Belatedly, I realised that it would have been a good idea to start charging a Bolt as soon as I heard the monster approaching, but I kind of didn’t expect something of this size. Thankfully it didn’t seem to be particularly fast, but that doesn’t mean that I should’ve just stood there like an idiot.
Faintly, I may have heard Luke cackling like a madman off in the corner, but I barely noticed as I began to Charge as fast as I could. The rest of the world felt distant, the only things that seemed to matter were me and the Lobster.
If I do this quickly then I should be able to shove half of my Mana into this in just a few seconds. That should be enough to take out at least one of its legs, right?
It had 10 of them, but if I lost a tenth of my legs it would probably still slow me down quite a lot, though that would probably be more from blood loss than anything else.
A few seconds later, just as I predicted, half of my Mana was sitting in the palm of hand, ready to be fired off. In that time the Lobster had managed to reach just a few metres away from me, which for the Giant Crabs was far enough that I wouldn’t be concerned at all, but for some reason even that distance felt insignificant in the face of this beast.
Pushing my fear to the side, I held my palm at the Lobster and willed the bolt to fire at its frontmost leg, but at the last second my head began to feel woozy and the already nearly silhouetted Lobster became even harder to see. By the time I regained my bearings my shot had already been fired and, instead of hitting the leg that I’d aimed at, instead curved towards the carapace on the side of its head.
That might be even better! If this shot gets through then it’ll surely die instantly, right?
Despite my greatest hopes, I would never be able to find out if that was true. Instead of destroying the carapace or even stunning the monster, the Bolt literally bounced off and struck the wall, leaving behind a crater that revealed the stone and dirt behind the bricks.
“HAHAHAHAHA! Did you really think that would work? I read your stupid fucking ‘grimoire’ and figured out like half of your Skills! It literally takes 30 minutes for an Alchemist to make a counter to Lightning! You’re not fucking getting out of this Church!”
Oh.
Oh no.
Immediately, without even a moment’s thought, I turned tail and ran. It was one thing to fight a monster of that size, it was another thing entirely to fight it when it was completely immune to my only Gods damned attack.
It took all of two seconds to get to the top of the staircase with the help of Lightning Steps, but it took all of one second for a stone door identical to the one from before to slide out of holes in the wall that certainly weren’t there just a second ago.
“Oh you’re not getting away, adventurer. I said you’re going to die here, and I fucking meant it!”
I’m going to die.
My hands trembled as I ran them over the potions on my bandolier, hoping that maybe I bought some kind of Lobster killing potion and somehow forgot about it. It goes without saying that I did no such thing.
I can run away from it, but then what?
I stared at the Lobster slowly making its way towards me from the other end of the room, it couldn’t be more than half my speed with Lightning Steps active so I could run away for as long as I had Mana and could move. But then what?
It was hard to make out any kind of features on the monster, but I tried anyway. Maybe if I looked hard enough I could find some big red “PRESS TO KILL” button, and then have some chance of living.
Well, I didn’t quite find that, but it was close. Right there, on the side of its head that I hit with my Bolt, there was a small, barely noticeable dent, with cracks spreading out from some impact.
Does my Lightning even do blunt attacks? Actually, it probably does if it was able to put a crater in the wall. Why, though? I don’t think it ever did anything like that against the rats.
“Oh yeah, that makes sense.” It was Breath Of Mana, I guess I’d just never really thought about it like that for Lightning Bolt before, but it makes sense. Somehow, it gives the Lightning some kind of physical force, and somehow that isn’t affected by whatever Lightning resistance that thing has.
“What the hell are you muttering about? Saying your last prayers?”
I grinned, “No, but you might want to get started on that.” I’m not dying here.
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I pulled a vial containing a bright green liquid and swallowed it in one gulp, feeling the swiftness potion nearly double my speed.
According to Pill it gives an effective bonus of 6 agility, so I should be able to avoid the Lobster long enough to Charge a pretty big Lightning Bolt.
I took a deep breath and then exhaled, centering myself for the fight ahead. This would in no way be easy, but it would be possible and that’s what mattered. A ball of Lightning formed in my hand and, with Channel Mana, I extended the reach of Charge’s effect so that it would pull in more ambient Mana from further away.
Luke grinned from his corner, radiating such pure smugness that I wondered if there was something else I was missing here, but I put that thought out of my mind. No cards that he may have up his sleeve would change my plan, so it didn’t matter what he thought about it.
The Lobster began to crawl up the stairs, already far too close for comfort, so I activated Lightning Steps for just a split second so that I’d be able to cleanly make the jump over its head. Landing was worse than I thought, and I felt a painful twinge in my ankle, but I just did my best to ignore the pain and sprinted to the other end of the room.
All I had to do was stay far away from it whilst I charged my Bolt, which seemed simple enough but would probably be much harder than it sounded. After taking a moment to realise what had happened, the Lobster let out a furious chitter and slowly turned around before once again crawling towards me.
