Eldritch hunt 1 a litrpg.., p.3
Eldritch Hunt 1: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure, page 3
Cannonballs exploded along its body as it got caught by a broadside from the Osprey’s cannons. The blasts tore into its flesh, turning it into chum. Chunks of skin and meat flew through the air and landed in the water. The monster let out another low, growling moan of pain as it shook its entire body.
Blazing bombs followed a mere second later, lighting the creature aflame. Banxi was playing with fire again, and I liked it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear his cackling Goblin voice. I just hoped he didn’t blow the ship up in the process.
The Smiulder swept its body around, bringing another set of tentacles to bear on the ship. Somehow, the full complement of molten hot metal and explosions hadn’t killed the damn thing or done anything really but piss it off. The tentacles concentrated on the ship, crashing on the bow over and over again. It was reinforced by monster bone, so the Osprey could handle a beating, but these tentacles were as thick as tree trunks.
Wood cracked and metal screamed, splinters and fragments of ship flew everywhere. Callick roared and bravely beat the creature’s tentacles back with his hammer and absorbed some of the damage with his shield, but it was far from enough. The Dwarf’s specialty was his ability to absorb damage and have monsters focus on him, not dish out damage. And also, he didn’t have the space to move about.
I finally stopped rising and hung there in the air for a moment as the Smiulder’s onslaught sent shivers down my spine. The ship wasn’t going to make it unless we killed the monster quickly, but how?
My muscles tensed again and my hands wrapped around the greatsword’s grip even tighter as I fell straight through the air toward the Smiulder.
My fingers danced along the sword’s base as I switched out the air cartridge for the previous lightning charge. An arrow whizzed toward me, and I used my super-Human power to push off it, sending the projectile down into another eye while I jumped off to the side and toward the other row of eyes.
I angled my body and swung my blade while activating the lightning discharge. The blade dug deep into its flesh and cut through two eyes, eliciting a frantic and gurgling screech from the monster.
The eyes exploded in a shower of gore and electricity that sent me flying back. The rope stretched tight as I went flying, but this time my spiked boots didn’t help me.
I landed with my feet on the side of the ship, then pushed off again, going for another attack. Val blasted the monster with another one of her drilling arrows. As it spun and hissed, Banxi took out another eye with one of his bombs. The other Goblins threw smaller, weaker bombs at the Smiulder, the elder Goblin not trusting them with more firepower or they’d probably blow the ship up just for fun. Especially his sun, Shanxi.
I charged back in again, swinging my blade in a downward arc as the Goblin cackle behind me resounded beyond the din of battle. The tip of my sword dug through the damaged outer layer of skin, and I released another surge of electricity. Now that I’d pierced through the monster’s durable outer layer, the elemental discharges had a much greater effect. Another one of its eyes almost popped, but it pushed me away with a weak swipe.
I activated my spikes again and then lunged, propelling myself up on its slippery head, tensing the muscles in my calves. The Eldritch Energy pumped through my body, making me stronger than ever before. The absorbed energy didn’t just provide superHuman strength—it also improved my speed, balance, and agility.
Instead of attaching a new cartridge, I swung my greatsword at the monster’s head. When used without a cartridge, my sword automatically absorbed some of the latent Eldritch Energy seeping out of the monster’s body. It wouldn’t have any element, but it would greatly improve damage with each consecutive hit.
Every time the weapon made contact, the core of my blade glowed brighter and hummed in my mind. I was using the Smiulder’s absurd Eldritch Energy reserves against it.
The charges built up quickly and with a vicious downward swing, I hacked my greatsword into the side of the monster’s jaw. The blade dug deep, and I could feel its bone splinter.
A voice behind me yelled, startling me as I’d been so focused on dealing damage to the monster.
“Eldritch! Watch out!”
I recognized Tiny’s deep voice, but I’d never heard him so frightened before. I felt a strong yank at my stomach, and then the rope pulled me towards the ship.
