East of Osiris

Two of the Goblins fell before a flurry of returned gunfire forced the Revenants back into cover. Mozaic caught a bullet in the chest during the exchange. No amount of skill will allow you to dodge gunfire from five enemies. The three Revenants laid flat on their backs as the gunfire tore through the soft cover of the cubicles. For the first time since the game had started, the S-ranks were at a disadvantage in a gunfight.

Within cover, Tantalus could hear the periodic sound of footfalls as the Ogres approached the building. One of the Ogres had caught a few bullets during the earlier exchange, and its uneven gait reflected its injured state.

Tantalus crawled a few feet within cover to peak out from a different angle. He stuck half of his head out from behind a cubicle to see the approaching Deluvians. The Ogres were approaching the hole in the building with the intent to climb through. The two of them had lowered their heads in order to fit under the ceiling. The Ogres would be through the hole within seconds.

Thinking that he didn’t want to engage two giant Deluvians in melee combat, Tantalus quickly came up with a temporary solution.

“Vento thrush!” Tantalus shouted.

A hurricane-force wall of wind suddenly appeared where the entrance used to be. It connected one half-destroyed wall to the other, temporarily preventing anyone from traveling through the hole in the building.

Much like with the Fire Bolt spell, one had to concentrate on the image of the spell to maintain it. Tantalus knew that the spell would drop if he became too distracted. He also knew that the spell would stay up for twenty seconds without additional mana, and then he could “feed” it mana in order to keep it up for longer. For each additional mana point used, he could keep it up for an additional five seconds. Tantalus could keep the Wind Wall up for two minutes if necessary.

The two Ogres cried out in surprise as they were suddenly pushed back by a gale of wind. It was difficult to hear, but Tantalus could swear that he heard the Wendigo's voice speak angrily in the background.

Tantalus rotated his body in order to take most of it out of cover. He raised his shotgun at the injured Ogre on the other side of the wind wall and pulled the trigger. The shells struck home in the Ogre’s midsection, but they didn’t hit exactly where Tantalus had aimed them. As expected, the shotgun pellets were blown off course by the wind wall, but they were not stopped completely. If the Ogres weren’t so big, hitting them through the wind wall would be almost impossible.

Two shells struck the injured Ogre, and it stumbled backward a few steps. By the time the magazine tube of Tantalus’s shotgun was empty, the Ogre had fallen to the ground dead.

Before Tantalus had finished firing, Ashcroft and Mozaic had risen out of cover with their rifles aimed. They didn’t know exactly what Tantalus was doing, but they trusted their commander to come up with a scheme to turn the battle in their favor. Once out of cover, the two Revenants immediately caught on to Tantalus’s plan. They saw the strength of the wind in front of them, and they could calculate the effect it would have on bullet trajectories.

The so-far-uninjured Ogre stood with a confused look on its face as it was torn apart by high-caliber projectiles from two bolt-action rifles and a shotgun. Killing the Ogre took more than twenty seconds and fifteen bullets. Tantalus had switched to his pistol rather than reload his shotgun. While the three Revenants mercilessly deconstructed the ogre, three Deluvians tried to kill them with their rifles. None of the bullets made contact due to their trajectories being altered by the wind wall. Unlike the Ogre, the Revenants half obscured by cover were very small targets.

During all of this, the Wendigo had fallen back about a hundred feet. A shining silver shield was floating in front of it, and it occasionally jerked backward as if being struck by some unforeseen force. Tantalus quickly realized that FullDan and Clock must have been engaging it.

The second Ogre fell to the ground where it began to transform into a large pile of ash.

A moment later, Ashcroft shouted without warning. “It’s about to send another lightning bolt!”

Hearing this, Tantalus dropped concentration on the wind wall so that he could be heard by FullDan and Clock. He shouted at the top of his lungs. “Everybody get down!”

The three Revenants on the ground floor jumped behind the most solid cover they could find. Tantalus could not be certain whether the two Revenants up top had heard him. All he could do was hope.

“Fulgur nexum!”

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A terrible force struck the side of the building once again. Tantalus was not looking at it directly this time, but he could feel the impact in his bones. When Tantalus peered out of cover, he could see the effects of the devastating blow that had struck the side of the building. A large portion of the building had collapsed completely. Rubble which had once been the upper floors now filled the first floor. It was as if a high-yield bomb had been detonated in the corner of the building.

The Wendigo’s blast had also expanded the hole in the wall so that it was now fifty feet wide. The wall itself had almost been completely destroyed. Tantalus was awestruck by the power wielded by the wendigo. A few more hits like that and the building they were hiding in would be completely destroyed.

