The nanosecond Xajymzia had felt 2-7-4's detonation start, she had casted a spell on the device to cap the maximum amount of light and sound it would emit, as it would quite likely blind and deafen both of the humans in the room otherwise.

  Neither of them could follow it, but she could, the light quickly spreading from the tip of its left wing to all of it, then the Apocalypse died. It would be an interesting study subject, if nothing else. Soon, the screen was nothing but light, and then bck after the device was destroyed. There had been silence in the living room after Yuulvan's quiet decration.

  Xajymzia was satisfied with the results. She had an interesting new study subject, and a possible threat to her people had been destroyed. First things first. "I would recommend against repairing the device for now, unless you want to see what remains of the monster", she said.

  While she was not particurly affected by such gruesome sights, Zoemie was much more squeamish and probably wouldn't enjoy it. "Yeah, that's a good point.", Zoemie said. "So, huh, what now ?", she asked, slightly confused.

  "I will deal with its remains.", Xajymzia answered, and Zoemie nodded as the answer, before Xajymzia continued. "You should probably withdraw for now.". Zoemie nodded again, and Yuulvan blinked and started to leave as well.

  Zoemie turned to the old man as they left the living room. "What was that ? That... thing on my skin ?", she asked him, worried, and he turned to her and smiled. That was really unsettling... Hope it ain't bad news.

  "We have been... acknowledged as Apocalypse Syers.", he started. "No one is sure exactly all that implies, but some facts are certain. Firstly, to adventurers who are not Syers themselves, Syers appear more charismatic"

  Useless, Zoemie thought. I have the charisma of a dead fish no matter what I do. ", or more intimidating.", he continued. Jackpot. That could actually help. "You could be granted a title of nobility on that feat alone, if you so desired.", he continued.

  "Nah.", Zoemie answered on the spot. "Sounds like too much work. Too complicated. Too much dealing with people and backstabbing and shit. I'm terrible at that crap.", she continued, which made the old man smile.

  "I expected that answer.", he admitted. He turned to face Zoemie more fully. "You have my deepest thanks. None of this would have been possible without your help." This made Zoemie's eyes cloud over a little.

  "...It's not going to bring back the dead, though, no ? Or, like, undo any of it, right ?" Zoemie didn't regret killing the monster, but a part of her wasn't sure of what it accomplished. At least it made the old man happy, but, like...

  He looked at her. "I take some measure of soce in knowing that it will never hurt anyone else ever again, and for me that is the best I could have hoped for." Zoemie sighed. I don't really feel it... but then again I have no beef with this thing either way.

  "I will have a lot of work in creating decontamination spells and such.", the old man said. "It will be worth it, not only for the living, but also the future. If any simir creature were to emerge, we will be prepared for it."

  "I guess.", she answered with a shrug, noncomittant either way. My part here is done, after all. And nobody knew of her involvment. Plus, I get an intimidation boost on other adventurers. Kinda want to see how these three would react to that, Zoemie thought.

  "I take it you do not have much pns for a celebration, either ?", the old man said, interrupting Zoemie's thoughts. A celebration ? As in, a party, right ?

  "...Not really, sorry. I'm... not much of a party person. Too noisy and stuff.", Zoemie answered. "Maybe Xaj will do something ? But yeah, dancing and alcohol are... really not my thing. I'll leave it to those who enjoy it."

  "I expected that answer as well", the old man said, seemingly lost in memories. Zoemie didn't know it, but the celebrations that followed the death of an Apocalypse were joyous things for the victors.

  Partying adventurers, ever so rowdy, would drink a lot of alcohol, and sometimes the noble brought out the expensive drinks if their territory or person was threatened. One frequent happening of those celebrations involved the drunk men lining up, locking elbows and dancing in rhythm with each other.

  Of course, there was much of more intimate partying, as well, whether it be with the local popution or others adventurers. It could be a quiet conversations of the sidelines between a mage and a schor, rowdy male adventurers competing and showing off for a pyfully willful maiden, a female adventurer picking a lonely commoner boy she liked and going off to make him a man.

