Hey buddy, I could use your help here, John sent toward his bonded beast, feeling the sleeping consciousness rouse and uncoil from his right arm. The bundle of dark mist splashed into the Colosseum floor and coalesced into a twelve-foot-long and almost waist-high beast of gleaming scales.
After Witherfang's evolution into E grade, her scales turned pitch-black like a midnight sky married with a few pale streaks running from her head to the end of her tail.
Yep, that's my long-girl, John smiled, watching her.
She kept her slender body low to the ground only lifting her neck on her short legs and rapidly moving her head from side to side sniffing the air.
Let's go.
Reacting immediately, she followed after him as they both rushed toward the massive door that was already slightly ajar and with zombies squeezing through like bees from a kicked hive.
If it doesn't work, I am sooo fucked, John chuckled like a madman as he and his minions crashed into the moaning monsters.
The lack of weaponry made the pitiful undead almost harmless and John easily snapped their clawed hands with his javelin as he swept through the crowd before him with wide strokes.
This should be the spot, he noted after stopping roughly twenty feet from the opened gate, recalled his stiletto into his palm, and rolled up his left sleeve.
It took more strength to break his skin than he expected, but as the pressure ramped up, the needle-sharp point sunk a quarter of an inch into his forearm. Using that as leverage, he yanked the stiletto to the side and turned the stab wound into an inch-long gash.
Good, he nodded, now I need a bit of my blood to bleed on the… Oh right, I am unable to bleed.
Coming to that realization put a small hitch to his plan, but his determination coupled with an iron will allowed him to dig the viscous grey drops out before his self-healing ability kicked in and sealed the wound. The blood clung to the thin edge of his stiletto like honey, so he worked with what he had and spread it on the ground as if it were a piece of bread.
In the meantime, Witherfang was holding the approaching zombies from the front and his minions held up the flanks long enough for him to finish up with the first part of his plan.
Hopefully, that will be enough, he smiled, observing the foot-wide grey stain that was sapping any remaining signs of life from the ground.
For the second part, he commanded his Purifying Flameling to send down a lick of flames and resummoned his javelin to bolster the crumbling left flank.
With a casual flick of his wrist, he sent a blow to a half-decomposed head and barely noticed the explosion of bone and gore because most of his attention was focused on the bubbling liquid at his side.
The thin layer of blood greedily absorbed the magical flames and transformed them into small droplets of the same grey stuff.
It's gonna take a while, he realized after a couple of seconds. The starting stain was slowly turning into a tiny puddle, but for it to spread over a significant portion of the Colosseum… well there was a lot of space to cover.
Not wanting to end the wave by mistake, he smacked the nearest zombie with his fist and then grabbed it behind its neck and carried it away from the gate.
"Let's get rid of those," he mumbled and tore both of its arms off.
After that, he tossed the crippled body face-first into the ground and planted his left foot on its lower back, leaving it trapped and unable to reach him.
The remaining monsters of the first wave soon fell under his minions' joint effort, leaving the only survivor, the squirming zombie, under his foot.
Now I just have to wait, he thought, watching his Flameling repeatedly blow gouts of azure flames all over the grey puddle.
Witherfang trounced back in a playful gate, giving the pinned zombie a short sniff, but after a warning from John lost her interest and affectionately pushed her head into his chest.
"There's a good girl," he murmured and began absentmindedly scratching behind her round ears, letting the minutes slowly tick away.
Due to the puddle's viscous nature, it wasn't soaking into the ground but was instead spreading over more and more of the area. By now, it was roughly ten minutes from the beginning, and the diameter of it increased more than twenty-fold.
Unfortunately, a complication reared its ugly head a few minutes after that when a loud grinding sound of the opening gate announced the beginning of the second wave.
"Ah fuck," John cursed and looked down at the still-struggling zombie. "Looks like there is a time limit for each wave."
Witherfang tilted her head to the side, having no idea what John was talking about, but his gesture toward the first few zombies and a skeleton who pushed through the narrow gap made her wiggle in excitement.
Enjoy yourself! He sent through their link, giving her the go-ahead to rush off.
