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Chapter 53 - Vengeance
🕑 Added 2024-06-12 19:42:57 +0000 UTCVengeance was the only thing I could think about as I charged to where the boss had to be. There was nothing I could do for my Grandfather, but there was something I could do for the beast that killed him.
I would either kill it or die trying.
I ignored the lesser tigers that were still left from the wave. They were of no consequence anymore, their attacks brushed off me as I ran past.
Getting closer to where the storm clouds peaked in concentration revealed the boss in all its glory.
Over double the size of the regular tigers, it stood at just over 6 feet tall. smaller than the boss lizard from the last wave but still large for a tiger. This one was built more for speed and its smaller size would aid it.
I didn't slow my charge and ran straight at it. The boss dodged my swing easily and charged up another lightning bolt that it sent at me. This one wasn't as powerful as the bolt earlier and did little to deter me.
After a few fruitless swings, I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to catch it in the open field we were in. Fine, if you want to be like that.
Instead of chasing it around meaninglessly, I went for a different avenue of approach. It took a decent chunk of my mana, but it was worth it.
A massive [Ice Fortress] froze into place around the boss before it could get away. It was the largest creation I had made with the skill and it took the mana to prove it. Easily 4 times as expensive as the little huts I was making with it earlier.
Given time, the boss would have been able to break out, but that wasn't a problem it was worrying about currently. It had to defend against the angry barbarian charging at it.
It was a gamble on my part. A sort of death match where only one of us would get out of this icy cage and I wasn't 100% sure it would be me. Vengeance was a strong motivator but it also had the capacity to force you into stupid decisions.
None of that was on my mind at the moment, the only thing I was concerned with was killing this thing.
With the upgrades to my strength since the last wave and the upgraded skills that I had, fighting the boss of the last wave wouldn't have been as hard as it was. Taking the blows would have been doable with my law and strengthened ice, but killing it was another matter.
Getting through its natural defenses would have been tough and I wasn't certain I had the mana capacity to both defend and get through the armor.
Trapping that thing in here with me would have been a death wish. This boss though, was a different story. It didn't have the monstrous strength that the lizard did and it would be easier to kill. I only had to catch it.
Now that both of us were in an enclosed space, the tiger had less room to evade me. It also gave it an easier time attacking me, but I wasn't dodging those to begin with. Dodging was futile and would be a waste of time, I wasn't fast enough.
Time would be the deciding factor of who would win. Would the lightning build up fast enough to kill me before I landed the killing blow, or would I get to it first?
The boss frantically shot out bolts of lightning that were only slightly more powerful than the lesser tigers. It didn't have the time to build up the massive bolt it shot out before and there was no way I was going to give it time.
It did not like me closing in on it and did everything it could to ward me off. It leaped and pounced around my imposed cage with the grace of a feline.
Eating lightning bolts o the face was painful, but not painful enough to make me stop. The initial size of the [Ice Fortress] I cast was big enough to account for any movement the boss made before it finished freezing to catch it if it attempted to flee.
Now that it was trapped, I worked to start constricting the place further. Like a vice slowly clamping down until there was nowhere to go. Ice built upon what was already there to trap it further.
My body rocked with muscle spasms and my skin started to blacken on repeated hits from the lightning, but I pushed through. Taking more space away from the beast.
As the walls closed in, the boss realized what was going to happen. In its too-intelligent eyes, it saw the outcome of letting me trap it. To not let that happen, it went on the offensive.
Before, it was skirting around me and peppering me with lightning attacks trying to wear me down from the edges of the cage. Now, it used everything it had. Claws, teeth, magic, everything at its disposal to stop me meeting me in a brutal melee where I came out worse off.
Blood flowed freely from my wounds and some of my hair melted off from a magic attack. Any retaliatory attack I tried to make met air instead of the flesh I sought.
The dance continued, and I was losing. My attacks meant nothing if I couldn't land them and the wounds started to add up. My muscles usurped control from me and started not to listen to my commands. My movements slowed from the wounds and blood loss.
Still, not once did I feel despair. All I needed was one shot and the time for that shot was coming soon. I just needed to hold out a little longer. I needed to remain on my feet a bit more.
In the boss's mad dash to kill me, its attention shifted to me instead of the walls. That was a mistake.
Another claw came flying in carving another line through my torso and I couldn't help but smile.
The tiger went to jump away after getting its swipe in and ran face-first into my ice. It was stunned. It had expected to be able to leap away before I could counterattack.
It was wrong.
Knowing what was coming, I was ready to pounce on the opening that was created. Powering up my hammer with everything I could to make it count.
