Chapter 120: David and the goliath

Jengal didn't stay long, to my sadness. He had some things he needed to do. Something about ingredient shopping and a meeting; ever since the carnival island was opened, the night-life here is as busy as the day-life.

The markets stay open longer, more bars have appeared, and many more changes. Looking over the town, I see the hustle and bustle of any modern city. Drinking buddies, shopping servants, and a whole lot of pickpockets, unconsciously grasping my bag of holding.

I exit the city, finding the walls manned by an army of soldiers. Looking around in confusion, “why are so many soldiers here?”

A voice to my side speaks, “look at the moon.”

Realization dawns on me… “the blood moon.” I say quietly. I forgot all about it.

“Yeah, it was late for some reason.” I turn to see the voice belongs to a young man. Blond hair, blue eyes, and confidence are clearly defined in how he stands.

“Thank you.” I simply say. Appreciating how random people will just talk to you here.

I take flight, rising to the wall. The guards are running around like their pants are on fire. “More powder over here!” “Were low on arrows!” “We need more people at area 32!” “We need more aluminium powder over here for the iron oxide!”

So many voices, it sends my head spinning. I find a person who seems to be directing people, approaching the man.

“Hello, need any help.”

He turns to me, “the dragon slayer? Of course, we would love your help.”

Not all bad, after all; “What do you need from me?”

“What can you do?” He says before shouting, “Dally, get your ass off the cannon and do something useful! The monsters aren’t here yet!” The man gets up like lightning, running for the hills. I hear the captain murmur, “damned lazy bastard.”

“I can fly, I can do a lot of single target damage and have a few ranged spells I can chuck in a pinch. I do have a bow, but I have a terrible aim.”

“Don’t you worry about aiming, Slayer!” He says, grasping my shoulder. Or at least attempting to, being blocked by my armor. Alright, go for the big boys. If it is a size bigger than an enderman and small that tree, that’s your job.”

“Got it.”

Happy with being able to help, I leave the man to coordinate the people.

I slowly move along the wall, having a look at the measures in place. A lot of artillery, buckets of unknown liquids, and weapons aplenty; they are definitely prepared.

Eventually, like an unspoken agreement, the noise stops. Everyone turns to look over the wall. I follow suit, gazing towards the treeline. I watch in horror as a wave of monsters surges towards the walls. Mostly zombies, with skeletons occasionally and the odd spider, but that is not all.

A minority of the monsters are of the lethal variety. Mutants occasionally, the creepy monsters lumbering towards the walls. Aside from those, I see a small collection of shadow beasts, wraiths, banshees; I feel fear just looking at it.

I stretch my shoulders, sword, and ax in hand, I jump. Falling to the earth like a meteorite, I flatten a zombie in the process.

Looking around at the army of undead, my heart rate jumps. Anxiety falling away, being replaced with excitement. With heavy footsteps, I move forward, one step, two steps, moments later… I am running. Using my sword and ax to bisect monsters as I run. The creatures clawing at me fruitlessly; my armor too powerful.

A smile along my face as I begin to live a gamer’s fantasy. I quickly carve a line of destruction towards the closest mutant – a mutant zombie. It goes to punch me, but its lumbering form is too slow. Moving to the side, I rise into the air before decapitating the mutant.

Having thought that enough, I foolishly looked away. Feeling the error of my ways as a fist cleaves through the air, smashing me into the earth. Bones rattled, but relatively unharmed, I get up. Turning to my now headless enemy, I rush towards it. This time I cut it into a pile of body segments.

During the carnage, an idea blooms in my mind. I am pretty much immortal, so this shouldn’t have that many risks… Opening my bottle of time, I poor the ethereal essence over my body. Not a ton, but its effects were quick. The world begins to slow rapidly as more of the liquid spills onto my form.

Thinking I best not overdo it, I use my new-found speed boost to destroy the enemies. Using the same tactic doesn’t feel too different. But with the world moving at a snail’s pace, I would guess I am moving so fast I blur.

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Feeling the addictive rush of adrenaline, I sweep massive swaths of land with my blade. Looking up, I see a hail of arrows raining down slowly. Moving towards the next mutant, a skeleton. I see the large lumbering giant knock ballista-sized arrows.

My speed makes the fight pointlessly easy, my ax breaking it into bone shadows before it could fire a single arrow. I got to see the spark that animated the undead for more than a moment, thanks to the time slow. A writhing mass of white and red inside the skull; looking at it made me feel sick.

Putting the memory out of my mind, I continue my destruction.

I methodically go from mutant to mutant, destroying them with extreme prejudice. Making a sizable dent in the wave while doing so. Eventually, the mutants run out, and so does my time-boost. Pouring some more time in a bottle, I find my next target. Shadow beasts, ethereal black creatures with black eyes and smoky bodies; I feel this will be a bit harder to kill.

Reaching my first shadow beast, I give it a trust sword swing. My sword passing through its black smoky body, too easily. Crossing my brows, I strike again – deeper. This strike biting into something more solid, something I am thankful for.

