The Weaponized: The Complete LitRPG Series

by Victor Deckard

  We stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, straining to hear. All was quiet. The only sound was the howl of the wind outside the house.

  I walked to the first door on our left and pushed it open into what looked like a study. The wind whistled, coming in through an open window. Vlad stepped up to me and looked into the room, lifting the holographic sight of his machine pistol to eye level as if expecting the spider queen to show up this exact moment. The Raid Boss did not reveal itself, though. Not yet, anyway.

  I crossed the corridor and shoved open the door that was directly opposite the previous one. It was a bedroom. It was empty. I looked out the window set in the rear wall. The giant arachnid was nowhere in sight.

  “Show yourself, you ugly bastard,” I heard Vlad say.

  Looking over my shoulder, I saw him peer down the holographic sight as he pointed his handgun at the study window.

  As I stepped back out of the bedroom, the window at the end of the corridor suddenly shattered as one of the enormous spider’s legs shot through it.

  Both Vlad and I whirled around toward the sound. The arachnid’s leg whipped through the air and plunged into the Russian’s midsection. He collapsed to the ground with a yelp of pain. The razor-sharp tip of the spider’s leg sliced deeper into his body, pinning my teammate to the ground.

  I noticed the arachnid’s face appear in the corridor window as the monster took a peek inside. Whipping my pistol up, I pointed it at the creature’s only eye and opened fire.

  Now that the monster was half-blinded, it was not keen on taking unnecessary chances. As soon as one of my slugs hit the creature in the ugly face, the arachnid wrenched its leg out of the floor and Vlad’s body and pulled it back out of the window. Then the monster scurried away, disappearing from sight.

  The Russian moaned in pain. I sat on my haunches beside my wounded teammate and took stock of his wound.

  “Did you hit it?” He whispered. “Is the ugly fucker dead?”

  “Dream on,” I replied. “I hit it once, but one bullet can’t kill it.”

  “Figures,” the Russian muttered. “Where is it? Is it gone?”

  “For now,” I said, studying his wound. “But it’ll be back soon.”

  Vlad groaned as his face twisted with a pang of pain. “Damn. It hurts.”

  He lifted his head as he attempted to look at his wound.

  “How bad is it?” He asked.

  It did not look good. It did not look good at all. The arachnid’s leg had hit the Russian in the middle of his stomach, right where all the important stuff was.

  His head dropped back to the floor. “Damn. I don’t feel very well. Am I gonna die? I don’t want to die, Dave. Shit.”

  The Russian was really afraid to die. He seemed to be no longer believing that it was just a video game where a player could revive after being killed. He must have finally realized it was real life.

  “Is everything all right up there?” I heard Nate yell from the first floor.

  I looked toward the stairs and shouted back, “Vlad’s wounded. Alyson, can you come upstairs?”

  A few seconds later, there was the pounding of feet and then Nate and the girl showed up.

  “Hey, are you okay, mate?” The British guy asked.

  “What do you think?” Vlad groaned.

  “Oh my gosh,” Alyson said as she walked to the Russian and saw the nasty wound in his stomach.

  “Think you can patch him up?” I asked, looking up at the girl.

  She looked uncertain. “I will try.”

  The girl then held her hands to Vlad’s wound, and a bit later, mysterious bluish energy flowed out of her palms toward the Russian’s wounded stomach.

  The damaged organs began to heal and the bleeding stopped as the slash in his stomach was quickly closing. I had no idea how nanotrites worked, but this technology was awesome. It was like magic.

  “How are you feeling?” Alyson asked with a concerned look on her face as if uncertain whether her abilities worked.

  “Better,” Vlad answered. “Much better.”

  His wound was almost closed. Alyson continued to heal the Russian.

  The log cabin suddenly shook violently as something heavy smashed against it.

  “What the hell was that?” Vlad asked.

  “The spider queen’s still trying to smash its way inside, I guess,” I said. “What else can it be?”

