Chapter 148 - The Devil’s Workshop

  “Make ready those cannons, little brothers. I ought have known this to be our path soon tread, when you told me of those father spirits making mischief in our engines.”

  Having been bamboozled once by an orc ghost posing as an Ifrit, I couldn’t rule such a thing out, but my money was on the Ifrit themselves being more unwilling to let the creature continue attacking their city. Most of them still couldn’t speak the common language, but their message came across loud and clear all the same.

  The ugly smear in the world that surrounded the null devil seemed to twist and undulate as we approached. This creature that fell from the stars—even more alien to this world than I was—relentlessly slammed against the wide, brass dome with pincers the size of school busses. A snip from one of those things would cut even the heavy orc fighter in two. I’d equipped the orc pilot seats with ejection mechanisms and parachutes, but I didn’t envy the pilot that had to use them. It was still a goblin rocket under the cushion, after all.

  The twisting length of the null devil curled back on itself, and it finally saw us approaching. I felt tangible pressure under its regard, not unlike the System’s, although it felt somehow greasy and caustic and made me want to scrub my fur out in the cistern. The small flight data menu screen that always accompanied our aerial activities began to wig out, displaying random numbers and symbols in place of our altitude and airspeed.

  “Boss, I don’t feel so good,” said Armstrong, whose fur began to grow damp with sweat.

  “I don’t like it either, buddy. Stick with me,” I said.

  “The beast peers into our souls, determining whether we are a threat or a meal,” came Lura’s voice over the comms.

  I leaned forward against the glass of the turret. “It looks confused,”

  “Aye, tis likely not seen something fly so high and so fast, absent magic. It knows not what to make of us.”

  “Well we’re not going to be a meal, so let’s show it we’re the other thing.”

  Lura laughed, high and clear. “The spirit of the Stampede runs swift within you, little brother. A fine orc you’d have made.”

  I chose to take that as a compliment. I glanced back at Armstrong. “Ready, chief?”

  He flashed me the thumbs up, and tested the movement on the turret. I held onto the rail running around the interior of the ball in order to keep steady as the guns traversed. Ahead of us, the null devil returned to its attack on the city, intent on cutting through to the Ifrit within. Lura had claimed it was shorter than the whistler, but not by much, it felt like. Stretched end-to-end, it must have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 300-400 meters long. You could have built a running track on its flat, wide back that would alternate between flat and hilly as the carapace beneath you shifted and slithered.

  We drew closer, closer than I would have liked to get to the thing. Suddenly, its strange, segmented face snapped up to us, and its mandibles spread in a howl that pierced past the sound of the jet engines.

  “I think it smells our Ifrit,” I said. “It’s now or never, Lura,”

  “Let fly these spears of fire, o’ brothers!” she shouted. All six missiles on the wings ignited their motors, showering the outside of the ball with magnesium sparks. The missiles flew out, straight and true. Thanks to the tiny gyroscopes stabilizing them, these rockets didn’t need a goblin to ride atop in order to keep a flat, true trajectory—though one did immediately streak off to impact the dunes below us.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  To our sides, each of the other orc fighters shot its full salvo as well, and I watched nearly three-dozen rocket contrails race towards the arthropod leviathan as it changed direction toward us.

  I half-expected some sort of cheat-code energy shield to pop up and block every missile, a’la Independence Day—and perhaps if these rockets were magic spells they might have. But these ran on pure physics (or at least a slightly nonsensical version of them), and they pierced that black shroud and turned into rippling explosions that veiled the creature in a cloud of black smoke and debris.

  Armstrong cheered behind me, pumping his fists in the air. “That was the biggest explosion ever, boss!”

  I remained glued to the front of the turret. “It’ll take more than that to beat a thing like this,” I said. Sure enough, the black, faceted claws and snarling mandibles emerged from the smoke, dispersing the cloud as its bulk brushed aside the remnants of the debris.

  “You’re up, o’ king. Make count every shot, for we surely have the beast’s ire now.”

  “You heard the lady,” I said.

  Armstrong grinned and angled the turret down and to the side as Lura began to bank away from the creature. In case you were wondering, the null devil wasn’t any prettier up close. I keep comparing it to a scorpion or a centipede, but that didn’t do the raw brutality of this thing justice. Every inch of its form oozed such a tangible malevolence that you could feel its disgusting press around you like a blanket wet with mildew and swamp water. The black carapace that covered it was horned and spiked, segmented like armor, and as smooth as glass. The whole thing looked like some obsidian asteroid had come to life, uncurled, and fell to Rava. It had no eyes or nose that I could see—only a mouth to devour filled with grasping, segmented limbs barbed with hooks.

  Armstrong squeezed both his triggers and the turret bucked as the recoilless rifles spat out a pair of the heavy rounds. On the creature, two spots glittered against its surface, chipped by the hard rounds embedded in its flesh. A small flash and pop later, little tan-colored chutes opened and dragged against the wind. The drogue chutes filled with air and snapped taught at the ends of their lines. These were heavier iterations of the version we’d brought to bear against the dartwing—iterated and improved. But I looked at the sheer mass of the creature, and the parachutes that seemed to tiny in comparison. How many would it take to slow such a monstrosity? Unlike the lithe, slender dartwing, the null devil was a creature of strength incarnate.

  I hauled open the loading flaps on each of the rifles and slammed new shells in, twisting the lids closed. By now, Lura had gotten the plane turned completely around, and we now had the guns angled behind us. I got clear and braced myself, and Armstrong fired again—along with Lura’s wingmates. More of the small, canvas parachutes opened up, snapping taught against durable, orc-woven cords, and some of the orc modified rounds spread shrapnel and burning phosphor across the creature’s hide.

  “Uh, boss?” asked Armstrong.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is it getting bigger?”

  I glanced away from the magazine and I swear, my fur must have gotten two shades lighter.

  “No, closer,” I said, pulling another round out. “Keep shooting!”

  The null devil was faster than I would have thought. I never would have expected it to keep pace with the orc jets, even if they were slower and heavier than the goblin versions. I don’t know what mechanism it used to fly, since it had no wings. Maybe it devoured gravity as well as magic. Maybe it overruled physics, like the System. But once that mountain of momentum got moving, it was like an airborne avalanche of obsidian and hunger.

  “Take hold,” said Lura. I grabbed the ring as she hauled back on the sticks. The g-forces made it feel like I’d grown five times heavier, and I gasped as we rocketed upwards, over, and twisted, performing an Immelmann turn above the creature. It raised its claws and snapped at us as we passed, which we barely avoided. But that bulk kept moving, and suddenly we were flashing over its head and neck. One of our wingmen was not so lucky. The massive claw lifted like an obelisk in the sky, and the heavy fighter skipped off the edge of it, shearing off a wing and spiraling off, out of control. The orc ejected and most of the goblins bailed out as well. Though not all of them.

  <…>

  The lack of a notification updating the size of my tribe was like tripping and falling flat on my face. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

  “It’s coming ‘round,” said Lura.