Reborn as a Fire Mage!, page 23
“I think it is very nice, Mason. The red color suits you well,” Boz added.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I received a new magic spell,” I said as I excitedly swiped through my menus.
Torch Spell
-This spell manifests a stream of fire from the palm of either hand. The mind of the fire mage can control the circumference of the stream.
I turned toward the carcass of the world boss and held out my hand like the Marvel hero, Iron Man. A solid stream of fire the size of a broom stick flew from my hand into the meat of the beast. I focused on the stream to make it larger, little by little. I smiled as the stream became bigger and bigger. The size maxed out when it reached seven to eight inches in diameter. The blazing fire burned a massive hole in the flesh of the Leviathan. Unfortunately, the meat didn’t smell like pulled pork from back home. It was a rancid smell.
“That’s cool and all but fuck that stinks, man,” Lola coughed and covered her nose.
“I also got something called the ‘America Fuck Yeah’ skill,” I replied as I clicked on my new skill screen.
America Fuck Yeah Skill
-You may call in an airstrike to attack your enemies.
-The area of effect has a maximum size of 40 yards by 40 yards. You may change the size to suit your needs within that parameter.
-The payload dropped can be napalm or bombs.
-This skill has a cooldown period of 36 hours.
“Hmm, this is...interesting,” I mumbled under my breath.
“America...Fuck...Yeah?” Piper asked with bewildered eyes.
“Yeah, the Celestial Architect said that things I get on Lelara will be familiar to me. However, this is kind of nuts. This can’t be an actual airstrike like on Earth. Just can’t be.”
“There’s only one way to find out. Give it a shot,” Scarlett added. “The area of effect you described is insanely large. The skill should prove extremely useful. There is a 36-hour cooldown, which makes the skill fair in the eyes of the Architect. There’s a good opportunity to use it and see how it works,” Scarlett pointed at a small herd of fiends slowly making their way to our location.
Not only would we make a nice snack for them, but this giant Leviathan would feed them for God knows how long. The approaching monsters were within 100 yards away from our location. This really was the perfect time to try America Fuck Yeah out.
“Alright, ladies. I’m going to drop it like it’s hot on these fools,” I said as I selected the skill from my interface. A 40 x 40 circle appeared on the ground. I could move it all around and change the size, but I couldn’t make it larger than 40 x 40.
I placed a 25 x 25 circle, which should be large enough to take out the group of twelve fiends. Once I had the circle where I wanted it, I tapped the circle.
Do you want to drop the payload at this location?
I selected yes, and another prompt revealed itself.
Do you want to drop bombs or napalm?
Since I was a pyromaniac now, I chose napalm.
Airstrike Incoming! Take cover!
5, 4, 3, 2, 1…
I heard a loud rumble in the distance that made the hairs on my arms stand up in excitement.
“No fucking way!” I shouted, pointing at the five jets speeding towards our location.
I wasn’t entirely sure, but these jets looked like F22 Raptors. The jets left streaks of white behind them as they broke the sound barrier resulting in a sonic boom that scared the shit out of the beautiful women that stood with me. In perfect unison, the Raptors dropped their payloads over the top of the area that I designated. They hit the ground simultaneously, and the explosion of hellacious fire created a wall of flames. The fiends were incinerated in a split second. Even though we were a long way from the fire, we could feel the heat.
I had seen a lot of things in my life, but this particular sight made it near the top of the list of the most kickass things that I had ever seen. I turned to look for the jets, but they were gone. Each of the girls' eyes were as wide as saucers as the orange wall of fire reflected in their eyes.
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” I said with pride.
“It’s totally afternoon,” Lola replied.
Chapter Six
We were exhausted after returning home from our battle with the world boss, Leviathan. Lola put together a quick delicious meal then we decided to hit the sack. I purchased our new friend, Boz, a new bed, and whatever amenities she needed. Scarlett and Boz stayed across the hall, and Piper, Lola, and I slept on a large bed. Piper laid on one side, and Lola laid on the other. I was basically a cat girl sandwich which I was happy to be.