  A terrified scream cut through the air from the first floor. A second later, we heard the crack of gunfire. I glanced at the Russian’s midsection again. His fatigues were stained with blood, but the wound itself was gone.

  Alyson ceased emitting the flow of healing energy from her palms and looked Vlad in the eyes. “How are you feeling now?”

  “Great,” he replied. “As good as new. I can kick that arachnid’s ass again.”

  “It was the other way around,” I said as I stood up and extended my left arm toward Vlad. He gripped my hand and I helped him up. The four of us then ran down the corridor and bounded down the steps. In under three seconds, we reached the bottom of the stairs and took stock of the chaos that was taking place in the living room.

  The spider queen was pressing its enormous body to the shattered window as if trying to squeeze inside. One of the colonists lay on the floor, penetrated by the spider’s leg. He was still alive, though. He was screaming in pain as the monster tried to drag him toward itself.

  The other two colonists held him by the arms, pulling him in the opposite direction. Another colonist was firing his machine pistol at the mammoth spider. The bullets drilled into the giant monster, but its health bar was shrinking way too slowly. Without Vlad and his dark-energy-infused bullets, the colonists had no chance of defeating the Raid Boss.

  Suddenly, another of the monster’s legs sliced into the living room and pounced on the wounded man. It stabbed him in the torso and slashed across his midsection. The two colonists that were tugging at him tumbled backward onto the floor. When they sat up, they saw that the colonist was torn in half, his innards spilling out, blood pouring over the floorboards.

  Screaming in horror, they dropped his arms and backed up rapidly as several of the huge spider’s long legs clawed through the air and scratched through the wooden floorboards. The creature tried to get the colonists, but they stayed out of its legs’ reach.

  “Fuck this shit,” one of them shouted. “I’m out of here.”

  He dashed across the living room, ducking the spider’s legs slashing through the air at him.

  “No,” Nate shouted to him. “Stay in the house. You can’t outrun the bloody thing.”

  The man would not listen to him, of course. He made it to the hall, then ripped open the door and got out of the house.

  We ran into the middle of the living room. Through the shattered living room window, we could see what was happening outside.

  The man ripped open the driver’s door of the Humvee we had driven here and got in. A second later, the vehicle pulled away from the log cabin in reverse. The large car executed a tight U-turn, then the colonist behind the steering wheel slammed the gear shift into first and stomped on the accelerator. The tires spun for a moment, then the vehicle gained traction and the car lurched forward. It did not get far, though.

  The giant arachnid coiled its legs, then leaped. It landed right in front of the vehicle. The car crashed into one of the creature’s front legs, the entire engine block collapsing around it. The arachnid lifted another leg off the ground and then brought it down on the Humvee.

  It sliced through the car roof with a screeching sound. It did not get the colonist inside, though. The driver's door swung open, and the man climbed out. Yelling in panic, he wheeled around and tore off.

  The spider queen gave chase.

  “Don’t let it get him,” Nate yelled as he brought up his pistol.

  It was obvious that we could do nothing to help the colonist out. Still, our small team and t
he rest of the colonists simultaneously opened fire on the creature. We fired at the monster through the shattered living floor window. The creature totally ignored us.

  The spider queen caught up with the runner in no time. One of its legs shot forward and pierced the man in the back, the tip thrusting out of his chest in a shower of gore. The spider lifted the colonist off the ground. He kicked his legs and flailed his arms but could not get himself off the spider’s razor-sharp leg he was impaled on.

  The giant arachnid brought the colonist to its mouth and sunk its teeth into him. The man’s body went stiff as soon as the spider’s venom entered his system. The spider then dropped the motionless body to the ground and returned to the crashed Humvee.

  It examined the vehicle for a moment. When it realized there was no one else inside the car, the arachnid gave it a powerful kick with one of its front legs. The large vehicle hurtled through the air toward the log cabin.

