Chapter 219 - A True Test (Patreon)

As he hammered his mace into the wrym’s snout, Zeke tried to ignore the pain coursing through his body with every minute movement. It was impossible, though, to push the agony away. His entire body was a mass of blistered flesh, and his armor, though it had mostly held up to the sheer destruction of the wyrm’s fiery breath, was on the verge of falling apart. It wouldn’t last much longer, and in that respect, wasn’t wholly different from Zeke himself.

He had misjudged the monster’s power; that much was readily apparent. And because of that, his friends had suffered. Even now, Pudge’s mental whimpers filled Zeke’s mind, evidence of the infernal bear’s agony. Talia was still alive. Zeke had caught a glimpse of her dragging herself to safety, though her pale, green-veined body had been ravaged by the wyrm’s flames. Of Carlos, there was nothing left.

The moment Zeke had seen the flames wash over the man’s position, Zeke had known Carlos couldn’t survive. It had happened so quickly that there was no chance of escape, and the thin protection of that boulder had proved completely insufficient when faced with the overbearing heat of the wyrm’s liquid fire. When it finally dissipated, there was nothing left of Carlos or anything else but the rapidly cooling rock that covered the ground.

And Zeke.

But with every agonized swing of his mace, he had difficulty appreciating his survival. Or thinking about Carlos’s sudden demise. There was only the next swing. The next attack. Avoiding the wyrm’s sword-sized teeth. Amidst the torment, the struggle was all that was left to him.

And he was losing. Despite his hundreds of points of strength, regardless of how well the traps had worked, and even under the steady barrage of Abby’s skills, the wyrm remained mostly unharmed. What damage they managed to inflict – and it was enough to have killed the fireback turtle a dozen times over – it soon faded away, subdued by the wyrm’s rapid regeneration. It was a losing battle, and one in which Zeke couldn’t afford to admit defeat.

The wyrm, for its part, snapped at Zeke with every beat of its heart, and as it did so, it assailed him with mental screams accusing him of being a child-killer. And he was. He had proven that over and over, even going back to when he’d fought the croco-rats back in the troll caves. And in the wyrm’s lair, he’d slain hundreds of its progeny, all in an effort to force it into a rage.

It had worked, too. Perhaps too well. Even if Zeke ran, the wyrm would follow. At the end of the day, either Zeke would be dead or the wyrm would be slain. There would be no truce. No quarter. No forgiveness. For what mother could forgive a man for killing her children?

Fortunately, Zeke had [Life Scythe] active, so every time he hammered the monster with his mace, his wounds healed a little. However, his recovery wasn’t as quick as it should have been – a property of the wyrm queen’s flames, no doubt. But it wasn’t as if he could spare the time to investigate. Instead, he continued his assault, dodging this way and that as he struggled to avoid the monster’s snapping jaws.

After one such dodge, which saw him diving aside and rolling to his feet, he used his momentum to swing his mace in a horizontal arc. The wyrm had quickly recovered from its miss and was on its way for another attempt at biting Zeke in two when his weapon collided with one of its enormous fangs. With a sickening crack, the force of Zeke’s blow ripped the tooth from its gums, sending it down the monster’s gullet. It coughed, and a small tendril of fire emerged, licking Zeke’s chest.

He screamed, both in pain and rage, and seized upon the wyrm’s momentary hesitation by aiming another strike at one of the creature’s other exposed fangs. This time, it took two swings, back and forth, to dislodge the natural weapon. It went much the way as the previous one, sailing down the wyrm’s cavernous throat.

So it went for the next minute, with Zeke abandoning his attempts at attacking the monster’s seemingly impenetrable scales. Instead, he targeted its vulnerable mouth, his mace finding headway against its teeth. Before long, the wyrm had been entirely de-fanged, but the danger of its bites was only marginally decreased.

But it was a start.

As Zeke withdrew, sending a red-bladed [Life Scythe] at the still-immobile wyrm, he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. With a quick glance, he saw Pudge, most of his fur gone and his body badly burned, charging at the wyrm. On his back was Talia, legless and with her own skin blistered and burnt. But on her face was an expression of grim determination that was echoed by what Zeke felt from Pudge. There was still plenty of pain, but there was anger there as well, intertwined with an adamant refusal to give in.

