Rise of a monster a mons.., p.58
Rise of a Monster: A Monster Evolution LitRPG Adventure, page 58
A gust of wind rose under Sean’s feet, and he didn’t even try to fight it. The inmortu lunged for them, recognition of some kind flitting behind its eyes, but by the time it crossed the distance, they had been carried up and over the creature’s earthen spire-wall to land a short distance behind it.
“Mind thanking him for me?” Sean asked Gel, sparing a quick glance at Saren hovering overhead as he rushed back toward the spikes in an attempt to trap the hulking undead inside its own makeshift wall.
“No problem,” Gel responded. “I should have been thanking him already for my new hammer!”
“There’ll be time for that and more when we’re done,” Sean said, arriving just in time to block the inmortu from leaving its own trap. If he could keep the fight here, at the narrow entrance, he would have all the room he needed to dodge around, while the inmortu itself would have none.
Assuming I can keep it here.
Dark eyes met Sean’s burning orbs and then flickered to the lack of space on either side. Sean grinned at it, only for the inmortu to raise its free hand to its shoulder in a fist. The spikes retreated into the cavern floor, and the inmortu’s face broke out into a bloody grin of its own, made all the more grotesque by how few stitches remained to cover its mouth.
Touché, Mumbles. Touché.
Sean whipped his head around as two furry humanoids landed gracefully on either side of him, fiercely clutching their weapons. The one on his left held the two clear daggers Gel had given each of them not long ago, while the one on his right wielded the silver-wood spear Sean had gifted the survivors in both hands.
To his relief, all three weapons were trained on the inmortu. Even so, the pair of fennekians spared a moment to briefly meet Sean’s burning orbs and nod in acknowledgment.
“Looks like we have even more allies than we thought!” Gel shared brightly. “Aww, and they even brought my daggers back! I love these little snacks, can we keep them around? I promise to only eat them if I get hungry.”
“You’re always hungry,” Sean pointed out, and before the slime could come up with a witty response, he attacked again. His new snack-sized allies didn’t hesitate, rushing in right after him.
To Sean’s surprise and relief, the two furballs didn’t get themselves killed or even in his way. They fought around him, letting Sean set the pace of the fight while they darted around their opponent and struck at openings.
Most of their attacks were feints, designed to divert the inmortu’s attention at critical moments instead of committing to a blow that might see them crushed in response. The one wielding the silver-wood spear flashed in with it more than once, distracting the hulking undead and giving Sean room to breathe.
But even with this, the inmortu’s regeneration remained an obstacle. Its jaw rebuilt itself, and the chunks of flesh Gel was splattering all over the ground with every hammer blow were replaced with disturbing speed. Saren swooped down several times, raining down whistling arcs of cutting air that resembled the inmortu’s own attacks, but even those seemed to have little effect.
No matter how much damage they dealt, the inmortu’s regeneration outpaced them. It actually seemed to speed up as the creature’s wounds grew more grievous. When Gel nearly smashed off its free arm at the shoulder, one of the fennekians darted in, and the silver-wood spear severed most of the remaining tendons holding it. But just as the other fennekian looked to finish the job with its daggers, the arm simply reattached itself, flesh knitting back together within seconds.
“What the hell is it going to take to kill this thing?” Sean grunted as he blocked another blow from the inmortu’s blade and lost another point of hardness on his shield. “Can we even kill it?”
“I don’t… I don’t know,” Gel admitted, and the slime sounded either confused or horrified. “I thought the hammer would be enough, but it just keeps… How is it even doing that?”
“Ask Saren. Maybe he knows something we don’t.”
The paladin had fought the inmortu before, though it hadn’t taken a genius to guess the fight hadn’t gone well. Still, the owlen had a lifetime’s worth of experience with the undead, so it was worth asking.
Can’t imagine he would have come back down here if he didn’t think he could win.
A few shouted exchanges later, the slime reported back with news Sean wasn’t entirely sure how to make sense of.
