Amazon Apocalypse 7: Chapter 23 (Legacy - old) (Patreon)

<Note to current and future readers: I have since chopped this chapter and 24 way down and combined them. This is the old version, but the newer version can be found in the collection.>I shook my head to bring myself back to my senses. The woman I was watching bore a remarkable resemblance to Eowyn at first glance. Her auburn hair, formerly shiny armor, and sword vaguely matched what I remembered. But there were definite differences too.

For one, this woman seemed far more mature than Eowyn had ever been. She had commanded the battlefield with skill and experience that impressed me. Had the Eowyn I remembered possessed such skills, her world would have never come to such dire straits before the System sent me there to save it.

The woman I was staring at was older and taller than the Eowyn I remembered as well. While the extra few inches of height could be explained by reaching C-Grade, it had only been two years since I'd seen Eowyn last, and this woman before me seemed fully mature in more ways than one.

But more important than either of those things, the Arcadia Multiverse was a big place. Meeting Jazon and his team again had been coincidence enough, and they were a famous adventurer team. The odds that I'd run into a girl from a tiny world nearly overthrown by a demon king so weak I could kill him with a sneeze were astronomically small.

The battle came to an end, and the knights took off their helmets one by one. Most humanoid helmets were little more than tin cans and would grow sweltering within after just a few minutes of exertion.

Despite reasoning with myself, I couldn't turn away. If this really was Eowyn... then what?

She was probably happily married to some prince, and my return would complicate her life immensely by bringing back an old crush.

The thought would have hurt if I'd been in human form, but as a dragon I was thinking much more clearly. I had enough woman problems as it was, I didn't need to add to them.

But maybe I could keep an eye on her just in case she really was Eowyn.

Besides, I had questions. Why was the System leading me back to her with this beacon it'd given me? I'd received no quest or notification from it. Only one thing made sense to me. I wasn't the person meant to complete the quest.

I turned tail and flew off into the distance. I didn't know what was going on, but a mighty dragon like me wasn't about to be a pawn in any game, even by something as powerful and nigh-omniscient as the System.

I was certain if the woman and her knights spotted me they would see me as the most terrible foe they'd ever faced. That beacon of mine was definitely pointing me in her direction, though now that I knew where it led I was oddly reluctant to explore it any further.

"Nom nom?" Sharky asked.

I snorted in reply and led him in the opposite direction. The locals were too weak to bother eating. I'd already had my fill of mindless slaughter, so I had no interest in wiping them out. Besides, I was a dragon of principle. I only ruthlessly exterminated those who wronged me.

I'd admittedly been on a bit of a short trigger thanks to Adrian's death, but those were anger issues I was working on. That was another reason to remain in dragon form. I'd probably feel foolish human guilt or something over snuffing out a couple of worlds. As an Apocalypse Dragon, snuffing out planets was what I was supposed to do, just like a cat was supposed to dispassionately slaughter mice.

Sharky and I resumed our hunts and I tried to put the woman and her companions out of mind. But soon enough I found myself circling back her way. It was unconscious at first, but with so much area to cover on this ringworld I shouldn't ever be swooping low over the same terrain twice.

And yet I found my keen eyes scanning the ground below for the distinctive glint of steel. The first few times I found no sign of them and was disappointed. Where were these people hiding? If they had a whole civilization tucked away somewhere maybe I could have some fun.

But no matter how I searched I saw nothing but endless tracts of wilderness. Perhaps this woman and her knights were visitors to this place like Sharky and myself. Or perhaps they had a small pocket world somewhere.

I'd get to the bottom of things when I felt good and ready. Swooping down here and now in dragon form just felt like it would start something I wouldn't be able to undo. But that didn't mean I couldn't watch from afar.

So that was what I did. While Sharky enjoyed an after-dinner special following a successful A-Grade monster hunt, I returned to this area to search for humanoid activity.

Two days later, I saw that same group again. They were dressed much the same as last time, though their armor had been repaired, and many of the knights seemed different than before, save for their leader, the woman I might know as Eowyn.

I watched their hunt to completion before they left, and this time tracked them all the way home. The end of the trail was a cave buried in the side of a mountain. Perhaps they had an underground civilization?

I wouldn't fit in the cave, but I dug a few holes in the nearby mountain to see if I'd turn up anything. Sharky passed by several times to check in on me. He didn't see much point in digging for humanoids when there were so many more tasty things running around on the surface.

