Chapter 166

◈ Chapter 166:

Baera struggled up from where she'd been washed up against the wall along with nearly a hundred others, wails of alarm emanating from the tangled party goers, their clothing soaked through to the skin.

Something was happening that was for sure, perhaps the flashy showing off the high levelers liked to indulge in had gotten out of control?

She pushed aside a waterlogged wooden butler who was still trying to serve her drinks and strode through the mansion, passing through hall after hall finding furniture, tables, and chairs washed up against the walls along with shell shocked guests and servants.

It seemed she was nearing the epicentre of the devastation as the surrounding area had been swept clean.

A great open arched entrance came into view. She stepped past it and perceived the inside of a hall.

She froze.

An enormous black wolf monster was exhaustedly crawling up a set of stairs, occasionally pausing to vomit up water.

The Anomaly.

Baera swallowed. She hadn't expected to just freaking find the thing!

Memories of her fight with it in the dungeon flashed across her mind, a predator hunting them from the pitch black shadows, a thing that came for her and bit through her prized armour such was its raw jaw strength.

Now it was far far larger and no doubt far far stronger, her plan had been to make use of Bane, setting up some kind of trap for the anomaly.

But Bane wasn't with her.

She narrowed her eyes as she watched the monster laboriously climb. A black mist seemed to be drifting down onto its fur from the ceiling. At the top of the steps was a pregnant goblin, next to her sat a half woolie, and by her hooves were the legs of one of the party goers.

She blinked. Just the legs? Wait, less? as she watched the legs started to disappear, dissolving into thin air, a rippling heat haze forming in the air above. Odd.

The sheep girl didn't seem to notice, staring at the black knife in her hands as she swayed where she sat, slowly blinking, clearly unsteady. Perhaps she had hit her head.

Was this her opportunity? The anomaly seemed preoccupied with recovering from an apparent drowning.

She did have her new weapons…

Yes, perhaps this was it. Perhaps this was karma returning her something nice for all the shame and pain she had suffered as of late.

She took a step, then another. The anomaly didn't react, didn't notice.

Her stride became longer, more confident, and she came up behind the monster.

He was lying over the steps, an enormous mass of black fur.

It would never be more vulnerable.

She flexed her metal arm and blades one by one extended from her knuckles.

Then she leaned back and punched with all her might.

A roar of pain came from the monster as the blades speared through its lower back, steel hitting spine.

For a moment she thought she had him, but then the steel blade snapped against the bone, the bone proving stronger at such an angle, and the other blades failed to reach deep. She found herself stumbling forward awkwardly.

The anomaly whipped around, eyes bright with outrage, and a paw lunged for her head. She managed to lift her armoured arm just in time, just before it ripped her head off.

Instead the paw crashed against it, the metallic shriek of metal deforming under a brutal blow filled the air and she was blown off her feet and launched across the entire hall, slamming against the opposite wall.

She slid down with a thump and nearly died then and there as a massive black tiger launched itself at her, mouth open wide to rip her throat out. The arm came up and teeth clanged as they hit, the tiger snarling as it was pushed back, her ruptured metal arm waving metallic slime monster tentacles from the gaps.

Then one of the spikes on her forearm suddenly lunged out, the slime behind it forming new metal to eject it, and it struck the tiger under the chin, stabbing right though its head out the other side.

She pulled back as the tiger flinched and she swung the arm down, the remaining blades from its knuckles that weren't snapped slicing through the tiger and shredding it to mist.

Breathing heavy with one hand against the wall to steady herself she looked over at the anomaly.

It was staring at her, feeling gingerly at its back as black mist continued to pour into its fur, including what had been the tiger.

She spoke.

"Kneel and accept the removal of your head. If there is a single fragment of leveler left within you then you should beg me to kill you, it is your responsibility to our kind."

Rain snarled and took a step forward as the last of the black mist slipped into his fur.

Then things started to emerge.

Horrible things.

