Apocalypse Tamer

Hidden among the reeds, Basil observed his target with anticipation as it approached the marsh’s muddy shore.

The beast was the most magnificent velociraptor Basil had seen yet: a young feathered stallion the size of a German shepherd. His brilliant red tail marked him as a virile specimen worthy of Basil’s stables. His powerful claws could disembowel a man and his yellow eyes breathed childlike innocence. This velociraptor was a young teen, malleable, healthy… fertile.

Jurassic Park had taught Basil that velociraptors were human-sized killing machines, but the System didn’t get the memo. Most of the velociraptors inhabiting the marshes barely reached the size of large dogs with a temperament to match. They fought with ferocious desperation when cornered, but otherwise ran for their lives rather than stand their ground.

Wait, which of them is the most accurate about dinosaurs? The Hollywood franchise of my childhood or the reality-warping video game? These were inane questions, but Basil couldn’t get them out of his head.

In any case, the hunt had come to an end. Basil’s target was as cautious as he was beautiful. The velociraptor slowly approached the lake’s shore to drink, looked over his reptilian shoulder for any sign of danger, and finally sipped the lake’s water.

Slowly, Basil grabbed his rope lasso and approached the beast from behind. He didn’t make a sound and walked against the wind, yet the velociraptor suddenly raised his head in alarm. The magnificent feathered stallion noticed Basil in the grass and froze in surprise.

For a moment, they locked eyes with neither of them daring to make the first move. Realizing that the velociraptor was subtly pivoting on his feet to flee, Basil broke the deadlock with a bright smile and well-chosen words.

“Do you want to be my friend?” Basil asked softly.

“Kui?” The velociraptor squealed in confusion.

“Do you want to live in my house in the middle of the woods? With my chickens?”

The velociraptor was too floored by the generous proposal to react. Basil gathered his breath, and tightened his rope…

And a plesiosaurus’ head emerged from the water to lunge at the velociraptor. Its jaws snapped and closed on its prey’s flank.

“Kui!” The velociraptor squealed for help as the much bigger plesiosaurus dragged him screaming towards the water. He opened his mouth and fired a lightning bolt at his attacker, but missed. “Kui!”

“Fuck off, you scaled hyena!” Basil hastily rose up from the reeds in rage. “I saw him first!”

Basil threw his lasso, caught the plesiosaurus by the neck, and pulled. A vicious tug-of-war followed between man and dinosaur. The plesiosaurus was inhumanly strong, but so was Basil.

“Bugsy, Shellgirl!” Basil snarled. “Drag this thief out of the water! Rosemarine, suppressive fire!”

The centimagma emerged from under the shore’s mud, bit the plesiosaurus in the neck, and forced it to drop its velociraptor prey. Basil’s future replacement rooster immediately fled among the reeds.

“Damn it!” Basil cursed as his lasso was still stuck around the plesiosaurus’ neck. “Plato, catch him alive! Alive!”

Plato bolted from behind some tall grass and tackled the larger velociraptor. The future rooster retaliated with another lightning bolt, but Plato dodged and pinned his prey to the ground with his paws.

Basil couldn’t afford to watch his pet’s battle; he had his own foe to deal with. The plesiosaurus, angry at losing his meal, opened his mouth and fired a stream of water at him in retaliation.

Basil dodged by rolling on the reeds and then tugged the lasso again; Bugsy helped him in pulling the plesiosaurus onto dry land. The dinosaur opened its jaw to cut the rope, but Shellgirl emerged from the water to hit it from behind with her ice pearls. The blowback tossed the roaring plesiosaurus onto the muddy shore.

The sound of gunshots echoed behind Basil. The plesiosaurus roared in rage and pain as one of his eyes exploded in a shower of blood.

“I nailed it, Mister!” Rosemarine emerged from among the reeds. She held two smoking handguns in her vines. “Right in the squishy parts!”

Bugsy immediately exploited the moment to coil around the dinosaur, squeezing its neck and body. The plesiosaurus struggled to throw the centimagma off its back as Basil moved in for the kill.

