I Die to Rise: Resurrection System-Chapter 104: Black Heaven!

"The Black Heaven," the Warden said with pride, a twisted smile spreading across his face after the gag was yanked from his mouth. "A magnificent piece of machinery provided by the Steins to be activated as a last resort should the Circle ever suffer a... situation such as this."

He laughed, the bastard’s face splitting into a triumphant grin. "It is over for you maggots! You won’t even make it to the Garden!"

From the open hatch, Kurt watched the ground break open with a deafening crack, and saw what looked like a black and silver humanoid figure forcing its way out of the earth.

Its hands were disproportionately large compared to its body which gleamed with a menacing aura as it approached, thrusters flaring at its feet while locked onto the blimp.

Kurt tilted his head to get a better look. "Is that a—"

"Your deaths! Each and every one of you!" the Warden screamed, eyes wild. "You’re all d—"

Riley’s hand shot out, and she chopped him in the back of the neck before he could finish his sentence. The Warden’s head lolled forward, unconscious.

"What?" Riley snapped when everyone stared at her. "His voice was really starting to piss me off."

Outside, other blimps were rising too. Some of them piloted by desperate prisoners, all of them crashing as guards opened fire.

And about eight hundred meters from them, Black Heaven raised one massive hand toward their blimp and began charging energy. A brilliant white glow built in its palm, humming as it scanned the threat from that distance.

The moment the Warden’s unconscious face crossed its scanners, the energy fizzled out, and it lowered its hand. The Warden’s face logged as Protected Asset in its system.

"It appears we won’t get blasted out of the sky thanks to our little friend here," Kurt said, crouching to give the Warden’s cheek a couple of light, mocking slaps. "How convenient."

"I don’t think that’s gonna stop it, mate," Razor said, staring out the hatch as Black Heaven’s thrusters roared.

It launched forward at blinding speed, a sonic boom cracking behind it like the sky itself was breaking as it closed the distance in seconds.

"Here it comes!" Cassandra called from the cockpit, yanking the controls hard to the left as the blimp banked sharply, narrowly avoiding two grappling hooks that shot from the machine’s shoulders.

The hooks whistled past the blimp as trailing steel cables, clearly designed to either reel the blimp in or stop its movement entirely, missed them by inches.

Kurt realized immediately that he was the only one who could actually fight this thing. Their collars may have been gone, but they were all still in a deadzone.

He walked over to the open hatch, wind whipping around him, and looked back at the others. "I’m the only one who can currently fight that thing. You lot should keep going. I’ll catch up."

He handed the bottle in his hand to Razor, then he stepped off the edge and free-fell.

Everyone who witnessed this had varying reactions.

Razor took off his helmet and looked down without saying a word, stunned silent.

Lena rushed over to the edge next to Razor and yelled, "We have to go back for him!"

"He’ll be fine," Cassandra said calmly from the pilot’s seat. For someone who was aware of Kurt’s abilities, she wasn’t exactly worried.

As for Riley, she was conflicted. Her hand reached toward Cassandra’s seat, then dropped. Part of her wanted to scream for them to stop the blimp, but the other part wanted Cassandra to keep flying.

And Cassandra did just that. She kept flying.

Lena was about to protest, ready to turn the blimp around herself if she had to, when her ears twitched.

From beneath the clouds, Kurt exploded upward with twin jets of blue flames propelling him from his feet like rocket thrusters.

"What the hell is he?" Lena asked, eyes wide with genuine worry, curiosity, and fascination all at once.

Razor tossed aside the helmet, jaw tightening. "He’s Kurt fucking Manchester, that’s what. And he owes me a shit load of credits."

***

Kurt got close enough to really take a look at the so-called Machinery of Doom.

Black Heaven stood eight feet tall, its body angular with broad shoulders and absurdly oversized hands fitted with retractable claws and what looked like energy projectors embedded in the palms.

Its face was smooth and featureless except for two glowing red optics that tracked Kurt’s every movement with cold, mechanical precision. Like death given form.

Except, he’d stared death in the face countless times, and wasn’t too particularly impressed by it.

At that point, system notifications popped up in front of him, picking the worst bloody time to flood his view.

[NEW SYSTEM QUEST]

[Primary: Successfully Escape The Circle]

[Reward: +25 Points]

[Sub-Quest: Escape with Riley]

[Reward: +10 Points]

[Sub-Quest: Defeat Black Heaven]

[Reward: +15 Points]

[Sub-Quest: Conclude the fight with a minimum of three deaths]

[Reward: +10 Points]

Kurt’s eyes caught the last one. Three deaths? Was the System implying this machine was powerful enough to actually put him down?

