Chapter 11 – The Utmost Respect

“Keep moving,” yelled Shart. I didn’t need to be told twice. Honestly, I didn’t really need to be told the first time. I continued racing as fast as my badger-power assisted legs could carry me.  Along with our ability to share Stamina pools, I was able to channel our Stamina Regenerations. I was also using my Tireless Stamina pool to sprint at an insane rate of speed. Unlike a cheetah, I could maintain my speed over incredible distances.  While Badgelor might be a high-speed tank, I was the motorcycle in our travel arrangements.  I could go places he could not, and I could move faster.

Which was a good thing, considering demons could fly.

More streams of purple energy flashed from Badgelor.  We were in anti-puma formation Charlie Two Plus, meaning that Badgelor was handling all long-range targets, and Shart was warning me if they became short-range targets. The reason we’d added the “Plus” was because the Big Dog now had other options.

“How did you miss that?” grumbled Shart, as bolts of arcane fire left his hands.

“That demon was not moving naturally,” grumbled Badgelor.  “Besides, I’m still up twelve to six.”

“That’s because I have to wait until they get into the yellow engagement range,” complained my demon.  The yellow engagement range was the point where Shart’s accuracy reached nearly one hundred percent. Green was nearly line of sight, as Badgelor’s laser vision could shoot that far.  I was red.

Anything that got into my range died instantly and with maximum effort.

I spotted the collapsed skeleton of a building and started running up a partially intact wall.  “Eyes forward!”

Two invisible demons erupted from the ground near the base of the building. They began confidently climbing up the side on spider legs.  Shart intricately worked his hands, and the first demon exploded.  More accurately, the decrepit side of the building exploded, rendering the demon’s grip worthless.

The other demon managed to get in front of me. He began firing off bone spines from two wrist-mounted launchers.

I ducked under the first two spikes and blinked past a third. That placed me close enough to slam a knee into the demon’s face. As he struggled to stand, all four left legs were cleaved off by Badgelor’s beams.  I finished the creature off with a plasma blast, causing the entire withered structure to buckle.

“Where are they all coming from?” I yelled, reaching the end of the building and trying a new trick.

· Power Lift skill engaged on Jump skill.  New Skill unlocked: Power Jump!

I dumped more Stamina than I should have into my legs and launched myself off the remains of the decrepit skyscraper. Several more demons began running up the building behind me.  I was going to have to make a decision sooner rather than later. I was quickly running out of remaining building to scale. I decided to go for it. Suddenly, the pursuing demons got to see what happens when hundreds of pounds of man, demon, and badger launched themselves hundreds of logs off of a building using nothing more than brute force.

The ancient skyscraper had finally had enough. The entire face of the building snapped free as we flew through the air.

“Why are there skyscrapers here?” I yelled, using the Flying skill to adjust my landing point.

“When the precursors were defeated, we had to do something with all of their buildings so humans would develop properly,” said Shart as he pointed both hands towards the ground and caused a large cushion of air to form.  It prevented me from having to use Mitigate when I landed.

“So all this trash is from the precursor civilization,” I grumbled.

“Well, there is some of the ancients stuff under this pile,” said Shart.

“And those were dinosaurs,” I grunted as I continued making my way towards Newark.

“Yes,” said Shart as I leapt over what must have been a domicile for the precursors, a bird house so to speak.

“What happened before the dinosaurs?” I yelled.

“The dinosaurs were the first mortal race,” screamed Shart as he began casting a series of explosions over our head, keeping an aggressive flying harpy demon from dive bombing us.

“So nothing before that,” I questioned.

“Fine, us,” yelled Shart.  “Back when the demons were locked into a single body, we lived in places like Ordinal.”

“Were you always this terrible?” I shrieked, as the ground in front of me exploded. A large demonic beetle snapped at my leg.

I leapt to the side as Shart hopped off of my shoulder, aiming right for the creature’s mouth.  He vanished inside as I started down a destroyed road towards four skyscrapers that were erected to form a box around what I assumed was the entrance to Newark.

Badgelor blasted another demon from the sky. “Yes, they were always terrible.”

The beetle exploded in a shower of gore as Shart created a pocket dimension inside of it before rupturing the space.  He dumped a few tons of debris into it before he collapsed the space of course.  The result  was pretty much exactly what had happened back at the ruined temple, and it was no less terrifying now than it had been then.

“Shart, I choose you,” I yelled, summoning the demon to reappear on my shoulder.  There were different kinds of magic on Ordinal for moving people, and I was glad that summoning had the fewest restrictions.

“I won’t dignify that with a response,” said Shart, as we cleared the final obstacles and raced toward the gateway[R4]  to the Shadow Realm.

“Why did they stop chasing us?” I asked.

“There is a world guardian here,” answered Badgelor.  “The Nothing, a world ending spider that guards the entrance to Newark.”