“It’s feeding off ‘the anguish of its components’,” Gel said, evidently quoting Saren. “He says if we can’t beat its ability to heal itself, we’ll have to remove those first before it’ll go down and stay down.”
“The ‘anguish of its components’?” Sean asked, dodging backward to give himself a few precious seconds. “What’s that supposed to mean? Does he mean the people Bancroft used to make it?”
The fennekians disengaged as well, darting backward to stand either side of Sean once more.
Sean stared at the misshapen form of Mumbles. It wasn’t hard to tell there were extra parts – he could have pointed at least two out easily enough – but removing them was going to be another task entirely. Nothing they had chunked out of the creature had stayed gone long enough to give Sean any confidence in their ability to carve it up Thanksgiving turkey-style.
“I think so? He said there should be a limit to it even if we can’t, and—” Gel paused as the paladin shouted more words that were incomprehensible to Sean. “…And he doesn’t know how to remove them?! How is that supposed to help? Why even say anything at all if you don’t have a plan for how to do it?”
Sean felt the weight of the inmortu’s glare on him once more, and cold logic welled up from within him to soothe and accelerate his thoughts. He ignored his friend’s discontent, focusing instead on the problem. Sticking Gel inside the creature to suck its insides out wasn’t plausible – there was no way they’d be able to stay close enough to it for long enough to make that work.
Hmmm…
If what Saren was saying was true, there had to be a way to do it.
The ‘anguish of its components’… Maybe it’s not about the flesh, then. If they’re still suffering in there somewhere, can we just pull them out?
Was that it? It couldn’t be that easy, could it?
Sean recalled the sensation in his left hand every time the two of them had gotten close. The resonating pulse in his Reaper’s Hand. What had the node said in its description?
Embrace a connection to deeper power by taking the essence of a Reaper into one of your hands.
A deeper power…
Sean recalled the tree in the graveyard, the one holding – or perhaps protecting – that small, ancient book. He felt like there was a connection there, but he couldn’t say what it was. He kept going, remembering the mysteriously phrased ‘effect’ section of the same ability.
Effect: Greatly enhances the chosen hand in ways that must be discovered by embracing the virtue of death.
Sean hadn’t discovered any additional effects since selecting the node. His midnight-black left hand was stronger now, sure. But it hadn’t done anything new for him. Not directly. He could still feel a dark presence every now and again, the occasional thrumming beat. Those mostly came when he killed something with it.
But could that really be it? The presence suffused inside the marrow of his hand appeared more often than that, Sean was sure.
The essence of a Reaper.
Sean hadn’t missed the capitalization of that word in the description. There was meaning there. He could feel it, but Sean wasn’t yet knowledgeable enough about this world to parse out what the link or its significance was. Nor why his hand seemed to resonate in every clash with the hulking undead.
Sean watched the inmortu approach, then looked down at his hand as if his black finger bones might answer him.
To his surprise, they did. Sort of.
A sensation welled up within the hand. A pang of hunger. But not for sustenance, and not in response to any desire of Sean’s. There was something inside the other creature, inside the inmortu, and his Reaper’s Hand wanted it. Wanted to do something with it. Sean focused on the sensation, trying to understand the feeling.
The inmortu attacked, and Sean’s concentration was broken. The sensation fled from his mind, only to be replaced by the same resonance from before as they traded blows once more.
That was fine. Because now Sean had an idea.
“I’ve got a plan!” Sean shouted to his friend. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it!”
“Hit me!” Gel responded. “I mean, tell me your plan. Don’t actually hit me. Hit him. Mumbles, or whoever that is. Wait, is that your plan? Because I thought we were already trying to hit him.”
“I need to get my hand on it. On him,” Sean said, ignoring the slime’s battlefield rambling. He held up his black hand for emphasis. “This hand. And if I were a betting skeleton, I’d say I’ll probably need some time, too.”
