Chương 176: Lava Gorilla

The tower shuddered. Rock cracked, and the building wobbled precariously. Pretty much everything in the lower city was made of the same marble as the upper city, and only the canals were enchanted with enhanced durability to hold in the lava. It wasn't going to hold for long against this monster.

"Sarge, your Art is probably the only thing that can harm that!" Anchor warned, clinging onto the tower's merlons to hold himself upright. I pulled my crossbow off my back and tested it. I aimed and fired a bolt, resonance Skill included, at the monster. Before it struck, the bolt's tip grew red-hot in the beast's presence—about a foot away. When it hit the beast's armour, the tip bent, and it didn't even leave a scratch. The resonance Skill dissipated with a pulse of force. Anchor was right.

If I tried to stab it with my basic spear, I was going to have a hard time. The speartip was more likely to melt before it landed a blow, and the heat would damage the shaft.

"We need to keep Sage as far away from that as we can, brother," Brawl insisted.

"It will destroy Morph, and it will destroy her legs."

"I can take care of it," Sage hissed.

"Forgive me for watching out for you, sister," Brawl whispered.

"I'm going to need all hands on deck for this," I replied.

"It looks like the ambient heat is only a threat if you get within a foot or two of it." I judged by the way the air created a rippling sheen around it, and by how close my crossbow bolt had gotten. The monster rammed into the tower again, leading with its horns. The foundations cracked, and the tower leaned. The marble around the impact point melted. One more hit like that, and the entire thing was coming down. Craning its head back, the monster screeched.

Its mouth opened wide, and its roar crackled like an old loudspeaker. Then it swept an arm forward, flinging cannonball-sized globs of magma at the tower's base. They cooled within seconds of flying through the air, but they were as fast as bullets, and the rocks still smashed through the tower's foundations. The tower leaned, and a crack appeared in the floor we were standing on.

"You're the only one who can hurt it," Anchor reminded me.

"Brawl's Art should be able to do something too," I suggested.

"I have an idea, and I'll need both of our Arts. Anchor, though? Right now, I need you to goad it into striking. Brawl's Art does best at absorbing blunt impacts."

"You have an idea, brother?" Brawl asked.

"Do you have to ask?" Sage whispered back.

"Yeah. Anchor is going to be our tank today, and Brawl is going to hold back. We—" I cut myself off. The beast charged one last time. It smashed through the base of the tower. As the stone listed, threatening to fall, I shouted, "No time! Once we hit the ground, I need Anchor to stay close enough that the monster tries to fling magma at him, and I need Brawl to stay back with Sage." There was no time to explain any more. The stone at the base of the tower cracked with a hollow echo.

"Brawl, your Art!" I yelled.

"Start charging it now!" The tower crumbled. Anchor stayed light on his feet, jumping onto the ancient rim around the edge. I kept to the middle, widening my stance, and keeping myself steady as if I was surfing the stones. Debris pelted me from behind, but it wasn't enough to knock me off my feet—not with the way my attributes were enhanced. Morph wrapped Sage in a ball of branches and they hit the ground like a tumbleweed. Brawl, with his Art active, just absorbed all the blunt strikes, absorbing the energy.

I'd only used my Art four times, and it had been a single well—that cost my twelve Presence in total. I had to be careful, judging by the monsters we were likely to find down here. If I used too much Presence too quickly, I'd run out, and there would be nothing we could do. Down here, there was no safety net. Either we pulled through, or we didn't. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. When we hit the ground, Anchor and I were still standing.

Anchor jumped to the side, twisting and turning to dodge the spray of rocks, and I held up my shield to weather most of it. Brawl tumbled to the ground, building up more of a charge, and Morph's shield lowered, revealing Sage. The forest golem picked her up as usual. The tower had fallen directly onto the monster. A cloud of dust created a fog around us, and I couldn't see the beast, but I knew the impact of the tower wouldn't be enough to kill it. I held my shield and spear up, as if that would do anything.

Stone cracked and tumbled ahead of me, and a shadow shifted. A halo of orange light shone through the dust like headlights in the fog. The beast roared again.

"Anchor, stay forward, and dodge everything you can!" I ordered.

