As the last explosion died in the distance Diana watched Frank dust off his hands.
“Well that's that. It was the last one I believe. Good job Diana” He said as he raised his hand for a high five.
However she just cast him a glance and left him hanging. Her mood was too foul for his usual shenanigans. It didn’t improve over the course of their demolition work. She was still pissed about forgetting about the Identify ability. She noted that Frank had tried different approaches but neither being silent or telling her jokes didn’t help her any. It was just one of those cases that needed time.
“Can you feel that?” Diana asked as she felt a tremble under her feet. She briefly wondered if they overdone it and the building was about to collapse with their friends still inside. Diana looked up the sheer walls of their hideout, but there didn’t seem to be any cracks showing. What was happening on the other hand was a coating of dust falling from the building. When she looked around it was the same for every single one she could see.
“The building is not coming down, is this an earthquake?” She asked Frank.
He just pointed to the street before them.
The ground beneath them trembled as the centipede horde approached, hundreds upon hundreds of the misshapen monstrosities writhing and slithering like a living, grotesque river. The creatures advanced in a relentless frenzy, their elongated, segmented bodies undulating in grotesque disharmony.
Frank and Diana exchanged a glance filled with dread, realizing they had awoken the monstrous horde. They had little time to react. The centipedes surged forward, driven by an insatiable hunger for flesh.
“We have to go around, the closest entrance is around the corner !” Frank shouted.
With no other choice, Frank and Diana sprinted toward one of the hidden passages, their hearts pounding in their chests as the centipede river closed in. As they turned the corner they saw another river of monsters coming from the other direction.
“Quick in here!” she shouted, pulling Frank into the narrow opening in the side street. It was the only road that was still open to them.
Only once they were inside they noticed it was a dead end.
“We can at least try to fight them here, in this corridor their numbers will count for nothing.” Frank said, trying to sound hopeful.
In the darkness of the hidden passage, Diana caught her breath, her face pale with the realization that they were now trapped and the chances of survival were slim. Their efforts to block the surface entrances had apparently stirred the bugs, and now, they were trapped in a nightmarish battle.
Frank took up a position in front of her while she climbed a small pile of rubble. Diana could feel the adrenaline surging through her veins as she saw the first centipede enter their corridor. She quickly lost count after that one, the corridor turning into a claustrophobic nightmare, as Diana despaired at the sheer number of centipedes pouring in. Soon after the first centipedes reached Frank as he dispatched them as quickly and efficiently as he could.
Diana’s thoughts, however, were strangely focused on the potential experience points she could gain. Thanks to the increased danger the reward for defeating this grotesque horde was guaranteed to be substantial, and all she saw was an opportunity for personal growth. Her priorities were clear, and they didn't necessarily include protecting Frank.
As the battle raged on, Diana could see Frank tiring and struggling to fend off the relentless assault. His health was visibly dwindling, and his frantic glances toward her were filled with a plea for help. But Diana's eyes remained fixated on the thickets parts of the swarm where her runes could do the most damage.
In the chaos of battle, Diana stood her ground, her staff alight with arcane power as she drew the Explosive Runes in the air. With each stroke, ethereal light began to materialize around her, forming a radiant, protective barrier. Her concentration was unwavering, and her determination burned brightly in her eyes as she weaved the runes with practiced precision, channeling their magic into a formidable force. Each explosion she caused was killing dozens of monsters but it still was not enough to stem the tide. More and more monsters made it to Frank and yet she still didn’t cast a single Slowing rune in front of him as support.
Finally, Frank stumbled, his many small wounds overwhelming him. He cried out in pain as a centipede surged over him, its venomous mandibles sinking into his flesh. Diana saw that and decided it was the time to help him. But when she tried to cast the slowing Rune she realized something.
“I'm out of mana!” She shouted.
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“I’m out of mana!” Frank heard Diana shout.
Even though he just killed the bug that bit into his arm and it hurt like a bitch he laughed.
He saw, and heard, her cast her explosions into the crowd before and while killing centipedes was fine, he would have thought that keeping him alive was at least a goddamn secondary priority. He was surprised that he could laugh in a situation like this. It was even easy; it felt natural.
He felt the adrenaline coursing through his veins, and saw how slowly the centipedes moved, but there were just so many. It didn't matter how many he killed, there were always two more to take their place. By now he was fighting atop a growing pile of corpses, but the number of monsters that attacked him only grew.
With a loud cackle Frank somersaulted over a corpse and he threw his dagger into a centipede trying to flank him. He missed its vulnerable neck and instead struck its underbelly. Then, the weirdest thing happened: the dagger sparked and started a flame that quickly spread over the whole monster.