A few tense seconds of waiting later I had to once again get past the Lobster, only now realising that I couldn’t exactly jump over it like last time. Instead, I sprinted behind one of the pillars and was nearly safe when I felt Sense Danger flare above me and threw myself down and forward. The hard stone floor scraped my elbows and knees, but that was nothing compared to the hard stone shards that were launched right at where my head and torso were just moments ago by the Lobster’s swing, annihilating a pillar in the process.
Holy crap that’s terrifying.
But it didn’t mean anything if it couldn’t hit me, so I continued to push down my fear and made it to the top of the stairs before the Lobster was able to turn its massive bulk around to face me.
It let out another rage filled screech and slammed its claws into the ground. The walls shook ominously and suddenly I was feeling a lot more danger from above, but I ignored it in favour of checking the progress of my Bolt. In the short time that I’d been running from the Lobster it had used roughly a tenth of my Mana Pool to create a Bolt with at least as much power as my previous one, maybe more.
Since I hadn’t managed to recover from that one at all, that meant that my mana was sitting at a little more than a third full. It might be enough for a strong enough bolt, but I was decidedly not getting my hopes up. Honestly, anything killing this thing felt like kind of a long shot, but it probably wasn’t immortal. Although I haven’t exactly seen much evidence that it’s not.
For the next few laps of the room, the fight repeated the same patterns. Stand and charge, run past the Lobster, stand and charge, run past the Lobster. Every now and then it also destroyed a pillar, but after the first few times there weren’t any close enough to the ends of the room so most of them were still intact. As the fight continued the Sense of danger from the ceiling only continued to grow, and I realised that there was another limit to the fight other than my own body.
The roof could collapse any second, and I was doubtful of my ability to survive it.
I reached the end of the room furthest from the door when my Mana finally dipped below 5% and I decided that it was now or never and stopped pushing my own Mana into the Bolt. A few last dregs of the now sparse ambient Mana were sucked in, but after that I was left with a gently humming orb of whirling energy.
This might be the most impressive bolt I’ve ever made.
Despite myself, I grinned. If this couldn’t kill it, then nothing could. I held my hands out towards the Lobster and Luke seemed to realise that something was different, but it was too late. I took a deep breath… and released.
The Lobster was already just about 5 metres away from me, so the Bolt had no trouble reaching its target. However, there was one thing that I’d forgotten to account for. My vision swam and everything seemed to blur together for just long enough that my shot missed the head and instead went for the body just below it. Its claws just so happened to be placed in just the perfect position to block the attack, but the Bolt was much larger than usual, so much of it simply flew right by and struck the carapace behind it.
Then, like a firework display, bright white light was reflected to all corners of the room, scorching the walls and, in places where several beams happened to converge, destroying bricks with enough force to send shrapnel flying as well.
When the lights died down I looked at the Lobster hopefully, and felt those hopes dashed. It wasn’t unscathed, not even close, but it was still very clearly alive. The carapace on the front of its body was all either shattered or cracked, revealing insides that were charred from the heat of the Lightning. I thought that should be enough sign that it was dead but, somehow, it moved. An ear piercing sound stabbed deep into my head, causing spikes of pain to come from my ears and disorienting me just from volume alone, then it stalked towards me.
According to Sense Danger, however, it was not the biggest threat in the room. In fact, it didn’t even come close. And no, the true threat was not Luke, Sense Danger didn’t even seem to realise that he existed, never mind actually being able to hurt me.
No, an almost physical aura of dread pushed on me from above, where lines of cracks and holes had already formed in the vaulted ceiling. As I watched, a chunk of stone fell and shattered at my feet, peppering me with shrapnel that I barely even noticed.
If I had full Mana, then it may have been possible to use my Telekinesis to protect myself from the worst of the rocks, but I was both mentally and physically drained. My Pool had managed to recover just a little, probably even less than a fifth of what it was at before, but that would barely make a dent in what would undoubtedly be an absolute downpouring of debris.
Wait, maybe I can use this.
I glanced at the door, still sealed shut as it had been this entire time, and then at Luke, who was beginning to show signs of fear if I were to judge based on his sweaty forehead and trembling hands.
Don’t think, there’s no time.
Faster than I could blink, I shot out a cord of Mana and wrapped it around Luke, taking in a Breath and using it to pull him towards me. Lightning enveloped my legs as I used Lightning Steps and within seconds ran up to the door. Before I reached it I pushed Luke in front of me and, in a panic, he was forced to dispel it, opening up my escape route.
That was pretty lucky.
With my escape all but guaranteed, there was just one more thing to worry about. I turned to look at the Lobster, now without whatever magical effect obscured its features, and shot a low powered Bolt at the ceiling straight above it. The roof was already about to give up the ghost, and with just this one final push the few remaining pillars collapsed, taking the tonnes of stone with it.
I didn’t stay to watch though, by the time that happened I was already running through the tunnel with Luke in tow, but I knew for sure that my plan (or lucky guesses, take your pick) had actually worked.
Combat Cleared You Have Defeated 1 Deep Lobster [Level 35] You Have Subdued 1 Human Leader Of The Lobster Cult [Level 19]
You Have Reached Level 20
Choose A Path Skill Static Field Grand Skewer