"Brawl, Sage, stay behind him, but far enough back that when its attacks reach you, they've cooled down! Brawl, take the hits and charge your Art. I'll get into position and stall it if we need to stop it from landing a deadly attack!" The others called out in understanding and took their positions without question. At least they trusted me enough to make this work. As the monster rose from the rubble, it closed its jaw around a marble brick, crushing it into a plume of molten dust and sparks.

Then it lumbered toward us along the shoreline promenade. On the right side, the lava canal blocked us in, and on the left side, the shoreline buildings loomed over us. We could retreat deeper into the city if we needed, but I had no intention of falling back. The lumbering lava gorilla swung an arm at Anchor. He spun away, but stayed close enough to draw its next attack. It slammed both arms down toward him, and again, he leapt back.

"Stay slightly farther away!" I yelled. I circled around the side, putting my back toward the canal.

"I'm trying!" Anchor shouted back.

"A little bit of silence would help me concentrate, Sarge!" I almost shouted 'Sorry!' but I kept my lips sealed. Anchor jumped backward a few paces. The gorilla used its ranged attack, flinging another swell of superheated rocks at Anchor. He dropped flat to his stomach, letting the rocks soar over his head, then jumped back to his feet like he'd just done a burpee. The rocks flew straight at Brawl. The large Dupe leaned into it, putting his shoulder first. With his Art active, his durability was increased.

The stones cracked off his shoulder, collapsing into dust and creating a cone of destruction around him. He shielded Sage from impact, and she pressed her hands into his back, healing the slight damage the attack had done. I extended my Focus, paying attention to both Brawl and Anchor. We repeated the process three more times. I kept myself low and close to the bollards on the canal side of the promenade, trying not to attract any undue attention that would ruin the plan.

The heat of the lava canal behind me warmed my back and made my armour sting, but I weathered it. On the third attempt, as Anchor struggled to recover from his last hair's-breadth dodge, I used an Art to pull him aside, pulling him away toward the buildings and into a sheltered alley, where he'd be safe. The gorilla still flung rocks at him, and they kept their same trajectory. Anchor jumped into their path to absorb them, and they shattered around him.

"Brother, my Art cannot charge any more!" Brawl yelled.

"Great! Now charge in, and use your Art when you're as close as you can get!" Brawl did as I suggested. He sprinted forward, head down, shield up. The wood at the front of his shield blackened and the paint peeled off. He finally released his Art, sending a swell of raw, banked-up force slamming into the lava gorilla. I, on the other hand, triggered another gravity art.

I imagined a well in the center of the gorilla's chest, then directed two tubes of angled gravity into it, holding onto a column of stone and resisting the beast's movement. Brawl's Art pushed one way, and my Art acted as a spike piercing through its back. The gorilla ripped apart. I shredded a hole at the center of its chest. With my columns being slightly angled, as Brawl's art pushed it back, they absorbed more and more of the beast, shredding it even more.

The orange flames and light coming from within the gorilla cooled, dimming, and left a swath of stone and metal chunks scattered across the floor. I dropped my Art as soon as the magma dimmed and rushed forward. My squad regrouped behind me, looking over the smouldering streak of debris that had once been the lava gorilla.

"That was a Silver…" Anchor breathed.

"It was low in the tier," Sage provided.

"And there were four of us."

"Look for chunks of metal," I said.

"Be careful. They're probably hot. But take as much as you can."

"Should we really be looting right now, brother?" Brawl asked.

"I thought we wanted to find a way out as soon as we could."

"I do…" I said.

"But something tells me these chunks are Imperial Steel. We're going to be coming back here, and we're going to need better weapons. Something that can actually damage lava-based foes. Our basic weapons won't cut it anymore." We scoured the beast's streak, looking for scrap. Since it hadn't melted entirely within the beast's form, I took that as a sign that, whether this was Imperial Steel or not, it was useful, and would help give us some more heat-resistant weapons. I leaned over a misshapen orb of burnt silver.

Streaks of ash covered the exterior, and waves of darkness marbled the core of the orb. It was beautiful in its own way. It was also hot to the touch. Way too hot. It burnt my fingertips the first time I tried to pick it up, and the next time, I got wise and used my sleeve. I pulled my helmet off my head and used it as a bucket to hold what I could. Finally, once we'd scoured what we could from the pile, I said, " Now, we need to look for a way out."