POV: Vernisha.
Jim shoots up with a serious look.
He draws his war hammer and without saying anything to Jerk-kel, he summons a pink shark ray monster that has a turtle shell and teeth layered all over its skin.
Jim hops on its back. "I will keep it away from here." he sends Jer-kel a look. "You know what."
"Yes," she replies.
He flies to the sound.
I wonder if Lo is also going after the monster.
“It’s… It’s coming back!”
“Oh, we are going to die. We are going to die.”
The crowd cries and starts running away.
Jer-kel clicks her tongue. "Don't run!"
Of course, they don't listen.
Jer-kel stomps the ground with a single foot, sending a monster out, a man-sized cockroach with lobster-like pinchers.
It gets to working immediately. The pinchers shine a very brown glow as they plunge into the ground. The ground starts crying around the mass of people, and the dirt rises to form a wall around everyone.
“Let us out!”
“You are going to get us killed!”
The dirt wall is thin but thick enough to be impossible for them to break through.
Jer-kel tells me, “You too should—”
She grabs my hand in a rush and jumps back. The air is suddenly hot and where I was standing a minute ago is scorched.
The same monster, it's here?!
Jer-kel is also confused. "Why is it here...? The Shafeline shouldn't be..."
The monster makes a weird sound, “Get… the shovel for the… apples… bathe the apples…”
What?
Jer-kel tells me, "Stay by my side. If you run away, it will be harder for me to protect you."
"Got it."
Jer-kel throws a spear at it, which moves in the air like an arrow. Seemingly with ease, the monster dodges it by jumping several meters in the sky.
Jer-kel grabs my hand and runs towards her cockroach monster. The cockroach monster is creating soccer ball-sized rocks and shooting them at the Sharfeline. Some hit and when they do, the Sharfeline roars in response. But it does more than that. it's also responding with fireballs.
Once we are near her monster, she kicks it, causing it to return to her foot.
A vertical mouth with shark-like teeth splits open on the Sharfeline's legs, and from it a disgusting smell erupts. It’s so bad that I immediately vomit, and my eyes feel watery.
Is that some skill?!
Jer-kel stomps the ground and, with a flash of white, a weird humanoid woman with the lower body of a giant black spider is formed.
Her upper body is exposed and she is strangely beautiful, save for her hair, which is a bunch of blue tongues overlapping each other.
Correction, blue bleeding tongues that are dancing in the air in a perverted manner.
The humanoid spider monster grins. Half of all its spider legs dramatically increase in size and aim at the sharfeline. They are like spears given consciousness.
The sharfeline gets hit in the shoulder and stomach. Its head grows threefold and its neck elongates, whipping at us in an attempt to turn us into a paste. It's using its damn neck like a bloody wrecking ball.
Staying near her will get me killed.
The humanoid spider moves towards us to block the attacks with its arms. Each neck slam causes a loud thud.
Jer-kel grits her teeth and her arm trembles at each impact.
Damage sharing...
The humanoid spider's arms starts to shake, and the sharfeline is grinning.
Jer-kel moves her hand to grab thin air. But a second before her fist was closed, the humanoid spider had cut out one of its legs at a low joint and kicked it toward Jer-kel, so the spider leg ended up in her hand.
She sends the spider leg into the sharfeline eyes. Since it was so focused on pounding the humanoid spider's arms away, it didn't see the attack.
It goes on its hind legs, roaring. The humanoid spider hits the ground with both hands and from her fingernails, a swarm of spiders floods towards the sharfeline.
The sharfeline quickly stops panicking. Its front legs hit the ground and it releases a breath of fire in our direction. It doesn't only burn the spiders away, but the fire is also coming at us like a speeding truck.
"Stay behind me!" Jer-kel shouts while moving in front of me.
The humanoid spider attempts to stop the assault by using its hair as a shield. It blocks it. We can't see anything but fire in front of us--
From the fire came the sharfeline, jumping at Jer-kel. The spider's legs aim at its head, but the sharfeline's leg reaches Jer-kel.
Her body is sent in the air. She then hits the ground, skipping like stones in a body of water until she hits a tree.
Dangerous. I try my best to gain distance so I won't be instantly killed.
"That hurt, barely." She gets up quickly.
