Chapter 140 - The Beast

From my side, Vay’nar let out a scream of terror and started to run toward the outpost. I snatched his upper arm before he could get far, locking him in place. “No running,” I said. “You’re my ticket out of here if things go to shit.”

To his credit, he cleared his throat and stood a little straighter as the beast hammered into the ground, its long body burrowing out of view.

It must have been two or three hundred feet long and at least fifty feet wide. It lacked the muscularity of a dragon and was more rounded and worm-like, but it had thick forepaws and hindpaws that would definitely be capable of doing serious damage. The flattened head was round like a worms, but it had a gaping mouth full of seemingly endless, razor-sharp teeth.

“We have a few seconds,” I said, eyes tracking the massive cloud of dust and debris rising up from where it landed. “Do you have any spells that could help buy me time to get in close?”

“Buy time?” Vay’nar gasped. “Against that? We should be running. I should—” he pulled a dagger out of his robes, gripped it, and tried to slam it into his own chest to trigger stasis.

I blocked it easily with a Mana Shield, snatched the dagger from him, and flung it into the woods.

“Don’t be such a fucking coward,” I snapped. “You’re protected either way. So stay close in case I need to ride you out of here. And buy me time if you can.”

One look told me the man was going to be useless as anything but an escape pod, so I put the hope of him helping from my mind and focused on what I could do to kill this thing.

First, I chugged a vial of Rage Blood potion. I doubted this fight would last long, and the extra mass and muscle would at least help me move more quickly and maybe withstand a little punishment. The potion went down easy and I felt the familiar burning sensation passing through my whole body.

Blood beaded from my pores, soaking my skin and granting me the added boost of passive regeneration, thanks to my new Silver Boon. I fed a trickle of mana to the damage that began in my muscles, keeping myself healthy.

Next, I summoned a Forge Echo of my Silver Scream Bow loaded with Hungry Dark arrows. I didn’t know if it was worth even trying to use something like Acidbloom on a creature so large. Hoping to melt it with acid and cause serious damage seemed about as likely as putting out a forest fire with a garden hose.

But maybe the Hungry Dark could at least slow it slightly.

I felt the ground rumbling as the beast prepared to launch up again and braced myself. Soon… This was fucking crazy, but soon I was going to try to solo a monster nearly fifty levels higher than me and an entire rank above my own. I didn’t even know if this was possible, but I knew I’d kick myself if I didn’t at least try. With my necromancer escape pod, it wasn’t really that dangerous…

The ground shook harder, making me stagger to the side. I fell to one knee, planting a hand as I turned to the side and saw Vitus and Marcia Anukis rushing to join us.

I got back to my feet while the rumbling continued. I looked at Vitus. “What are you doing? You should be long gone by now.”

The man gave a shrug. “I’m here for glory, Helmet. If you’re going to take a shot at the beast, I’m not letting you hog all the honor. After all, I’ve never heard of tournament contestants actually killing a beast once it was released.”

Marcia said nothing, but my guess was she simply followed where Vitus led.

The shaking grew more and more intense, and I knew there was no point arguing. If they wanted to help, they could try, but I couldn’t afford to worry about their safety. Everyone down here but me should be protected by stasis fields. My life was the only one truly on the line if this went badly.

Dust burst up from the ground a few hundred feet ahead through the trees. And Burchakan the Cursed rose high into the air, sending rocks and boulders the size of full-grown bears spraying in every direction.

Trees exploded, cracking and tipping sideways or disintegrating into clouds of shrapnel as the rocks pelted the forest like meteors.

We all dove for cover, though it quickly became clear that trees were little more than a suggestion of safety against the onslaught.

And this wasn’t even one of his actual attacks. Damn, was I crazy for thinking I even had a shot of killing this thing?

I summoned Mana Shields above everyone, hoping they’d hold against direct hits. 

Vay’nar stood and ran from his place at my side, arms pumping as the old man broke into an impressively fast run.

God dammit.

I put a Reflective Mana Shield directly in front of him and watched as he smashed into it, the shield flared brighter, and then flung him a few dozen feet through the air to land near me.

