Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 49: Solo-Fight

The raid regrouped in the broken gatehouse at the front of the city with the stink of chimera blood and sweat still thick in the air. The crumbling walls gave them half a shelter, enough for breath to be caught and wounds to be seen to.

Allie and Myrae were already weaving through the group with their sleeves rolled up and hands glowing faint with light aether as they pressed warmth into gashes and wounds. Cole uncorked potion after potion, his pack of glass vials clinking as he handed them to Allie. The strong smell of alchemical herbs joined the iron tang of blood.

“Drink it,” Allie snapped at Garret, pressing a corked vial into his hand. “Don’t argue.”

“I wasn’t gonna argue.” Garret grimaced before he tipped it back, and shuddered. “But you could’ve at least said please.”

“Please don’t die,” Allie said flatly, moving to the next patient.

Potion corks popped like firecrackers around the room. Henry’s chest wound hissed as the potion sealed it shut, leaving angry pink skin behind. Peter spat out blood before he took another gulp. Kate leaned against a wall, ribs wrapped tightly by Myrae’s glowing hands, sweat streaking her soot-stained face.

When everyone was at least upright, the talk began.

“That wasn’t the same as the others,” Eric said first. “Not like the forest, or the lake, or the garden snakes”

“No,” Henry agreed, shaking his head. His massive shoulders slumped as he drained the last of his healing flask. “The ones before were… beasts. These…” He gestured outside to the city's crumbling fixtures. “These are killers. Built for death.”

“War-forms,” Ghrukk rumbled. His halberd leaned across his knees, still smeared in dirty blood, he wiped it with an even dirtier cloth. “The hive has them waiting for us now, ready to fight back.”

The words were punctuated by Tom-Tom’s nervous chitter as he mimed the chimera’s claw swipes. The little guy’s attempt at turning fear into humor, Alex assumed. A few weak chuckles rippled through the gathering, but not much else.

“If that’s what waits in those ruins, then pushing into the hive itself is going to be a slog. Every step paid for in blood.” Kate said.

Devon cleared his throat, fiddling with his glyph stylus. “We… we could leave. We’ve got the teleportation tokens now since we cleared all the Hidden Objectives. They’ll take us back out of the Dungeon. We’ve already stripped the hive of its specialized adaptations, got a butt load of points. That’s a win.”

Garret shook his head. “I don’t like running. Not when we’re this far in.”

“Running now just means fighting them later, when they’ve had more time to adapt,” Holly added through exhaustion.

“I won’t ask anyone to stay if they don’t want to. The tokens are an option, as Devon said. But if we leave now, we leave this dungeon unfinished. And we all know the System wants excellence from us, or else...

“Death,” Alex said quietly. He sat with his back to the wall, his elbows resting on his knees. “And I doubt it will just let us walk away. Maybe not today, but eventually it’ll yank us back here sooner or later.”

A murmur of agreement followed. The System would demand they clear the dungeon in one way or another. No one liked it. But they all knew it.

“So, we keep the tokens in our back pocket a last resort. But otherwise…we finish the damned dungeon,” Eric said with a crack of knuckles. The squad nodded, one after another, even Ghrukk and his team.

Alex leaned his head back against the wall once more, shutting his eyes just for a moment. The decision sat in his stomach like first full of iron, but it was the only one that made sense. “Fine, we keep going. Be ready to pull out your tokens, though.”

Everyone nodded.

***

The ruin swallowed them as they pushed on. The silence pressed in closely, broken only by the shuffle of feet and the faint metallic clink of their gear as they walked.

Alex swept the street with his senses, and felt the faint thrum of hostile aether lurking ahead. He raised a fist. The entire line froze. Then the rumble came, a guttural, predatory sound.

From a collapsed building, two shapes emerged. Chimeras, built like raptors clad in blackened carapace, their limbs grotesquely long, tipped with serrated claws. Their eyes glowed with the cold intelligence of an angry predator, and the sound that followed was an insectile clicking that curled Alex’s blood.

“Two of them,” Holly hissed.

“No holding back,” Eric ordered. “Burn them down before they can scream for help”

The beasts struck faster than the typical beasts, faster even than the serpent-spawn of the garden maze. One pounced straight for the healers, a tactic they seemed to like doing. Garret intercepted by throwing up his shield and smashing it against the thing's head with a clang that rattled the ruins. The impact drove him to a knee, but Allie was spared.

The second chimera darted sideways, using the walls themselves like a spring board. It scaled the crumbling facade in an instant, its claws carving sparks across the walls, before launching itself down toward Kate. Her blade flashed in retaliation, fire crackling across the beast's head, but the carapace only received a fine cut and didn’t break. The thing jumped back up among the buildings just as quickly as it had come.

“Spread!” Alex yelled.

Aether roared in his channels as he slammed into the quick moving chimera’s flank, [Flare] hammering into its carapace. The beast shuddered as blood-black ichor sprayed from a crack he had managed to create. But the beast twisted around quickly, its claws raking his shoulder before he could react. Pain erupted down his arm, but he didn’t stop. Again, he cast [Flare] and it erupted point-blank, cracking another chitin plate.

Holly blurred past his right to strike at the chimera Garret was tanking. Her sword was a cyclone as she slammed the raptor into the ground. It screeched, tail whipping about, but Garret dropped his shield like a guillotine across its skull. Bones cracked loudly, yet it still thrashed and clawed.

Alex jumped back from his target as Ghrukk came in from across the street, his halberd trailing dark fiery lines as he cleaved into the beast. Peter and Zach boxed it in from the sides, their spears flashing in tandem. The chimera shrieked, backpedaled, then lunged faster than before.

“Fuckers learn quick!” Kate snarled as she ducked under a claw that shaved a lock of her hair clean.

“They don’t learn if they’re dead!” Ghrukk roared, his weapon finding a joint on the beast’s limb, cleaving its arm off with a brutal swing.

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Obby cut into Alex’s mind. “Kill them quick, or they’ll just collect more information on everyone.”

“Already on it,” Alex growled, his aura boiling.

His skin seared hot as a caustic haze spilled into his pores from the [Demon Asura Style]. He slammed a hard left hook into the beast’s body, [Burning Strike] injecting a flash of caustic aura. The chimera shrieked as its carapace began to sizzle, bubbling under the corrosive energy. Holly slammed her sword into its ribs, wind and steel cracking through the weakened armor and sinking down to bone. The chimera reared up, roaring in pain, and Alex drove his newly created knife-hand [Flare] through its exposed throat. The beasts head lulled to the ground in one direction, and its body went the other.