Universe's End

Armed with his railgun, the weeks began to blur as Rory rampaged on his warpath of stationary destruction. He'd fallen into a routine: Every day, he would go to and from the Maw, the name Rory had given the cave system he'd almost died in. Making sure never to go further than the cavern filled with ore, Rory would harvest as much as possible before returning home. Once home at his campsite, he would melt down the metal, pouring it into casts for his ammunition. The benefit of his railgun was that it was immensely powerful compared to the caliber of the monsters he faced. It didn't matter if it was a magic-slinging sage rabbit or swarms of Triumph Foxes; a single shot from the magical railgun annihilated everything in its path.

The downside was that it wasn't portable. Having still not come up with a way of storing large amounts of Pneuma for portable usage, he could only use it from within a bounded circle that had been stored up with plenty of Pneuma in advance; the larger the bounded circle, the more Pneuma could be drawn into an area, but the faster it eroded the bounded circle. He'd already experienced once in a test what would happen if a bound circle was broken while it was filled with excess Pneuma; it would slam into him like a metaphysical sledgehammer, leaving him crippled for a day or more at a time. Armed with that knowledge, before every wave, Rory would draw a medium-sized through his camp, ensuring his ladder was propped up within the confines of the circle as he filled it up like filling up the gas in your car.

Rory had discovered two other downsides of his railgun. First, it was so powerful that it often ruined the corpses of whatever it struck, blowing them apart with the pure force of its projectile. It meant he had little in the way of crafting material compared to if he killed them with more regular weapons.

The second issue he believed was Eon getting back at him for devising such an effective weapon. Kills secured with the runic weapon yielded less Ascension energy than regular. Between the diminished energy yield, the extra energy required from putting attribute density toward growth, and then just the regular old time ten times multiplier in ascension energy between tiers, Rory still hadn't reached his subsequent ascension. He was close; one more wave, and he would crack the A4 ceiling, he was sure.

To crack that A4 ceiling, the last hurdle in his way was the tenth wave of ten consecutive weeks of monsters, as if fate was conspiring against him. All Rory needed to do was survive and prevail, and he'd finally be able to enjoy his labors' sweet, sweet efforts, a ten-week streak of waves worth of rewards.

And I really do need them.

A quick glance at his overall attribute ranking was enough to inform him that he was the lowest tier ascended amongst the eight inhabitants of Aelia. Switching it to his rank amongst only his tier further told him that all his attributes suddenly ranked in the top percentile, meaning he was in first place among a group of one.

Himself.

How high have others climbed? A4 is obvious, but A5? I doubt anyone has reached A6, even falling behind as I have. The difference in energy between A5 and A6 is far too vast of a gulf for others to have crossed already; that would be like a hundred times more energy than I've gathered in that same time.

"In fairness," Rory muttered. "Not like I've spent much time killing things outside the waves."

He hadn't completely stopped clearing any potential monsters. Still, the amount of resources and prep he needed for each wave meant he needed to focus almost entirely on preparing for them. The only other thing he'd managed was building a relatively functional forge, a hardened stone and clay box with runes inscribed all over.

I just need to clear this wave, and then…

Then what?

Rory could only shake his head. He hadn't given much thought to his plans after ten waves; it really came down to his rewards. He was hoping for a minor law, but outside of that, he could only guess what he might receive; perhaps it would be nothing more than a metric shit ton of energy, or maybe it would be something else entirely.

Too many unknowns.

For the final and tenth wave he was planning to tackle consecutively, Rory had pulled out all the stops. All of Rory's time spent preparing for the prior waves wasn't technically for those specific waves. He'd stockpiled enough ammunition that he felt fine pushing through those waves even if another Nike Fox were to appear.

No, the real reason he'd spent so much time creating more ammunition was specifically for wave ten. While he couldn't know what was coming his way, it didn't take a genius to guess that wave ten would be unlike any previous wave. Even in recent waves, they had begun abandoning their regular pattern, starting with when he'd been confronted with that first Jackalope Adept.

Rory glanced downward, admiring the object within his hand. It was oversized, a monster of engineering, his grandest creation yet.

“Big Momma” Pneuma-Powered Railgun Repeater Mk. 2

Grade: Common

A Pneuma-Powered Railgun taken to the next level. It has been carefully crafted with greater craftsmanship and cutting-edge runic inscription, allowing for a faster firing rate and destructive capacity.

The problem with his original railgun design was they were limited in firing capacity, taking several seconds to charge a shot. His walls had earned their weight in-

Gold? Silver? What's considered a precious metal now?