A boulder the size of a house landed right where he’d been running before I stopped him, hitting so hard that half of its mass sunk into the ground.

Vay’nar stared at the spot, eyes wide.

“Not sure stasis would’ve even saved you from that,” I muttered. “Now stop fucking running. You want me to trust you after this is all over and help you? Prove it. Stay by my side.”

Vay’nar gave a shaky nod and slid under the Mana Shield I’d made for him again, body trembling as the rocks continued to rain down all around the forest.

I pulled out my Alchemist’s Kit for the first time since fighting Rake. The shadow blood leech squirmed inside. I carefully unstoppered it and tried to dump some water in, hoping I could make a potion from the thing. If I could, this wouldn’t just be a one-time secret weapon. It would be something I could bottle and use again and again.

To my disappointment, the water splashed on the leech and rolled off, causing no reaction at all. There was a small chance I could crush it up, but I’d been able to make Hungry Dark by dumping in bedbugs from my Cursed Bedroll and hadn’t had to crush them up. I doubted it mattered, and if I was wrong, crushing the leech would lose me any chance of using it against the beast.

It wasn’t a risk I could take.

That gave me one last chance to use Rake’s power, and I couldn’t think of a more worthy occasion than now.

I dismissed the bottle and shadow leech for the moment. I couldn’t fire Elemental Chain from this far away. I needed to get closer.

Once the rain of rocks was over, my Forge Echo moved out from cover and took aim.

Burchakan had landed and wasn’t burrowing anymore. At first, it seemed good, but then I felt Mana Sense warning me of a massive gathering of mana unlike anything I’d ever seen in his direction.

He was preparing an attack…

I caught a glimpse of his silhouette against the dust cloud rising high above the trees, wings spread and mouth gaping as blue light gathered deep in his neck. He let out an undulating roar so deep it caused the dust cloud to pulse with visible waves of energy and my teeth to rattle together.

I dismissed the protective Mana Shields and stood. I thought the only thing I needed to do was get close enough to try projecting the shadow leeches at the beast. If I could manage that, then—

Vitus broke out of cover and broke into a full sprint. He was fast as hell, even wearing a full set of armor and carrying a double-bladed axe that had to weigh at least a hundred pounds. Marcia was right behind him.

“Come on,” I said to Vay’nar.

The necromancer looked like he was thinking about running again, but something else crossed his face. He set his jaw, nodded firmly, then stood and ran with me toward the beast.

Good. Maybe he wasn’t entirely hopeless.

We passed into a thicker section of trees and I temporarily lost sight of the beast. The only sound was the heavy footfalls of the four of us rushing toward the unknown and the thump of my heartbeat in my ears.

As I ran through dust so thick I could hardly see, I felt doubt start to creep into my mind again. Somewhere ahead, the beast let out another roar that vibrated through my skeleton and made the ground tremble. More mana gathered until it was so dense that pain spiked through my head.

Even with Vay’nar as an escape plan, something as powerful as the spell it was gathering might be able to kill me in a single hit.

For a moment, I felt doubt begin to creep into my thoughts. But I dismissed it. This was a risk I wanted to take. And deep down, I believed I could do this, no matter how fucking crazy it felt in this moment.

Killing this thing would undoubtedly earn me accomplishments, one of which could even result in another cursed item. And with a full pool of mana, I thought I would at least be able to protect myself long enough to see if this secret weapon of mine had a shot of taking it down.

I just had to make sure my pet necromancer didn’t try to run off again, leaving me with no ticket up to the airships.

A beam of eye-wateringly bright blue light exploded into view, vaporizing the dust nearby and blasting it away to give a temporary view of the beast in the distance spraying magic from its mouth. The beam swept wide across the forest for a second or two before it shut off suddenly.

I blinked away the afterimage seared into my vision and saw Marcia already being lifted toward the airship, taken out instantly by the beam. Every single tree and bit of underbrush had been sliced away near the stump by the spell, too, making a clear line of sight through the dust that led to the beast’s gaping mouth. It let out another one of those deep, bone rattling roars and motes of blue light began gathering around its mouth again.

