Chương 30: Then We Both Die

Ch. 30: Then We Both Die While Anubis breathed power into her attack, my comrade was battling the giant core monster. I wondered how I could help Kayla without her knowing. I wondered if it wasn't worth it to hide my power anymore.

"Drake!" She said it without turning, unaware of what I had done to Franz, "Do you need any help!?"

"No!" I said, "No, I've finished. I… I got the best of him" It felt too callous to say I killed another human.

"C-can I get your help over here, then?" I ran to her vicinity. I stuck my Bloodsucker, and the new stone knife I'd gotten from Franz into my holster and my pants.

"Hey," She said, glancing awkwardly at the weapon I'd pilfered from our mutinous comrade, "Those aren't going to work. Billy has… Billy had this idea to Trojan the monster. You're pretty good at that, right?"

"Yeah," I said, "Yeah, I'm very acquainted with that strategy now." She nodded her head and said, "I'm glad you're alive. I'm sorry I have to put you in danger again."

"Kayla, Anubis…"

"She's going to blow up half of our whole city. I know. We have to move quickly. Let's kill this snake and close the portal. Who knows how much longer we have."

"But I-""Calm. Drake. Stay Calm. We kill the snake, we close the portal." We kill the snake… we close the portal. Anubis only factored into our plans such that time was of the essence. But she factored into my plans a lot more heavily. Anubis was still charging, the aura around her was black. She was creating a void nuke. We kill the snake we close the portal. And we lose my experience points. And we lose my evolve point… and I go back to the slow growth of alpha pits.

My navel-gazing was cut short by Kayla snapping to my attention.

"I'll provide the opening!" Kayla ran forward with her hammer. She swung and connected with the snake. The vibrations from her weapon's special skill caused a deeper hurt than her normal shot. The snake coiled back, poised itself ready to strike. Kayla jumped behind me.

"Now!" I stepped forward. The idea of Trojaning was simple. It had become a dangerous, risky, but oftentimes necessary way of dealing with a much larger opponent. You climbed inside its mouth before it had time to bite you. It took precision and was advised against per the official Champion Union's guidelines. But we all knew how rules got fuzzy in the fog of war. I looked up at the snake, its head blotting the sun, its body entirely extended. I saw Anubis just past the core monster.

It really was my best shot to save the city. I could easily climb in and stab the heart. It's not like snakes had that much in the way of protecting their heart from the things inside their stomach. As the sun caught the sheen of its scales, I noticed runes etched all over it. Runes clearly but crudely carved into the monster's shimmering skin. I had seen those runes before. The snake snapped at me, its head charging forward like a lightning bolt. I could see it coming long before it arrived.

My stupid, hipshot decision to go after Anubis would put the entire city at risk. Part of me couldn't help but think: What had this awful city ever done for me? The snake's jaws were around my head. It's fangs closed in on me. If it was just the evolve point… just the experience… I probably would have let it go. But I had suddenly remembered where I'd seen the runes. And I had questions. With a sympathetic look to Kayla, I mouthed, "I'm sorry." The snake's jaws closed. It pulled its head back and focused on Kayla.

Kayla's eyes went wide. The crux of the crazy plan was for her to buy time while I worked my way through the insides to the heart of the core monster. Only I wasn't inside. In the last second before the monster's jaws snapped shut, I leapt behind it. I used my cloudstep to burst through the air, behind the monster to the Demon Lord at the top of the balcony. Anubis saw me coming and knew it was time to release the orb. The orb slowly rolled along the air as it separated from Anubis' grip.

Almost like it didn't realize yet that it was time to go. But once it did, it began to pick up the pace. The release of the orbs gave me the perfect opener. I stabbed her in the back with Bloodsucker. I could see her wince as I landed a spot between her shoulder blades in her back. I then looped my arm under her and yanked hard, aggravating the wound. I placed my back against hers and looped my other arm around her. Then I pulled, wearing her like a backpack.

"You're coming with me," I said. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I skipped along the air, diminishing the distance between the rampaging void nuke and me. Drake… this is good blood.

"Feed it to me, Bloodsucker!" In a continuous stream of mana usage and mana recovery, I was able to fly by the void nuke. The moment of surprise, coupled with the precision strike of my knife kept Anubis pinned. Every time I felt her struggling against me, I pulled on her left arm. Her joint would sear with pain. I stopped mid air. The way I held Anubis against me like a backpack, meant she was now facing the oncoming void nuke.