  "...I am gonna say it does feel a bit weird.", Zoemie admitted after a lull. "Like five minutes ago we were facing off against that giant fucker, and now... well... yanno ? It's... a bit anticlimatic, I guess is how I would describe it ?", she rambled a little. "Like, no epic fight or anything like that, just throw neutrons for two minutes and boom it goes."

  "I can see what I mean. What are we going to do now, and all that", the old man said. "For me... I'll take a breather for a while. Maybe visit Xajymzia and take a look at its remains. There are a few things I'd like to check."

  "I'll have to go somewhere tonight, however.", he continued looking at the ceiling. There was something strange in his voice Zoemie couldn't quite pce. "You may come along, if you so wish. But first...", he turned towards Zoemie. "Once again. You have my deepest thanks for this."

  Zoemie blinked, and nodded. "I think I'm... just gonna go back to my room and game.", she answered. "At least for now. Might come along, tonight, maybe. Maybe not. Depends on where you're going and why."

  Xajymzia smiled as she finished dismissing everything that was in the underground chamber from within her b. It had been quite gruesome, but she was not really squeamish about such things. Thankfully, the va hadn't damaged the monster parts too much while it got stirred by the explosion.

  She could already reconjure any part of the beast she wanted to... after making a specialized room for that. Xajymzia quickly concluded on a design, and built a new room in her b, then another above it. The upper room would be the control area, which oversaw the lower room, that was composed of two chambers, one enchanted with a copy of the stasis spell on the storage room.

  This would allow her to both manipute the parts in frozen time and study their decay, and from a safe range. A superb result. Xajymzia approached the upper room and began. Let's see what we can use this for. She was interested in the possiblity of weaponizing the radioactivity, but she wanted to see if there were more peaceful applications avaible as well.

  Two issues with radioactive weapons. The first was time to kill. Xajymzia simply wasn't sure it would be capable of killing high-level adventurers fast. It could kill high-level adventurers, judging by Yuulvan's comments, but could it do it quickly enough to be worth using over her current weapons ?

  The second was safety. She didn't want Zoemie to get acute radiation poisoning, after all. While it wouldn't necessarily be lethal as Zoemie could resurrect, she'd rather avoid putting her through that ordeal altogether. And that's disregarding any guests that didn't have Zoemie's Warden abilities.

  And while normally Xajymzia would have circumvented that problem with an enchantment, she wasn't sure it would hold. Yuulvan thought the radiation damaged the seals and allowed it to break free often, and for what she had saw of the seals they did appear to be damaged, but she couldn't tell if it was the radiation or simple time.

  Question is : did the radiation damage the seals because it damages all magic or it is possible to create radiation-proof enchantments ? Depending on the answer, her approach would have to change drastically. Hence current experiments.

  Xajymzia conjured a first piece in the stasis room, then looked it over from the upper room. She noted down its characteristics, then moved it to the other room, and watched.

  Energy emissions above expectations. After around a minute, she dismissed it, and did some mental maths as she realized something, before frowning, nodding and smiling. self.recalcuteProjectedValues().

  This would require investment in infrastructure to reduce the conjuring cost quite heavily, and research in how to turn the energy into energy she could use most efficiently, but she was confident that with proper setup, she could get more energy out of the conjured parts that she spent conjuring them.

  Infinite energy ? Worth it. This would in particur solve a problem with the portal's battery. Instead of needing some complicated design to quickly fill it with ambient mana, a 2-7-4 power pnt would be a much faster energy generation method.

  It would made testing for the capacity much faster and easier, as well. Yes, Xajymzia decided. Starting now. She still had to decide what was going to be for the evening. She had originally pnned on something special, but had decided to dey it for a day.

  However, as Xajymzia began to consider how to approach her possible infinite energy source, she was interrupted by a knock on the boratory door.

  Yuulvan entered the stark-white room as Xajymzia nodded at him. "Am I bothering you ?", he asked, but she shook her head. "Looking over the remains of 2-7-4 ?", he continued.

  "Correct.", Xajymzia confirmed. As expected so far. Frankly, a part of him still couldn't believe it. 2-7-4 is dead. A part of him had always expected their ancient enmity to end in the Apocalypse's favor, but no such thing would come to pass. It certainly was... anticlimatic.