The surrounding ground erupts in fire, while she remains in the middle of it.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Shit. I'm sure she is alive. No way she would go out like that. She's an adventurer!
“Get… pints… food… dying…” the sharfeline says with the mouth on its stomach.
“How… are you here…?” It looks at me.
I back away. Fear is caressing my entire body.
Out of nowhere, the humanoid spider's mouth shakes horrifically and its eyes roll back. Its face splits and turns into a giant grotesque mouth. And it bites down on half of the sharkfeline's body.
The erupting fire fades away, and I see Jer-kel on her knee. Her face is horribly burned. She looks around before rushing at the sharfelinine.
It grabs its abdomen, which already has a little tear, and then it literally rips it open.
Blood pours out from the wound.
Blood and heavy soft bags of liquid… Over thirteen of them. The bags of liquid start being pushed and pulled by something inside them.
And it takes only two seconds for small and alternate versions of the sharfeline to break free from their… Let’s say eggs.
They are probably at max, one-sixth of the sharfeline height and mass(They are the size of a dog, a husky). They don't possess a tail and lack a mouth on their faces. As matter of a fact… I dare say they look like charming animals.
“Drink… sky… dirt!” the sharfeline roars before charging at Jer-kel.
Twelve of those newborns also dash towards the wall Jer-kel made to protect the villagers.
They glow a white aura before slamming into it, one after the other.
The wall shakes, and it seems the monsters are the ones getting harmed by their charges. That’s what I thought at first.
A crack appeared in the corner of the front wall, and each monster prioritized on it. Ten charges made the crack cover half of the front wall. Five more attacks the front wall. Then they all charge at it at once.
And with a loud crack, the wall falls.
The villagers look at them in fear. The monsters move slowly, like hyenas.
Despite being so small, they are ridiculously strong.
Even if I want to help—
In the corner of my eyes, I spot a newborn staring at me.
Oh fuck.
I prepare my knife.
It lunges.
It’s like a damn arrow. Too fast for me. I realize I made a mistake and try to run, but the moment I even make a turn I feel a sudden weight on my shoulder.
Then pain, blood, and PAIN.
The monster clawed off a large chunk of my shoulder. I struck at its face, however it paraded my knife with its claws and cut halfway into my wrist.
It moves for my neck, but lucky for me, Jer-kel humanoid spider catches the monster with one of her legs. It tries to resist her, scratching at her leg. She slowly brings it to her mouth, fits the monster’s entire head into her mouth, and rips its head off. Then it proceeds to chew on it.
Thank god… Wait, something is weird.
Why did Jer-kal make it take so much time to kill a single lowly monster when she could have killed it in a split second?
The newborn monster goes limp and falls to the ground.
The humanoid-spider is hunched forward, staring at the ground like a zombie that has suddenly gained consciousness.
This is bad!
I give my shoulder a healing touch and run away from it.
The confusing thing is that Jim and Lo aren’t here. Does it have deceiving tricks or… did the tear in its abdomen mean it spawned some children to keep the two busy?
I look over at Jer-kel and it’s looking bad for her. Maybe that’s why her monster is behaving so weirdly. I don’t know. But at least it’s not going on a rampage.
I want to help, but how the hell am I supposed?
Healing her would kill her since she isn’t a monster.
A barrage of spider legs shoots towards the sharfeline. Okay, it seems back to normal.
However, one of the leg stakes hit Jer-kel in her chest, slightly denting her chest armor. But the force knocked her back pretty far.
Screams pierces the air, not from her but from the crowd of villagers who are being brutalized by those newborns. They are not eating them, but killing them in a rush.
Their claws ignite with fire as they rupture heads, tear stomachs apart, bite off necks, and so on.
Heck… they are even backstabbing each other to secure kills or for no real reason.
They are really… monsters, embodiments of fucking evil!
Natasha never spoke of them like that. She said I should avoid them, but she always talked about monsters like natural disasters specifically for humans, saying it was justice against the sins we have committed. She must have lost her damn mind!
Two of the monsters right now are fighting over the body of a toddler. They are pulling her body at opposite ends like it’s a game of tug.
Then there is a tear and there is no one to cry over her for her parents who tried to defend her lay defenseless by her side, headless.
