The rain had not relented even with nightfall, and as sharp as my senses were, the darkness wasn’t doing me any favors. The streaks of lightning crossing the sky turned the landscape from stark shadows into a muddy hellhole as far as the eye could see. Every dead monster created a column of steam that would be shredded by the rain, even the shape of the body against the mud washed away in moments.
Being able to reduce my weight by half was a God-send, but it did not make trekking through the terrain any easier, not when I had to weigh at least a metric tonne if not more. My left arm was calloused and massively armored, slow compared to my more limber shield-wielding right arm. A few times, flying monsters tried to harass me from behind, but their claws proved useless against the obsidian blades on my back. But, ironically, my far more limber shield-wielding arm would prove the best instrument against them, allowing me to whack them out of the sky and finish the job once they were stuck in the mud alongside me.
Every dead monster or two, my durability-mode would un-stall, gobbling up the AP to progress another step, adding a little more armor, a little more protection… a little more weight.
It was through this that I kept slowly but surely climbing up the side of the mountain, paying very close attention to the terrain every time lightning struck. Every step of the way, I kept my eyes and ears strained for a very specific threat that had yet to show up.
Even then, if I hadn’t spent the whole day getting accustomed to my hyper-sharp senses, I would’ve missed it.
It was the soft distinct tinkling of water striking metal, coming from directly above and approaching fast.
I lunged to the side, and even then, failed to fully avoid the attack.
A streak of silver cut through the air in a flash.
Shadow landed like a meteor, creating an outward wave in every direction.
It was as if time had stopped for me, I saw the meguca standing on solid ground, having blasted away all the mud from the impact. Her body was clad in shadows, sucking the very light out of her surroundings, the lonely glimmer of her sword reflecting the lightning overhead.
My neck stung, her cut had missed my spine, instead having gouged out two of my back-blades.
Shadow of a Doubt (1): Survive 1 hour and 22 minutes
Time resumed, Shadow lunged, far too close for me to move out of the way.
My right arm raised the shield, and sparks flew as metal struck metal at an oblique angle. With every ounce of strength and weight, I shoved my piece of metal protection against her, and immediately knew something was off when I barely felt the impact.
I’d nearly missed how the meguca had ducked under the attack, blade rising like a bullet towards my face.
Fast.
It missed as I twisted my head, the sting of the blade kissing my armored cheek, but unable to pierce through. At the same time I’d avoided the attack, I’d thrown a jab with my massive left arm, a blow that met nothing but air as Shadow had lunged back in an explosion of mud.
I could barely see her in the darkness, the meguca little more than a contour threatening to disappear into the shadows.
A flash of lightning, and she was gone, I didn’t hesitate, raising both my arms in protection of my front. There was a rain of sparks that barely carried any sense of impact, followed by a dozen others before I could even react, each blow no more than a whisper against my shield, but each one coming in faster than I could react. Individually they did nothing, but cumulatively I could tell the shield was getting peeled.
With a roar, I twisted around, shoving my left arm at her, then continuing the turn and swiping at her with my spiked tail.
Again I missed, and again I barely had the time to duck and tighten my guard as the metal blade kissed against the side of my head, nearly gouging my eye out. The flurry of blows only coming to a stop when she landed, exactly far enough I could barely make-out her silhouette. It was clear the mud was barely bothering her, not because she had difficulty moving in it, but because she’d leap and pounce her way around, twisting her body like some sort of professional gymnast on hyper-steroids.
My gaze flickered at the timer.
Shadow of a Doubt (1): Survive 1 hour and 22 minutes
It hadn’t even been sixty seconds.
I swallowed heavily, drawing in a sharp breath, ignoring how Shadow tensed as I let out an ear-splitting roar. A battlecry that was met by distant roars, ones that were too faint and drowned out through the storm, but that I could tell came from further up the mountain.
Shadow either didn’t sense that, or did not care, jumping straight back into the attack.
I went straight back to the defensive, trying to trudge my way backwards but up the mountain. Her blows came from unexpected angles, and though none of them carried the same deadliness of that first one, I couldn’t let my guard down for even an instant. While the mud proved to be an annoyance to me, Shadow’s solution to the problem was to just jump as hard as she could, effectively spending more time mid-air than on the mud. Despite managing to survive a few dozen of these exchanges with only a few scratches each, it was clear Shadow was testing my defenses, nicking and scratching my defenses in search of a weakness to exploit.
And each time she would jump just far enough I could barely make out her figure, exactly one step away from vanishing.
I did my best to counter and block, but she would come out unharmed in every exchange, dodging my blows with razor-thin margins of error, dancing so close to my grasp I could almost feel the shadows against my claws.
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But I wasn’t just idly narrowly missing her. With every exchange, I moved further and further up the mountain, ears sharp and filtering out the torrential rain and earth-shaking thunder. I was paying as close attention as I could to the snarls, the howls, and the screeching.
She didn’t react to the incoming low-flying monster, but I did, I spun and flung my tail, instantly turning the F-class into a fine mist.
Paying just enough attention to the notification to pick the AP reward, I felt a wave of coolness wash over me as the idling Toughness mode gobbled it up, giving me two full seconds of recovery and an added 16 in durability. My armor mended and toughened, the cut-off blades sprouting back out, and the shallow cut on my neck vanishing entirely.
For a moment Shadow just stood there, and though I couldn’t make out her features through the darkness, I felt like the realization of what had just happened struck her.