Basil tossed his lasso aside and summoned his halberd from his inventory. The plesiosaurus snapped its jaws in fury, but Basil’s swing split its skull in half and spilled brain matter all over the reeds. He then sliced through the beast’s body with the dexterity and focus of a Japanese Sushi chef.

Since Basil’s halberd counted as a spear as well as an axe, it inflicted supereffective damage to Aquatic Type creatures thanks to his Fishing Perk. Combined with his advanced proficiency from Slaughterer I, he hit the plesiosaurus six times as hard as normal. His blade cut through the scales like butter. Rosemarine joined in by unloading her guns at the plesiosaurus’ body, and Bugsy choked the dinosaur to death by strenghtening his grip. The ruckus caused pteranodons hiding in the marsh to fly away for their lives.

By the time Bugsy uncoiled from the dinosaur, Basil had sliced him into fine sashimi and Rosemarine had emptied her magazines. It would be a nightmare to remove all the lead stuck in the plesiosaurus’ flesh, but the party would dine well tonight.

Your party earned 23000 experience points (4140 for you). You earned a level!

“I love fishing,” Basil declared proudly, his shirt drenched in warm dinosaur blood and his pants stained with pieces of its gray matter. “It rewards patience and calm.”

Basil turned away from the dead plesiosaurus to check on his target. Plato dutifully kept the captive velociraptor pinned to the ground, his fangs around the dinosaur’s neck and his paws on the back.

“Kui…” The velociraptor trembled in fear. “Kui…”

“Shush.” Basil stored his halberd back in his inventory. “Plato, release him.”

The velociraptor attempted to flee the moment Plato weakened his grasp, but Basil grabbed him first.

“Shush…” Basil held the velociraptor close to his chest and patted him on the head. The beautiful beast froze in terror rather than resist his captor. “Shush… it’s alright. Everything will be alright. We won’t hurt you.”

“We won’t?” Rosemarine asked as she reloaded her handguns. She sounded very disappointed. “Aww…”

“I’ll let you kneecap another dinosaur, sweetie, but not this one,” Basil replied as the velociraptor trembled in fear. The dinosaur’s heart beat louder than war drums. “I promise it.”

“Okay!” Rosemarine lowered her gun with enthusiasm. Plato gazed at her with disquiet.

“The evil plesiosaurus is dead,” Basil reassured his future dino-rooster. “He will never try to eat you again.”

“Kui?” The velociraptor asked with skepticism.

Basil glanced at Bugsy. The centimagma seized a sliced piece of plesiosaurus and gave it to the velociraptor. After a moment of hesitation, the dinosaur chewed and swallowed the meat.

“Do you like the food?” Basil asked.

“Kui…” the velociraptor replied with a nod. He appeared smart enough to understand human words, but too dim to utter them.

Now that he had established trust, Basil explained his purpose to the velociraptor.

“I’m a breeder,” he said with a straight, serious face. “It’s like being a pimp, but for hens and rabbits.”

“Kui?”

“I need you.” Basil looked into his velociraptor stallion’s big, beautiful eyes. “I need you to breed for me. To take care of a chicken harem so I will never grow hungry again.”

“Harem?” the velociraptor asked with a low, guttural tone. He recognized the word somehow. “Kui harem?”

“Yes, you will reproduce with many healthy birds and father a whole generation of dino-chickens. I will also feed you and let you sleep in a warm place.” Somewhere between the oven and the chimney. “All I ask in return are your eggs for omelets, and your future children’s lives to make crispy nuggets. I know it’s a lot, and that you probably want to negotiate better terms—”

“Kui consent!” The velociraptor nodded so fast that Basil worried he would snap his neck. “Kui consent!”

“What, so fast?” Bugsy blinked in surprise. “You would feed your brood to us so easily?”

“Kui harem!” The velociraptor might not be smart enough to form sentences, but he was intelligent enough to understand where his interests lay. “Kui mate! Kui breed! Kui humpy!”