After a hearty breakfast from Lola yet again, I decided it was finally time to reward my trusty celestial assistant with some overdue upgrades. “Come over here, Echo. I need to select you.”
The shiny cube floated silently over to the kitchen table and stopped. “Why do you need to select me, Mason?”
“Today, I will make your celestial dreams come true. Your upgrades are coming...right now.”
The cube began to pulse rapidly, which I assumed to show excitement. “Yes, this is most agreeable.”
“What upgrades are you most interested in? And I’ll see if I can afford them. Don’t go too crazy.”
“I would like to increase my speed. I’m painfully slow. That upgrade will cost 10,000 reward points.”
“Okay, coming right up,” I agreed. I pulled up the celestial assistant’s upgrade screen. When I found the speed increase, I purchased the upgrade immediately for the required amount of 10,000 RP. The cube began to pulse at an extremely high rate of speed.
“I’m upgraded. Thank you, Mason,” Echo replied, then began to zoom around the room as I would wager three times the speed he had before.
All the girls cheered as Echo soared through the air like a fast bird.
“Wow, that did increase your speed a lot. You can upgrade the speed to +1. It is a price tag of 20,000 reward points. I think we’ll upgrade some other things, though. You’re fast enough, for the time being, I think. What’s next?”
“I agree with you. I am pleased with this speed. I am interested in the lightning barrage attack for 15,000 reward points. That gives me the ability to charge myself electrically and attack enemies with a bombardment of strong lightning attacks. The attack can target multiple enemies at once.”
I nodded and upgraded Echo quickly. The cube lit up with radiant blue electricity swarming all around him. The motion of the electricity began to get more turbulent by the second.
The blue light hurt our eyes, and we had to either squint or turn away.
“Holy shit, that is badass!” Lola shouted with a fist pump
“I am very excited, thank you. I will show you the attack later. I don’t want to injure any of you. That would be bad,” Echo said.
“You’re right. I got shocked like hell in a house fire a couple of years ago, and it wasn’t fun. I got entangled in some wires, and I was hit with a shit load of volts.”
“Do you have a cooldown period between uses?” I asked.
“I have an energy bar much like your mana bar. I must be mindful not to use it up too quickly in a fight. It will recharge slowly when I deactivate the attack.”
“Aww, I’m so happy for you, Echo,” Lola smiled.
“I will buy you one more upgrade right now, and we will save RP for other things. Don’t worry. I’ll get you more jacked in the future.”
“I agree. You've been very generous, and I am very thankful.”
“No problem, I’m glad to do it. You’re a big part of this team.”
“I would like the cloaking skill. When that skill is activated, I can be invisible for thirty seconds. This skill will cost 25,000 reward points. That is an expensive upgrade, and I understand if you do not want to do it currently. I can choose something else.”
“You got it,” I nodded and upgraded my pal with a smile on my face. After the usual upgrade light show from Echo, he activated the skill and became invisible.
I’d seen the movie Predator about 100 times over my life, so I figured the ability would work like the alien in that movie. He would cloak, but if you knew where to look, you would see a vague outline. However, this was not the case with Echo. I couldn’t see him at all whatsoever.
“Boo,” Echo whispered directly behind my head, causing me to jump.
“You scared the shit out of me, dude!”
“Ha, ha, ha,” the assistant flew around like he was dancing.
“You laughed? Oh, my gods, that was so cute,” Lola cooed.
“These three upgrades will make me much more helpful. I will be able to go on quests. If you allow me too, Mason.”
I nodded with a shallow shrug. “Yeah, I don’t see why not.”
A couple of days passed with wall fortifications implemented and quality of life improvements. I upgraded the bathroom facilities, purchased a few more comfortable pieces of furniture and kitchen appliances, and increased my bed size by a whopping 15%. It was large enough to fit everyone comfortably and allow for any lewd activities to take place.
Boz became much more comfortable with everyone, including me, over the days. She was a bit concerned about the relationship I had with the other girls. The girls and I made it clear to her that this activity wasn’t some sort of requirement. The last conversation that we all had seemed to alleviate her fears. I certainly didn’t want to come across as some pervert who required women to sleep with me to stay at my refuge. It was undoubtedly a very nice perk, but I in no way, shape, or form required such a thing.
