28.
Chad’s bow bent to a precarious angle and then an arrow was arcing across the sky. Golden power radiated off of it as it tripled, all three of the arrows slamming into the lead golem. The arrows created wide holes and the golem staggered back, but didn’t fall. Adam’s gray javelin finished it off, hitting with the power of a bomb.
Dust and smoke swirled around in the aftermath of the skill, obscuring the smaller golems while the head of the cyclops was still visible. Santi cast [Gust] and watched as the spell ravaged the Initiate level golems. The weaker creatures broke apart, the poorly joined limbs snapping under the strain. The dust was whisked away revealing the rest of the honor guard of golems.
Behind the stream of Acolyte level golems and the cyclops mother was a swarm of the lesser nine foot tall cyclops who had followed after. Santi bit back a curse as he saw they wore crude metal armor and carried a mix of clubs and hammers. He was going to be too busy fighting the Acolytle golems and cyclops to fight the lesser ones who were just as well armed as they were.
A [Crosscurrent-Orb] blew another of the golems off their feet while Chad and Adam killed a second with a different combo of skills. Both of them could pump out damage, but they lacked the stamina to keep the damage coming. It was mildly concerning but it could be rectified in time.
Part of him wanted to hop down and cut a swatch through the rust buckets and tackle the honor guard head on. It was tactically unsound and dumb as hell, but he couldn’t deny that the desire was there. Tank patted his shoulder and Santi looked at him and Tank shook his head. Maybe he wasn’t masking his intentions as well as he thought.
“Keep up the pressure,” Santi ordered as the two ranged fighters kept working together to kill the golems. In the time it took the golems to reach the intersection both men were down to their most basic skills of just empowering their strikes. Adam grabbed a shotput and tossed at the cyclops.
Time slowed down, stretching out as Santi watched the heavy metal ball with silver energy coating it fly toward the cyclops. The monster watched it with its one muddy brown eye. A wide smile of brown teeth flashed as it raised its wide hand and caught the shotput with a single hand, the meaty sound of metal on flesh echoing out.
“Oh fuck,” Santi whispered under his breath as the Cyclops reared back and threw the heavy hunk of metal right back at them. There were no skills to it, just a sixteen pound, dense, metal ball flying at speeds that made it hard to see even with his advanced stats. Santi grabbed Tank and threw himself to the ground, keeping his body between that hurtling ball and his more delicate friend.
Metal on flesh sounded again and something wet and warm splattered across his face. Santi looked up and saw the smear that had been Adam. The big thrower was simply gone, obliterated by his own weapon. Santi rolled off of Tank and met the monster's solitary eye.
He threw himself off the building and toward the monster, morph blade transforming into a lance. The cyclops was tall enough that his leap hardly got him over the top of the creature’s head and he fell like a meteor aiming at her eye. She swatted at him, her large hand filling his vision like a fleshy wall.
[Air Shield] broke instantly, hardly slowing the blow. It was enough, he bounced off the edge of her wrist instead of being swatted out of the air. Diverted, his lance scraped a gouge across the cyclops shoulder. Blood welled from the gouge and Santi bounced off her bony shoulder to fall towards the ground.
Metal was everywhere, smashing down all around him as he tried to rise, glancing blows that shook him as the golems tried to turn him to paste. His blade was a whirlwind, striking out everywhere he could as he cut down across the golems in a fury. Bits of metal, arms, and legs were chopped free as he made his way clear of the monsters.
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Santi leapt, his foot hitting the chassis of one of the machine’s and then he was propelling himself back at the cyclops. Her blood stained her, running in rivers down her chest as she lifted her metal club up and into the air to smash down on him. He spun in mid air, using [Gust] to spin and bounce over the club.
Santi grimaced and bit back a cry of pain as bones creaked. The glancing blow threw him into a cartwheel and his attack tore at the cyclops scalp instead of her eye. She screamed and swung her club wildly around, each blow would have destroyed the barricades and anyone who had been standing there. They all hit air, her blows too slow to hit as Santi bounced like a ping pong, going from golem to golem, always leaping back at the cyclops to keep her distracted.
He was faster than her, but not so fast that he could completely dodge her blows. At most he could get around them, his momentum diverted by the powerful strikes. All around him the fighting continued, the people manning the barricade killing the horde of junkers and juvenile cyclops while Chad continued to whittle down the Acolytes. Every time Santi landed on one of them, he slashed and tore, gouging more and more metal off of them.
The slow moving golems were a poor match both ways. He couldn’t damage them fast enough, but they could barely react to him as his speed kept him away from their grasping arms. The cyclops was faster but still slow, letting him stay ahead of her, but not kill her. If he could face one or the other, he could probably have been successful, but against both her and the golems, he could do nothing but stay ahead of them.
The cyclops was a mass of blood, bone showing where the morph blade had cut deep. A shadow detached from the walls and Daniel stabbed his dagger into the cyclops heel. Santi smiled, finally the little shit had shown up.
Hana dropped her cloaking and stabbed a wounded golem, finishing it off. His two scouts had finally revealed themselves and the tide began to shift. Where before Santi had fought to hold an equilibrium, now they could start pushing. Santi landed and split a golem in half, dashing away and jumping off a barricade back into the air to avoid the cyclops club.
The club missed him and hit a section of the blockade. Cars crunched, becoming flattened as did the fighters who had been on that section. Santi cursed as he raced towards the cyclops, his blade cut a swatch of flesh along its thigh and it screamed in pain as Santi dodged the flying hand. He took the tips of two of its fingers in his counter attack and it swung its heavy club in reprisal.
Santi was breathing hard, sweat dripping down his face as he kept throwing attack after attack without hesitation. The battle was winding down, almost all of the junk golems were destroyed and now the squad of Acolytes were down to their last leg, Hana, Daniel, and Chad whittling them away. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tank hammer one of the wounded golems into the ground. Tank was keeping himself in the backlines, but wasn’t shying away from the fight.
Santi had to finish off the blood drenched cyclops. She was staggering back and forth, swinging her club around lethargically as blood pooled around her feet. Santi landed on the edge of part of the barricade and sprung at her, finally succeeding in getting past her defenses.
His lance pierced its eye. She screamed as she was blinded and swung her head back and forth as he drove the lance deeper and deeper. The jelly-like structure of her eye popped and fluids gushed over him, but he lengthened the lance, making it thinner and finally felt it pierce bone through the back of the cyclops head.
The cyclops shuddered and stiffened, all movements stopping as she froze. She was perched for a moment before crashing back towards the ground with a thunderous crash. The world shook as she grew still and Santi stood perched over her for a moment before dismounting.
The cries of the wounded were loud and the sobs of the living deafening. The barricades were in ruins, dead laying spread out across the ground in pieces. The golems hadn’t bled, but they had spilt plenty of blood. Santi looked around, desperate to see the faces of friends and family.
Chloe and Rayleigh were still standing, both of them panting and tired looking. Bianca and Cameron were shoulder to shoulder. His Dad was standing behind them. His Dad was standing behind them? He could have sworn Dad had stayed back at home.
Hana and Daniel were standing off by themselves, their shoulders touching as they watched everyone else. Chad was looking at the stain that had been Adam. Abraham’s crew started to head toward the warehouse, not waiting a moment longer to get the desperately needed food.