The three Revenants scattered into more secure cover. They returned fire when they could. In this exchange, the final two Goblins died. At one point, Tantalus stuck his head out from the foxhole he had found within an overturned cubicle to see the Orc Captain and Wendigo enter the building.

Without hesitation, Tantalus fired a shell at the floating Wendigo. The buckshot pellets came into contact with a shimmering silver structure and bounced off harmlessly. The Wendigo was surrounded by an invisible sphere that could only be seen when it came into contact with an outside force. It was chanting something at a lone drone, and its hands were clamped together as if in prayer.

Several more shots bounced harmlessly off of the wendigo’s barrier before the Revenants temporarily gave up on attempting to harm it.

While the Wendigo chanted, the Orc Captain moved forward with its rifle at low ready. It periodically fired at where it thought one of the Revenants was. Tantalus, Ashcroft, and Mozaic were experts when it came to positioning in a gunfight, so the Orc Captain had no luck catching any of them out in the open.

Without warning, a cloud of smoke appeared in the center of the large room they were fighting in. The puff of smoke quickly dissipated, revealing a figure dressed in a grey cloak and blue military uniform.

“FullDan, get down!” Tantalus shouted.

FullDan had appeared less than ten feet away from the Orc Captain. Revenant and Deluvian looked at each other in confusion. The Orc Captain began to raise its rifle. FullDan realized that he could not reach the Orc Captain or the safety of cover before the monster could pull the trigger. Instead, FullDan grabbed his cloak and, with a single smooth motion, interposed the fabric between himself and his enemy.

The Orc Captain fired at the point that FullDan had been a moment before. The heavy bullet tore through the cloak without resistance and passed three inches above FullDan’s head.

FullDan ducked under the fluttering cloak and charged at the Orc Captain with his pistol drawn. It realized that it couldn’t load another bullet into its rifle's chamber before FullDan had closed the gap. It transferred its rifle to its left hand and drew its handaxe with its right.

Wearing a smile on his face, FullDan pointed his pistol at the orc captain. The orc did not react to the pistol, assuming it was a bluff. Certainly, FullDan had not had time to anoint a bullet during the earlier gunfight.

Then, FullDan took his left hand and held it a few inches in front of the barrel of his pistol. A dawning horror appeared on the Orc Captain’s face as the glee within FullDan's expression grew.

“You’re insane!” is what the Orc Captain intended to shout. It couldn’t get past the “y” sound before FullDan pulled the trigger. A hole appeared in FullDan’s hand as the bullet underwent high speed anointment. Milliseconds later, the bullet traveled through the Orc’s helmet, skull, and brain. The bullet didn’t make this journey alone, however, as two of the small bones in FullDan’s hand tore holes into the Orc’s brain as well. Revenant and Wendigo alike looked upon the Orc Captain’s death in shock. It had started to turn into ash before it had even hit the ground.

A woman’s scream interrupted the brief moment of triumph. FullDan didn’t even have time to process the pain in his hand before he was forced to face the full, unfettered wrath of the Wendigo.

“Sen!”

The Wendigo began the incantation. Tantalus was standing quite far away from FullDan, and even he could smell gas in the air. The second incantation could not be heard as a gunshot filled the room once more.

The Wendigo jerked as it was hit in the flank by a shotgun slug. The slug hit the Wendigo in the rib cage and exited out the other side, carrying with it a stream of viscera. The wendigo faltered in the air for a moment before it was hit by the second slug, which struck it directly in the heart. The Wendigo fell to the ground, its lightning dissipating as it did so.

Upon hearing the Wendigo’s chanting, Tantalus realized that it couldn’t attack and defend at the same time. It was basic video game mechanics. Strong bosses would frequently have super armor until they attacked. That’s why Tantalus had been waiting for this precise moment. He hadn’t expected FullDan to be the one who would take aggro from the wendigo, but it worked well for his plan.

A moment after the Wendigo hit the ground, Tantalus was next to it. A new shotgun shell was in the barrel of his shotgun, and he was ready to finish the job if necessary.

The Wendigo laid on its back, almost motionless. Its lungs and heart had been completely destroyed, so it could not breathe or speak. The only sound coming from the wendigo was a gurgling wheeze. It reached up to its mask and removed the deer skull.

Underneath the mask, the Wendigo appeared concerningly similar to a human woman. It didn’t have the pig snout one would see on the Goblins, Orcs, and Ogres. If not for the green skin and antlers growing out of the top of its head, one could confuse this entity for a human woman.

It coughed and sputtered as it slowly died. In a brief moment of weakness, Tantalus felt pity for the creature. The Wendigo was no longer a threat to them, but he spared it from further suffering by putting a shotgun shell between its eyes.