It gave Zeke hope as the shorn bear bounded forward, leaping upon the wyrm’s writhing back. Once Pudge found his footing, he raced up its spine and to the base of its skull. Surprisingly, Talia leapt off the bear’s back, and started digging into the wyrm’s scales. One slice, two. Three. Over and over, her claws glistening with mingled frost and decay, she dug her way into the glimmering scales. Then, when her energy ran dry, Pudge took over, alternating between his powerful swipes and his own black-laced flames. As he did, his injuries slowly healed, courtesy of the borrowed [Leech Strike] enveloping his massive claws. It wasn’t as efficient as Zeke’s own version of the skill, but it was enough to pull the infernal bear through the worst of his wounds.

By comparison, the trickle of Talia’s version of the skill, borrowed via [Mark of Companionship] was barely enough to keep her going.

Zeke resumed his attacks, supplemented by Abby’s constant barrage of arrows and lightning. She hadn’t let up for even a second, which meant that her mana was probably nearing its limits. While Zeke could fight for hours without flagging, his allies most assuredly could not. If he wanted to end the fight, he needed to do so before his companions’ efforts waned.

More urgently than that, the Ice Cage had already melted, and soon, the Binding Light trap would dissipate as well. Both had stretched his runecrafting abilities to their absolute limits, and they were only possible because he’d used hundreds of the raptor feathers, each one charged with as much mana as he could fit inside their gem-like structure, in the traps’ construction.

But the crowning achievement had been the Winter’s Might trap, which had resulted in the formation of a localized glacier that had descended upon the wyrm with the force of a falling meteor. Before it had activated, he’d expected it to kill the monster outright, it was so powerful. However, the wyrm queen had proven to be much more durable than expected, and it had recovered quickly.

Zeke’s mace hammered into the wyrm’s snout in an overhand blow that sent its entire head crashing into the earth. Dust billowed, and rocks flew from the point of impact while the satisfying sound of bones breaking filled the air. The wyrm hissed in pain and anger, but Zeke didn’t let up. Instead, he aimed another blow at the creature’s already wounded snout. Then another. And another after that.

All the while, the monster writhed and bucked, but bound as it was, it couldn’t escape. Nor could it mount any significant attack. Instead, it could only snap its de-fanged jaws and breathe gouts of flame at its tormentor. The attempts at biting him two were easily avoided, but Zeke had no choice but to endure the flames. Fortunately, he was perfectly suited for just that, and although each of the wyrm’s attacks left him blistered and his armor melted, he wasn’t so injured that he couldn’t keep going. And so long as he could keep swinging his mace, he was always still in the fight.

So that’s what he did. He just kept swinging. Technique fell by the wayside. So did conscious thought. He just swung. Over and over. Sometimes, his efforts were rewarded with the crunch of bone, but more often than not, his swings were met with nothing but a dull thud that came from his weapon’s repeated collisions with the monster’s sturdy scales. The monotony of it was punctuated by periodic streams of rock-melting plasma, and eventually, he sank into himself, his conscious mind buried so deep that he was barely aware of the agony that came from his melted flesh.

The wyrm, when Zeke bothered to notice, was engaged in a similar cycle of damage and repair, its insane vitality going to work on any injuries almost the moment Zeke inflicted them. It was a battle of attrition, and one neither was going to surrender anytime soon.

All the while, Zeke’s companions continued their own, less damaging assaults. Abby had adjusted her aim, guiding her arrows – and the subsequent bolts of lightning – toward the area where Talia and Pudge dug into the wyrm’s flesh. They had long since left the scales behind, but their efforts were like insect bites next to Zeke’s constant assault.

