Chapter 463 (1/2)
“Lucifer, kill those fuckers before they make it worse!” Alana barked. “Drake-”
“Yea, I can’t stay like this,” Drake said, shivering, as he dismissed the armor. He put the heavier sword back into his spatial ring and removed another, one-handed sword that he could more easily use without the boost in Strength from the Bone Armor.
“Annie, you are our other main source of damage then,” Rose said, snapping back into focus after realizing her error earlier. Drake suspected the real reason it had happened was that it wasn’t targeting them, so she hadn’t thought to dig more deeply into what was happening. Also, the appearance of the Stagbat was a pretty intimidating thing in and of itself…
Raising its head, the Stagbat released its braying call, as the Raid Party split, heading to strike at the two groups.
Lucifer covered the distance quickly but was unable to catch the Grey Death Cultist as it recognized the ambush that was coming and rolled to the side to avoid his strike. Grimacing, Lucifer immediately withdrew through the portal, closed it, and then just began to dead sprint towards the Death Cultists.
“Chrysanthemum, help him,” Thea said, before approaching with the rest of them towards the Stagbat.
Alana arrived first and wasted no time stabbing towards it, again and again, aiming to test the defense of its flesh with her spear. But the Stagbat was surprisingly graceful, more so now that it didn’t have to drag its withered wings along on the ground with it. It weaved through her strike and then stepped forwards, flapping its wings for an extra boost of speed.
What should have been a short hop turned into a charge, and Drake was smashed to the side by the momentum of its advance. However, he hadn’t spent the last month in constant battle in vain. As their bodies crossed each other, Drake twisted, raising his sword, letting the Stagbat pierce itself with its own speed.
To Drake’s surprise, the sword slid into its soft fur without any sort of resistance. When the Stagbat landed, it stumbled a little, but instead of braying, the bat head on its back twisted, opening its mouth.
“You…. will…. Feeed me…. Let’s…. Die together…..ha….” It slowly enunciated, as green ichor splashed out of the sword wound, eating into the sword that was still lodged in its chest, until the hilt fell to the ground, warped by the blood of this creature, the rest of the blade already disintegrated.
But this did have the side effect of starting its blood gushing out of the hole, and the Stagbat swayed, unsteadily.
“Incoming!” Rose shouted. She needn’t have said anything though, because before she spoke one of Annie’s arrows was already released, catching the crimson orb at its bottom. The whole thing didn’t disperse, but the bottom half of the orb exploded with the force of the arrow, and as the remaining half traveled forward, a red dust drifted down behind it, settling on the ground, also weakening the spell further. But the crimson orb still reached the Stagbat before anyone else could react; it simply traveled too quickly.
The sword wound closed up, and it seemed the rigidity to its spread wings eased somewhat, but little else seemed to change. By this point, Lucifer arrived at the Death Cultists and began cutting through the Red Death Cultists, aiming for the Grey Death Cultist that continued to chant.
Chrysanthemum arrived soon after him, and where he was like a methodical butcher, she simply crushed opposition, making a beeline for the Grey Death Cultist. It hissed in annoyance, switching abruptly to a Wither spell, but it was too late. Chrysanthemum crashed into its body and began mauling the Death Cultist.
“For the great oblivion!” It shouted, executing a strange series of syllables very quickly, and Death Cultists around him fell like flies, dying quickly and easily.
Meanwhile, Drake, Alana, and Ace weaved through those grey lines of force. They didn’t travel particularly quickly, but they could change directions on a dime, which meant that near miss dodging was more dangerous than it was useful against this enemy. And based on how much damage was done to a metal sword….
How would a human body hold up against that passage of time? Even with a System increased Vitality…
“Fuck me,” Ace cursed, removing his helmet, which had been clipped by a beam. He then watched, frozen and wide-eyed, as the helmet turned to dust and fell away. At that moment, Ace was pale in a way that Drake had never seen him before, seemingly lost without his helmet. Drake was aware of the theatrics that Ace had employed with ‘Dauntless’ and the jokes at his expense that called him insane, but only now did Drake realize how true it was.
This man… something precious at his core was irrevocably broken. That helmet had kept it hidden, but now…
Another beam rushed towards him, and when Alana yelled, he didn’t respond. At that moment, Clarissa launched a Lightning Bolt smashed him to the side, the beam narrowly missing him. Drake caught the body and took a welcome break from the high-stress game of dodging beams of death by old age, returning Ace’s still shocked body to Ptolemy.
Or that’s what he meant to do, but Ptolemy took this as a signal to switch, and with a nod, he moved forward, supporting Alana against the Stagbat.
Annie rained a constant flood of arrows against the Stagbat, aiming for its stag portion of the body, with its soft flesh, because the bat portion repelled the normal arrows easily. Luckily, the bat’s wings were still rather stiff, and it was unable to move them well to protect its more vulnerable core body, leaving it with a dozen or so bleeding scratches across its torso.
Chrysanthemum quickly overpowered the Grey Death Cultist and her jaws closed on its neck. But it managed to finish its spell, and a huge orb of crimson formed, around three times the size of those previous orbs, and flew forward towards the Stagbat. Before Chrysanthemum even crushed its neck, it fell back, lifeless.
Chrysanthemum still bit down, of course, if just for the satisfying crunch.