Carnival - A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 176 - There are six of us



Team Report:

Humans killed (various levels): 35. Essence gained per kill: Various.

Essence gained per team member: 569,600,899

“Bloody hell. Who did we kill? How high were the rovers?” muttered Bad as he grabbed Armand and slung the boy over his shoulder. Sally was a blur in the distance by this point but her voice came back via the newly re-connected comm implants.

“Maybe it was the flyers Ryn killed?” Sally said in their minds as she disappeared from sight. Bolf had Claire on his back and Simon hung from his jaws like a chew toy, which the boy was not happy about, to put it mildly.

“Put me down dammit!” he yelled as he was bounced along in jaws that could cut through steel with a bit of effort.

Bolf mumbled something around his mouthful and ignored the complaints. Jane had shot off towards the portal as soon as Vic had issued the order. Andrea caught Ryn’s eye before blipping herself away.

“Time to go Kev,” said Ryn, appearing next to him.

“It’s not possible! How?” the boy muttered, staring at the sky, before he was wrapped in fire and blipped back to their exit. Ryn glanced up and used Identify on the hovering figure her mum was slowly approaching.

Name: King of Death

Level: 73

Ability: Saprophytic Parasitism

That wasn’t possible. No one had gathered the billions of Essence they’d need to get that high. Was this another trick of Goodman? Having been without the ubiquitous knowledge of the system for what felt like a lifetime, but was perhaps an hour or two at most, maybe they were expected to be uncritical.

Vic stopped opposite the figure and they began talking. Ryn couldn’t hear what was being said and she ignored the drones yelling at her to evacuate. She blipped up next to her mum. She transformed into her fire-body before she moved. Saprophytic parasites didn’t sound like fun and fire probably dealt with most of that kind of thing, she hoped.

“-ere the hell have you been hiding?” Vic demanded angrily and Ryn appeared to one side and slightly behind her.

“We have been… occupied. Now we are ready to reveal ourselves and help forge this world into a weapon that will destroy the Void. I am sorry, Sunstrike. Our presence would have hindered more than helped if we hadn’t waited for a crisis moment. All the Monarchs are grateful for your team's efforts to protect our species, along with the other Signatories.”

“The Monarchs?” Vic snapped back, moving to position herself between Ryn and this stranger. He was tall, it was hard to tell while floating in the sky but he was well over six feet in height. Broad shoulders and light brown hair looked incongruous on his frame. His face was angular, aquiline and imperious. His eyes were completely black making Vic think of dead things.

“My brothers and sisters will all be making appearances shortly. Some of us are on the way to help deal with the Thing in the Congo. One area we are lacking is rapid transportation, hopefully an alliance between our teams will remedy that situation. We’ve returned to restore peace among humanity.” He waved a hand at the ground below him. The loose sleeve of his flowing robes wafted back and forth in the air. “Watch.”

Nothing visibly happened at first but after a moment something stirred below them. Ryn squinted, cursing her lack of mask functionality in her elemental body. Gradually she began to piece together what she was seeing below her. When it finally clicked she released fourteen years of pent up swearing in a rapid burst of silent invective.

Bodies were rising from the dead. The relatively intact bodies dragged themselves along on hands and knees or lumbered to their feet before shambling towards the south. The parts crawled or writhed together into pulsating mounds that in Ryn’s mind were probably making hideous squelching noises. Once enough material, she carefully avoided thinking words like bits or parts, had joined a pile they rose up as ghastly monstrosities. Some were supported by dozens of arms instead of legs, others moved like slugs. The only thing consistent between the creatures was how horrific they were to look at.

“Where are those things going?” asked Vic after a moment's silence. Ryn knew her mum had been through some rough situations during the Advent but she was shocked at Vic’s emotionless tone in light of the shambling horde inching south below them. She wasn’t foolish enough to make any move to draw attention to herself and remained silent, hovering behind her mum.

“To bring order to the south. The Imperium has overstepped. My brother, the King of Magic, is on his way to deal with the Imperium’s leadership but someone has to tidy up the rest of the mess,” Death grinned at them, perfectly white teeth flashing. “These servants will help push back the Imperium’s forces, hopefully without further deaths. We are here to help humanity prepare and have no wish to change anything that doesn’t hinder our chances of survival when the Void arrives. If you’d seen what we’ve seen you’d understand. I believe you’ve become close to the aliens the Dragon calls friends? We would all like to meet them sometime soon.”

“I can’t speak for other teams but I’m sure if everything is as you say it won’t be a problem. What support are you sending to the Congo?” Death glared at her for a fraction of a second before his expression smoothed but both mother and daughter had caught the look thanks to their enhanced reflexes. “If you don’t mind me asking? My husband and friends have been fighting to keep the Thing caged for days.”

