Chapter 120 – Black and Red

AG. First of Two.

With the dragon spear in his hands, Tom jogged at the boss. The geography of the coming fight was simple. The entrance way the four of them had come through was just a gap in a waist height fence, well… shoulder height for them. A circular paddock that was about three hundred metres across and filled with the same green, yellow grass as always.

As he ran forward, he thought about what was going to happen. There were unlikely to be a lot of complexities or unknowns. That was if he could draw lessons from the previous floors and what he had seen on this one. Making assumptions always carried an element of risk, but experience told him that it was a worthwhile shortcut. At least ninety percent of the time, there was consistency between levels in a trial and Adam, while he had been constrained in what he could say had suggested his setup was no different from normal ones. He was facing a heavily armoured opponent that possessed special attacks that were probably the same as its lesser cousins though he wouldn’t assume that. His plan was to take a few minutes to tease all of its tricks out of it. After that, it would be just a matter of wearing it down.

The boss had seen them the moment they had entered the field and given he was the only one still standing; it was focusing exclusively on him. The time dilation he was experiencing was at the lower end of what he had feared and was a little over three times.

If he was lucky, the fight would be routine and his decades of training in the tutorial and what he had done since with April meant he could fight like a machine. A hundred, a thousand. It didn’t matter he could repeat the same thrusts and dodges as often as needed. Predictable monsters, if he brought consistency to his actions were easy to beat.

Two metres ahead of him the air thickened.

Instinctively, he stepped to the side to avoid the familiar spell and, as he rushed past, there was a brush of heat. When he glanced back, a dinner plate sized patch of the field had had its grass burnt away to leave a perfectly circular burnt patch of dirt in its wake. The end result was cleaner than previously, but he recognised the form of the magic attacks of the third monster type he had fought in the valley. For a moment, he searched around to see if some of them were present, but their profile was distinctive and there were none around, which meant what he was seeing was an innate ability of the boss monster.

There were other flashes of heat and wisps of smoke as attacks went off all over the battleground. They were random and spread across the entire paddock so not much of a direct threat even if they were far more numerous than what the lesser kind had managed.

The magic bombardment was striking everywhere. Tom did not look back at his friends. Doing so wouldn’t help, and he didn’t have time. He hoped they weren’t in range but also knew from the one that had literally hit the barrier wall that they were.

Fate, he thought, should protect them.

The boss was waiting for him and as he closed the last fifteen metres something pointy struck his mind. It was like a spike of ice drilling into his skull that morphed into a pack of mice with sharp claws tearing away at his soft brain matter. Everything was agony, and he stumbled as the taste of the spell spread over him. It attempted to hijack his muscular control, but his ability fought against the assault and after a moment of resistance the attempt to paralyse him was rejected.

The unexpected intensity, however, had caused him to stop running.

He stared at the boss, wondering what other tricks it would have and almost on cue, it started trembling. Hestitantly, Tom stepped back a pace as he wondered about what was going to happen. What type of move did that reaction foreshadow?

He considered fleeing, but Danger Sense was quiet, so he held his ground. He was positioned within range of its shorter charge, but far enough that a simple step backwards would take him to safety.

Nothing happened and a weird five seconds of inactivity passed and then the trembling stopped, and it sank into the ground slightly. Tom recognised the signs and retreated but as he did so he saw that directly behind him the air was thickening and without Danger Sense prodding him he altered his course to avoid it.

The boss charged forward, and its massive mouth crashed shut where he had been a moment before. Casually, with a movement honed against its lesser cousins he stabbed and carved a small line out of the side of its boulder face.

It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Like all the other battles in the valley, it would telegraph and attack and after avoiding the special ability Tom would counter strike. Not just once, because he knew he was on the clock. Despite the risk, whenever it was out of action he would hit it twice and sometimes three times. With every exchange, the hole being carved into its side deepened.

But he was going too slow.

He was conscious that time was running out. A full tenth of the surrounding grass was now blackened and while the frequency of attacks further away from the boss was reduced, they were still almost as common.

Abrupt, pain forced him to stabilise himself with the butt of his spear as another one of the turbo mind strikes landed.

Like last time, it was all-encompassing, but his ability rejected it after only a fraction of a second. Tom looked up to check on the monster and saw it was trembling once more. The clues and signs from the prior encounter all came together in his head. The trembling was not the lead into a special ability it was the muscle lock side effect of its own mental attack skill.

It had been reflected back and unlike the more general knock out version this one could apparently impact the physiology of the creature he was fighting.

It had stunned itself.

