Every single part of Alex’s body begged for him to find an alleyway and slump down inside it. Exhaustion clawed into him like the hands of hell trying to pull him into the ground. His arms screamed with pain that intensified with every movement he took, and his head throbbed with a violent headache.
A fair portion of him was pretty sure that he should have passed out long ago. There should have been only so far that adrenaline could take him.
Maybe improving my Mind Palace also improves my ability to resist the appeal of keeling over and passing out.
At least he’d managed to confirm the answer to one more question with Gentlewind’s death. Alex hadn’t gotten a flame from the man’s body. He hadn’t gotten much of anything — aside from the katana, Gentlewind hadn’t possessed anything else of value.
The System was saving the rewards until the end of the event. He was certain of it.
Alex brought his face down to a shoulder, wiping the sweat and blood mixing on his skin off as best he could. He repeated it with the other shoulder, clenching his teeth at the pain the movement brought him. He grabbed the sword with limp fingers, fighting to keep a hold on it as he wedged it into a loop on his pants.
Then, with agonizing steps, he made his way over to the shadow of a dead spider monster. He could feel his arms twisting and bubbling like there was a colony of insects within him. The extensive damage to his body was desperately trying to fix itself, but it would be some time before he could fight properly again.
He pressed down distaste as he stepped over the body of a dead man and crouched beside the wall. There were a lot of those — the dead men. Walls too, but he was a little more concerned with the former.
Alex didn’t know the man, but he recognized him from the lobby of the apartment his room was in. The man’s eyes were frozen in terror, his chest and the ground around him soaked through with a puddle of blood. A broken sword laid at his side, snapped clean in half.
Shoving through the pain, Alex reached out with his slightly less-injured arm. He put his hand on the dead man’s face and shut his eyes. It was a clunky, jerky movement that ended up being more of a slap than a graceful touch.
He resisted the urge to flop down and instead crouched and braced his back against the wall. If he sat down properly, Alex was pretty sure it would take him far too long to stand again if something else showed up.
With a thought, he called up the leaderboard.
Local Leaderboard — Initialization Event
1. Ash (Novice 7): 151 Kills
2. Fangs (Novice 6): 53 Kills
3. Ben-10 (Novice 5): 24 Kills
4. NoIDontWantAName (Novice 4): 20 Kills
5. Daggerman (Novice 3): 18 Kills
6. AAAA (Novice 2): 8 Kills
7. Joe (Novice 2): 7 Kills
8. RockRocks (Novice 2): 3 Kills
9. Lisa (Novice 1): 4 Kills
10. Dorriv (Novice 1): 3 Kills
…
24. Bricks (Novice 1): 1 Kill
25. Barbarara (Novice 1): 1 Kill
Well, that’s certainly a lead. I think it’s safe to say I’ve won this thing. But there’s still quite some time left in the challenge. I could probably push even higher. Who knows if there are some sort of bonus achievements or anything like that.
Alex dismissed the leaderboard with another thought. He blew out a slow breath, trying to focus on anything but the pain in his arms. It didn’t work. The longer he sat there, the more the pain seemed to gnaw at him.
Even aggravating the wounds by moving around was better than this. Gritting his teeth, he pushed against the wall and rose back to his feet. The sound of battle still rang in the distance. Everyone else was still out there. Fighting. Advancing.
Alex tried to wiggle his fingers. It wasn’t like his arms had been severed. He’d just had some bones broken. A fair number of them — but he could still move. The pain was bad, but it seemed slightly better than it had been a minute ago.
The smart thing to do probably would have been to sit around for an hour or so until Glint and Spark regenerated. His own body would probably be pretty patched up by then, and he could rejoin the fight at full strength.
But that would mean sitting out for an hour. It wasn’t like he was helpless right now. Some of his magical energy had returned with Gentlewind’s death, and it was continuing to regenerate. Glint and Spark would reform whether he sat around or not.
Really, I didn’t lie to Gentlewind. I have two legs and a bit more left to work with. There’s no excuse to just sit around when I can still fight.
Alex took another moment to gather himself. Then he tilted his head to the side, listening for the location where the majority of the combat seemed to be coming from, and headed off in its direction.
He only made it down to the end of the street and through a single alleyway before he stepped out in front of Dorriv’s restaurant. The portly cook stood leaning against the wall for support, a large cast-iron pan clutched in each of his hands. His beard was matted with blood and his eyes burned with panic. A long, painful-looking cut stretched from one shoulder to his hip. It bled profusely, but it didn’t look too deep.
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Across from him was a catlike monster. Long, ivory spikes of bone jutted from its back like the spines of a hedgehog. Its claws dug deep furrows into the stone beneath it, two tiny molten orange eyes buried deep within the monster’s skull bore into Dorriv. Blood mixed with saliva and dripped from a mouth of yellowed fangs to fall to the street below.
Boney Prowler (Novice 5)
Seriously? Boney? Who named this thing? It’s actually really similar to something I saw in the Mirrorlands. Just a bit weaker.
I wonder… if Claire and I fell into the Mirrorlands, wouldn’t monsters be able to do the same thing? What exactly is the connection between the Mirrorlands and all these other worlds? I’m dying to find out, but Dorriv is going to literally die if I don’t do something.
Alex crept toward the monster. Its focus was on Dorriv, which meant —
The cook glanced in his direction.
His shift in posture was enough to draw the cat’s attention. Its gaze snapped to the side and it spotted Alex, lips pulling back in a loud, yowling hiss. The monster spotted his hands hanging by his sides and burst into motion, instantly identifying what should have been an easier target.
