CHAPTER 205

The lizard monster that Tom was tasked with intercepting was very alligator like, and like most things in Existentia it was more monstrous than anything on earth. An alligator on steroids with enhanced speed was the most apt description he could think of. The elongated snout was filled with visible teeth. Its tail ended with a heavy mace like protuberance similar to what some dinosaurs had possessed. Then each of those six legs were adorned with four finger length claws that were apparently more than capable of cutting into the cliff wall. Tom knew how hard underground rock was and the way the lizard could cut into the rock to grip was scary.

If one of those feet hit him…

Survive, he thought to himself. That was all he needed to do. Get through the first couple of minutes and then luck would help him win a war of attrition.

The monster was charging him.

Tom remembered the numerous times he had tricked enraged beasts into impaling themselves. Winning a fight because of their stupidity instead of via skill. It was a great technique, but he wasn’t sure it would work in this situation. After all, the equipment he had available lacked the quality necessary to survive such an encounter against a creature whose vitality was close to thirty.

With a thought the spear Sonya had got him vanished and was replaced with the store bought one. Grimly, he positioned it to skewer the charging reptile, with the butt of it firmly wedged into the rock. The monster saw the stick pointing at it and clearly understood the concept of what he was attempting. It shifted to the side slightly and swung its head out of the way of the weapon tip. Tom countered by expertly guided the spear shaft to ensure it remained aligned to the animal and then something went through the lizard. Rather than stopping it sped up having obviously judged the spear as being insignificant in the greater of scheme of things.

Tom wished he had better equipment.

It opened its jaws, and Tom aimed his weapon at the roof of its mouth. Then he leapt backwards to avoid the mouthful of teeth attempting to eat him.

His spear had been positioned perfectly. It should have skewered it and ended the battle, but unfortunately the lizard’s judgement was accurate. The shaft exploded in a shower of wooden shards unable to support the weight that went through it.

Tom hoped the attempt had at least bloodied the creature’s mouth, but in the heat of battle there was no way for him to tell.

Sonya’s spear appeared in his hands and just like he had blocked the earth maggot he got the long shaft perfectly positioned to stop the snapping teeth from closing on him.

He was not bitten in two, but the force of the monster’s lunge still threw him backwards. He was airborne, and the creature pursued him.

He landed in front of the monster and then teleported and dodged to the side.

Time slowed immediately to the full extent his skill supported.

Tom frowned. With the teleport on cooldown, there was no way to avoid being hurt. His brain calculated vectors, and he abandoned all of his efforts to do anything apart from pulling his leg back faster.

He gasped.

There was a brand of flame down his calf.

Healing tranquillity activated, and he was stunned to discover that he had been badly cut. The lizard’s claw had sliced through his nearly indestructible pants.

The threat level of the monster in Tom’s head went up. He was glad he had spent his fate proactively to survive the first period of the engagement.

Almost by route, he stemmed the bleeding without bothering to heal the cut fully. If it could damage him so easily he needed to preserve as much mana as possible.

Something told him…

Whomp!

His eyesight flashed black, red then white. He was hurtling through the air, swept completely off his feet.

Crunch.

He crashed into the solid surface of the boulder.

His chest felt like it had been struck with a battering ram. Tom’s experience filled in the blanks instantly. The monster had to possess some form of tail swipe skill and it had used it to strike him while he was distracted by the cut to his leg.

Tom did not hesitate.

He cartwheeled to the side and then watched in disbelief as the lizard that had been charging him redirected its momentum to sprint up the vertical slope. Then above Tom it was doing a tight u-turn.

That was all he needed to see.

He began to retreat.

With its claws cutting into the underground rock and giving the lizard perfect footing, it charged straight down, mouth partially open, its teeth showing, saliva running out the sides of its mouth.

A teleport took him out of its range. He ducked and weaved desperately and then leapt over another tail swipe. The accompanying gust of wind almost sent him careering out of control.