The Smiulder’s side exploded, and a mass of dark flames, flesh, bone, and jet-black Eldritch Energy burst from its body. The force of the explosion snapped my entire body back as if I’d been hit by a sledgehammer.
Darkness took over as the rope tightened around my chest and I hit the ice-cold water. Somewhere, I heard someone telling me to brace for impact. I couldn’t do anything against it as a wave of extreme pain and nausea engulfed me. I heard a loud crack as I hit the back of my head, and then the lights went out.
CHAPTER 3: STRANGE NEW WORLD
A sharp pain stirred me awake.
I gasped for air, but when I tried to open my eyelids, they were sealed shut. I grabbed at my face with my hands, and felt a mixture of sand and what felt like dry blood keeping them closed.
Panic set in as I remembered the tentacled monstrosity, and I pried my eyelids open with my fingers. Sharp needles of pain pierced my brain, and blood trickled down my left eye, but my vision quickly returned.
It was blurry, but at least I could see something.
I found myself lying on the craggy beach as water slammed into the shore. Small creatures were skittering about, but they didn’t seem to be hostile as none of them attacked me while I was down.
My head pounded from the inside as if someone was trying to make their way out with a mallet, and my muscles were rapidly slackening. All the Eldritch Energy I’d ever absorbed was running rampant inside of me, spasming and then dissipating, over and over again. Normally, the energy turned livelier after a battle, as if it was looking for more, but this was different. I’d never experienced anything like it before. The power was roiling underneath my skin, almost like it was trying to burst out.
“What the hell is going on?” I grunted, blinking my eyes again and shaking my head.
I tried to clear all my thoughts and focus on my current predicament as my ears rang. Then everything came into focus again and I remembered the fight.
“Val! Shit!” I cursed and tried to push myself up. “Val! Where are you?”
And where were the others? Had Callick been able to keep her safe? For that matter, where was Callick? And Banxi? And Captain Armstrong?
“Fucking hell!”
I rubbed the rest of the sticky blood and sand off my face as I took in a good, deep breath and let it out several times over. The blurring and ringing in my ears finally settled after a good minute, everything stopped spinning, and the world came into focus.
I stared out at the shore, finding the ship, but it didn’t look right the way it stood, slightly tipped over to one side. I squinted my eyes to see better through the bright sunlight and cursed under my breath. The bow was damaged badly, part of it ripped off as if a giant hand had squeezed down hard and just crushed it. A few of the sails and the part that was obviously stuck on the reef or a tall underwater cliff or whatever, remained.
The Smiulder had shipwrecked us.
I thought back on the battle and how it ended. If I remembered correctly, I was hit by a massive explosion and then slammed into something hard. Most likely the ship.
The ringing finally disappeared, and I was flooded by various sounds from all around me. What stood out most, was the sound of battle and waves crashing into the rocks all around the beach. Even some strong chirping sounds from somewhere behind me.
I turned toward the noise and saw both hunters and sailors fighting off a group of Pakora across the beach. They were about equal in number and trying to group up, but the sailors, despite being much stronger than ordinary people, weren’t trained to fight such monsters up close. Or any for that matter.
I shook my head clear and finally managed to stumble to my feet, then steadied myself against something sitting next to me. It was cold to the touch, much colder than it had any right to be. I pulled back and hissed as I finally noticed the massive skeleton I’d seen while on the ship. The skeletal remains of whatever the monster had once been, looked even larger in person as it towered over me threateningly, almost as if it was about to come back alive. I was six and a half feet tall, but the bones were easily six or seven times as tall.
Funnily enough, the first dead Pakora of the day—the one sniped by Val—lay only a few steps away from me.
“Shitty bastard. You’re not going anywhere,” I muttered as my eyes darted about. Where there was one Pakora, there were many others.
A screeching sound drew me back to the mess as one of the monsters lunged toward me out of nowhere, shrieking at the top of its lungs. The rage resounded in my mind, adding to the hammering in my skull.
