Chapter 218 - Glass Cannon (Patreon)

Carlos peeked out from behind the car-sized boulder, his heart pounding and his breath coming in short, quick pants of excitement and trepidation. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as Zeke’s raw and ragged voice croaked, “Everyone ready?”

“I am,” Carlos called, his voice sounding eerie within the confines of the shallow ravine that led down into the cave system from whence Zeke had just come. The man’s crimson-and-white armor was singed and smoking, and judging by Zeke’s voice, his body hadn’t fared much better. But he was alive, and, if the deep rumbling coming from the yawning cave was any indication, he’d found success. The wyrm – one of the most fearsome creatures known to man – was coming for them all.

As everyone else responded that they were ready for the fight – lies, all; even if the thought they were ready, they weren’t – Carlos clenched his fists and readied his skills. Luckily, he wouldn’t have to stand toe-to-toe with the monster; he’d leave that to maniacs like Zeke. For his part, Carlos couldn’t imagine why anyone would willingly wade into the thick of such a fight. He’d built his entire skillset around avoiding just that, concentrating on the stats and skills that would maximize his damage potential.

And it was perfect. Aside from all of his skills running along the same theme, which brought a simple sort of satisfaction all its own, they all built upon one another, strengthening them far beyond what they would’ve been alone. It had taken years’ worth of practice to perfect his style, but now that he had, he’d found that he could far outperform most others.

Of course, his damage potential had come at the cost of survivability, but that was a trade he had willingly made. After all, what use is a mountain of endurance when you could instantly teleport through shadows and avoid damage altogether?

As Carlos watched, Zeke readied himself just beyond the traps he’d laid at the cave’s entrance. For Carlos’s part, he tensed, remaining behind the cover provided by the boulder. It was made of the same porous rock that permeated the area around the cave, and so, he assumed it would hold up to anything the wyrm could throw at it. Still, when the monster crashed through the tunnel’s entrance, sending huge rocks flying and choking the air with dust, he began to rethink his strategy.

It roared, a sound that came out as a combination of a bestial bellow and a high-pitched hiss, both intertwined with one another to create something wholly new. And utterly terrifying. The sound cut right through to the most primal parts of Carlos’s mind, and it was all he could do to steady the resultant tremble and keep his bladder from emptying itself. Still, he maintained control as he saw the trap activate just in time.

In the space of an instant, great ropes of light erupted from the ground, arced over the monster’s sinuous form, and crashed into the earth on the other side. First, there were dozens of the ropes, but those soon multiplied into hundreds. Thousands. Before Carlos could take a breath, the wyrm was buried beneath them. Its body slammed against the ground, and though it writhed and bucked, the ropes of light held fast.

For now.

But even as Carlos saw, the light ropes began to fray. Some snapped altogether. Others stretched. The only reason the wyrm didn’t immediately break free was because of the sheer number of restraints. Soon, though, it wouldn’t matter. In a matter of minutes – maybe even seconds – it would escape. And when it did, disaster would follow.

Carlos shrank back as a powerful aura swept through him, all anger and pain and outrage, pressing down on his mind with near-physical force. Bloody tears traced twin lines down his cheeks, and his jaw clenched hard enough that, if he had space to think, he might’ve worried about shattering his own teeth.

It all coalesced to tell Carlos something he’d always known: the wyrm wasn’t just another monster. No – it was a veritable god among monsters. And they had made the mistake of angering it.

Fortunately, Zeke seemed unaffected by the creature’s unbearably strong aura, and he stood before it without even a hint of a tremble. The very picture of a hero. Or a killer. If the wyrm was a god amongst its kind, then what did that make the man who willingly stood before it, unfazed and unbowed, staring the powerful monster directly in the eye?

Even as those thoughts raced through Carlos’s mind, the second phase of the trap activated. The earth quaked. Frost spread across the trap’s fifty-yard diameter. And, suddenly, a series of ice spears sprang up like a glacial cage, encircling the monster and further restricting its movements. Some of the shards hit the wyrm, but they were completely incapable of piercing its thick scales.

But that wasn’t the point, because there was one final piece to the puzzle. The previous two stages had been intended to trap the wyrm. The third was why they needed it to stand still.