He landed, dived to the side. There was a stinging pain on his arm and he instinctively closed the cut. No matter what he did as he fought backwards time was dilated to the maximum amount possible.

A tail swipe was coming.

He braced, but all of his air was still knocked right out of his lungs. Uncontrolled, he flew toward the wider canyon. Helplessly, he crashed into an antelope that was at the apex of a jump, and then one of the stingrays. Both bounced away from him, as he was both heavier than they were and moving faster.

Tom landed and rolled to the side.

There was the snapping sound of jaws closing over where his body had just been. The lizard appearing amongst the melee of the two other species did not go unnoticed. Two antelopes and a scorpoise both targeted it.

The antelope was cut in half with a casual swipe of the monster’s claws and then it’s tail whipped and pulverised the scorpoise.

The lizard stared at him, seemingly unconcerned about having killed the other two monsters each with a single blow. Tom had been nursing a vague plan about retreating aggressively into the wide melee, with the hope that his dodging would keep him alive while the extra monsters would wear out this opponent.

Something warned him that wouldn’t work.

The lizard lunged at him and once more he was forced into a furious retreat. This time, he got the opportunity to parry a couple of claw swipes but even when successful, he had to reset cracked bones to keep himself functional.

The tail swipe came at him and Tom didn’t block and instead borrowed the momentum to propel himself clear of the lizard to get some breathing room. He took the chance to sneak a glance at the wider battle.

Everlyn had transformed as the seriousness of the situation forced herself to use her limited power up trait. She had used a version that had allowed her to grow bigger and she had switched out her magic bow for a glaive that was derived in someway from her other weapon as it had the same magical look.

The enhanced form was letting her move with a speed that was downright terrifying. Tom knew how much higher the lizard’s attributes were than his own. Even with the bonuses his dodge ability granted him he was struggling to keep ahead of it. Everlyn, on the other hand… She was dominating her opponent.

The lizard that he had fate spiked had already been disembowelled and, while not dead yet it was clear, it would not survive. As for the second. Everlyn was working on finishing it, too. It had already suffered a couple of minor cuts, but with the ferocity she was bringing to the fight it was only a matter of time before she landed a more serious blow.

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Then he touched down, and the lizard was upon him once more and everything went into stopping himself from being overwhelmed by the multitude of attacks that were being launched his way.

Time ground to a halt, and internally he cursed. There was no pathway to avoid the claw. Tom focused and stretched his teleport ability. He applied all of his willpower to get more out of it. A couple of extra centimetres, with slightly more flexibility to reposition his limbs.

The pressure was building.

Something broke in the skill, or maybe something mended was a better description. There was a quantitative change, the skill altered under the strain that both he and fate applied to it. There was no way in the midst of combat to determine the exact nature of what had happened. It might have been a level, which would be miraculous in terms of the timeframe since he got the skill or a sideways evolution or both. It didn’t matter a shift had occurred.

The amount he could twist in the air had improved and he could use the teleport to increase his momentum or to stop it altogether. Even more importantly for his current situation range was now more guidance than anything else. If he used the advanced capabilities, it would take longer for the spell to reset, but it could travel eight centimetres now instead of five.

The teleport triggered, moving him instantly the full distance back. The slashing claw sliced his leg, leaving a scratch as opposed to almost cutting it off.

The lizard was unperturbed at missing him. It just continued its flurry of attacks. Tom retreated slightly, blocked and swayed out of the way.

Whomp!

Pain flared as multiple abscesses burst as the tail slammed into the legs he had pulled to his chest. He was hurtled in an arc upwards and away from his friends. For a moment, the agony might have caused him to black out before his decay resistance skill mitigated most of the sudden free hostile decay energy and stopped it from infecting him.

Half a second, maybe less, had passed when he opened his eyes. He was still travelling upward and the lizard he was fighting paced below, its mouth open almost grinning at him.

