Chapter 142

Chapter 142

Chapter 142

The red dot overhead was traveling in a straight line, and Riven didn’t have much of a hard time finding it due to the size of the creature.

Six legs in the back, four bladed arms along the sides, two sets of yellow eyes, a long wingless carapace of gray chitin armor, and long pincers were all set onto the body of a gigantic mantis that was rushing over the rooftops and roadways at breakneck speed towards him. Easily the size of a tank and likely just as bullet proof, it was closing in fast with the air shimmering around its body.

Riven’s eyes narrowed, and it activated a martial art that sent it tearing through the air with a sonic boom towards his location on the prison’s roof.CHeCk for new stories on no/v/el/bin(.)c0m

“If he’s going to send one of his lieutenants, I’ll match it with some of my own. Don’t want to give away all my tricks just yet now, do I?”

Calmly watching the bullet-like creature ripping through the air, he raised his hand. “Azmoth.”

A portal of fire flared around him and the titanic demon launched out of it to meet the azag mantis. Riven saw the creature’s yellow eyes go wide in alarm just before they met, and a shockwave of fire and magma erupted when Azmoth’s infernal maul crashed into the monster’s skull.

[Riven Thane has been engaged in battle. Click to view.]

[Tiklik Longjaw has been engaged in battle. Click to view.]

The recoil was the equivalent of a baseball bat making a home run with a baseball. One moment the large mantis was rocketing towards him, the other moment it was rocketing in the complete opposite direction while aflame with a third of its face caved in.

Riven loudly cackled in amusement, watching the streaking, flaming, screeching creature bounce like a stone on water through roadways and ruined buildings. “Athela, Azmoth, kill it. Fay you stay here.”

Athela’s black tongue whipped out of her mouth with a screech of glee and she blurred forward - jumping off the roof and tearing towards the injured monster who was still writhing on the ground blocks away. Azmoth pursued them afterwards with a boom when he landed from the 2 story jump, then effortlessly bulldozed his way through the layers of barbed wire fences while bursting into flames.

“You don’t wish to kill it yourself?” Fay asked curiously, side-eying her master with a cocked eyebrow and folded wings.

“Nope. We have other targets to draw out.”

***

Tanya clutched her two small daughters in the corner of her family home’s basement. Her red hair was frazzled, her kids were crying, the house was literally shaking from the battle being waged right outside their doors. Being woken up in the very early hours of the morning by her husband to the sound of blaring sirens, system notifications, gunfire and unearthly screams from a monster swarm was not something she thought she’d ever experience - but here she was.

“We’ve barricaded the door down here with everything we have!” Derrick, her husband said with a grimace and heavy breathing. He looked over his shoulder to where Tanya’s stepfather John was still inspecting the makeshift barricade - adjusting things here or there on the pile to feel useful in a situation where they were all rather useless.

Derrick grunted, then leaned against the stone wall of the basement and slid down to a sitting position next to his eldest daughter - wincing when the house shook again under the crash of a large body outside. His daughters were already silently crying, and he patted both their heads with a loving smile - one that’d won over Tanya’s heart when they were younger. “It’ll be alright girls, the military will save us.”

Off in the other room the rest of the family, including Tanya’s mother in law and two sisters in law were all huddled together around the cortex forums that were rapidly uploading video feeds and information with live streams of the battle. System notifications had already been coming and going with different battle targets being engaged or killed off, while two of their own targets had died within only a few minutes of the battle having started. Being caught in the crossfire was certainly a worry, but they may all be gonners regardless of whether or not they were found by monsters if the military couldn’t hold these attackers at bay from killing all 5 of the defending side’s targets. If that were to happen, Tanya could only hope the system’s ‘purge’ would be quick - because by the looks of things it wasn’t going well outside and she couldn’t bear the thought of her children dying a horrible, agonizing death.

They were such good little girls, and they deserved to live. They deserved to grow up and find husbands, bear children of their own, laugh and cry and enjoy all the little things that were important in life. But Tanya wasn’t sure if they’d make it, even after all they’d been through with the tutorial and frequent monster attacks up until now - they still might not make it.

