Behemoth
"Tom....Come in, Tom," Kiera's voice came through the communication orb around his neck.
"Hey, Kiera. What's up?" Tom replied, holding the item up to his face.
"You need to get up here right now," Kiera said, worry in her voice.
"I'm on my way."
Rushing to the building, Tom found the stairs and began taking them two at a time. Reaching the door to the roof, he burst through and out into the open air. He looked back and forth for a moment before seeing Kiera and her team, along with Inari, at the far end, looking down at the battle below. She waved to him.
"Tom! Get your ass over here!" Kiera shouted.
Jogging to where they stood, Tom looked over the edge.
"Out behind the first ship that went down. Look."
Tom followed her finger to see where she was pointing. A small group of lobster pirates stood in a circle, and another just to their right was casting a barrier spell over the ones grouped together. They seemed to be casting some kind of spell.
"That can't be good," Tom said.
"Inari thinks that's a summoning spell," Kiera said.
"When a group gathers like that, it's usually some kind of ritual spell. Look, a summoning circle has appeared beneath them," Inari added.
Lights flared in the magic circle beneath the pirates as they began to sway back and forth rhythmically, causing them to appear as if they flowed back and forth. Each one held the claw of the one next to them, and their antennae moved in a synchronized pattern. The light continued to get brighter and brighter until it was hard to look at, like trying to stare at the sun. Tom had to shield his eyes until the light suddenly winked out.
Blinking a few times to make the spots in his eyes go away, Tom looked at where the lobsters had been a moment ago. They all lay dead on the ground, their life force seeming to have been consumed in the process. A moment later, the ground began to shake as though a small earthquake was rocking the earth beneath their feet.
From under the pavement on the street leading straight away from the guild, the pavement began to rise. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, cracks ran through the asphalt as it continued to rise higher and higher. Suddenly, from under the street burst a gigantic lobster. Roughly the size of a six-story building, the beast roared its fury as it lifted its claws high into the air.
"Sweet zombie Jesus! What the absolute fuck is that?!" Tom cried out as he stared in horror as he stared at the monstrous beast now standing in the street before them.
Quickly examining his stats, Tom realized he had a serious problem. He had overlooked the fact that permanently summoning the Mastadonians took up five percent of each of his total mana. He had previously had enough for the Ultimate Summons skill because he had only summoned four of them permanently. Now that he had summoned all eight of them and given them permanent status, he had lost forty percent of his mana.
"Shit," Tom swore under his breath.
"What is it?" Kiera asked.
"I don't have enough mana for the ultimate summons I was going to use in this fight," Tom slammed his fist on the edge of the building in anger.
Looking through his notifications, he noticed he had leveled up. It took all the points and slammed them into Intelligence, bringing his total up to seventy-four points. This brought his total mana up to seven hundred and forty points. But with all eight of the Mastadonians summoned he still was only left with four hundred and forty-four points of mana. Doing some quick mental math, Tom realized he would need to dismiss two of his permanent summons to have enough mana.
"I'd need to dismiss two of the Mastadonians to summon Ajax," Tom said, looking at Kiera.
"Dismiss me, then," Inari said. "You can always resummon me and leave me as a normal summons right after."
"Who else should be dismissed?" Tom asked her frantically.
Inari paused. She looked at him for a long moment, knowing what she wanted to say but trying not to let her feelings cloud her judgment.
"Onslo," Inari finally said.
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"Why Onslo? He's a fighter. Wouldn't he be helpful in this battle? I thought you would say Rularis," Tom asked.
"We have Bron. Rularis can aid all of us at the same time. Onslo is just one fighter. And he can be resummoned too. All you need is some mana potions," Inari said with finality.
Tom hesitated. He wasn't sure if this was the right call. What if they needed them, and he was taking them away from something important, and someone died?
"Tom quit it. Be the guild leader and make the call," Kiera said, looking at him with steely determination.
Nodding firmly, he looked at Inari, who smiled softly at him and stored her rifle in her inventory.
"I'm ready," Inari said.
Tom dismissed her, and she vanished. He mentally dismissed Onslo as well and saw his mana bar rise from four hundred and forty-four points to five hundred and eighteen. Looking out over the battle for just a moment, Tom saw that the guild was engaging the giant lobster from a distance, but it was beginning to move. It smashed a giant claw into the side of a building, nearly taking the top half off with a single swipe.
One fighter got too close and was sent flying backward by one of its antennae, landing hard on the ground, where others moved to pull them back. Focusing on his newest skill, Tom activated Ultimate Summons.
