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The Apocalypse Grinder - Chapter 222
🕑 Added 2025-09-13 23:01:30 +0000 UTC<< Chapter 221 | Index | Chapter 223 >>
The orange-uniformed worker froze as Ronan asked the question. Its eyes widened a little, fear creeping into its gaze. “I can’t—”
Ronan slapped the alien. “Don’t play with me. Just tell me what I want to know and then you can go free.”
It shivered. “We will see. The one you are looking for is the Governor. Those three captains are nothing compared to him. Don’t think you stand a chance. If you really want to throw your life away, head to Grathamor.”
Ronan released the worker once he’d learned what he needed to know. Grathamor. It sounded familiar, and he tried to wrack his mind for when he’d heard the name.
I think… Ah, yes. It was the difficulty selector. Grathamor was the nightmare location. That tracks if the most powerful Grathen on the planet resides there. Ronan now understood why it would have been the greatest reward if he started in that city. He would have to try it in a future iteration.
The only obstacle facing him right now was one that he had ironically created himself. To begin with, he had no idea where Grathamor was, and he had destroyed all of the potential methods of travelling across the planet when he’d demolished the spaceport. There was the big spaceship, but he doubted it would get him across the planet, only off it. Which he had no desire to do right now.
The worker had been walking away when Ronan grabbed it by the shoulder and pulled it back to face him. “What are you doing? You said you would let me go, bastard!”
Ronan sighed. “I will, I will. Tell me how I can get to Grathamor.” He tried to hold up his other hand apologetically, but the worker brushed it off.
He tightened his grip. He wasn’t here to kill those who weren’t an obstacle to his path, but he wouldn’t shy away from reminding them that he had the power here.
“Well, you destroyed the supply ships. You could have flown one of them. It’s about six hours away. There should be a repair ship in the ninth dock of the spaceport, but it might have been destroyed in the chaos you caused. Otherwise, you could take a raptor. Good luck getting one under control for the three-day journey, though.” The worker snorted as it finished speaking.
Ronan released his grip and the alien practically sprinted away the moment it could. Clearly it didn’t want to be asked any more friendly questions.
He figured he might as well search for this supposed repair ship. A six hour journey beat anything else. Spending three days riding a dinosaur would be fucking awesome, but he expected it would be tough to find one that was tame enough to ride. People might already be fleeing the city after what had just happened.
He made it back inside the spaceport and found it abandoned. The wreckage of the transport ships was still smouldering. Whatever cargo he had destroyed in the process, or perhaps the fuel of the ship, had been highly flammable. The large spaceship was still, a solitary giant among the rubble. Ronan wondered if there was a way he could strip it down. Having some valuable spaceship parts in his inventory might increase his inventory value when the iteration ended.
He shook his head. There were more important things to do. In the first place, he didn’t even know what parts of the spaceship would be valuable or if they could even be stored in his inventory. Now, where the hell is dock nine?
Looking around the spaceport Ronan couldn’t see anything that remotely looked like a sign. Of course, everything he had observed about Grathen culture and language thus far made it clear that it was utterly different to how things worked back on Earth, which meant he needed to think outside the box. He started looking on the ground, the walls, and even at the way the room was built.
Nothing stood out to him. He decided to just start walking. He would find it eventually.
At the end of the hangar that he’d originally decimated, there were two doors set into the grey wall. One was large, big enough for a ship to pass through, while the other was only big enough for a Grathen to walk through.
Ronan immediately blasted open the ship-sized door and walked into the corridor beyond. There were strips of metal laid into the wall that ran down the length of the corridor, which looked like they might be lights when powered. At the moment the corridor was empty and dark, save for the rubble of the broken door and the light that streamed in from the open-air hangar behind him.
Peering down the length of the corridor Ronan couldn’t see much. Hopefully it would take him to the repair ship. Only time would tell.
In the end Ronan had to search through over half of the spaceport before he found what he was looking for. The first corridor had led to another, smaller hangar, but it had been devoid of ships.
Then he walked through a bunch of warehouses and two more empty hangars before he heard a loud whining noise and the sound of Grathen shouting. He immediately started running in the direction of the noise.
