Chương 471: Grinding

Ozzy surged forward towards Grinder, seeing that while the other Butcher looked like a large, ungainly monster, he didn't move like one. He kept his balance while kicking minions out of his way and swung his two-handed 'hog splitter' in a sweeping figure-eight arc as he moved across the smoke-filled room. As Ozzy was preparing to block with one cleaver and hit with the other, Grinder planted one foot and pivoted, bringing his weapon around even faster and taking him away from Ozzy's swing.

Ozzy was forced to bring up both cleavers to block awkwardly. He stumbled backward and his foot came down inside a bucket of meat scraps, slid under his foot by one of Grinder's minions. Grinder turned his weapon slightly to glance off Ozzy's weapons and keep its momentum, continuing the attack and bringing it back around as he swung it toward Rolly. The Shepherd was charging behind Ozzy and saw him stumble off balance, one foot stuck in the bucket.

Then his attention was taken up by Grinder, whose reach and speed took him by surprise. The other Butcher's short arm seemed to stretch farther, increasing the sweep of his weapon's arc, and giving Rolly a deep slash across his stomach, parting his dragonskin armor like butter. Rolly managed a return strike against Grinder's bicep, drawing blood but not slowing the monster down. He fell to the side, holding his wound and pouring stamina into his healing ability.

Squirmie was incensed that her pet had been wounded in yet another fight. She flew straight at Grinder, talons ready to rip his face off, only to run into a hard jab from his other hand. Any one of Grinder's thick fingers had more mass to it than Squirmie had at the moment, and the punch came in hard, backed by his considerable strength and weight. It hurt her pride more than her body as she flew back into the corridor thirty feet.

Grinder turned his back on her, taking the opportunity to kick Rolly in the face, and turned to Ozzy. The fight had only been going on for a few seconds, and Ozzy couldn't help but notice Grinder was in control of the battle, outnumbered or not. Ozzy had to grasp the bucket with both hands to tear it apart, and when he did, the broken thing wailed and Grinder cursed at him.

"Damn you. I had that bucket trained up good and you broke it! Do you see me breaking your toys?" Ozzy pointed at Rolly, "You hurt my friends."

"You brought your friends into a dungeon, so don't go complaining to me if they get a belly ache or punched in the nose. If you'd wanted a duel, you should have come alone. You bring a group, you get a Boss fight. And since you brought reinforcements, I did too." Minions with sharp knives and long strings of sausage came out of the woodwork, a dozen working to surround Ozzy. From the corridor came the light and sound of Suzette casting spells.

When Rolly had taken his wound, she'd immediately cast Triage to stop the bleeding, then dodged Squirmie as she flew by in reverse, cursing as she went. The bug fell to the ground as four huge boars came around the corner, ridden by minions with long spears and bad attitudes. She concentrated on her hounds, and one grabbed the little princess and raced back to Suzette, while the other leaped at one of the minions, knocking him from his saddle.

The other three charged her, but a nearby shadow reached out to swallow her, the hound, and its small burden. She stepped out of another shadow behind them. The two hounds quickly finished off the downed minion. Squirmie flew at the three mounted minions, who were trying to turn around their stubborn mounts. One died to a razor-sharp wingtip slicing off its head and the other two went down to twinned spells from Suzette's staff.

Rolly managed to stand up and was holding his arm across his wound, healing it as best he could. Squirmie flew back to him and used Pet Healing to help him seal the wound. <We must be careful. This one has a sharp claw and is well-trained, like a Queen's guard-pet. > Rolly had to agree, the huge weapon had done over two thousand damage to him and rent his armor.

"Flank him, assist Ozzy, and clean up anything that joins the fight on his side. I see a lot of little minions hiding everywhere." Ozzy and Grinder were circling each other. Ozzy was trying to get a feel for his foe, who was enjoying the fight. Two minions tried to tie his legs together, but the second ran when Ozzy stepped on the first and turned it into a smear on the dirty stone floor.

In the split second, while his attention was on the minion, Grinder flicked his weapon with one hand, scoring a small slash on Ozzy's right forearm, before he pulled back his weapon and again took a two-handed stance.