The sky darkened. Vivid blue lightning arced. And a cloud began to form. Second by second, it materialized, becoming more and more solid. The air temperature dropped, and not just because of the ice cage that came from the second trap. Instead, it was more pervasive. More oppressive. More dangerous.

The wyrm screamed its roaring, hissing scream at the antithesis of its fiery nature, but it couldn’t move. It couldn’t escape. It was trapped.

Suddenly, the sky stood still. Even the arcing blue lightning froze, and the cloud congealed into a jagged, skybound glacier. A sharp, keening whine filled the air, and the huge hunk of ice shook. The sound pierced into Carlos’s mind, becoming ever higher-pitched by the second. And then, when it finally reached a crescendo, the glacier broke its invisible bonds and descended upon the wyrm like a meteor.

It crashed into the earth with what felt like world-ending strength, sending a ripple through the rock a split second before everything exploded into a cloud of debris. Carlos’s boulder was thrown aside, and Carlos soon followed suit, tumbling through the air like a leaf on the wind. A split second later, he slammed into a nearby slope, feeling his breath vacate his lungs as his shoulder was ripped from its socket. He rolled to a stop a few seconds later, and, in a herculean mental effort, kept his mind on task.

With one arm, Carlos pushed himself to his knees, and as the dust settled, he saw the impossible.

The wyrm still stood.

But it was injured, with great, gaping gashes in its shimmering, black hide. Steam rose from the monster’s wounds as orange, molten blood pooled on the ground. Its eyes were glassy and unfocused, as if it was dazed.

Zeke was not going to let that opportunity go to waste. With a mighty, two-handed swing of his mace, a great red blade of energy sliced into the wyrm’s snout, signaling the beginning of the battle. Even as Zeke sprinted forward, aiming his most devastating skill at the creature, Carlos regained his composure and wrangled his own skills under his control. An enormous crack sounded, echoing back and forth across the ravine as Zeke brought [Unleash Momentum] to bear.

The mace – and the skill it bore with it – took the wyrm in its reptilian snout, driving the monster’s enormous head into the rocky ground. It cratered beneath the weight of the blow, and the sound of breaking bones joined the cacophony still bouncing back and forth through the shallow ravine. Then, Zeke unleashed his skill, freeing the momentum earned from thousands of swings right into the monster’s face. Scales were ripped away by the force, flesh was stripped from its skull, and the exposed bone was crushed, Zeke’s mace ending up buried in a slurry of liquified brain and pulverized bone.

For a split second, Carlos thought that was it, that they had slain the fearsome creature with no more than a trap – albeit a ridiculously strong one – and a well-aimed swing. But it was not to be.

Before Zeke could swing again, the monster moved, and it did so more quickly than Carlos could track. Suddenly, though, Zeke was flying through the air. And when Carlos looked back at the monster, he saw its skull rebuilding itself. The flesh regrew, and the scales were replaced. In the space of a few seconds, the wyrm bore only the vaguest signs of the attack.

Still, it was trapped, and Carlos didn’t think it would remain so for long.

Gathering his wits, he used [Shadow Step] to get closer. The boulder that he’d been using for cover was gone, so he made do with a slight depression as he embraced his skills. First came [Shadow Spear], the first of which he aimed at the monster’s torso. Then another. And another. Over and over, he rapidly built a hundred more umbral spikes. Then, he started channeling mana into them; they responded, growing wider, longer, and more dense. After he’d spent the vast majority of his mana, he focused on his ultimate skill, [Shadow Explosion]. With it, he could detonate his umbral spears into blades of condensed mana that would destroy even the most formidable defenses – especially with how much mana he’d invested.

With a thought, he used the skill, and a hundred blades ripped through the monster’s vulnerable flesh. It looked like it had healed from the falling glacier and Zeke’s usage of [Unleash Momentum], but it wasn’t completely whole. It was vulnerable. Weakened. It was ripe for the killing.

Carlos was so busy patting himself on the back that he didn’t even react when the wyrm turned toward him and focused its withering gaze in his direction. An instant later – far too quickly for him to react – a tidal wave of liquid flame swept over him.

