Chương 26: Overeager

Ch. 26: Overeager Perhaps I was overeager. She grabbed the table and lifted it as I reached out at her. My forward motion caused my belly to slide up the incline she'd provided and fall to the other side.

"Insolent," She barked as she snatched my ankle out of the air and slammed me on the ground, "Maybe because I sensed your power your mortal mind became wrapt with ego. I did not say you had more power than me." Anubis gripped her palm tightly and opened it. She'd conjured a tiny black ball from her palm. She released it. I rolled away from the ground and the ball drilled through the floor, eating a perfectly round hole in the floor.

"Holy shit," I said, "What is that!?"

"Come closer and see." I scrambled to my feet as she prepared another charge. I placed my back against the wall in front of a vase. When I dodged another black ball, the vase got completely sucked inside of it.

"Void magic!?" Before I could finish that thought, Anubis launched another attack at me. I dodged but my shirt lifted in the behind me and the ball ate through the fabric.

"Hey! Target doesn't sell these anymore!" I yelled. She would get the best of me if I didn't close the gap. I looked at what little mana I had left. When I did, I became hyperaware of the weight the pocket gave to my belt. Just you wait, Bloodsucker. I thought, You're gonna love this. I held off on the magic, and instead focused on natural ability. She threw a few more void balls my way and I rolled under them. I got closer to her, she reacted with an attempt at a scratch. But I grabbed her wrist. She pulled. Hard.

Felt like it was Lee and me wrestling before I got the god boost. She managed to wrestle her hand out of my grip, just barely. It didn't matter. I had stuck the Bloodsucker in her gut. Nothing. No dialogue in dark red text. No sinister voice. No mention of blood. Attunement failed Black blood dripped onto the knife but it didn't matter. Anubis slapped me across the face so hard I flew from the top of the balcony down to the sands below.

"What the hell was that!?" Billy looked at the direction of the thunderous sound. He and kayla continued to walk down the long stretch of stone hallway.

"Not sure," said Kayla.

"Sounds like a bomb went off outside the temple," Billy said.

"Could it be what took Franz?"

"Maybe. For Franz… for Drake, it would be better if we killed the core. Best case scenario, they're both still alive and they return with us. Worst case… we can't help them anyway."

"Yeah…" Kayla said absently. Billy couldn't help but sympathize. The guilt from losing me rounded up for Kayla, now she felt guilty for losing George and Franz too. He watched her snap out of it.

"You hear that?" Kayla asked. He looked around, tuning into the hubbub from outside the door.

"Yeah, sounds like we've got company. Weapons up!" Two gnolls burst through the doors of the hallway and ran toward them. Billy put his fists up. Kayla placed both hands on her hammer and lifted it up high. Something was odd about the way they approached. Weapons in hand but it seemed the gnolls had drawn their focus elsewhere, behind Kayla and Billy. The two monsters ran past them. Billy and Kayla both exchanged glances but immediately put their cockles back up as more footsteps came their way.

An entire group of monsters from the temple came through the door that lead to the center room with the pit. They all had their eyes intensely set on the exit and ran past Kayla and Billy to get there. Once they all disappeared, Billy said to Kayla, "What the heck was that?"

"They were running away from the room with the pit. I've got a good idea." The rumblings of scale on metal could be heard. Billy sighed before saying, "Hey, another episode of Slay Queen and the Bulwark?"

"Yup. My branding manager is going to have fun with this one."

"The Queen and her castle," he said smiling, "defeat the big bad monstrous… snake!" This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. And suddenly, the dungeon core burst through the heavy stone doors. It slithered at them, its body just barely big enough to fit into the hallway. The monster's scales scraped along the stones of the wall and ceiling, leaving no room to squeeze through.

"Anything for speed?" Billy asked.

"Uh, no!" Kayla said, "You?"

"I've got something. Bull Rush!" A red aura flowed from the tips of his horns down his whole body. A slight anger overtook him as a result of the spell. His carrying capacity had been increased. Anything that he held or could hold would not bother him. His running speed increased too. He scooped Kayla in his arms and began booking it, just as the snake snapped its jaws at both of them.

Sand rained around me as I landed on the ground. My mana bar was a blearing red color, down its last 2 percent. Before I could say anything, she came down upon me from the three stories up. Her fist was covered in that black void magic. I sprung out of the way. The punch sent a shockwave, throwing a sand storm up into the air before sucking it all into her fist's black hole. I kicked her, my foot connecting with her hip. I hit her so hard she slammed against the temple wall.

