Chapter 46: Game of Stairs
Inside the left Citadel.
One of two larger wolfthrall hit Hide like a vehicle.
It came in low, the chains on its shackled legs trailing behind it like iron streamers, four thick limbs driving off the flagstones with the kind of force that came from something that weighed as much as a man’s wardrobe.
Hide had half a second of warning from the sound, the chain rattle separating from the pack noise, growing louder and he threw himself sideways.
But, not far enough.
The beast’s shoulder caught him across the hip and sent him spinning two full rotations before he hit the floor and rolled. The Carapace took the stone impact, growing all over his body, tearing his cloths to shreds and everything he had along with it.
The two cards, and his communicator hit the ground.
His back scraped the flagstones hard and he was already rising before the roll finished, the Abyssal Flame surging up his forearms in automatic response to the damage input.
The hall filled his vision.
Fuu was at the stair base, two minions pressing him from the front, one trying to get around his left side. He was moving... barely, the mana in his gauntlets flickering with the irregular pulse of someone burning through their reserves. But he was keeping them off.
The other ninety-odd minions were spreading across the hall in all directions. Some toward Fuu. Most toward Hide.
And both larger wolves were loose.
The one that had charged him was turning now, its bulk swinging with the momentum of a machine reorienting. The other was coming from the left flank, its chain dragging across the flagstones with a sound that set Hide’s teeth together.
On its way, the bastard somehow hit another smaller wolf and lost its skull, but it kept moving without it.
’It doesn’t need the skull to move.’ Hide clenched his fists. ’But the goddamn skull is the anchor!’
He had already known it.
The charging wolf came at him again. Hide did not dodge this time — he stepped into it, which was the only thing that robbed the collision of its full impact, moving with the same direction as the beast rather than trying to absorb it laterally.
He caught the side of its neck with both hands as it came past and drove his weight down, using the beast’s own momentum to swing it sideways and into the floor.
The flagstone cracked on impact. The beast’s body hit with a sound like a battering ram dropped from a height.
It did not stop moving, the beast jerked its head throwing Hide away and It was up again in two seconds, the bones of it absorbing the impact.
’The head,’ he thought.’ Break its fucking skull.’
These were Calamity Beasts, not animals, but the design logic was the same: the anchor was placed where the vital organ once sat inside the body.
For a four-legged beast this size, destroying the anchor deep inside its skull was not an easy thing. Mostly because the skull was thick and covered with rotted flesh.
He needed to get through... by any means possible.
Three of the smaller wolf reached him.
They hit him simultaneously from three different angles. He caught the first minion’s jaw and crushed the skull with a single downward motion, crushing the anchor along with it.
[Calamity Beast (Wolfthrall minion) — Eliminated]
Experience points gained: 50
He drove his elbow into the second one’s skull before it could get its jaws around his forearm. The bone cracked inward. Then he threw it on the floor and crushed the skull with his leg.
[Calamity Beast (Wolfthrall minion) — Eliminated]
Experience points gained: 50
The third got its teeth into the Carapace at his left shoulder and bit down with the full force of a jaw built for crushing. The scales didn’t even feel it. Hide grabbed it by the back of the skull with his free hand and squeezed until the skull cracked and burned the anchor with flames.
[Calamity Beast (Wolfthrall minion) — Eliminated]
Experience points gained: 50
Each time a minion died, the staircase shuddered, slowly coming down from its final height.
He noticed it only on the second kill, wasn’t sure on the third, and confirmed it on the fourth — each wolfthrall he destroyed sent a mechanical pulse through the floor, and the staircase responded with a grinding descent.
’So that’s the design,’ he realised, crushing another skull without breaking eye contact with the larger wolf circling him from the right. ’The stairs lift when the trap is triggered and come back down as the hall is cleared. Kill enough and they’ll reach the ground.’
It was like a game designed for entertainment for someone looking down from above.
The larger Wolfthrall with the skull charged again. Hide ducked under the head and came up alongside the beast’s left flank as it thundered past. He drove his right fist directly into its ribcage.
The impact was like punching a stone wall.
The scales sparked and flame flared. The bones did not give.
The Carapace cracked at the knuckles slightly — just barely and the beast did not react at all, the body completing its charge as though Hide had not hit it.
Hide landed and stared at his fist.
’It didn’t break.’ Hide gritted his teeth. ’If I can’t even break its ribs, how will I break its fucking skull.’
The veins on his head popped up with anger and frustration. The Carapace slowly climbing up his neck.
He did not have long to think about it. The minions were still coming — four more, then five, pressing him from all sides while the larger wolf turned and braced for another pass.
He killed the minions quickly, skull by skull, the staircase grinding lower with each one, and kept his eyes on the bigger beast.
[Level Up]
Level: 5 → 6
Exp: 10 / 1500
Level Up reward has been added to inventory.
Hide dismissed the window.
The beast was standing still now.
Which was when he saw it.
A faint glow started from the beasts head and then moved to its mouth as its opened its jaw wide. It was mana moving down from the anchor to the beast’s face and then collecting and turning into a circular formation.
The smaller wolfthralls stepped away at that moment leaving Hide alone at the center.