Chapter 44: A Rematch Of Grander Proportions

  Erik rushed through the frisbee-walls as they were timing out, carving up a couple of beasts as he dashed past them. He shot a few more with ‘Flash’ for good measure as he rushed straight towards the menacing aura he felt on the beach, the light-element spell causing only light burns on their hides but was more effective as a distractionary measure.

  His footsteps shaking the ground beneath him as his heavily laden body ran made a stealthy approach impossible but Erik figured the beast had sensed his own aura as well as he sensed it.

  As he neared the much larger and bulkier Hellbeast, Erik shot three bursts of ‘Flash’ at it, hitting its face with two of them, the third beam reflecting off its chest and hitting the ground under it. The tiered up beast was blinded, but Erik’s focus vanished as well seeing his spell bounce off its hide.

  He shook the dark thoughts filling his mind away, he jumped towards it with springy feet, the only part of him not covered in heavy stone armour except his hands. He planted his claws on the beast’s face and neck, though the sharp implements couldn’t dig quite deep enough. Small wounds—scratches, honestly—opened up, though, meaning he could already start filling the beast with his entropic miasma.

  The beast answered in kind, whipping Erik’s heavy body away with a paw so fast he couldn’t react. Earthkeep disintegrated on his left side where he was hit, and his now lighter body flew a dozen metres away, crashing into the ground. The rest of his armour slumped to the ground, one stone at a time.

  Erik couldn’t withstand more of those hits, but he was fine for now. He just guessed he was lucky it wasn’t its mouth crushing him between its teeth.

  Erik got back up, a crater forming beneath him as his body once more got covered in stone. As the large Hellbeast stood there, watching him, Erik noticed something in the moonlight—its eye.

  Its left eye was bruised, or scarred, but it wasn’t from his previous few ‘Flash’ beams. Something had hurt this thing, but he guessed it didn’t matter what. As it was, it had been done some time ago, meaning whatever it was, wasn’t here. It must’ve been a Remnant, right? Erik only hoped some nation hadn’t dropped a nuke on its face, and this was the result.

  Erik felt the effect of his miasma take hold, but something was wrong. It wasn’t spreading or working as quickly as it usually did. It was probably the tiered up hound’s resistance to lower-tier magic at work.

  Just like he had resistance against the ‘mundane’, so too would that resistance grow as he did, eventually making him immune to everything non-magical, and as resistant to lower-tier magic as he was to normal things right now. But resistance wasn’t immunity.

  Erik ran back up towards the beast, this time dodging a slower swipe from before. He sliced with his own claws, but the beast leapt back with little effort, avoiding the small claws. Erik jumped back in, mauling the much larger creature.

  Despite the monster looking like it was on the defensive, it seemed to be playing with him, and Erik knew it. Still, what he needed was time. If he could infect it with even more miasma, then great! But without it, the beast would still unravel in due time. Erik just had to keep in close enough proximity to keep his spell active, and not die. He wasn’t sure which of those would be the hardest.

  The Hellhound started defending itself, blocking, deflecting and even parrying the armoured Remnant’s strikes. In response, Erik threw lighters, tennis balls and pointed sticks at the creature, increasing the amount of responses the beast had to give to keep itself from getting too damaged.

  The acid capable of melting through a normal Hellbeast in a quick minute struggled to affect the creature’s thick hide and fur, steaming on top of it as it trickled down onto the ground.

  Saw blades flew towards it in a barrage, each of the ones that hit making minor cuts on its body, small particles of black miasma entering as soon as they were able. Most saw blades were knocked away, vanishing moments later.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The goo from his sticks did nothing to its powerful body, but one dose of it hit inside its roaring mouth as the beast was feeling the effects of the miasma in its body. The goo solidified in the end of its mouth and down its throat, making the beast unable to remove it or crush it by force. It panicked, pouncing around paying no mind to its surroundings.

  Erik dodged the massive body several times in quick succession, but its movements proved too erratic in the end. A giant foot landed on him, crushing him into the ground. His armour crumbled. Another foot was heading straight for his head.

  A brave cry sounded above Erik, and he opened his eyes a moment later. Grace! The dinosaur had charged into the side of the giant Hellbeast, not piercing its hide, but had pushed it off-centre. The enormous foot had smashed into the ground beside Erik.

