ALL NOVEL 25
‘Rox, What class is a Quill-thingy?!’
‘Three! Their hide is thick and almost impenetrable. The quills can be shot thirty feet and can penetrate a half-inch thick plate of steel!’
We were spread out around the hall to divide its attention. The monster had shot a few quills at us. The quills were around three feet long and many now stuck into the ground like steel rebar all around the room. It had charged a couple of times by curling into a ball and rolling forward. We managed to stay far enough away to dodge the roll.
‘Alright, you two get out of here and get some of the Fairybond from the city to come up here. I’m faster than it, and it can’t fit through the door without breaking through. I’ll keep it occupied in here until you get back.’
‘There is no way as King I’m leaving you here alone. Besides, Clementine would kill me if anything happens to you.’
I blinked out of the way of the beast as it charged me. It crashed into the wall and the whole room shook. I slashed at its side before blinking away. It left a mark, but only a tiny glob of black oozed out. It was a superficial wound for the size of the thing. It screeched in pain, nonetheless. A small stream of green light escaped from the cut and flowed into my cuff.
‘No offense, Sir, but I’ve already taken down a Troll on my own. This thing can’t be more difficult than that. I just have to find its soft spot.’
I wasn’t about to tell him that I was only able to do that because of my sword’s special ability, which was only on one red light currently. I blinked a few more times to the center of the room, In between where the King and Rox were standing.
‘Now get going. I go down, Clem cries, you two go down, the whole nation mourns. The longer you delay; the longer it is until help comes.’
The quill beast let off another volley of a dozen quills. It’s shotgun approach slung a wave fairly slow-moving quills easy to dodge with some fancy footwork, which would likely be harder to avoid. The King managed to redirect the few coming his way and Rox used her spear as a pole to flip a table in front of her as a shield. The King eyed Rox and then made a decision.
‘You have better be as good as the report said. I’m not going to forgive you if you die on the day that you joined my family.’
‘Father! You can't seriously be thinking about leaving her here!’
‘You’ve seen how she can move and the effect her blade has on them. We’re dead weight to her. She is at least on par with the school’s Faculty. Your avigator is one of the fastest. We need it to go get the Fairybond at the barracks now.’
The King ran through the ruined doorway. Rox hesitated and then followed. She made one last turn and hurled the spear as the monster opened up from a hasty charge into another wall. The spear lodged itself into its shoulder. The King grabbed her shoulder and tugged and she narrowly avoided a more focused volley of quills.
Just me and the monster now. It turned to face me and let out a shrill scream that somehow still resembled its original voice. The quills on its head twitched and moved to point in my direction.
‘Not exactly the partner I expected to have tonight, but since we are here, let’s dance.’
I blinked sideways just as the beast let off a stream of needles into my previous position. Instead of firing off all of its quills in one big blast, it fired them one after the other in a sort of auto rail cannon fashion. The result was a deadly stream of three-foot rods that were seeking to impale me to the floor.
I blinked a few times to get close, and it nearly got me as a spine passed through my skirt and threatened to pin me where I stood. I grabbed and pulled it and blinked right when I heard a tearing noise. I looked back to see the place where I had stood littered with a half a dozen quills. I felt a tinge of pain and hot liquid run down my thigh. It must have just grazed me.
The room was beginning to become increasingly difficult to maneuver. I could no longer move in a straight path due to all of the sharp pines sticking out everywhere. There were times I needed to rely on air platforms just to clear crowded areas with enough speed to evade the constant barrage of needles. I was almost glad whenever it decided to roll into a ball and charge me. At least then it would knock over all the quills in its path.
‘Come on Sam. Think! Think!’
This thing had to have a weakness. I could get in close to avoid the quills, but then I would have to contend with the four arms and those scimitar-like mandibles. He might get stuck in the doorway if he hit it just right. No, too risky. It might actually break through and get out in the hallway. Could it break through the wall? Maybe the area with the broken window was weak. I could send him falling to his death off the island, but that could harm people down in the city.
I dodged another charge by blinking and cut into its side once again. To my delight, my blade landed in almost the exact place as the last slash. I leaned hard into the attack and the Mana charged blade sparked and it cut deeply through the carapace and then into flesh. The wound size doubled and black blood splashed onto the floor. Another stream of green light escaped from the injury. A smile crept onto my face as I blinked backward to avoid a boney claw.
Experiment Five. Didn’t I tell myself that actual combat wasn’t a good time to experiment with Miss Irons? I take that back. This was just too much fun. It unleashed an onslaught of quills as I ran back towards it. It slashed at me with its four arms when I got within range, only for me to blink to its side again.
