Chương 226: Arc 4 - Chapter 28

There was nothing Fritz could do for the wounded and the fallen. Not while the bull was bearing down on him. His attention was needed lest he be trampled or caught by the tiger's claws. He dived, horns and hooves stormed out of the wall and thundered through the spot he'd been standing. Jumping back up, he swiftly scanned the room, realising that he hadn't heard anything from the tiger or Toby for a long while. The great cat was now playing with a limping Toby. The man was bloody, his flesh and leathers torn.

He heaved and staggered, but he wasn't dead, and he hadn't fled. With grim despondence and a faraway look in his eye, he continued to distract the beast, weakly tossing out throwing daggers when he judged it was about to turn and hunt more lively prey. Feeling something like relief and desperation to save the man, Fritz Activated one of his rings. A tentacle of stone slid up from the floor and seized upon one of the tiger's back legs, stalling it for a second. It held only a second, though.

The beast was too strong to be hindered by the Ability and kicked away the thick tendril of stone like it were made of dried mud. Then it leapt at Toby, who only just managed to lunge to the side at the last moment. The bull dove into the wall, and more spikes fell. By a stroke of luck, none were in harm's way. Fritz ordered Reed and Clover to retreat to his position. The wall shuddered, and Toby yelled again.

"Change of tactic!" Fritz announced above the rumble.

"We strike the bull with everything. No more wearing it down."

"Everything?" Clover asked fearfully.

"Yes, use your Bolts until you drop. Aim at the legs as we planned. Reed and I will strike with all our might, too," Fritz proclaimed, attempting to sound sure of the new plan.

"Mel, lend me that pick!" he demanded, sheathing both his blades without flourish. With a wince, the wounded woman tossed the weapon with more strength than was strictly safe. Fritz still caught it deftly, then swung it through the air to test its weight. While it felt lighter than the whole of Quicksilver's blade, it was more top-heavy, and its dull point would be far more effective against the glass constructs. He wished it had more heft, but it would have to do.

Briefly, he considered conjuring his Hand of Eldritch Flame before discarding the thought completely. Without the proper protection, he could only wield it in the direst of dangers. And while the peril was great and rising by the moment, he wasn't yet willing to sacrifice his arm or life to melt the remaining beasts. The rumbling grew in volume, the floor trembled slightly, signs that the bull was about to appear.

"Fritz, help. Can't stand much longer," Toby croaked. The other two couldn't hear him, but Fritz could. Just as the words had stopped rasping, horns protruded from green glass, and hooves thundered his way. Torn between shattering the bull and aiding the man, Fritz hesitated. He needed to be in two places at once, yet there was only one of him. Gasping one of his Treasures, the metal disc given to him by Sylvia, he searched for any water on which to use it.

Seeing none, he seized his waterflask, unstoppered it, then threw it at the tiger. It clanged harmlessly by its feet, pouring out a steady stream of water. It wasn't much, but he prayed it would be enough. He Activated Watery Reflection, and a simulacrum of himself pooled into being. First, the head formed, then the shoulders, pulling the shallow puddle into itself. Then it stopped, the half-distinct features roiled, and the rising figure discorperated in a sloshing, foot-high wave.

Toby, who had been granted a mote of hope, reverted to a grim expression, which only grew darker. It was immediately clear that there wasn't enough water to summon the reflection, but Fritz didn't settle for failure. Instead, he used the Treasure again, this time concentrating on the waterflask itself rather than the pool around it. The disc of steel shook in his hand, an ominous response that it had never produced before.

It would have been concerning at the best of times, as it was, with titanic hooves stomping ever closer and the great beast nearly upon him, Fritz's heart squirmed. Had the Ability incurred its three-minute refresh even though the copy had failed to form? Or was it that his choice of the ever-filling waterflask was a poor decision? Either way, he hadn't the time nor the wits to ponder the question. Nor did he anticipate what the immediate effects would be.

The metal of the flask bent inward, as if it had been crushed by some enormous, invisible boot, then a gout of water burst from its depths. It hissed and spat, contorting further until, with a resounding crack, the water stopped spraying. The sudden rush of liquid twisted, and in less than a second, it was violently shaped into limber limbs and a solid, if slender, chest.