“What a caring lad,” Plato said with heavy sarcasm. “He’s offering his own children to us so that we won’t starve. You can tell it’s tearing his bird heart apart.”

“So selfless,” Bugsy replied naïvely.

“Yes, you will hump and dump…” Basil trailed on as he tried to figure out a right name for his new scaled rooster. He was too crass for a bourgeois name, but too unique for a common one…

“Kuikui.” Basil snapped his fingers. “Kuikui the Dinosaur.”

“Kui!”

And so, a deal was struck. Kuikui the Dinosaur accepted to become Basil’s new rooster and sacrifice his firstborn children on the kitchen’s oven altar.

Kuikui the Dinosaur (Reptile/Avian) joined your party! Kuikui learned the [Rain Dance] active Perk!

“Welcome aboard, Kuikui!” Bugsy greeted the new recruit and immediately took the dinosaur under his wing. “I’m Bugsy, your senior!”

“Mister, Mister!” Rosemarine jumped in place with enthusiasm. Kuikui took a step back away from her; her eagerness at testing her guns on him had scared him straight. “The moment has come! I can transform!”

You need to assign your extra level before Rosemarine Eglantine de la Barthe can undergo metamorphosis.

“I am so proud of you, my dear,” Basil petted her on the head. “Just give me a minute to choose where I put my new level.”

“Yo dog, are you sure about him?” Plato asked Basil. He didn’t look impressed with Kuikui. “He looks… dim. Bird-dim.”

“It’s not the head on his shoulders that counts,” Basil replied with a chuckle. He was proud of his own dirty joke and would tell it again. “Is he a good or bad bird to you?”

“So long as he won’t sing in the morning, I’ll tolerate his existence.” Plato glanced at his flank, which showed a claw mark. He must have received the wound in the struggle. “At least he hits hard for his size.”

“That’s because he has the same claw Perk as you,” Basil said as he studied the raptor’s stats. They were rather poor by his standards, but he noticed a few interesting tidbits.

Name

Kuikui the Dinosaur (Velociraptor)

Type

Reptile/Avian

Faction

The Bohens

Experience

9000/10000

Immune

Resist

Weak

N/A

Physical, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Mythic.

Scaleslayer, Birdslayer, Soul, Corrosion, Metal, Frost.

Level

Health Points

Special Points

12

455

180/260

Strength

Agility

Vitality

Skill

16

(D+20%)

31

(A+20%)

15

(D+20%)

29

(B+20%)

Magic

Intelligence

Charisma

Luck

16

(D+20%)

3

(E+20%)

15

(D+20%)

18

(C+20%)

Physical

Mind

Soul

Corrosion

Metal

Wood

Life

Support

Ailment

Strong

-

Weak

Weak

Weak

-

-

Strong

-

Fire

Water

Earth

Wind

Frost

Lightning

Light

Darkness

Mythic

-

-

Strong

Strong

Weak

Strong

-

-

Strong

Passive Perks

Active Perks

Sharp Claws

Lightning Bolt

Rain Dance

Brave Howl

Sharp Claws: Kuikui’s claws inflict SKI-based damage. Kuikui gains advanced proficiency with unarmed attacks, fangs, and claws (x2 damage, +10 Crit).Lightning Bolt: 40 SP. Unleashes a powerful bolt of deadly lightning (base power 90, [Lightning] damage).Rain Dance: 50 SP, [Water], [Support]. Changes the current weather to [Rain] for 10 minutes (empowers [Water] & [Lightning], weakens [Fire]).Brave Howl: 30 SP, [Support]. Buffs an ally’s Strength and Magic for 5 minutes.

Kuikui could change the weather with a dance? Awesome! Basil immediately thought of half a dozen applications of this ability, although he wouldn’t test it now; not when it would ruin the sunny beach day ahead of them. Kuikui’s buffs would come in handy, and finally someone in Basil’s party could now resist that pesky lightning.

“Hey, Partner, an idea crossed my mind,” Shellgirl asked as she leaped out of the lake’s water and checked the plesiosaurus’ remains for leftover treasures. “You hit Aquatic monsters for supereffective damage, right? And the kitty can do the same to Avians.”