  Although, he couldn't have done it alone. While Xajymzia's assistance had allowed him to quickly confirm his hunch and dispose of the remains, the Warden not only told him that it was kilble, but even set things up to do so safely, instead of the many lives risked or lost by detonating it on the field.

  "May I assist ?", he asked. There were more than a few things about 2-7-4 that remained unclear. Such as how it didn't take damage from its own radioactivity and how it didn't blow up before. Magic, most likely. "By the way, you have my thanks for your assistance in dealing with 2-7-4."

  Xajymzia invited him to follow with a movement as she started walking. "I could have stayed out of it, and I believe you and the Warden would still have figured it out. However, I was worried it may kill Umdoranz in the future, so I wanted to deal with it now. Besides, I ended up getting something very useful out of it anyway.", she said.

  "A weapon ?", the old man theorized, shivering slightly. You couldn't defend yourself against what you didn't understand... but knowing how it worked also opened up alleys for bad-faith actors to use the radiation as a weapon. It had happened before, some arrogant queen or desperate warlord deciding to break the seal to kill their enemies with the curse.

  It generally didn't end well for them. "I considered it, to be frank.", Xajymzia said, interrupting Yuulvan's reverie. "But I decided against it for now, as I am uncertain whether it is powerful enough to be a competitive offensive option with what I have at my disposal, and that's disregarding the risk to my own charges."

  "Safety concerns, hmm ?" Reasonable. he answered as they arrived upon a ptform overlooking two chambers. "As far as I know, no Umdoranz have died to 2-7-4, and that is for the better. But for now, may I ask you to reconjure a part of its main body first ? There is something I would like to check."

  A rge piece of mangled flesh appeared in one of the rooms. It was mostly dark grey with what appeared to be yellow-green blood. "Hmm", Yuulvan considered. Here is one thing I never thought I would even get to do...

  I would have disbelieved anyone telling me I would live to see 2-7-4 not just dead, but utterly broken. "Let's see... As I expected. There's an enchantment on its flesh to prevent it from taking damage from radiation.", he said.

  "That makes sense.", Xajymzia said, seemingly thinking about something. Maybe I should try to see if it can be adapted for human use, Yuulvan thought. This would alleviate the risk of people using it as a weapon. "Anything else you wanted to take a look at ?" Yuulvan thought about it for a little more.

  "One of its wings, potentially ?", he asked. "One thing I was wondering about is how it was still stable after all this time, instead of having decayed already."

  "For what I saw, it seemed to be much the same idea, using magic to keep itself under control. However, it simply wasn't enough to prevent it from exploding when exposed to concentrated neutron charges, and the heat didn't help either.", Xajymzia expined.

  "And it couldn't use all of its magic to counter the explosion risk either. If it did that, it'd have died of radiation poisoning from its own body instead.", Yuulvan theorized.

  "Kind of ironic.", Xajymzia said, an odd smile on her face, before turning towards him. "Weren't you pnning on going somewhere at some point ?", she asked.

  The old man closed his eyes. "A mausoleum I must visit, for those who fell to the curse. I'll be going in a few hours. Maybe the Warden will come along... but for now I'll leave you." He opened his eyes and faced Xajymzia properly. "Thank you again, for your assistance."

  Zoemie nodded at the old man as the tter was at the entrance of the dungeon, looking at the wall. "So, where did you want to go ?", she asked him.

  "...There is a mausoleum. A grave for the fallen, where those who died to 2-7-4 rest. I am going to go here, put some old ghosts to rest.", he said. "You may come along, or you may stay. I shall respect your wishes either way."

  Zoemie sighed. Should I ? Shouldn't I ? Really not sure. She agonized about it for a short while. Ah, fuck it. I'll come along. If only to get a better measure of the old man's character. Although...

  "I'm... not good with heavy stuff like this.", she admitted. . "I think... I'll come along, at least for a bit. Might warp back here at some point.", she continued. He nodded, in turn, and a teleportation spell brought the duo to the entrance of a building.

  It was a squat building, with a fairly low roof. It was well-adorned, but silent and seemingly not the best maintained, twin pilrs of dusty marble gating the door. "A new section was dug out every time it broke out again.", the old man said. "...29. That's how many sections there are.". He turned to Zoemie. "There shall never be a 30th."