-their weight in valuables, taking and withstanding damage as his railgun charged up shots. Still, if some mighty monster or a large swarm attacked, he'd be screwed. With his older railgun designs, his walls, while significantly improved from his efforts weeks back, were far from invulnerable, and taking too long between shots would give a powerful monster a chance to tear through them.

Thus, the need for Big Momma was born. Constructed of carved bone and wood alongside carefully melted metal, it could fire a shot once every five seconds. Typically, the increased fire rate would have lowered the firepower as the lesser time to charge up the energy for each shot reduced their firepower. What Rory had done, though, was enlarge the design and circumvent the problem. With a larger surface area, he'd had more space to add his inscriptions, specifically for faster charging and even a minor energy preload, something only possible through the antlers he'd taken from the jackalope variants that he'd carved into support struts for the oversized weapon that he had mounted to his walls. Sticking out the top of Big Momma was an ammunition magazine; after each shot, it would drop a new round into the main chamber of the railgun. His final adaptation of the railgun design was that the weapon was directly linked to his walls, something he hoped to make a permanent ingrained addition once he could apply Ascension energy to his walls after cashing in on his ten-streak of waves. 'Wired' into his walls, he could siphon energy from his walls if need be. The drawback was that energy drawn from the walls directly weakened them. Once depleted of energy, they were little more than sturdy wood walls. Thus, the longer he could go without activating the magical defenses of his wall, the longer he could use the walls as an external siphon for Pneuma into Big Momma without negatively impacting his defenses.

In Rory's opinion, it was an ingenious weapon system. Back on earth, he reckoned he could hold his wall, at least for a bit, against even tanks firing at him.

Assuming they didn't hit me directly, I'm the weakest link, but that's beside the point.

Strapped to his back was another railgun, albeit smaller than Big Momma. That was to say, it was still probably twenty or thirty pounds, and it could only be wielded by a human who'd undergone a few ascensions and put at least some attribute density toward Strength.

Pneuma-Powered Railgun Mk. 8

Grade: Common

A Runic weapon utilizing advanced theories only known by a Precursor, the Pneuma-Powered Railgun uses Pneuma to empower natural forces and propel a metal payload at terrifying speeds.

It wasn't much different than his first truly functional railgun model, the MK. 6. The main difference between it and MK. 6 was that starting at Mk. 7, he had added a new rune that he'd come up with, the acceleration rune. If the projectile fired had been fast before, now it was ungodly fast, or so he supposed. If he were honest, he hadn't precisely compared their velocities; he had no fine-tuned instruments to do so with. The projectiles fired from the railgun were too quick for his Cognition to track -from either version- but considering the Mk. 7 hadn't exploded when he'd added the rune; Rory figured it must be doing something.

The rune had only one problem, a problem that caused him to scowl every time he looked at it now.

It's design. When Rory first came up with it, he thought it had been a somewhat inspired look, two whirls that then shot off into parallel arrows meant to represent the idea of building velocity that fired forward.

Now, when he looked at it, all he could see was a rather…. Phallic-looking symbol.

Not my best work, I must say.

Even if the aesthetic of the rune was unsavory in hindsight, the fact didn't change; it was another rune to utilize, and it was a moderately advanced rune at that. It was a conceptual rune much like Stability, albeit far less nebulous and, therefore, safer to have created.

Still staring at Mk. 8, Rory glanced back into his camp several seconds later. It almost looked like aliens had visited with the number of circles drawn through his camp. It was an adaptation to a problem with bounded circles and Pneuma. Typically, when one increases the size of a bounded circle, the increased volume of Pneuma within erodes the circle faster, allowing for critical failure at inopportune times. Rather than making one massive, bounded circle then, Rory had instead placed many smaller and more stable bounded circles throughout his camp, each a small well of Pneuma that he could retreat to and fire his Mk. 8 from. He'd even gone as far as attaching stability runes to each and every one so they could remain stable for longer.

Aside from his modern weaponry, belted to his side was a new war bat, a significantly improved version from the first one he'd lost in his battle with the first jackalope he'd ever encountered.

Sol's Glory Macuahuitl

Grade: Common

An ancient pre-universal weapon originating from a non-existent chapter of theoretical history. The Macuahuitl can be used for blunt force damage or viciously sharp slashing damage capable of slicing even the cell of a living organism. Further empowered by added Runic Inscription.