He was beginning to get worried that the lizard was beyond his ability but he couldn’t think of anything to change the paradigm. All he could do was to survive and hope Everlyn could come to his aid. With the last of his mana, he fixed the damage from the tail swipe, vowing to watch out for it and make sure he dodged it going forward.

Then he was falling.

The lizard was pacing him and for a moment he panicked, unsure how to not land in its waiting mouth.

An antelope jumped near him, and Tom took back control by kicking off it.

He spotted a scorpoise, but it was too far away, so he burned a teleport to both increase his speed and get close. He thrust with his spear the end cutting into the creature’s wing and then he flexed his muscles to pole vault and propel himself forward. A sprinting antelope got kicked in the head. Then he fell and planted a foot on the back of another antelope and then leapt off it.

It was in the midst of jumping and so Tom received the equivalent of a double bounce when you were trampolining. He soared impossibly high in the air as a result.

He was travelling deeper into the canyon and away from his friends and while staying airborne was not a viable plan against the monster in the long run. Short term, it would at least buy him time and potentially if he was fast enough… Tom glanced back.

The lizard was not willing to risk him escaping and was aggressively tracking him. It was relentless, and Tom wished he had been more prudent earlier against the earth maggots. Having two lifesaving teleports in reserve instead of one would have been comforting at this moment.

He struck a scorpoise at an angle and kicked off.

The movement surprised a lizard, and it dug its feet into the rock to bring it to a halt momentarily before turning and charging towards his new location. Tom’s feet had already found ground or in this case a fungus.

There was another flurry of dodges.

Tom’s fate was building up.

He could feel it crackling in the surrounding air, giving him opportunities.

He somehow managed to twist his body so that simultaneously a double claw attack from the back and middle legs went either side of him as he limboed under a tail swipe.

Then he was back on his feet. The impossibility of what he had just done was forgotten as he contorted himself in ways that a human shouldn’t be capable of escaping another flurry of attacks. The monster was frustrated and throwing everything into killing him. Despite that, Tom was getting moments to think as he got more used to its movement patterns and fate interfered in larger and larger ways.

He was fifty metres away from the boulder and he caught a glimpse of the ongoing fight.

Everlyn hadn’t killed the second lizard, but it was severely injured. Unfortunately, the massive form she had taken earlier was gone and was replaced with a version of Everlyn that used an axe. This one was slower than the previous, but against a hurt opponent it was enough. She was avoiding the counterattacks and then moving in to land a few axe swings on the already opened wounds. They didn’t seem to do that much damage, but fresh blood emerged each time so they would wear the monster down, eventually.

Tom blocked with his spear as it lunged forward for what felt like the hundredth times. Those jaws could open wide but were too small to get around his spear if he positioned the defence appropriately.

Tom was thrown backwards, which gave him a second to act. Almost without thinking, he produced your rock and threw it.

It slammed into the lizard. Striking the front leg mid stride because he hadn’t had time to aim properly.

The leg seemed to buckle unnaturally, and it was limping afterwards. Not that the small disability had the effect of slowing the frantic attacks. If anything, things became more intense.

He dodged and weaved.

There was an opportunity. The lizard’s claws had fallen through the ground into a hidden burrow and half tripped it. Tom immediately infused the top of his spear with Power strike and then thrust forward.

The eye popped.

The lizard launched at him in a rage, but Tom internally smiled. Finally, he had hurt it. The creature had four eyes in total, but if he could blind it on one side Tom’s chances of survival would skyrocket.

He felt the claws open up a gash on his arm and stomach, but they were only deep scratches and he would fix them when he got mana. Tom pirouetted. The lizard’s foot was somehow caught again in another burrow and Tom struck on instinct with his spear tip glowing blue as he thrust forward.

The second eye exploded in a gooey mess. It was blind on one side.

