Chương 57: No Time To Waste

Hurry! While he's slowing it down," Grim yelled. Her feet pounded on the pavement as Maya streaked in front of her, her aura blazing in a crystalline silver light that appeared to fracture reality around her. Small prismatic fragments of something were left behind her as she ran. That feeling she'd gotten in the weapon shop was nothing compared to the real thing. Before, her aura had promised violence, and now? It was violence."

I wound what cannot bleed," Maya said as she streaked forward and launched herself like a missile towards its chest. Her blade buried hilt-deep as the Giant roared and tried to flatten her against its chest. She backflipped off in an arc, and the creature swung its club at her. Her blade flashed, severing the creature's hand at the wrist and causing it to drop the weapon. The giant swatted at her, but she blurred away only to come back and slash it again in the leg.

It howled, and another pair of Petals added their voices to the choir of screams. Solomon's rifle blared as he silenced them, but more of them kept cropping up. Grim turned her sight back towards her fight and rolled to the side as the ground vibrated beneath her from the giant's leap. It was now only feet away from them, having jumped once she'd been distracted. Its fist came towards her, and she tried to slash it but only landed a glancing blow on its forearm as she was launched away.

She tumbled, skipping like a stone as her bones barely held together. When she came to a stop, she was heaving as she tried to gather air. There was no time to recover so she forced herself to her knees. It was painful, but somehow she didn't think she'd broken anything. Where she'd been hit, there was a massive crack in her armour, but it breaking had absorbed the force rather than her ribs. She'd have a massive bruise if they lived through this, but she'd take that over the alternative any day.

Alyn's claws were extended, she ducked a blow and raked her talons on its chest. Another side step, another weave let her avoid getting hit. Spears of blood were infrequent, but hit hard when they did come. Grim's sword had fallen a few feet from her, so she scooped it up and sprinted back towards the fight where Maya blurred and slashed the back of the giant's ankles, causing it to land on one knee.

With her last strike, Grim felt Maya's authority deactivate, and she blurred away only to trip and tumble towards Grim. She bent down and braced herself, catching Maya before she could fall any further. The momentum hit her hard, but she stayed standing, "Are you alright?" Grim asked. Maya staggered to her feet, "Yeah, just pushed myself too hard. Two strikes were supposed to be my limit. It's weak where my blade touched it."" Good job, we'll take it from here." Grim said as she let go of Maya.

She tried to argue, but she fell to her knees and threw up, silencing her arguments. Grim thought about trying to copy her Boon but decided against it, she wouldn't be able to use it as is. She had to manifest her shadow to use copied Boons, but a Boon involving both of her legs wasn't something she had any practice with. Besides, she still had Alyn's to work with. Grim got to them just as Alyn was trying to dig a hole through its chest with her claws.

She had one hand gripping onto its flesh while the other she used like a spear to dig deeper. One side of her face was smashed in but was slowly knitting itself back together. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. It smashed its fist into the side of her body, audibly breaking several bones, but her grip didn't relent as she held on.

A tide of bullets chipped away at its body as Solomon pounded it, his attention taken off the gathering horde of screaming Petals. Grim held her blade upwards and thrust it into the creature's back, aiming for its spine. She was on target, but it failed to penetrate deeper than an inch or two. It spasmed and recoiled, swinging its massive handless arm behind it. She ducked underneath and hooked her arm underneath its leg as she activated her copy of [SOUL TAP].

A shadowy hand overlaid hers and began leaching energy from the bottomless well that this thing had.

"S ongJae, make it light!" Grim screamed as she heaved upwards. At first, the Giant didn't move an inch as she had nowhere near the strength needed to lift it. Even if its weight wasn't currently magnified by SongJae, she knew she wasn't capable, but she felt the moment when that switched. She dug her legs in and pushed upwards even as it tried to pull her off, but with no hand it could only batter her uselessly. Its foot left the ground, only by an inch or two at first, then by feet.

She and Phil hadn't spent a lot of training time on groundwork, but she'd been taught a basic takedown. She lifted as high as she could go and pushed forward, trying to knock it onto its back. It began to hop but with its gravity changed, it was having a difficult time adjusting to its new balance. Grim cursed, even with all of that, she knew she wasn't going to topple it, even with Alyn sapping its strength, "Maya!" There was a blur and Grim felt the force of her attack shift throughout the Giant's body.

Wow, Maya wasn't just fast, she also hit hard. Maya stayed there, her blade all the way through the Giant's calf muscle as Grim heaved with all of her strength. With nowhere to hop, Maya's body acted as a table to trip the creature. It lifted up and for a brief moment, existed in both worlds of balance where one could either fall or recover. Before Grim could say anything, she felt SongJae reverse the creature's gravity and rip that possibility out of existence.

Grim let go and jumped back as the creature slammed into the concrete. It sunk in several feet as the impact deafened the rest of them. A thick plume of smoke rose up and engulfed her, stopping her from seeing anything else. She coughed as her lungs began to burn, "Maya! Are you alright?" If this thing had crushed her, she'd be pissed. She could hear the sounds of fighting right in front of her, but her visibility was barely more than a foot away from her eyes.

[SOUL TAP] was weakening, and she could tell she had little left before the copied Boon burned out. While it was immensely helpful that she could even use it in the first place, Hazel was still far more efficient at using it. Shadow overlaid on top of her hand as black claws grew from the ink, she walked forward, deeper into the cloud and to the Giant. She could taste victory on her tongue, but she wouldn't bite into it yet before they were all safely inside the Clocktower.

Just a few feet away from her lay the Giant with Alyn on top of it. The wound that Maya had delivered to it had become a weak point, and her claws had dug a gash into it like a wild animal feasting on prey. The Giant tried to raise its arms to fend her off, but even its unnatural strength couldn't break the lashes of earth's gravity. A dash of worry went out for the big man, she wasn't sure about the limits on his capabilities, but surely this was pushing it. Still, this wasn't the time.

As long as they all lived between her and Alyn, they could heal him or, at the very least, keep him alive until they could get him to help. A racking coughing fit sent a plume of concrete dust whirling as Maya flailed her arms. Her head was down, hunched over as she stumbled about blindly, "I can't breathe!" She yelled out before another desperate gasp of coughing cut her words short. Grim wanted to help her, she really did, but killing the Giant still took priority and she couldn't leave Alyn alone.

A moan forced her to reconsider as a lone Petal wandered through the dust, locked onto Maya's stumbling form. It was limping as it did so, its shoulder blown apart by what must have been a missed shot from Solomon. Maya heard it too but could only meekly raise an arm to ward it off as the creature swung a pipe with its one good arm. The Petals, at least their weaker variants, weren't particularly strong, but they held nothing back as muscles and ligaments tore as the steel pipe shattered on Maya's back.

The blow forced her to the ground as she sprawled out in pain. She rolled onto her back to face her attacker, but that had been the most she could do as the coughing never stopped but slowly turned into panicked gasps for air. Grim went to move to her, but a scream of pain caused her to stop. Alyn stood on top of the Giant as her arm was stuck shoulder-deep into its maw. Where there had once been its chest, it had opened up into a mouth and its teeth were grinding together on Alyn's bones.

She scrabbled, both trying to free herself and deal damage to the creature. She called on [FRIENDLY SHADOW] willing Hazel to appear, but she did not come, only a sheath of shadow appeared over top of her, so that left her no other choice. If she wanted to save both of them, she'd have to use her authority.