“Yes?” Basil replied as Rosemarine sprayed Plato with healing pollen. “What about it?”

“Well, I can’t help but notice that we’re in an area with high-level monsters that we can kill in a few blows. We should fish and grind, baby!”

“I’m all for hunting birds.” Plato stretched his back. “I’ve missed it so much.”

Basil glanced at the dead plesiosaurus and then at Kuikui. The velociraptor was far weaker than his level suggested. Considering the monsters running around after the Incursion, he would benefit from a power boost to meaningfully contribute to the team’s battles. Besides experience, dinosaurs made for a good source of meat, scales, and crafting material. Basil was tempted to hunt.

“Boss.” Bugsy glanced at a hedgerow of tall grass bordering the lake. “I sense something approaching us.”

Basil summoned his halberd and Plato unsheathed his rapier. Shellgirl retreated inside her carapace, her cannons ready to fire. As for Kuikui, the dino-rooster courageously hid behind the bigger Bugsy and Rosemarine.

“I don’t see anything,” Basil warned. Nothing stood of the vegetation

“But I smell him!” Plato pointed the tip of his rapier at a specific spot among the grass. “There!”

An arrow of fire materialized out of nowhere and aimed straight at Plato’s face.

Moving at lightning speed, Basil deflected the projectile with a swing of his halberd. Plato unleashed a blade of air from his rapier. The projectile cut through grass in the blink of an eye and splattered blood on the marsh’s grass.

A thin and gaunt bowman materialized among the vegetation, bleeding from his left flank. He wore a blue ninja garb and a black mask covering the lower half of his face. His eyes were a bright shade of blue, his hair dressed in a sapphire-colored bun. Basil could have mistaken him for a human cosplayer, if not for his pointy ears.

An elf.

Leif Winterbow

Level 13 [Humanoid] (Archer 7/Ninja 6).

Guild: Star Court.

“Invisibility?” Basil snorted. “You picked the wrong crowd to ambush with that trick.”

“Away, stranger!” The bowman raised his bow at Basil’s face, heedless of the monsters now moving to encircle him. His weapon was made of rusty metal covered in runes rather than wood. “T’was a warning sho—”

Basil lunged at him without warning and swung his weapon. The surprised elf took a step back, but the halberd cut his bow in half. The disarmed archer immediately brought out two daggers and adopted a defensive stance, only to be flanked by Plato and Rosemarine.

“That was a warning shot.” Basil threatened the ninja with the spiked point of his halberd. “There won’t be a second.”

Shellgirl pointed her barrels at the stranger’s face. “Drop your weapons or I’ll shoot!”

“Boss, the woods!” Bugsy warned. “I sense other enemies approaching from the woods!”

Here comes the ambush, Basil thought grimly. Six more elves walked into sight to confront the party, all of them fair-skinned and armed to the teeth. Three archers, two spearsmen, and a swordswoman. They carried weapons made of steel covered in runes, yet wore rags and scavenged beast skins. Just try, Legolas.

It was the swordswoman that stood out the most among them. The way she walked, the aura that surrounded her, marked her as a leader of some sort. That elf was taller than Basil, with a beautiful heart-shaped face and long wild red hair. A cloak made of red dinosaur scales and feathers covered most of her body, except for a glowing crystal longsword attached to her belt. She looked no older than Basil, yet her golden eyes seemed far, far older.

Estrid Firekiss

Level 17 [Humanoid] (Oracle 9/Bard 5/Pyromancer 3).

Guild: Star Court

She slowly raised a hand and Basil’s party prepared to fight for their lives.

“Leif, throw down your arms,” the red woman said with a deep, imperious voice. “I recognize them. They’re the warriors who defeated Steamslime.”

The elf ninja’s eyes widened in shock. “Truly?”

The red woman nodded slowly and her soldiers lowered their weapons. Basil observed her warily, half-expecting a trick. But no surprise attack ever came.