I feel sick. And I feel even grosser because not only can’t I help, I don’t want to.
While all that was going on, I didn’t stand and watch, I had sneaked into an open house, watching through the window.
My heart is beating hard, harder than it ever did. My hands are sweaty and blood isn’t the only thing that has wet my clothes. I am sweating that much.
I didn’t pee myself, but with how scared I am, I wouldn’t be surprised if I lose control over my bladder.
Fuck my life…
I have the knife in my hand but what does it matter if I can’t even tag one of those monsters?
If I stay here…
One of the monsters stops chasing after the people and begins sniffing around, moving closer to the house I am in.
Shit!
I drop to the ground, covers my nose and start to breath through my mouth.
It didn’t see me. It didn’t see me. But… it can smell me.
I am trembling. I am hearing it talking, “My… daughter… Dad! San… I am… Mammy…”
No, it is fusing words it heard.
It’s getting closer. Fuck…
The only special thing I have is healing. But, I am still a vlandos. Maybe now would be the best time to exploit everything that comes with being one.
Augment speed.
Inefficient modification points. Please gain more levels to gain modification points.
Please bind with a monster to gain levels
Fuck!
I hold my knife tightly and crawl my way to the kitchen. I see pots.
I slowly move and take a frying pan. I will use it as a shield of some sort, even though it may only endure one attack.
I can hear Jer-kel fighting the sharfeline outside. The noise they are making is drowning out the footsteps of the newborn that's coming here.
I am anxious and terrified.
I need to think of a way to beat it. I don’t need to kill it, I just need to—
The wooden walls are shattered. “Don’t… kill… see!”
Shit!
The newborn rushes after me, the stomach tongue wagging wildly combined with its stomach’s twisted smile.
Too fast… Too fast!
I want to shut my eyes close, but… I also don’t want to die. I move the frying pan to protect my neck.
The newborn claws breaks through it with ease, but that wasn’t the only thing I was doing. My knife was moving at the same pace but at a low angle to make him miss it.
It hits its stomach.
It's surprised and looks down at the knife that’s halfway into its stomach, near the mouth. It’s angry. “QUA!”
It rips my chest open with its claws, and so much blood…
Its tail wraps around my arm and swings me around before throwing me at the ceiling.
My nose fractures.
Hurts…
I fall back on the ground.
Then the same claw it used to rip my chest open and is soaking red with my blood starts heating up and turns into fire.
I release the pan and clutch my chest, trying to regenerate the flesh that was stripped of the bone.
I am pouring almost everything into it, and that everything is making me so damn tired.
The monster leaps at me and its mouth and stomach stretch out like a hungry lion. I bring up my arm to shield my face but fuck that.
I slap its face at the same moment my arm meets its dirty tongue. Its tongue moves swiftly to my shoulders and tightens like a goddamn snake!
It wants to rip my arm off!
Well whatever. It’s not like I chose to slap it instead of stabbing it for no reason.
There is a flash similar to those used by vlandos when they send out a monster. The difference is that it’s black.
And it came from me!
The monster turns into black energy and is sucked into my left palm.
I breathe hard.
Ha… It worked.
Hahaha IT FUCKING WORKE—
My hand HURTS!
It feels like lava is in my hand.
Shit shit shit!
Against my will, there is another black flash. The monster takes back its form. That hurt even more…
The monster twitches. I can’t let it kill me.
I move fast, taking advantage of its disorientation. I grab the monster by the neck and throw my entire weight on it.
It falls on its back and I hover over it.
I stab it with all my strength. Not one stab, but repeatedly and rapidly.
Die. Die Die!
It squeals, and claws at me, sending flesh from my back and sides all over. I bleed a lot. But I don’t stop stabbing it.
However, if I continue, I will die first. So… I grab it with my left hand, and there is a black flash.
I breathe hard, feeling blood running down my backbone, and legs and dripping to the ground. I feel all that before the horrible bone-crunching pain comes and the monster launches back outside, but just like before, I take advantage of it, and stab it.
I stab and stab because my life depends on it. And it rips at me because its life also depends on it.
It violently wriggles around like a chicken that lost its head.
Then finally, its movements get weak… almost as weak as mine.
Then it stops moving.