by James Hunter
Some part of my brain, however, insisted that there had to be some other way.
For a moment I considered activating my new Divine Warrior Ability—just tap into the Divine essence of Sophia and try to muscle my way out. But no. Even with the boost, I didn’t think I’d stand a chance in a physical confrontation. Besides, if I triggered it, I ran the risk of getting slammed with the Battle Fatigue debuff, which would be a death sentence in a fight like this. I’d have to use my wits here.
I blinked, focusing as I blocked out the pain and surveyed the creature’s belly.
Yellow overlapping plates covered most of its gut: implacable sheets of weapon-proof armor. But right in the center, where the plates joined, was a small gap about the size of my closed fist.
That opening burned with an orange light—a road flare that screamed hit me, hit me, I’m the weak spot. Boss creatures like these always had at least one, though I had to admit that was one helluva tiny opening. A memory struck suddenly: me sitting on my dad’s knee as a six-year-old, leaning back against him as A New Hope played on the Holoscreen. I remembered popping a handful of popcorn into my mouth as Luke Skywalker maneuvered his X-Wing along the surface of the Death Star, gunning for the vulnerable exhaust port.
Seeing my dad’s weather-beaten face again hurt—a reminder of what I’d lost.
I pushed away the swell of emotion. Now wasn’t the time or place for grieving.
I had my own version of the Death Star to destroy, and that little orange glimmer of flesh was the key, if only I could find a way to exploit it. I’d never be accurate enough with Umbra Bolt to make the hit—not while pinned against the dirt, dying a slow death by crushing.
But I had enough juice to unleash Night Cyclone, just barely. And while Luke Skywalker went with precision, I decided to go with the nuclear option. As I released a scream that burbled from deep in my chest, arctic power ripped its way through my body, sprinting down my outthrust arm as the fabric between the planes ripped open. Water rushed into the opening, showering the far reaches of the Shadowverse while a death-dealing cyclone exploded into the underwater realm, a black hurricane of force and whipping wind.
The spell battered the creature from beneath; gale-force gusts and jagged streaks of purple lightning clawed at the exposed patch of skin, digging inward. I choked back a laugh as I watched the boss’s HP dip by five percent. The dread crab let out an undulating wail of pain and rage, rearing back, its claws flashing up, freeing me. I didn’t waste the opening. Nope. I flipped onto my belly and swam for all I was worth, making my way toward the marble stands so I could reevaluate.
Regroup and get my bearings.
I wheeled around once I was out of range, just in time to see my Night Cyclone dissipate, vanishing back into the Void, leaving only a violent eddy of water. The crab dropped back down, offering me a view of its sand-covered shell. Osmark was on top of the monster, decked out in his Goliath mech armor, huge feet planted as he went to town on the pillar. His buzz saw flashed out, chewing into stone, spitting out a cloud of rock chips while his free hand was wrapped snugly around the trident embedded in the dirt.
A brilliant move, that. The trident wouldn’t budge, so he was using it as an anchor, preventing himself from being bucked free.
I glanced at the pillar and noticed that it had an HP meter, separate from the Cove Guardian’s. And while the giant crab’s life was still above 90%, the cancerous pillar was already below 50%. Osmark was doing the thing.
But we had bigger problems to worry about …
The crab kept right on belting out its ear-shattering bellow, and a tsunami of Ningyo were flooding in as a response, pouring over the high walls of the acropolis and slipping in through the marbled passageways. Dammit, it was calling for backup. And now that I was out of range, the crab was turning its attention toward Osmark, one giant claw darting toward the Artificer. Osmark caught the motion and managed to juke left, just in time to avoid having one of his beefy metal legs snipped off.
“Could use some help here, Jack!” he hollered, voice carrying over the din of the battle.
“On it,” I shouted back, shooting forward, dagger drawn. But even as I swam, I knew this wasn’t going to work. After my barrage of Umbra Bolts and Night Cyclone, I was painfully low in Spirit, so I’d have to go melee for a while, which was a losing proposition against a boss like this. And even if I could provoke the creature enough to draw its attention, there were all the Ningyo Thralls to think about. Those things would overwhelm Osmark in a heartbeat. Bury him in an avalanche of limbs and scales and snapping teeth.
