Romulus Side Story 4 – To Fight Unabated 4 – Familiar Foe
These versions of the enemy were not like liquid – they were liquid. Like a freshly moulted insect, their exoskeletons had the appearances but not the hardness. As the Gamer had stated, this made these enemies weaker than the original version. There were, however, many more of them.
In a swift series of attacks, Romulus cut his way through this chamber then stomped on through. His breathing was deeper than usual. His heart pounded faster. He desired to continue the fight.
His sun and moon behind him, Romulus cast the shadow of death over all the enemies that opposed him. From one engagement to the next, he wandered, scarcely caring about whether they advanced in the right direction. He lavished the simplicity of cutting down these enemies that genuinely wanted to kill him in return. By every objective metric, they were ludicrously strong. To the Apex, they served as entertaining obstacles, dangerous enough to be respected and yet too slow to be a genuine threat.
Romulus turned the wheel that sealed another door, pushed it open and then stopped. Even in his excited state, he was not brazen enough to just drop into what he saw.
Red eyes pierced the darkness. They were enormous, so enormous that Romulus was too far away to truly put it to scale. They were scattered all over a blob of deep blue flesh. The skin of the creature was smooth. The shape of the eyes was oddly feminine. Dozens of tentacles curved in random patterns around it, cutting through the mist created by its bodily functions. Below the distant creature was a landscape of craggy rocks and shallow water. The massive dome of ship guts built above them was doubtlessly there to encapsulate the land and this creature.
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“That looks like a regular boss at least,” John said, after poking under the Apex’s shoulder. “Let’s see, it is called-”
“The Chamber,” Romulus interrupted.
The Gamer only stopped for a moment. “You have faced it before?”
“I expected more surprise in that question.”
“I know Gaia lifts some looks and general ideas from reality. For example, the Skinwalkers are an exacerbated monster that was once made in Portugal. I also faced golems based on Charlemagne’s paladin constructs before.”
“Interesting.” Romulus stepped out of the doorframe so that those with them could take a look at the entity.
“Where did you fight it?” Nia wanted to know.
Romulus beheld the pariah with mixed emotions. It wasn’t that she was strange – it was that she was not strange. At least in this moment, the blank withheld her aura better than any other of her kind that Romulus had ever met. A concerning factor when he knew that a piece of the Great Empty One laid behind that eyepatch.
Turning to memory, Romulus recalled those ancient days. “It was before Akkad, even… In the days that are now myth when the barrier between mundane and magical was not yet firm.” He stopped for a moment, suppressing a broad smile. The younglings hung on his words. Even if they were powerful enough to become his rivals, they were still just humans. As their elder, he retold the story stoically. “This was before I settled in Rome. Following my separation with my brothers, I wandered the land in search of meaning and answers. My journey took me to the lands that you would know as Russia. There, by a great lake, I came upon many monsters.
“They conversed with me at first, telling me about the Chamber of Rebirth. They wished to offer me to it. Swiftly, things deteriorated and I cut them all down. Then, I went to find this Chamber. It was not difficult. Seated within the lake, this great monstrosity devoured all that was offered to it, rebirthing it in bodies that manifested the worst and strongest impulses of man. I engaged in battle with it and its hordes. My victory is evident.”
“Okay… ya know what it was?” Rave asked, her cat tail swinging curiously.
“No, such knowledge is beyond me.” Romulus gazed at the Chamber, staring back at them from a distance. “There was much in ancient days that I could not explain to you, even though I was there. This world is a material continuation of the same, yet it often does not feel like it. The titans ended. The elementals separated from this world. The streams of magic became formalized. Those wild days birthed other creatures. Does your Observe tell you anything of its origin?”
“It doesn’t even mention you fought it before,” the Gamer reported. “It’s a really unreliable tool.”
“Another mystery for the ages, then… I have a theory, although it is a stretch.” Anticipating gazes urged him to continue. “Two theories, rather. One is that it is related to the kraken creature that you encountered in the Iron Domain.”
“Do such things come down on Earth?” the Gamer asked.
“I have not witnessed it in person, nor do I know the complete truth. There are, however, many strange visitors to our realm at times. Magic refuses full understanding. It must.”
“Otherwise, it would not be magic,” Undine agreed.
“Quite so,” Romulus agreed. “Magic desires to be intuited, not to be analysed. That is to say, mankind wishes for the force that is magic to be a power of intuition. For as much as our beliefs shape reality, magic will change with it. My second theory contradicts this view in some capacity. It could have been a remnant of the Lorylim.”
“You mean the civilization that the Lorylim as we know them ended?” John asked and the Apex nodded. “…Interesting.”
“It cannot be confirmed, as none could be asked. Even the theory that the Lorylim are the endpoint of being wiped out by a god of genocide of their own is a theory.”
“I can basically confirm it, after a few other dealings,” the Gamer chimed in.
“Useful knowledge gained,” Romulus acknowledged with a deep nod. “Monsters too odd surfaced from time to time in places where no Natural Barrier seemed to have occurred. That they are remnants of a previous realm is the only working theory I can offer. If not the Lorylim, then perhaps another forerunner, man or not, that eliminated themselves before they were ever contacted. It has now been thousands of years since last I heard of such an entity being contacted.”
“Very interesting…” John muttered.
“With the preamble out of the way… I relish the opportunity to fight it once more.” Romulus allowed that smile to show on his face. “Enough of the stories, I will proceed now. I ask that you hold back.”
“We’ll prioritize our own survival and let you do your thing,” John agreed.