Moving his hand in intricate patterns, he began to flow through what felt like a kata for martial arts. Sweeping one leg out and around in a dance that felt practiced, he let his arms move in the flowing circular patterns that his brain showed him he needed to perform the summon. A magic circle appeared beneath him and glowed with a soft blue light as he continued the movements. He never left the edge of the circle through the entire ritual and equipped a dagger as he neared the end.
Bringing his legs together and sliding the dagger across his palm with a fluid motion, he winced slightly at the pain and uttered the words for the summoning as they entered his mind, his voice echoing as he spoke them aloud, "With this offering, I summon thee, great being from beyond the heavens, and ask that you strike down my foes with the vengeance and fury of a thousand tormented souls. Bring forth your wrath to wipe these sinners from the face of the Earth. Come forth, Ajax, I summon you! Heaven's Retribution!"
As his voice rose in volume, he shouted the last words and slammed his palms into the summoning circle. Lightning crackled from the summoning circle and into Tom's arms as the light from the magic circle intensified to a blinding shine.
The giant lobster had not been idle and was already making its way toward the guild's shield. It trampled several guild members who couldn't get out of its way, the tips of its pointed legs impaling them as it scuttled forward. One enterprising Barbarian leaped into its path to stop it, jumping up to smash a maul into its face. The creature winced at the blow, which knocked its head aside slightly, leaving a crack in its thick exoskeleton.
Faster than anyone could see, it reached out with one of its giant claws and snatched the man out of the air. He screamed in pain as the pincer’s sharp spines lining the inside of the claws, clamped down on his midsection. With a simple click of its claws, the Barbarian was cut completely in half, his legs falling to the ground as a shower of blood rained from the now-closed claw.
Bringing the upper half of the man's body, which still remained on its pincer, up to its mouth, the creature began to gnaw on the body with its grotesque mandibles. Smaller claws near its mouth took hold of the body, pushing it further in. More screams emanated from the man, as he still hadn't died. His cries of pain were cut off when the creature reached his mid-chest, chewing slowly on the flesh of his body.
At the sudden increase in light from the summoning spell, the gigantic creature turned and looked at the building where Tom, Kiera, and the others were. It screamed out a roar that sounded a bit like the old Godzilla movies and began to rush toward them, knocking other buildings to the ground in its haste.
"You better be almost done, Tom. We've got big trouble incoming!"
Rays of light began to shine through the clouds overhead. One particularly brilliant beam of light landed on the giant lobster, causing it to stop in its path and look up at where it was coming from. Power began to build in the air around them. It was so intense that Tom could feel the presence of something coming.
A bright yellow summoning circle with so many intricately detailed patterns that they almost ran together appeared above the monster. Ajax began to descend from the summoning circle feet first as though he were being printed in the air. Everyone in the city stopped and stared in awe at the majestic sight before them. Even the pirates stared with open mandibles at the angelic creature that was appearing before them.
Appearing in his alternate form with six wings and a halo above his head, Ajax looked down at the giant lobster with passive indifference. The cloth that hung from the armor on his lower half fluttered in the breeze as he floated above the city. His skin glowed lightly from the power he gave off and his blonde hair was perfect, one lock laying lazily over his forehead. He was truly the embodiment of perfection in every aspect, his muscles looking as though they were chiseled from stone, and he held a white spear appearing to be made of one solid piece of some heavenly metal in his right hand.
He moved his spear so that it was held up in a position to throw at the lobster, appearing to take careful aim. It began to glow with a brilliant yellow energy that magnified as he summoned power to it. Three magic circles layered in front of the spear spaced at about twenty-foot intervals, and orbs of light appeared at five points around the outside before extending out to connect in a pentagram within the magic circles. Ajax reared back and threw the spear with all of his might.
Launching with the sound of an explosion, the spear raced toward the first magic circle and magnified to twice its original size as a lance of pure light. Passing through the second magic circle, it doubled in size again, then it doubled for a third time, passing through the third circle, all within the blink of an eye. The now enormous beam of light struck the giant lobster squarely in the middle of its carapace.
It screamed in pain as the light seemed to cook the lobster as it passed through it. It was now pinned to the ground in the same way a spearfisherman might pin a fish to a rock. Its tail flailed back and forth, trying to propel it away from the beam and to safety, but it was firmly held in place as more and more power flooded through the beam of light. For ten seconds the beam continued, everyone in the city frozen with fear, anticipation, or awe at the magnitude of the power on display before them.
With one final flash of light, the beam winked out, and everything went quiet. Ajax hung in the air for a moment longer before he looked over at Tom. Their eyes locked, and the corner of Ajax's mouth lifted in a half smile, and Tom felt his heart flutter for a moment. He nodded once to Tom and then rose into the same summoning circle he had appeared from. Then, the summoning circle burst into a rain of glitter that fell to the ground below in a heavenly shower.