Chapter 100: Speed Run, Real Time Attack - Run 2
The multi-ton grotesque that snapped the trees like they were dowels moved with a speed that shocked the unprepared adventurers.
It had formed itself into a vaguely humanoid shape, beaked heads distributed randomly as they chattered and screamed and keened with madness. But now there were new heads. A dragon’s head, eyes rolling freely, comprised one hand, the tongue split like fingers being puppetted from within. The wide head of a frog-like herbivore gnashed its dull teeth into the air. The chitinous mandibles of a dozen large insectoids nibbled into nothing along the creature’s right leg. A tattered fan of flesh material spread out on its back, wing-like, but utterly useless, and on the slumped mound of what should have been a head, a horn and a stinger were held in place.
Ledot was the first to go down.
Like a horrifying reversal of a sea anemone, the grotesque was spreading out just as much as it was moving forward, and the human simply hadn’t noticed as he’d stared in horror. The orcish woman had leaped away, a volley of arrows doing exactly nothing after sticking into the flesh of the seething creature whose flesh bubbled.
He had been about to call out a command when a tendril wrapped around his leg and pulled him to the ground, striking his head heavily against a tree as mouths on the tendril began to chew into him.
"Get back!" Kir called out as he stepped forward, pushing speed into his limbs as he cut Ledot free and tossed the man toward the rest of his party. "Take him and run!"
He dodged as the creature rounded on him, ignoring the arrows peppering its back and the single exploding knife Grey threw.
The explosion was more effective than Kir thought it would be, and a portion of the creature’s left shoulder sloughed off to reveal the lacerated flesh of the pale creature that had chased Kir and Stella through its cave.
As Archer and Grey dragged Ledot away, however, Caroon came to stand next to Kir, his broken sword in one hand and a dagger in the other.
"I’ve killed these before, you’re going to get in my way," Kir said as the monster slammed a massive arm forward, crashing the dragon’s head into the ground between him and Caroon.
"I don’t take orders from you, demon," Caroon said as he hacked the stub edge of his blade into the arm. It left a deep gash, but didn’t seem to slow the creature at all as it pulled itself closer to Kir with the same arm.