“I am sorry for threatening you, Lord Bohen.” The red-haired woman joined her hands together and respectfully bowed before Basil, much to his surprise. “I am Estrid Firekiss, Starsinger of our elf caravan. I am very glad to meet you at last.”

“I take it you’re not members of the Unity?” Basil guessed. Or else they would have tried to avenge Steamslime. The fact she could read his stats enough to guess his name meant he couldn’t underestimate her.

“Those creeps?” The bowman, Leif, sneered with contempt. He sheathed his daggers and put a hand on his wound to slow down the blood loss. “Their empire enslaved and forced us to work in their factories.”

“Steamslime’s death sowed enough confusion among his soldiers to let us escape through the rift,” Estrid said. “We owe you our freedom, Lord Bohen.”

She sounded truthful. Since all her soldiers had lowered their weapons, Basil did the same and allowed Estrid to provide their wounded archer with medical help. The elves watched his monsters with caution, but made no move to attack them.

“If I may ask, how did you find us?” Estrid asked. “We have tried to stay… discreet. Yet clearly you expected our presence.”

“You shot an orc acquaintance of mine,” Basil replied bluntly.

“That stinking brute?” Leif scoffed as one of the spearsmen applied a hand to his wound. A flash of light later and little more than a scar remained. “I didn’t know he was with you. I thought he was a wandering monster, or a spy.”

“We apologize for attacking him,” Estrid said. “He wandered too close to our camp… as you did right now. I would gladly invite you, but now that you’ve slain a dragonlord, the Unity will hunt you down until you draw your last breath. We can’t risk discovery.”

“Understandable.” Basil shrugged. “I prefer to keep my home hidden as well.”

“What?” Shellgirl’s carapace snapped open and the slime girl inside crossed her arms in frustration. “They owe us! You should pester them for a reward!”

“Why?” Basil asked. “We killed Steamslime because he threatened us, not because he kept slaves on the other side of the portal. They don’t owe us anything.”

Estrid smiled at him. “Ungratefulness is not part of our culture, Lord Bohen. You may not have intended to help us, but you still did us a great service in killing Steamslime. If there is anything we can do to repay you, you only have to ask.”

“Then answer my questions.” Basil wouldn’t miss the opportunity to finally receive answers. “Who are you? Where do you come from? Electon?”

“Electon was not our home,” Leif said with anger. “It was our prison.”

“We entered your world through the Electon Cluster, but we do not originate from it,” Estrid replied more calmly. “Our homeworld was once called Elysium.”

“Was?” Plato asked, noticing the past tense.

“Was, fair creature.” Estrid’s voice brimmed with sorrow, and many of her soldiers looked away. “It was destroyed many years ago. Blown to smithereens.”

Is she serious? To his horror, Basil didn’t see any hint of a lie or joke in Estrid’s face. My God, she is serious.

“By blown up, you mean it figuratively, right?” Plato asked. The elf’s words didn’t convince him, or maybe he simply couldn’t grasp the severity of the situation. “Like firebombed?”

“Maybe nuked?” Basil proposed. “Your world’s surface was nuked? That’s what you meant to say?”

Estrid glanced at the shore, picked up a pebble, showcased it to the group… and then crushed it between her fingers. She ground the stone into dust, the bits falling off onto the shore.

“I do not know the word ‘nuked’,” Estrid said grimly. “But if it means reducing a world like the one beneath our feet to cosmic dust blown away by solar winds… then yes. Elysium was nuked to oblivion.”

A tense silence stretched on as the party exchanged worried glances.

“I’m sorry Basil, I can’t visualize it,” Plato admitted. “I was a housecat a month ago. It’s just too much for me.”

“Fuck me,” Basil replied as he scanned the elven group. He saw the gloom in their gaze, the hunched shoulders, the fear that tomorrow may never come from them. These were broken people without a home to call their own.

Basil felt enough sympathy for them to forgive the surprise attack.

“Tell me more,” Basil all but ordered. A question wormed its way in his mind, but he dared not say it out loud: Can it happen to Earth too?

