Standing next to the white core was a tall gembeast. Its body was a mixture of both red and blue—both colors seemed to glow and push against each other, like they were fighting for dominance. This gembeast was more similar to the Overseer than the rest of the guards we had obliterated. I raised my bow to fire, but a voice quickly spoke in my head.
I would not strike at me. In doing so, you will release the Nursery Keeper from its bondage. It shall consume everything within the woods and move on to the next inhabited realm, the voice warned. It spoke almost like…almost like the Overseer.
I did not stop raising my bow, aiming it straight towards the gembeast. “Do you understand my words?” I asked.
If you mean to communicate with me, you merely need to think it. I have connected our minds, it said. Your language is beyond me.
I was tempted to just fire and move on. After all, the core was the link to the Shadow Titan’s survival. Why not just destroy them both as quickly as possible?
The great beast is above this cavern. Its vortex rests on this entire area. The moment it senses pain, it shall send every last inch of its shadow arms into this place and seize all living things, the Masara warned, either reading my mind or simply anticipating my plans. You will perish before you can kill the core. That much I can assure you.
You seem awful confident for someone who just got caught off-guard, I replied. You really think that we can’t destroy a core within a few measly seconds?
This bravado seemed to take the Masara aback. It began to vibrate a little, displeased with my mental tone, and took a half step back, raising its arms. You would doom yourself, just to kill your prey? I had assumed the human lifeform was intelligent.
We are. Intelligent enough to know the cost of two lives isn’t worth the survival of a lot more people. So you have a choice. You can surrender now, or better yet, aid us in killing this core, or you can die here with the Shadow Titan. I’m not much in the mood for games.
I don’t know if the word ‘games’ could actually translate well to the creature, but it seemed to understand my desires well enough.
If you kill me, you kill the Overseer, it said, taking a step in front of the core. Looks like it wanted to play interference, tactically placing its body in front of the Titan core. I’m sure if I pulled my bowstring back hard enough, I could take them both out at the same time.
Oh well, I replied, trying to call its bluff. But the gembeast did not move aside.
I am not speaking in falsehoods to you. You must know that I possess the Overseer’s memory shard. That links us together, intrinsically. For you to destroy me is to shatter the memory shard, turning their entire pod into husks, empty and devoid of all thought, it protested.
Then I guess I better let you live, I replied. And with that, I aimed my True Arrow above the gembeast and let the shot fly over the head of the supposed possessor of the memory shard. The True Arrow knew to fly exactly to the core and struck the Titan’s weak point with great might, causing red blood to spray everywhere. Some of the blood splashed across the Masara in front of me.
Are you so determined to kill yourself? The gembeast shrieked as the ground began to shake violently. Before I could respond by shooting another arrow at the Titan core, there came a breaking sound from above, so loud that even my own muffled hearing could detect it. It was the sound of the ceiling of the cave being torn off in one fell swoop. And then? Pure darkness came barreling down, swallowing us all up.
Chapter 42
For what it was worth, I did consider my actions both reckless and foolish. But at the same time, it was an established fact that some kind of intelligence was guiding the Shadow Titan. Acting in a logical, rational manner when facing an opponent who expected such behavior put me at a disadvantage. However, striking the core out of impulse, without alerting my companion or showing any sign that I would do so, seemed to be the best way to put more damage into it. Whatever came next, well, we’d have to deal with it how we always did.
The nexus of shadow came crashing down on us, but Trig had already primed the light grenade the second I had fired my bow. One moment, a massive shadowy arm was coming towards us, the next a ball of light forced it to stop its advance, acting as a force field, keeping the Titan at bay.
No! You fools! The Masara shrieked as it aimed its arms towards me. A bolt of lightning came sailing my way, but for some reason, my Opportunist ability counted this attack as an ambush. I deftly dodged the bolt of lightning, sliding past the gembeast and firing another shot at the core. Though I was not shooting a True Arrow, it didn’t much matter. The core was exposed and my abilities were more than capable of puncturing a stationary core with no means of defense.
The shot struck the orb, spraying more blood out, causing the ground to shake even harder as the beast let out a deep scream. Everything around us, cavern wall, ceiling and even flooring that wasn’t covered by the light was torn upwards, sucked into the nexus as the Shadow Titan tried in vain to rescue its core. But the burning light of the grenade kept its power at bay.
More lightning came my way, one bolt striking me square in the back as I tried to roll out of the way. The Masara was more than capable of shooting rapid bursts, hitting me once more as I fell to the ground, gasping from the first shock.
I became acutely aware of my own heart stopping when the second bolt struck me, causing me to gasp for air. I fell flat, nerves burning on all ends as the electricity surged through me. The metal armor and the water-soaked clothes I was wearing didn’t much help in this situation.
Thankfully, the Masara was more focused on escaping than simply killing me. It blasted a few times at Trig, forcing him to duck and dodge, avoiding each shot expertly. I realized that he was holding two more light grenades in his hands, the last two we had. No doubt he knew the cost of darkness at this point. We had ten minutes on this grenade charge and then, darkness would fall.