“And you didn’t mention this before? Why?” I grumbled, skidding to an abrupt halt.

“Seriously? You aren’t new here. You had to know there would be something, right?” responded Shart.

I thought he said it was nothing,” I replied.

“Oh, feck you! I’m not in the mood, Dum Dum,” said Shart.

“So, a world ending spider,” I said, pondering for a moment.

“I’m not sure how you are going to get past it,” said Shart.  “You are decent at punching and kicking, but, unless you have a lot more plasma handy, you are going to get stuck in its webs.”

I reached into my storage and pulled out Doug’s flaming whip.

“You didn’t,” said Shart.

For good measure, I pulled out Doug's sword as well.

“His mother made that for him!” exclaimed Shart in horror.

“Hey, Shart, buddy,” Badgelor snickered, “Good news! I don’t think you are the most hated being in Limbo anymore.” Shart growled but didn’t say anything. I doubted anything could overcome the amount of hatred I saw towards the demon, but Badgelor was trying.

The Nothing had built its lair between four skeleton skyscrapers. It was a cursed area where even demons did not dare to tread.  I decided to interpret that as a good thing. It meant that, once we entered the lair, the demons would be leaving us alone.  Unfortunately, what I assumed to be the entrance was surrounded. I noticed several demons shooting nervous glances at the lair behind them. One green demon kept checking his feet, as if desperate to keep himself from crossing some invisible line of dread. I approached with all the confidence of an idiot.

“Give us Asshole, and you may leave,” screamed a demon, followed by a chorus of others.  I wasn’t going to do that.

Even as that thought entered my head, the massive Nothing became visible for an instant.  It was a hulking, thirty-two-legged spider. The monstrosity had four heads, one facing every direction.  It was a creature straight out of a nightmare. The green demon saw the Nothing for the briefest of moments, gasped, and fainted.

“Feck me,” muttered Badgelor, in a tone that indicated to me that he was seeing the creature for the first time.

“Wait a minute! Have you ever even been into Newark before?” I asked.

“Aye, once,” Badgelor answered, “but I was smart. I snuck past without having demons and the guardian watching me.”

I attempted to cast a portal, but I felt the magic unravel as I did so.  “Too close to the other gateway?”

“Yes,” supplied Shart.  “Inter planar gateways create dimensional anchor effects in a wide radius around them blocking full teleports.”

I shook my head.  I understood that.  I also knew that effect was specifically against teleportation magic.

“Where is the portal?” I asked Badgelor.

“Up top, between those two buildings,” stated the badger, gesturing at the two buildings farthest away from us.  Nominally, I’d have moved but the demons were surrounding the place and moving would probably cause them to do something stupid.

“I don’t suppose you have any ideas?” I finally asked.

“We are about on the edge of the Nothing’s agro range,” said Badgelor.  That was still an old MMORPG term that meant something slightly different on Ordinal.  In an MMORPG the monster would go all out as soon as you entered their agro range, on Ordinal the monsters tended to be more selective in their responses, but it absolutely knew we were here.

Basically the Nothing would probably respond with something designed to drive us away, rather than leave the safety of its nest to come get us.  Then again, it might just try to kill us with some ranged attack.  I didn’t really have a full listing of the boss’s attack strategies.  Then again, I didn’t really need one.

“Do you have a plan?” asked Shart.

“Of course! You aren’t going to like it, though,” I said.

“Just another day with my Dum Dum,” replied Shart, looking around. “Whatever you do, you should get to it. My brethren are getting closer.”

“What happens if they catch you?” I asked.  I was honestly curious about that.  I knew Shart followed some demonic rules, like getting banished to Limbo.  What I didn’t know was other things, like if he could actually be hurt or killed.

“If they catch me they are going to drag me down into the city center and probably torture me until I die,” grumbled Shart.  “Then I’d go back to the Tower and have to fill out a bunch of paperwork.”

I was kind of surprised at the reaction.  On Ordinal, Shart seemed pretty important but down here he was effectively a non-gratis person.  They actively wanted him dead, but since he couldn’t die they would just settle for torture.  “But other than the torture, no real risk to you?”

“Hardly, if I die again I’ll have an admin up my ass for the next few centuries.  I won’t be able to help you at all,” said Shart.

“Well, that would be inconvenient for me.  I suppose it's time to get started then,” I began.

Shart snorted, he might not be able to read me much but we both knew I wasn’t going to hand him over.  That, as they said in precursor culture, was a dick move.

I adjusted my grip on Doug's oversized sword, swinging it around several times.  Finally I heard a shriek and a large demoness stomped towards me over the protests of her companions.

“Seriously,” I said as Karen approached.  She even had ‘the’ haircut.

“What are you doing with my son’s sword,” she shrieked.  “I made that for him personally for his 666th birthday!”

“It's mine now,” I offered, swinging the blade around casually.  Doug's sword was a high level weapon made by a demonic forge master, it was certainly much better than the other swords currently in my possession.