However—and to her clear displeasure—the stupid rows of undead marched right through the grey puddle, sinking their feet half an inch into the toxic liquid. Before they made it more than halfway through, their feet dried up and crumbled into dust, making them fall into the grey liquid face-first.
Witherfang stopped at the far edge and began angrily yipping at the mass of decaying bodies that were getting stuck inside the puddle and forming into a pile. To add an insult to their injury, John commanded his Flameling to focus its attack on the center of the growing pile and watched as it caught on fire.
Much to John's surprise, the skeleton bones coated in grey blood were highly flammable and served as a kindling, ensuring the entire pile of bodies quickly turned into an azure bonfire.
With that, of course, the production of the grey blood increased manifold and caused a chain reaction of ever-growing flames until all the undead bodies burned up. The storm of ash piles that followed made John laugh in glee.
"It's gonna work out even better than I thought," he continued laughing as the puddle kept growing and covering almost a quarter of the Colosseum.
The only undead left alive was still the one under him, leaving him standing there for the next couple of minutes until the third wave began.
"Woah, be careful!" He shouted at Witherfang who was now sniffing around the edge of the blood puddle. "What are you doing?"
Ignoring him, she continued sniffing around the expanding edge for a while and then dipped her head lower and gave the blood a tentative lick.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
"Uhh…"
Seeing her recoil and begin retching filled him with worry, so he summoned his javelin, broke both of the zombie's legs and ran toward her.
"What were you…" his words died on his lips though when he realized what was happening. She wasn't trying to spit it out but was instead holding a fingernail-sized drop of his blood suspended in the center of her wide-open mouth. With each shuddering breath, she turned a small portion of the drop into mist and absorbed it into her body.
Damn, I knew that the Shimmerfangs were able to grow from the monsters they killed, but this?
Trusting her to not bite more than she could chew, he waited in silence at her side until she calmed down. By then, the color of her scales halfway down to her neck had turned grey, yet still kept their lustrous healthy sheen.
She lifted her head and looked directly into his eyes and a moment later, he felt overwhelming delight intermixed with tiredness and a little bit of pain coming through their connection.
Sending back a feeling of pride and a smidgen of worry, John reached down and gently patted her head, feeling her body turn into dark mist under his fingers and rewound around his arm.
In the meantime, the crippled zombie somehow crawled two-thirds of the way to him, forcing him to drag its body back to the opposite end of the Colosseum.
Now I gotta wait again.
The third wave came and went in a similar manner to the second and so did the fourth and fifth. The common undead were collapsing merely a couple of steps in, the uncommon variants were making it a few dozen paces, and only the general was posing a threat to him.
[Gadris, the Skeleton General {D⋆}]
Perhaps, a threat was an overstatement. Dodging its arrows wasn't hard and even if it was able to survive for almost a minute, the last fifteen seconds only desperately crawling on its kneecaps, kiting it around was the easiest solution. The only complication was keeping the mangled zombie alive because the entire floor was already covered in over two inches of blood.
Do I even need to keep the stupid thing alive? He wondered after the general turned into dust and sent a yellow pile into his chest. Most of the blood is produced from the burning piles anyway.
Feeling it chew on his jacket cemented the decision and he tossed the monster down and gave it a kick for good measure.
That started the sixth wave which led to an unexpected development. As a pack of Rothounds rushed through the gate, one of the leading beasts slipped and rolled on the ground like a ragdoll, spraying grey droplets everywhere and successfully turning their whole formation into chaos.
Oh right, they can feel pain, John realized as they began whining and trying to escape out of the Colosseum through the now-closed, gate.
To put them out of their misery and of course also to put their bodies to good use, John micromanaged all of his Flameling's attacks to set as many of them aflame as he could.
Here came another unexpected development due to the Rothounds' bodies not turning into dust at the time of their death. Having more undead matter remaining in the Colosseum allowed him to fully utilize their potential as fuel and produce nearly as much blood as all of the previous waves combined.
With the second Alpha's death, the seventh wave began, yet the outcome for the hounds was even worse. They were pushed into the Colosseum against their will and died in blind desperation as they tried to claw their way up the steep walls.
Fuck, I almost feel bad for the poor sods.
Even Hierarch's impassive expression was now twisted into a horrified scowl with wide eyes and a white face.