  He turned back and advanced, Zoemie in tow a bit behind him, and opened the heavy door with no seeming effort. The building did not reek like Zoemie expected. It smelled and felt a little damp, like a concrete basement, and coupled with the low roof it felt a little constraining. Zoemie wasn't a custrophobic person, but even she felt uneasy in this pce. Might just be the whole "bunch of dead people" thing, though.

  Around them were coffins and gravestones, lying on their back on stone ptforms, the ptforms stacked like a shelf. The old man started to ramble. "There was an old man, once, that joined the team. A sturdy old oak that survived three famines and twelves wars, in his own words, but he knew he wasn't for much longer and didn't want a young'un to die in his stead."

  "A woman, born of a sve and a whore, an incredibly tenacious fighter who earned her freedom in the pits. Her name was Hujinqa." He looked to the other side. "One time, a noble, a true noble, for whom the leader of an army must always march at the front. Another time, a young hunter exiled by his family."

  Zoemie swallowed thickly, as he looked at another one. "This one, I never learned her name. A Northerner, self-described nameless weakling. She managed to take it down long enough to seal 2-7-4. Then, she went to sleep and never woke up."

  "...I have been training her descendant in magic, she is a prodigy in her own right. I will be visiting her during spring.", the old man said after a lull. "She will be happy to know that her ancestor has been avenged."

  Maybe she'll reward me ? Zoemie thought for a second before shaking her head. This was neither the time nor the pce to think about these kinds of things. "29 sections like this ?", she asked instead, still off-bance. Much bigger than I expected. How long has this 2-7-4 thing lived ?

  She didn't think coming here had been a mistake, exactly, but something was gripping her. This pce makes me feel really bad. Zoemie had never been to burial grounds before, even less a full-blown mauseoleum like this. She had no idea what to say or how to even behave respectfully.

  "Yes.", the old man said. "It goes deep within the ground. I don't know all of their names, but what little I know of them I have never forgotten. There are many more here, whether they be brave fighters or mere peasants in the wrong pce at the wrong time."

  He turned to face the side, not looking at her in particur, and swallowed. "...I expected to end up here one day, to be completely honest." He closed his eyes. "Another name among all those marked graves."

  "Not that I'd ever ended up here either way. The bastards wouldn't allow it. They'd put whatever remains somewhere, and expose everything I ever did for everyone to ugh at. All the fuckers ever did.", Zoemie rambled bitterly, before refocusing."But you ending up here ain't gonna happen now, right ?".

  "Indeed." The old man had a strange smile on his face as he turned towards her fully. "There shall be no more souls interred within this pce. No more lives wasting away to this one."

  "Ain't there hundreds more of those Apocalypses, though ?", Zoemie said. "I mean, this one was pretty nasty, true, and I take it it's been around for a long time, but... I don't know."

  "Yes, there are others, but for now, 2-7-4 is dead, and that is all that is relevant here", the old man said, before turning to and floating to the center of the section. He looked calmly, took a deep breath, and looked up at the ceiling. "You have once again my thanks. It is time for the ghosts of this tomb to rest for good, at long, long st."

  "See you tomorrow, then ?", Zoemie asked, unsure. Is he gonna be OK ? The old man smiled as turned towards her. It felt different from before, but Zoemie couldn't say why.

  "Indeed. I can find my way back to the dungeon, don't worry about it.", he said, and Zoemie nodded before teleporting back to her dungeon and crashing on the couch.

  As she was starting to ruminate about the events, however, she was interrupted by Xajymzia's footsteps behind her. "This was a long day.", Xajymzia said, matter-of-factly. Isn't that the fucking truth. "How are you holding up ?"

  "Tired. That mausoleum pce was... kinda depressing.", Zoemie answered. "I... yeah, I think I'll game for the night, and go to sleep kinda early." She sighed. "I don't know how I feel about all of this. Like, yay, big scary monster dead, but I don't feel it, you know."

  Xajymzia smiled. "Tomorrow evening will be something special. As a celebration." Zoemie smiled a little. Wonder what it could be. She decided not to think about it for now, however. Too tired.

  "Thanks.", Zoemie said. "I... I'll be going, now.", she said, and teleported to her bedroom, calling it a day as she opened her computer and started gaming for the night.