“Our world, Elysium, was once a peaceful place,” Estrid explained. Her gaze was heavy with longing for something she had long lost. “A prosperous land of forests and water. We Elyseans traveled it in free caravans, guided by wise Starsingers and ancient totems. We were happy for a time… until the Trimurti System came to our world.”

“How did it happen?” Basil asked.

“To this day, we do not know,” Estrid replied. “We woke up one morning to find the shrines where we honored our totem spirits transformed into dungeons and animals driven mad with foreign magic.”

“We fought back,” Leif said with pride. “But then the barbarians came.”

“A fiendish horde from another world invaded our own,” Estrid explained. “They burned our forests, drenched our rivers in blood, and corrupted our heroes with promises of power. Elysium was not the first land they ravaged, nor the last.”

Estrid took a long deep breath.

“These people,” she said, “call themselves the Apocalypse Force.”

Basil exchanged a brief glance with his monster allies. Plato massaged the spot where Megabug once stabbed him, and Shellgirl looked away.

“We’ve had the displeasure of meeting them,” Basil told the elves.

“I feared as much,” Estrid replied with a grim face. “The Apocalypse Force and the Unity have fought for many, many years. Where one goes, the other shortly follows after.”

“Then we have to go, Lady Estrid,” Leif whispered with a low voice. “If the Apocalypse Force’s vanguard already crossed over…”

“I know, Leif.” Estrid sighed. “The Apocalypse Force serves four beings called the Horsemen, who themselves answer to a demon lord of limitless ambition.”

“The Maleking?” Basil guessed. The elves’ expressions darkened further, as if he had uttered a curse.

“Yes, the Maleking,” Estrid answered, stretching the demon’s name as if it hurt to say it. “He is a chaotic being who respects strength alone. When he crossed into Elysium, our civilization was already on the brink of collapse. Neither the totems nor our greatest warriors could stop him. It was only a matter of time before he ascended to the rank of Overgod.”

“But he didn’t,” Basil said. The mermaid he confronted at René’s tombstone said that the Maleking would become an Overgod, not that he was already one.

Estrid’s gaze turned to the dungeon aurora above their heads. “In the final Incursion, when our last heroes failed to defeat the Maleking and all hope was lost… our mages summoned the Destroyer as a last resort.”

“The Destroyer?” Plato snorted dryly. His words were without amusement, without joy. “What an original name, I hope it’s trademarked.”

Estrid ignored the cat’s sarcasm. “The Destroyer is one of the three great beings who oversee the Trimurti System. His avatar descended from the heavens and shattered our world. The competition for Overgod was interrupted, the Maleking was denied his victory, and we fled through the rifts into Electon as the land crumbled beneath our feet.”

“Why Electon?” Basil asked. “What was the planet like?”

“The planet?” Estrid shook her head. “The Electon Cluster is no realm like your Earth or our Elysium. It is… an archipelago of steel islands in a sea of lightning, each of them the size of a moon. The Unity controls them all, among many more worlds.”

Basil grit his teeth. Earth was being invaded by an empire that spanned dozens of planets the size of Earth at the minimum, and probably more. He wondered if the Apocalypse Force could match their numbers.

Whatever the case, mankind’s forces couldn’t possibly hope to defeat either in a straight conflict. The dungeons’ arrival alone had stretched conventional armed forces thin.

“The Unity opposes the Maleking, so we thought they would shelter us,” Leif said. “But when we refused to integrate into their empire, they enslaved us.”

“The Unity’s Grandmaster and the Maleking each strive to become the new Overgod first,” Estrid added with sadness. “Many of our kindred perished in the dragonlords’ factories, but we did not lose hope. We hid our strength, bided our time until the rifts opened again, and fled into a new world. Yours, Lord Bohen.”

Basil remained silent as he considered this new information. It was a lot to take in. The elves’ tale confirmed some of his deepest fears and inspired new ones. He had thought that civilization’s collapse was the worst-case scenario; that Incursions would grow too lethal for mankind to handle and force it back to the stone age, or that a nutjob would unload the world’s nuclear arsenal in a last-ditch attempt to turn the tide. Apocalypse scenarios that were even more serious than the current disaster, but that humans could potentially survive.

