Chapter 1756 – Vs Macuil Finale – The Final Measure

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” The god of gluttony screamed. His body on the floor contorted in pain. “IT’S NOT FAIR! IT’S NOT FAIR! I WORKED SO HARD TO GET THIS! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

John would have delivered the final blow to Macuil himself, had he had a point of mana left in the tank. With both Overclock Drawbacks kicking him 109% down on the rate, John was steadily bleeding mana. The remaining elementals were automatically dismissed and his Artificial Spirits got their mana flow diminished to half.

Even that wasn’t enough to put John in the positive. Courtesy of all the other countermeasures he had taken last time he had suffered from the Secret of Mana Drawback, he still had enough modifiers stacked that he was operating at 26% of his original regeneration rate. That only got him to 107,97 out of 138,8 that he needed to cover. The system automatically lowered the Artificial Spirits further. To 30% of what they should be paid.

Which meant they would automatically deactivate and go unconscious within 40-50 seconds.

‘Time to throw everything we still have at him,’ John thought and stepped forwards. Physically he was as fine as ever, and Purgatory lent some power to his kicks. Hikari next to him was dazed, apparently stunned by the aftermath of her attack. What little she had told him about her capabilities beforehand had warned him of that state, it was why he had kept her in the back until the final moment.

Beatrice and Momo joined the Gamer in kicking the god while he was down. The fact that there was any vitality left in the creature was ludicrous. “STOP! STOOOOOP!” Macuil yelled. “I’M THE LAST CHILD OF REMUS! I’M A GOD ABOVE GODS! YOU’RE DESTROYING PERFECTION! STOP!”

John did not stop. The Digestive Plague was coursing through his system and those he loved. He wanted to end this right there and now. It was better than relying on contingencies.

“I – SAID – STOP!”

Macuil’s skin bubbled and hissed. From the back of the humanoid torso, the head of a vulture grew. The attack was slow and cumbersome by the standards of their level of combat, but the god was not the only one exhausted. The beak of the growing neck pierced John at the shoulder.

Another one, then another, and another, and then a final one, four more heads for five in total grew from the back of the sliced god. Liquid disease dripped from flesh that could barely hold itself together, yet had enough strength to drive off the other two Artificial Spirits. In a swift strike, Macuil’s curved, toothed beak also caught Hikari by the shoulder.

The samurai woman let out a surprised gasp, the pain pulling her back to reality. It was not swift enough, veins discolouring to the sickening purple of the Digestive Plague within the three seconds she needed to take hold of her Mithril katana once more and swing it.

‘No, no, no, no!’ John chanted in his head, grappling the head that had pierced him. Macuil surrendered the limb with a wet squelch, leaving John with an armful of plague ooze. He dropped it swiftly, mere contact with it advancing the disease faster than it was naturally going.

“Out… OUT!” Macuil roared, the control over his Sanctum washing over all of them – only for the god-lock, prolonged by Lee, to swallow the effects. Incapable of moving them or teleporting himself, Macuil did the next best thing and forced the ground underneath him to open up back into the temple complex. Lee could not prevent that, but the Gamer typed fast enough that the Fateweaver at least knew to resist the miniscule change that would have been to close the way behind him.

“SHIT!” John shouted and suppressed the urge to immediately follow. Alone he would just get devoured. His reinforcements landed by him quickly. There was no one on his side that looked good. Norahnon was almost as much purple as he was pale. Malady was just a mechanical skeleton. Hikari was still dazed and infected. Zelos was suffering from a severe backlash, his wraith-state flickering at the edge of existence – even bullshit protagonist powers had their limits. Nia was still translucent, having had to commit what little powers she regenerated to helping Norahnon survive. Rave was teetering at the brink of unconsciousness, as was Moira. The Artificial Spirits gave their Master one final nod, before shutting down where they stood. John was actively setting all of their upkeep costs to the minimum of 1%. That mana was needed elsewhere.

The only member of John’s side that was still doing good was Famine.

“Anyone who can still move, with me!” John declared. “Macuil is on his way to the inner realm. He’ll try to devour the population to recuperate his strength.”