I continue to swing wildly into the black mist-like creature. Eventually, it crumbles into ash, eyes growing grey before it dissipates.

I don’t enjoy fighting these creatures, but I remind myself that it is a blood moon. Focusing on the task at hand, I slowly and methodically eliminate the shadow beasts. Collecting any shadow gems that drop from them while doing so. Moving from beast to beast means I can destroy massive amounts of undead at the same time.

Having destroyed most of the creatures matching my attack criteria, I begin to target more abnormal creatures. Defeating banshees first, their scream useless as they are dispatched too quickly. Wraiths were tricky, being ghosts and all. Using the fire spell on my wand, I burn them away. Magic being scarily effective on the spiritual bodies of the monsters.

Most of the monsters here are of the evil variety. From what I can tell, undead’s, spirits, hyper-aggressive monsters, abominations, those kinds of monsters. Spiders are a rarity and look pigeonholed into the role. Being easily scared, running at the first sign of danger. The only monster not under the overwhelming compulsion to attack the town.

A distinct lack of enderman or their mutant variant; I kind of expected it, but confirmation is nice. No dragons either, as much as I would love to kill an elder. They drop dragon hearts, after all.

I stop dosing up on time in a bottle, fighting normally for a time. My awakened draconium far too powerful for these mobs; sorry monsters, you are out of luck today. I enjoy watching the human's creative contraptions for the monsters. Spirits attacked by throwing a metallic powder under them and igniting it. Zombies getting shot by arrows, skeletons by small grenades, and larger creatures getting ballista shots.

Suddenly, I hear it! Thump, thump, thump. Slowly increasing in volume. I look over, seeing a slowly rising head from the treeline. As it gets closer, I see a gigantic creature. A goliath, a giant, a humanoid of some kind; flesh beginning to rot away, eyes a glowing red as it slowly lumbers towards the walls.

The walls are suddenly abuzz with even more activity. A rush of soldiers bunches up at the wall facing the giant. I watch as ballista fire focuses on the giant, bolt after bolt peppering the monster. They catapult barrels of powder at the creature, igniting them with flaming arrows. The resulting flame was so bright and white I couldn’t look at it. It left after images through my eyelids.

Looking at the giant, it has searing holes burned through its torso. Doesn’t seem to be stopping it, though. “Fine, fine, I accept the challenge.” Slowly walking towards it, I begin to rise from the ground. Taking my sword, I slowly rise into the air. It doesn’t even look at me.

I fly above its head by a large margin. Disabling my fight, I fall, and I keep falling. Taking on a diving position, I rocket down with my sword. Clasping it in both hands, I smash into the giant.

My mind is rocked seriously from the impact. I feel wet flesh around me, eyes coming back into clarity. I see a grey paste around me, a writhing mass of white and red above me. “Fuck, I am in its skull.”

I swat at the energy animating it, to no avail; completely intangible. I suddenly get an idea, removing a geochest. I press the button, feeling the satisfying click as the center of the zombie's head disappears. Thankfully, the energy was stored with it.

I suddenly feel a downward force as I rise up. The monster is falling over. I quickly fly out of the zombie's head, watching as it crumples to the floor. Looking at my body, I am covered in a disgusting cocktail of bodily fluids. Just the sight causes me to vomit, making it far worse. The vomit inside of my helmet was awful, forcing me to immediately seek water. Stripping off the water and jumping into the river to cleanse my body. Feeling the nausea ebb and flow as I clean the viscera from my armor.

Armor clean, body clean, armor re-equipped, I head back to the fight. Finding a decimated field of corpses slowly disintegrating into white. Petals of white slowly rising into the sky in a beautiful storm. I was struck in awe as I watched the incredible spectacle.

As the white petals disappear, I walk towards the wall. Avoiding the massive piles of monster trash items in the process. Flying up, I reach the wall. Seeing soldiers collapsed in exhaustion everywhere. But most? They were watching the beautiful spectacle.

A lot of the soldiers begin to look at me, with lots of emotions in their gaze. A few murmurs among the crowd slowly grow into a chant. “Slayer, Slayer, Slayer.” I rush through the crowd, ignoring the chant.

The leader I spoke with earlier, approaches me. “I’ll be damned, that was some mighty fine monster slaying.” He says while nodding his head.

“Thanks.”

“No, thank you! You likely helped us break a new record!”

“What record?”

“A record of fewest deaths, of course.”

“I see, no problem.”

“I will tell my children of your abilities, a tavern tale to wow all.”

I just nod, “see you another day.” I say before jumping off the wall. The light beginning to crest over the horizon; it is morning.

Heading into a restaurant, I grab some breakfast. Refilling on fuel after an exhausting battle. I quickly realized I’ve been here before. A couple, a quiet man and a talkative woman. They both nod towards me, preparing my normal breakfast order.

“Thank you,” I say as they hand me what is almost a full English.

I finish the meal, paying my fee before rushing home. I am tired, and my bed beckons me to its side.