The meguca’s next attack wasn’t directed at me, but at the monster that had tried to reach me. Her blade cut through the G-class as if it was foam, leaving behind nothing but two sizzling halves. I roared again, louder, and immediately pounced in the direction of the approaching monsters. This was a dangerous game, if anything at D-class or higher appeared, I was dead unless the meguca dealt with it. But without a stream of AP to help mend my armor and bolster the toughness-mode, I was toast anyway.
Shadow’s attention was now split in two, doing her damnedest to keep me from killing any of the growing number of monsters, while also attacking me in between. The fact that she was keeping up the tempo all the while was a frightening realization that she’d been holding back, likely in preparation for something else.
Not wanting to be left out of my AP, I began taking every opportunity I had to attack her. She’d dodge, blasting mud all over the place as she pounced out of the way, but in doing so made it possible for me to crunch through some of the weaker monsters that made it through.
Until, finally, it happened.
Achievement: Reach +350 Adaptive Durability Unlocked: Hit me thrice
Gain limited resistance against the type of damage you receive thrice in a row.
I would’ve cheered, but Shadow had capitulated the slip in concentration, ignoring the monster she’d been about to kill in favor of propelling herself towards me in a burst of speed. My foot nearly slipped, and I stumbled back, feeling the blade as it pierced the very top-most layer of my chest-armor. I raised my legs and kicked at her, trying to get her off me. The angle should’ve made it impossible for her to dodge, except her whole body vanished in a puff of darkness.
Scrambling back to my feet, I checked my chest, noticing the trickle of blood, barely a drop.
That had been close.
Too close.
Desperately looking around in search of the meguca, I found no traces of her. But the monster she’d been about to tackle charged at me now that it was devoid of a meguca to target.
The creature was no mere G or F, a headless bull of some sort, with a body made of glittering red lights. My brain scrambled to recognize the thing as it fought against the mud to reach me, bounding forward and splashing against the wet dirt. It wasn’t until the center of its chest opened into a maw of jagged ruby teeth that it dawned on me what I was looking at.
> E-class, Eater-Type. Codena-
A flash of lightning overhead, reflections, lights, and shadows.
And a shadow deeper than all others, right beneath the monster.
Then, a flash of darkness, and a sting in my chest, followed by a far larger one on my back.
I froze, eyes wide and looking down at the blackened blade embedded into my chest all the way to the hilt. Even while breathing through clenched teeth, Shadow’s eyes held nothing but focus as she pulled the blade out. The sword robbed me of my breath along the way, weakness spreading through my body like ice.
She vanished the instant the monster reached us.
The ruby teeth slammed against my arm as I tried to protect myself with what little power I could summon, head spinning, world slowly turning black. Its gnashing upon my left arm barely managed to find purchase, but it did pierce through, just not enough to make it all the way to the bone.
Shadow of a Doubt (1): Survive 57 minutes
The system’s screen rattled and screamed at my face, jamming itself into my eyes. I tried to draw breath, but my chest felt as if it’d been hollowed out, I couldn’t even feel my legs, had the attack destroyed my lower spine too? Probably.
But the system just screamed louder, loud enough to drown out the sound of the approaching monsters.
Right, if I died… if I died…
Died… to a monster…
Monster…
No.
NO!
Clenching my teeth, I gathered all my strength into the shield-wielding arm and jabbed it upwards into the body of the monster, shattering its teeth. Then, I punched again, jamming the metal into place and prying my left out. Gaze turning black, I then clawed at its inside with my left, ignoring the piercing shrieks because my ears were ringing with the system’s alarms.
Until a new notification shoved its way in.
E-class monster “Crimson Devourer” defeated!
+5 AP Pick your Reward!
+10 AP / ‘Ruby’ / P: ‘Stomach’
My brain screamed back at the AP option, and two seconds later, I sucked in a lungful of cold air. The injuries hadn’t recovered, not by a long shot, but enough to keep me alive and moving. Thoughts scrambling to refocus and reassess, ignoring the pain and forcing my attention entirely upon the incoming quadrupedal creatures plopping their way ahead with murderous determination.
Never in my life had I been so happy to see mouthers.
Each of them popping brought a tiny burst of healing, pushing my body slightly further away from death. Feelings returned properly and fully to my legs, and at that point I had enough room to think and notice why Shadow hadn’t just been standing idly. She’d been forced back by a trio of flying monsters wreathed in shadows. But rather than finish them off, she turned my way, breathing heavily, and charged, intent on finishing the job before I could get the chance to recover.
But that blow had clearly taken a toll on her.
Rather than back away, I held my ground, pushing my mass to the limit as I began to spin around, intent on smacking her with my tail. The increased weight and weakness made me sluggish, and Shadow appeared to notice this and pushed harder.
Then… I changed my weight to the utmost lightest I could.
The sudden angular acceleration caught us both by surprise. My tail slammed against her shoulder with enough force to send her careening through the mud, at the same time that my own footing slipped. I splattered, pain shooting up my spine as everything within me screamed out, a reminder I was barely in any state to fight to begin with.
Groaning as I pulled myself back up to my feet, I ignored the downed Shadow who was also fighting against the mud and exhaustion, instead focusing on the monsters around me. Their numbers were growing alarmingly fast, and though they provided sustenance to push my healing back into place, it was concerning. The numbers were bloating faster than at any point throughout the day, as if having sensed our clash and seeking a possible quick and easy meal.
It was then that I realized that the number of darkness-shrouded flying monsters had gone from three to ten, seemingly entirely focused on Shadow and pushing her back into a corner, each of them letting out waves of shadows in an assault of the meguca.
> E-class, Mirror-Type. Codename: Parroteer
The monster that could copy other’s abilities, becoming far more dangerous when given the chance to mimic a meguca.
If I were capable of uttering words, I would’ve sworn.