Maker's Arsenal had guided his hand in crafting the new bat-like weapon. With several runes carved into the wooden handle, Rory was confident it wouldn't be as easily destroyed as his first one. The other interesting thing of note was the fact that Eon had identified the weapon for what it was, meaning either one of the other humans already had knowledge of the weapon, a more extensive knowledge than Rory had, or it had plucked the information out from the seeded information of their old universe that formed the energy of their current universe.

The handle had four runes: Earth, Wood, Absorption, and Stability. It would latently draw sunlight and Pneuma into it, galvanizing the wood. As proof, it chimed almost like metal if he tapped a knuckle against the wood. It wasn't the only 'mundane' weapon he'd made. Strapped against his opposite hip, a shield hung. A quick glance toward it brought up its info without any extra effort now that Rory had begun to use analyze reflexively.

Sol's Glory Shield

Grade: Common

Few armaments are as traditional and reliable as the shield. Formed and framed from runic-enhanced wood and braced with leather and carved bone, it can repel many powerful hits.

Another thing that had changed in several descriptions was that any reference to the wood used nearby was now referred to as Sol's Glory, a name Rory had given the trees after realizing they'd been unnamed for weeks now, a rather apparent failure on his part that it had taken him so long to get around to naming them.

Which suggests that this variety of trees exists only near me, and the others have other types of foilage or flora.

It was an unimportant thought, so Rory cast it aside, instead frowning as he briefly took in the shield's description a second time. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with the shield. In fact, it had been as well designed as he could manage with his current tools and skills and even further enhanced with the same runes and intent as his Macuahuitl. What had bothered him was that Rory had started to notice that, for whatever reason, he'd stopped being able to craft weapons or gear imbued with Akashic records.

I wonder if Akashic records and Rune Inscription conflict?

Like most questions and thoughts he had, it was simply something he couldn't answer without more data to draw against, data that was painstakingly difficult to obtain in this new universe where he may as well have been alone.

Perhaps once he cleared the wave, he would take a break from waves to focus on furthering his knowledge and sating some of his curiosity about topics he had to ignore due to time pressure. Perhaps he would even get around to crafting things he wanted but deemed low priority.

But that was something for Future Rory to deal with. Currently, Rory could only shrug. If he had to choose between his Inscription and Akashic records, he'd always go with his Runic Inscriptions. They were reliable, and he could consciously plan out what and how he wanted to form them. In contrast, an Akashic record felt like a lottery pick of effects.

Ignoring his shield, Rory hadn't bothered to make any other armor. Against the current caliber of monsters, if it came down to a brawl -God forbid- any hide armor he made wouldn't do a damned thing. Rory's only use for the monster hide obtained from his kills was creating an ever-increasing number of patches in his clothes. He looked like the oddest mishmash of modern fashion meets Ice Age hunter, something you'd expect to see down some abstract fashion runway.

Technically, they aren't 'modern' anymore.

Rory snorted, amused by his stupid joke, before shaking away the humor. Ten weeks of blood, sweat, and even some tears would finally be rewarded if he could survive this last wave. Unsurprisingly, he was rattled, cracking jokes about the dumbest things, exhausted from weeks of mentally and physically preparing.

Aside from his weeks of preparations, there had also been the intermediary waves. Most of what he had killed up to this point had been a mix of Jackalope variants, Triumph Foxes, and even some monsters called Hissing Lemurs, four armed lemurs that would hiss and spit a noxious glob of acidic saliva. They were agile little buggers, and if he were trying to tag them with arrows, they would have been a vicious, if not damn near impossible, pest to hit from afar. With his railgun, the lemurs were more like meat confetti in the making, small enough that when a railgun projectile struck them, they exploded into a shower of gore like a birthday party orchestrated by Jeffrey Dahmer.

The only monster he hadn't seen was a Nike Fox. The single Nike Fox from which he'd claimed the Monster Den Nucleus was the last time he'd seen one, which Rory figured was for the best. A pack of those monsters would have been challenging even with his railgun. It was that fear of a pack of Nike Foxes that had lingered in the back of his mind that had led to the eventual creation of Big Momma, his ace in the hole, insurance against even the biggest, baddest monsters out there.

As it was, Rory had prepared as much as he could, Big Momma the culmination of all that work.

Railguns? Check. Walls? Secured. Bounded circles? Charged. Melee weaponry? Hopefully redundant.

With nothing left to do, Rory nodded to himself, mentally pumping himself up.

"I'm ready. Let's do this."

Instantly, the wave timer dropped to zero, as Wave Ten was initiated early.

Here we go.