* * *

Talia watched as the ravine was bathed in plasma, and even through her muted emotions, she was horrified at the power on display. The entire area went white with the sheer heat, and when it faded, there was nothing but glass and melted rock left. It took her a long moment to realize what was wrong with the picture, but when it hit her, Talia felt her heart leap into her throat.

He's gone, she thought.

It had all happened so fast that she couldn’t believe that Carlos had gotten out of the line of fire. But even if he hadn’t, there was no way to tell. His body couldn’t have survived the conflagration. He just didn’t have the endurance. None of them did. Nobody but Zeke, at least.

An arrow slammed into the monster’s still-open mouth, and another three followed within a split second. Before Talia could blink, the air was full of the glittering, silvery projectiles. After five more, lightning descended from the sky, striking the wyrm with the full force of Abby’s skill, [Thunder Strike].

A moment later, Pudge charged forth, his massive form a little smaller than the wyrm’s head. He leapt, landing upon its back. His claws traced ragged wounds into the creature’s thick, scaley skin. It hissed and howled, thrashing as it tried to dislodge the infernal bear, but he held fast. Finally, Zeke rejoined the fray, leading the way with a blade of red life-stealing energy before crashing into it, mace-first.

That’s when Talia realized that she had just been standing there, mouth agape. She’d completely forgotten the plan. Her mind, meanwhile, was hard at work trying to wrap itself around Carlos’s apparent death. It had yet to make any headway, but a single thought pushed those concerns aside.

Her friends needed her. Zeke needed her help.

She leapt down from her position atop the cave’s entrance, activating her various skills along the way. She sped up, covering the ground in the blink of an eye. Then, she reached the monster, leapt atop its sinuous and writhing back, and continued running along its spine, passing Pudge along her way to its head. Once she reached it, she aimed a concentrated beam of death at the base of the creature’s skull. [Flood of Death] was a powerful skill, but it proved unequal to the task, only marginally weakening the scales.

It didn’t matter, though. Talia was used to whittling her foes down. So, using [Chill of Undeath] and [Plague Strike] in conjunction with her fused path of decay, she attacked the weakened spot. To do so, she had to dig her claws between a pair of other scales just to hang on, but she was nothing if not flexible in her methods.

Meanwhile, Pudge was similarly engaged in his efforts, albeit a little down the wrym’s back. Abby continued to rain arrows down on the monster’s head, and the sounds of Zeke’s thunderous strikes filled the air. Even so, Talia worried that it wouldn’t be enough. As furiously as she was raking her claws across the creature’s scales, she’d yet to break through. Tiny dots of rot were visible, but it wasn’t nearly weakened enough to make a difference.

Then, everything went wrong.

It started with a simple hiss of steam between the wrym’s scales, but only a second later, bright orange plasma erupted from every crack and crevice. Talia dodged the first, but the second gout of flaming liquid took her in the chest. It burned right through, and in only the space of a moment.

More bubbled up, taking her feet, and it was only through sheer panic that was strong enough to pass through the blanket her racial transformation had thrown over her emotions, that she managed to throw herself free. Using every point of her strength, she launched herself from the monster’s back, and with only a moment to spare. Even as she flew through the air, her legs caught fire, eating through her skin with ease.

She landed with a roll, and when she looked down, she was horrified to see that there was nothing of her legs beneath her knees. More, she heard Pudge’s agonizing whine from within the bubbling geysers of liquid fire erupting from the wyrm’s skin.

Burn! came a telepathic scream, and Talia had no trouble attributing it to the wyrm. It hissed out a screech that sounded almost like a cackle. Pudge tumbled from its back, his fur burned down to his blistered skin. He dragged himself free just in time to avoid the monster’s writhing body.

Abby continued her barrage, but it seemed useless. Already, the ice spikes that had been the monster’s cage had been melted down to puddles of steaming water, and soon, the light ropes would follow.

Only Zeke remained steadfast, steadily aiming one momentous mace-strike after another at the creature’s face. Talia glanced down at the stumps where her legs had once been and, all at once, realized that she would be useless going forward. Pudge was similarly out of the fight. And Carlos…

If they were going to win the fight, it was all on Zeke and Abby.

Shaking her head, Talia said, “We should never have come here.”