The Discarded, Half-Eaten Apple Core New Life

You load 16 tons* / and what do you get? / Another day older / and demons be dead.

The blimp did great holding back the dragon horde but it wasn't designed as a sphere of death with omnidirectional fire arcs. The dragons would pile up on the blind spots of the blimp, which was also not designed to attack targets above and to the sides of it.

Shortly put, the blimp had to rely on its ridiculously-high HP bar (no such thing in the System) to keep afloat. Meanwhile, I grew a baobab inside the blimp and crammed as much DM as I could inside the plant. 1,000 points per cubic foot of wood. About ten million points of DM. Filling up the Baobab took me a bit less than 50 minutes at my maximum DM transfer speed. Which was the size of my DM pool, minus what I had to spend on several upkeep schedules in Speranza and other places.

I swapped one combat bonus Perk for "Sharp Shrapnel" to add an extra oomph to the blast, and another swap to send the blimp on a suicide mission and gain 25 points of armor. I also coded a rule in the qDCSC to explode the trees inside the blimp once the balloon was breached.

The suicide blimp went up, dragging the frenzied dragon swarm with it. The average length of these dragons was about 250 feet, from snout to tail. Of which about 100 feet was the body from shoulder to hip. They also had 300 feet of wingspan, which was rather short for their mass. But also rather long for a creature that relied solely on magic to fly.

Meanwhile, I ran over the outback on my very red Planetary Defender (red=faster), using the jump jets every now and then to fly over obstacles, like hills or mountains. Behind me, the Rangers were getting ready to sortie out on their own machines, flanked by five Trapdoor Spiders escorts for each Planetary Defender.

Damage piled up. It was inevitable that the balloon got a puncture from an armor-piercing critical hit from a dragon that could fling spikes from its tail. Once that happened, the Tree Explosion spell I set went off, blowing up the massive baobab and all the DM stored inside it. Just like what happened when the unlucky level 300 man shot an arrow that burned my mana-infused Red Maples back in Pitsmouth, the results were... catastrophic.

Who needed nuclear weapons when I had the magical equivalent of a tactical nuke? I decided to name this strategy a "Baobomb". It was costly, very costly. I could've created 40 C-4-filled Saturn V rockets with that amount of DM. It was also wasteful in a direct DM-to-damage relationship but big booms meant big costs.

The dragon's prescience detected the incoming explosion and the bastards all scrambled to fly away. Some crashed onto one another, and then... Boom, boom, bakudan. You'll now share Mr. Fluffball's fate! [1].

I deployed Planetary Defender's shields, borrowing Jabberwock's hexagonal panel design. The magical pulse washed over the mecha, causing some system errors but I even gained some DM from the pulse's feedback.

> For killing level 160 Lesser Drake, you gained 6 Experience points.

[...] 10 similar messages were suppressed.

> For killing level 170 Lesser Drake, you gained 38 Experience points.

[...] 4 similar messages were suppressed.

> For killing level 180 Drake, you gained 337 Experience points.

[...] 6 similar messages were suppressed.

> Per your personal settings, the Dungeon Mana award per kill is not shown.

There's always a bigger drake. Also, what the hell? These weren't real dragons? Oh, well. That's what we had for dinner tonight. When life gives you drakes, you punch the hell out of their snouts. Ilea Spears style.

20 out of more than a hundred. Well, those were the fatalities. The casualty rate was much bigger. I saw several dragons fall down, trailing dark smoke behind them. The blast cleared a huge swath of clouds, creating a cylinder of sunlight shining down on the northern Australian coast.

The shockwave touched the ocean and pushed and vaporized the water away, revealing miles of charred ocean floor. A massive tsunami washed over Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea.

The nearby blimps opened fire on the downed dragons. Without functional wings, they were easy pickings. More Exp notifications flew by my sight. The flying dragons split and went to harass the blimps firing on their grounded brethren, trying to keep them from getting slaughtered.

Alas, crossing the outback took quite some time From Broken Hill to Darwin, the closest city to the dragon attack, I had 1,500 miles to cross. Even if this giant Mecha could move at the speed of sound (it couldn't), it would take two hours to get there.

I set the two blimps under assault on suicide mode, granting them an extra 25 points of armor. Then I swapped the Perk out and back to my battle configuration. The smoke clouds were starting to fill the hole but it gave me a clear line of sight to the Timor Sea, and I could see bigger dragons coming our way. That's bad news.

This went on for another hour. I didn't create another Baobomb for fear of causing the drakes to spread out. The real dragons flying over Indonesia were already crossing the roiling ocean toward East Timor. I would reach the ruins of Darwin at about the same time as they.

Not much I could do. I used the next set of blimps to Replicate more blimps, which took about 20 minutes each. But they would take forever to fly the distance to Darwin. I would better use my Materialization speed to create Trapdoor Spiders on the site.

Or not. It was time to fight against massive odds. Again. I crossed the Kakadu National Park. Or what was a national park? only charred tree stumps remained.

I created a flying railgun and added Vulcan autocannons around the main gun. Taking control of it with Animate Weapon, I started to shoot at the drakes limping on the ground, trying to score the kills before they could get help to run away or get back in the air. Though they were suffering a 90% reduction in their healing rates, it only meant it took ten times longer to heal. And I gave them almost a couple of hours to tend their wounds.

The drakes getting shredded by the enchanted paper bullets cried in pain and anguish. The others harassing the blimps broke off and targeted me instead. My Mecha jumped from a hill and I fired the Jump Jets, gaining the power to fly for 10 seconds. A quick Perk Kata I learned allowed me to swap in "Infinite Propulsion Jump Jets", fire the jets, and then swap it out. It required mental discipline but it was not much different from a real martial arts kata. It all depended on muscle (no such thing in this crystal body) memory. The more I practiced it, the faster everything happened.