Rory let the breaths come evenly as he kept his head on a swivel, waiting for whatever was coming for him.

"C'mon, any day now."

Fingers drumming anxiously on Big Momma's struts, Rory's head snapped to the side as he heard the sound of crunching twigs. Swinging Big Momma to face the direction of the noise, Rory saw trees begin to shift as if something big were approaching.

Oh, what the hell.

The shaking of the trees only got worse as even the ground began to tremble.

I was expecting foxes, not elephants!

Contrary to what Rory expected, it wasn't an elephant that came barreling out from treeline but something much, much worse.

"Oh, you have got to be shitting me," Rory grunted, staring wide-eyed as what could have only been described as a dinosaur charged him.

The monster was the size of an elephant -if it took steroids and went to the gym- with a large bone shield fanning out from its head like a triceratops. Rather than the ancient herbivore, the monster had a head shaped closer to an oversized snake, with six thick, muscled legs tipped in savage raptor-like claws, the fanning bone crest so large most of its body was safely hidden behind the terrifying shield.

Fuck me if this isn't a bit much of an escalation!

As surprised as Rory was, he didn't let it stun him for more than a heartbeat. With a sonorous warcry, Rory pulled back the trigger on Big Momma, the railgun booming out its own challenging warcry every few seconds as it fired off the hypersonic rounds.

Whereas in the past, a single shot from his railguns had been enough to eviscerate any monsters unlucky enough to be on the receiving end, the freak dinosaur creature seemed to shrug off the rounds as they slammed into its armored face, each round only capable of shoving it back a few feet before the monster would continue its forward rampage.

Angered by the railgun onslaught, the monster bellowed an ear-shattering roar. Ear shattering it was, so loud that Rory felt warmth spilling from his ears, blood trickling out, as the world shook under the weight of its anger.

Shit!

The writing was on the wall. Rory knew that if it reached his walls, even fully charged with Pneuma as they were, they'd fall instantly. His defenses would be little better than a sandcastle before a hurricane.

Well, no point in holding back. The best defense is a good offense!

Flicking an emergency switch next to Big Momma's trigger with his thumb, the railgun seemed to glow and hum, vibrating ominously as Rory, unwilling to back down from the monster, met its roar as he shouted in further defiance.

There had been one other preparation Rory had prepared, a last-ditch, "Oh shit" option that was only to be used if things looked dire.

And, well, things were looking really fucking dire.

"Fuck it," Rory grunted, as all around his camps, the bounded circles began to glow a dangerous white before exploding, as all the energy contained within was suddenly sucked forward, flowing into a small crevice in his walls, a blink and you miss it spot. A muddy-looking orb had been inserted within it, and several carved circles surrounded it as the monster core drew in every last drop of Pneuma within the camp. Rory had really wanted to save the core for another project. Still, he hadn't been so foolish as not to plan for a potential worst-case scenario if wave ten was more than he bargained for. The muddy brown coloration of the orb instantly cleared, now only the color of murky pond water.

Big Momma shook for several more seconds as energy surged, and Rory could only hold tight, praying it wouldn't explode. He hadn't been able to test this feature; it was a one-time use before it would be irreversibly spent.

C'mon!

Gritting his teeth, the vibrations from the railgun finally seemed to ease.

"Bingo!"

Snarling with the sort of visceral combat high one could only achieve from firing a high-powered railgun at a dinosaur, Rory couldn't help the vicious grin that appeared on his face. Big Momma, which had been firing a round once every four to five seconds, suddenly picked up the pace, as instead of a projectile every four or five seconds, it became four or five projectiles per second.

The dinosaur monster, capable of weathering its previous fire rate, was suddenly bombarded by firepower that could make an attack helicopter blush.

"Eat lead, shithead!" Rory was laughing like a maniac, blasting away. It was the only response that seemed to make sense to Rory; the entire situation was too bizarre for his mind to process logically. Strange and insane as life had become, using a railgun to rain rapid-fire hell down on a mutated dinosaur still wasn't something he could say he ever expected.

Rory's hands burned, and the scent of cooked flesh could be smelled as the heat radiating from Big Momma charred his hands just as readily as a white-hot piece of steel would. On any other day, the pain would have sent him into shock, but there was no place for pain in his adrenaline-fueled haze. The bone crest of the snake-triceratops finally failed, the stress of repelling dozens of railgun strikes too much even for its damn near impenetrable defense. Still, Rory rained down hell on the monster as the railgun shredded its tough scaled hide, ripping through the beast. Its scaled hide may be powerful, but without its armored crest, it simply couldn't compare against the damage Big Momma could dish out.

