Chapter 86 - The Weaver's Map VI
With both breakfast and a quick experiment out of the way, the lyrkress shook her head clear of any remaining negative thoughts and headed back into the maze. At first, she thought to retrace the previous day’s steps, but caving to an arbitrary whim sent her on a completely different trajectory.
It took her about an hour for her ears to finally pick up on another group of crabs. It didn’t sound too far away, but reaching it required a second hour, courtesy of a random chest. Once she finally arrived at the distant clicking, she looked down the hall to find nothing but a wave of disappointment. She needed at least two more kills for force mage to reach its final level, but there was only one target available. Her exasperation persisted until she took a second look at the monster, transforming into a burst of curiosity as she realised that it was twice the size of all the others.
The crustacean standing in her path was equipped with none of the corsairs’ trademarks. There wasn’t an eyepatch, cannon, or hook anywhere in sight. Its right arm was a rusted iron cutlass, a massive curved blade that measured in at nearly two meters long. It didn’t appear sharp, but it was certainly deadly; sparks flew every time the metallic weapon was carelessly dragged over a rock. Its left arm was even more disturbing. It was a large, human-like hand with a small claw at the end of each finger. Over half its legs were missing, replaced by large pegs made of a tough, polished wood. While the corsairs were red enough for her to think them cooked, the larger individual had not a hint of the colour anywhere on its body. Its shell was a deep blue, perfect for blending in with the sea.
But as striking as all those features were, none kept Claire’s attention for long. She was more focused on its attire. Unlike the others, which had wandered around à la Sylvia, it was wreathed in a full set of garments, a white button-up shirt, a pair of baggy pants, and a bandanna large enough to double as a sail. It even wore shoes. All of its feet, pegged or otherwise, were protected with thick leather boots, tough enough to survive the high seas.
Pulling her head around the corner, she transformed her dress into a piece of armour, not the stiff full plates that the knights always wore, but a simpler set of leather protectors, akin to those often seen on treasure hunters and mages. She wasn’t able to recreate a sheet of metal on the fly, but leather was easy. Half the manor’s furniture had been made of it and she knew just how tough the most expensive kinds could be.
“Ummm… Claire?”
“What?”
“You’re not thinking of fighting that, are you?”
The lyrkress frowned. “What level is it?”
“I dunno, but it’s probably over 100.”
Sylvia clearly didn’t think it was a good idea, but Claire was not as quick to come to a conclusion. Llystletein force mage was getting extremely close to its evolution, and though she knew that she was best off waiting for it, her patience was starting to wear thin. She didn’t want to spend another half a day wandering the halls; there was no guarantee that she would find another monster room, and even if she did, there was a fair chance that she would either fail to gain enough experience or run into a second variant.
More importantly, the circumstances at hand provided her a way to confront it without putting herself at risk. There was a room with a chest only two turns away. Escape was as easy as running at top speed and skidding around a pair of corners. It was tempting. Very, very tempting. But it was also dangerous, a foolish gamble at best. She couldn’t make up her mind.
“Sylvia.”
“Mhm?”
“Pick a number from one to ten.”
“Huh? Why? That came out of nowhere.”
“Just do it.”
“Okay… ummm… Ten!” The tip of the fox’s tail split into ten distinct points.
“Why did I even ask?”
Shaking her head, the lyrkress shot a dozen bolts of ice into the sand and fused them into a pair of jagged spears. They were warming beneath the sun’s burning rays, but the freezing aura she radiated kept them from melting.
“Claire? It’s really not a good idea…”
“You’re the one that said ‘ten.’”
After waiting for the crab to sit down with its back turned, Claire dashed into the hallway, leapt over a three-meter-tall rock formation, and drilled both her spears into its back. All of her offensive skills kicked in as she bored the weapons straight through the crustacean’s shell. Envenom coated its insides with a layer of quicksilver. Spear mastery and frostblight lyrkrian martial arts empowered the attack, feeding it the fuel it needed to strike true. Phantom blade delivered a second pair of blows and restored all the mana she had consumed. And assassinate systematically quintupled every last drop of damage she dealt, ensuring that its heart was torn to bits.
But it wasn’t enough. Not even with Shouldersnake digging into the open wound.