And practice it I would. To take the fight to the dragons, I would need to fire my Jump Jets every 10 seconds. Else this humongous pile of metal would crash on the ground.

Airborne, I pointed both arms to the ground and fired. I could confirm that lasers were really ineffective against these fire-breathing bastards. So I used one of the new features of the Planetary Defender. Dimensional Aware STorage Armory Retractable Destruction.

The DASTARD system.

The arm-mounted lasers retracted into the Dimensional Storage and were replaced by massive GE GAU 8/A Avenger rotary autocannons firing NATO 30x173mm rounds, the same main weapon of the A-10 Thunderbolt II. Seven chambers and six guns per arm of them because six and sevens were any cowboy's lucky numbers. And since Pitsmouth was built on the ruins of Dallas, that was all of us.

Casting Papercut Arrows on the ammunition, I let the cannons spin and roar. In my Personal Domain, I could see the nearby dragons spitting ballistic flaming projectiles at me but I had a mile and a half of advance warning. Outside the dragon's auras, the balls of fire just became more Mana for me.

Dungeons never fight fair. Ask Nixia for more info about that.

Planetary Defender flew sideways after a burst of jump jet which I immediately replenished. The Jump jet fuel storage was ridiculously small in this Mecha. It was designed for my personal use. Aiming the arms at the drakes on the ground, I strafed them with 3,900 rounds per minute from each of the twelve autocannons. That's 46,800 bullets or more than 37,000lb of ordnance per minute. 5,000 Substance and 2,000 DM after all discounts.

There are my sixteen (point-five) Imperial Tons of ammo. I shoot sixteen tons, and what do I get? A smidgen of Exp, and still can't level!

But these bullets came from a Mecha I was personally piloting. The 70% magical damage from my Astral Transformation Skill compounded with my combat bonus and several other Perks. Notably, 25% from Command and Conquer, 83% (actually 243% after factoring in my spell bonuses) from Papercut Arrows, and 50% from Implements of Demise. All of these are multiplicative.

At this point, I was bullying the wounded drakes on the ground. Like a dutiful murderhobo's victim, they all became (deferred) Experience Points.

The flying drakes decided they needed to get up close and personal. This was fine by me. They came from every direction, eating enchanted paper bullets as I executed one famous Mecha maneuver.

The Spectacular Spinning T-Pose Autocannon spray.

It did exactly what the label said. I flew upward, firing two spirals of bullets as the Mecha's torso spun around the locked legs at a high speed. I even added randomly-colored tracer rounds for extra artistic points. Prescience or not, there was no running away from a curtain of bullets. Especially when you're charging at your target.

Several drakes plummeted with their wing membranes ruined.

"I'm dizzy," Larry complained.

"We're not spinning. Just the Mecha's torso," I rebutted. "Why are you dizzy?"

"The whooshing arms over the video feed."

"I can cut the video feed if it's making you sick."

"No, I'm fine." He lied. "Are these drakes also Infernali, Contractor?"

"Only one way to find out."

I covered the healthiest-looking drake with a Domain Beacon (it was outside my Personal Domain range) and threw them an overpowered Banish the Iniquitous. It took 681 points of damage, which was enough to almost split me in half even after my armor was factored in. The still fleshy drake didn't have the same amount of armor I had. My Divine magic burned the Drake from the inside, turning the enormous beast into ashes almost instantly.

> For killing level 190 Greater Drake, you gained 4,690 Experience points.

Great. It meant the big ones were all over level 200. I guess I should clean up the dross before the Rangers arrived and then split the Exp. This was the best Christmas ever.

*

*

Sung to the melody of the song "Sixteen Tons" by Merle Travis. There's an upbeat interpretation by Johnny Cash if that's more your alley.

YT link (interpreted by Tennessee Ernie Ford): /watch?v=RRh0QiXyZSk

Some people say a Core is made outta crystal

A poor man's apple outta pulp and seed

Pulp and seed and Core and Mana

A crystal that's a-weak and a Will that's strong

You load 16 tons (in your autocannon), what do you get?

Another day older and demons be dead

Gray Alien, don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I farm my Exp bleedin' demons' gore

I was dead one night' when the sun didn't shine

I kicked the bucket and I became an apple

I loaded 16 tons of NATO 30x173mm whole

Platypus Larry said, "Well, a-bless my soul"

You load 16 tons, in your autocannon?

Another day o'murder and demons I shred

Hey System, don't you screw me 'cause I won't blow

You shoved my soul in this Dungeon Core

I woke up one mornin', it was a friggin' landfill

Freaking mutant mice wanted to chew my frame

I was rotting in the garbage by an ol' crevice

ain't no mutant mouse makin' me mire in the brine

You shoot 16 tons, what do you get?

A smidgen of Exp and still can't level

Hey Demon don't come callin' cause I won't go

I got this quest as an honest Apple Core

If you see me comin', better step aside

A Jabberwock didn't, my laser then fired

One shell of iron, and a bot of steel

If the Railgun don't get you

Then the giant sword will

My Ammo weighs 16 tons, don't you forget?

Another day farming the Infernali threat

Hey System, don't you call me I'm in a roll

I'm washing my soul in the demon's gore!

Johnny Cash's version: /watch?v=tfp2O9ADwGk

[1] The name Klee (Genshin) calls the Pyro Abyss Mage who steals her bomb.