Infinite Range: The Sniper Mage

Chapter 747: 747: Farewell, My Friend

“Come with me.”

A ribbon of white light coiled around Orson’s wrist. He blinked, and BlazeKing’s voice brushed his ear again. “Cut off the head, the body dies.”

Then he was gone, streaking for the deep reaches of the stars. Orson followed.

“What’s with those six Demon Gods? Are they… running?” Nuhachit frowned.

The six Demon Gods and the endless tide of fiends sensed something wrong. In the same instant they pivoted and tore after the trail where Orson and BlazeKing had vanished.

“Block them!”

Bellara’s eyes narrowed. She knew exactly what those two were about to do.

Her domain came off cooldown. Endless Armory bloomed again, an ocean of blades lashing out to slow the six. Steel stormed against the Demon Gods, carving gouges and drawing black blood, but the monsters ignored the pain and only accelerated into the deep.

She cut off the assault and gave chase. She had to see where this led.

Stars blurred past. Their speed rivaled the jump of a gate. Orson did not know how long they ran before BlazeKing stopped in an unmarked sector of space.

“There.”

BlazeKing pointed. Orson squinted. Eleven stars circled a primary. Most were dead and gray. Three still glowed with verdant life.

Three Infinite Dimensions worlds.

“It is there.”

Another point. A gray satellite hung beside a small, barren planet. No life. No breath. Nothing at all.

Orson’s focus sharpened and his breath caught.

\[High Broodmother of the Abyss: Lv.120]

\[Abyssal Royal]

\[Infinite Dimensions Combat Tier: Mid God]

\[HP: 99,900,000,000]

\[Attack: None]

\[Skills: Devour the Firmament, Wheel of Fate]

He sucked in air. The Broodmother’s true body was the size of a world. No wonder it hid.

He shot a glance at BlazeKing and understood why the man had not warned him earlier. The Demon Gods cannibalized to return, and BlazeKing had been waiting for the Broodmother to trigger Wheel of Fate at the moment of their deaths so he could trace the signal across the stars.

He had gotten cocky. He had swung too hard and too fast, and missed this key.

Still… that health bar was obscene. Even as a god of chaos he had barely ten billion. This thing had ninety-nine times that.

And it had no attack stat at all. A pure breeder. A world-sized meat relay. No wonder it hid behind the tide.

Orson scowled and snapped his wrist. Twelve hurricanes of sword and spear ripped into the mass. The meat quivered and shuddered.

Fatal Strike – 590,000,000

Not bad. Thick-skinned, nothing more.

“Devour… the firmament.”

The voice was darkness itself. Orson’s eyes went hard as a black gate opened over the Broodmother’s crown.

Cocoons poured out like hail. When he checked their tags his gut turned. The Broodmother had reached into the neighboring worlds and stolen living beings wholesale.

Mouths tore open across its surface, hundreds at once. With every breath in and out, millions of souls unraveled to mist.

The Broodmother’s HP surged back to full and its maximum increased by another billion.

One hundred billion. A number that made the mind go numb.

“To kill it… do we slaughter the surrounding worlds?” Orson asked, shaken.

“Not if you catch it in the gap when its Demon God cycle goes on cooldown.” BlazeKing shook his head. “These stars belong to a higher god, the Radiant Empress. She repurposed them as fodder for the vat.”

Her again. Orson’s jaw tightened.

“Eight Infinite Dimensions worlds with endless lives,” BlazeKing said softly. “All of them feed the brood. Leave it be, and we will have another Demon Emperor on our hands.”

“Demon Emperor? Not the Demon King?” Orson frowned.

“The ’Demon King’ is a mask. A will that steers the sea. Do not be fooled by what you hear or see. Learn to look into the root of things.”

Gooseflesh rippled along Orson’s arms. “You are telling me the demons are someone else’s weapons.”

“Sharp eyes.” BlazeKing’s smile was approving, then turned wry. “Beyond the galaxy, they drive the sweepers across one field after another. Before the Era of Immortals and the age of Infinite Dimensions, in an older age, beings who had transcended the galaxy tried and failed a thousand ways to hold the line. Infinite Dimensions helped. It did not cure the disease.”

He sighed. Even he was only a grain of sand in an endless dark.

Orson opened his mouth for more, but BlazeKing tapped him lightly in the chest. “Knowing too much will not help. Follow your heart.”

His body went transparent. He closed his eyes and folded his legs beneath him, a sage about to ascend, waiting for his last trace to fade.

Orson looked at him, throat tight. This was the true end.

All along the way, enemies had called Orson a piece on BlazeKing’s board, a puppet of Radiant Shuttle. He had never held it against the man. He and his sister were alive because BlazeKing had chosen to intervene. It was enough.

Whatever grand weave the man had spun, Orson had walked it willingly. Without him there would be no Chaos God standing here now.

And yet he had nothing to repay him with.

Now the three pieces of a transcendent soul were one within Orson, and BlazeKing’s last thought on the wind was about to unravel. Grief burned his eyes.

“Oh, right.”

BlazeKing opened his eyes again. Orson jumped.

“Apologies. Miscalculated. Dying will take a moment more.” He gave an abashed smile.

Orson’s mouth twitched. The moment was already perfect, and the old rogue had to ruin it.

“If you run into a man calling himself Hekey, tell him I am not paying back the wine money.”

“That’s it?” Orson stared. BlazeKing frowned, thinking, then added, “Have him take you to see Winebane in the Myriad Worlds. Tell him you can avenge him.”

“Winebane. Myriad Worlds.” Orson nodded like a dutiful student.

“Farewell, my friend.” BlazeKing’s smile turned clear and light. His lips shaped the words, “Fearless hope.”

Before Orson could answer, a white drift of ash rose, and luminous motes like rain scattered into the galaxy until they were gone.

“Farewell, BlazeKing.”

Orson bowed deeply, trembling, his eyes red. In his heart he kept a sliver of stubborn faith. The old wolf had cheated death before. One day he might swagger back. When he did, they would drink seven days and nights and not stop until the stars went dim.

“Orson!”

Bellara’s voice cut across the void, urging him to move.

He drew a breath and turned. Behind him the hunters were coming on. He did not spare them a glance.

Because in the next heartbeat he would stand above saints and monsters both.

“The world I guard suffers neither god nor demon. Heaven and earth endure.”

A strange halo rose in his eyes and flowed through his flesh.

“Burn lifespan to the limit!”

His roar shook the constellations. The stars themselves brightened.

“You consumed 40 years of lifespan.”

“You gained a 200x boost to all attributes.”

Far off, Bellara’s pupils rippled. A towering figure stood up in the night, wreathed in chaos light, vast as a myth.

Chaos Divinity Final Art.

Manifest Heaven and Earth.