I caught sight of Vitus ahead. He had picked up supernatural speed, legs blurring as he lowered one shoulder and started to charge, blasting through trees just like I had when my Rage Blood potion was at full power.

My Forge Echo began firing off Hungry Dark Arrows at the beast. I saw one hit on its side, but even the direct hit hardly seemed promising. The black liquid spreading over the huge mass of Burchakan’s body looked more like a freckle. The idea of that small spot of darkness spreading wide enough to cocoon the whole thing was unlikely, but maybe when Silver Scream detonated, it could have a chance.

I drew my own Silver Scream Bow and started firing Hungry Dark arrows as well just as Vitus got in melee range of the beast.

He wasted no time and began swinging his massive axe, each strike booming loud as some kind of magical effect amplified the strikes. Each swing of his axe trailed green forking light that spidered out and faded from view. His body trailed the same kind of light as he hacked and swung at the thing, dodging a forepaw that came swiping for him at the last second and swirling back into combat in one smooth motion.

For a moment, a stab of panic that he might simply solo it without me set in, and I picked up my pace, dashing another few feet as I nocked the next arrow and paused only briefly to fire. I didn’t worry much about placement, and missing a target so large would’ve been almost impossible.

Another Hungry Dark arrow from my echo punched in not far from the first two, creating a third freckle on its scaled side. The first two had grown slightly, but not enough to provide much encouragement.

Vitus drew black blood after slamming into the same armored section of the beast several times. His axe strikes were leaving behind green webbed cracks on the creature’s hide that were growing brighter every time he struck. After several hits in the same area, the spell seemed to explode, ripping apart chunks of the creature and making a wound the size of Vitus, which would’ve been impressive if not for how unbelievably large the creature was.

The wound did get Burchakan’s full attention, though. He paused gathering for another mouth beam to look down at Vitus. He lifted one paw, drawing in the blue flecks of magic suddenly, and then slammed his foot down.

There was a moment where I thought the attack had missed, but then a torrent of blue magic fired down from the sky like the judgment of the gods themselves.

Vitus tried to dodge, but there was no time, and the volume of magic was far too large. It rained down on him, engulfing his form in a blinding ray of blue light.

By the time the magic cleared, Vitus was being lifted to the airship in a stasis field.

I skidded to a stop, fired off my last Silver Scream arrow, and dismissed the bow.

I looked behind to confirm Vay’nar was still near. He was gesturing and summoning some kind of phantasmal corpse that was slowly taking shape.

Ignoring him, I summoned my Alchemist’s Kit and dumped the shadow blood leech out into my hand. I could see it was growing weaker, fading as Rake’s connection to it had been severed. I wouldn’t be surprised if keeping it in my Alchemist’s Kit was the only reason it was still here at all. It was all the more reason to act quickly.

I gripped it between thumb and forefinger, then braced myself. 

I was about to channel when movement caught my eye. Swearing under my breath, I popped the leech back into the Alchemist’s Kit. I jumped as high as I could andI summoned a Reflective Mana Shield beneath my feet, kicking down as hard as I could just as I landed on it.

My body tried to crumple under the sudden upward force as I was launched skyward by the shield.

My Rage Blood enhanced muscles kept me from taking any real damage as I was flung at least fifty feet into the air at high speeds.

And then I felt a gust of wind and the rush of a fetid smell as the beast passed through the area I had been standing a moment ago, mouth gaping and snapping.

I came down on its back, barely managing to catch hold of its scales before it passed out from under me. I gripped hard, fingers punching through its thick hide for handholds as it flapped its wings and flew skyward.

Oh fuck. I recognized this move.

I was dragged into the air, wind ripping at my face as I had to hold even tighter because I knew any second, the beast would start corkscrewing to dive into the ground. I couldn’t get the shadow leech out with one hand without serious risk of dropping it and losing it forever.

Gritting my teeth, I summoned an Elemental Spike of Hungry Dark instead and began stabbing repeatedly into the beast’s back, watching black liquid fire out of the weapon like a hypodermic needle that was injecting it with each attack.