His eyes opened wide, was it something Diana had done? No, ever since she shouted about her mana he could hear rare explosions she cast as her mana regenerated. She still offered no assistance to him. He killed two more on his way to recover his weapon without any weird effects triggering.
Goddamn he was slaughtering these things, like some stupid sort of Leonidas. He imagined himself in a billowing red cape with a six pack. He chuckled as he dashed between the Abominations slashing them both in the spaces between their armor. Another unexpected thing happened, ice crystals started growing from the bug on the left while the one on the right was moving way slower, it was weakened but it lived.
"Remember!" he shouted at the maimed creature in annoyance as it refused to die. "What doesn't kill you, only makes my disappointment stronger!" He threw himself back into the fray.
Soon there was no time to speak, no time to think, all he had room in his head for was how to cut, how to dodge, how to kill. And how to laugh. There was something strange going on with him, something more than adrenaline. He was elated. He enjoyed this dance on a level he never thought possible. He couldn't help but laugh when he cut another centipede's throat and it started drowning in its own blood, there was a lot more of it than usual.. The blood flying through the air, as in slow motion, was the most beautiful thing he has ever seen,
And then it splashed on the black armor of another Abomination, which died shortly after with a dagger in its eye. By this time the only thing in Franks head was
I promise, I sense your pain.
With a spinning motion and a laugh he cut two more Abominations throats causing an unexpected amount of blood to explode from them. The fight was turning into a damn spectacle by this point.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
And maybe I enjoy it just a little bit,
Still cackling, Frank gave his daggers a little flourish, grabbed them by the blades and threw them into two approaching centipedes. The effects that caused seemed entirely random, this time it was again fire and ice. Frank spent a split second admiring the view.
Does that make me insane?
Finding himself without weapons and surrounded on all sides Frank laughs.
“Im surrounded by terror and dead bugs” Using his Acrobatics he starts going for his daggers by jumping on the thrashing centipedes. Frank was fast, but not fast enough to dodge all of them as he jumps towards his daggers buried in the duo of centipedes he’s distantly aware of the many wounds covering his body.
The whole situation reminds him of the fight when he protected Mia but this time he feels he has at least some control over his body. It's not a complete blackout like last time, this was more of an out of body experience like he was observing his body move and had a limited ability to affect what it did next.
He willed his body to throw itself into the swarm again.
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Diana watched as Frank performed the insane acrobatics required to survive. The man was a force of nature and she doubted she could match his in a one on one fight. The river of centipedes was not enough to stop him. Oh they hurt him plenty, he was covered in blood and a lot of it was his, but that didn't even slow him down.
She noticed that sometimes the centipedes he found with were set on fire or an ice similar to her own grew on them, Frank probably got a new skill during the fight.
As for herself she was sitting on the pile of rubble meditating and hoping none of the centipedes noticed her. When she had enough mana she cast her explosive rune and killed a dozen centipedes. The corridor seemed to be chocked full of corpses and it was hard to tell but she thought not many more bugs were coming in, it looked like they would manage to kill them all before Frank ran out of whatever was powering him.
In the midst of the ongoing battle, Diana heard a familiar sound. The screech of two Duskshrikers that descended from the sky, lured by the scent of spilled blood. Their forms cast shadows as they darted around above. Frank and Diana, already embroiled in a fight for their lives, now faced an even greater threat.
The Duskshrikers, with their dragonfly wings and scorpion stingers, struck with a ruthless precision. Their screeches cut through the air, as both of them dove for Diana.
She scrambled down from the pile of rubble she was meditating on just in time. The flying monsters struck the place she was just at, a shower of pebbles and dusk fell on her. The Duskshriekers took to the air again right away and started circling looking for another opportunity to strike.
Dina cast a quick glance to Frank, he was still laughing like a madman and too occupied with his own fight to help her. She was thinking frantically, the damn flying fucks were exactly the bad kind of opponent for her. She couldn't cast the rune directly on them, they darted around too quickly and randomly to set rune traps on the walls of the buildings.
What was she supposed to do? For now she focused on dodging their attacks as her mana was too low to try anything anyway. She avoided their dives two more times, the second one left her a souvenir in the form of a deep gash on her leg. It was the first time she was seriously hurt in this world and cast a Healing Rune on herself, the pain subsided immediately.
She couldn’t keep this up much longer, but she did come up with a plan. She quickly climbed a pile of rubble and cast an Explosive rune under herself. As the Duskshriekers dove for her again, she timed her dodge to be as close as possible and in the last moment jumped to the side. The explosion of her rune followed but to her dismay the monsters were unhurt. The monstest moved fast enough to stop mi-dive and go back up, which caused the energy to diffuse too much while their thick armor protected them from the rest of the blast. She needed to keep them on the ground for a moment.