The monster was in bad shape, and Rory was still laughing maniacally as it was torn apart, entire legs and chunks ripped away, until the cacophony of noise from Big Momma abruptly cut off.

"Huh?" Rory blinked several times, the sudden silence deafening.

Oh. I'm out of ammo.

Ten weeks of ammo stockpiling. Weeks of labor, of meticulous preparation.

And he'd burnt through it all in less than a minute of continuous fire.

The monster was bleeding profusely; two of its legs had been ripped away under Big Momma's hellfire, and it looked about one bad headache away from death, but it wasn't dead yet. Rory swore he saw the instant the monster recognized the tables had been turned, an evil-looking glint in its beady eyes.

Pawing once with one of its four remaining good legs, looked at Rory directly before lowering its head.

I don't think that's a head-bow of surrender.

The monster roared out in anger once more before it charged.

"Shit."

It was all Rory had time to utter as the monster crashed into his walls, smashing through his proud walls as if they were made of little more than cardboard. Even had they not been almost entirely depleted of Pneuma, Rory knew they wouldn't have survived the beast's charge.

Rory had more concerning thoughts than the fate of his walls, given that he was suddenly sent flying in an explosion of timber, packed clay, and splinters as far as the eye could see.

Tossed across the entirety of his camp, Rory slammed into the hard earth with a pained groan. A single bounded circle remained, the only circle Rory had purposely left out from his emergency protocol.

Stunned for a second, Rory slowly backed up in a half crawl, half stagger. Rory gave himself a quick pat down; his Mk. 8 was still, thankfully, strapped to his back. Yanking it free, Rory didn't even bother checking his shield or melee weaponry; it would be like bringing a knife to a tank fight.

Checking his ammunition, Rory grimaced.

Five shots.

Chambering one into his Mk. 8, Rory finally looked up, making direct eye contact with the snake-triceratops. It was snorting and thumping its clawed feet to the ground as if waiting for him to prepare himself.

"Yeah, right," Rory grunted, giving the monster a quick downward nod. "You want to get this shit over too."

Bracing the Mk. 8, Rory grimaced, feeling something loose in his mouth. Glancing to his side, he forcefully spat out a large glob of mucus and blood, a tooth accompanying it.

"Right. Bring it." Rory grunted, wiping blood and grime from just beneath his nose. Needing no further encouragement, the monster charged again, barreling toward him like the world's angriest living wrecking ball. Rory lowered his shoulder, sighted the weapon-

And then dodged out of the way as it slammed straight through the back half of his camp, using its momentum against it as hardened stakes slammed into its now vulnerable body.

How that shit never fails, I have no idea.

Leaping back, Rory dashed into the bound circle as his railgun drank in from the energy well. The monster turned around with a pained trumpet as several of the spears he'd planted on the inner portions of his wall stuck out of its face like it had wrestled with the world's largest wooden porcupine.

"Well, I never said that I would play fair," Rory muttered before pulling the trigger of his Mk. 8. Instantly, the monster's left eye exploded in gore as Rory re-oriented his aim, its right eye joining the left eye in a shower of gore seconds later. Without the protection of its bone crest and with much of its armored scales shredded, nothing held back the hypersonic rounds from inflicting horrific damage to the monster. Again, the railgun barked out, and the blinded monster fell as Rory kneecapped the creature.

Two shots left.

Walking to the edge of the bound circle, Rory aimed directly between where the eyes of the monster used to be. His railgun barked out once more as the monster, which had been slowly rising, dropped to the ground as Rory put a round between its eyes.

And yet it still wasn't dead, stirring once more.

"Alright, enough." Rory's voice felt hoarse from his earlier shouting, and taking his time to aim, Rory put the final round right between its eyes, double tapping the same spot.

God above, just how tough can these bastards get?

Watching the monster silently for nearly a full minute, Rory finally let himself drop onto his butt; the beast was well and truly dead.

God, I hope that wasn't just the opening act.

Rory waited in silent trepidation, waiting for more to appear from the forest. Thankfully, rather than more monsters appearing, the only thing that appeared was a notification in the corner of his vision. Mentally clicking on it, Rory let out a sigh of relief.

"Wave cleared." Rory flopped onto his back, utterly exhausted, as he stared into the sky, finally letting himself truly relax.

He'd done it.

"Ten waves, ten weeks." Rory chuckled, raising a fist to the suns far above.

"How's that for progress?"