The demon roared and howled after my knives sank into its back, its arms flailing and shaking off Tiff’s Darkness minions. Then it tried to reach behind to grab me or knock me off, but it was so muscular that it shared the same weakness as many bodybuilders: the inability to reach its own back.
Gripping the hilts of my knives hard I pulled myself higher up its back, then leaving one knife buried in it for me to hang onto, I pulled out the other and stabbed higher. Then I did it again, climbing up its back until I was hanging between its shoulder blades. I did my best to wrap my legs around its massive girth for support, then I kept one knife buried in its back and began jabbing the other one over and over at its bulging neck.
I heard Tiff’s whip crack at the demon’s face, and it used two of its arms to protect itself while the other two continued to flail around trying to get to me.
I felt the force of something impact against the demon’s front and I could tell by the trace of purple glow I saw over its shoulder that Annabelle had joined the fray. Its body lurched under me as it tried to heave its mass around and turn its back — and me — to face Annabelle and Tiff’s attacks, but with only one leg trapped under its malformed bulk it lacked the mobility.
I kept stabbing it, over and over and over. Its neck and shoulder were now shredded, its black blood spraying each time I pulled my knife out. I was drenched in the thick, warm, putrid-smelling ichor.
I’d never come across a monster that could take this much damage. Every time I plunged my knife into it, its health bar only ticked down a tiny bit. The Status I could see may not have been overly impressive, but its hidden stats like toughness must’ve been off the charts.
I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I just put the tip of my knife up against the top of its spine and thrust up into its brain? That would probably kill it. But as I dangled there, dripping with dark demonic gore, all I could think was “this isn’t my quest, don’t steal their kill.” Besides, the thing was nearly dead anyway.
Although each wound only hurt it a bit, we’d given it a lot of wounds. Its mangled shoulder looked like hamburger and Grace had sunk so many arrows into it its front looked like a pincushion. Plus there was whatever damage the whip had done and I don’t know how many purple blasts from Annabelle it had absorbed. Attrition had taken its toll and the demon’s health had red-lined.
I stopped stabbing.
Bending my knees and planting my feet against the demon’s back, I kicked out hard. I flew backwards and, making full use of my Player body’s enhanced agility and the gymnastics and acrobatics skills, twisted in mid-air and hit the floor in a compact roll before bounding up onto my feet in a crouch, a gory knife in each hand.
I watched Tiff lashing at the demon with her whip, her three remaining Darkness minions clinging to its body and biting fiercely; one had been destroyed by the demon. I couldn’t be sure how much actual damage her whip was inflicting, but it certainly seemed to distract the demon and give others the opening to hurt it.
One of the demon’s arms was kept busy protecting itself from Tiff’s attacks while another tried to grab her whip every time it whizzed at its face. The remaining two arms punched and clawed at her Darkness minions, driving them away only for them to glide back and gnaw on it some more. One drifted too close to the demon’s mouth, and a single snap of the monster’s teeth was enough to send it to oblivion.
Then the demon shifted tactics. It ignored us and used all four arms to scoop up cultists kneeling before it and pop the unfortunate NPCs into its mouth, not even bothering to chew them but swallowing them whole. Its health climbed back out of the red zone. That wasn't good.
Beside Tiff, Grace was one of the Players who’d shaken off the fear, and she was keeping up a steady barrage of arrows to add to the demon’s misfortune. Annabelle was on the other side of the room, her face was spread in a wide grin as purple blasts kept erupting from the magic circle floating in the air in front of her. Next to her, one of Achmed’s legionnaires was using the Affinity Control I’d taught him during the ants invasion to good effect, shooting Ice darts as his contribution to the effort.
I looked over at Achmed, who was still frozen in place in terror. He’d be pissed that he missed out on the fight. His mace mash sure would've been handy right then, too.
I had seen someone use a power to dispel debuffs. I didn’t know if it would work on this but it was worth a try. I copied it, then blinked over to Achmed and cast it on him with a touch. The effect was immediate. His glazed gaze sharpened as the fear dispelled. Seeing the battle raging without him he gripped his mace in both hands and charged forward, leaping onto the platform with a shout of “Seven Souls Mace Mash!” and swung his weapon at the demon.
