NOVEL NEXT 62: A shock dance for two
Fern Village
Everyone waited for the arrival of Mimic Illusive Corpse; Eliz wasn't the only one who was nervous. Raiana constantly fidgeted with her fingers, Alarr had an expression that could rival any piece of stone, Holm kept looking towards the pit and wishing Lady Elizabeth didn't have to be there, Fraril remained calm, and Grash was just waiting and wanting it to be over. When he joined the Dark Mages, no one asked him to be creative! Why did he have to start now?
There were only a few villagers on the villagers' side, including the command trio, who were waiting to be instructed by their scout to move to where they needed to go. Emina watched everything from afar, but Sil Ga and Gabril were in the assault group, or rather the support assault group.
Their strength wasn't enough to cause any significant damage to the monster, but they were supposed to act as annoying insects. At the very least, Sil Ga could handle that role perfectly.
Grash on the roof pricked up his ears, and his tail curled a little as he turned his head in one direction.
Sil and Gabril saw one of the 1st Rank Runners rushing towards them, giving them a hand signal. The group of six began to move around the hole so they could face the monster.
Soon, they could hear the sounds of the monster dragging its large body down the street, but the first thing they saw was a fine haze of gas before the Mimic Illusive Corpse itself emerged from it. It stopped, and for a moment, the monster mimicked the curious bird's gaze as it turned its head to one side and then the other.
Grash readied himself on the roof, pouring out the accumulated Dark Mana from the container, touching it lightly with his fingers before licking them and looking up at the monster. Naturally, he thought of not doing his homework just to see how things would turn out, but just the bow made the collar tighten uncomfortably around his neck.
"It would have been more fun," he muttered to himself in dissatisfaction. Playing with life was one of his favorite pastimes, besides bed pleasures.
Grash looked at the monster again, waiting for the right opportunity.
The monster finally moved, heading towards the waiting group of villagers who launched their distant attacks at it. Compared to the Rank 5 monster, it looked pretty pathetic, like a kitten trying to beat a lion to death with its paw.
But the group of villagers wasn't really giving heart; they were just there to distract and then scatter into the stakes and make random harassing attacks.
When Grash saw the monster's exposed back, he immediately cast a black orb of Dark Mana at it. It missed precisely, the orb sticking to the monster's feathers, but it didn't matter. Grash could control the dark mana from a distance, though he had to be careful about how far away he was from Mimic.
The dark mana began to split and crawled quickly to the monster's back, wrapping itself around the gas-emitting mushroom. Grash had to move to another location to see and kept working on the task; the sound of escaping steam faded.
"Hm? It won't even notice? How boring. That's too easy. When it died, did its brain also die?" Grash commented, seeing that Mimic hadn't noticed anything.
Grash stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply. Mimic paused and turned its head in his direction, and at that moment, the villagers began to flee. They still needed to let some gas dissipate.
Mimic turned again, and then it noticed the hole. It pulled its large body closer and looked at it curiously. The monster was at Rank 5, and it was known that the stronger the monster was, in addition to becoming more powerful, it also became smarter. However, that wasn't true for all monsters. Plant monsters that had no intelligence to begin with had a hard time becoming smarter.
The same was true for the undead, and that included undead humans. They were smarter than plants, but even a dog was a genius compared to them. Mimic was part undead man and snake, and he chose to mimic a bird. None of these were particularly clever creatures. Even when it reached Rank 5, it was safe to guess that it wasn't smarter than a one-year-old child. In most cases, it was more likely to follow its instincts.
So when it saw a hole with water at the bottom, it saw a bird drinker. It got close to the edge, and it started to tilt downwards.
Everybody saw it, and they froze. No one expected Mimic to stop chasing moving prey and instead start exploring the hole!
When Alarr saw it, he turned pale. He immediately tightened the scarf around his mouth and nose and charged forward.
Eliz, meanwhile, looked up when she saw something looming over the edge of the hole. Mimic Illusive Corpse tilted his fake peacock head down, and Eliz's heart nearly stopped. This was not going according to plan! What are they doing there!
Eliz slowly lowered her body into a squat to make herself smaller and watched the monster approach the bottom. It entered the hole with the front of its body and soon began to touch the bottom.
Mimic then began to drink. He lifted the bird's skull with his hands and dipped his beak into the water, imitating tilting his head back as he swallowed. Eliz would have thought it ridiculous, especially since it made a sort of pleased chirping sound as it did so, if the rigid eyes of the real head weren't staring right at her.