As I tried to recover from the lightning strike, slamming my hand against my chest a few times, trying to get my heart to start back up (or was I simply in shock and convinced my heart had stopped?), the Masara ran to the Titan core and shoved its body against the large ball, forcing it to roll forward, all the while firing shot after shot at Trig.
The core rolled forward, towards the edge of the light.
“Trig,” I gasped, “don’t let the core leave the area!”
“I don’t have much to fight with here,” he said back, expertly dodging another barrage of lightning. The enemy Masara had no cooldown time with its electrical attacks, nor did it seem to slow down between shots. It had turned and pressed its back against the core, walking backwards as to allow it to keep shooting with both arms.
I climbed up for a moment, but my arms gave out once more, my nervous center screaming for relief. Damage reduction didn’t seem to apply much to the stunning effect of electrical shots.
“Uhhhh, I’ve got one option but it’s not great,” Trig said. He was referring, of course, to his latch ditch effort bombs. Explosives that packed a serious punch. “Not great for us, I mean.”
I rolled over onto my back, trying to get up. The stun effects began to wear off, but not quickly enough. I could do little other than move my head and my mouth…but maybe that’s all I needed! After all, I had the Lurbia charm on now!
“Hold that thought,” I said as I switched the Lurbia charm’s effect from damage reduction to the Frostbreath ability. At once, I felt a frigidness overtake my lungs, as if I had just inhaled freezing air after a long run. My lungs burned from it, but I wasn’t necessarily in pain. Hard to explain really. But I could feel a powerful frost building up in my chest, ready to burst out at a moment’s notice.
Inhaling deeply, I turned my head towards the escaping Masara, who was still struggling to roll the massive, wounded core, and let out a heavy exhale, blowing as hard as I could. A stream of frozen air blasted out of my mouth, nearly freezing my own tongue as it streamed straight towards the Masara.
The gembeast was taken by surprise from this attack and had no time to react, its entire body getting encased in a layer of ice.
Yet in spite of my attack, it continued to move, slowly, but still functional enough to get the core closer and closer to the edge. I inhaled deeply once more, faster than the beast could raise an arm to shoot at me one last time. Another frigid burst came forth from my mouth, coating the enemy Masara completely in ice, freezing it in place.
I began to cough spasmodically from my attack. My internal temperature had dropped 4 degrees from the rapid attacks, well within hypothermia range. I could already feel the numbness in my chest, legs and arms, as well as a deep urge to simply roll over and go to sleep. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my health had dropped down to 50% from the shock attacks. Maybe passing out wouldn’t be so bad.
“Holy crap! Did you just breathe ice? Was that on purpose?” Trig shouted, his boyish glee snapping me out of my stupor. That’s right! He was still here and there was still a core to destroy. I shook my head and activated my second wind ability. While it wouldn’t restore health, it would at least give me enough energy to jump back into the battle.
A bit of energy surged through me, not enough to counter my intense sleepiness and fatigue, but enough to get me off the ground, bow back in hand. Trig was already atop the core, stabbing with all his might, but his attacks kept bouncing off.
“This...won’t…break!” he grunted with each strike, his knives utterly useless.
I fired a few shots as well, only to see them barely puncture the surface. The skin around the core had toughened considerably and I didn’t have the strength to really give it my all. My body temperature dropping so suddenly had dealt some real shock to my system. Well, that combined with the trauma from getting hit with lightning twice. And from all my other injuries I had racked up this week.
“I got an idea,” I said. “And it’s stupid.”
“Stupid idea? Let’s do it!” Trig said. He was panicking as he continued to swing, over and over, his knives doing nothing but causing him more frustration.
I staggered up to the pulsing core. “The Shadow Titan thinks its core is in danger. It’s probably using some strong defensive abilities since the light is holding it back. Let’s return the core to where it belongs.”
“What?”
“With a parting gift, of course,” I said, pointing to the two grenades hanging off of Trig’s vest. “You said you can detonate them remotely, right?”
Trig looked at me with a blank expression, then grinned as what I was suggesting clicked into place. “You got it!” he said as he unhooked his grenades and began rapidly sticking them to the bright core, using some kind of sap to glue them in place.
“You okay?” he asked as I staggered backwards, my hands out trying to keep me balanced.
“Whatever my enemies do to me seem to always pale to what I do to myself,” I replied, bending over to breathe a little easier.
“Just hang in there. These babies should do the trick.”
In spite of his confidence, I mustered what energy I had left to create one more True Arrow. Overkill, in my experience, never hurt. Fortunately, casting this spell wasn’t difficult at all. Focusing on infusing another arrow with mystic power actually seemed to get my mind off the pain. As a minute passed, I heard the sounds of cracking behind us.
“Looks like our buddy’s waking up…” Trig said, pointing to the frozen gembeast. The ice was slowly beginning to melt and crack, and within I could see the glowing red and blue lights of the Masara as it was trying to break free. “Should we kill it?”
“Did you hear what it was saying?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Do you believe it?”
There was silence there. “I don’t know. But at this point, I say we call it and just kill the thing. Who knows if it can empower the Shadow Titan?” Trig said. “Better safe than sorry.”
