NOVEL NEXT CCXXXIX – Assault from Within
You have Died.
Please choose where you would like to Respawn:
=> Your Current Location
The Nearest Safe Location
The familiar words floated before Esperanza once more, though it has been quite some time since she had last seen them. She had not died often after encountering the people from Navef for the first time, but she still remembered that the [Respawn] kicked in after ten minutes on the dot. If she assumed that her group had followed the instructions she left behind…
With that thought in mind she decisively chose to [Respawn] on her current location. She also opened all of the eyes she could form the very moment she could do so, accepting the sudden influx of perception as she glanced over what was going on around her as clearly as she could, hopefully before anyone in her surroundings could react to her return.
Fortunately, her expectations were fulfilled by the other members of the group she left behind. She had ordered them to make their move exactly nine minutes and thirty seconds after they heard the end of the commotion within the temple, giving them some time to attract the attention of the remaining demons while she would [Respawn] behind their backs.
In fact, they did better than she expected, as the group had clearly taken advantage of the distraction Esperanza caused to directly rush into
the ritual area and even put down many of the still incapacitated third tier demon [Clerics] in the process. Esperanza could hear fighting elsewhere in the temple so likely some of the weaker members of the group were fending off the third tier guards in the resting areas, while the stronger ones were engaged with the four stronger fourth tier demons in the ritual area.
Dali and Gordy clearly played a role in that, as she saw the two hounding at one of the demons in question, the [Hive of Pestilence], which turned out to be a Ragah-Fiq that allowed some manner of monstrous wasps to build their nests in their body. Said wasps were kept at bay by Gordy’s mist-like form that snapped at them each time they tried to swarm out to attack the rest, while Gordy repeatedly made hit and run attacks as he nipped at the demon.
Ani kept the large, bulky Nevilosk with a maul, the [Return to Simplicity] occupied alongside several of her other warriors. The powerful demon appeared to be highly durable, while at the same time dealing out devastating blows, but she was not the fastest and was well within the group’s capability to handle. They likely had her trick figured out as well, as the demon was clearly in trouble from being ganged on by so many fourth tier warriors.
The [Progenies of Yore] tackled the other two demons. Nalihimatu kept the [Unforeseeable Executioner] and his spear away from Ilavakide and Dai’Vasy who attacked the demon from behind him, while Legisvula also harried the demon with attacks from its blindside. The four youths worked together smoothly as if they had practiced it constantly.
On the other side, Val-Kas’j, Tiesya, Resitia, Iryl, and Mel-Ivas teamed up against the [Soul-Reaping Jester], keeping the demon on the backfoot and unable to make full use of its multitude of knives with how they were constantly under attack by the five. The demon might be more powerful than any two of them put together, but with five, even they faced great trouble dealing with them.
A few of Ani’s warriors and the five from Zikeal were not in sight, so Esperanza assumed that they were the ones who kept the remaining demon warriors occupied further away in the rest area. As such, she took a moment to assess the situation and made her choice. The fighting was the most volatile between the [Hive of Pestilence] and her hounds, so she decided to help out over there first.
Esperanza took her time. Her broken form was still where it was after the demons were done with her earlier, so she kept a shell to make it appear like she was still where she was. The rest of her mass flowed over the stone floor and crept towards where Dali and Gordy were cornering the [Hive of Pestilence] together, from an angle where the demon wouldn’t notice her approach.
She was glad that the two hounds were not affected by her state and would remain even if she was in the middle of [Respawn]ing, since they were clearly carrying their weight in the ongoing battle. The two of them just happened to have the right sort of skills to neutralize the [Hive of Pestilence]
, who would have been a major problem to handle otherwise with their multitude of poisonous wasps.
The demon in question was distracted by her two hounds, so Esperanza managed to sneak up on them without too much difficulty. Once she was close enough, with as much of her body mass gathered in the vicinity, she struck.
One tentacular limb emerged with a bone blade at its end and slashed at the back of the Ragah-Fiq’s knees, severing tendons and muscle and rendering the joints useless, while another two wrapped up around the demon’s burly arms. Several other tendrils pierced through the demon’s back and burrowed into their body before they could react, even as Esperanza subjected them to the full force of her maddening aura as well.
To her own horror, Esperanza discovered from the limbs that were burrowing through the demon’s body that their body was already porous, with many criss-crossing tunnels through the demon’s flesh even before she started eviscerating them. The wasps the demon used as their weapon had literally nested inside their flesh and turned their body into a horror show, fortunately hidden from sight by their fur and cloak.
She had no idea if she should call it dedication or madness, but eventually just decided to cut the demon’s suffering short as she had her tendrils crush the demon’s heart and brain in the process, ending them in no uncertain terms. Dali had also helped her finish off the demon by tearing off their throat while she made her assault, while Gordy was focused on snapping up the wasps that the demons had released, catching and munching on them with the maws that manifested out of her mist-like form.
Esperanza herself decided to help Gordy out and crushed the wasps that appeared as if they were trying to escape the other way, and between them they quickly had the remaining wasps taken care of. Since Gordy seemed to enjoy munching on them, Esperanza tossed over the wasps she caught – half-crushed as they were – for her to snack on, which she did with gusto.
Then they turned around and split up as they went over to help the [Progenies of Yore] out with their respective opponents now that they were free to act.