But when he realized how intent I was on this, he used his ghostly powers to phase through the ground and look around for me. When he returned, I could tell he hadn't found anything interesting.

The only way I'd see Eowyn and her knights was if I caught them out on patrol looking for new monsters to fight. So that was what I did. For two entire months while Sharky and I hunted I darted in to check in on them.

Though it had only been two months, the knights' average level had measurably increased. The same was true of their leader. I wasn't too surprised. Their team was hunting monsters nearly as often as Sharky and I were.

The fact that any group of humanoids was motivated enough to keep up with us was a shocking discovery. After all, Sharky and I were lethal killing machines. In contrast, gaining levels and power for humanoids was usually just a means to an end.

Once, after watching them march in circles for an entire day and growing frustrated with their poor navigational skills, I took matters into my own hands. In a way I made first contact with them.

"Did we leave this here?" asked a plucky young squire. He'd gone to visit Eowyn's tent several times, and at first I assumed he was a secret lover or maybe even Eowyn's son, but further examination disproved such suspicions. He was just a skilled scout and often the first to bring important matters to their leader's attention. During my spying, I learned his name was Squire Dernwine.

"We couldn't have. We haven't passed this way before," one of the older squires replied to Dernwine.

"Then maybe there's another expedition out here like us. Or maybe some group like us left our home long ago. We found a few artifacts like that in the cave," Dernwine said.

The two glanced at one another worriedly as they inspected the arrow I'd carved into solid stone.

I chuckled a bit to myself as they came up with increasingly outlandish theories. Sharky would probably disagree, but I was feeling like messing with humanoids was more entertaining than eating them.

Eventually, Dernwine and the other scouts followed my arrow, which led to a valley filled with beaver-like creatures. They were too weak for me to bother with, but I was interested in seeing two armies face off. The beavers weren't exactly a rival kingdom, but they were the closest thing I'd found while looking for civilization.

That battle ended up being a bit of a letdown as the female knight ordered a retreat after a small skirmish. But it did mark the start of me taking a more active role in messing with the locals. My hope was that by toying with them a little, I'd be able to figure out what was familiar or interesting about them.

Training the humanoids to follow my signs took a bit of work, but I hadn't entirely lost the skills I'd had as a human. While I wasn't nearly as dexterous in this form, I could still carve out the lines of an enchantment with a claw and make something that would heal wounds. About half my arrows led to such an enchantment, which was enough that the knights were at least willing to send scouts whenever they found one.

I tried making some armor too, or at least a nice sword. But dragon hands weren't too good at such things, and I couldn't access the telekinetic abilities of my Kindling Architect job. There was probably a way to make it happen, but I hadn't figured it out yet, and that was more than a little frustrating.

But that didn't mean I was out of options. If I couldn't bring the knights to the monsters, I could just bring the monsters to them.

Dernwine had the keenest senses and was the first to spot the incoming threat.

"Beast wave! Another beast wave is coming!" he shouted.

The other scouts echoed him, and soon the message spread through the entire camp. Beast waves were what they'd taken to calling a sudden rush of monsters and local fauna all coming for them at once.

They seemed to think it was some sort of natural phenomenon related to their presence in this forest. In truth, all the monsters rushing toward them were being herded toward them by a big, scary dragon.

"Fight! Circle up, dig in your heels and hold this ground! Our lives depend on it," said Eowyn with the authority of a queen.

More and more, I found myself impressed with her. She'd impressed me so much that I'd been less and less certain that she was the Eowyn I hoped she was, since the young princess I knew had never been so skilled at leading.

Her presence across the battlefield was an inspiring one, and wherever she planted her banner her knights rallied to her side.

"For the Queen!" Dernwine shouted. Others soon followed his lead.

"We won't fall back even a step!"

"Victory or death!"

The woman herself was a skilled leader. She ran back and forth across her line as she shouted orders.

"Sixth cohort, reinforce the western flank! Eighth cohort, take their place in the reserves!" Eowyn said, and her sub-commanders organized each cohort into smoothly maneuvering centuries of a hundred men each.

I was impressed by her military's structure and organization. Most civilizations of steel and swords were feudalistic in nature. While politically stable, such nations often sported a hodge-podge nightmare of bickering nobles and their personal retinues instead of something resembling a real military.