“Time to pull my weight,” the pale rider growled, gripping his vibrant sword. “I’ll lead the way!”

Famine jumped down the hole, atop his horse, followed swiftly by John, and Malady. Everyone else acknowledged that they had nothing left to offer in this fight. At best they would be bystanders, at worst they would get devoured by Macuil. Better to stay and watch over the bodies of the Artificial Spirits and Metracanas.

John dropped into a corridor. The walls were venerable Aztec artisanship. The floor was covered in a layer of pinkish, translucent slime. Macuil hadn’t gotten far, John could hear the five-headed vulture slug along. The group began to run. John took full advantage of the fact that Magus Step did not have a mana cost. Malady rode on the back of Famine’s steed.

They caught up to the god just as he reached the exit of the temple. Famine remained on the lead, his horse galloping. Macuil managed to block the strike of the vampire’s sword, but not the lightning bolt of the machine woman on the back. Diminished as he was, the attack was enough for the vulture-headed ooze to be shoved backwards.

A ball of half-formed wings, plague, and twisted heads, Macuil rolled down the great stairs of the layered pyramid. “RUN! IT’S THE FIVE SINS COME FOR YOU!” John shouted in Nahuatl at the crowd below. A panic broke out instantly. No convincing was needed for these people to believe that the five-headed slime vulture that splat on the plaza was THE calamity of their religion.

People trampled each other, shoved them out of the way, and in general did everything besides enacting an orderly retreat. John was disappointed by the sight, but as long as the people got away, the manner of how did not matter. Damaged as he was, Macuil could not spread his plague far and wide on a whim. Wet cackling from the sludge on the floor pulled his attention to Macuil once more.

“You… know…” Macuil managed to press out, his voice a flat and phlegmy whisper echoing from a singular beak. “I may be… an idiot… but… even I know… to have… A CONTINGENCY!”

The massive red obelisks that had been rammed into the soil all over the city burst in unison. From the red wood, vast amounts of the Digestive Plague poured, flooding the streets and turning the pristine city into a hellscape.

“AHAHAHAHAHA!” Macuil laughed, as rivulets of the disease connected to his diminished form. “MHMHAHAHAHAAHA!” he kept on laughing, while his wings grew to their former size. “EHEHAHHAH-“

The god’s laughter was upended when John teleported on top of him and summoned Inkaryl. The weapon laid way too heavy in John’s hand, but that was the point. A deeply annoyed, discordant sound came from the Sceptre of the Undeclared King as it dropped down, replaced by a satisfied heartbeat when it splattered one of the heads of the vulture for good.

John felt vitality rush through him, Lifeleech 7 providing him with a little more of a cushion. Holding the grounded weapon, John called on the Elemental Absolutism. For all of the multitude of powers that the Gamer had, his soul was neither Life nor Arcane – it was Light.

Wielding proper magic was not John’s expertise, but he had trained out of curiosity often enough to concentrate ambient illumination into a singular bolt. The attack would have bounced off effectless, had Macuil managed to reform more than a few patches of feather. Hurt as he was, it sliced through the base of a newly regenerated wing.

“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” Macuil kept chanting with his four remaining heads and flowed backwards. Four was reduced to two, Famine riding by and severing a duo of heads with two quick strikes. “RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Macuil forced his body to burst with corpse gas. The explosion sent John and Malady flying back. Only Famine managed to evade it somewhat, leaping onto the roof of a nearby building. Famine was following the scattering chunks of Macuil’s body. “THERE!” he shouted and pointed his blade at a two-headed vulture that was flying on crooked wings.

Famine jumped down from the roof, scooped up John and Malady, then gave chase. Three people had barely enough space on the horse. Famine grit his teeth, his flesh sizzling and steaming under the armour, losing vitality by the second. Since they had left the temple, they were fighting under the sun.

The vampire and his steed, despite the consistent torture it must have been, kept on taking the quick route over the sun-kissed roofs of the buildings. Without warning, Famine cast his sword aside. John felt the fingernails of the Horseman dig into his neck. The pain was sharp and immediately followed by something soothing. Malady had been gripped in the same way.