Sean didn’t know quite where that knowledge was coming from, but it felt right. Which was as good as he was likely to get right now.
Sometimes you just have to roll the dice.
“‘Some time’,” Gel echoed. “You want some time up close and personal with the inmortu. The thing that can and will kill us if it lands a clean hit? And you think that’ll help us win?”
“Yup.”
Gel was silent as their stalemate with the hulking undead continued, three fighters tearing, stabbing, and smashing chunks out of an endlessly regenerating, tireless opponent.
“Yeah, sure.” The slime sounded slightly exasperated but also a fair bit hopeful. “Why not? Can’t be worse than anything we’ve tried already. I only have one request.”
“What’s that?”
“If you can pull some of it back with you, I want a taste. Just a small one! I know I shouldn’t, and I know there’s pieces everywhere, but I can’t help a bit of professional curiosity. It probably tastes like rot, and I know that’s probably all it tastes like, but its flesh keeps coming back! So maybe it’s still fresh? Or is it a blend of the two? I can’t help but wonder.”
After a discussion he couldn’t understand between the trio, Gel and the fennekians struck together, making an opening. Sean lunged forward with his left hand, locking it around Mumbles’s bulging forearm with an iron grip.
The inmortu’s response shook every creature in the cavern still paying attention.
The resonance – the hunger – from Sean’s Reaper’s Hand intensified, and the inmortu’s gray flesh retreated from the point of contact. It peeled back like skin from a grape, revealing three circuits of twisting dark energy wrapping around the bloodied bones beneath. The inmortu’s entire body seized up and froze.
Sean tightened his grip.
Meanwhile, three pale, spectral heads emerged from the inmortu’s chest like daisies in the snow.
The first was clearly Mumbles. His ghostly eyes were wild and crazed, and frothing spit dribbled down his chin as he growled and snapped his teeth at them like a rabid dog. The second was a woman Sean didn’t quite recognize. Like Mumbles, her expression was deranged, but her eyes were vacant, and she screamed as if in constant, horrific pain.
But as bad as those two were, the third was by far the worst.
A young girl bearing the same long, dark hair and eyes as the older woman looked up at Sean with a fearful expression that seemed almost resigned. As if she knew her suffering wasn’t about to end but only going to grow worse. The poor thing said not a word; she just looked into Sean’s burning red orbs as if he were a monster beyond nightmares. One she knew she had no hope of escaping.
Sean was about to try and reassure her, though he couldn’t have said how, when Gel spoke up.
“Bancroft is going to pay for this,” the slime said, and for once, Gel’s voice was slow and cold, edged with an icy rage.
“Who are—” Sean began, but the slime was already answering his question.
“Mala, Sarah’s mother. And her other daughter, Milah.”
Memories of two gravestones covered in flowers filled Sean’s mind, and he suddenly knew why the older woman looked familiar. Her husband, Jerin, had poured his heart and soul into making a proper memorial for her. A memorial that Sean had seen, though it felt so long ago now.
A sudden, incandescent rage sparked within him, flaring up with such intensity and force that even his undead nature struggled to contain it. Mala had been taken – they had known that. Jerin had believed his only other living daughter had been, too. The man must have still held out some vain hope of rescuing her or perhaps hadn’t known for sure that Bancroft had her, which would explain why they hadn’t come across a memorial for her. Since her father had presumably died not long after, she had never gotten one.
That fact enraged him even further. But now wasn’t the time to fly off the handle. They needed to focus on this new chance. To use it. To cut off the inmortu’s power and find a way to end the anguish of the three in front of them.
The owlen paladin landed beside them. Gel and Saren exchanged words, and then Saren began to speak soothingly to the young girl. The owlen’s already gentle voice took on the sort of tone one might use with a wounded animal, yet he was still urgent, mindful that the inmortu wouldn’t stay frozen forever.
