ALL NOVEL Ch. 57 Sweep the Leg
Gust diverted the truck bed by inches as he threw himself away from the falling truck bed. It crashed on the bare ground in a spray of dirt and metal as it rolled over and over. Santi was getting tired of rolling around in the dirt.
He had to change his plan on how to deal with it, as standing back and luring it wasn’t going to work. There were enough trucks, cars, and small pieces of construction equipment to level the entire housing development if the chimera wanted to. He wasn’t going to be lucky enough to dodge all of them. Which meant doing the thing he hated the most. Standing and fighting face to face.
Santi charged, ducking and weaving each way to try to stay ahead of the random things the chimera got its legs on. Tires, hubcaps, rebar, lumber, a portapotty. The portapotty was a shitty move.
The chimera crawled on top of the yellow dozer, long legs reaching down to grab more things to throw. The area in its reach was growing devoid of easy to grab items, which was a welcome relief. Santi looked up at the monster and started to wonder how he was going to reach it. The spear in its longest form could reach it, but it was likely too thin to do serious harm.
Best he could do at the moment. The spear stretched out to become thin, with a scalpel point as he slashed out across a wounded leg. The thin edge entered the already open wound and sliced deeper. Sinews held the leg together as the chimera scampered backward crying in pain as its leg collapsed under its weight.
It slid off the side of the dozer leaving a smear of its blood across the yellow top. Santi ran around the side of the dozer limping, ready to finally finish the monster off. He got around to the side, the chimera keeping its near severed leg off of the ground and staring at him with hate.
Santi sprinted at full speed, ignoring the pain in his ankle, and attacked. The spear was a blur as he attacked over and over. The chimera jumped back, slapping at him with its legs. Each sword attack had to be dodged, Santi running around like a chicken with its head cut off. He needed to start whittling down the legs and he got his opportunity a moment later.
The near severed leg swayed, stretched out on tendons and entered his range. A quick switch to a halberd and the crescent blade hit the tendons and parted them with ease. The thick black chitin leg hit the ground with a dull thud as the now seven legged spider-goblin screamed.
Santi didn’t hesitate, the halberd kept striking, attacking the next leg in the row. The chimera pulled back, but the morph blade took the tip of the leg off. He could feel the blade’s hunger and burgeoning satisfaction as if feasted on the rich life blood of the Acolyte class monster.
“Damn you, human!” the goblin half said as more and more of its blood poured out of the wounded legs. Its blistered skin was beginning to slough off as the after effects of the fire were showing. It was slowing and growing weaker and weaker. The fight was winnable, as long as he didn’t do anything stupid.
Santi moved slowly, a creeping inevitability as the chimera stood its ground. Even with the burns and amputation it was standing tall, unwilling to give an inch. Sani dodged a stamping attack and sliced across the offending leg leaving a long furrow. A second leg lashed out without hesitation.
Santi took the blow, just too slow to get out of the way. The sharp leg sliced along the outside of his wounded leg, peeling flesh and muscle. Santi gave as good as he got, his halberd cutting halfway through the offending leg.
He pushed forward, the monster's three front legs all heavily wounded or missing. It couldn’t react as he got underneath it. The halberd had a sharp spearpoint at the top of the shaft and he used it to great effect. Stabbing upwards and into the soft underbelly of the spider, piercing through the thin chitin. He twisted the halberd, dragging the point along and tearing open its belly.
Chitin parted but the thick muscle under only partly parted. Blood poured over him in a waterfall of gore and the morph blade thrummed with joy in his hands. Santi pulled out and jabbed up again, piercing muscle and stabbing at the vulnerable organs.
The spider kicked its legs out, trying to fall and crush him. Santi jumped, his bad leg slowing him, and barely managed to get out of the way. The spider landed in a puddle of its own muddy gore, splashing it out in a wave. The goblin torso was finally in range of his weapon.
A longsword embedded itself in its muscular forearm. It had managed to get its arm up in time to prevent a decapitation. Its legs scrambled to find traction, trying to get its vulnerable head away from the reach of the morph blade. Having failed to end the fight, Santi transformed the blade into a heavy axe and cut at the next closest leg where it met the body.
The chitin was tough, the muscle like iron bands, but it all yielded to the morph blade and his overpowered physical stats. The leg fell off and the spider was down half of its legs. It couldn’t get up and moving fast enough and Santi stuck to it like a tick. A frenzy of blows, each one precise and crippling.
A leg here, a slash along the rotund body there, an attempt at the goblins neck, all of it at speeds that the chimera could hardly match. Blood was flowing like a river as cuts and wounds appeared all over it. Energy was pouring through the morph blade and into him, the blade a glutton for the power that the chimera had. It wouldn’t stop feasting even as it filled to bursting, shunting strength, mana, and potential to Santi.
“You are beneath me! You can’t do this!” the spider screamed, its eyes rolling in pain and rage as a fifth leg was taken from it. It collapsed on its belly, its remaining legs trying to drag it away, but Santi refused to let it flee. The bloody morph blade transformed into a spear with an overly long blade and he plunged it into the spider's body without hesitation.
The burns, blood loss, and myriad cuts made it all possible. The blade didn’t hesitate as it cut through flesh and deep into the heart of the creature. The chimera froze, mouth agape as blood flowed without restraint out of it. Then it shuddered twice and died.
The kill notification was enough for Santi, seeming to cut away all the strength he had just been wielding. His legs buckled and he slammed into the spider’s still warm and partially charred corpse and just sat there for a moment as he recovered.
Red Goblin Cursed Chimera lvl. 26
“Another just evolved monster. Did it by myself this time,” Santi said to no one. It felt good to have faced and killed the monster without help. There were less dead friends and allies this way.
It was worrying that there were two evolved monsters already. It had been less than a week since the integration had started. They could be seeing Disciple class monsters by the end of the year. That would be a nightmare of ungodly proportions. Even at the peak of his power he would have been nervous of fighting Disciple class monsters.
He was so much stronger this time around though. It was undeniable and after he burned down the now undefended nest, he would grow even stronger. He got to his feet and started looking around for another couple gas cans and road flares. If it wasn’t broken, why fix it?
It took ten minutes for him to pack up everything he needed to burn down the nest and another three minutes to walk back to the nest. The chimera’s path of destruction had made it easy. No wall to hop or vegetation to walk through, just a path of carnage.
The aura around the nest had weakened, the power drained away with the death of the chimera and the destruction of the pod. The pod was likely a corrupted natural treasure while the curse was something else that the goblin had discovered. Just bad luck that he had run into it. He could only have imagined the slaughter if they had attacked with full strength. No one else was fast enough to dodge the attacks the chimera had launched. No one would have been able to tank the blows. Dozens would have died.
He spilled the gas in the deepest of the now still webbing. The red vines lay limp and impotent, just traces of mana coming off of them. He grabbed the bags of low-grade treasures from the house and doused a bit of gas in there too. He ran out of gas before he got to the barns, but that was ok.
He walked through the field of dead goblins and toward the team still holding their ground as the flames grew behind him. Plumes of smoke rose to the heavens as he stalked fields of death.