Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG
Chapter 254

I immediately activated my Perks and slunk away from the altar. For the moment, there were no eyes on me. I didn’t even feel Mother’s all-seeing gaze, for once. Whatever Corvin did to her, She Who Grows and all her plants weren’t home. I’d be a fool not to capitalize and attempt an escape.

I moved away carefully. Hey, you voyeurs, you lot have any ideas? What should I do? A bit of guidance would be really, really nice…

「Request - Eidolon’s Order - Failed」

「Request - Owl’s Principle of Study - Completed

• Find out the purpose of the ritual

• Reward: 1x Knowledge Token」

Well… that wasn’t very helpful. I clambered up a frozen ent to get a vantage point, using its leaf dress like a ladder. My shoulder and ankle pulled slightly, but they felt like just muscle fatigue compared to how badly I’d been hurt. How long was I out?

I felt the familiar weight of my bag as I climbed. They hadn’t stripped me of my equipment when they threw me on the altar. Probably assured that Mother would achieve whatever she was planning with me. I’d make them regret it if given the chance.

The cult was set up a the entrance of the tree, completely blocking the way in and out of this cursed place. Approaching the entrance was practically suicide with the sheer amount of ordinance being flung at it. If the Crusade could just get into the tree though, I’d be home free.

My pistol was… somewhere in this mess of wood, roots, and leaves. It’d take too long to find it. I pulled my bag off and snagged my grenade launcher. Two frags, four pyro. I’d have to make them count.

I eyed the grouped cultists. Wards and magic shields blocked the majority of the bullets coming their way, the air slightly shuddering with each impact. I watched for a moment, noticing that they were a bit closer to the active defense type ward that I saw with the Crimson Company. 

If I timed my shot right, I might be able to get a grenade into them. Similarly, the pyro grenades would be extremely effective. Even if they were hit out of the air, they’d splatter flaming goo all over my targets.

I checked my equipment one last time before loading a pyro shell into the launcher. After a quick calculation of the distance and careful timing, I pulled the trigger.

Thump!

The grenade, unnoticed in the heat of battle, perfectly flew for my target—the cult leader Zenith. Normal bullets wouldn’t work on him. I’d already figured that out the hard way. He was part plant though, right? Fire. Fire was always the answer.

The ward protecting Zenith shuddered as it ate what looked like a tank shell, completely absorbing the impact. The shell exploded against it in a brilliant flash. The shuddering ward did little as my grenade slammed into his back-

A secondary ward caught the grenade, causing it to detonate prematurely. Not that it mattered. With the angle and arc I fired it at, the grenade going off at that distance was actually better. 

The grenade exploded in a bright flash, splattering flaming liquid everywhere. It completely covered Zenith and the three Adepts right around him, sticking to their skin as they dropped to the ground screaming in pain. The chemical cocktail I’d cooked up for the pyro grenades ensured it stick to them and melt until there was nothing left.

One of them tried to roll around on the ground to put it out, causing the fire to spread to the nearby surfaces. Another tried to rub it off, getting his hand stuck in the sticky fluid as he burned alive. Horrific screams erupted from the tree Adepts, casting haunting wails barely loud enough to hear over the battle.

Zenith himself barely reacted. He stood tall, clothes and bark-skin burning as he coolly looked back toward me. His eyes darted across the space, a frown on his lips as he casually waved his hand and muttered under his breath. A moment later, the fire went out.

He looked right past me, Illusive hiding me in the shadows and contours of the ent. He shouted a command to some of the surrounding cultists, waving his hand back toward the interior of the tree. A group of seven split off toward me as he returned to fighting and casting magic on the front lines. Four Adepts and three heavily chromed borgs worked their way back-

I resisted the warnings and feelings that they’d already found me. Movement drew the eye better than anything. If I just waited until they were fully among the monsters, their vision blocked, I should be fine. The seven split, fanning out to search amongst the frozen ents-

“CAW!” A furious cry rang throughout the entire tree as Corvin finally made it past the cultists blockading him. The momentary distraction of Zenith and his guard gave the fel crow the perfect opportunity to fly into the hollow space, spraying scarlet magic everywhere. His six glowing red eyes locked fully onto the egg in the center.

