Chapter 170
The particulars of our strategy evolved significantly now that we had the demon prince on our side.
He favored a direct approach. Find Ulyetrix, hit it with everything we have, and deal with the fallout afterward.
We, of course, pointed out that the Devourers were a real fucking problem, and he suggested that the few of the strongest fighters on our side stay behind and hunt them down while he, Rin, I, Pietro, and Mordo hunt down the big bad.
Everybody rejected that plan for obvious reasons. It would leave us at the mercy of his telepathy when the fight ended. Wanda was our only means of mental protection. Fury offered several mental blocking collars, but I knew those only worked against average Telepaths.
Thankfully, Magneto pointed that out without me needing to reveal just how I knew that. But I also had the inkling it would be a short time before my improved mental prowess was revealed as well.
Today just kept getting better!
Eventually, we settled on a plan. The heavy hitters get drawn from their teams to seek and destroy the Devourers using Wanda's Telepathy as a guide. When we're done, we all converge on Ulyetrix, finish him once and for all, and rescue Banner.
At some point, Lumos made it clear just how advanced the Ulyetrix's spatial abilities had gotten, but thankfully, he had a solution for that. He had nothing for the regeneration, but I had a particularly nasty strategy I'd been sitting on.
---
I stood on the peaks of one of the hills in the desert, looking down on the expanse with my enhanced vision. Ulyetrix was a dot this far up, even to my senses.
"Ready?" I asked Lumos, who didn't dignify my question with a response. His body turned white and vanished, reduced into a beam of light that traveled impossibly fast, covering the distance quicker than most of us could react. We heard a loud crash, and the earth shook. The beam arced out, avoiding a particularly nasty tentacle swipe from Ulyetrix.
"The bait is in the water." Mordo said.
"Alright Pietro," I said into my comms. "How's the charge?"
We heard a large whoop as a streak of blue and red lightning zipped past our hill. It circled the massive arena where Lumos was battling Ulyetrix. He was holding more lightning than he'd ever done before. His skin was breaking, and I could sense his distraught, but he kept moving, kept building, kept gathering.
Ulyetrix's eyes snapped to Pietro, allowing Lumos to unleash his attack.
A light spear materialized around Lumos's actual golden spear, and he thrust upwards, slamming it into Ulyetrix's face. It missed all his eyes, but the impact had been so powerful it whipped the alien's head upwards.
"Now!" I yelled, and Mordo complied, opening a portal in front of Ulyetrix's most powerful eyes.
His blue and green eyes. The former controlled space, and the latter his regeneration.
Pietro flew through the portal, body ablaze with electricity, and thrust his hands forth like some god of war.
Lightning thicker than tree trunks forked out, splashing into the startled alien's eyes. The two sets popped like a pair of overripened fruits. Ulyetrix's eye sockets blackened, and its entire body spasmed as he toppled over. In a desperate act of vengeance, the monster flung its tentacle forward, trying to ensnare Pietro, but Wanda yanked him out of harm's way with her Telekinesis.
Lumos, who stood a few feet away from Ulyetrix, sent out a Telepathic Burst. I only grasped its edges, but I recognized a command call when I heard it. Several cloaked demons appeared in the area's hills and valleys and began to chant in some unrecognizable language.
It lasted for a few seconds, about as long as it took Ulyetrix to gather himself. His massive tentacles rose and twisted as he tried to pull himself up.
That was my cue.
Devil Trigger
Demonic energy poured out like a dam had burst, flooding the air with a sanguine, malevolent aura. I hefted Severance and activated my speed stack.
Density Cloak, Gust, Density Shift, and Osiris.
Burst flung me forward at impossible speeds, and a portal materialized in front of me, carrying me straight above the tentacles wrapped around Banner. Burst and Wind blades activated simultaneously, along with all of my Precision runes.
My blade swept downwards in a brutal lash as the muscles and the bones in my body shattered and repaired themselves. The mass of twisting Nether fire energy struggled briefly against the brackish barrier on the alien's skin before splitting it in half.
Two tentacles flopped to the snow, and I switched out Osiris for Ophion, firing its head into the press of tentacles before the beast recovered. It latched onto a barely conscious, shrunken Hulk, and I PULLED with my Gravity Affinity.
"You dare!" Ulyetrix's voice boomed out as a set of red eyes shone.
Red light bathed the area before Ulyetrix's attack landed, superimposing its might on the rapidly shifting landscape. Demonic energy exploded through freshly hewn cracks in the earth and snow, transforming the valley we found ourselves in into a domain of Limbo. It restricted greater dimensional magic, like instant teleportation and Spatial locks, but it did nothing for the sudden wave of energy that exploded out of Ulyetrix's body.