Fritz recognised his own sharply handsome profile mirrored on the reflection, and felt a flame spark in his centre, burning away some of the clinging fear. He silently ordered it to draw the attention of the tiger. It obeyed with a nod and a smile that was close to a smirk before sprinting smoothly to Toby's aid, a replicated pick in hand. Fritz spent no more of his attention on the simulacrum; the bull was close, too close. False pain alighted all over his body as hooves shook the stone bricks below.

Activating his Eelkin Belt, he turned slightly, setting his sights and concentrating only on the fast approaching green blur. Clover was slow to act, needing to be spurred by an order edged with Dusksong.

"Bolt!" Fritz cried as he faced down the bull. The word rang out, and the spikes both stuck in the ground and hanging overhead hummed. With only nine feet to spare, a stream of Concussive Bolts were loosed from Clover's outstretched hand. Where they struck, cracks spread in pale webs across the hard false hide. Frustratingly, the woman's aim wasn't yet perfect, and the first rippling sphere of force impacted the bull's shoulder, then next glanced off a horn, and the third just missed.

Only the fourth and final of the bolts landed on one thick foreleg, just above the knee. It was but a minor blemish on the smooth green glass, though it was enough to serve as somewhere to focus their attacks. Fritz sprinted toward the construct. The world was moving more slowly than it should, a benefit of Aspect of the Eel, and an effect he took great advantage of as he slipped under the wide set of horns cresting the bull's head. In that same graceful motion, he swung his borrowed pick.

With a clang that was lost in the trample, the weapon dug in deeply, then was torn from his grip as the beast barrelled past, lifting its head in a silent bellow. Reed rushed forward, not needing to be told to follow Fritz's strike. He ducked under the upraised horns and swept his club at its weakened, pick-impaled knee. It hit the lumbering, near-limping leg, and those fine fissures upon it deepened, and a small cloud of glittering dust was spat from the breaking glass.

After succeeding in his strike, the man leapt back before the bull could knock him down. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Staggering, the beast stomped to an ungainly stop, and Reed took the chance to strike again. The club hit, and the cracks grew, snaking up and down the limb. The bull bucked and spun, then kicked out with a hind leg that would have caught Reed in the head, caving in his skull if not for a rushed raising of his buckler.

The hoof hit the brass with a clang, the might of the blow forcing the small shield back and into his face, before knocking him off his feet completely. Reed fell into a heap, breathing but unconscious. Clover, too, had collapsed, though she retained some of her senses and clutched to both her quartz rod and necromancer's gnarled staff, glaring at the ghost floating high above, keeping herself awake so as to guard against it. Fritz was about to curse when a splintering and snapping interrupted him.

Under the bull's great weight, now no longer spread evenly, its leg broke, the knee shattering in a shower of shards. Its bulk toppled sideways for a moment before it regained a semblance of balance. He wouldn't let it recover too quickly, and now that it had one fewer leg to stand on, Fritz felt confident he could break away another. The only trouble was that, from the corner of his eye, he could see Toby and his reflection struggling to keep the tiger distracted.

He could have gone to help him, but he knew that breaking off another of the bull's hooves was more immediately important. And so, without another moment of hesitation, Fritz sprinted into peril, sliding under the bull's belly and scooping up both Reed's dropped club and Mel's, now freed, pick. After straightening on the other side of the beast, proper tools in hand, he began an assault. With precision and persistence, he stepped, slid and struck at the legs, leaving hairline fractures upon the glossy hide.

The bludgeon and spike beat out a discordant, yet ready rhythm, each blow a note, each dodge merely building, blooming into the next drumming strike. He wasn't completely unopposed. The beast reared and bucked, trying to trample him, but was unsuccessful in its futile, though furious attempts to flatten him. Fritz was untouchable.

By relying on a combination of Danger Sense, Awareness, and the distant, yet intimate music of his Grace, he danced slow circles around his foe, evading the brutish beast's still more brutal rampage. While each of Fritz's attacks held not negligible strength, he found himself wishing he had Might, or some Ability or Treasure to augment the power of his swings. Though the small fissures he left on the bull's joints were growing deeper and longer with each blow, he himself was starting to flag.