“Take every last drop of my blood!”

John’s eyes went wide. Famine grinned at him, pale skin stretched thinly over a skeleton. “That’s me… pulling… my weight!” While his skin charred under the sunlight, the rider launched Malady and John with what strength his arms had left.

They landed atop a small temple. The ziggurat was modest compared to the massive temple behind them. Screams of people could be heard all around. As much plague as there was, flooding the city, death was only instant for those that had stood under the crushing weight of the liquid. Fumes rose from the rancid river, carrying the disease into the closed houses.

Macuil had landed on the altar, his outstretched wings fused to a gelatinous wall. His two remaining heads had swelled in size, covered in a mouldy fuzz. “Let’s end this!” Malady declared, firing up as much electricity as her partly restored condition could bring to bear. John just nodded stoically and began to charge an Arc Lance.

“LEFT!” the Gamer shouted as the two heads of the god came for them. Malady as lightning, John with Magus Step, they dodged to the same side, then delivered a swift strike to the neck of the god. Lightning and resummoned Inkaryl cracked down, electricity and illumination burning through squelching flesh, severing the penultimate head.

Macuil screeched, his final head snapping backward like a taut tendon suddenly losing its anchor point. It fused back into the wall, within which the human form of the god of gluttony suddenly consolidated. “FUCK…” the Gorged God cursed, as he surfaced from his disease cocoon. This was the only stable form he had left. “FUCK YOU!”

Long strands of plague matter remained connected to the god’s back, like wings, as he ran towards Malady and John. Two Latebloomers of the Generation of Monsters readied themselves for the final clash with the god.

Malady wreathed herself in lightning and snapped forwards. Macuil met her with a wild flurry of attacks, each thrown punch as inept as the last. Blocking, dodging, weaving, and then countering, Malady delivered a strike to Macuil’s face that had the head fly to the side. John took that opportunity to teleport into melee range and fire the Arc Lance. It blasted a hole into Macuil’s rib cage, nearly separating the shoulder from the torso.

Nearly was not good enough.

A pulse through the rivers of plague delivered fresh mass to Macuil. The cavity filled, giving enough squishy fibres that the god of gluttony regained control over the arm. He grabbed John by the face and flooded Digestive Plague in through the Gamer’s nostrils. The diminished debuff surged back to its previous strength, before Malady managed to separate the limb with a thunderstrike.

The gesture left her open. Macuil exploited it with a flying knee, ramming into Malady’s unprotected metal skeleton. She and John were thrown back together, landing at the edge of the temple platform.

John coughed. He tried to get up, but his limbs were liquifying. He was shivering from a fever. He managed to make it on all fours. Malady was similarly suffering, her body crooked from a deep dent created in her midsection.

While they struggled to rise to their feet, Macuil was getting fed more rejuvenating energy. Average human lives were scarcely any nourishment to the god, but he had mass and time. Neither John nor Malady could do more than crawl.

“I win…?” Macuil blinked a couple of times, then clapped for himself. “I WIN! I WIN! I WI-he-he-he-IIIIIIIIIIIIIN! FINALLY! You’re cowering before me as you should. The Grim Reaper is still in my belly and you are nothing! Nothing but food! Sacrifices to me, as you all always should have been! I- HATE THAT SOUND!”

Cliiiiiiing!

The Lucky Coin bounced on the ground. A short-lived warning before a gap opened up in the fabric of the interconnected Sanctum. Macuil slammed it shut as quickly as he could. It should never have been allowed to open in the first place. Lee caught the villain at the peak of self-distraction.

Nahua crossed the portal before the ruler of the Sanctum forced it closed.

“Oh, and I was actually worried for a second.” Macuil put a hand on his chest and let out a relieved breath. “What are you going to do to me? Infect me, hmm? Eat aaaaaaaall of this plague? What possible threat could you possi-“ The god stopped himself when his eyes fell on the weapon the axolotl demigoddess was holding. “Nice toy.”