This civilization had overcome that limitation and forged something orderly and cohesive. It spoke of a civilization that had experienced total war and come out on the other side. Perhaps this really was the people I'd led to battle against the Demon Lord.

Thanks to my assistance in their training, the group of knights and their leader started gaining levels far faster than before. The fighting was quite harrowing, but the woman in the center of it all proved more than a match for even the strongest C-Grade monsters and beasts I rounded up on short notice.

I was disappointed at how easily they fended everything off. As a reward, I gave them access to another one of my healing enchantments and let them rest, recover, and fortify their position before making them face another wave of monster attacks.

I let them go when I felt their spirits flagging and led them to a vein of rare metals nearby. Sharky and I had slain an A-Grade elemental the day before, and I'd hauled the carcass over and dropped it off.

"Look at all this gold, we're rich! This trip has been hell, but it was worth it!" Dernwine said.

"Gather everything you can and we'll take it home with us," Eowyn said.

I groaned to myself when I realized they were only taking the gold. The gold was among the least valuable alloys sitting on the ground, but I suppose it was too much to expect knights and warriors to recognize mithril, adamantium, and palladium.

I let them return to their cave without further harassment. I feared they'd need longer to recover given the intensity of the fighting they were up against, but when they reemerged from the cave their armor was shiny and new and their wounds were completely healed. There were also more of them this time, though I could tell some of the old members had left the army. It was easy to tell when most of them had gained enough levels to go from E-Grade to D-Grade in that single expedition.

Those that were still present had been promoted to leadership positions, though it looked like leadership wasn't determined by power alone. Those good at fighting but poor at leading had been grouped into special heavy-hitting elite units.

I went easy on them at first and let them wander through the forest uninterrupted. I was pretty sure they were trying to map the area, but from what I could tell their maps were very crude. At least they knew their world was shaped like a ring, but that was mostly because they could look into the sky and see distant continents that they could spend an entire lifetime walking toward and never reach.

Unfortunately, being feeble humanoids and unable to fly, they lacked the ability to see anything of value to them. At some point, I'd scratch a better map for them into the rocks and use that as another reward.

I was pretty amused by the rumors going around about where my enchantments and arrows came from.

"The signs have to be from those beavers. They're the only thing we've run into around here that could carve something like that, and the first time we saw an arrow it pointed directly at a whole city's worth of them!" Dernwine said.

"A beaver? Come on. Beavers can't carve into stone. You're pulling my leg," replied a fresh recruit.

"I thought the same as you on my first expedition when I was your age. These beavers are as big as a man and twice as wide! I watched them chomp through solid steel and take off a man's leg in one bite." Dernwine shivered at the memory.

I chuckled to myself. When had he started thinking of himself as a blooded veteran? Though now that I looked at him closer, Dernwine seemed years older than he had when he'd first caught my eye. His formerly boyish face sported a squarer jaw and the stubble of a man, with the scars to match.

"And what about the enchanted healing formations? Where do those come from? Surely you're not going to claim the beavers are smart enough to carve those things?" the younger squire smirked. He looked much like Dernwine had when I'd first seen him months ago.

"Squire Lodo, you've touched on a theory some of us have whispered about. A lot of us think we aren't the first expeditionary army to leave home, but the records of the first one have been lost to time. Remember those strange artifacts in the cave?"

Unfortunately, Dernwine and Squire Lodo both seemed pretty clueless as to what was going on, and when they devolved into ordinary banter I tuned them out and returned to thinking about what reward I'd give them for surviving another of my challenges. For someone like Sharky or me the struggle and growth that followed was its own reward, but humanoids often required a more material symbol of victory.

Maybe more gold? I was sure Sharky and I killed a B-Grade elemental or two during our hunts, though I only bothered mentally tracking A-Grade loot or prey these days.

That turned out to be an oversight I would regret mere moments later as one of the B-Grade local beasts appeared.

It looked like a great lizard and resembled a komodo dragon the size of a truck. It seemed to be an ambush predator, since it had been well disguised even to my senses. And today it decided the knights would make good prey.

I settled down to watch the confrontation with increasing interest. I'd seen these knights deal with plenty of C-Grade and D-Grade monsters, but it was one thing to fight a disorganized mob of terrified forest creatures. Using group tactics to take down a truly elite foe was an entirely different skillset. I wasn't sure if their commander had the leadership skills for something like this.

