NOVEL NEXT Chapter 56: Undead Spawn-Queen?
<Alex, Real - Endure, Outside the First Magic Shop>
Alex and his companions immediately fell into their battle formation—Alex in front, flanked by Grant and Natasha with Pilar and John in the rear—the pack-teachers retreating back into the store.
I'm glad there was no back room, or other exits… Though, as Alex briefly considered, that might have been to force this fight rather than to give their non-combat folks a safe place to be. There's evidence for both, so I suppose it's down to whether I want to attribute malice or magnanimity to the creators of this subsection…
About that, he had no idea.
As he refocused, it was odd, in the moment of calm before the clash, Alex's primary thought was of the broken pavement below the monstrosity. This was the first time he'd seen the city streets fail despite the end of civilization—whether temporary or not—and it struck him as noteworthy.
The pavement might have failed because the creature was just so massive—looking more like a school bus of flesh than any natural creature—or it might have been that it seemed to have dropped heavily from above… somehow.
Regardless, the asphalt had cracked, and that was unfortunate.
Now, something like a wormy blob with a sunken-in face set high up in the blubbery flesh was glaring at them.
A moment later, Alex felt a pulse of something… familiar within the creature, and bits of its flesh fell away, each forming into what he could only describe as tiny, twisted baby-dolls.
Wait… was that…?
Each little thing was still vaguely humanoid, if a baby's doll left in the oven on preheat for a few minutes could be described as vaguely humanoid.
Each stumbled free, seemingly having to figure out how to walk from scratch, but they did that with relatively great speed. Soon toddling then walking, then sprinting at the waiting party.
That was odd, too. Only after the first of them was halfway to them did any of the initiates actually act.
John's guns began to bark even as Grant exclaimed. "Divide me by zero, spread the results on a cracker, and make me eat it."
The others grunted in acknowledgement, letting Alex know that the System had definitely interfered on that one.
Thankfully, each doll-thing rocked back in quick succession, falling dead to the ground as John hit it between the misshapen, twitching eyes.
Unthankfully, the spawn-queen thing seemed to be able to create a lot of them. Despite John's best efforts, the tide was slowly building and growing closer.
As soon as they came into her range, Pilar's fire washed over the oncoming enemies, scorching them and slowing their advance, but not seeming to have enough power to kill them outright, at least not when spread out over so many foes.
Moreover, the newest spawns had gained an odd texture to their skin. They also seemed to have harder heads as John's shots slowly had less and less effect. Though, he was still gaining one-hit-kills even while the… splash-back was slowly reducing.
Alex's Basic Mana Sense was showing more power being added to each shot as well, likely reducing the change in results that they should have been seeing.
The spawn-queen was altering its creations on the fly… on the ground? On the ground made more sense.
John was adjusting, but even as he continued to do so, a wave of power swept out from the beast.
Alex felt a light straining on his coat, but it otherwise didn't seem to do much to him.
The gunman cursed. "It removed the enhancements and buffs from my guns!"
Pilar sent in another wave of fire—to little effect—while her husband tried to reproduce his work on the two pistols in short order.
It would not be soon enough.
Alex shook himself, only then noticing the odd pressure on his thoughts, seemingly trying to subtly guide him to think of anything beside the need to act. If their inaction was any indication—along with twitching and panic on his companion's faces—they seemed to be under that influence as well.
That went a long way to explaining why he'd done very little despite the battle already entering into its second minute.
He shook himself, and felt like he was speaking through molassass, "It's using mind magic of some kind. Maybe a fear affect? Or distraction?"
Alex calling out seemed to help snap everyone out from under the growing stupor, at least to some extent.
The first of the horrid little creatures got within melee range, and Natasha struck out past Alex.
It popped under the force of her blow, coating the ground around it with yuck and getting the same all over their front line, that being Alex and Natasha.
Well, it actually only got all over Natasha where she'd lunged forward, because Alex's coat kept him dry.
He felt the magics activate, stopping the liquid barely an inch away and allowing it to simply slide to the ground, leaving him and his coat clean.
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It even seemed to project a passive barrier over his head and face, keeping his eyes clear and hair clean.
Oh, that's amazing. I like this coat. He then noticed he was being mentally diverted once more and fought against the distracting magics. That first little foe was hardly the only one, and it turned out that the dolls were squirrely, seemingly able to dodge many strikes as he and Grant tried to help.
Natasha, alone, hit with every thrust, her new tassel flashing and whipping at the end of her spear.
Even so, subtlety wasn't always required as Grant had switched his warhammer out for a heavy sledge, with which he blew through an entire line of the things, one after another, the swinging steel not slowing in the least.
Alex was trying to watch with his Basic Mana Sense, and he saw something try to activate on the resulting viscera, but it resisted as nothing else had before. In fact, the resistance to the skill came directly from the undead spawn-queen.
Alex remembered that Grant had usually been able to direct the blow-back from his attacks, in order to keep himself relatively clean and uninfected despite often creating fountains of gore.