  “Oh shit,” Vlad shouted.

  “Get out of its way,” I yelled as I dashed to the side.

  My teammates followed suit. The two remaining colonists were not quick enough to get out of the car’s path, though. The Humvee barreled through the shattered window and got in the living room. It slammed against the two colonists and collapsed to the floor, crushing the two men beneath its bulk, pulverizing their bones. Both of them got smashed to a pulp by the large vehicle.

  The front of the house shook as the spider queen’s body slammed against it again. The sound of groaning wood filled our ears. One of the spider’s legs lunged inside through the shattered window. It whipped through the air toward Alyson who did not seem to notice, because she was staring in shock at the dead bodies of the two colonists lying beneath the Humvee.

  I dashed toward the girl, slamming my shoulder against her side and knocking her out of the spider’s leg’s path. So instead of piercing the girl, the razor-sharp tip plunged into my thigh, slicing through flesh, tearing muscle and severing blood vessels. Blood oozed around the tip of the creature’s leg embedded in my thigh.

  I yelled in pain as the huge arachnid suddenly pulled his leg back, sweeping my feet out from under me. I collapsed to the floor.

  Nate rushed across the room toward me, trying to grab me by the shoulders. But he was too late. The creature dragged me across the floor, then lifted me off the ground. I was yanked through the shattered living room window. I knew what the overgrown spider was going to do next. I did not feel like being paralyzed by its venom and placed in an acid cocoon later on.

  Dropping my pistol, I took hold of the spider’s leg embedded in my thigh and wrenched my leg free. The pain was unbearable and I cried out as blood poured out of my wound. I let go of the arachnid’s leg and dropped a few feet to the ground.

  I crawled toward where my pistol lay. I reached for the handgun that lay to my right within easy reach. My fingers closed around the pistol grip and I rolled onto my back. The giant creature loomed over my body, its only bulging eye staring expressionlessly down at me.

  My teammates ran to the shattered window, firing their weapons at the spider. The creature totally ignored the bullets drilling into its body.

  Before I could fire at the monster’s ugly face, the arachnid slashed at me, one of its legs lancing through my right shoulder, pinning me to the ground.

  I yelled in pain. I tried to lift my arm to point my pistol at the creature’s only eye but could not. The giant spider lifted another leg. It hovered above me, about to penetrate my body.

  I employed my Active Ability to blink several meters behind the spider queen. The huge arachnid stabbed its razor-sharp leg into the ground where I had been a second before.

  I collapsed to the ground because the nasty wound in my leg did not allow me to stay erect.

  Instead of searching for me, the enormous turned its attention toward my three teammates firing at it from the inside of the log cabin.

  I could not stand up, but I could still use my Active Ability. I could use it two more times before it would go on cooldown, which would be more than enough to get me back to the house.

  Yet before I could employ my blinking ability again, I saw a spectral human-shaped form moving swiftly toward me. I then realized it was Alyson who had used her ult. So this was what the girl looked like when her Ultimate Ability was active. It was the first time that she had ever employed it.

  She slipped past the spider queen and approached me. She took stock of my wounds. The one in my shoulder did not seem to be serious. But the one in my thigh was bleeding profusely probably because the femoral artery might have been severed. The girl wasted no time using her healing ability on me. She concentrated the healing energy flowing out of her palms on the wound in my thigh first. As soon as it healed up, she shifted her attention to my wounded shoulder.

  A minute later, I was ready to fight again. The girl extended her arm to me and helped me to my feet. I thanked her and then we both turned to look at the spider queen that was still trying to crash its way into the log cabin.

  How do we get back in? I thought.

  Sure, I could use my Active Ability to get back in the house, but unfortunately, unlike my ult, my blinking ability could not be applied to my teammates. As to my Ultimate Ability, it had not recharged yet, so I could not create a teleportation tunnel at the moment. The effects of Alyson’s own ult had already worn off. The girl was no longer in her spectral form, so she could no longer sneak past the enormous arachnid without its seeing her.