No further ado was needed. Romulus charged into the room, Sol and Luna right behind him. The stare of the Chamber barely changed. There was nothing hostile in its many gazes. The swing of the massive tentacles was another matter.
Attacks of such enormous entities were always difficult to measure. The gargantuan limb seemed so distant that it would never reach Romulus, then it was suddenly right next to him. Throwing his supernatural might behind it, he met the hundreds of tons of squid-like flesh with his fist. A ripple went through the muscle, matching force bringing the whip attack to a sudden halt.
Romulus rammed the ocean sword into the muscle. A gush of brine penetrated through the several metres of dense flesh. Grabbing the hilt with both hands, Romulus then began to run. Purple blood splattered everywhere as he stormed forwards.
One limb being carved open mattered just as little to this artificial Chamber as it had to the genuine article. The massive creature exhaled. White spores flooded the room, revealing the true nature of the mist. Cladding himself in an armour of fire, the Apex burned away the vile infection in the air and continued to charge.
More tentacles descended, slamming the ground. Romulus dodged each narrowly on his warpath. He refused to stop advancing. The gargantuan central body of the Chamber grew barely any larger with his individual steps. Like all great tasks, closing the distance was a matter of vigilance and effort. Like many great tasks, it was hindered by lesser.
The ground near Romulus burst open. What had appeared to be stone turned out to be calcified flesh, shaking off the crust that had gathered. Fleshy gaps were revealed, parting obscenely to spit out the brood of the Chamber. In Romulus’ memory, the horrors created by the Chamber had been as numerous as the imagination of the men that gave themselves to it. Here, Gaia limited herself to thin and liquid-ish Skinwalkers.
Howling, the creatures charged at Romulus. The Apex dodged and weaved through them and the tentacles until, finally, he slipped up.
Romulus dodged to the left, right into the path of another enemy. There was a strange sense of elation that accompanied getting his leg tackled. He fell and tumbled. More enemies piled on top of him. His limbs were pressed down by a dozen enemies. More emerged from nearby birthing pods, throwing themselves on top of him. Teeth attempted to pierce his bronze skin.
Through the pile of bodies, Romulus could narrowly see another enormous tendril coming down. The boss monster did not care for its brood. In that, it was different from what the original Chamber had been. The change hardly mattered to Romulus, only the impending danger did.
‘At last… a challenge,’ he thought, infinitely relieved.
The tentacle slammed down on the pile of bodies, turning the Skinwalkers into a disgusting paste. Romulus was doused in gore and ichor. A second tendril immediately followed the first, catapulting him high into the air. He felt the rage of his loves. They restrained themselves for his sake.
Elemental magic stabilized Romulus’ flight. He stopped gracefully in the air, surrounded by gusts of green wind. Dark eyes scanned the battlefield. The Gamer was fending off a swarm of freshly birthed Skinwalkers. There was a pattern to it all. To where these birthing pods emerged and to the way that the tentacles swiped. Even the renewed wave of spores had a mathematical precision to it. There was an artificiality to it all that Romulus chose not to analyse further. Strategizing was not needed here, he could seize the day with power and intuition.
‘I can lend some aid. A lesser incantation will do.’ Romulus raised a hand. “Let my enemies look to the heavens and witness what I command!”
An orb of consolidated shadow formed above him. Many different bands of elemental power intertwined around it, swirling in an ever-expanding display of entropy and prismatic light. It was a chaos that could not and did not last. One after another, fragments of elemental magic separated from the orbs, turning into arching rays.
Fire scorched, thunder cracked, water froze, rock fell, light incinerated and shadows sliced. Each of the scattering bands was a spell aimed at the many birthing pods. All over the battlefield, the fleshy outgrowths were destroyed by the Apex’s might. In the end, only the dark core was left. Romulus hurled it at the Chamber.
The body of the creature was strange. Boneless and seemingly hollow, it stretched around the sphere where it slammed into the dark, greyish blue skin. It was as if a gargantuan blip had the surface strength to withstand a bullet attempting to pierce it.
The many eyes of the chamber flashed red. A short warning for the multitude of lasers that were shot out a moment later. Most of them focused on Romulus.
The Apex plunged down at rapid speed, increasing the pull of gravity on himself to shorten his time in the air. On the ground, he was faster, his feet more reliable than magic, and less of the eyes could trace him. Beams continued to slice the ground all around as he ran ever closer. By now, the Chamber towered far above him, like a living mountain.
Smaller tendrils swiped at Romulus, weaker limbs existing for what was at close range. Romulus cut through them, leapt onto the base, then brought the armament up. The swipe of the sword continued up and up the body of the chamber. A path of saltwater ravaged upwards through the flesh, revealing the fungal, white inside under the membrane. Dispassionately, the Chamber sealed its surface again, a deliberate and clear use of regenerative magic.
And then… Romulus lost himself to the fight.
A mental switch flipped. Time became a concept without meaning. There was only the fight. Swiping tendrils, eye lasers, new brood, spores, all that and whatever else the Chamber conjured to fight him, all bled into each other in a stream of present moments. This was the fight. This was the state of being that only a true and dangerous challenge could create.
Then, it was over.
Romulus came back up from the depths of the trance, his fist still extended from the punch that had ended the Chamber. A final impact had scattered the massive body into dust. Except, unusually for this Raid, that was only true for the upper half of the monstrosity. Amidst all of the white fungal (and coral, strangely) matter within the Chamber’s base, another structure was housed. An arena, at its centre a cocoon of white silk.
And it began to unfurl.