I reached for my sword automatically, but it was gone.
Shit!
I must have dropped it after getting hit by the blast wave.
The Pakora lunged right for my face, its claws out to rake my flesh.
“Hell no!” I cursed and spread my arms out, then stepped in and headbutted the creature. It cried out as I smashed its nose, and it staggered off me.
My hands moved through the sand, searching frantically for anything I could use as a weapon. A sharp piece of bone stabbed into my elbow as I moved around. I cursed under my breath and grabbed it. The bone was rounded on one end and sharp on the other and as thick as my arm.
The Pakora came at me again as blood trickled down its mouth and chin, just as I swung the bone as hard as I could. The cudgel end struck the Pakora in the cheek and cracked its jaw. As it staggered back, I kicked out at its right leg, aiming carefully for its knee. The leg gave in and then I was on top of it, bringing the sharp point down on its face in a heartbeat.
I didn’t even have time to check if it was dead. Another Pakora was already there. I charged straight toward it, hitting the creature like a Human cannonball and knocking it over. Hell, I’d always wanted to hit someone or something with a spear. It was a wrestling move I’d seen a few performers do back during my younger days.
My improvised club raked across its neck and chest, and then I brought the sharp end down two times, aiming carefully for the beast’s heart. The tip didn’t go through the first time I brought it down, hitting its ribcage, but the second strike was at the dead center of its chest. The monster gasped and shuddered before dying.
I shot back to my feet and looked out over the beach. Our numbers were roughly equal if I counted the sailors, but the hunters had their hands full as they needed to both kill the Pakora and protect those who couldn’t do so themselves.
Banxi had gathered up his Goblins and was ordering them around as he lobbed small, fire-cracker-like bombs at the Pakora. They didn’t pack much of a punch, but every time one of the fire-crackers hit the monsters, the explosion was lethal and blew up an arm, a head, or the chest.
I spotted Falcon pointing further down the line and slapping another hunter on his back, hissing and yelling orders.
“Go there! Help that group! Now!” Falcon yelled, his voice barely rising above the ruckus.
Then I saw a big-ass arrow fly past me and impale two Pakoras at once. Val stood on a large rock and was sniping targets with her monster bow. Callick was right beside her, guarding my lover and friend with his shield and hammer-mace and fighting off a handful of monsters of his own.
“Good,” I whispered as a small smile crept to my lips. “They’re safe. It’s time to earn my keep now.”
I rushed over to a sailor fighting against one of the monsters and bashed its skull in with my bone club, then helped him to his feet. He was wounded and no longer able to fight, but not so badly that he couldn’t move.
I grabbed his weapon, a halberd with a steel shaft and a long blade at the far end. Based on the way he was holding the weapon, he had no idea how to use it—he’d probably grabbed it off the beach in the hope of protecting himself. The problem was that the Pakora were fast, so unless proficient with such a long weapon, it would only get him killed quicker.
I pushed the man toward the ship.
“Get back! And don’t die! Help yourself!”
The man nodded, his face pale from the loss of blood and fear.
One of Falcon’s hunters swung his sword in a wide arc, decapitating a Pakora not even ten feet away from me. The blade slipped out of his hand and flew toward me. I brought the halberd up on instinct and barely deflected it.
“Shit, man! Are you trying to kill me?”
“Damon! Hell! You’re alive!” he laughed, seemingly forgetting his blade had almost hit me.
“Not for long if you keep swinging at me! Go help the sailors. I’ll take over.”
I took a close look at the halberd, then smiled. The weapon was completely different from my greatsword, but it still had a charger slot and was large enough to do some area damage. I might have lost my sword, but I still had the cartridge pack on my belt.
Even though the Pakora weren’t sea monsters, they were still weak to lightning and fire-affinity attacks as well as any form of physical damage. Most things were weak against Eldritch Energy, though. Getting zapped or set aflame hurt like a bitch.