Coincidentally the noise was coming from beyond the gate at the end of the warehouse he was currently inside. He blew the gate open with a mana bolt and a kick as he sailed through it, emerging into another hangar. A crack of sunlight beamed onto the ground through a slit in the roof, growing wider as the two halves of the roof slowly opened.
He heard the familiar whining of the Grathen energy source and his gaze snapped to the middle of the hangar, where a small, oblong-shaped ship was very slowly rising off the ground. Fuck! They beat me to it.
Ronan cursed internally but didn’t waste a second in leaping into action. His first instinct was to try and blow the ship out of the air but he had to force himself to adjust course. He needed the ship intact so that he could fly it to Grathamor.
There were still a few workers on the ground. One was standing by a glowing panel in the wall and the other was holding a glowing device in its hands. Both were clearly useful in some way for the launch of the ship and controlling the hangar, but Ronan didn’t know which to stop.
In the end he decided to go with an even better method of stopping the ship. He sprinted to the middle of the hangar and then crouched low, before exploding upwards from his legs and into the air.
The ship was just in the process of taking flight, which meant he flew past it and into the empty air of the hangar. Ronan took a large hammer out of his inventory and held it in his hands. He wasn’t trying to hit the ship, but simply increase his own weight as he began to fall.
Thanks to the angle of his jump he was positioned right above the repair ship. It started moving sideways to avoid him, but it was lethargic at best. He crashed into the top of the hull with a clang, ensuring he didn’t let the head of the hammer strike the weak metal.
The ship lurched and dropped. There was a groan and a soft bang as it crashed back into the floor of the hangar, but Ronan’s success was short-lived. As the ship’s thrusters increased towards their full power the repair ship started to lift into the sky once more.
He took out his bow, forming an arrow and pointing it at the Grathen worker standing near the ship with the glowing device. “Tell them to stop the ship or I’ll kill you.”
The worker’s expression dropped and it took a step back, but it clutched the device tighter. “Never! Bastard, you won’t get away with this!”
Ronan sighed and let the arrow fly. It pierced the worker’s heart and it fell to the ground almost immediately, dead. The device remained glowing for a few seconds and then stuttered out as the alien powering it was no longer providing energy. However, all that happened was the ship seemed to gain more power and soared towards the opening hangar roof doors.
Ronan turned the bow on the final Grathen worker. That had to be the one operating the hangar doors. “Shut the doors or you’re dead. Don’t make me ask twice.”
The Grathen had gone even paler than usual after seeing its comrade die. It had a grim expression and Ronan saw the conflict playing out in its eyes. It wanted to refuse him, but every living being had a powerful survival instinct. No matter how loyal to the Federation the Grathen seemed to be—and all of them did seem fiercely loyal—they would want to keep their life.
He pulled the string a little further back and shifted the bow slightly. It was pointless in terms of effectiveness, but it had the desired effect on the worker. It threw up its hands. “Okay! Fuck, fine. Don’t shoot, I’ll close them, but I can’t control the ship. Don’t kill me if they throw you off or escape before the doors shut.”
Ronan nodded and watched as the Grathen’s eyes glazed over. There was a loud grinding noise as the opening doors came to a halt, then another as they started to reverse directions. The moment that happened Ronan heard a soft hiss. Due to his battle against the Agrathen captains, he knew exactly what that sound meant.
While he wanted to keep the ship intact, he didn’t want to let it get out of the hangar. The moment that happened they could shake him off with some erratic manoeuvres and he wouldn’t have another shot at getting the ship for himself.
Sighing at being forced to damage the ship, he raised the hammer in both hands and then swung it with all his might at the side of the ship. There was a loud clang and the hull caved in slightly, but not too much. He’d held back, but the strike had tilted the ship to the side at the same moment the jet thrusters activated.
Instead of soaring through the gap in the roof and escaping the hangar, the ship flew right into one of the doors and crashed against it. Ronan had to use arcane piercing strike with a flat-palmed stab into the hull in order to grip onto it and not fall back to the ground below. The jet thrusters kept firing and pushing the ship into the door, halting the closing process and slightly bending the material.
As the thrusters wore off the ship fell and the door continued to shut. Ronan let out a sigh of relief, but then cursed as he heard multiple hisses across the ship. He was about to go for a wild ride.
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