There was no opportunity to double or triple check his conjecture. He had to act immediately. A single unlucky annihilation beam could finish any of his friends at any time. There was a time for steady progress and another for risk taking.

Right now, he had to tear into it. He leapt forward as he shifted his strategy to exploit the opportunity being presented. His tier three dagger appeared in his right hand as he kept a firm grip on his spear with his left to keep the movement speed buff.

This was the ultimate combination to deliver damage to the creature.

Mentally, he counted toward five while he repeatedly rammed the dagger home. Each thrust hacked off cake sized slices of rock, admittedly thinly cut. His frenetic effort doubled the distance he had carved into the armour. Closing with the knife had definitely been the right choice..

The second he reached five, he hurriedly retreated and this time it used the longer charge attack, which telegraphed as it was, it was easy to avoid. All he had to do was throw himself sideways at the right moment. The trajectory it had taken took it marginally closer to his friends and as he ran to catch up to it he had a chance to check on them.

They still appeared to be unconscious, and they were not safe and unharmed. One of the beams had clearly struck Kang just under his knee. Tom could see the separated foot, then a gap before the gruesome black and red scorched flesh that ended just below the knee.

The threat of the annihilation columns was horrifyingly real.

He shivered.

On its own, the strike on Kang didn’t matter. He wasn’t waking up and contributing because the mind magic was too powerful and the wound had been cauterised already. It would not be fatal over minutes or hours, and there was a binary outcome. The first was Tom winning in which case he would emerge fully healed in Existentia and because he was unconscious, he probably wouldn’t even have known it had occurred. Then if he lost… that didn’t bear thinking about.

The issue was that the attacks hadn’t ceased. A patch of grass between him and them vanished, leaving just blackened soil behind. Tom had no way of disrupting them or protecting the others apart from destroying the boss.

While it lived, they were at risk.

He screamed at the setup and prayed that the fate invested would be enough. That it would bend the beams away from critical areas that the whole thing was calibrated for him to finish before they died. It probably was, but he didn’t know and he hated how helpless he was against this particular boss ability.

Tom didn’t want to think about it.

Ferociously, he channelled every bit of strength he could into the blows. Maintaining perfect form as the rage built. Yet he held onto his sanity. Its special attacks would literally result in him being eaten if he didn’t retreat at the right time. Clarity of mind was absolutely critical.

But it was unfair, and they were dying.

Desperately he clung to the memory of their triumphs on other floors and this would be no different and he had made visible progress. His spear strikes were now carving deeper, and his dagger had done significantly more damage than the minutes of hard work proceeding that. A couple more sessions like that and it would be dead. He switched his focus to praying that it would hit him with another mind attack as he cursed his inaction the first time. If he had closed and used the dagger then, this fight would be almost over.

There was another puff of smoke from near his friends. He didn’t know whether they had been hit or not let alone if Briana had, but the smoke around them was darker and denser than elsewhere.

He felt like screaming at the trial and then once more struggled against the uncontrollable anger. Succumbing to his rage was death.

But it was unfair. When he had seen the boss, he had assumed they were saved. Somehow, he had gotten them all to this point and all that remained was defeating a single enemy that Tom countered. And he had been right about everything except a stupid random area of effect attack.

It was the definition of injustice.

Tom felt his sanity erode slightly. The cork he had shoved in to hold his anger was being displaced. The artificial fury coiling around inside him probing and trying to join his own justified rage.

For a moment, tears threatened to break out along with a blaze of anger that was intense enough to humble gods who specialised in it.

Desperately, he suppressed everything. He pushed down on the seething weakness.

Not in battle. Here, he needed clarity and an absence of emotion.

He could worry about them later, and with fate they might survive despite the widespread destruction. From what he could see, there was not a human size imprint of grass remaining anywhere in the boss area. But that was fine, as it was only a problem if the beam hit the chest or head. Arms, legs, none of that mattered, providing he won, and they were still alive. They would exit here like they had been under a full GOD’s shield. Any damage done in the meantime would be completely erased.

The ice spike struck his brain, and he revelled in the brief moment of pain in celebration of what it signified. The instant it relented sufficiently for him to focus he was hacking the creature again. 

His mind counted the seconds and after every precious moment was used he sprinted backward, but not before he caught a glimpse of yellow blood leaking out and droplets falling up.

It was almost over. One way or the other it was almost over.

There was a thud behind, and he spun and thrust without thinking. As his ears had told him, it had finished its lunge forward, and he had the opportunity to strike. With the armour gone the spear plunged further in than he had managed previously and when he yanked it out globules of yellow blood came with it.