  Several flaming scythes burst forth in rapid succession from the shield on Grace’s head, the large beast catching fire on several places around its body. Sadly, the flame seemed quite ineffectual.

  In the light of the fire, Erik realised what irked him about the creature—he recognised it! He’d fought it before! The scar on its eye was from when Erik fought it, punching it repeatedly in the face as it was the only thing not covered in solidified goo.

  It was the first Hellbeast he fought, having tried to escape into the woods. It was when he met that boy and his mother after he’d chased the Hellbeast away. He hoped the two of them were safe, and that Mathisen had sent someone to find them.

  Erik also realised that the creature had been playing with him for the same reason—it remembered him. That had to be the case! Still, it was troubling that the hound seemed to have developed a personality…

  If more of these monsters tiered up and started to act out of their own whims rather than their current behaviour, it would be bad even without the increased strength and size they possessed. They had to move things along, Erik thought; they couldn’t afford to hide anymore. They had to go to the Empire and strike against the monster invasion at the root.

  “Grace! Can you surge it?” Erik asked the dinosaur at his side, who nodded in confirmation. “I’ll try to keep it busy!”

  Erik rushed back towards his old enemy, leaping higher than he ever had before just as the monster swiped at him. It was too late. Right above the creature, seven or eight metres off the ground, Erik activated his ‘Earthkeep’.

  The ground directly beneath him, the ground directly beneath the beast, opened up with a minor explosion. Several sharp rocks managed to cut shallow gashes in the beast’s stomach and sides, the beast letting out a slight yelp.

  Erik, just past the apex of his jump as the debris collected around him, used the sudden increase of mass to smash into the creature from above with all his might. The sound of large bones snapping and breaking along its spine was like heavenly music to Erik’s ears and at the same time, Grace pushed her three horns into the wounded monster.

  The current she pushed into it grew and grew. When the giant hound tumbled, trying to get at the weird sensation it felt, Grace ran back, the current’s growth slowing, but not stopping. She had got a few precious seconds in, kick-starting the process quite a bit.

  They had found while experimenting that Jessie, and thereby Grace, could channel the ‘Volt Surge’ spell into their target. This rapidly expedited the process with the cost of being a more risky move. That wasn’t the only risk it involved, though.

  If channelled for too long, Jessie or Grace would get a part of the built-up current lashed back at them. This seemed to be a rule based on the current and not the time spent channelling, meaning it was safer to channel it into this much more resistant monster for longer, as the charge built up slower, just like Erik’s miasma. Erik wasn’t sure if Grace knew that, though.

  The monster, sluggish from Erik’s miasma, its broken bones and the current building up inside its body, made a last ditch effort to kill off Erik. With rage in its glassy, dying eyes, it leapt at him, giving it all it had. Its speed was still ridiculous, and Erik was clawed away.

  This time, a deep gash opened in his side as the claws from its heavy paw cut after the rest of its paw had shattered his armour on that side. It wasn’t a lethal wound, and Erik scurried back up, but it was too late.

  The beast swiped once more at his new location, rending several deep wounds into his legs. He didn’t fly away this time, but smashed into the sand beneath him. The whining, maddened monster raised its paw in victory over the unmoving Remnant, and slammed it down.

  Several fast-moving crescents crashed into the beast moments later, each opening a small, insignificant wound. The beast tried jumping back, but was caught on its own legs not able to move. It shook as most of its muscles contracted uncontrollably, and Jessie appeared in front of it, slamming a sharp earthen crescent into its face, blood, sweat, tears and more blood covering her face and body.

  Emma appeared on top of it, slicing and stabbing into its neck in quick succession, making every nick count. Angela gunned for its stomach, her heated blade having an easier time sinking into the hard flesh of the creature.

  The beast tried rolling. It tried growling, it tried crying. It was defenceless, unable to move because of the current coursing through its body and the entropy having eaten away at most of its insides by now. A harrowing, bloody moment later, the beast’s writhing body stilled.

  My first plug in one of these!

  The reason for the sudden plug is that the end of this story's first volume / book launched there today for all 'Titans' (30 chapters / 10 weeks ahead of RR, that's approx 60.000 words!) Now with a 33% discount to celebrate Book 1 + Christmas + New Year's, lasting until Jan 4th.