[Heavy Blow] slotted with [Frostbite] to make this my first attack with two uncommon skills stacked into one blow. I pushed with my law as hard as I could and even activated [Ice Manipulation] to make sure that my hammer could take it.
It was sturdy and the wave proved its effectiveness, but this would be the absolute worst time for it to fail.
If my mind had been clearer, I would have realized that this was the first time I had 5 skills active. The three above coupled with [Rage] and [Fortified Body].
[Ice Fortress] didn't count because I wasn't using it anymore.
I could see the fear in its eyes as it watched my weapon start to descend. lightning flowed across its fur in an attempt to defend but it was too slow to build up to anything useful in defending. It took time to build up. Time it did not have.
As the sun rose in the sky: my hammer fell on its head. An inevitable outcome that no amount of effort would change.
I used all of my strength to make sure that this would be no glancing blow. It would land and it would hurt.
The tiger twisted and strained to get out of the way but it couldn't in time. All of its speed, reduced to nothing.
It managed to get its head out of the way but that only made me hit its shoulder.
The blow connected, brushing off the pitiful lightning defense, and I could hear bone breaking. The mid-leap tiger took my blow before being launched across the cage. Skipping on the ground before slamming into the wall opposite me.
It flipped over itself from the force of the blow and landed on its back. It yowled in pain before getting back on its feet. It righted itself in a way only a cat could, but it wasn't the same as before.
Frost built up on its fur where my blow landed and its right paw was dragging on the ground. The shoulder joint broken made it useless.
I could feel my ice mana in the wound penetrating the flesh and slowing its movements. Well, the leg was broken it didn't matter if it was slow, it couldn't move.
Surprisingly, there was no blood. The blunt force from my hammer transferred into the beast without breaking the skin like my axe would have.
Seeing no blood didn't deter me, the loss of its leg was proof enough of the strength of my attack.
Effectively crippled, it made it easy to land another blow. This one less accurate than before and landed in its midsection. A fractured rib and my ice mana the only consequence.
It landed the occasional blow on me, but I was like a shark smelling blood. Seeing it be brought low was enough motivation to push through the pain. I was a man of my word and I said it would die.
The boss got increasingly frantic as the blows continued to land. One on its hind quarters as it attempted to jump away, another on its back, another on its front leg.
Every blow built up the ice mana in the boss and it began to slow. The damage over time aspect of [Frostbite] showed its worth.
In all of its accursed intelligence, it knew it was about to die. Maybe not this blow, maybe not the next, but it would die. In all the twisted thoughts it could have had, what it did never occurred to me as an option.
I felt the static in the air build-up and the lightning thicken on its fur. I thought it would try for one last attack and use everything it could.
To stop it from doing that, I launched myself at it with the same intent. I brought my hammer to bear, but I wasn't ready for what came next.
The lightning built up faster than before and it was stronger than even its opening attack. If it could have done that why did it wait so long?
I braced for the bolt I was sure to come while continuing my swing.
Something's off.
The build-up wasn't slowing down. It kept gathering, kept increasing. Building on each other to increase further. At the last second, I saw a look of satisfaction in its eye.
What does it have to be satisf-
Lightning poured out of the boss in one final explosion. It was blowing itself up to take me with it.
Instantly, I abandoned my attack. There wasn't enough time to create distance so I did the only thing I could do.
[Ice Fortress] worked in tandem with [Ice Manipulation] to build walls between me and the coming explosion.
I ripped ice from the cage I created and built upon the wall from [Ice Fortress]. I used the maximum thickness I could on the skill and packed in more to make it thicker.
Urging the ice to freeze faster, I could only watch the beast's body fall apart. The power was too much to handle and it was starting to destabilize.
It was going super nova.
I redoubled my effort and used every ounce of willpower to strengthen my defense with my law.
My mana ran dry in my effort before a curtain of white covered my eyes and a massive force rocked me. I could hear ice shattering in the background but the only thing I could focus on was the pain.
My body spasmed as lighting ran its course through it. Singing painful arcs over my body. My hair burnt off before my skin blackened.
The only reason I wasn't killed instantly was because the explosion was omnidirectional. If it had been a targeted attack, I would have been vaporized.
The fortress enclosing us shattered from the force and I fell back onto the ground. Total loss of motor function made my body fall with little grace. More like a puppet with its strings cut.
It was in a twitching heap and painful spasms that I caught movement in my vision. White spots still clouded it, but it cleared enough to see something coming.
My very own nightlight coming to save me.
I let out a light laugh that only came out as a groan before everything went dark.
Comments
Alexander C Hyde
Claws, teeth, magic, everything at its disposal to stop (from)me meeting me in a brutal melee where I came out worse off.
James Faulkner
Tftc!