Scarlett’s wings continued to grow slowly but surely after a couple of epic blow jobs her wings would be closer to full length. I wondered why she couldn’t just get a ton of semen at once and finish the process, but she told me there had to be time for the wings to form from each act fully. She said too much of the semen wouldn’t make things go faster. This whole process was weird but very enjoyable. At her current wing length, she was able to hover a few feet off the ground. She said that eventually, she would be able to soar like a bird. I couldn’t wait to see that, and I certainly wouldn’t mind the blow jobs required to make that happen. Sheesh, I do kind of sound like a perv, but this is the process, so I shouldn’t feel too weird...right?
The alarm I had installed as one of the refuge upgrades began to blare for the first time. A few fiends here or there would not activate it because I set it to go off when we were in harm’s way from a large herd, berserker, or burster. It was astonishing how you could customize things to be so specific. The turret could more than likely handle these significant threats, but I wanted to be made aware. It could mean there was trouble brewing somewhere in Crowgate. I tried to stay one to two steps ahead of bad shit. We all darted to the wall to take a look at what triggered the alarm.
There was a large herd of twenty fiends slowly dragging themselves to our location. They were out of range for the plasma turret. It only used ammunition when threats were within fifty yards. It was efficient and conserved the expensive ammunition. It was odd for such a large herd to approach us directly. Fiends would usually keep to themselves if they didn’t hear or see any motion from the refuge. I wondered what triggered them to come.
“What’s going on? We’ve been inside most of the day. Why are they hell-bent on coming here?” Piper asked as she peered at the oncoming monsters.
“I have analyzed the herd and have determined the cause. There are two augmented fiends in the herd,” Echo interjected.
“Augmented? What the hell does that mean?” I asked.
“Their brains have computer chips within them that allow them to communicate with the lower fiends telepathically. The lower fiends are barely sentient, so only basic instructions can be given. For instance, the augmented fiend instructed them to approach the refuge. It can instruct them to stop or retreat. The augmented fiends can also instruct certain fiends to do things separately from the herd. However, if there were a berserker, for example, the augmented fiend would give it more direction. Berserkers are much more intelligent than the lower fiends, especially the Elite Berserkers.”
“Well, suck me sideways,” I replied in awe.
“Do you like that, Mason? I can focus on the sides of your shaft more tonight when I retrieve more semen,” Scarlett replied.
I chuckled. “It’s just an expression from a movie back on earth, Dumb and Dumber. You have no clue what I’m talking about, so that’s not important information. However, sucking sideways might be nice. Do that.”
“I will. I’m excited,” Scarlett replied with a grin.
“I want to suck him sideways too. I don’t want to be excluded,” Lola pouted.
Piper exhaled loudly. “Yes, we all want to suck the sides of Mason’s shaft. Can we talk about this later? We’re under attack. Your America Fuck Yeah attack would have come in handy, but it hasn’t been 36 hours yet.”
“Oh no, a berserker is coming from the right,” Boz shouted as she began firing her plasma arrows.
“That is exactly what I was talking about. The augmented fiend was able to give the berserker the instructions to flank the refuge,” Echo said, then zoomed over to the east wall, “Yes, as I feared, this is an Elite Berserker.”
The plasma turret was unable to fire rounds at this particular spot. It could only fire on things in front of the refuge. We needed a turret on both walls. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.
“Another, from the west wall. Fuck!” Lola exclaimed as she frantically pointed at the charging Elite Berserker.
“Don’t point, dumbass! Shoot!” Piper yelled as she equipped her plasma rifle.
“Oh, right,” Lola murmured, then pulled her rifle from her inventory then began to fire. However, it was too late. The Elite Berserker plowed into the west wall with a thunderous boom.
I turned my attention to the steel wall, and it was still intact. There was a huge dent, but it held up. A combination of plasma fire and booms filled my ears. The herd of fiends marched within fifty yards, and the plasma turret began firing. To my surprise, two fiends stopped before passing the threshold. They had to be the augmented ones.
