quick succession had drained Victor of his SP reserve, leaving him with very precious few options.

Wait. Why hadn’t they leveled up yet? If they bested Odieuse and sealed her nuclear arsenal, they should have—

A chilling cold filled his bones.

You have entered [Dracolich] Mell Odieuse’s [Voracious Siphon]!

“[Darkest Fear], [Accelerated Piercing Magic Arrow].”

The attack struck Victor before he could even shout a warning.

With his connection to the Black Grail severed and no way to protect his soul from it, the fomor spell took root in his spirit and drained it away.

HP and SP reduced to one! Charisma check successful! [Terror] and [Necrophobia] negated!

And then, before the Vizier could even turn around, a projectile went through his back, pierced his armor, and impaled his heart.

His body went numb, his eyes widening as he collapsed on the ground. Victor heard Vainqueur shout a cry of surprise, and the Vizer closed his eyes.

Vainqueur’s sight turned red, as his friend’s body collapsed on the ground, a golden arrow shot in his back.

“Victor!” the dragon shouted, catching his friend’s lifeless body. He immediately attempted to heal him back. “[Healing Mantle]!”

[Anti-Heal] applied by Mell Odieuse! You can no longer regenerate HP! [Healing Mantle] and [Master’s Shield] negated!

“I told you I relished the thought of killing him again.”

The dragon turned to the source of the voice, smoke coming from his nostrils.

Mell Odieuse flew over the platform, having hidden below, out of sight, for the last minute.

The [Black Crests] on her chest had vanished, and she had regained her original size like Vainqueur, but the journey through space had affected her in a spectacular way. Most of her flesh had been cleansed from her body, leaving only a skeletal body fueled by spiritual flames. Once shielded, her core was exposed within her rib cage, the whispers of thousands of anguished souls coming out of it. As her empty eye sockets flared with a spark of pure, undiluted hatred, Vainqueur thought that she looked closer to an incarnation of death than a rotting dragon.

The Forgotten One’s [Permascan] was still active, revealing her HP bar.

HP: [497166/5667]

Unfortunately, it hadn’t returned to normal.

“Just you and I, Knightsbane,” the skeletal horror stated as it landed on the marble ground, facing Vainqueur. Without their respective size-buffs, both foes were evenly matched in size. “As it was meant to be.”

You are challenged by Final Boss Mell Odieuse.

According to the [Dracolich]’s gleeful face, she must have received a similar notification. “This is why you could access this place,” Odieuse whispered to herself, her voice brimming with malice. “You are not the new god… you are my Valhalla trial. My final challenge.”

“No,” Vainqueur glared back, putting his minion’s body behind him for eventual revival. “You are mine.”

Without a word, both foes opened their final battle with their breath weapons.

Holy nuclear flames and a stream of tormented souls clashed in a massive explosion, covering the arena in a cloud of smoke. Vainqueur immediately activated [Spell Purge] and [Fire Crown], covering his body in flames and protection from spells.

“[Fire Immunity]!” the dracolich cast on herself as the dust fell down, Vainqueur’s flames licking her body without inflicting damage. Why she bothered to protect herself from this element in spite of her enormous HP bar, the dragon didn’t understand.

Did she believe that Vainqueur could deplete it in a prolonged battle?

If so, she was right.

Vainqueur immediately rushed to engage Odieuse in close combat, much to her disdain. Rather than confront him in physical combat as she did with Wotan, she called upon her vilest ability. “[Soul Slaver].”

The dracolich hung back as her rib cage briefly opened, two enslaved ghosts emerging to challenge Vainqueur on her behalf.

A mighty fomor king of thunder, carrying a spear of lightning, and a frost dragon whom Vainqueur once called his rival.

This was a dirty trick meant to weaken both his heart and spirit, but the dragon remained steadfast. He would give both the final, glorious death which both his worthy rivals had deserved.

“[Glitzy Theater]!” Vainqueur covered the platform in a golden dome, to better exploit the passive arena bonus that his homefield provided him with; he stopped the dome's expansion at the edge of the platform, preventing Odieuse from escaping it. “[Victory Fist]!”

Both specters rushed at him while Odieuse hastily closed back her rib cage, Wotan’s ghost assaulting Vainqueur with lightning, Icefang’s with ice shuriken. The frozen projectiles melted before they could hit his scales, but the thunderbolt managed to bypass [Spell Purge], and it hurt.

You have fallen below half your HP!

His previous wounds from the earlier battle had remained, but Vainqueur had fought against worse odds. He engaged both ghosts in close combat, Starmetal claws extended. All his battles, all his trials, all his class progression had meant to prepare him to this day; for this last trial before godhood.

And Vainqueur would not falter.

What he lacked in firepower, Icefang’s ghost made up in agility, dodging a mighty strike. Wotan’s specter, however, took a punch to the face, [Victory Fist] allowing Vainqueur to hit the incorporeal target. His paltry specter, unworthy of the great deeds he had achieved in life, collapsed into nothing, its remains returning to its captor’s cold embrace.

Wotan had asked Vainqueur where fomors went when they died. While he had despised Dragonbane, the emperor swore to offer him a better afterlife than Odieuse’s belly.

Icefang, more stubborn, continued his assault by covering his phantom claws with sharp magical icicles. The ice survived contact with [Fire Crown] and grazed the [Hoard Armor], both dragons engaging in a deadly dance of claws. The same foolish ferocity that Icefang had shown to Mell Odieuse, he now unleashed on Vainqueur.

“[Overheal]!” Odieuse took the opportunity to replenish her HP-boosting effect while Vainqueur fought off her own victim. The red dragon’s lifeforce slowly depleted as the fight went on, while her own only grew. If she engaged Vainqueur in melee, her colossal HP reserve would put him at a disadvantage.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she cowardly remained at safe distance and focused on supporting her servant. “[Magical Suppression].”

Mell Odieuse failed to suppress [Hoard Armor]!

Her feeble magic couldn’t outshine a true hoard!

Still, Vainqueur’s instinct told him something was wrong. Odieuse hadn’t hesitated to engage Wotan in melee, and she shouldn’t fear it with her lifeforce reserve. Something was amiss.

“How about making you fight your own slave next?” Odieuse chuckled, only for her laugh to turn to confusion. “Wait, where is it? Where is his soul?”

The dracolich glanced at the spot where Vainqueur had left his friend’s body, and found nothing.