The dagger was like the workshop it had been forged in: primitive yet ahead of its time. The smooth, fused vertebrae that served as the grip were a crimson reminder of its gruesome origin. The blade was shimmering prismatically, lacking the usual translucency that John was used to from Fusional weapons. Instead, it appeared simply too solid, more akin to stone than metal. The length of the blade was covered in veins, rising obsidian black and purple as they stretched out from the wavy spine of the gently curved dagger. It was a ritual knife made manifest. A weapon as much made by flaking as it had been by forging.

Nahua stood there.

“Go,” John croaked, causing her to glance over her shoulder. The hesitation in them was deep. “There are still people you can save.”

Nahua looked further to the city behind them. Finally, her ears seemed to register the screams. The hesitation turned into a deep and vast determination, fuelled by justified hatred. Turning to the god of gluttony, she ran forwards.

“Oh please!” Macuil reclaimed his previous bravado.

John opened up Nahua’s Stat Screen and deployed the points as quickly as he could, boosting each of her Stats in increments of 25, so she wouldn’t get overwhelmed by the sudden change. Neither did he mess much with her balance.

Nahua and Macuil clashed. Taller, with longer reach, Macuil slammed his fist into Nahua’s face. Unlike him, the demigoddess was used to pain, barely taking a step back from the impact. Then, the dagger carved into his stomach.

It was a shallow wound, barely more than a papercut, yet it was the most devastating wound that Macuil could have sustained. Half of the synapses that connected him to the plague streams suddenly snapped, the rivers themselves evaporating into harmless water. “WHY?!” the god of gluttony asked and jumped back.

Nahua set right after him, swinging the dagger repeatedly. Deathly afraid, Macuil just started dodging backwards. Unaware of his surroundings, he hit the altar at the middle of the platform.

“Stop! Daughter!” he yelled.

The knife plunged into his stomach. “I swore to my father that I would pierce your guts with his remains!” Hateful and sobbing, the demigoddess screamed, “That I would do what he could not!” The weapon carved up through the midriff of the god of gluttony. The remaining synapses withered and died. Once there were no other powers to draw from, it was the body of the god himself that was paying for the damage he was taking. He withered actively, his form turning old and frail.

Nahua raised her dagger up high, ready to plunge it down again.

A skeletal hand shot up from the open stomach.

Rising as bone and fragments of shadow, the Grim Reaper rose from the stomach of the devourer. Incapable of forming his robe in full, his true form was revealed as that of a plain skeleton. No runes, no additional features, nothing to make him anything more than the remains of a dead human. “You would stop me?!” Nahua hissed.

Once fully separated from the god of gluttony, the embodiment of death stood besides the altar. “Macuilcozcacuauhlti, do you fear the end?”

“Yes… I don’t want to die… I don’t want to die… you need a rider, yes? A Plague, yes? I’ll be that, I’ll be whatever you want, just save me, save me, please!”

“Have you ever extended that courtesy to someone who pleaded?” The Grim Reaper released Nahua’s hand.

And the demigoddess of gluttony rammed the dagger straight into Macuil’s throat.

Blood gushed. True blood, not any plague matter or other replacement, the true lifeblood of the god. He raised his hand, trying to get his final words out. Nothing but gargles made it past his severed vocal cords.

“GREAT HUITZILOPOCHTLI!” Nahua roared. “I SACRIFICE THIS ANIMAL TO YOU!”

A second stab pierced the heart of the god of gluttony. From infra-red to ultraviolet, the flesh of the god shimmered, turning gaseous. It drifted apart, leaving, on the altar, just the corpse of a large vulture with a few purple feathers among its otherwise dark gown.

Nahua raised the dagger, blood dripping from it. No portal opened to claim the sacrifice. There was just deadly silence in a city confused and afraid – and a daughter that could not keep standing. Collapsing to her knees, Nahua let the tears flow, clutching the dagger with both hands. “What… what do I do now?” she choked out.

John moved over, the disease fading from his limbs now that the god guiding it was gone. He put a hand on her shoulder. “We will help you, however we can.” That was the only thing he could say. Nahua did not look up. Her head remained low. The tears kept falling.

Season 3 Arc 11 End.