Yet in at least one world, the conflict spiraled enough to destroy the entire planet. How could mankind hope to survive that?

Basil had to make sure things would never escalate to this terrible scenario, but… Plato was right. It was too big for him. He struggled to even imagine such a disaster unfolding.

Three great lords that oversee the Trimurti System… could it be?

“The so-called Destroyer that your mages summoned,” Basil asked, "his name wouldn't happen to be Shiva, would it?”

“It may be the name by which he is known to your kind,” Estrid answered evasively. “I cannot tell.”

“Boss, if I may… I don’t understand one part.” Bugsy cleared his throat. “You said your world was destroyed? Then shouldn’t the Maleking be dead? He was on your planet when it happened, right?”

Estrid shook her head. “The Maleking escaped Elysium’s destruction, but from what we understand, he is now trapped between worlds. His immense strength is now a burden. He is too high-level to cross Level Barriers into a new universe and complete his ascension. So his forces slaughter the weak in an attempt to pave the way for his arrival.”

“Basil, what was the name the big bug used in the dungeon?” Plato asked his owner. “Aposomething.”

“Apollyon,” Basil said. Estrid immediately recognized it. “Who is he?”

“The Horseman of Famine, the weakest of the four,” she explained. “I do not know his current level, but he leads the Apocalypse Force’s vanguards. He tests the defenses of new worlds and sends his spawn to weaken Level Barriers.”

That information fits with Megabug’s words, Basil thought. The bug-in-chief threw his soldiers into the meat grinder until a world became strong enough for him to cross over. But how long does the process take? Months? Years? Could the process be halted, stopped, or reversed?

And how did Kalki fit into all of this?

“What do you intend to do now?” Basil asked the elves.

“Hide and run,” Estrid replied. “Sad as it sounds, your Earth was doomed from the moment the Apocalypse Force and the Unity found their way inside it. We will wait for the rifts to open again and travel into a distant world beyond their reach. I suggest you do the same.”

“No way in hell!” Basil replied with a snarl of rage. The situation might be way beyond his capabilities, but he refused to cower and hide. “I ain’t leaving my home without fighting back! All I hear is that we only have to stop Incursions and lock Earth’s door!”

“You can’t,” Estrid replied calmly. She seemed to sincerely believe it too. “Once the Unity and the Apocalypse Force sink their claws into a world, they do not let it go. They’ll keep poking holes at the barrier and one day, they will succeed in shattering it.”

“They’ll try.” Basil shrugged. “They’ll find it very hard to break in with us standing in the way.”

“Yeah, that’s right!” Bugsy said with enthusiasm. “Cowering won’t change anything. If we fight back, then we have a chance to win. If we run, we’re already defeated.”

“Kuikui!” Kuikui said with a nod, although Basil wondered if he ever understood the conversation.

Rosemarine, as usual, saw only the positive side of things. “More people mean more food for us.”

“You guys sound like a self-help booklet ad,” Plato said morosely. “This is way above our paygrade, but I agree. If somebody tries to get into our turf, we’ll shank them, end of the story.”

Estrid sighed. “You will regret your decision.”

“It’s ours to make,” Basil replied. They needed to find Dismaker Labs’ leaders. The company put mankind in this mess, it could get humans out of it too. “Are you familiar with Unity technology? We looted a holomachine from Steamslime but couldn’t activate it.”

“We could try to unlock it for you,” Estrid agreed with a nod. “We owe you that much.”

Perfect. Hopefully, that would give Basil insight into the Unity’s inner workings. The fact that they could make neurotowers implied that the faction understood the Trimurti System’s inner workings. If Basil could steal that knowledge, then he could potentially figure out a solution to the Incursion problem.

But, just in case his plans didn’t pan out…

Basil glanced at his troupe. “Shellgirl?”

“Yes?” she asked.

“You win.” Basil’s hand tightened on his halberd’s shaft. “We’ll start grinding.”