[Tainted Lands] 11 – Red Sky and Attack

As I spent the next couple of days playing with Mana Shaping, I started working on making the largest golem yet, fashioned out of several logs that were melded into one another to shape a humanoid log that looked natural, standing half my height. It had two small crevices to symbolize eyes, yet lacked a mouth or nose. It had no ‘hair’ and its head was perfectly round, or as round as I could make it. 

I wanted to explore what else I could add to the Golem over the next several days, but my attention was elsewhere.

I had noticed a strange phenomenon over the last couple of days.

Randomly, the sky would flash red, but it was becoming more and more common as the days passed, until…the sky turned red and stayed red. The sky turning red was followed by a gigantic earthquake that sent me flailing from my meditation to steady myself. Then, I watched as the red sky only deepened in color, becoming a deep, dark shade of red that appeared more like human blood than anything else.

Then, not long after the earthquake, I heard the rattling of my makeshift can and wire alarms go off as soon as the earthquake stopped.

I rushed to grab the axe and stood in my backyard, waiting for any sign of something approaching. The Golems also waited, taking up positions between the forest and me. 

That’s when I saw it. Stalking through the trees, something resembling a coyote but…off. Then another, and another. 

Within moments, a pack of four stalked out from the shrubbery and into my Backyard.

Not wanting to lower my guard or risk an attack from somewhere else, I ordered the smaller Golems to attack.

I knew the smallest of my Golems, the Dolls, would prove next to useless against the Coyotes, but they were the ones I sent out first, their group numbering a dozen as I started making my Golems bigger, stronger, after the Dolls. 

With sudden movement, the smallest Golems charged forward first, their arms shifting into countless long tendrils that fastened into need like bark that would certainly hurt whoever was hit by it, and the Coyotes, seemingly surprised, just…stood there as my Dolls got close, close enough to strike, and strike they did.

That’s when it happened, the flesh of the Coyotes before me tore open, splitting apart like a carcass under a butcher’s knife. Gapping maws revealed themselves from within the parted flesh as they stomped forward and…swallowed the several dolls at once. 

No longer deciding to hold back, I summoned a Mana Bolt and with great accuracy, launched it forward, the bolt striking the side of one of the Coyotes, charring and burning its skin.

I put quite a bit of mana into the Bolt, so I was not surprised to be greeted by a notification informing me that the skill leveled up before I threw four more similar bolts forward, striking the other Coyotes with the last hitting the first Coyote again before I rushed in after my Golems.

I did not have many Mud Golems but man did I enjoy the sight of the three under my control flow over one of the horrible monstoriousites before dragging it down into the dirt where it struggled and bit at the mud, doing minor damage before some of dolls started crawling over it, stabbing everywhere across its body. 

The other monsters did not lie still, as they rushed forward, one charging straight for me while the others fought my golems.

I rushed forward towards the weakest monster by far, the one getting absolutely dog pilled by a bunch of my Golems, and with a swift downward swing of my axe, the skull of the monster split open, and a notification greeted me.

[You have slain Eldritch Abomination Level 12!]

Commanding the Golems to move onto the next monster, I charged towards the Abomination with the least amount of Golems attacking it, this particular Abomination being somewhat bigger than the others and boasting far sharper teeth and strength, as it crushed a Doll with a swing of its paw.

Frowning, I suddenly shouted, "Over here, ugly!" to draw its attention away from my Golems, and commanded the Golems that were attacking that particular abomination to back off and assist the others in taking down the other Golems.

Once the Golems crawled or walked away, the beast's full attention was on me, and without any hesitation, it charged.

I waited for it to get close.

Close enough till it could lunge, and when it did, I summoned a small Mana Shield, and for the brief moment it was active, I used the shield to shove the monster to the side, but with the shield's small size, it did little to block everything and one to the paws did reach, claws raking across my leg causing me to wince and grunt.

That didn't stop me from raising the axe and swinging down. Unfortunately, the abomination, which had already gotten back on its feet, managed to jump back far enough to only get a glancing laceration. Before I could defend myself, it lunged forward, its open maw digging into my leg as it tried to bite the axe, and in the process, I ignored a notification that appeared as I tried to defend myself.

Screaming out in pain, I gritted my teeth and, in either a fit of anger or instinct, slammed my fist down into the coyote's head with all my strength, making it whimper and loosen enough from my leg for me to grab my knife in my back pocket, unfold it, and thrust it deep into its eye.

[You have slain Eldritch Abomination Level 17!]

[You have leveled up!]

Ignoring the notifications, I hissed in pain but pushed the corpse off my leg and fell to the ground.

I needed to bandage the wounds. The laceration and deep mauling it did to my leg left my leg flaring in unimaginable pain and unusable.

That's when I got another notification.

[You have slain Eldritch Abomination Level 7!]

Looking up to look at the other monsters, I was much surprised when I saw the other two were already dead.

Pushing that thought behind me as the adrenaline flooded my veins and the pain started to numb, I called out for the Golems to bring me my med-kit that I had in the bathroom.

While it did take them a few minutes, when they finally brought it out, I opened the kit hurriedly and began to dress the wound. However, I quickly noticed that I lacked anything to disinfect the wound, having only what I needed to stitch it closed and wrap it in bandages.

I was lucky it didn't break any bones, but the damage was certainly severe as I started to already bleed through the bandages. I then had them bring me a decent and relatively straight tree branch and had them help me to my feet, where I tried to keep the pressure off my leg. With the help of my Golems, I managed to get back into the house before collapsing as my other leg went numb and I started to get dizzy.

Looking at my status, I noticed I was rapidly losing health by the second, and when I looked down, I saw that the blood coming from the wound was a deep, dark red, darker than what was expected.

Shit, it cut an artery.