"Stop it!" I yelled.

"I can't!" The ball sped toward us.

"Do it or we both die!" Her two hands created void balls. The kinds that she had used as jetpacks earlier. She pulled the space in front of her into the nothingness, and propelled us closer to the voidball.

"Fine! Then we both die!" This bitch was calling my bluff. Dammit. I kicked my feet up and flipped us around. I was now facing the ball upside down.

"Firebreath." The magic upgrade my bloodsucker had gotten from my blood caused an extra turbo charge of fire. It attacked the void ball. The ball consumed my fire, its light working twice as effective against the dark. The void nuke dwindled to nothingness.

"I know!" I yelled as I kicked my foot against a cloudstep I cast above me, rocketing us toward the ground. I suplex her into the sand below. The force caused us to separate. We both got up, she was bloodied now. My attacks having taken their affects on her.

"I know what that pouch on your belt does. Around her white dress, there had been a pouch riddled with the same runes on the snake. She grabbed it, as if to check if it was still there. It wasn't. I held it up, showing her what I'd nicked during our scuffle.

"It's a hex. It's a hex to destroy the snake. You placed some explosive runes all around the snake because you wanted the option to blow it up. Is that right?" Anubis wiped the sweat off her brow as she panted.

"I grow tired of these games."

"This.. this doesn't make any sense to have. Why would you put a self-destruct button on your big bad monster? Why… would someone as powerful as you even need to keep that thing here? There are less costly ways of killing people." She sneered at me. Her eyes stayed glued to the pouch I was now holding.

"The pit… the high-level megafauna. This temple… You were here. And before this.. Before I faced you, I faced the goat demon. And he had his men stuffed inside of a Grizzlox."

"Congratulations. On figuring out what our realm had figured out years ago."

"The demons… this side can predict the tar pits. You can predict where and… even when?" She didn't say anything.

"How?"

"Our Mathematicians use the moons and the sun to predict such things."

"Right. You guys have so many moons. You have more data points. If anyone figured out how to predict the next tar pit on our end, they'd be a billionaire. But it's harder because we only have one celestial body." Anubis swiped at the pouch. I pulled it away and blew her backward with my firebreath. She shrieked as the injuries mounted on her body.

"You just happened to have the worst luck. My dragonfire was the perfect counter to your void magic. That's… that's pretty shitty, I have to admit."

"How… how do you have dragonfire!? You're just a human. How did you reach such high levels of power?"

"I killed Spiros the Kirin god. Killed him dead. Then his annoying ass came back. You know I really did think about that deal you gave. At first… I thought I was being noble by not accepting it. But when I look at you, I think about him. I realized the real reason I said no. The last thing I wanted was a boss, you know?" She stared at me, a once powerful being, on her knees and broken in spirit. I sighed and said, "Alright, experience points be dammed. I have some more questions about the knife.

Tell me exactly how many of your days are left before the ritual." She lunged at me. I held the pouch away from her and reached for the knife in my holster. The knife entered the same spot I'd gotten her in before. It was my way of feeding the Bloodsucker blade. Only it wasn't that blade I'd stabbed her with.

The stone blade I'd taken from Franz' body had two conditions to be met for the stone activation to work: You needed a critical strike on the enemy Their health needed to be under 50% She looked at me, her face in anguish. The wound had begun to petrify around her shoulder and spread up her neck.

"No," I said, "No… I didn't… wanted more time." Her face turned to stone and her normally hardened features had softened. Her eyes gave me a desperate plea, before she accepted her fate and turned to stone.

"Dammit!" I yelled as I smashed the hex pouch in my palm. An explosion erupted near the temple. The runes on the snake had activated. The core died and I stared as the white flash swept over me. Kayla and I were both back in our realm. Kayla and I were alone, all others in our party dead. She looked at me, still breathing deeply.

"You're alive."

"I am." I said. She came over and hugged me tightly. I met her embrace, my blood pressure still rising.

"Thank God, one of us is." I was so close to the next puzzle piece. So close only for it to be taken. I was angry. I gripped her tighter. A deep voice bellowed to us, bouncing around the player tunnel of the Dodger's Stadium. It had a kind of old money effect, and when I turned I saw a man in sunglasses wearing an impossibly tight shirt.

"My, my. Take a look at the happy couple."