Grant almost squealed in surprised panic as his attack sent an unexpected wave of… splatter cascading arching toward him. The man had a moment of disorientation as he stumbled backward, avoiding much of the mess. But he was unable to keep his hammer out of it. As a result, nearly all of Grant's sledgehammer handle was slicked, but he was able to keep a firm grip nonetheless, because of his new gloves.
The new spell I have for him would have been perfect for this… assuming that had worked.
But that was all he had mental space to consider as he was needed.
He performed a series of downward, angled sweeps, cutting through the creatures with abandon.
Still, there were so many of the little horrors that it was impossible to get them all, and soon, Alex had a half-dozen bites.
In his case, it was an annoyance more than anything else. The undead plague they carried was unable to do anything to him. Unfortunately, when one managed to get fully past Alex and sunk its teeth through Grant's jeans and into his leg, the man locked up, experiencing the 'change paralysis' for the first time.
"Sour milk!" Alex kicked sideways, attempting to punt the little monster-baby-thing away. Instead, his massive strength—and the seeming nature of the creatures—caused it to burst instead.
When Alex went to step down after his kick, his shoe—now covered in ick—couldn't find purchase, and he skidded forward, barely avoiding going into a front split.
"For the love of lazyboys!" He jerked himself backward with his planted foot, feeling a twinge in his back but still barely recovering enough to strike out at some spawn that were still closing in. "Pilar! Burn them back, priority 1. Anti-plague on Grant, now!"
Priority 1 meant that she would do it, even if it left her entirely empty of power, leaving her and the rest of them vulnerable.
To her credit, she did it without hesitation, dumping power into her magics to create a roiling curtain of white-hot fire that rolled away from them, leaving cleansed, shiny pavement between them and the spawn-queen.
Alex sprinted after the fire, ignoring the heat radiating up through his shoes. In a way, he was actually grateful for it, because his first step with his off-foot should have slipped due to the gore that had coated the sole, but instead, the ick was burned away.
Importantly, he could feel the magic of his coat extending downward, trying to ward off the heat and only slightly succeeding.
He decided on 'slightly' because the rubber of his shoes was only soft, rather than entirely melted.
Well, I also have no idea if my Basic Resistance - Magic is doing anything here, but I suspect it is not.
Behind him, he trusted that someone would be getting Grant a cure potion. He could have stayed and given the man his blood, but there wasn't time.
The Blood Transfusion spell in his Inventory practically burned in condemnation. If they'd taken enough time for him to learn it, he could have helped the man almost instantly… depending on how, exactly, the spell worked.
Regardless, it was useless to think on might-have-beens or what-ifs.
Instead, when he sensed that his shoes were nearing the end of what they could take, he bunched his legs beneath him and leaped, pouring all the power he could into the action.
Days earlier, at the school, he'd been able to jump more than a story upward with relative ease, and he'd more than doubled his stats since then.
Now, he practically shot forward. Just like at the school, since he didn't wish to affect the ground, it didn't crater beneath the power of his jump, instead, he felt a brief swirling of power within the material to resist his empowered push.
Once again, he felt something within the great beast call to him, and he'd aimed directly for it.
He impacted, dadao first in a multi-strike fueled double-slash. He didn't have a lot of stamina left, but it seemed pertinent to start on a good footing.
He cut deeply into the flesh, spraying himself with blood that rolled off the weather protections of the greatcoat.
Even as he stifled a joyous laugh at that protection, he reached out, and tried to send a pulse of Basic Life Transfusion, bent toward destruction, into his foe.
Just like with the death squire's armor, the skill was rebuffed. This time, however, a notification flickered through his awareness, telling him why.
Apology Tutorial, Courtesy Notice:
The direct transfer of energy into a superior being—for the purpose of doing harm—is not possible without that being's allowance. For this reason, physical mediums are generally advised, be they blade, toxin, or other means.
This notice will not be given again.
Blood… if he could transfer blood—assuming it carried his Life energy—that could have worked.
As if to answer that exact question, a doll-beast spawned almost on top of him, pulling from beside the rent flesh and lunging to slash and bite at his face. His Life's Active Defense activated, and he caught the snapping jaws, but the little claws got around his hand to reach him even so, the arms extending as none had before, taking him by surprise.
It scored a successful slash, which sent a spray of his blood outward.
The droplets that landed on the spawn-queen sizzled and burned. Alex immediately detected the little bit of his health that had been in the blood raging outward, destroying many times as much of the creature's own health in the process.
Alex growled, slamming the spawn whose face he'd caught down into the ground where it burst, sending a cascade of awful against his coat's protections.
In that moment, he knew what he had to do.
He had one job in this group. It's stupid, but he was gonna do it.
He couldn't overcome this creature by dint of blade. The wounds he'd made were already beginning to pull back together.
Pilar couldn't burn it away. Not only was she out of power, but he suspected that it was just too massive to be overcome by her meager mana pool, even were it full.
So, he moved his glorious coat into his Inventory and quickly cut the outside of his arms in a half-dozen places, all at a speed that would have been a blur to pre-system humanity.
With that done, and his blood beginning to flow freely over his limbs, he stepped into the slit he'd cut, hacking outward even as the flesh twisted and contorted around him.