Apocalypse: Generic System by Macronomicon (shoe dog free ebook TXT) 📕

Jeb hoped they beat the World Tortoise tomorrow, and everyone got to go home, but he planned for the worst.

He needed safety devices similar to his own that he could use to rescue people on command.

Perhaps an ejector seat? I might be able to swing that.

There were certain people he wanted to survive, no matter how doomed this particular expedition was.

I know, I know, I should be giving a hundred percent. To paraphrase a wise man, ‘planning for failure is worse than regular planning.’

Still I’m going to do everything I can to ensure we have the best possible shot, and failing that, convince them not to do it, and failing that…save the useful ones. Jeb wasn’t young enough to give a hundred percent to anything anymore.

Brett and Amanda were irreplaceable, essential to long-term survival. Ron was a huge boon. Jessica…well, she fought good, but he honestly didn’t know if she was any better or worse than the other fighters out there.

Still, she was a teammate, so he would do what he could to make sure she lived.

Now, the best way to accomplish these goals would be to weaken the Tortoise’s defenses while simultaneously raising our attack power.

With a thought, Jeb hoisted himself up, rising into the sky until he located the World Tortoise on the horizon, meandering around the edge of the forest.

Jeb raised himself up higher.

He could make a mad rush for the creature and try lobbing the noxious stone onto it from the side, fending off thousands of flying monsters in a heroic, suicidal mad dash…

But why?

Jeb flew up, and up, until the world tortoise looked like a regular tortoise, and the air started getting thin.

Then he flew above the creature, hovering directly over it, albeit a couple thousand feet up.

Jeb took his bag full of aerial bombs and turned it inside out, sending them tumbling towards the creature’s shell. He then took the wire-wrapped Noxious Flame Lens out of his pocket and dropped it…

From above. It’s coming down from above.

Jeb’s heart-rate spiked, and he was forced to stop and take deep breaths as the dozen rocks and one fist-sized nugget of coal tumbled away from him.

He was broken out of his intrusive thoughts when the lens went boom.

The instant the lens got ninety-nine feet away from him, the first trigger activated, and Myst began steadily feeding into it, causing it to burst into flames. Huge gouts of pinkish flame and green-tinted smoke began pouring out of it as it fell, the fire reaching nearly thirty feet in every direction, and the poisonous smoke going much further.

Damn! Jeb thought, covering his mouth and flying away from the smoke, not eager to breathe the stuff rising up from beneath.

Jeb flew to the side and down, aiming to put some serious distance between himself and the weapon currently belting out fire and smoke.

The aerial bombs hit the tortoise’s shell with concussive blasts, sending out shockwaves and knocking down large swaths of the trees covering the tortoise’s shell. Jeb even thought he might have seen a piece of shell fly up, but he couldn’t tell for sure.

The parasites flew out of their little hidey holes, looking like undersea worms burrowed in coral. They swam into the air, absolutely furious. Behind them were giant panthers that ran on the air, insects the size of buses, things that almost looked like dragons, as well as dozens of other creatures that ran the gamut from simply gigantified, to downright bizarre.

They crowded the air, darkening the sky around the tortoise like a cloud, and there were still thousands of landbound critters crawling all over the tortoise’s back, looking for something to fight.

A moment later, the burning stone landed on the tortoise’s back, lighting the forest around it on fire with its constant blaze, and poisoning the creatures as they swirled around in alarm. They swiveled their heads, seemingly looking for the cause of their current predicament.

“Hey you sons of bitches!” Jeb shouted at the top of his lungs, waving his hands, flying his whole body in a stomach-churning loop. “Yeah, you! Come and get me assholes!”

That got a reaction. Oh, crap they’re fast! Jeb turned and ran – well, flew – as fast as he could, aiming for the safe zone, a cloud of death following after him.

It was a short but tense race between him and the flying defenders, and if they weren’t poisoned, they probably would have caught him.

You have gained a level!

You have gained a level!

You are now level 32!

Jeb glanced over his shoulder and saw the fire on top of the enormous tortoise spreading, a thick fog of poisonous smoke spreading in every direction.

He also saw a pair of mandibles from a horse-sized dragonfly rapidly gaining on him.

“Pip one,” he said, pointing over his shoulder.

The creature effortlessly dodged the invisible bullet, huge eyes glinting in the sun with what Jeb could swear was amusement.

Dragonflies were the apex predator of the dogfighting world, most of their brain was literally devoted to it, and trying to alter his course wasn’t going to do anything. He was right on top of the safe zone, about to get eaten by a bug monster, so Jeb did the only sensible thing:

He dropped his flight entirely.

Concentration freed, Jeb whipped his hand around and caught the creature in a magical fist, crushing its wings against its body an instant before it cut him in half.

He lashed out with his good foot as the creature approached, knocking it up, and sending himself tumbling downward, earth and sky spinning around him at ridiculous speeds.

Jeb hit the ground head-first, a half ton of earth trying to ram itself into every orifice on his face, legs dangling over him like one of those yoga chicks. You know the ones.

Jeb’s pegleg