41.
The air of the hospital air was chilly, creating a sharp contrast from the warm air outside. Daniel slunk along the edges of the halls, his shape hardly noticeable. Hana trailed behind while Chloe and Rayleigh formed a wall in front of Santi and Tank. The hallways were full of discarded and stained gurneys, the cheap sheets and blankets, nothing more than puddles of clothing shoved into balls around the hallway. White tile was smeared with a mix of fluids and dirt.
“This isn’t creepy at all,” Tank muttered as they all pushed deeper into the building. Santi couldn’t help but agree, there was something intrinsically wrong with this place.
“Floor by floor, slow and careful. Nobody takes risks,” Santi warned as they started to walk down the hallway. The aura of the hospital was oppressive, weighing down on them as they marched deeper down the soiled halls. The soft sound of their footsteps echoing on tile the only sound in the hospital. The broken windows had been blown outwards, leaving little in the way of shattered glass on the ground.
Minutes trickled by with the weight of the atmosphere only increasing. Sweat was dripping down Santi’s back from nerves despite the cool interior.
It was almost a relief when Daniel emerged from the shadows and quietly pointed around the corner. He flashed nine fingers and then slipped back into the shadows. Santi wanted to roll his eyes at the mans over reliance on his skill and the dramatic way he used it. The quiet man had a flair for the dramatic.
“Get ready, Chloe and Rayleigh, you need to hold the line. Tank, stay away from the fighting unless one slips by. Hana and Daienl, if you can hear me, try to get to the backlines or kill anything that tries to cast magic. I’ll backup anyone who needs help.” Santi kept his voice to hardly above a whisper as he laid out a basic plan.
The tactics were fairly simple when it came to fighting in small raid teams but none of them had practiced. Santi hadn’t ever fought in this position before either. Normally he would fight in the same role as Daniel as a mage killer. Striking from hiding with overwhelming force as fast as possible and retreating before retribution could find him.
Chloe and Rayleigh clutched their weapons tightly and they turned the corner without hesitation. Santi was right behind them, turning the blind corner into a wide lobby with banks of elevators sitting dormant. Paper scraps were strewn about, broken computers and furniture were piled into a corner haphazardly.
Nine hags stood in a clutch shoulder to shoulder as they stared with beady black eyes at the group. Their pale skin gave an eerie glow in the dim light, their flabby bodies covered in the stitched together remnants of murdered people’s clothing.
Night Hag lvl. 14
Night Hag lvl. 15
Night Hag lvl. 14
Night Hag lvl. 16
Santi stopped using Identify as he got what he wanted. The level sixteen was the highest level and he was sure they could deal with it. They were slightly outnumbered but Santi knew they could handle the fight.
Chloe and Rayleigh jogged in lockstep without a word, both of the women gathering momentum as they closed the distance. Santi gave them distance to create a gap between the lines. Tank trailed even further behind and Santi couldn’t see where Hana had drifted out of his peripheral vision.
Chloe’s twin headed axe glowed silver and a faint blue aura emanated around Rayleigh as she activated a skill that Santi hadn’t known about. The lead hag leapt forward, long arms outstretched as it swiped at the girls with dirty black talons.
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Chloe cut the hags arm and fingers clattered to the ground sounding more like metal falling than flesh and bone. The hag screeched in agony, its wide mouth open and revealing yellowed teeth. Rayleigh lowered her shoulder and the blue aura around her condensed suddenly around her. She slammed into the hag at its midsection, the blue aura exploding outward in a wash of light. The injured hag was thrown backward as if hit by a semi-truck.
Chloe hadn’t slowed down at all and charged into the cluster of hags. Her blade was a blur, blood splashing on the floors. None of the hags died immediately unlike the hobgoblins they had fought just minutes earlier. Rayleigh’s bat cracked bones but didn’t have the power to kill any of them. For a moment the two women held the eight hags in place with sheer momentum.
Then they were being pushed back as the heavy swipes started coming in too fast. Chloe and Rayleigh worked to stay close enough to each other to protect one another while not impeding each other. Santi was impressed with their teamwork and as they retreated he felt his eyebrows rise.
The two of them slid backward with ease and opened a gap. A single hag was able to force the gap, threatening to split the women apart. It took blows from both of them, an axe cut that shredded an quadricep and a baseball bat blow that cracked the opposing forearm.
If the hag was able to stay there weathering the blows the two women were doomed. The wounds it had just taken in the split second it had pushed up left it vulnerable. Leg unable to support it, arm unable to defend itself. Santi took advantage.
His lunge was perfect, the spear punching through the hags sternum. The spear blew out the monsters back in a spray of gore and it stiffened instantly. Santi kicked the hag while twisting to pull the spear free. He wasn’t strong enough to kick the hag free, but he was strong enough to free his spear nearly instantly.
The two girls stepped back and toward each other to reform their position without a word. The push-off from freeing his spear had pushed Santi back so he was still behind the girls as they continued to back up slowly. The original hag that Rayleigh had tossed around was back on its feet and rushing back to the fray.
The wide open lobby allowed them to start trying to encircle the group. Two hags on each side of the group while four stayed in the middle. Santi lashed out with the long reach of the spear at the flanking group on the right, slashing open a long cut above a hag’s eye. Inky black blood ran like a river down the hags waxy face as it stumbled forward.
Daniel came out of the shadows, his two blades punching into the back of the second right flank hag’s head. The hag went limp falling to the ground in a heap at the scout’s feet. The wounded hag spun to try to avenge its fallen coven member and Santi finished it off with a single thrust up and under its ribs.
Tank stepped forward and his taped together club hammered the left flank leading hag in the head. Bones shattered and the hag staggered backward, wounded but not dead. Santi leapt across the gap to engage the second flanking hag. Santi dipped under a sharp claws and stabbed the hag through its flabby gut. The creature howled, thick spittle laced with black blood flying out to spatter on Santi’s face.
Santi straightened up, his increased strength letting him lift the hag up into the air. It was bent in half as its claws scrabbled at the white wood of the spear. Hot blood flowed over Santi’s hands as muscles in his shoulders and back screamed in pain.
Twisting his hips he threw the impaled hag at the four clustered together in the front. In the fifteen or so seconds Santi had taken his eyes off of them the two girls had inflicted more minor wounds while somehow not taking any type of injuries.
The hag hit the leftmost of the center group and they fell into a pile. Santi hadn’t gotten the kill notification for the hag he had just thrown, but knew it was on its last legs. Daniel surged out again, daggers slashing at the rightmost hags hamstrings. The hag screamed as it collapsed to its knees. A dagger came flying through the air and slammed into the kneeling hags eye. Hana finally made her presence known.
With only two hags left against the girls, they didn’t stand a chance. Chloe took the head of her hag in a flurry of blows, activating her skill on her final blow. Rayleigh simply broke her opponent, battering it to the ground in a series of crashing blows. Without the other targeting her, she had finally been able to use all of her strength and use it to devastating effect.
Tank was finishing off his own hag, lining up and swinging like he was a MLB slugger. It took him multiple blows but the hag finally died. Santi drew his dagger and rushed over to the two hags in a pile. He drew his blade across the impaled one's throat while the second one thrashed underneath the weight of the first hag. Santi reached over the dead body and lined up his blow before ramming the dagger through its beady black eye. It stiffened for a second and then relaxed as it died.