I clumsily pushed the cartridge through the unfamiliar charger slot, and to my relief, the weapon lit up without any problems. Slashes, jabs, and head-butts bounced off my armor as I staggered along and cut through anything in range, seeing more and more of the monsters gathering around me as their greatest threat.
I could feel my arms growing weaker as Eldritch Energy now actively leaked out of my body for some unknown reason. It would have to wait until all the monsters were dead. Besides, I still knew how to fight despite the lack of energy. Skill wasn’t energy-dependant.
There was one thing that bothered me about the Pakora as I cut through them, defended, and weaved out of the way. They were much stronger than the ones back on the mainland. Sure, their tactics were similarly simplistic, but a good slap could already kill one from back home, but these? They needed proper killing.
A score of Pakora let out a battle cry as they appeared from behind a small sand dune and converged on us from the right. I heard shouts and yells from behind me, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. All I could focus on was the chattering of monster teeth as they longed to dig into my flesh and rend me apart.
I stood and felt for the charger slot again. It was active and waiting to be used. Very well, I could blaspheme this once and use something else than my greatsword. I figured it would forgive me if I killed all the attacking Pakora.
Just as the first group came into range, I pulled the halberd back and activated the lightning charge. The surge of electricity gathered along the shaft and amassed at the bladed end, then exploded outward as I swung the weapon.
As the tip of the halberd struck the first target, lightning continued to build and expand, shooting over from one Pakora to the other. I activated the second half of the charge and the energy surge turned into a small lightning storm that spread out around the monster I just killed, and zapped all Pakora in a twenty feet radius. They did a little dance, tried to continue their charge, and then their bodies went limp. Some still twitched on the ground, but they too died.
Cheers rang out from all around me as several more charges activated, killing even more of the buggers, and the battle shifted quickly as both hunters and sailors pushed through the remaining monsters, killing them with relative ease as their morale shattered.
But I didn’t have time to celebrate.
My fingers suddenly turned numb and the halberd started slipping from my grasp. It took all my strength just to throw it at the closest monster. I didn’t even have time to check if the blow killed it as I slumped to my hands and knees.
Was this some kind of a backlash after releasing too many Eldritch Charges? But it had never happened before, not even during our largest raid two years ago when I spent half-a-dozen cartridges within fifteen minutes.
Sure, any amount of chargers took their toll on their user’s body, but for someone like me who was at the top of their game, it wasn’t an issue. Still, battle fatigue was real and there was nothing we could really do against it as in the end, we were still only just men and women.
On the bright side, the hunters and sailors didn’t need me anymore. My move had turned the tide of the battle, and slowly, it was turning one-sided. I saw Val picking off the few remaining Pakora with her bow as they tried to run.
“Show-off!” Callick laughed as he ran over to me and almost bumped me into the sand. “What is it? What are ye—”
He didn’t seem to realize what was happening to me. I fell like a log and then rolled over on my back, wheezing for air as the burning sensation of energy burbling beneath my skin became too much.
I was too tired and in too much pain to even respond. He glanced at me for a moment, but he was too experienced to take his mind off the monster threat until they were all gone. With him and Val standing guard, I knew nothing would get through to me.
Callick bashed a Pakora’s head in with his mace and then unleashed a white beam of Eldritch Energy into three more of the little monsters. The beam suddenly dissipated before it had the chance to bloom like it usually did.
I blinked.
I’d seen Callick’s attacks many times before, so I knew very well that wasn’t supposed to happen. Normally, the Eldritch Energy would expand into a wave of many smaller explosions.
“Callick! What just happened?”
Before he could reply, I got my answer. It was the Graves System that responded, making the whole situation even weirder. The System was able to respond to queries, but it never offered information by itself. It wasn’t sentient enough.
The scanner blinked in and out of focus, repeating the same warning message over again.
[WARNING. Your Eldritch Energy is being rapidly drained by the surroundings.]