“No…it’s not in charge,” I said. “Because if it were, it would have tried to bargain with us. Instead, it just made threats. Tried to scare us off. Because it has no power.” I glanced back at the rows of crystals that were still attached to the walls in the cavern section behind us. “These Masara are not independent. I think they’re being controlled by the Titan. And if the Titan we’re fighting is intelligent…”
“Then maybe it imbued one of them with the Memory Shard, giving it enough smarts to speak and to manage this cavern. And to even fix damage to the core,” Trig reasoned out.
More cracking answered his words. He looked at me. “Can you freeze it again?”
“Not without falling into a coma,” I said. “Let’s just blow this core up and go home. I’m too tired to think about anything else.”
“More beautiful words were never spoken,” Trig agreed. He leaned against the large core and gave it a shove, rolling it straight towards the darkness.
There came a loud schwoom sound, as the core was sucked up into the nexus, back into the Shadow Titan’s body, or at least, into the center of the vortex. Trig looked at me, gritted his teeth and focused for a moment. A massive explosion sounded high above us, followed by the shrieks and wailing of the Shadow Titan. But, for all the pained sounds of the creature, we did not hear any confirmation that it was dead.
“Get your light grenades ready, Trig,” I said, placing my True Arrow on my bow and staggering forward. “It’s time to finish this.”
Chapter 43
The shadows were retreating from the ball of light, moving almost like paint across a canvas, recoiling and retracting up into the sky. For the first time, I could see the forest for what it was, a gigantic stretch of red trees, green grass and beautiful flowers everywhere.
There was a small clearing in front of us, with the wreckage of a large metal structure strewn about. The metal was impossibly old, rusted to hell and hideously ugly. I could not make sense of what this structure was supposed to be, but I could certainly tell that it was not a building of any kind. At least, it had not been a building. Now it was just a pile of rubble, an ancient testament to the forgotten world of old.
Above, the darkness was swirling and retracting into a tight ball, the shadows moving and writhing like serpents across the sky. I could see more and more of the forest revealing itself as natural light, the beautiful natural sunlight came raining down touching everything unblocked by the shadow above us.
“Woah…I had almost forgotten what the sun was like,” Trig said as he rushed to my side, twin light grenades in hand. We had not been expecting the darkness to retreat fully. “Can you see the core?”
My eyes narrowed as I searched the center of the mass of darkness above us. I could see nothing of the sort. My enhanced senses could not detect a core anywhere.
You have destroyed the core but not the beast, said a voice in my mind. It was irate, confused and somewhat unfocused. But I could sense anger welling within it. The damn thing…merged with me. Avery, I am beginning to reassert myself.
I turned around to see that the red-blue Masara was beginning to shift in color. It had broken free from the ice, but was not intent on attacking us, instead just wandering in circles. The red light faded slowly as the blue spread out across the Masara’s body, overtaking the form. It continued speaking in the familiar tone of the Overseer. Something is wrong. The Titan core has been destroyed, yet… the beast still lives. I do not understand.
I glanced at the sky once more to see that a silhouette was beginning to form. The shadows were becoming…solid? No, that couldn’t be…
“Is it just me or is that thing looking like it’s turning into something?” Trig asked, his question echoing my thoughts exactly.
Indeed, just as we feared, the dark shadows began to twist and solidify, turning from ethereal shade into black, rubbery skin that glistened in the sunlight. And as the shadows began to turn real, so did they begin to give form to a most immense creature, a true Titan in the sense of the word. Two long arms
began to sprout, with sixteen jagged claws each the size of a human.
A diamond-shaped torso emerged, with four short, stubby legs connected at the bottom, each leg emerging and slamming into the ground, destroying trees and causing massive shockwaves through the earth. I could feel the very ground beneath me buckle up and down from the creature’s landing.
As the Shadow Titan took its new form, a pair of glinting eyes appeared, not from a head, but rather on the torso. No mouth was present, at least none that I could see.
“Man, this day just keeps getting better,” Trig grumbled as we both watched the transformation complete.
I understand now. The Nursery Keeper has been imbued with two cores. The first to give it dominance and the second to give it shape, the Overseer said. I should suppose you can handle this just fine.
“Oh yeah,” I said as the newly formed beast before us let out a hideous roar that shook all the leaves surrounding us. It towered at almost forty feet high but was still dwarfed by the trees themselves. A small silver lining, I suppose. “It’s definitely going to be a walk in the park.”
I raised my bow to shoot but was struck by a realization. The shadows were gone. Completely gone. The beast could no longer just grab anyone within the darkness. This was our chance to get the villagers out of here!
“Trig!” I shouted while readying four arrows. “Go back to the village and get everyone out, quick as you can.”
“Ma’am?”
“You’re out of good bombs anyway,” I said. “We can hedge our bets this way. Get the villagers to the mountains. Once they’re safe with Brimley, reload your explosives and come back. That’s an order.”
“You got it,” Trig said, turning and darting into the woods. He wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Either that, or he truly trusted my judgment.
Monster Hunting 401: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure Page 23