“I’ve got you.” He screamed at it. 

It did the straight-line charge, and he easily dived sideways to avoid it. In the corner of his eyes, he saw another puff of smoke near the entranceway. The anger simmered still contained but threatening to escape at any moment.

He sprinted and landed a blow. Retreated, lunged again. Yellow streamed, and then he somersaulted backwards in a familiar pattern. It wasn’t dead yet and every chance he got he looked toward his friends and tried to see what was occurring.

But his visibility was hampered. Dark smoke surrounded them, thick enough that he couldn’t easily see what was happening. They might all be dead or alive. Briana was hidden in her entirety by Kang’s larger body. Eloise’s side looked blackened and as if her entire arm was missing.

But he was getting distracted.

He threw himself to the side and landed two quick stabs before he retreated.

Pain struck his brain, and the anger about the fight became too much. He cracked.

The fury was not something he could contain any longer. It and its stupid, weird unfair attacks had to die. Artificial anger joined what he had tried to contain, and they both surged in tandem, a tsunami that could not be denied.

His mind was still being assaulted by the attack that every other time had halted him in his tracks, but he was so mad that the disabling pain found no purchase.

With spear and dagger, he closed.

His knife magically extended its length to penetrate deep within the monster. Power beyond what he could usually channel pumped through him.

“Die,” he screamed. “Die!”

Part of him counted. Another bit monitored the flares above where his friends lay unconscious and feared the worse but the majority of him just wanted it to die.

All of his muscles focused on expanding the hole in its armour and slicing its insides into little bits.

The five seconds elapsed, but Tom didn’t care. This was between him and it. He was not going to be a weakling and retreat.

It sunk down.

The tiny logical part of his mind recognised the tell, but most of him didn’t care.

Danger Sense screamed a warning, but he was beyond caring.

He refused to run. He wasn’t a coward. It might be a rock, but it bled so he would kill it.

He thrust his hand into the pureed flesh around the wound. Sinking his arm up to the elbow and then flicked the enchantment on the dagger like a little child with a light switch. Its expansion did damage and when it was not active, it was possible to twist the knife in the constricting tissue so it pointed in a different direction before it doubled in length again. He pushed and twisted it, and he felt it scrape against the armour of the other side of the beast.

The anger that consumed him wanted it dead and if it did its stupid lunge, then Tom with his arm hooked into its very skull would be taken with it.

How could it eat him with his current positioning?

He was stronger than it, and absolutely superior, and he would hold on if it twisted and spun.

It was madness, but all Tom could think about was its coming death.  

It surged, twisting and lunging to try to eat him. But hooked onto it as it was it couldn’t reach him. But the power it was exerting was skill enhanced.

There was a tearing sensation, and Tom went flying.

He no longer had an arm, but he didn’t care.

The rock had spun on the spot, and he had been thrown clear. The massive wound on its side was visible with yellow liquid pouring out of it.

“Die,” he screamed and unleashed all of his magic on the creature. Both arms were stretched out. His whole one and the bleeding stub as he used his magic to destroy it. Because of the physical distance between him and it, this was the fastest method to reduce it to mulch. Lightning streams crackled from his fingers and arced into the gaping hole his previous attacks had left while Javelins were launched from the remnants of his arm.

It wasn’t dead. It was doing the signal for the long charge.

He closed once more before it could activate its ability and shoved his remaining good arm into it and his fist grabbed a handful of flesh and yanked a chunk out. “Die.” He screamed.

It exploded away from him. Launching itself straight forward and leaving Tom whose hand had just exited it, untouched.

Then it was ten metres away.

He felt weak despite the fury. The scorched ground around him was wet. A rare patch of surviving grass was more red than green.

Sanity began to return. He felt wrecked by the experience. It wasn’t his injuries or the extent of his blood loss it was the ridiculousness of succumbing to rage when he had known that a clear head was all that it would have taken to guarantee his victory.

The situation was still salvageable. It was simple. All he had to do was stabilise the arm and fight one armed until it died. He could do it.

Touch Heal activated, and he pinched off the open blood vessels and Blood Replenishment solved the immediate issue. There was no mana to spare beyond the free casts because in his rage he had channelled it all into the lightning attack.

But he was stable enough to keep fighting. He would be conservative until he took it down.

Everything changed.

He was no longer on a burnt field that had been fertilised with red. Instead, he was in the blackest void with trumpets going off, and he realised that it had succumbed to the immense damage that had been inflicted.

He had won. The only question was whether it was a pyrrhic victory.