The man-beast ran at them with zero hesitation as the room finished shaking from his terrifying roar. As he ran at them at ludicrous speeds his claws began glowing with fire, he leapt through the air straight at Naomi. She recoiled slightly as Adam watched the beast swipe his fiery sharp claws at her torso. Naomi went spinning along the ground into the wall as ice surrounding his claws shattered on impact.
Adam began trying to keep the monsters movement at bay with his psychokinesis but it was of no use as the beasts strength and speed was breaking through with no effort at all, Adam doubted he was even slowing him at all. He noticed both purple and dark red glowing lines pumping through the body of the beast.
The beast turned with remarkable agility as it swiped straight at Matilda’s face, instead hitting a solid chunk of ice that Naomi had barely conjured up in time from the ground.
Brian and Matilda both still seemed frozen in fear at the situation.
Brian shook himself out of it and began swinging his axe, it landed straight into the flesh on the back of the huge monstrosity, he pulled the axe back out and grimaced as he continued to jump around the narrow hallway between them and slash at them with his fiery claws, not even noticing the axe wound.
Adam was panicking, it seemed that all of them were a second away from death at any time with the power and speed this creature had, the only reason they weren’t already dead was Naomi barely keeping up with his blows, controlling all of them with her ice ability.
The beast had seemed to eventually figure this out and was now swiping in a frenzy specifically at Naomi, locking target onto her.
He began working his weaves of kinetic force on the only thing that had worked for him in the past and looked to his environment, creating thin and sharp icicles out of the leftover ice Naomi had created and gathering them near his feet, ready to launch a barrage at him, getting the icicles sharp enough to be able to do anything took time and detail in how he combined his temperature control and psychokinesis abilities to cut the ice away and gather it in a pile for his upcoming barrage. He couldn’t help out much while he worked on this and hoped Naomi could keep up.
Naomi started suffering blows from the beast as he seemed to increase the speed of his flurrying strikes the longer he kept attacking her, she didn’t take any direct hits with no protection but the ice she was conjuring up seemed to dampen the hits less and less and she began stepping back into the broken door frame leading into the room the beast had jumped out of.
Matilda kept Naomi sustained fairly easily at this point as she began launching her triple cleaving radiant bursts out, bouncing around between the walls of the hallway, some were hitting the beast and sizzling out on his flesh while others reached Naomi and let her avoid the swift death the beast would surely deliver with a fully connecting blow.
In all of the chaos, Adam decided to check something that was bothering him, his hiker menu had not popped up at all once against this enemy, why not? He tried pulling the same trick as he had with Naomi and just focused in on him while trying to use his mental willpower to command the menu to do something. The menu popped up as it had with Naomi but the results were unexpected.
Target: ???
Level: ???
Class: ???
Adam only had more questions after that result but tried to push it aside as he focused on creating more icicles and sharpening the ones he had already collected.
He made his move, he had prepared for this, he already had the necessary spell of kinetic force floating near the icicles, he just had to exert the force into pushing it into the icicles and it would all play out, he had been working on preparing and maintaining waves of kinetic force and keeping more control over them so he could multitask more effectively, he still felt quite bad at it.
Adam realised as he worked on it that he failed to hold more intricate weaves of kinetic force in place as it was too much mental focus to keep it in place while he worked elsewhere. He was definitely better at it than the start of their journey, but it was still very limited, he wasn’t sure if the improvement was down to pure practice or if his stats and passives were really affecting his abilities in that way, how would that even work, somehow the refined system they were now part of could alter their brain chemistry or something he guessed.
As the beast continued to gain more and more speed with its attacks Adam launched his barrage of icy death.
He was worried about hitting anyone and causing collateral damage, only Naomi would be in the way with the way they were fighting and their positions in the hallway, he aimed down the hallway, pointing his barrage at the doorway the beast had jumped out of.
He strained to throw a basic wave of force at ground level to trip Naomi over as the razor sharp icicles flew through the air as fast as Adam could make them. The beast with its superior reaction time jumped over the wave of force travelling across the ground, even more perfectly lining up for Adam’s death blast of Naomis’ ice.
As the hairy colossus roared in pain with jagged pieces of ice shredding his back to pieces, Adam noticed Naomi had made herself a barrier connecting to the corner wall of the room, hiding behind it for cover.