Not with this army of carnivorous creatures tearing through the outer suburbs,killing and devouring anyone they came across.

“You should go watch with the others...” her husband said, smiling Tanya’s way and gripping her hand. “I’ll stay with the kids. You keep looking over at my mom and sisters, I know you’re nervous and want to watch it. It’ll make you feel better.”

Tanya’s pale face shifted his way, lips quivering into a smile of her own, putting on a brave face for little Elsie and Sara. “Yeah, I think that’d help a lot. Thanks honey.”

Kissing each of her daughters for a brief goodbye, she then bent over and gave Derrick a long, drawn out, passionate kiss - one that they hadn’t shared the likes of for a long, long time. “If we make it out of this alive...”

She whispered, putting her forehead against his. “Let’s spend more time together. We let work life get in the way of the important things, let’s not make that mistake again. Ok?”

Derrick choked up, but nodded and pushed her away. “Go watch, you can bring me updates from time to time. Hurry! Go!”

Cries of horror and outright denial abruptly erupted from around the corner, and Tanya startled only to realize why her husband’s family was so upset a split second later.

[Governor Banks has been killed in battle by Azag Hive Cluster forces. 2 of 5 battle targets for the defenders remain.]

Derrick and Tanya shared a pale look, only for Tanya to dash around the corner and bring up the notification showing Governor Banks’ demise.

It’d been an assassination. Although the Governor had been on the opposite side of the city, he’d been run down in the street with an entire escort of military personnel being ravaged in the process of trying to protect him and escort him to one of the towers downtown. The scene was bloody, gore-filled, and just outright horrible - and Tanya had to cover her mouth while watching the people there get eaten and slaughtered as they fought back to kill as many of the azag hive cluster as they could. Even some of the braver civilians had come out of their homes with shotguns, pistols, submachine guns or whatever else they could find - and the groups of adventurers, mercenaries and makeshift guilds that’d formed in preparation for the coming ‘Guild’ system had also taken to the streets to help defend their homes.

It was one of three combination attacks she could program into the ability. Flurry drastically increased the speed and strength of any pre-programed 9-move combination, moving faster than a normal brain could process or her normal body could move without the martial art. This particular version of flurry included a lunge forward that was meant for aerial attacks, not needing any kind of solid-footing to do it as the stamina literally propelled her like a rocket would.

*CRASH*

The azag mantis activated its own hardening ability just in time to avoid most of the flurry, but not all of it. Athela smiled when she felt one of her claws rip through the front of the armored thorax and into softer tissues right under one scythe-like arm, only to feel the rest of her slender arachnid blades bounce off the quickly hardening body in a spray of sparks.

She cackled and kicked off, backflipping dozens of yards away onto a tiled rooftop and abruptly rolling to rip the throat out of another mantis with a wicked grin Tiklik’s way. “GOTCHYA THAT TIME BITCH!”

Azmoth’s maul exploded with flame and a shockwave of kinetic energy blasted through another wave of the incoming enemies further down the street - leveling an entire burning block of the neighborhood in an instant with a shower of debris.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” Tiklik screeched in agony, stomping the ground with its six legs and cursing in a language she didn’t understand while its limp upper-left arm snapped off by the thin thread of meat she’d left behind. “MAY YOU BE BLASTED BACK TO THE HELLS FROM WHENCE YOU CAME, YOU DIRTY BITCH!”

“Hey, only my master gets to talk to me like that!” Athela winked, then cackled again when she imagined what Riven would say after reviewing the footage later. “I am quite hilarious, I know. Don’t mind me!”

Her hand blurred again, knocking aside a spine projectile that’d been launched her way from one of the stinger-variants these monsters had for ranged units. The spines were covered in acidic goo, were anywhere between two and five feet long, acted as the actual stinger tips until fired, and were just as fast as bullets were when shot - but Athela’s claws were faster and it only took a slight nudge to push the spine off course and redirect the trajectory.

She retaliated with her own spray of threading needles from her six spider legs, jolting the mantis with the stinger that was starting to harden yet another spine in real-time to replace the projectile it’d fired. The mantis screeched angrily and started yelling back at the demon as it died, but it quickly slumped over - riddled with holes and dozens of needles that leaked blood.