Its paws were nearly soundless as the large monster flashed across the ground toward Alex, hissing in fury.
Unlike when he’d fought Gentlewind, Alex didn’t have a shadow he’d left behind in the darkness to call on. There wasn’t going to be any outrunning or dodging the Prowler — which meant he just had to strike first.
He charged the creature, ignoring the burst of pain that shot up his arms. The monster tried to adjust, giving up on its charge and swiping its paw at him as he grew close.
Alex dropped to the ground and slid, leaving behind a shadow to rectify his earlier mistake. His back and head hit the stone with a painful thud, but he successfully passed beneath the surprised Prowler’s paw.
He threw his bodyweight forward, stumbling as he rose back to his feet without the use of his still-worthless arms. Alex spun, sending the best kick he could muster in the cat’s direction. Glass ripped free of his foot in a crescent form, transforming his entire leg into the shaft of a scythe.
It carved across the Prowler’s side and shattered in the process, leaving fragments stuck within the cat. Yowling in pain, the deadly cat spun and batted at Alex.
He swapped with his shadow. The monster hit nothing but air. By the time it realized that it had missed him and started to turn back toward the shadow, it was already too late. Alex lunged and drove his head straight for its neck.
A blade of glass erupted from the top of his skull. It impaled the Prowler, slicing deep along its throat and spilling blue fluid across the ground. Alex jerked himself down, ripping the blade out of the cat’s neck and splattering its blue ichor across the ground.
The Prowler collapsed at his feet. Energy poured into his body as he lifted his head, letting the glass shard snap and disintegrate. Blood from the mirror blade splattered onto his forehead. Alex cursed under his breath and tried to wipe his face off on his shoulders again. His arms burned with pain, but the monster was dead.
Dorriv gaped at Alex, his twin-pans lowering as awe gripped the large man. He looked from Alex to the dead cat, then back again, as if he couldn’t believe what his eyes were showing him.
“That’s for the food earlier,” Alex said, rolling his neck to try and get a newly formed crick out of it. “It was to die for.”
A grunting laugh pulled free from Dorriv. “You eat free, anytime. Somebody tell you too much to use your head.”
Alex gave Dorriv a weary grin. “It worked, didn’t it? My arms aren’t being cooperative right now. What are you doing outside? Aren’t there safe places?”
“No safe places,” Dorriv replied with a grim shake of his head. He gestured around himself with a pan. “Monsters are everywhere. I got separated. They come from below. Try to eat my ass.”
“I… really hope I misunderstood that last part,” Alex said.
Dorriv turned around. There was a large chunk of his pants missing in a particularly unfortunate spot. He had a rather nasty cut caked with blood, but it looked like it would heal. The cook moved to face Alex again. “As I said. It was not an enjoyable experience.”
“My condolences.”
“Accepted. I try most things once,” Dorriv said. The corner of his lips pulled up, and Alex realized that the man had been pulling his leg.
Alex tilted his head to the side, suddenly realizing that the fighting he’d been following earlier had faded away. A frown crossed his face.
“Did you see a bunch of monsters nearby?” Alex asked. “I swear I heard a lot of fighting in this direction, but it’s gone.”
“Down there,” Dorriv replied, jerking his chin down the street. “Lots of people. Not so many anymore, I think. It’s bad.”
Alex gave him a sharp nod, sending another wave of pain rolling down his arms. “Thanks. Stay safe.”
He darted off in the direction that Dorriv had indicated. Where there were a lot of people fighting, there were monsters.
The scent of death hit Alex before he turned the corner around the street. Blood and sweat and viscera, stewed and concentrated into a pungent wall. He drove through it and emerged into a small town square made up by the crumbling pieces of what had once been a strip mall.
It actually looked like the survivors had put up a good fight here. Monsters littered the ground around hastily erected barricades made of store shelves and sheet metal. A mixture of corpses — all bone themed, for whatever reason the System had decided on — were strewn across the ground. Scattered amongst them were dead survivors, but there were far fewer humans than monsters.
But not everything in the square was dead. While most of the survivors had pulled back, there was still one locked in a fight at the farthest edge of the square away from Alex.
Claire leapt back as a huge Boneraptor’s fist slammed into the ground where she’d been standing. She skipped back to avoid a swipe from one of its other hands, then dashed forward to slash at its wrist with her blade.
Blue ichor splattered across the ground in a spray. The monster roared in pain and flinched back. Claire pressed her advantage, dodging past its desperate attempts to keep her away, her senses completely locked into the fight.
Locked in so thoroughly that she missed the shadow passing over her.
A Boney Prowler that had made its way up to the roof behind Claire leapt in a blur of muscle and bone, streaking straight down toward her back.
Alex tried to run forward, but he was nowhere near fast enough to make it in time.
“Claire!” He screamed. “Behind you!”
She spun toward the Prowler, lifting her sword —
The monster slammed into her and continued into the stone with an earth-shaking crash. A ringing clang echoed out as Claire’s sword bounced across the stone. It skidded and spun to a halt, her hand still wrapped around its hilt, severed at the wrist.
Alex’s ears rung. Blood coated the side of the Prowler’s claws. Claire’s leg stuck out from beneath one of its haunches, unmoving.
A moment of silence hung over the square, broken only by the slap of Alex’s feet as he leaned into his sprint, accelerating toward the monster as fast as he could push his injured body.
“Claire!” Alex yelled again.
There was no response.