Adam heard the shattering and crashing of the ice as the carved pieces smashed into each other, the loud thud as the majority of the mass hit the walls was startling. He watched carefully as the beast fell to the ground and lay there, large icicles sticking out of its back.
A lot of the icicles did hit him but all had gone into his back, he had kept his back faced to the ice at all times so he wasn’t sure if he had done quite enough for a creature this strong.
Naomi’s ice barrier began to melt away as she and the others approached the twitching body.
Brian lifted his axe “Let’s finish it before it gets to do anything else, great job Adam.”
Matilda agreed. “Good thinking to use her ice like that, I don’t think anything else was going to affect him.”
Naomi was dripping blood onto the floor as she pulled an icicle out of her body, she looked weak. “Dangerous, but thanks for knocking me to the floor at least, you didn’t have to.”
Adam shook his head. “Even if I was a complete sociopath with no regard to your life, we can still use your abilities to get ourselves out of here, I’m not even being selfless or anything! Sorry for hitting you and putting you in harms way, you’re still standing so I think Matilda can help you out from here.”
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The icicles in the creatures body began to glow with a purple and red light, Adam noticed it growing in brightness, growing more intense.
Brian asked in a panic, noticing the light growing as the creatures body twitched more and more. “Kill it now?”
Adam screamed at all of them “Get away!” as he threw up a protective screen for the party, the light hit a peak of intensity before an explosion forced out the icicles from the beasts body, flying back at the party at even higher speeds than Adam had originally launched them at.
The icicles easily pierced through his protective screen of force, which was quite thin and weak as he dragged it out over a large area in an attempt to save everyone, this was all followed up by explosive force that threw them all flying back, rolling along the ground as icicles continued to bounce around and shatter, Adam blindly threw protective quick and fairly weak barriers around himself and in random spots of the room where he thought people might get hurt, but they were all moving down the hallway at such a speed as they tumbled and spun that it was impossible for him to have any accuracy in where he placed any of the barriers, it was probably all wasted magic pool.
Adam finished rolling along the ground and tried to see if everyone was okay, they were strewn about in all sorts of positions, smashed into walls, Naomi had gone flying into one of the rooms that come off the same hallway, he saw her in there unconscious. He turned his head looking back straight down the long hallway at the beast, he was gone.
Adam carefully turned his head around, looking for any sign of the threat. He found Matilda with a large icicle sticking out of her leg, sitting up against the wall huffing and puffing.
“We’re going to die here Adam, why the hell did we come here! What are we doing with ourselves, this journey is all for nothing, an experimental death sentence!” She screamed at him through teary eyes.
He didn’t address what she said, he simply asked “Want me to melt down the icicle for you?”
She nodded “Be careful. Where is the monster? Where are the others? Let’s just get out of here with our lives.”
He began heating up the ice, it dripped down onto the regal, red rug that ran the length of the hallway.
“Naomi went into the side room over there, I have to check on her, she wasn’t moving but I’m hoping landing in that room saved her from the worst of it. I haven’t seen Brian.” He said, pointing to the room where he saw Naomi.
Matilda went to stand up to head there and fell back, her back slamming into the wall. “No good, we need your leg fixed up before anything else. I’ll go check it out.” Adam told her, trying to soothe his team mate.
Eyeing every doorway he could see, he went into the room and retrieved Naomi, dragging her back into the hallway, she was still unconscious, she was breathing and there were no icicles sticking out of her at least Adam thought.
“She must have been knocked out by some kind of blunt force, I can fix her up while we wait for this damn icicle to finish melting. I’m getting really low on my magic pool, just 10% left. Hopefully enough for all the damage here. Do you think the beasts body just blew up and disintegrated in the explosion?” Matilda said with curiosity.
“That’s what I’m thinking, I’ve seen those colours before, the tree, Abbey, it’s everywhere when it comes to this damn church. Who knows what that thing was, some kind of failed human experiment.” Adam agreed with her idea.
Cutting off their conversation, Brian come flying down the hallway, out of the room, landing on his stomach with a loud yell. “It’s coming!”
The beast leaped out of the room, it looked as good as new with one stark difference, it was now wielding a massive axe in both of its hands. It landed in the same hallway where they were fighting just about ten paces from where they were huddled in a corner attending to Matilda’s leg.