What we needed was more bodies. We needed a team … minions.
I paused, legs faltering, my eyes widening, a vicious grin spreading across my lips as the spark of an idea invaded my head like a Marine Corps assault team. I glanced at my Spirit. 210. Just enough. Back in range, the monster crab focused its attention on me like a laser, its claws jabbing toward me. I let them, triggering Shadow Stride inches before they cut me in half. A smear of black invaded the waters as I disappeared through the planes and time staggered to a stop.
I glanced at Osmark, frozen in battle, his saw blade gouging into the pillar while he tried to bat away the first party of Ningyo with his free hand.
But I ignored him, swiveling around until I spotted the thing I was looking for: a fat, suction-studded tentacle. The Void Abomination. The colossal creature was perched on the top edge of the acropolis, tentacles writhing as its many eyes stared at the sand pit floor and the giant crab. Perfect. But I didn’t have much time to see my plan through. I darted closer, opening my inventory as I moved, pulling free several Health Regen potions, which I had quite a surplus of. My Spirit was painfully low, so Umbra Bolt was out, but I needed a ranged attack.
I coasted to a stop, treading water with my legs, just out of its terrible reach. It stared at me, jaws cracking open, its otherworldly eyes narrowing to slits. It wanted to kill me, eat me, I could see that painted across its inhuman face. But it was also smart and cautious. I could almost hear its thoughts, What in the world is this tiny elf about?
“Want a nibble?” I yelled, voice reverberating in the water as I hefted a potion in one hand. “Come and give it a try.” I cocked back my arm and fastballed the potion through the water as though I were pitching on the mound back IRL. The potion thudded harmlessly against its bulbous head, then drifted down. I didn’t expect to hurt the beast—I wasn’t sure even my most potent attack would actually hurt that freak—but it did rile the Abomination up. Its tentacles burst into manic motion, its jaws clacking as it lurched toward me.
“Is the giant monster afraid of a scrawny elf with some healing potions?” I taunted, lifting another potion and hurling that one into its face as well.
It scooted closer again—now it was firmly down into the stands, though still out of range.
“Scared. I get it,” I said, nodding sagely. “You’re so used to being the big fish in a small pond.” I paused, glancing around. “It’s that thing, isn’t it?” I hooked a thumb at the crab. “You’re afraid of getting too close, right? Scared it might gobble you up. Small fry.” I grinned and threw the third Regen potion. And that was the straw that broke the Lovecraftian horror’s back. It rolled forward like a mudslide of shadowy flesh and deadly tentacles. I spun, arms pumping as I swam for the crab, darting between its chitinous legs and beneath its armor-plated belly.
A fat tendril snaked out, reaching for me, but I pulled my foot away just in time. I only had seconds left before the Shadowverse vomited me back into the Material Plane, so if my plan was going to work it was now or never. I turned again and lashed out, slapping an open palm against the rubbery surface of the extended limb. With a thought, I pulled myself back from the Shadowverse, focusing my energy, my power, on the eldritch creature beneath my hand. As a Grandmaster in Shadow Stride, I could pull someone into the Shadowverse, so it stood to reason that I might also be able to draw something from it.
A flurry of motion and
sound exploded to life, but I hardly noticed. The only thing that really mattered was the fat tentacle beneath my hand. I laughed out loud, feeling a surge of fiery triumph surge through my veins. The Void Abomination had come to play. And Osmark had insisted there was no way to cheat, no way to shift the paradigm. There was always a way, so long as you were willing to look for it and exploit the opportunity when it presented itself.
The tentacle withdrew, followed a moment later by a thunderous roar as the Abomination slammed full force into the Crab King, the two titans suddenly forced into a Godzilla-sized confrontation. A big part of me wanted to glide over to the stands and watch the ultimate royal rumble with a bag of popcorn and a Big Gulp. But Osmark was still up there, and so was the incoming army of enthralled Ningyo. We didn’t have a second to waste. I broke right, slipping out behind the crab and paddling up, landing lightly on the crab’s sand-covered shell.
Osmark was in a bad way.