She watched the water flow through the bird's empty skull when suddenly the skull shot forward like a shot arrow. Eliz probably would have become pierced like a skewer if she hadn't lunged forward.
The beak of the bird skull pierced through the dirt where she had been crouching, and large chunks of dung exploded upwards. Scared and angry that everything could go wrong right from the start, Eliz decided to act on her best instincts.
As soon as she landed, Eliz slammed into water with both hands. "Shock!"
Her hands flashed for a moment, and a powerful electric discharge flew through the water, striking the monster, but Eliz also got wet due to the escape. Eliz and Mimic began to tremble and jerk like two dancers on the same dance floor.
The monster's body began to slide further into the hole due to the shocks and threatened to crush Eliz completely, but a blue-lit figure glimmered at the edge of the hole and jumped in.
It landed right next to Eliz, grabbed her, and threw her over its shoulder like a sack of potatoes. With a swift motion, it jumped out of the hole again. Eliz, her eyes bulging and tears rolling, saw how most of Mimic's body had fallen into the hole.
Eliz didn't stop shaking as tiny electrical shocks still raced through her muscles, and she looked up at her rescuer.
Alobela wore one of her rare worried expressions. "My lady, I told you it was too dangerous for you," Alobela sighed.
Eliz knew that most of the plan had gone wrong, but it didn't mean failure either. They had gotten Mimic into the hole and managed to shock him; that was their main goal. Now the next step could be taken.
"At... Atk... Attack!" Eliz managed to overcome the grinding of her teeth and shouted the order just before she froze. The shock was followed by a momentary paralysis.
"Shit, I hope this doesn't become a habit, that I end up in a bad situation. I desperately need to do something with my fighting power already," Eliz thought as Alobela carried her further away from the hole. Being thrown over her shoulder was very uncomfortable, the sharp shoulder of Alobela pressing right into Eliz's stomach.
It seems she wasn't the kind of woman people take in their arms like a princess.
When Alarr saw that Alobela had appeared and jumped into the hole, quickly carrying Elizabeth out, he sighed in relief. He was about to approach, but before he could reach them, he heard Lady Elizabeth give the order.
He turned around just in time to see the monster's body in the hole start to slide down with him. Holm ran headfirst like an angry bull, a blue glow enveloping his body and slamming into the back of Mimic's body, knocking the rest of him into the pit. Since the monster was down headfirst, his snake body collapsed onto the front, making him strangely twisted.
It would give them a little more time before it would be able to wriggle out of the hole later.
Raiana appeared next at the hole, and then Fraril, along with Grash who had jumped off the roof. Alarr was the last to arrive, and they all spread out around the hole.
A glow surrounded all five, and they began their attacks. Raiana sent her mana into her sword from which a squadron of Mana Swallows emerged, striking Mimic's body like a shower of arrows. Her attack did almost no damage, so instead, she aimed her attack at one spot, finally managing to tear through the monster's thick skin.
Holm, being a melee fighter, jumped down onto the monster's stiff body, his clenched fists surrounded by mana in the form of large fists, and began to bombard his enemy with crushing attacks. His attacks were fast and crushing until rumbling sounds rang out all around.
Grash paused for a moment as if considering what attack would be best before his mana took shape. It was the first time he was showing his normal power and not that of a Dark Mage, and the form of his mana was rather surprising. He was a small Buddha-like figure with two faces, one smiling and the other frowning horribly. The figure had one hand raised in front of his face from which attack sickles began to fly out, slicing through the monster's feathers as if he was scything grain.
Fraril, like Holm, jumped onto the monster's body and pulled out two sharp daggers, which were immediately surrounded by mana, and stabbed them into the monster's body. It was the only time his attack passed through the Mimic's skin with little difficulty, and blood began to flow.
Alarr raised his two-handed sword above his head and leapt forward, his sword blazing with mana that resembled flames and also struck. The impact of his attack caused a minor shockwave and managed to create a bloody, shallow gash on his skin. As Alarr feared, there was no way they would be able to kill Mimic this way.
All five attacked with all their might, not wanting to miss a second of the advantage they had gained, which was still too short.
The Mimic Illusive Corpse was slowly starting to move as it made its way out of paralysis.