All eyes turned to him, attention shifting away from the backstabber in the shadows. It was a good thing. It was… except, I got an incredibly bad feeling from the ravenous gaze of the traitor sprite. 

The egg… would the eidolons even want it anymore? Now that it’d been corrupted by She Who Grows and turned into an incubator for her malevolent majesty? The request had already failed anyway. I grabbed my grenade launcher as Corvin flew in, firing the frag round right at the egg.

One of Corvin's six eyes flicked in my direction, tracking the grenade. He threw his wings forward in an immense flap, sending scarlet-encrusted feathers splattering across the space. Several cultists were caught in the attack, their wards like paper before him as they were skewered by the swarm of feathers. More importantly, one of the feathers intercepted my grenade.

I threw a knife in a desperate attempt to stop the bird, but it was still too slow. And harmless. He shifted, catching it with his wing. The knife bounced off his feathers without any effect. Corvin made it to his target as if uncontested, snatching up the egg. The egg seemed to squirm right as he gulped it down his gullet.

Immediately, a reaction occurred. Just not in the way I expected. The plant monsters collapsed all around, rapidly deteriorating. The ent I stood on fell out from under me, though my Drop Chutes kicked in to protect me from the fall. 

The cultists all around let out cries of dismay, some of them seeming to lose control of their magic all at once as shells and bullets blasted through the wards and splattered them against the surroundings in showers of gore. Whatever was happening, it was throwing the entire field into disarray.

I had a flashback to two cultists talking about Mother making them Adepts. With the source of their power gone, whether permanently or even just momentarily, their magic was also gone. In an instant, about half of the gathered cultists were wiped from the face of this planet.

The biggest reaction, however, came from Corvin himself. The bird glowed with an ominous, dark light. The vine-clad feathers and corrupted pustules that marked him as one of Mother’s subordinates fell from his body in droves. New, sleek feathers spread across his body. He rapidly grew and mutated. 

Four eyes fell from his head. The marks of a Crow sprite faded. Instead, he grew wings. Not just one or two, no, he grew three additional sets. His normal animalistic form started to fade until he looked like some kind of twisted monstrosity. 

His eyes, just the two of them now, shifted into a dark green glow. He raised his beak to the sky-

“CCCAAAWWWW!”

The thunderous sound tore across the battlefield, hitting like a psychic sledgehammer. Insight warned me a moment before it struck, though there was nothing I could do about it. I stumbled, falling to the ground as the sound echoed into my head over and over again, completely drowning my mind.

— — —

"Ugh..." I stirred, my head pounding as I forced myself up to my knees. The migraine faded slightly, though I definitely felt like I had some kind of lingering brain damage from my proximity to the bird.

I looked around, rubbing at my head. Corvin was gone. Vanished in the wind. Not far though. The constant warnings of Insight and churning of the Aether told me all I needed to know. All the energy and power collected by She Who Grows and her twisted rituals was rapidly being sucked up toward the top of the tree. 

The tree itself looked partially withered, the leaves drooping and the bark cracked. Nothing moved. Well, almost nothing moved. There were intermittent groans of pain, and movements of chests as people breathed. Everyone was still out of it, though. The fighting had stopped entirely.

「Request - Slay the Greater Sprite, Corvin - Failed」

「Request - Stop Mother - Failed」

「Request - Slay Twisted Abomination, Corvin - Received

• The once Crow Sprite has consumed that which it shouldn’t. Slay the abomination while his power is unstable.

• Reward: 1x Trait Point, Eidolonic Favor, Crow’s Experimental Trait: Spectral Flock」

「Request - Separated Space - Received

• Corvin separated this space from the rest of the AEZ. End the magic, allowing reinforcements in.

• Reward: Eidolonic Favor」

Woah… two traits? What was this about experimental though? That didn’t exactly sit well with me… but, well, it's not like I could just leave Corvin alone in the first place. I would’ve done something even without the rewards.