The Elite Berserker on Boz’s side had knocked in the wall a lot, and the rivets that separated each piece of steel looked like they were going to give way and allow the enormous monster into the refuge. I equipped my new robe and darted over to try and kill this thing before it broke in. Another loud boom followed by the sound of rivets popped drew my attention down below. An Elite filled with plasma wounds burst into the refuge. I stayed up top as I stood on the scaffold directly above it.
I activated my new Torch spell and showered its head with a large stream of vicious flames. The screech from the Elite was deafening as I cooked its brain. I equipped my halligan bar and dropped from the scaffold on top of him, impaling his brain from the forked end of the titanium bar. Its head exploded, then the Elite fell to its knees then plopped prone on the ground.
The eastern wall gave way, and the other Elite burst through the wall.
“I’m sorry, Mason, we weren’t able to get enough rounds in it,” Lola shouted with terror-filled eyes.
The monster shook its head to gain its bearings then roared as it saw me standing over the corpse of the other Elite. It banged its chest like a gorilla and charged. Blood poured from the gunshots. I began throwing fireballs from both hands as the dump truck-sized monster thundered toward me. The girls tried to shoot at it, but they were concerned about me being in the crossfire, so it was all up to me. I threw my halligan like a spear toward its skull, but I overshot him. The bar flew right over its head.
“Fuck!” I dove to the ground to miss the collision with the beast. It reached out its left arm and hit me with the tips of its claws. They ripped my flesh down my back. The burning pain was excruciating, and I screamed in agony.
All the girls unloaded their plasma rounds into the monster with me on the ground, finally killing it. It fell onto its stomach, and a pool of dark blood formed seconds later. I climbed the ladder slowly to the front wall scaffold. The plasma turret had stopped firing. The lower fiends were swiss cheese, but the augmented fiends stood in the same spot outside of firing range. They turned around and slowly retreated. The Bulldog erupted out of the front gate and roared toward the retreating fiends.
“Holy shit! Who was that?” I shouted.
“It must have been Piper and Scarlett! They’re gone!” Lola replied with wide eyes.
I nodded in disbelief and focused on the speeding vehicle. Scarlett opened the hatch and manned the turret. The augmented fiends turned toward their approaching death then began to move quicker in the other direction. They moved faster than I anticipated, but it was futile. Scarlett lit up one of the fiends with a barrage of plasma rounds, and Piper smacked into the other, launching its shattered body twenty yards in front of it. It laid on the ground like a broken bag of bones. The Bulldog spun around and roared back toward the refuge. Bloody gore dripped from the front of the Bulldog. Scarlett climbed down the ladder back into the vehicle, and Piper held her fist out of the window pumping it in victory.
We spent the next hour making repairs and strengthening the weak spots. From my piss poor planning, I learned that we needed plasma turrets on the east, west, and south walls. I had become too comfortable with our defenses, but this battle against the augmented fiends changed my perspective a lot. We cleared out some trees as well. The Elites were able to approach unseen. With the new plasma guns, I wanted them to see bad guys well before they could get the jump on us. The next couple of hours I spent burning all the corpses left behind from the attack. It was nice to be able to use my fire abilities to take care of that. Everything would get stinky as hell otherwise. It did smell like a rancid barbeque from Hell for a while, though.
A closer look at the augmented fiends revealed that they wore light armor that I hadn’t noticed. It was too weak to stop any real damage from heavy weaponry, but it should do well in battles with small blades or regular arrows. One of the augmented fiends still had a head left, so I could get a good look at what made them so deadly. They had one eye that looked very similar to Kano’s eye in the original Mortal Kombat video game. A colossal crack on their skull beckoned me to open it up to look at the brain. The impact of the Bulldog caused the brain to turn into mush, but the back of the cyborg-like eye went through the center of the brain tissue. I wondered if a mad scientist actually augmented these things or if it was just a cruel prank the Celestial Architect played on his transients.