"Eyes on me, Smokey The Butcher, or you'll be in Hades' realm wondering what happened." Rolly and Squirmie began hunting the minions. It didn't matter if they hid in a pile of meat or sausage. Squirmie burrowed after them and Rolly speared them on his long, scything talons. They were careful to stay out of Grinder's reach, but close enough to be a threat. The bigger threat came from Suzette when she began casting Evergreen's Shining Lance from her staff. She was conserving her mana and not double-casting.

The first spell hit Grinder in the shoulder, burning a hole in his leather-like skin. The smell of burning sausage filled the room. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Dammit... that stings! You brought a Fae and a Bug to a Butcher fight?" Ozzy just grinned at him.

"Boss fight, or can't you handle it, boss?" Grinder said nothing but surged forward. A strong double-handed strike forced Ozzy aside as he lunged at Suzette. She held her ground, pouring another spell into him, going for his face and putting a burnt hole below one eye. Ozzy flipped out Chainey and pulled hard. Grinder's overhand swing came down two inches from Suzette, shattering flagstones. She was knocked down, but otherwise unhurt.

Rolly and Squirmie took advantage of the situation and slashed deep into Grinder's back, penetrating his tough hide and chewing into the softer material inside. The Boss roared his fury. He pulled out his weapon one-handed and spun, forcing Rolly to dodge back. Squirmie stayed on his back, slashing, until a loop of sinew wrapped around her and pulled her inside the wound. Grinder laughed, "She's headed for my belly, one way or another." Rolly could see that the tears in Grinder's flesh were healing.

Ozzy was pulling hard on Grinder to keep him in place when the huge Boss suddenly bent over, retching. Squirmie emerged, covered in half-digested meat, along with a small minion that ran like hell, thankful for a second chance. Grinder grimaced, "Bad meat. That's all you are. Bad meat! I've eaten spoiled liverwurst that was better than you." He was turning green in the face, and his legs were wobbly. Ozzy charged, instructing Chainey to bind the other Butcher's legs.

An enraged Squirmie flew at Grinder's face, only to be slapped out of the air and slammed into a wall. He spun and brought down his Hog-Splitter on Ozzie's shoulder, cutting six inches into him, and slicing bone, but couldn't keep from being slammed to the floor with Ozzy on top of him.

For a second, the weapon was loose in his hand, and Rolly kicked it away from him, then chased after it to keep a minion from returning it to Grinder. Sunlight flared in the room as Grinder took another spell, this time to the top of his head. It burned through and exploded one of his eyes. Ozzy could only attack with one hand, but that was enough, bringing his cleaver down twice on Grinder's head. Squirmie was slashing at his neck, and suddenly the boss's head exploded.

At first, Ozzy thought he was covered in brains, but then he realized they were strings of raw sausage. Grinder's skin split open along the stitched scars that covered his body, revealing that inside the thick leather skin was nothing but sausages, sinew, and guts. The smell was intensely horrible. Ozzy staggered away from the body. Suzette ran to him and began casting Triage on his wound.

"Drink a potion, hurry." In the silence, Squirmie's sharp senses caught the sound of screaming. She flew up to the ceiling, and a moment later, she brought down two leather sacks which the voices were coming from. A very panicked Ricardo and Ben emerged from the bags, shaking. The room was filled with the scent of the spices that covered them. Ricardo was leaning against the wall, "Never coming in this dungeon again. Dying, I'm ok with, but that was horrible." <You smell wonderful. Squirmie is intrigued.

> Ben looked better than Ricardo, but not by much.

"He was curing us. Turning us into dried sausage. There was a timer counting down. Another 23 minutes and 17 seconds and we'd have been pepperoni." <Hanging meat torture? This creature was a genius. > Suzette pointed to the mound of quivering sausage.

"You can tell him. Did none of you notice that there was no reward or death notification?" <Paperwork is not Squirmie's strong point. And she was distracted by squirming, screaming prey animals that needed rescuing. > Ben spied his long sword under a pile of meat and ran to retrieve it. Two minions were trying unsuccessfully to hide it. As soon as Ben grabbed his weapon, an electric shock fried the two minions. Rolly was watching the pile as he poured most of his stamina into Ozzy's wound.

"How are you doing?"

"Back to half health, and I can use the arm, but it's sore." All of the meat and sausages in the room flew to the center as Grinder reformed, this time as a massive humanoid creature over twenty feet tall made of meat. The Boss roared out,"EVERYTHING IS SAUSAGE." Ben remarked to Rolly, "Hope to hell that's his final form."