That bastard- he set all of this up, right? He claimed it was his idea back in that dream space She Who Grows pulled me into. He’s the one responsible for the hundreds of thousands dead throughout the Aythryn City. There was no telling what other damage he’d do when he consolidated his power.

And, like the eidolons said, he was unstable for a time. This might be the one chance to end him before anything worse happened. Before that though, regroup. I needed to regroup. Figure out what all was going on and then form a plan. I couldn’t do anything as I was.

Unfortunately, it looked like reinforcements weren’t coming either. I had no idea how to interrupt magic other than to kill the caster either, so it looked like slaying Corvin was my only chance to get out of this.

I staggered toward the exit of the tree, my head pounding in pain from the remnant damage of Corvin’s mental attack. I paused as I passed still living cultists, executing them without a second thought. Zenith looked like a dried-up raisin. I wasn't sure if he was dead or not, but I found a rifle and mag-dumped into his chest anyway. By the time I got out, my hands were covered in blood. 

Look back toward the dead cultists, I felt my stomach roll. Just six months ago, I would’ve flinched at the thought of killing anyone, and now? Was I that far gone- no, these guys deserved it. Absolute terroristic scum. Even if they were captured, the Blue Crusade would push for the death sentence anyway.

I looked away, wiping my hands on my clothes as if to wash off the blood. Right, they deserved this…

I flicked on Cold-Blooded, allowing the comforting surges of cold to race through my body as my emotions muted. Now wasn’t the time for this kind of stuff. I had far more pressing matters.

I ensured my stealth Perks were active and stepped out of the tree, getting my first good look at the battlefield. Craters and bullets covered the forest surrounding the tree, and the trees that seemed so abundant were crumbled like paper by all the fighting. Fires raged all over the place, and the area was black with ash and soot.

Vehicles sat all over the battlefield, frozen. Flyers lay crashed, their pilots probably likewise knocked out by Corvin’s magic. It wasn’t just the Crusade here either; it was most of the allied forces that encircled the AEZ.

The massive AA snake that protected She Who Grow’s tree lay out on the field, its head cleanly cut from the rest of its body. Cultists and the attacking forces alike used it as cover with HMGs set up all over it. Even more plant monsters lay everywhere, as useless as the ones inside the tree had been.

People lay everywhere, both from the cults and the attacking side. I was the only one standing... either Quick Healing helped me recover quick or the eidolons did something while I was out. Maybe even a mix of both?

At a glance? The cult was getting smacked. Without their front liners, aka Mother’s monsters, they weren’t holding very well. Whatever Corvin did to take out Mother and her plants, it allowed the Crusade and allied forces to easily push the cult back to the tree. The only reason they were holding here was thanks to the attacking group’s hesitance to use heavy ordinance on the tree itself with its kinetic absorption properties.

The fighting was done now, though. Everyone was downed by whatever magic Corvin cast, leaving guns idle and people collapsed where they stood. Once everyone recovered, it’d become a mad fight once more. Until then, though, it was oddly peaceful.

The city lay beyond, most of it still obscured by the thick dustbowl that covered the AEZ. It looked distorted from here. The air seemed to have a fractal pattern as if I were looking through stained glass. The bird’s barrier separating this space?

I looked up, spotting the massive form of Corvin lurking in the tree's foliage above. For how ever much he hated Crow, he was doing the exact same thing the eidolon did when I visited his graveyard. The irony wasn’t lost on me. 

I watched him resting in the tree. He didn’t seem to notice anything, content in his plan succeeding. He lay still, focused entirely on consolidating his power. He already thought he'd won.

How was I going to do this? It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about how to slay him. Back after I first got the Request, I'd thought quite deeply about it all. I had a plan, though I was unsure if it'd still work given his powerup. Still, my win conditions remained mostly the same.

I pushed forward toward the Blue Crusade’s line. For the moment, I had free rein of the place. I’d have to make it count.