“The Kings of War and Life as well as the Queen of Frost are on their way to assist. In an hour the Thing will be dead, you can trust me on that.” Ryn was struggling to place the accent of the man named Death. Australian? She wasn’t sure but she knew it wasn’t native to Britain.

“How many of you are there?” asked Ryn without thinking. Vic tensed and moved to block off her daughter from Death.

“That is not for-” he began in a booming voice before stopping with a soft chuckle. “What does it matter? Fear not little one, old habits and all that. We are here to help but even if we weren’t there would be nothing any of you could do against us. There are six of us. Death, War, Life, Magic, Frost and Liberty. We’ve been together since the Advent. Much like you and your young friends. We’re impressed by your rate of growth, by the way. After today I suspect you’ll be a rival to your parents.”

“We need to clear the battlefield below. You’ve… gotten rid of the bodies but we need to salvage the drones and investigate how the Imperium stopped our access to the system. As a friend of humanity I hope you have no objections?” asked Vic.

“Animating the dead isn’t my only power.” He sighed, a plaintive sound that made Ryn feel as though he had been constantly on the edge for a long time. “I’m sorry, Victoria. Of course, please clear away any debris below you wish to recover. I will lead my forces against the Imperium to the south. I’m sure we will speak again soon.” He began flying south. He couldn’t match someone like Ryn, Vic or Jane but he was faster than Starfall in level flight.

“Go back Ryn. I’m going to keep an eye on him and his… pets,” Vic said gently.

“What about Dad?” she asked, making no sign of moving back to the portal.

“The team is still holding on. We’re going to go up a few levels but we’ll still be nowhere close to these ‘Monarchs’.”

Ryn launched a blast of fire from one hand causing her mother to spin and look at her. Two women made of fire, one slightly larger than the other, stared each other down as they hovered over a newly made wasteland.

“They aren’t Sigs, Mum. They can’t just swan in out of nowhere and start issuing orders!”

Vic switched back to her human form and her mask retracted so Ryn could see her face. The lines of worry and exhaustion made her mum look as though she had aged considerably in the last few hours.

“Sweetheart. That Death bloke wasn’t wrong about one thing: there’s not much any of us can do against them. We need to buy time, if they’re happy to deal with the Thing and push the Imperium back then that keeps them out of our hair for a while,” Vic said, reaching out to rest a hand on Ryn’s shoulder. Ryn being made of fire posed no problem to Vic, the flames actually refreshed her and took away some of the fatigue marring her face.

“Mum, this changes everything.”

“I know, love. We aren’t the biggest fish in the sea anymore. That’s going to take some getting used to,” Vic replied.

“Not that! If everyone else had turned on us we’d have had no choice but to do as they said! If all the factions had decided to go against the Sigs at the same time what would you have done? Burned them all? You guys were never whales. You couldn’t ignore the rest of humanity-” she raised her hands as Vic bristled, “- even if you’d wanted to, which you didn’t! That guy was level seventy three Mum! He could wipe out thousands- millions of level twenties! Then his team would just be even stronger!”

“Everyone has their weaknesses sweetie. Your Dad put down Adrian when he was twenty five and Adrian was level twenty nine,” Vic said calmly, not rising to Ryn’s tone.

“Level forty to level seventy is not the same! People think Sigs are so far above them but you aren’t!” Ryn said in exasperation.

“I understand what you’re saying, Ryn. You’re forgetting we have some advantages as well. The portals for one. At that level he needs billions of Essence to level. He couldn’t get enough for a level by killing every human alive!”

“I got enough Essence to pass level forty this morning Mum! I’m about to be as strong as you are!” Ryn argued back.

“No. We’ve got some Essence today as well, enough that you won’t be overtaking us. I was fighting for a while before you arrived. There’s plenty of piles of charcoal down there that used to be people, daughter of mine. I killed a hundred and seventy humans this morning, Kathryn, and only a couple of them gave me anything like a worthwhile amount of Essence. At that level these Monarchs can’t be interested in farming people! It wouldn’t make sense.”

“Why are they calling themselves kings then? What does that say about how they see themselves?” Ryn demanded.

“I know, Ryn. I don’t like it either. We’re updating the other Sigs and their responses are… varied.”

“So what the hell are you going to do?” the girl asked her mother.

“We, kid. We need to figure out what the hell we’re going to do. Those other kings have arrived at the Thing. They aren’t messing around. If Identify worked properly on Death, his mates read out the same way and frankly War and Life are even scarier. Maybe we should have a chat with Armand…” she finished thoughtfully.

“What does Armand have to do with anything?” Ryn asked defensively.

“Pierre and the woman suppressing our system interfaces read him as level forty, not twenty four. Killing the kidnapper gave you enough to jump to twenty seven, not enough for forty and I can see you haven’t levelled yet.”

Ryn gasped and vanished back towards the portal.

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