The weapon sank into the demon’s corpulent belly like it had been swallowed by the rippling flesh, and Achmed struggled to wrest it free. Up to now, apart from how I bravely clung to its back where it couldn’t reach me, everyone had been taking advantage of the demon’s immobility by using ranged attacks. Now it had a target within arm’s reach.
It swiped at Achmed with one hand, grabbing him around the waist like it had gripped the cultists. You know, right before it chowed down on them. The handle of his mace still protruded from the bloated mass of the demon’s belly.
Achmed’s legs kicked while he pounded at the enormous fingers clenched around him like Fay Wray. The demon raised him high in the air, then bent its head back and opened its giant mouth wide.
I immediately regretted not driving my knife into its cranium when I had the chance.
While I stood there trying to think of which power I could use to save Achmed, Tiff’s whip lashed out and wrapped its end around the demon’s wrist. Grace dropped her bow and grabbed the whip to help Tiff pull the hand holding Achmed away from the demon’s gaping maw. The women strained against the whip, managing to move Achmed a few feet to the side.
At the same time, I sent a flurry of maximum power wind cutters at the demon’s forearm. They sliced deep into the muscles and tendons, weakening the arm’s strength and causing its fingers to release Achmed. He fell to the floor with a hard thump that looked like it hurt a lot, but it was better than getting chewed up and swallowed.
With a bellow packed with fury and frustration, the demon used one of its free hands to grab the whip that was still holding its wrist and pulled. Tiff had the presence of mind to let go, but Grace held on and was lifted off her feet and flew across the room. She had her own painful landing and skidded across the floor until she was only a few feet away from where I stood.
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The legionnaire beside Annabelle sent a last few Ice darts flying, then all of a sudden he collapsed, unconscious, mana bar empty. I knew how that felt, buddy.
Tiff had lost her weapon, as had Grace, as had Achmed, and the legionnaire who wasn’t frozen in fear had drained his mana and passed out. Tiff’s teammate Anika had fallen earlier, and the remaining two were still petrified by the demon’s power. That left only Annabelle and me.
“Annabelle,” I shouted, “do you maybe have a big spell that can buy us some time?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she shouted back, then cackled a joyful laugh. I had a bad feeling about this.
As I bent down to help Grace to her feet, the magic circle in front of Annabelle disappeared and was immediately replaced by a much, much larger one. She took a wide step back with one foot and braced herself. She reminded me of something but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.
“Ex-plo-sion!” Annabelle cried, and even as a miniature mushroom cloud appeared above the demon after her magic erupted inside its mouth I couldn’t help laughing when I realized what she’d reminded me of. Who was Annabelle, really?
Miraculously, most of the explosion was contained inside the demon’s mouth, and its impressive shockwave was directed upwards instead of outwards at the rest of us. Teeth the size of my elven knives went flying in all directions along with chunks of its misshapen face, and the demon toppled over onto its side.
There was a foreboding rumble and parts of the ceiling over the blast site started crumbling. Great. Was the whole thing going to fall down on top of us? Was this payback for me burying the cultists upstairs?
What kind of lunatic uses explosion magic inside?
Annabelle grinned, then fell over backwards. “They’re right,” I heard her mumble, “it is more fun when you say it out loud.”
In some games it’s common for Big Boss monsters to go through phases. They start off strong, then once you whittle them down far enough they get a second wind, becoming even stronger. I had a feeling that was what happened when the demon munched all those people to regain health.
At first, I thought the ill-advised explosion had to have finished it off, but the damage must have triggered another phase: a third wind, if you will.
On the platform, the demon’s body quivered, then began to knit itself back together. Regeneration.
“Oh come on!” I grumbled.
Before it recovered enough to resume fighting, I pulled out a bow and quiver of arrows from my inventory and handed them to Grace. Then I dashed across the room, dropping a mace from my inventory into Achmed’s hands along the way. I slid to a halt beside Tiff and, ignoring the look of befuddlement she gave me, reached into my inventory again and handed her a whip.
“Lucky for us you don’t fight with a sink, huh?” I said.
She grunted, but I know I saw a little smile as she cracked her new whip in the air.
“Check its stats,” I said.