Alarr gritted his teeth; they still had a maximum of five seconds before they would have to move away. "Grash! What about the collar?" He called to Grash.
"What about it, mate?! That idiot fell on its head in there! How am I supposed to put it on?" replied Grash, who had a slightly awkward smile on his face.
Alarr's expression fell; that was certainly a problem. The mimic's body began to move. "Retreat!" Alarr yelled, and everyone jumped away. Only Grash stayed nearby.
The monster moved more violently, its body twisting as it got stuck in the hole and tried to get out. Alarr looked back and saw in the distance that Alobela was standing next to Elizabeth, who was also already recovering, helping her to her feet. It looked like she was arguing with Alobela.
Alarr focused again on the monster in front of him as he felt a tremor from the ground.
Mimic's body twisted like a snake, slamming into the walls of the pit, which began to crumble and expand.
The bird-skulled hands were the first to circle, followed by the rest of the body. The Mimic Illusive Corpse flew up with a loud cry of an angry peacock, the monster's scream so loud it vibrated the inner ear of everyone nearby.
They all attacked again, but this time from a distance, their mana attacks exploding against the monster's body, which staggered under the onslaught, the bird skull spinning in their direction.
Mimic suddenly raised the skull to its true face, opening its beak and its mouth as well. They all saw as mana began to gather in the dark pit of the monster's mouth. "Move!" Alarr shouted for everyone to avoid the incoming attack. There was definitely no way that they would be able to hold back the attack of a monster of this level.
Everyone started to move, and so did Grash, who didn't run away; instead, he hung onto the monster and jumped. "Hahahaha!" He laughed while he was in the air and jumped onto the monster's back. He began to climb up quickly, and Mimic, without stopping to prepare his attack, began to turn around.
A thick stream of condensed mana shot out of the mimic's mouth, destroying everything in its path. The ground evaporated, stone crumbled, wood splintered.
BOOM!
The ground shook until the surrounding houses shook. The attack was short but devastating, leaving a crater that destroyed everything in the area. Two houses were so completely destroyed by this attack that only the foundations remained.
Click.
Grash smiled triumphantly as he snapped his collar around Mimic's neck in a moment of silence and jumped away.
Grash couldn't laugh for long. Mimic may have imitated a peacock, but that didn't mean he didn't use everything he had in a fight.
Out of the corner of his eye, Grash saw movement, and the feathered tail of the monster struck him from the side.
Smack!
Grash flew violently to the side, where his body hit the ground a few feet away. Black blood spurted onto the ground.
Grash was motionless.
Eliz soon began to recover with the help of Alobela. The situation wasn't good, and she wanted to go to Mimic again and give him another shock, but honestly, she was quite afraid to do it herself. The monster might be looking out for her now, and she didn't have the physical stamina or speed.
So she turned to Alobela to carry her again. Quickly there, sock the monster, and quickly away.
However, the answer she got, was not what she expected.
"No," Alobela refused.
"No?" Eliz repeated in surprise.
"It is too dangerous for you, my lady. You almost lost your life once already," Alobela replied calmly, taking the stabbing of the purple daggers that had become Eliz's eyes with no problem.
Eliz had mixed feelings about it. She understood why Alobela felt the need to protect her, but that was irrelevant now.
"It's too late for that. If you wanted to insist, you should have done it before. We're in the middle of a fight now. There's no time to hesitate!" Eliz shook her head.
"And if you don't want to, I'll go to Raiana. You're not a fighter after all, maybe it's for the best." Eliz looked towards Raiana only to see Grash victoriously put on his collar and then get a bloody slap from the monster's tail.
Eliz froze as she saw black blood spurt out, and Grash's body twisted unnaturally. He flew away and remained lying motionless.
She was horrified, opening her mouth in a dumbfounded exclamation. Not because who knew how much she liked him; he was useful, and she needed his dark mana, but it was the first time someone had died under her command.
It was a bad feeling. It was guilt. Eliz had worked hard to make sure people didn't die under her command, but she knew it was inevitable.
"I'm alive!" Grash suddenly jumped up and smiled.
Eliz had a blank look in her eyes for a moment. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth...
"I'm alive!" Grash exclaimed as black blood poured from his face, and his arm was obviously broken.
"Asshole!" Grash could only hear out of one ear now, but he could still hear Kitty yelling at him from a distance.
He waved a healthy hand at her and then looked towards the monster.