A swipe of the crab’s fist caught Claire in the side and slammed her into the nearest rock. Grimacing and slowly raising her head, the halfbreed found that the crab had already turned to face her. Despite the heart-wrenching wound, it remained perfectly calm and collected, watching her carefully as it put its claw-hand behind its back and raised its sword in a manner reminiscent of a fencer.
She wasn’t adept at reading the expressions of non-humanoids, but she could have sworn that its eyes were filled with scorn, that it was mocking her for daring to challenge it with her highest class at only half its level. And she had to agree. Killing something that had fifty levels up on her was a fool’s errand.
But it wasn’t the first time.
And it wouldn’t be the last.
Clenching her teeth, she ignored the cracks in her ribcage, rose to her feet, and drew her club. Again, she raised the weapon overhead and charged. She had the initiative. But not even all the initiative in the world would have allowed her to get past the cutlass.
Her swings were repelled with ease. She tried every angle she could fathom. Overhead strikes, horizontal sweeps, and diagonal slashes were all parried with a few casual flicks of the wrist. But no counterattacks came. It ignored all the opportunities presented and simply maintained its stance. The monster almost seemed to be toying with her, playing with the idiot that had walked into its den as would a cat with an injured mouse.
But Claire was not dissuaded. Raising her weapon, she brought it down with all her might, as she had several times already. The crab moved to deflect it, lightly swinging its blade at just the right angle to ward off the incoming blow. But a magical force disrupted its parry. The spell pushed its cutlass aside before it could make contact and left it exposed to a heavy overhead swing.
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It landed right in the middle of its jaw, breaking it wide open and creating a network of cracks that ran through the front of its body. But again, the crab remained undissuaded. Punching her in the gut with its hand, it knocked the wind from her lungs and took a step back before resuming its usual posture. Its eyes were still focused on her, cool, calm, and collected. It seemed to think nothing of the wounds she had dealt it, not bothering to touch or even look at its injuries.
There was only one change.
It finally started to retaliate.
Stepping forward, it dashed towards her with the speed of an arrow and the ferocity of a boar. Reacting to the piercing rush took every last bit of the speed she had at her disposal. She was barely able to twist her head out of the way. The rusted weapon nicked her ear, catching its very tip as she pushed forward and lunged at the monster’s shoulder.
For a moment, it looked as if the strike would land. Her trajectory was perfect. One more push was all it would take for her to claim its arm and remove the sword that had her on the ropes. But the attack was repelled. She had no idea when or how it happened, but the brachyuran retracted its arm at an impossible speed and parried her blow with its sabre. As it had almost every other attack she launched. There was no time for her to react, let alone magically disrupt its defence.
Once, twice, thrice, the sequence of events repeated. Every time, the crab’s blade would grow closer. And every time, she found herself further and further from its arm.
It was learning to deal with her magic faster than she was learning to deal with its swordplay. The battle wasn’t going as well as she hoped. She had to retreat.
Grimacing, Claire used her tail to fling a wave of sand at the crab’s eyes. She spun around, turned her flippers into legs, and ran off as the dust settled.
The visual distraction bought her a few seconds. She was able to get a head start, a good three hundred meters. But even with a massive lead, she found it difficult to stay out of the crustacean’s grasp. It practically flew at her. Its legs blurred. They moved so quickly that she couldn’t tell the wooden prosthetics from their unpegged counterparts.
Nothing could stop its blind charge. It ploughed right through the rocks in its path, trampling them underfoot as easily as it would a field of weeds. It was gaining on her. And rounding the corner didn’t help. Whereas the half-centaur had to modulate her momentum, the crab was able to change directions on a dime, as if completely unbound by the pull of inertia.
It got closer with every passing second. She tried pushing it away with her tail, but though she was able to reduce its speed by a tiny fraction, it continued to close the distance. Both were subject to a spray of water and a blast of cold air as they passed through a trap. She was unaffected, but it flinched, just long enough for her to round the second corner.
Panting heavily, she turned away from the chest and towards the labyrinth’s start.
But it wasn’t there.
What she found instead was a blade aimed right for her neck. There was no avoiding it. She couldn’t dodge the fatal blow. So she threw up an arm and traded the limb for her life. Agony coursed through her veins and shot up her spine as the rusty blade cleaved through her flesh. Both the bones in her forearm were shattered by the force, completely destroyed as half the appendage fell into the sand. Blood erupted from the stump, spilling uncontrollably, drop after drop without pause.