The best started to spin once we reached the apex of its climb. My body was pulled outward, legs lifting off its back so I had to grip tighter with one hand, squeezing hard to keep from being flung off.

I jammed the dagger in one more time as deep as I could. Burchakan dipped downward and started spinning for his dive. The motion pulled me away from its body and the freefall dragged me back toward his tail, making my dagger leave a long, spiraling gash in his body that bubbled with Hungry Dark. The gash spread from his mid back down toward his tail, though all I was doing was trying desperately not to be flung from his body when we were so high in the air.

We continued downward as the Hungry Dark potion spread over its hide, seeking out other bits of magic so it could link up and try to restrain the huge creature. I braced for impact as we met the ground with a deafening boom.

I hit hard, vision going black before I even felt the impact.

I gasped for breath, blinking hard as I rolled to my hands and knees. I was vaguely aware of some time passing since impact, but I couldn’t say how long. In fact, everything felt fuzzy and confused. I couldn’t even remember why I had hit the ground or what I was doing here.

I used Devour Mana to heal bones, muscle, and skin.

I noticed a tree that was nearly broken in half and realized it was my own body that had hit it hard enough to cause the damage.

Fuck…

Blearily, I looked around, knowing I needed to remember what was going on quickly. But it was like grasping for the memory of a dream that was slipping away.

The ground was shaking hard, and part of me knew what that meant. It was just taking a moment for my brain to reboot. I stood, frantically trying to think through the fog. Why was the ground shaking such a bad thing?

“Brynn! Move your ass!” Vay’nar shouted, hands cupped over his mouth.

And then it clicked. I looked down and felt a sense of mana rushing toward me from deep beneath the ground.

I summoned a Reflective Mana Shield to my side and angled it so it was pointing just a few degrees upward. Then I ran full speed, and slammed myself into it, and rebounded away as Burchakan the Cursed exploded from the ground where I’d been standing. Rows of sharp teeth spiraled upward as he corkscrewed into the air, sending up more rocks and dirt.

He flew upward with his wings tucked, then spread them at the last second and descended with shocking grace for something so large, landing with little more than a thump. But then the first Silver Scream rang through the air, signaling the detonation of one of my arrows. More followed in close succession, and the black liquid covering his body actually formed a ring, catching one of the wings in the semi-formed cocoon.

The beast faltered to the side, planting one huge forepaw to keep from tipping over.

I didn’t wait to see if the potion would hold. I summoned my Alchemist’s Kit again, dumped the shadow leech into my palm, and gripped it tight. And then I opened the doorway in my core that held back the dark mana. I let the oily magic flow freely into my body, releasing as much as I dared. I let enough out that I could hear the Burned Man rejoicing and laughing in my mind.

First, I dismissed my Forge Echo of my Silver Scream bow and summoned Dark Pebble. He formed rapidly starting as a single pebble, then expanding to the size of a small boulder before arms and legs sprouted from his body.

“PEBBLE!” he roared, arms thrown back as his crooked mouth split open to reveal small, rounded teeth bared in a smile. “HELLO, FATHER!”

“Go!” I shouted.

Pebble thundered toward the beast without waiting for an explanation as I worked on the next spell.

I fed mana through the leech, inviting the dark mana to join the flow. It swirled together in a sickly stream, pooling temporarily in the leech before exploding out from my hand. 

The force of the spell was so great that I was flung backward, my hand temporarily jerking upward and firing magic into the sky. I dropped the spent leech and gripped my wrist, dragging the deluge of magic downward. At a glance, it looked like a thick bar of blue so dark it was nearly black. But as I aimed it toward the beast and it made contact, I saw small, dark blue shapes spreading from the point of impact all over the creature’s body.

Looking closer, I could see hundreds and thousands of dark blue, beetle-like creatures within the beam.

Beside me, Vay’nar swore under his breath and dismissed the spell he’d been working on. Pebble reached the beast and began punching into it gleefully.