Twilight Sentinel came in clutch again. My Aegis manifested just before the wave hit me, reflecting the damage and flinging me backward, along with a thoroughly ravaged Hulk. It turns out that tanking the equivalent of a bomb to the face while weakened was more than even the Hulk could handle. Mid-air, I torqued my torso and flung him far. Mordo's portal appeared mid-air, ferrying him to safety on the other side of the planet. Yao was waiting for him in the desert, ready to yank Banner out of his Hulk body and help his mind heal.
Separated from his source of power, Ulyetrix let out a shriek that shook the hillsides around us and triggered avalanches on far-off peaks. A portal formed beside me, and Rin stepped through, body vibrating with energy. This was three times more powerful than he'd managed previously, and I could tell he was closer than ever to me in raw physical stats.
The real question, however, was how long could he maintain this. I knew exactly how much time I had.
1760/2150 DE
1960/2190 AE
Twilight Sentinel Armor
4200/5000 DE
4500/5000 AE
Just under nine minutes of sky-high stats and unlimited Demon Energy use. That meant all Arcane Amplified Demon Energy attacks, and Shield cost me nothing.
I only had to worry about the Precision Rune application. Over six thousand Angel energy seemed sufficient enough. With Wanda connected to most of our minds, I was also confident enough to use my various cloaks and abilities without apprehension.
"Let's cut this squid down to size," I said. "I'm in the mood for Calamari."
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Logan's POV
I let out a roar as my body exploded, and fire poured out of every orifice. With a ground-splitting leap, I tackled one of the monster squids, trying to get at our group, and skewered it with my claws. I unloaded a massive payload of heat energy that fried it from the inside out as I ripped it in half.
Before it could regenerate, two precise Adamantium knives speared through its head and heart and looped around to settle back just above Magneto's shoulders. He floated around the battlefield, providing help where he could. They were two of the twenty sets of Adamantium knives Dante had prepared for Jean. He was letting the Brotherhood leader borrow it for this fight.
I did not exactly approve, but we were at war.
A salvo of rockets descended from the sky, obliterating a wave of approaching Snake monsters. John, who now went by Pyro, stuck his hand out, manipulating the fire into a concentrated jet and pushed it forward in a line, destroying the heart and head of a charging Squid-thing.
From the top of several vehicles on a hill behind us, the soldiers provided suppressive fire with energy bullets and strange oversized gun cannons.
I whistled.
Warfare has certainly come a long way in my lifetime. I remember the chaos of World War I and the horrors of World War II. I'd been certain we wouldn't survive the following decade.
Yet, here I was, fifty-something years later, fighting alien squids in Antarctica with fire claws. Who knew what the world would be like in another half-century?
"Fifty years," I grunted, leaping forward and slashing down a stray Ice wolf darting up the hill with impressive agility. I stuck my hand in the snow beneath us, releasing a massive deluge of heat. It destabilized the slope.
Dozens of climbing wolves fell to their deaths. I ducked out of the way of a diving Squid monster with Griffin wings and came up swinging but had to abort at the very last moment. It was on me.
My body danced with unnatural ease, ducking, weaving, and slashing, but I could barely keep up with the thing. It cut me more than once. Lauren, who was quickly becoming my favorite new mutant, put a bullet in the thing's brain, and one of the two sorcerers we had opened multiple portals in front of its attacking tentacles, allowing me to spear its heart and finally bring it down.
I nodded at Lauren and her friend, the acid girl, who were perched higher up on the hill than me. They helped where possible, but Sabertooth, Pyro, and I were the only frontline fighters.
The sorcerers helped control the flow of monsters, and so far, our strategy had worked, but we couldn't hold on forever.
Somebody always cracked, and when that happened, it'd be up to me. It always was.
I took small comfort in the fact that I would come out alive no matter what happened. I wasn't even sure I could die anymore. Whatever Dante did to my body turned back the clock and then some. I was stronger, faster, quicker, tougher, and far more perceptive than I'd ever been, and I was slowly getting better.
That'd only happened when I first awakened my mutation.
When I told the kid about it, he laughed and broke into one of his speeches.
"That skeleton of your is no longer dragging you into an early grave, Logan," he said with a goofy grin. "Heck with your new enhancement, anything is theoretically possible. You could develop new mutations, grow longer claws, cover your nails and teeth in Adamantium…One thing is for sure though, you'll probably live for another 200 years."
I was fucking horrified. I always drew comfort in the fact that one day, I would die. When my body started slowing down in the decades since I was implanted with the Adamantium skeleton, I took it as a sign that my time was coming.
I'd expected a lot out of his experiment, but immortality was not one of them. My facial wrinkles were gone, my skeleton had stretched, and my muscles swelled. It brought up a question I'd not considered in decades. What do I do with my immortal life?