“It is not, you stole it,” she shrieked, “You are a thief.  All humans are thieves!”

“Fine, take it back,” I said, tossing the blade over my shoulder.

Karen glared at me, then the blade.  It was closer to the Nothing and she was not so mindlessly upset that she didn’t recognize that.  Unfortunate.

I held up my hand and summoned the blade back to me.  Doug's sword slapped into my palm and I smirked at her.

“You were never going to give it back to me, you just wanted to trick me,” she growled, then she did something stupid.  She turned around and started proclaiming that all humans were sneaky tricksters who couldn’t be trusted.  Her problem was that she did that with her back to me.

I activated Fast Steps, appearing behind her and grabbed the demon in a badger-fu maneuver that made one wily old badger proud.  I could tell.

Karen went flying through the air and splatted in the ground well past where I’d thrown the sword.  Her demonic look of horror only lasted about 2 seconds before a glob of webbing struck her from behind and hauled her into the Nothing’s nest.

For the next minute there were gouts of flame, shrieks, explosions and everything else you’d expect from a high level monster being killed by a world boss.  I’d have felt bad, but she was just going to respawn eventually.

The demons were getting closer though.  We were utterly surrounded and every single demon had brought their Sunday best combat body.  I would have been terrified, but they were all glaring at Shart with undisguised malice.

“So she lasted about 47 seconds?” I asked.

“About that,” said Shart uncomfortably.

“And you are tougher than her, right?” I asked.

“I hate you.”

I flung Shart into the Nothing’s nest.

The demons stared at the rapidly vanishing little red zit, then me, then each other.

“He’s going to escape back to the tower,” one screamed and the dam broke.  Every demon rushed towards the Nothing’s nest, each planning their own horrible torture for Shart.

Shart, for his part, was already fighting the Nothing, and losing.  Badly.  I imagine a full power Elder Demon could have easily taken the creature, but Shart’s familiar form wasn’t nearly that powerful.

Fortunately the introduction of so many demons changed the equation.  They were equally vested in protecting Shart so they could kill him later as well as holding the massive world boss back.  Killing the Nothing seemed beyond any of them, so I wasn’t worried.

Badgelor gestured with his nose then changed to his Ultimate form.  He activated his Spider Climbing Amulet and we quietly started up one of the buildings heading towards the gate.  It was a swirly blob of darkness.

“This brings me back,” said Badgelor as one of the demons was shredded by several smaller spider guardians while more demons were tearing at a series of egg sacks.  One of the skills I never really associated with Badgelore was his ability to sneak around enemies, and it was really obvious I should know about it.

He was a wiley old badger after all.

We got all the way to the edge of the gate before the first small spider guards started moving against us, but it was only a few and Badgelor blasted them with his laser vision.  The guards were only the size of a small car, and seemed entirely non-threatening compared to the massive spider that covered up four floors of a nearby building while demon’s and more spiders battled around it.

“Neat, he has fours mouths,” I said.

“One is for battle, one is for eating, one is to poison foes, and the last one sprays out a disease,” said Badgelor.

“Which one?” I asked as several demon started screaming.

“All?” said Badgelor.

“Got your hat back, Shart had it in some sort of little room,” I said handing it over to Badgelor.

“Do I want to know,” asked the badger.

“No,” I replied.

“Hmm, well now I really want to know,” said Badgelor.

Shart created some sort of void slash that cut off 5 of the spider’s legs while also bisecting several demons.  This gave the rest of them a chance and Shart briefly vanished in a series of bright explosions only to appear above a small horde of them.  He focused and all of the demons suddenly collapsed, as if he disconnected them.  Then an arrow slammed into him, but as the archer lined up another shot the spider ate him.  Had the other demons been able to focus on Shart, they might have been able to bring down their hated foe, but they were getting attacked by the giant spider instead.

Right when we got to the gate, the demons had finally gotten a full party of at least six together and were rapidly dismantling Shart’s defenses.  Then one of the demons got splattered by the spider, but the remaining four, then three were starting to force Shart out of the nest and away from the guardian.

Shart might have even been able to break away, he certainly was trying hard enough.  He actually got another one of the demons to slip up and get snatched by the spider.  The final demon magically wrestling with Shart was actually beginning to smoke, which I interpreted as a bad sign, when three fiery whips wrapped around Shart and it looked like the host finally got the upper hand.

“You have to give the wee lil zit his due.  Those are some impressive numbers,” said Badgelor.

“Point, that’s why I chose Shart,” I said, causing the demon to vanish and reappear on my shoulder.

“You knew the summoning spell would work, right,” hissed the demon.  He was covered in burns, which was impressive on a demon, as well as having most of his personal mana pool emptied.

“Of course,” I replied.  Mystical Lore had told me probably, and I had more confidence in a probably from Mystical Lore than I did in the demons.