Her leg kept hurting, and it was hard to focus, but she prepared another rune on a flat piece of rubble and recreated the same trap. With the stone in hand she watched for another attack from Duskshriekers. This time just before her dodge she threw the additional rune into the air. She jumped to the side and heard three explosions in quick succession.
The first one was the Dazzle Rune she threw into the air. The other two came too close to each other to tell which one was first. It was the Explosive rune and the sound of Duskshriekers crashing into the ground at high speed. As the dust settled she saw the broken bodies of the monsters half buried in the rubble. She idly wondered if it was the explosion or the crash that got them.
“Don’t mess with the power of iterative design” She mumbled to herself.
She looked around and saw no centipedes moving. The whole area was littered with bodies. They needed to get away from there quickly before more monsters came to the smell of blood.
She stood up and dusted her clothes, afterwards she looked around for Frank, he was nowhere to be seen. Then one of the centipedes laughed? Diana watched in utter confusion as one of the bugs she thought dead was shaking a bit with a muffled sound of laughter coming from its direction. It stopped after a while as Frank pushed the centipede off of himself and rose from the ground with a manic grin on his face.
“See? I’m not insane, others find my jokes funny too.” He said pointing at the corpse he just climbed from under.
Diana felt in her gut that she was in real danger, it reminded her of their first day when they saw the upright monster.
“Who said you’re insane?” Diana asked, trying desperately to diffuse the situation.
“I did!” he said and laughed as if he told the best joke ever “ well to be precise the other me did.”
He approached her, the deranged smile still on his face. He was covered from head to toes in blood, the only thing not red on his were his eyes and his teeth. He looked like a demon of battle.
“You know what?” He said slowly “I noticed something during this fight” the grin slowly grew smaller on his face, however Diana’s danger sense went into overdrive.
“What was it?” She asked, she considered preparing a spell but knew he could stab her before she got anything done.
She blinked, and then she opened her eyes. Frank's face was inches from hers. “I noticed, you didn’t help me any. Poor old Frank was all alone fighting the swarm” He said in a sing-song voice.
“R-Really? I tried to kill as many as possible” Diana said, unable to control her voice.
“Yeah! Really ! And you know what? I need to thank you for that!” He moved away from her in a dance step “It was so much fun! You see?” Frank pointed to the field of corpses ”So much entertainment to be had. And you let me have most of it.” He giggled feverishly.
“Yeah, I'm happy you had fun,” Diana said, hoping he would calm down.
“So thank you! So so much! Now like a normal person I'm going to try to make some friends over there.” He made a wide motion towards the field of corpses.
“Sure, i will wait near the entrance, just don't take too long” She said
“Sure thing boss!” Frank responded with a salute and stood there.
Turning her back to him was one of the hardest things she had ever done. After a few steps she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to stab her from behind but she still fought with herself to not start running. She managed to get to the corner and saw that there were no more bugs incoming. She spared a moment to open her character sheet.
YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 5.
YOU HAVE 5 UNASSIGNED STAT POINTS.
YOU HAVE LEARNED A NEW SKILL, BARRIER - CREATE A SHIELD THAT BLOCKS PHYSICAL AND MAGICAL ATTACKS AND IS FUELED BY YOUR MANA.
Well, shit.
Hector is not going to be happy. This was not what they hoped for. Then she noticed a second notification
YOU HAVE UNLOCKED THE ASPECT OF THE INSIDIOUS STRENGTH. IN TIME YOU WILL UNLOCK NEW ABILITIES CONNECTED TO THIS ASPECT AS YOU PERFORM ACTION THE INSIDIOUS STRENGTH APPROVES OF. CURRENT POWER OF THE ASPECT: 1/100.
With a smile she cast a glance at Frank who was walking between the corpses. As she was watching he stumbled and fell down. She rushed toward him, he was unconscious but breathing, enough of her mana regenerated so that she could heal him.
He opened his eyes after a moment.
“Oh, hey, I must have blacked out again, I guess we won?” He asked in a weak voice.
“Yeah we did, yeah we did” she said rocking back and forth, hugging him. Even with his scary episode Diana was immensely relieved that Frank was okay. She let him go and looked at his face.
“Hey Diana, don’t cry, you're too beautiful for that.” He said as he brushed a tear from her face.
“I'm not crying stupid, I never do.” She said with a small smile. “Let's get you home before more monsters show up.”