The fennekians made to move in to try to finish off their opponent while it was immobile, but Sean held out his axe to stop them. He wanted to give Gel and the paladin as long as he could to figure this situation out and spare the trapped souls any further pain.
While they worked, he focused on the resonance emanating from his Reaper’s Hand. On the temporary bond he could feel it had created between the inmortu and himself. Or rather, between the spirits inside and himself, using the twisting dark energy as a conduit.
Is that what’s keeping them in there?
Sean couldn’t close his eyes. No matter what happened, his burning orbs saw everything in his vision at all times. Including the three spectral heads, each in its own haunting way, staring directly at him. He couldn’t speak to them, not without Gel’s help, but even so, Sean returned each of their gazes with his own unwavering stare.
I will free you, he promised them silently, and the dark presence of his Reaper’s Hand suffused him with that same feeling of inevitability. The same one Sean had first felt when it had blackened his limb. He extended his promise, and the words he mentally whispered were both his own and that of something… deeper.
And when I do, you can finally rest in peace.
FIFTY-EIGHT
Final Rest
Just as Sean felt his mental grip on the tenuous connection between himself and the spirits slipping, whatever discussion Gel and Saren had been having with them finished.
The owlen paladin assumed the same meditative gesture Sean had seen once before, forming a small pyramid between his fingers as he prayed. Then he lowered his head and reached out, laying a hand on the young girl’s spectral forehead.
Sean’s left arm pulsed, and he felt something travel from within the hand into the conduit and toward the spirit. Milah’s face softened, and a serene calm overtook the fear in her eyes. A void-black prompt appeared with no embellishment or heraldry at all.
You have released a tormented spirit to its final rest. The virtue of Death has been embraced.
An instant later, both the spirit and the prompt were gone. Saren immediately raised his hand to repeat the process, but the inmortu’s body began to convulse violently. The surface of its flesh bubbled and warped like liquid boiling in a large pot, and a scream erupted from the undead creature’s throat.
“Don’t let go!” Gel shouted. “He’s almost done!”
“I hadn’t planned to!” Sean said, grabbing the inmortu’s wrist with his other hand and gritting his teeth.
For a moment, the two struggled in place. Saren took a step back, doubt writ plain across his face. Mumbles’s spirit laughed in wild, cruel mania while Mala continued to plead with them in words Sean couldn’t understand.
Sean turned toward the paladin and shouted at him, his words echoed by Gel an instant later.
“Hurry up, before I lose them!”
Saren looked momentarily shocked, but the paladin’s will firmed in an instant, and he dashed back in. A quick pyramid gesture paired with a prayer later, and Sean felt that same something leave his Reaper’s Hand and enter the spirit. Mala’s tearful expression was wiped away as if by a smooth cloth. Then, with one final, soundless word, she disappeared.
You have released a tormented spirit to its final rest. The virtue of Death has been embraced.
Convulsions stronger than before wracked the inmortu’s body, and Sean finally lost his grip, staggering and skidding to a halt several feet away. The fennekians were at his side again in seconds, weapons raised, while Saren took to the air with a startled shout and a rush of wind.
Tendrils of deep shadow sprang up around the inmortu’s form, covering the undead completely in a whirling, writhing mass. Its body actually lifted off the ground for a second as its back arched. Vertebrae popped as the monstrosity twisted itself into what would have been a horrifyingly painful angle if it were alive.
“What do you think, can we go back in for Mumbles?” Sean asked, readying his shield for whatever came next.
“No point,” Gel responded. “His mind is long past gone. All he did was laugh, cry, or scream at us. There’s nothing left of whoever he was in there.”
Though Sean didn’t have any reason to disbelieve his friend, Gel’s words still didn’t sit right with him.
Even if he’s mad, and even if he was an asshole necromancer serving a bigger asshole necromancer, no one deserves this. We can’t just leave him trapped inside that thing.
Sean’s left hand resonated with the thought, and he felt his resolve harden.
“Tell the others I’m going to try again.”
“What? Why? I just said—”