Stalker Pseudo-Drake (Level 224)

The Pseudo-Drake crept forward under the cover of silence, then struck like lightning and pounced on one of the horses the knights used to haul their gear. The horse squealed miserably for a moment before it let out the sound of snapping bones and ligaments.

The Pseudo-Drake crunched through the horse in moments, forcing the entire unfortunate creature down its throat without even chewing.

The alarm went up rapidly after that, which was a good sign. Even so, the Pseudo-Drake nabbed two unfortunate men-at-arms before they could so much as draw their swords.

"It's a dragon! Like in the legends!" shouted Squire Lodo in terror.

I winced inwardly. That was most certainly not a dragon. At a glance, I could tell it was an awkward, ill-formed thing. Nothing like my sleek and agile form. Its scales were dull, and its eyes betrayed the stupid brainless beast within.

Compared to my keen draconic will or the shiny abyssal portals that made up my scales, this thing wasn't even worthy of being called a drake, let alone a dragon.

"Archers! Cover fire. Retreat and form ranks!" shouted the female commander of the medieval army. Her quick and decisive orders were another point in her favor and did much to reduce casualties.

Soon, arrows were flying. They bounced uselessly off the Stalker Pseudo-Drake's scales, but it shook its head in annoyance and protected its eyes. Some of those arrows might have been able to do a tiny bit of damage if they hit vital regions, which meant they could serve to buy the knights time to organize.

As their leader commanded, the knights formed a shield wall to guard the rest of the army. Arrows flew forth to keep the Pseudo-Drake busy, and long spears came up to make the entire force something of a walking porcupine.

I expected the Pseudo-Drake to back off now that the easy meals had been taken, but it wasn't so quick to give up.

It charged forward, head turned high beyond the reach of the spears of the warriors as it barreled through their defensive line and trampled several of them underfoot.

It swept its long tail back and forth, causing chaos as the knights ran back and reorganized. They recovered their formation quickly though and a few scored decent thrusts. They weren't enough to do anything on their own, but they chipped and loosened scales for future attacks.

If that was all the knights had, this would surely end with high casualties for them. But the woman who might be Eowyn surprised me once again. I'd seen her hop atop a horse out of the corner of my eye, and she grabbed a long lance from a pile near the supply wagons.

With fearlessness and not an ounce of hesitation, she lowered her weapon and dug her heels into her mount's side. For a normal animal to charge a B-Grade monster like the Pseudo-Drake spoke of the incredible trust it had in its rider, and perhaps the effect of a job or class ability.

Unlike simple spear thrusts, a lance had the full weight of a charging knight and horse behind it. Few C-Grade attacks could mortally wound a B-Grade monster, but this just might be one of them.

I watched her lance shatter scales and pierce into the Pseudo-Drake's side. The Pseudo-Drake let out a cry of pain. The charge had come unexpectedly and it had been unprepared for such a grievous blow.

But then it turned and I saw the wound was not fatal. The woman must have missed the heart by a hand's breadth, and while the beast would likely die eventually, it could kill her before it did so.

It turned to her, and with a swipe of its claw unseated the woman. She fell to the ground, gasping and in pain. She grit her teeth as her horse rolled on top of her. In the sudden toss, her helmet rolled free onto the ground, and I saw the defiant look in her eyes as she lay on her side pinned to the ground.

I'd had her in the same position once before, and she'd looked exactly the same then too.

This really was Eowyn, to whom I'd once been known as a hero. And a moment from now, she'd be dead as the jaws of a Pseudo-Drake closed down around her.

My body moved before I even knew I'd decided to help. In an instant, it was not Eowyn in the jaws of a vicious monster, but the Pseudo-Drake in mine.

<Note>

Hey guys,

I'm not officially back at full speed yet, but I don't want to go too long without dropping a new chapter, so here we are. I may tweak this some more later, but for now I figured I'd share it with you guys.

Things will continue to be sporadic throughout the holidays, unfortunately. I really am getting a lot of logistics stuff done though! I've still got a few of the Spellheart books worth of edits to finish.

Also, I've commissioned another cover for book 6 just in case the artist I'm waiting for got isekai'd to another world or something.