He was still dutifully sawing away at the Necrotic Pillar—down to 30%, now—but the Ningyo reinforcements had finally converged on him en masse. They circled around him like a school of piranha, killing him incrementally. A bite here, a slash there. They harried him from every side, never staying still long enough to let him score a counter hit. Death by a thousand cuts.
Time to even the odds.
With a scream I surged forward, pulling my warhammer free with my right hand, dual wielding the sickle-blade with my left.
I smashed a shoulder into a fish-man with its back to me, slamming it forward as I struck, aiming for the base of its skull. The Ningyo were faster than me, but I’d caught this one off-guard, and there was nothing it could do but die a quick, brutal death. My weapon connected with a meaty thud and the crack of breaking bone, a Critical Hit flashing. Down the creature went, its limbs going slack as gore leaked from the grisly wound on the back of its head. I was already moving on, though, darting low to intercept an incoming Ningyo trying to take Osmark from behind.
I caught the creature’s hooked halberd on the haft of my warhammer, then spun inside its guard. I reversed my grip on the dagger, its curved blade running parallel to my forearm, and struck, dragging the outside edge of the weapon across the creature’s throat. Cloudy blood spurted into the water as the creature fell away with a gurgle and a gasp, dropping its halberd as it grasped at its ruined throat. Badly damaged and loosing HP with every breath, but not dead yet.
I glanced at my Spirit meter—1352—looking good. I stowed my warhammer and thrust one hand out, blasting the fish-faced beast right in the jagged teeth with Umbra Bolt. The creature backflipped away, drifting down. Dead. But there were still so many of the monsters to contend against. I dropped low, pushing my feet into the sand and my back against Osmark, daring the Thralls to come closer. Several of the creatures kept circling above, refusing to take the bait, but a trio floated down and shot in, hoping to overpower me with their numbers.
Except they were too close to the sandy shell.
With a curse, I called forth Umbra Bog, black tendrils of inky shadow erupting from the surface of the Crab King’s shell, wrapping around legs and arms, mooring the three Thralls fast. While they struggled and fought against the spell, I bolted forward, dancing among them, slashing at faces, necks—any exposed flesh, really—with my blade while hurling Umbra Bolts with reckless abandon, forcing the Ningyo swimming overhead to give Osmark a wide berth. When the third Thrall fell beneath my slashing blade, I glanced over my shoulder at the pillar, somehow still standing defiant.
Though not for much longer. The thing was down to 6%.
Holy crap, we were really going to do this!
I turned back, preparing to counter another assault, but then the whole world seemed to shudder and shake around me, the ground pitching right as we rolled, the giant crab capsizing like the Titanic after hitting the iceberg. My eyes widened in shock—what in the hell is going on here, I thought, before glancing down and catching sight of the dread crab’s HP. It was at zero. Zero. The Void Abomination had killed the crab—handily. The Ningyo circling us scattered as huge, grasping tentacles snaked into view.
I saw a pair of those tentacles wrap around a fish-man, pulling it apart at the waist as easily as I’d rip apart a piece of paper.
But then the view was gone—a small mercy—as the titan crab slammed into the earth, hurling me into the air as gritty sand billowed up in a mushroom cloud of white and brown, making it impossible to see. I hit the amphitheater floor, curling into a ball, hoping a giant crab leg wouldn’t flop over and crush me like an ant. I pressed my eyes shut tight, pulling in several deep breaths, teeth gritted as I waited. After a few seconds—when nothing had smashed me into bloody paste—I pried my eyes open and scrambled to my feet.
A combat notice popped up a second later:
<<<>>>
Debuffs Added
Fractured Arm: You cannot use your left arm and cannot cast mage spells requiring hand gestures; duration, 2 minutes.
Blunt Trauma: You have sustained severe Blunt Trauma damage! Stamina Regeneration reduced by 30%; duration, 2 minutes.
<<<>>>
I winced from the sharp pain which bloomed in my arm like a flower.