  So we had a bit of a problem there.

  However, before we could find a solution to it, something bad happened. The front of the log cabin finally yielded to the spider queen constantly banging the bulk of its body against it and collapsed in. While the enormous spider still could not squeeze its enormous body in the house because it was almost as big as the log cabin, its long legs could now reach much farther in. Nate and Vlad were no longer safe inside the log cabin, so they burst out of the house.

  We had no choice but to fight the Raid Boss in the open.

  Vlad and his battle drone were dealing the most damage to the spider queen, their bullets exploding after penetrating the Raid Boss and taking pieces of flesh out of its body.

  The spider queen was well aware that the drone posed the most threat to it since it was equipped with a powerful machine gun firing explosive bullets. The Raid Boss tried to hit it, but most of the time, the drone managed to stay out of the reach of the spider’s legs.

  The monster managed to bring the battle drone down with a powerful smack of one of its legs a couple of times, but Vlad then re-deployed it after cooldown. The spider seemed to realize that it was one of us who created the drone because at some point, the spider queen gave up on trying to destroy the drone and focused on us instead. It could not figure out which of us deployed the battle drone, though.

  Nate was constantly using his abilities to create protective shields. When his abilities were recharging and he could not form his shields to protect us, I would do my best to try to distract the spider queen from my teammates. When the enormous arachnid would turn its attention to me and begin chasing me, I would use my blinking ability to get away from it.

  I was not trying too hard to escape from the creature, though. The Raid Boss seemed to be pretty smart, at least being smarter than the ordinary overgrown spiders. So if it found out that it could not get me, it would stop chasing me, the way it had given up on trying to get the battle drone, and I would not be able to distract its attention from my teammates.

  So I did not try too hard to stay out of the reach of the giant spider’s legs. It was very risky, and I had a few close calls. One time, the spider queen managed to hit me, slicing one of its razor-sharp legs through my body and pinning me to the ground. My Active Ability had not yet recharged at that point, so I could not escape.

  Nate and Vlad with his battle drone attacked the spider queen with everything they had. Instead of finishing me off, the Raid Boss was
forced to turn its attention to them. I just lay on the ground, bleeding profusely. Had it not been for Alyson and her magic-like healing abilities I would have bled to death.

  Nate and Vlad had a couple of close calls too, but the rest of us helped them out.

  So our tactic was working. Slowly but steadily we dealt damage to the Raid Boss, wearing it down. The more damage we did to it, the weaker it became. As its movements grew slower and slower, it was getting easier and easier for us to dodge the huge creature’s sluggish blows.

  When the Raid Boss had less than ten percent of its health points, the enormous spider decided to retreat. As we started to chase it, we heard the crack of gunshots coming from the colony. Smaller but still overgrown arachnids were attacking the settlement. We realized that it had to be the Raid Boss having given a mental command to its minions to attack the settlement. The spider queen knew that we would come to the colonists’ aid to help them fight off the arachnids instead of chasing their wounded queen.

  However, not all of us were eager to help the colonists out. The Russian turned away from the settlement and begin rushing after the severely wounded spider queen.

  “Where the heck are you going?” I shouted after him.

  “It’s almost dead,” Vlad yelled back over his shoulder. “We gotta finish the ugly bastard off. Let’s go, guys. Hurry up!”

  And without waiting for us to catch up to him, he continued to run after the Raid Boss, which was headed for the forest.

  “No,” Nate yelled. “We’ve got to help the colonists first.”

  “But the bastard will get away,” Vlad yelled back, “and heal itself. We gotta finish it off before it patches itself up.”

  Since it was real life, I really doubted that the severe wounds we had inflicted upon the spider queen were able to heal that quickly. But sure enough, it was useless to argue with Vlad.

  “We’ll find it again,” Nate cried out to him. “Get back over here. We’ve got to help those people.”