The bone spear had shot out like a missile and the resulting damage looked as if a missile had gone off. The tank’s body was a mess of gore and two halves of what was once a person rested a dozen feet apart. Dirt and blood pattered down on anyone near, a light mist of death to start the morning.
The atmosphere grew erratic. Almost everyone but the tanks were stunned in place. The sudden explosive attack had left us all completely confused, and many of the newer group were fully panicked.
“What the fuck are you all doing?” Marcus screamed. With no one attacking, the weight of the demon wall pushing against our tanks were immense. “Keep fighting you idiots!”
And his scream startled half of us from our momentary stupor. The remaining half, almost all the new group, rushed behind the wall and didn’t dare peek out to attack. I didn’t blame them, and I calculated that our two groups were enough to hold the onslaught. There was a clear problem now though.
My eyes followed the demon-worm boss, now weaponless. The disgusting face had a new light to it, almost as if it were smiling. Even the eyes showed a glimmer of happiness, like a rifleman celebrating after hitting their first clay target.
Despite the screams of panic, and the dozens of distracting thoughts pulling my attention away from the moment, I started to count. Yet it didn’t seem like the boss could pull another javelin as he did before and he made no attempt to do so.
The behemoth instead trotted forward, pushing the demons aside as if looking to bullrush our defenses. Still, after witnessing the unbelievable speed and power of its bone spear attack, I preferred this physical attempt.
I focused my attention back towards the wall of meat threatening to invade our abode and started to cast Rot on anything I could see in the gaps between our tanks. Between Maria’s Explosive Arrow and Richard’s Holy Shield, the smell of burnt meat permeated the air and left a sour taste in my mouth.
The boss still hadn’t pulled anything else out of its maw, and the behemoth that seemed to be willing to trample the demons in its way to get to our tanks turned in frustration and stopped pushing forward. Instead,it now circled back into the open area from where it started.
Something peculiar started to happen, though. The behemoth slowly released a bone spike from the side of its body, which the demon worm took in its scrawny hand. It was small, the size of a short sword and not necessarily good for throwing. “What’s it doing?” I looked at Jessica, prepared for anything.
Her bow twanged constantly beside me, which told me she was taking it easy. It was actually when she was silent that she was unleashing her deadliest attacks. She paused a moment and studied the new development with me.
The demon worm took the short bone spike and swallowed it whole, and then pulled another. It took a moment for a connection to be made, “It’s… reloading?” I wondered. Judging by their size and how many it was eating, just two or three more would reach a length similar to the previous – deadly – bone spear.
Only thirty seconds had passed since its last toss, and considering how devastating this attack was, thirty seconds could only be described as ‘not long enough’. This battle might last hours in the worst case. Allowing hundreds of launches like the earlier one was out of the question if I wanted even my own party to survive.
“I could try…” Jessica said. I already knew what she was getting at. We had both carefully watched the demon worm for dozens of seconds. In that time, she had already seen it open its mouth several times, and, as long she could see it once, she could shoot it.
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I nodded and watched as she carefully drew the cord of her bow back. Or rather,she posed as if drawing the bow but there was something immaterial in her hand. The entire bow glowed golden as plumes of ethereal essence floated and fluttered around her.
Jessica was drawing a lot of mana for just this one shot. Sweat started to form on her brow as ten seconds passed in perfect concentration. It could only be now—inside the abode, safely behind the wall—this was when she could trust me, trust everyone to keep her safe for these dozen seconds.
The golden aura continued to climb until it reached several feet in the air above her. Like a golden corona on a cold morning, like a flame fighting a rushing wind, it was as if a phoenix had spread its wings. And then Jessica loosed the Godless Arrow.
All I could think of in the moment was how sharp it felt. As if razor blades were being dragged across my skin ever so gently. All her aura focused into an impossible-to-dodge shot. The air around her visibly displaced outward as she loosed the arrow and her eyes opened with focused intent.
The air felt energized, and yet the pull and shot was deathly silent. The demon worm was confused and showed no reaction. That is until his neck bulged and its mouth opened frantically. Blood and gore exploded outward followed by black smoke as Godless Arrow exploded.
It started to vomit up bone spike after bone spike until its stomach was empty. Its mouth now sagged slightly and the menacing grin sagged weakly. She hadn’t killed it, but clearly had done devastating damage to its throat and mouth.
Jessica fell to a knee and then weakly pulled out an MP potion. “I just need a few minutes.”
“You earned whatever time you need.” I had never seen her put so much effort into Godless Arrow. She was no slouch, and falling to a knee and needing time was definitely not an act. Inside, she was probably suffering far more than what she was showing now.
Her show of strength sent blood lust through me and, it seemed, all of our ranks. It was clear after Jessica’s intervention that the bone spear wasn’t coming to claim a new life anytime soon. We could fight safely behind our tanks for the time being, and everyone took advantage of that.
Our tanks were even able to push forward. They used the momentum of the falling demons to send their reinforcements back several feet. My undead were unleashed now as they could get out of the abode’s fortifications and come around the flanks of our tanks.
With Jessica gone, I needed to put forth even more effort. My three skeleton generals moved as one unit, dispatching any demon they encountered in just seconds. Spikey #2 was insane enough to just latch on to an enemy without even using his weapon, allowing Spikey #1 or King Spikey to swiftly decapitate their foe with a simple slash.
A system message came as my mages pelted a singular demon trying to breach our defenses. The symphony of colored bolts hitting simultaneously sent its body hurdling backwards. I’d call it a one hit KO if it wasn’t the resulting impact of all of my mages’ combined attacks.
If they focused their fire, they were formidable. I suspected as I leveled more they would become even more so. My melee warriors shone the most right now though, acting as offense and defense.
My skeletons and abominations ran freely, causing even more mayhem. We had killed so many demons, and yet the end of them didn’t seem to be near. It felt like an eternity had passed, but it was really only a few minutes.
“KEEP IT UP!” Lucas yelled to everyone. At the pace we were moving we were going to clean this up swiftly.
My eyes returned to the boss that seemed to still be dealing with Jessica’s blow. Her attack must have had even greater effect than I imagined, as the rider was still pulling out what appeared to be little chunks of bone from its throat. I couldn’t help but hope it would just sit still while we slaughtered a path all the way to it. A fifteen on two fight didn’t sound too bad in the end.
It was as if it could read my mind though. The boss coughed up one final glob of blood and then reached backwards. It almost looked like it pulled the spine out of the behemoth it rode, but it was actually another javelin. The nape of my neck suddenly tingled.
“WATCH OUT!” I yelled before it had even poised to throw. It was selfish, but as I looked at Jessica nearly defenseless recovering besides me I could only think one thing.
Please not one of us…