As far as I could tell, I hadn’t sustained any actual damage during the fall, which meant those debuffs belonged to Osmark. I crouched, scanning the battlefield as the dust settled around me like fresh powder. A host of Ningyo—at least twenty of them—swooped, dove, and twirled through the waters above, engaging with the Void Abomination I’ll hauled into their reality. The Cove Guardian Thrall lay on its side, dead, half of its shell buried in the earth. Miraculously, the pillar had survived the fall, its HP flickering at a mere 3%, only the very tip poking through a dune of white.
Osmark was nearby, alive, though his suit had been badly damaged during the fall. A stream of black oil and a flurry of bubbles jettisoned from ruptured joints and burst pipes.
With a groan, he wriggled free from the wreckage of twisted metal and ruptured tech. He clambered to his feet, but looked badly shaken, his skin pale, his HP down to a quarter, his left arm contorted at an unnatural angle. There was even a shard of white bone popping through both skin and the fabric of his Victorian-era Artificer suit. He stumbled, keeping his feet only because the water helped to prop him up. If anyone ever needed a Regen potion, it was Osmark, but unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to help him.
Still, alive was alive, and we had a mission to complete.
Seeming to read my thoughts, he yelled, “I’ll finish off the pillar.” He pulled free his repeater and triggered some mechanism, and a mini saw blade unfurled beneath the barrel like a flower in bloom. Then he glanced at the Abomination, which was busy trying to swat away the nimble Ningyo. Unsuccessfully, for the most part. They were just too damned fast for the colossus, but when the nightmare squid did land a strike it was fatal. Always. I watched, stomach lurching into my throat as the beast snagged a female Ningyo by the leg and popped the Thrall into its tooth-riddled mouth, crunching down, gore spurting out.
“Once the pillar is down,” Osmark yelled over his shoulder, “those Thralls should snap out of the spell. But that thing”—he nodded toward the hulking horror—“will still be around. So please be a gent and put it back where you found it.” He turned away without another word, driving his saw-bladed bayonet into the pillar with a screech, sparks flashing even in the water.
He was right, but thankfully getting this genie back into the bottle would be easier than taking it out. I stowed my blade and stole forward, weaponless, since there was no way I was hurting this thing. I angled right, zipping through the Crab King’s massive legs, then skirting along the edge of its belly. I crept to a stop behind a massive claw, half buried. I dropped into a low crouch, activating Stealth, watching as the Ningyo kept the Abomination nice and busy while I bided my time.
A handful of seconds trickled by, more of the fish-men falling—limbs torn off, bodies shoved into the horror’s churning jaws
. But then, just when it seemed all of the Thralls would fall to the juggernaut, a colossal boom like the eruption of a volcano tore through the air accompanied by a wave of toxic green energy. The cloud spread through the amphitheater like nuclear fallout, then billowed up and out of the acropolis, coating the whole city in fine emerald dust.
The Ningyo flitting through the water faltered at once, shaking their heads, bodies shuddering as though they were waking up from some long, terrible nightmare.
We’d done it. Somehow, we’d shattered the pillar and freed the inhabitants of the watery kingdom from the corrupting power of Vox-Malum. For now, at least. But the Abomination didn’t care about any of that. No, it was a creature of shadow and death, motivated only to kill and eat. It struck like a lightning bolt, snagging one of the now freed fish-men from the air, pulling the poor soul toward its snapping jaws. I moved on instinct, compelled to act before any more of the poor Ningyo perished unnecessarily.
The captured Ningyo above screamed in terror, and several of its companions rushed to its aid—some tried to pry their friend free with raw strength, while others hacked at the rubbery limb. Seeing the courageous act was a firm reminder of what was on the line—these fish-men were victims of dark magic, but underneath they were kind. Noble. Brave. As alive as Cutter. As me. And they deserved a chance to live. I mashed my palm flat against the Void Abomination’s skin and triggered Shadow Stride, channeling the power into the monster’s body.
The eldritch horror and I flickered and vanished in a puff of black smoke, slipping back into the Shadowverse. Back where the Abomination belonged. The creature threw its head back and offered an undulating cry of anger as the Ningyo simply phased through its tentacled grip. Gone. As the wail ceased, the beast turned its hideous army of violet eyes on me. Hatred burned in its glare, and I knew without question that this creature was both intelligent and aware. It knew me and knew I was responsible for trapping it back in this place.