He didn’t have time to dwell on it.

Black Heaven’s eyes locked onto the blimp behind him, and a glow formed beneath its feet, propulsion systems charging for another blitz toward the escaping vessel.

"I don’t think so, you tin-plated bastard," Kurt muttered.

The screens were instantly dismissed, and from his right hand, he conjured a whip of blue flames that lashed out and wrapped around Black Heaven’s torso. The flames left scorch marks across its surface, searing into the metal.

Even while holding it back, Kurt couldn’t help but think about that last quest objective. Three deaths minimum. The System never gave pointless warnings.

Black Heaven kept pushing forward despite the whip of flames holding it back, its mechanical strength sufficient to actually pull Kurt along through the air.

"Bollocks," Kurt strained, stretching out his other arm. It extended like elastic, wrapping around the bot’s legs like a serpent, and he pulled back with both the whip and his stretched limb.

Black Heaven began to slow.

It looked down at the limbs wrapped around its form, red optics scanning, analyzing. Then it responded by unleashing eight hundred fifty million volts of electricity across its entire body, quadruple the power of a guards’ batons.

The discharge spread across its surface, meant to electrocute Kurt and force him to let go.

Unfortunately for Black Heaven, thanks to plastic man, he was practically a living insulator.

Kurt’s arm recoiled violently, yanking the bot downward and slamming it into the ground with a thunderous crash. Then he shot both hands back like a slingshot, fists hardening with Bone King, and snapped them downward toward Black Heaven to pound it deeper into the crater.

CLAP!

Kurt’s eyes widened as he felt it. His fists slammed into the bot’s palms instead of its body. Black Heaven had caught both strikes with mechanical accuracy.

Then it pulled.

Kurt was yanked downward violently and slammed into the ground hard enough to crack the earth. Before he could recover, Black Heaven fired two clamps from its shoulders that pinned Kurt’s limbs to the earth with magnetic locks.

The bot immediately took off, rocketing toward the blimp with terrifying speed as it fired its grappling hooks again, and one latched onto the blimp’s hatch with a metallic clang.

"Shit!" Kurt melted through the clamps with Fire Lord, flames eating through the magnetic locks, and launched himself upward with blue fire propelling him skyward.

He rotated mid-air, extended his claws from Apex Predator, and slashed clean through the grappling cable, and the severed hook fell harmlessly into the clouds.

Kurt realized in that moment he needed to create more distance between Black Heaven and the blimp if there was ever going to be a chance of escape for them.

Black Heaven seemed to reach the same conclusion as dozens of compartments opened across the machine’s torso and shoulders.

From them, heat-seeking missiles were launched. Fifty. Maybe more.

They screamed through the air, spiraling toward Kurt with locked trajectories.

At first, he tried dodging, flames propelling him left, then right, but the missiles adjusted course instantly, tracking his heat signature.

"Bloody persistent, aren’t you?"

Kurt flew straight toward Black Heaven instead, missiles following in a deadly swarm.

He opened dozens of small portals in front of the missiles, and they flew through.

Simultaneously, identical portals opened millimeters around Black Heaven, surrounding it.

The missiles emerged point-blank. Too close to adjust trajectory, and they detonated in an explosion that engulfed Black Heaven in a sphere of fire and shrapnel, smoke billowing outward in a massive cloud.

Kurt was already closing the distance, fist cocked back, and he drove it straight into Black Heaven’s chest, the impact pushing the bot backward toward the Inner Circle.

He followed up immediately, throwing another punch that sent Black Heaven hurtling further back toward the Walk on the opposite side of the island, creating more distance between it and the blimp.

With each punch, the bot was cataloging and studying his movements, its mechanical eyes tracking every shift in weight, every angle of attack.

Kurt tried to throw another punch, but Black Heaven’s sensors reacted instantly. Its optics flared, and it dodged, letting Kurt slip past it.

"COMBAT DATA UPDATED. THREAT LEVEL REVISED."

Then it opened its palm and fired a concentrated energy blast from behind.

The blast slammed into Kurt’s back with devastating force, sending him spiraling out of control toward the Outer Circle.

Toward the Garden.

Kurt rotated wildly through the air, flames sputtering, and looked up to see Black Heaven already flying toward the blimp again, closing the distance with mechanical efficiency.

And when he looked down, the Garden’s bioengineered horrors were already activating, preparing to attack.

A flytrap the size of a house opened its massive maw to swallow him whole. Other plants began generating deadly psychedelic pollens, a thick cloud of it forming beneath Kurt like toxic fog.

Death loomed below and he was falling straight into it. Was this really how it would end? Paralysed, then eaten alive by monster plants?