The beast opened its mouth, body spasming as the force of my beam hit below its mouth and curved up its shoulder, causing the skin and scales to ripple as pieces of its body flew away like specks of debris. The force of impact was so strong the creature was having to plant its feet in the ground to avoid being driven back, but it was still sliding slowly away from me. More and more of the beetles spread out across its body, seeming to burrow in and draw spots of blood that immediately reshaped themselves into more burrowing beetles.

Dark Pebble didn’t mind the beetles as he continued to punch, opening up a hole in the creature that he walked inside and presumably continued to punch.

I kept the beam firing as long as I could, long enough that the whole left forepaw, neck, and shoulder of the beast looked to be writhing beneath a living carpet of dark blue.

It opened its mouth, pulling in a rush of magic that sent my Mana Sense flaring in alarm.

Its inner mouth flickered with energy like some great machine roaring to life. It grew brighter and brighter, and then another of those laser beams of catastrophic power erupted with an ear-piercing roar.

I had a split second to feel it coming—just enough to cut off the dark magic infused Elemental Chain and layer dozens of dark mana infused Mana Shields in front of me and Vay’nar, and then absolutely flood my Mana Benders Raiment with dark mana.

Black armor with blue flecks unfolded across my body and a towering kite shield that looked like a portal to space appeared in my hand. My mana was being ripped from my body at a rate I knew I couldn’t maintain, but I felt the insane power radiating from me and the armor. I knelt down, raised the shield, and felt Vay’nar scramble behind me just before the beam swept across us.

My Mana Shields were obliterated in fractions of a second and then the beam hit my shield, pushing hard enough that I was shoved back through the dirt, leaving a grove several dozen feet long from where my shield was planted on the ground.

The beast’s beam cut off.

I severed the flow of mana and touched Vay’nar, infecting him with Touch of Sapphire. “Sorry,” I said. “But you’ll be fine.”

He looked down at his arm, frowning.

And then I turned toward the creature just in time to see Dark Pebble burst out of its shoulder on the opposite side he had entered. Dark Pebble was slick with black blood and gave one victorious pump of his rocky arm before turning and punching his way into the beast again.

But it was already on its side, body writhing with Hungry Dark and the blood hungry beetles I’d covered it with.

It lay there, seeming to twitch as its shape shrank.

I watched in surprised horror, realizing the beetles were eating it alive. It wasn’t shrinking, it was being devoured.

“Fascinating,” Vay’nar breathed.

I watched and waited, confused because it seemed to be dead but I didn’t have any accomplishments or level-up notifications pinging me for attention.

I held a hand up, motioning for him to stay back. “Wait… I don’t think this is over.”

Vay’nar tilted his head. “It looks quite dead. And I’m something of an expert on dead.”

“Shut up,” I said, taking a step toward the shrinking corpse.

Dark Pebble suddenly flew out of the body as if he’d been struck by impossible force, trailing blood and missing an arm.

“What?” Vay’nar gasped.

And then I felt another surge of mana from the center of the shrunken corpse. The beetles glowed bright blue and evaporated, leaving only a hunk of half-eaten flesh full of holes. I squinted, watching as a completely naked humanoid shape walked out of the center of the body.

He had long black hair, glowing blue eyes, and wore a pair of wings on his back that seemed to have latched onto his shoulders. Blue veins spread from the points they attached to his body, running beneath his skin and standing thick against his muscles so he had a monstrous quality.

“Hello,” he said.

I inspected him. 

[Burchakan the Cursed (Gold) Level 50]

The rest of the description was the same as before.

God dammit.

He walked toward me as more magic gathered from thin air, rushing toward his body and flaring with light before forming into plates of armor that gave him a dragon-like shape. Each piece swooped out with spikes and wing-like embellishments, reminding me of a humanoid-sized version of the creature I’d just taken down. “I should thank you for returning me to this form…” he said. “But I won’t, because the prison of flesh will return in time. Unless I can give the curse to another… Tell me, friend. Would you like to know the power of my curse for yourself?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. The wings, which were now clad with metallic armor, flapped, and he shot upward to float hundreds of feet above the ravaged battlefield.

Streaks of magic flowed inward until he was too bright to look at.

“Is this a good time to escape?” Vay’nar whispered from my side.

“Not yet,” I said. “I have a new idea…”