He didn’t relax for a moment. If anything, he became more focused. His enemy was vulnerable, and he just needed to exploit the opening until he killed it. Sweat was dripping down his face constantly, and he concentrated on widening the wound he had left by continually dodging into its blind spot and then stabbing out at the first damaged socket. Two, three, ten the number of Power Strike infused blows on the same spot grew.

Tom was going to win. Whenever he got in trouble, he could create time by escaping into its blind area. Between that and the mass of fate that swirled around him, the result was inevitable.

Rather than pressing an advantage he danced back and threw an anxious eye toward his companions.

Everlyn had finished her lizard and had returned to shooting her bow.

Harry was down.

His heart leapt.

The ritualist was prone on the ground but not dead because Michael was hovering over him, casting his magic and then on either side Rahmat and Thor were fighting back two scorpoise that were targeting them. Then he checked the rest of the battlefield and noted the intensity of the fight was reducing.

The lizard, for the first time in the battle, did not immediately charge in and try to kill him. It looked like it was considering retreating.

No! Tom shouted in his head. He would not allow that. He needed the experience and while he knew they had all agreed at the start not to chase any fights that no longer applied. The battle was over and he wasn’t letting the beast that had cut him up as much as it had to escape.

He charged forward and renewed the aggression.

Eleven, twelve… twenty strikes landed on the eye socket, but he was making progress. Each one was pushing a little deeper, and Tom was sure he felt the bone shift with the last strike.

Once more he rolled to the side and the lizard squealed as the plants that its back legs were on gave way, making its entire back end slip downwards.

Tom pounced on the mistake.

He put everything he could channel into Power strike. He concentrated his strength, his muscles coiling and then unleashing a burst of power that was focused on a simple spear thrust. The tip of the weapon entered the heavily damaged socket and this time the bone that have resisted him all the times before broke and the spear slid all the way in.

Tom pulled it out, triumphal.

A flood of blood came with the weapon and the monster crashed to the ground and he turned to see if he needed to intervene in any of the other fights that were occurring.

There was no need.

The battle was over.

The majority of both the scorpoise and antelopes were dead. Tom could see hundreds of their corpses littered across the floor of the canyon.

As for the lizards that had rushed down from the cliffs, they had or were retreating from the floor canyon. Including the three he and Everlyn had killed, Tom spotted a total of six lizard corpses which felt about right given the rank discrepancy that had existed between the three forces. On the cliff face itself, around a dozen of the lizards were climbing back toward their dens further up the cliff. Each and everyone of them carried multiple carcasses with a slight preference for the antelopes, though he did spot one lizard that was upside down on the cliff and backing upwards. It was dragging six scorposie corpses behind it with its mouth comically wide open to secure the load.

Tom once more assessed the battlefield to make sure he hadn’t missed anything important. There were no lizards alive at ground level. As for the clashing antelopes and scorpoise horde, both of them were shattered. There might have been fifty surviving individuals of each species, but every one of them was injured and Tom knew at a glance that he would be able to clean them up easily, let alone what Everlyn and Jingyi could do from range.

Crack.

An arrow shot and landed near Tom, killing an antelope that he had been ignoring. It had been attempting to crawl over and kill him, but missing two legs it hadn’t been making much progress.

Tom jogged over to where Michael and Clare were still labouring over Harry.

He continued to put together the pieces he had missed while fighting for his life. The first fact was that Everlyn hadn’t killed both lizards. The second one had been killed by Keikain as he could see remanents of how a section of the yellow boulder had come alive and taken a bite out of the lizard removing a large chunk of its torso.

That was good because it meant Everlyn wouldn’t have full bragging rights. Then again, she had taken care of two while he had almost died facing only the one.

“Can I help?” Tom said immediately when he reached Michael.

The healer didn’t answer. He just shuffled to the side and Tom sat down and put his hand on Harry.

“Yes,” Clare answered, sounding broken.

“He was stung by one of the scorpoise" Toni told him.

Tom knelt next to his friend and initiated Healing Tranquillity. Harry was a fighter. They would save him.