The panic intensified as the eighth and ninth waves passed by and the level of the blood reached just below John's knees.
That brought the tenth wave and its main opponent. Karil, the Master of Kennels, proudly charged into the Colosseum on the back of his Rothound Denmother, giving the grey liquid only a disdainful snort. However, as the bus-sized monstrosity dived into the extremely toxic blood at full run, it recoiled in pain, lost its footing, and slid almost fifty feet on its back, dropping its master in the process.
John stared at the ridiculous display of Karil flailing his arms and falling face-first into the viscous liquid.
The wail of agony that followed sent a shiver down his back as the wet werewolf tried to clear the sticky blood off his face. His high Vitality worked against him because it only prolonged his horrific suffering as azure flames slowly ate through his patchy skin, muscles, and organs until his cries finally died down and his unmoving body sunk below the grey surface.
The Denmother was not doing any better. Blind, aflame, and with its fur covered in a grey substance, she was flailing around for a few minutes before death finally granted her its release.
After that came the Rotfiends and Deathfinds. The former were susceptible to pain but were able to push through it and the latter behaved like any other skeletal counterparts—mindless and aggressive.
Unfortunately for them, the sheer volume of blood filling this Colosseum was so enormous that their legs became ruined before they walked to the opposite side where John was waiting.
Their deaths took a while longer, but lack of mobility was a death sentence, turning them into small burning islands amidst the grey sea.
"I wonder what happens now," John mumbled as he waited for the fifteenth wave to begin. Previously, the Hierarch fused all the Rothound and Rotfiend corpses into a single colossal aberration. Now though…
His thought was answered when the Hierarch lifted his shaky hands toward the sky and unleashed a sickly-green pulse of light. It filled the entire arena and pulled the few remaining half-melted Rotfiend corpses into a single spot.
Ehh, wasn't there like ten times more mass when we fought it the last time?
He was looking at a famished caricature of the previously unstoppable monstrosity that was reminding him of a deflated leather ball. The thing had far too much skin and not nearly enough guts to fill it out.
[Failed summoning of Rotting Behemoth {C}]
The thing flopped on top of the grey liquid, sank a third of the way in before it hit the bottom, and collapsed on its side.
Huh…
Commanding all his minions to engage, he watched the monster slowly getting consumed by the flames without showing any hint of resistance. Despite its ruined stature, the thing proved quite resilient and it took him almost three minutes before it produced a green pile of ash that announced its fall.
All that's left is you… hopefully, John looked up and observed the unnerved Hierarch.
This was the part that was most likely to go wrong, which was why he focused inward and prepared to trigger the Temporal Iteration the moment the Hierarch made its move.
Now! He focused inward and triggered his trump card the moment the boss floated into the Colosseum.
Knowing what was about to happen made the transition much easier to bear and a moment later he found himself inside a black world with only the floating silhouette of the Hierarch in the distance.
Letting the situation play out, he observed the silhouette float toward him while remaining roughly thirty feet above ground.
Something's off, he deduced from its odd posture and body language. The silhouette stopped in the middle of the arena and appeared to… have a conversation with his real body? This continued for a couple of seconds and then everything went black.
What the hell is going on?
This time it took more than a blink before his vision returned and he found his body in the presence of two taller people.
Where did it…
The shorter of the two ran into him and… gave him a hug?
Staring at the scene in dumbfounded confusion, he was waiting for more information when it finally hit him.
Wait what?! Could my body be back at the summoning platform?
That guess became the most likely explanation because, for the remainder of the time, he watched himself talk with the other two humanoids.
Feeling the vision's end, he let the pulsing feeling go and returned into his real body.
With his returned senses, colors weren't the only thing coming back as he found himself waist-deep in the grey sludge. The other sense that he was now ignoring was the smell.
Oh gods, did it smell that bad the whole damn time?
It was like rotten lemons mixed with a thick metallic scent and now that he was aware of it, it was making him sick.
Focus! He chided himself for his lapse of attention.
The Hierarch was slowly floating toward him and just as he prepared to go on the offensive, the man offered a light bow and spoke out in a deep reverberating voice.
"I wish to offer you my surrender."