His arms ached and his legs burned. Thankfully, his breath came steady and his body didn't falter, the effect of the training he'd endured these past months. His limbs grew heavier by the second, but he ignored them, concentrating instead on his breath, attempting to align it to the music guiding his movements. Ignoring all other distractions, the ghost, the tiger, the fallen, wounded crew, he embraced a second song, mingling the two. Elegance, glamour, majesty, savagery sang through him.

Indescribable, exhilarating and inspired. Every movement more perfect than the last. Steps, spins, swings and sudden stops, pauses between the storming bull's pitiful, painfully dull blows. Interruptions to his joyous assault. Preventing him from grasping something greater, losing form and finding truth. Fritz's foe was too tedious to truly find what he was seeking in the sublime songs and sinuous motion of his own body, though he still threw himself deeper. Higher. Drowning.

Still, lacking something, something within himself, a certain power, a certain quintessential quality. Too weak, too unrefined, too lowly. Deeper, smoother, swifter. Suffocation. It was then, while lost to waltzing, slithering, striking, biting with false fangs, that his revelatory revelling was broken by the crashing of a resounding gong. The jarring note set him free from the music, and he stopped, still as a statue. He wasn't the only one who ceased all movement.

The bull was frozen in place, but only for another moment. All three of its knees burst, one after the other, in a hail of shimmering fragments, before the body collided with the stone floor and broke in turn, snapping in half, then half again, and again, falling into a heap of jagged, green chunks. Fritz was heaving, soaked with sweat, and his shaking hands held the club and pick tightly. A piercing pain split his head, but he could still see just fine and stand upright without much effort.

His dance had both stretched and compressed his sense of passing time, both seeming to span an uncaring age and end in a cruel moment. He quickly realised it had likely been on the latter scale, seconds rather than centuries. He took only a year to centre himself and search the room for his scattered retinue. Trudge, Mel, Reed, Clover, and Toby. The first four were close together, having gathered while he had trifled with his unworthy foe. The last was missing.

Those awake stared at him with disbelief, reverence and adoration. All those were things he was due as their liege, so he allowed them a tilt of his head and the slightest of bows in recognition of their appropriate deference and fervent veneration. Reed had also come to, as worshipful as the rest of them, which was good; he could help protect them from the last glass beast. The one that was leaping at Fritz's exposed back. He dodged, with a spin and a graceful, sliding step. Or he attempted to.

Instead, he staggered, and the world was cast into bleak relief as he shifted into shadow and the tiger's chipped claws plunged through him. The rest of the construct's large, yet lithe body followed soon after, and it turned swiftly to face Fritz, slashing and swiping, though finding no purchase on his phased form. A smirk stretched onto his face. If it thought that he'd be as easily slain as his reflection, then it was greatly mistaken.

It seemed to realise that too, and spun on the huddled wounded, preparing to pounce upon them. Fritz's expression fell, hardening with cold fury. How dare this construct, unthinking though it may be, dare to harm his subjects right under his own nose? The arrogance.

"Hark and halt, sculpted, soulless beast! Bare not your fangs, or seek to feast!" he ordered. His Dusksong, quiet and near empty, lent his voice only the faintest of edges. It was enough to cause the scattered spears to drone dimly, though not enough to make the tiger turn to face him. It leapt. Reed stood quickly and slammed his buckler into its maw, right between its terrible teeth, saving those around him from a deadly bite.

However heroic, the defending had a price; two powerful paws sliced into his shoulders, then the beast twisted its jaws and threw the man from his feet. Red splattered on the stone, covering and mingling with the blood already there, born and bled from the other's wounds. Fritz had another half a moment before he reformed, and he glided behind his foe, raising both weapons to strike. They were heavy, heavier than they had right to be, but he endured, then swept them down.