It wasn’t until they reached its exposed spine that the wyrm queen noticed them. But by then, it was too late. With their sharp claws, Talia and Pudge had dug a sizable crater in the sinuous creature’s flesh, and it was deep enough that, even with its writhing, they were almost impossible to dislodge. Their own attacks continued, and they began working on its bones. As they did, Talia periodically erupted into a cloud of decay that further weakened the monster’s flesh and bone. Pudge was more than willing to take advantage of that, ripping into both with his massive and powerful claws.

It was all conveyed to Zeke via the connection he shared with his soulbound companion, so it wasn’t nearly as detailed as Zeke might have liked. However, the meaning was clear: they were making progress. It was only a matter of time before they cut through the monster’s spine, and when they did, they hoped that it would be enough to turn the tide.

It was a good plan.

Of course, it didn’t take into account one, simple factor that made itself apparent when, suddenly, the Binding Light trap’s ropes finally dissipated and the monster broke free. Suddenly, the stationary creature was moving like lightning, coming at Zeke from a multitude of direction. It was all Zeke could do to defend, much less continue his assault.

One second, Zeke would be focused on the wyrm’s snapping jaws – which were still dangerous, even without its teeth – and the next, he’d be swept aside by its tail. He couldn’t focus on everything at once. Thus, the battle began to shift, and, slowly but surely, Zeke found himself losing.

It would still take a long time. He knew that. With his endurance and vitality, coupled with his skill, [Life Scythe], he had become nigh unkillable, so long as he could still swing his mace. But the writing was on the wall. The dissolution of the trap had pushed him over the edge, and the wyrm queen was vicious, angry, and experienced enough not to let that advantage fall away.

But as dire as his circumstances were, Zeke had never been one to give in. He had done given up in the wake of his injury back on Earth, and, in retrospect, he had long recognized just how much he hated the person it had turned him into. So, as long as he held breath, he would continue to fight. Maybe even after. He’d never reached his limits, after all; who knew where they lay?

The fight dragged on, with Talia and Pudge’s efforts continuing, albeit at a slower and more methodical pace. Abby had once again shifted her focus, aiming her arrows at the monster’s head, as much to distract it as to do damage. Those attacks gave Zeke the edge he needed to keep his head above water, if only barely.

Then, the battle shifted once again when, at last, Pudge broke through the creature’s jagged and exposed vertebrae and sliced through its vulnerable spinal cord. Mid-attack, the wyrm seized up, its every muscle contracting and spasming out of its control. It flopped around, completely incapable of continuing its assault.

Zeke seized on the opportunity, leaping upon its back and descending into the fleshy tunnel Talia and Pudge had dug. Once he reached them, he activated [Unleash Momentum], harnessing the force he’d gathered from the fight’s every swing of his mace, and guiding it forward to crush what was left of the monster’s vertebrae, spinal cord, and the flesh around it.

Zeke and his companions were thrown back, and the crater widened as everything before him was pulverized beneath the force of his skill. But Zeke wasn’t going to let up. Instead, he continued along, on swing after another, with each attack reducing the wyrm flesh to a slurry of smoking blood and liquified meat.

At some point, the monster ceased its thrashing. Still, though, its body trembled with slow, shallow breaths. It still lived.  And so, Zeke never let up. He refused to give it an inch. Not until, hours later, he reached the base of the creature’s brain. When he did, he once again utilized [Unleash Momentum], mashing the knobby flesh of its brain into paste.

Finally, it stopped moving.

Even so, it took Zeke more than a few minutes to regain his composure. And when he did, a deep sense of exhaustion – both mental and physical – nearly overwhelmed him. However, they weren’t finished.

Turning, he clamored back to where he’d left Talia and Pudge, and he was relieved to find both of them alive, if not well. Pudge’s hide was naked to the air, his fur long since burnt off, and Talia’s legs were still gone. Zeke could only hope that a heart or two could solve that problem. With sluggish movements, he helped them out of the cratered flesh, and once everyone was clear, he touched the wyrm queen’s corpse and looted it.

And he couldn’t keep a small smile from spreading across his face as he saw the [Heart of the Wyrm Queen] suddenly appear in his spatial storage. That smile lasted right up until he heard Talia say, “Where is Carlos? Is he okay?”