The labyrinth had refused to warp her.
And the crab was blocking the only exit.
She was trapped, trapped in a small room with an opponent far out of her league.
Gritting her teeth, she hissed as she blocked the crab’s second slash with her mace. And the third. And the fourth. She was barely able to deflect its attacks. Again, her force magic was the only reason she was even remotely capable of keeping up. And again, the crab was learning. Each slash brought it closer and closer to landing a hit, to delivering the fatal blow that would leave her split right down the middle. And it was doing it methodically, calmly, without any concern for its victory or well being.
It wasn’t outright executing her, even though it could move at a speed that her eyes were unable to follow.
It was taking its time and toying with her.
Because it was the one in control.
Sooner or later, she would lose. Her only chance was to think her way out, but that was a task much easier said than done. She couldn’t focus. All her attention was drained by the tip of its blade.
She didn’t know what to do.
Its raw vitality was too high. Paralyzing it with her eyes barely worked. Even at full power, the skill could only hold it for a tenth of a second; pushing it around produced a more pronounced effect for a hundredth of the cost.
Its agility eclipsed hers. She didn’t know exactly how high it was, but she was no match for it in speed.
Their strength was roughly even, but it had weight on its side. It could push her back, even if she could otherwise match the force of its blows.
Dexterity wasn’t even worth comparing. It had a far better grasp of its weapon than she did.
Magic was the only thing she had over it. But all her ice magic was repelled and her force magic was barely effective enough to throw its half-hearted attacks away from her vitals.
And if the monster’s composure was anything to go by, time was also not on her side. Shouldersnake was still stuck in its body. The serpent couldn’t even wriggle around, courtesy of the extreme density of its cotton interior, and the quicksilver it was injecting didn’t seem to be doing anything of note.
She could practically hear the old celestial snickering at her misfortune, cackling as he watched it whittle her down.
Another hiss escaped her throat as the urge to punch the self-proclaimed progenitor bubbled up from within.
And it was precisely that thought that finally led her to a solution.
The leather that made up her armour crept down the length of her arm. As she recalled the sensation of her body being torn apart, the material began to change, transforming from a thick layer of hide to a rusty chunk of iron. A gauntlet, or at least something that vaguely seemed to resemble one.
Switching her imaginary serpent to rocket fuel, she dropped her mace and used the rusty metal glove to meet the crab’s blade. The stunt nearly cost the lyrkress her head. The sabre’s edge cleaved straight through the side of her neck, destroying a third of it in a single swift motion.
It was painful. But she hardly cared. Her eyes were locked onto the sparks that had flown the moment the two iron pieces collided. They only lasted an instant. More than long enough.
Coating her gauntlet in rocket fuel, she pulled the transient flames towards the palm of her hand and drove her fist towards its broken jaw.
It tried to escape, but she grabbed one of the spears in its chest with her tail and locked it in place, just long enough to land a fiery blow on its open wound.
Claire was unharmed by the heat, her resistance offering perfect protection.
But the crab was not so lucky.
Because cotton was flammable.
Just like the rocket fuel pooled in its chest.
A tenth of a second was all it took for the monster to burst into a ball of raging flame.
Its shell rapidly changed from blue to red as its flesh was seared away.
But it remained perfectly calm.
Raising its weapon, it took its usual stance and immediately resumed its assault. Armed with nothing but a gauntlet, Claire found it almost impossible to defend against the monster’s attacks. She didn’t have the range. The blade was so long that it would reach her, even if she managed to parry. She would have been able to put up more of a fight with her mace, but she didn’t have the time to pick it up.
The monster had accelerated, often throwing attacks that she could barely perceive. Shouldersnake’s newfound freedom was the only reason she didn’t suddenly find her head missing from her shoulders.
But even with a dozen deep cuts scattered all over her body, the halfbreed remained confident in her victory. The crustacean would have been able to kill her with ease if it went all out from the start. But it had done too little too late.
It was losing its vigour.
Each of its swings was slower and weaker than the last.
And with that reduction in force came a sudden loss in ability. Its blade was too dull to cut; its raw power was the only reason it was ever able to saw through her flesh.
Lashing out with her tail, Claire cleaved its flaming carcass in two and claimed a desperate, hard-earned win.