When they struck, it sent incredible, aching waves up his arms, and the club and pick fell from stiff, trembling fingers, clattering to the floor. It hardly hurt the tiger. The cracks created, while thicker than those he inflicted on the bull, were still insignificant. He did, however, succeed in distracting it. The beast turned, mouth now buckler-free, and stared baleful golden eyes at him. Danger Sense cut into his flesh, and now that Fritz was disarmed and felt just how exhausted his body was from his dance.

He dived out of the way just in time, drawing Mortal Edge as he got to his feet. He wavered, and although his mind was clear, there was a definite humming in the back of his head. Fritz wondered if his exertions had had some adverse effect, but soon realised that it wasn't a problem with his mind. It was the spears, still droning. Fritz drew forth Quicksilver, then barely dodged a swipe, and heard that same tone dimly resonating from the tiger's claws, too.

All the glass gently rang with that sound, the last whispers of his Dusksong. Another great paw came down, nearly rending his shoulder. Fritz could only retreat, evade and avoid the beast; his feeble attempts to riposte and parry led to nought but more pain in his arms and light scratches on the gold-striped hide. Swiftly, his previous certainty in his skill began to wane, replaced by a stinging fear.

His clear gaze, once focused on the tiger, darted around to the stuck spikes, and he racked his mind for a way to defeat his foe. His intuition, quietly prodding him, led him to believe that his path to victory was tied to the sound and glass. Resonance. If he had Dusksong left, he would have let it loose in a great cry, but that reservoir was empty, the music all but silent.

With that power out of reach, he instead considered each of his Treasures as he avoided the tiger, each claw coming closer to tearing into him. A paw struck him straight in the chest, five wicked nails screeched against his breastplate. A noise that reminded him of his Ring of Echolocation. Falling backwards, knocked over by the construct's strength, he Activated the Treasure. The high note rang out, the whine was weak at first, barely the buzzing of a seawasp, but it soon began to echo. And echo. And echo.

The sound gradually grew in volume as it reverberated from spear to spear, until, like the ripples of a pond, it reached the walls, and the waves of noise were carried up them and to the roof. The whine became a painful shriek, which stretched into an agonising scream as the power only grew stronger and the room shuddered, then shook. Fritz dropped his blades and clutched his ears; he felt as though they would burst, though not before his skull did. Through watery eyes, he stared at the tiger.

It had retreated, slinking back, howling at the overwhelming sound. Spears above fell all at once in a deadly rain. Fritz trusted Trap Sense and used his barrier ring to protect himself. Before they impacted the stone, they cracked, then shattered in the air. Then it was those spikes stuck in the stone that exploded in clouds of scintillating dust and far-flung shards. The walls and roof quaked, and Fritz was afraid that the whole room would splinter, then collapse.

His first suspicion was correct, though his second was not. After being pelted with too many small pieces of glass to count, a boom sounded, and the tremors ceased. The walls had stilled and were now marbled with cloudy fissures, as was the roof. The tiger was nowhere to be seen. Though, Fritz knew it was hiding amongst the sea of shattered green and gold. He hoped it was hurt. When he finally spied it creeping up toward him, he noticed it was more cracks than cat; how it held together was a mystery.

One probably explained with magic. But now it was just the two of them, glaring at each other from across the floor. One last clash and it would all be over. Or so he had thought until a throwing dagger flew from one side of the room and struck the beast in the neck. In its fragile state, that was all that it took. A clink heralded its sudden demise and immediate fragmentation. Fritz held his breath as it fell to pieces. Then breathed out a long sigh when the chunks remained unmoving.

Though he took a moment to stand there, revelling in their triumph, he knew he couldn't stay still for long. He stared across the aftermath of the battle and attempted to locate his retinue. No, his crew. Toby revealed himself soon enough, limping through the glass with a grim gait and a grave expression. Glad the man was alive, but sparing him no further attention, Fritz then spotted the rest, huddled as they were before the screaming echo and seemingly in the same straits as before.

He made his way toward them, hoping that their wounds weren't severe and that Trudge hadn't slipped the mortal coil. He didn't feel the Spite, so there was definite cause to hope as such. That and the crew looked wary rather than sorrowful. Fritz smiled weakly and he had reason to. Though the battle had been tough, a near disaster, there were more upsides than their simple survival. And one of those was, of course, Treasure.