When she fell back, there were cracks on the stone around her impact location. I charged at her, jumping up and kicking with both feet. She slipped to the right. My feet smashed against the stone blocks, creating even more cracks. I landed back on the ground but she swung her foot and kicked me backward ten feet onto the sand.

"Why don't you want to work!?" I shouted at my Bloodsucker Blade, "I gave you the stupid blood and you still don't want to do anything?!" I blinked and the demoness was gone. I stood up and looked around, but before I could spot her, her fist slammed into the back of my neck. My face collided with the stone. My head was through the wall. I was staring at the outer hallway. I saw Kayla and Billy running away from me.

"Kayla!? Billy!?" Then I turned to see what they were running from. I yelped and pulled my head out before the snake monster swiped my noggin off my shoulders. She pulled me by my clothes and tossed me along the desert. I skirted along the sand until my back hit the slope of a dune. Anubis held both her hands out as she conjured a black ball of energy the size of a baseball. The demoness grabbed it and pitched it toward me.

I lifted my body, then used cloudstep once to push myself up and away from the ball's trajectory. The little black hole hit the sand dunes and sucked in all the sand from it before closing up. One hit from that and I was dead.

"So… are you through?" She asked me from afar.

"Yeah. I'm through warming up. What about you?"

"I've been warm for some time." I placed my stupid nonworking magic knife in my holster, and I reached for the two balls of the wraiths I'd defeated. I held them in my palm and broke them like a seal. Suddenly a shield with black flames and a black-bladed cleaver appeared in my hands. I banged the two together and said, "Let's do this for real." She showed me her fangs when she smiled. Two void balls appeared in her hands and began pulling her forward. She rocketed toward me in a superman position.

I held my shield up and she twisted her body to slam into it with her foot. I tried to cleave her but she had already bounced up, twisting and landing behind me. She made a swipe at my back from behind but I tilted forward, sending a kick back at the same time. The foot connected with her stomach but she grabbed my leg before I could do more damage. I jumped with my free leg and kicked her nose. She released her grip and I dropped to the floor. She held her fist again, covering it with void energy, and struck.

I held out my wraith shield. The fist collided with the shield and the conjuration broke before being sucked up into the fist. I took that opportunity to slash her with my cleave. Her entire head came off. Her body fell down. Then… nothing? I got up slowly, looking at her body on the ground and her head was separated. Her snout buried in the sand. I checked my system. There was no ding. Nothing to indicate she was dead. Certainly no evolve point. I got closer to her body to examine it.

That was when I realized that there was no blood spilling onto the sand. I was too creeped out to grab the head, so I pulled the body to look at it. Her decapitated body reached out and scratched me, hard. It had been some time since I felt real pain but that was definitely how I remembered it. I backed away when I noticed the black void magic perfectly covering where her wound would be. The body worked on its own, reaching in the sand and grabbing her head, only to put it back on.

She said, "You've so much to learn about our world." Anubis attacked again. I stuck my cleaver up and her scratch broke through. My one-time weapon disappeared. Anubis was so close. I was without a weapon. Even though it ate up the last of my magic, I called forth Firebreath and burped a flare at her. She shrunk, and I noticed that the black void on her hands disappeared. Anubis stared at her hands and I used the opportunity to punch her hard in the face and her body was flung back in the direction of the temple.

I took out my knife and said, "Okay, I get it! I was a total jerk to you! I'm sorry. But please work. I just figured it out!" The eye on the hilt remained closed.

"The light from my dragonfire can nullify the void properties! Gonna need some mana for this one!" I looked up. Anubis was unplugging herself from where she landed on the wall. I turned back to my knife.

"COME ON! I wasn't that toxic! You're a good cursed item. I'm happy to have you. I think it's amazing that you took my sanity because you didn't get what you wanted." Still nothing. The dog woman took one fist and ripped it out of the wall, then she took the other and did the same thing. Anubis jumped off and landed on the ground, staring daggers at me. She held her hands close together as she began to conjure another black ball.

"You idiot," I said, "you absolute turd. I need you to fucking work please." Nothing.

"Fine!" I grabbed my shirt and pulled, ripping it and exposing my chest. When Anubis had scratched me, blood had been drawn. But the brief proximity of Kayla and Billy, my teammates, had caused my ability 'Abundance' to heal the wounds. So… I had to do this myself. I angled the knife toward me.

"You want blood?? I'll give you the best blood in the game! I'll give you high-octane, pure, god's blood baby. Let's see how you feel about me after that!" And I stabbed my knife into my chest. My knife's eye finally opened. I could his dialogue box once again but this time it said: Weapon mission unlocked, "Taste God's Wrath." Bloodsucker blade is now level 2. I missed you too, Drake.