All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 292: An Upset Stomach

The pair of Lieutenants leaped back in surprise at my assault. I hurried after them, spraying arcs of acid after them. Unfortunately, I only had a limited amount of the caustic liquid. It wasn't a simple mix of chemicals that was doing the damage. It was a specific concoction that Beatrice had spent ages preparing, and the magic imbued in it required time to develop, time that I could not speed up or even replicate myself, not without more research. So, I had to be careful about where I used it.

It seemed to be effective against the Death Knight's shield, but I didn't have enough to fully dissolve that. I could weaken it in certain places and maybe even form a hole, though. Or maybe it would be better to shift my attention to the stone demon?

My processors whirred with the options, modeling the different possible decisions and their statistical outcomes. Focusing on one of them was clearly the best option. Once I had one down, then the other would be much easier to finish. Plus, if I was only fighting one, that would free up my resources to go and assist my allies in their fights.

I examined the earth demon. It was already in the process of reforming the rock that I had dissolved. I decided that I wasn't going to be able to finish off the Earth Lieutenant at the rate I was going. However, I might be able to possibly punch a hole through the shield. That, at least, wasn't regenerating the same way.

I fought on for several moments without finding an opening to use my acid again. The shield was carefully tilted to deflect any spray, and any time I tried to get position, the pair worked together to force me away.

Despite how it seemed, this was quite good for me, actually. While I couldn't land the decisive blow I wanted to, they were extremely on the defensive. It really cut down on their options, but it also meant that I could slowly carve away at their impenetrable defenses with my unstoppable weapon. I was able to carve larger and larger slices off of the Earth demon, forcing it to spend more and more energy and time regenerating. I didn't use too much of the acid in my attacks, though. I would deal with him later.

During that time, I harassed the Death Knight, coming at it from behind and from all different angles. The rapid and unpredictable charges forced it to move wildly and constantly kept it on the back foot.

That, however, was not enough to defeat it. A plan slowly formed as I forced them apart, continually destroying the earth demon and forcing it into the ground to recover matter.

With a quick zip of my Thrusters, I circled around the Death Knight. It spun around to follow me. However, I had another skill that I hadn't used to its full effect. Right as I arced around my opponent, forcing him to turn, I sprayed a little bit of my protective sealant. As he turned, his shield slammed into the sudden barrier, stopping it in place. He was unable to jump out of the way. In that brief instant of stunned surprise, I let loose a geyser of acid and punched through his shield. The whole thing was too large to dissolve entirely, but I forced a hole three feet in diameter into its top half, making his impenetrable defense completely penetrable.

I followed through, my Divine Sword extended and speared into his head as I punched through the top half of his skull. The Black Knight crumpled to the ground in an unmoving heap. I didn't feel the rush of energy that should have signaled he had died. But I turned around to finish him off, and the earth demon seemed to erupt in front of me. Its stony body spread out into a shell, forming a half dome protecting the knight.

This was a perfect opportunity for me. With both of my opponents in one spot and in such a defensive posture, there was nothing either of them could do.

I extended my void bubble. The unfathomable blackness roared out of my chassis in a writhing mass of nothingness. It enveloped a full half of the earth demon and fully enveloped half of the earth demon and, with the full force of my suction, began to drag it into my dustbin. The demon was weaker than it had been at the beginning of the fight. The amount of regeneration it did had evidently taken had taken a toll on it, but I could feel it gaining strength even as I consumed it. Pulling harder, I pushed forward toward the earth demon.

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As I enveloped it, it made one last act. It struggled and struggled, but to no avail. I kept my relentless advance, keeping the void under my careful control so that it didn't hurt anyone else. As it realized that it wasn't getting away, the earth demon made one last act.

Pushing the now mostly recovered Black Knight Lieutenant towards where the exit had been, the thing roared into the air with a voice like an avalanche. "Retreat!"

As I finished consuming the Earth Lieutenant, its allies tried to follow its order. But a quick scan of the area revealed that it might be too little, too late. The Illusion Lieutenant Beatrice had thoroughly chopped apart to the point that it could barely move. She stood guard over the pile, slicing and stabbing the bits as they attempted to regrow and knit themselves back together. And Daedalus was not letting his quarry go.

The Shadow Lieutenant, though, slipped away from Archibald's duel. That was the closest fight of any of them. The two had fought each other to a standstill, neither managing to gain an advantage over the other. But at the same time, neither could prevent the other from escaping. Archibald lunged after it but to no effect.

The Shadow flitted after the Black Knight as they both ran toward the exit. I didn't expect they'd get through my protective coating over it, so I decided to re-prioritize. I dashed over to Beatrice's Lieutenant, and hoovered up the chunks of demon that she was attacking over and over again. It, too, disappeared into my dustbin in a moment.

Three down, three to go.

I didn't have a moment to rest, though. Daedalus had managed to pin down the Flame Lieutenant in a barrage of rainbow-tinged dragonfire. I dashed over and poured water on the Lieutenant to make it safe for me to approach. It flash-boiled to steam but took so much energy from the living flame that I could get close without worrying about my plastic melting. I pulled it through the brief opening towards my dustbin and contained it.

My sensors picked up a strange flickering behind me. Turning to look, I saw the Shadow unwrapping from the Death Knight on the other side of the barrier. Then, the two of them fled down the tunnel without looking back.

I moved to pursue them but lurched to a sudden stop. The energies within my limitless dustbin writhed chaotically, almost making me expel its contents involuntarily. I felt the three fully alive Lieutenants fighting against me from the inside. I shuddered, attempting to maintain the structure of my dimensional pocket within myself.

A flash of heat flared in my processors, and I realized I needed to do something. I immediately started to transmute them all to energy, but they resisted it. The trio seemed to link up together, fighting against the transition to nothing but energy with surprising fervor. I kept at it, forcefully overriding them. I was winning, but slowly. And it was painful.

But then, something happened. Some force that I hadn't expected struck at the demons inside of me. It felt as though thousands of beings slashed at them suddenly, weakening the Lieutenants further. I couldn't spare the focus to look inside and investigate what was going on, but it was enough. With that distraction, I felt the Illusion Lieutenant flicker out and become energy. As the power entered me, I redirected it into tearing apart the two remaining Lieutenants. The flames snuffed out, and the earth crumbled to dust. Both swirled into me in a rush of power.

Electric currents ran around my wheels, melting the rock underneath me. The forces of change flashed through me like they had never done before. I had just transmuted three of the most powerful beings that we'd ever faced at once, four if you counted the Water Lieutenant. Of course, they were likely now significantly below me, but it was still more power than I'd ever tried to contain at once.

Beatrice and Archibald stumbled back from the very force of my presence. In a desperate attempt to get away from them and avoid hurting my friends, I shot upwards, smashing through the top of the dome we had fought in. I bored through the rock as if it was nothing but dust bunnies pushing up into the sky in a geyser of rock.

I watched a massive crater from beneath me as the mountain exploded with tremendous force, driving the mass outward at supersonic speeds. The crater reached all the way down to the center of the mountain as its walls crumbled down the slopes, my momentum carrying the top of the mountain out into the sky around me.

Even then, I barely slowed. I zipped higher up into the atmosphere as the air grew thinner, and fewer and fewer things were able to interact with the energy going around me. I saw the curve of the world below me and felt the emptiness between the molecules in the air. Only there, at the highest point I'd ever managed to reach, did things slowly begin to calm down.

The message appeared before me. One that I had expected.

LEVEL 85 REACHED! CHOOSE A SKILL: GRAVITY WELL, HOLY WATER, BLESSING OF THE VOID.