Her eyes glazed for a second, then went wide.
“Go nuts,” I said.
A big smile appeared on her face as the length of her whip became covered in a dark sheen as she applied her affinity to it. I had made it back when I was going crazy applying affinity power to weapons, for no other reason than I thought it would be cool to have an electrified whip. Who knew it’d actually come in handy.
Tiff swung it again, and this time wisps of menacing Darkness curled away from its tip in swirling eddies as it cracked.
“Oh I like this,” she said.
A roar from the demon brought us back to reality. Its neck was no longer in tatters from my efforts, and even though most of its head had been spread around the room by Annabelle’s insane explosion it had reformed again. Worst of all, its health was back to full. The only saving grace was that it was still only a malformed, partial Demon of Calamity. Its arms pushed against the platform as it struggled once again to right itself.
Grace fired arrow after arrow again while Tiff resumed snapping her whip at it.
“Tough sucker, ain’t it?” Achmed called before charging back into the fray, shouting the name of his attack again as he struck. Only this time he didn’t aim for its jiggling body but smashed the business end of his new mace against the demon’s leg, then leapt away a split second before one of its gigantic fists hammered down on the spot where he’d just been standing.
Smart. Without the leg, it’d be hard for it to stay upright.
I could have rejoined the attack, but instead I chose to clear the fear debuff from the other frozen Players. This was their quest, they should at least get a chance to fight the Boss.
As I worked, I saw out of the corner of my eye the demon scoop up two more cultists and, instead of munching on them, hurl them at Grace and Achmed. The cultists flew through the air like rag dolls. Grace managed to duck to the side in time and the cultist aimed at her smacked into the wall in a red splatter before crumpling to the floor in a messy heap. Achmed was not so lucky and was knocked back when the other one hit him straight on, then he fell to the floor with the limp body on top of him.
Poor Achmed. He really was having a bad day.
Grace didn’t hesitate to resume firing more arrows, and the Team Spice member I’d just brought out of her stupor wasted no time getting into the action, creating a ball of fire in her hand and launching it at the demon.
I quickly went over to Annabelle and found her lying on her back still snickering to herself. She had just a sliver of mana left, so I forced a mana recovery potion into her mouth and made her drink it, then stuffed another into her hand.
The battle continued to rage behind me as two more cultists became makeshift missiles, hurtling across the room at the attacking Players. Thankfully, both missed.
Okay, who was next?
After getting dropped on his head and smacked by a flying cultist, Achmed’s health was dangerously low. I darted over and heaved the NPC corpse off of him before giving him some much-needed healing. Doing this made me remember Anika, the Spice girl who’d fallen early in the fight while battling the cultists at the door.
I checked her stats and she was still alive, but just barely. Let’s go commandos, it’s healing time.
The purple blasts that whizzed over my head as I scrambled to the injured woman told me Annabelle was back in action. I knew Achmed was also up and at it by the shouts each time he attacked. The whip kept cracking, the bow kept twanging, and several more fireballs sizzled into the floundering fiend adding the foul odor of scorched demon to the vile stink of its freely-flowing blood.
A flying cultist zoomed past me and splattered against the wall as I ran, followed by a few more crunches of cultist missiles landing around the room. I heard Tiff groan, she probably got caught by one of them. She kept groaning, though, so at least I knew she was still alive. At this rate the demon would soon run out of ammunition, which was good news for us.
After healing Anika, there were just three more frozen Players to help out. By the time I’d canceled their fear debuffs my own mana was nearly out, including my battery reserves. I had to let my shield lapse or else its mana drain might’ve pushed me over the edge. I estimated I had enough for one more blink, so I withdrew my knives and teleported behind the demon again. I mean, it had worked the last time.
I was just about to leap onto its back when the demon lurched, all four arms drooping, and a sickly death rattle gurgled from its throat. The combined force of so many Players now attacking it, plus Annabelle, was just too overwhelming, even for it. The vile monster toppled over, twitched a few times, then lay still. We all stood watching it, weapons and powers ready, waiting for it to pull another miraculous recovery and rise up again like a horror movie villain, but it didn’t.
The resilient partial Demon of Calamity was dead.
It was over.
Finally.