The beast raised its massive axe and slammed it into the ground, before Adam could even react in time to try to protect them from the approaching wave of dark purple energy tinged with a deep crimson red, Brian stood in its path, he dropped his axe and crossed his arms in an attempt to absorb the blow for the rest of them. He went flying back into the wall, smacking his head on the bricks and was knocked unconscious. The beast raised its axe again, repeating the same attack, aiming for Brian’s unconscious body. Adam saw a flash of shadow from the corner of his eyes.
A shadowy apparition materialised out of thin air, right under the beast who was about to swing his mighty weapon down to the ground, the apparition slammed the beast up into the ceiling, smashing into the stone masonry at an extreme speed.
He fell back down to the floor, growling. The dark ghost began to teleport around the beast in various directions, changing positions multiple times a second. Adam watched in awe as it continued to pummel the beast. The form slowed down enough to where Adam could finally make out the humanoid shape, it did look human, in shape at least but it didn't move like a human at all Adam thought.
This mysterious being grabbed the beast in a headlock and a large swirling vortex of black energy began to form around the neck of the beast, spinning faster and faster. With a puff of black smoke, the shadow disappeared into the void and the beasts head popped clean off and fell to the ground, blood pouring out of the neck hole of the body of the beast that crashed into the floor loudly.
Moments later, the shadow appeared back into existence, the shadow effect on the humanoid shaped form fading, Adam couldn't believe his eyes as the impressive visuals faded away. "Hammy!" Adam exclaimed in shock.
Adam saw from the corner of his eye, Brian craning his neck to look up, still laying from where he had landed when he come flying out of the main room from the beasts throw. "It worked." He said with a weak smile. "What happened? What did you do, you found him?"
Adam's heart was racing, he was full on about-to-die-renaline and was trying to steady his breathing. Before anyone could explain, his hiker menu popped up, he could hear and see the others popping out as well.
New Quest: Siege Of Duality Church
Stage 1 (Complete) - Second in command, Beastlord Rykaz defeated. 2000xp granted.
2700/8000xp (Level 5 Psion)
Stage 2 (In Progress) - Reconvene with the guards to uncover additional information.
“It’s so good to see you guys alive, I’m sorry I got captured.” Hammy said, walking towards the group, examining Matilda who had ignored the icicle sticking out of her leg to continue healing Naomi.
“Who is the new girl? Hikers only come in threes as far as I have ever seen.” Hammy said, puzzled.
“She was here working for the church, but was locked up in a cell once she refused to continue helping them. She was helping us out against that, Beastlord I guess. Anyway, tell us everything Hammy.”
Hammy explained that he was easily fighting them off at his farm when they come to tear the place up and abduct him, but that they had some kind of new technology that nullified all of his abilities from his hiker menu. Adam listened as he explained his mistake in combat of getting too close and cocky to one of the acolytes and he was suddenly bound and powerless.
“I’ve been stuck in here ever since, that beastlord was torturing me for information, only for the last couple of hours at least. Horrifying monster, very satisfying to get my powers back and take off its head.” He said proudly.
“Torturing? Are you okay, do you need any healing?” Adam was concerned, they needed Hammy in good shape.
He brushed away Adam’s concern with a flap of his hand “Not the first time I’ve been tortured for information, don’t worry about me. You might want to worry about Brian, he is the one that saved me and I suppose, saved all of you. I don’t think he is in very good shape though.”
Brian was still laying there, face down on the ground.
“He managed to break the nullifying chain that was blocking all of my powers, I don’t know what kinda weird trickery was going on but I managed to get back my ascendancy as well, that was all the shadow stuff you saw, I’m a Shadow Barbarian, I told you about it Adam.” Hammy crouched down next to Brian.
“Yeah, incredible to really witness your shadow abilities rather than just hearing about them. You are crazy strong!” Adam was excited to see the power of an ascended Hiker. Nothing could stop them now.
Naomi was now conscious thanks to Matilda and was informed of the entire situation. She breathed a sigh of relief. They got Brian up and walking again with a refresher of healing and some help from Hammy who was now supporting Brian on his shoulder, they made their way further into the building in search of Tob.