I unleashed a flurry of slashes as fast as I could muster. I put no thought into how hard or accurate the attacks were. It reached back to block with its upper right-hand claw, so I focused a little from my burst and relieved it of that hand. The beast screamed and turned to face me. I got in another three hits before blinking backward twice.
Eight light cuts and a missing hand released small streams of green which joined into a single ray and it floated across the room. I held up the cuff and the green energy turned into a blue flash of light as it swirled into the magic circle engraved upon it.
A focus of quills machine-gunned through the air in a tight stream at me. I rolled to the left and then charged forward at his right side. I jumped, kicked off an air platform I had made, and then aerial flipped over the torrent of quills as it focused its fire on me. I blinked to its side.
It anticipated the move and quickly turned to catch me. My move had been a feint, however. I blinked upward and jumped off another platform. I was above it now. I saw a wall of quills emerging from its back as they grew back from the previous barrage and they perked up to create a defensive wall of spikes.
I kicked off a second air platform and forced myself downward. I slashed through the quills as I made my forceful decent. They shattered like crystal at each of the impacts, leaving broken nubs sticking out of the place they had once been. I felt a shattered tip of a quill painfully pierce my left shoulder as the shards exploded all around me.
I landed and began a barrage on its back. As any new quills began to form, I proceeded to smash them. It attempted to turn, but I just moved with it and continued to slash. In a panic, it attempted to roll away, but I blinked alongside it and continued to slash. Black goo began to splash all around as the carapace began to weaken and give way to flesh.
The monster gave up another arm in the name of defense. I continued unrelentingly. The stream of green energy became constant. I could feel my fingers become numb and tingle from the gathering energy within me. It thrashed and fumbled as it attempted to gain some semblance of a grasp on my position, but frequent blinks and jumps out of its field of view left it confused and frantic. This was its weakness, death by a thousand cuts.
When the two girls in bright colors rounded the corner with weapons ready, their jaws dropped at the spectacle they had stumbled in to. The monster was now half of its original size. Its face had half transformed back into the prince’s. All but one of its arms had been removed as it lay slumped on the ground, covered in black viscous goo. It weakly pulled at the ground with a stump of an arm. Its back was devoid of quills, except for one single quill which grew at a snail’s pace.
I stood in front of it and repeatedly kicked it in the face. My once elegant skirt was soaked in black and my body and mind were now numb from the surge of Aura. My left glove and part of my ripped skirt were stained red with my blood. My muscles were screaming, but I was past feeling. It let out a yelp each time as a green trickle of energy escaped from its nose and its last mandible shattered like glass.
I labored to push it over onto its back and then cut open its sternum with my blade. I put my sword back in my locket and then felt the Aura surge down my arm as I fished around inside the wound. I felt the metallic object I was searching for and pulled it out with a sick crack. The Revenant slumped to the floor.
I now had a twelve-inch-long black spike in my hand with dark green runes inscribed upon it. It was only a fourth of the size it originally was when it had hit him, and the runes were no longer glowing. I tossed it around in my hands as I walked in the direction of the awestruck women.
‘Thanks for coming, but you guys are slow. They really need to get a few of you posted in the castle for emergencies.’
They eyed me up and down and then looked behind me at the monster. I stumbled a bit as my leg almost gave out due to exhaustion and pain. I was going to need a long rest after this. Maybe I could get them to close off the bathroom and let me soak in a hot tub for a while after I got my shoulder patched up. I noticed the two girl’s eyes had gone wide as they looked past me. A green glow could be seen reflecting in their eyes.
I turned around to see a green ball floating above the monster’s corpse. I knew I had forgotten something. My sweet ball of ambrosia. After how much I had absorbed, I was shocked to see there was so much left. As the orb began to rush at me, I remembered that it was only a fourth of the Troll that I had absorbed before. This was going to be more than I had previously ever been hit with and I was in no shape to receive it.
‘Oh, Balls.’
The energy crashed into my chest and sent me flying past the girls. I lay on my back convulsing as the cuff frantically tried to keep up with converting the green flow into blue Mana. Swirls of blue and green crashed around and through me like an ocean in a violent storm.
At that moment, I felt the feedback blow a giant hole in the side of the Psychic Veil. A rush of names and events came rushing back. I was reliving each one all in the same instant. It was like watching a thousand televisions at the same time, but each picture was crystal clear and was being seared into my mind.
I relived battle after battle. Friends I had only just remembered fell to dust before me. I saw the rise and fall of a nation, and then the world. Pushed back to the brink and on the verge of destruction, I had hatched a plan that I would gamble the rest humanity on. And that gamble took place at the top of that cancerous place. That tumor that stood out like a dagger in the side of my once beautiful world. The Tower.
The physical and mental overload became too much and I succumbed to the darkness once again.