*BOOM*

The tiled roof she stood on shook, and Athela’s eyes widened in surprise when she saw Tiklik had used yet another martial art to close the distance in an instant while she’d been distracted. Her mind almost blanked upon seeing a blade closing in for her neck only a couple inches away, and with reflexes akin to a cat on crack - she bent her back at a 90 degree angle to avoid the swipe and counterattacked with blades of her own.

The roof collapsed under the weight of the monster’s landing, but a spray of blood and a loud gurgling sound met Athela’s ears over the snapping of wood and rising dust.

She unloaded everything she had through the cloud of debris, swiping and slicing blindly at the flailing body in front of her while dodging retaliatory strikes to hit her that were just as blind as her own.

The two combatants crashed onto the stairway of the second floor, only for part of the stairway to give next when the railing snapped off. The huge body of Tiklik Longjaw unceremoniously flopped and smashed face-first onto the cracked, burned side where Azmoth had hit it earlier - and it let out a pained wheeze just before Athela’s claws hand shot forward into the back of its skull.

*CRUNCH*

Athela’s evil smile widened from ear to ear, far wider than any normal human could do, and she let out a delighted screech of victory as she pulled out the brain of the creature for the entire audience of Chicago to witness. Doing a little happy dance, she flung the gray matter over the spasming body of the monster to splat against the wall, then trot out of the ruined building that crumbled behind her to fully collapse while she dusted herself off.

[Tiklik Longjaw has been killed in battle by Thane Necropolis forces. 4 of 5 battle targets for the Attackers remain.]

Athela could literally hear an excited roar of faint cheering in the distance that rose up towards the heavens immediately as the notification appeared. It came from miles away and from multiple directions, and she posed for the system’s camera she knew was there somewhere. “Yes, yes, I’m great - I know!”

She tossed her long black hair to the side and humphed, hands on her blood-covered hips to pose yet again. “Princess Athela to the rescue! HEY, ASSHOLE!”

She pointed to Azmoth who was munching nonchalantly on a bug carapace while silently staring her down from a couple yards away. Raising his maul with his left hands, he smashed it down onto another bug that was trying to bite one of his flaming, armored legs.

“WERE YOU THERE JUST WATCHING ME THIS ENTIRE TIME!?” Athela screeched angrily, stomping over to the larger demon with a scowl. She then threateningly whipped one of her sharpened spider legs out to point directly at his face from an inch away. “THIS ISN’T SNACK TIME! THIS IS A BATTLE GOD DAMN IT, YOU GOTTA HELP ME OUT!”

Azmoth stopped chewing, then gestured over to a field of flaming, dead mantis monsters who were scattered amongst the remains of the burning neighborhood. “Azmoth did help. I fight many monsters, Athela just slow to kill big one. Not Azmoth’s fault Athela is weak.”

“YOU TAKE THAT BACK!”

“Azmoth not take it back. Azmoth stomp Athela like little baby. Now come, we go find Riven and help kill more.”

Athela opened her mouth to retaliate, a quivering blade-like leg still pointed in Azmoth’s direction, but eventually harrumphed and started walking towards the storm of blood magic and cursed cloud that’d intermixed about half a mile away. “This is not over you god damned sasquatch-wannabe! When we’re done here, we’re having a 1 versus 1 battle to the death! Then once one of us is sent the nether realms, we’ll see just who is the weak one and who is the pussy ass bitch!”

Azmoth heaved his large stone maul, etched with lines of magma, over one shoulder and grunted his agreement. “Fine. We make bet though. If Azmoth win, Azmoth uses Athela as chair for whole month.”

“And if I win you have to be my little-wee-baby that I get to stomp on every night for a month! You’ll have to pretend cry like a little-wee-baby too whenever I do it - and you’ll have to beg for my lullabies. IT’LL BE HUMILIATING! Now shut up and let’s go!”

“I just said we go. You the one holding us back by taking long time to kill single bad mantis monster while Azmoth fight army.”

“SHUT IT TWIRP!”