Baera started as a tiger with centipede mandibles for a mouth, owl wings, and a centipede for a tail climbed from his fur, then another, then another, and then finally a shifting writhing mass of centipedes upon two legs, a domestic cat head perched at its top.

"Meow?" said the cat.

This… was not good. The anomaly had changed, this new and strange dark ability must be an evolution, a worrying one.

She staggered to the side as the first pitch black tiger lunged for her, mandibles impacting against the wall even as she slashed along its side leaving a long misting gash.

Then continuing the motion around she grabbed for a large table that had been washed up against the wall and flung it across the room at the anomaly.

The anomaly snarled and turned it into a cloud of splinters with a brush of its paw.

Yeah, there was very little to zero chance that she could kill this thing alone.

It was time to change that equation.

She drew in a deep deep breath and bellowed at the top of her lungs.

"UNSLAVED MONSTER!"

Her voice echoed through the halls and like some kind of undead the bedraggled levelers started to rise, soaked wet clothes no impediment as the light of greed filled their eyes.

Even the nearly drowned in the hall who were still vomiting up water were perking up hearing that, situational awareness rising until their eyes found Rain, a very large monster, one that just radiated an aura of being of great worth in levels, even for a high leveler.

They rose to their feet.

"How does it make you feel knowing that you are seen as the enemy of civilization? That all levelers hate you?" sneered Baera, carefully stepping around him at a distance while keeping an eye on the tigers

Rain blinked at her. "Sometimes I can't tell the difference between the past and now when it comes to that."

"Then your death needs to come all the quicker."

Myra who had been creeping up behind Rain suddenly let loose and a comet of winged purple fire roared from her palms.

Rain turned, ducking even as a tiger leapt into the air to block. It was vaporised in a violent explosion, one that singed Rain's fur.

He looked over himself in shock, then realising what had happened, and who had shot magical fire at him, he roared like a mindless beast, the floor shaking and bucking as spit flecked from his maw, the air visibly rippling as all windows shattered.

He charged, launching himself at the elf who giggled and skipped back through the doorway she had come through, a door too small for Rain to follow.

He tried anyway, one arm reaching, scrabbling for her as he slammed home up to the shoulder.

Baera saw her chance and raced between the tigers who were keeping the other levelers at bay, darting up and punch-stabbing, broken blades sinking into the monster's side nearly a full foot.

With a snarl Rain twisted and grabbed for the arm, blades ripping from his fur with a wash of blood. As he did he lunged down, mouth opening wide to bite, just as he had in the dungeon, to destroy the armour.

Spikes exploded from its surfaces as his teeth enclosed it and punched up through the roof off his mouth and skewered his tongue, pinning it against the bottom of his mouth.

Rain went cross eyed and paws that had taken the arm in hand shoved the arm away, wrenching the arm in the same motion, the plates of metal coming apart under his strength and the mechanics and slime insides pulling apart.

Baera screamed her rage, whipping her semi liquid arm up. It looped around his neck forming a ring of garbled metal chunks and metal slime. She kicked off the ground, swinging up and around until she was standing on his back. Pulling the sword she had taken from Jhaeros free with her real arm she began stabbing, stabbing over and over into his flesh as he tried to grab for her. She managed three times then four before dark erupted from his fur. A massive set of wolf teeth forming on his back and then snapping closed like a bear trap around her hips to bisect her, or at least they would have if she hadn't leapt from him, landing and rolling across the marble before jumping to her feet.

Yes this was viable, she could wear the monster down, she-

A tiger leapt at one of the levelers to her side and his body just... dissolved, teeth and claws slashing through him, his body lacerated into pieces that thumped wetly against the ground, chunks amongst a slurry of meat. An eyeball rolling free from the horrifying sight skidded up against her steel clad boots.

Baera's face paled and her skin became covered in cold sweat. She had been inches from touching that stuff with her bare flesh or being cut by it, apparently inches from dying.

She watched as the tigers started steadily dismantling the bedraggled levelers, tearing them to pieces before they could gather themselves to put up a resistance.

It was only as fresh reinforcements poured in through the doors did the tide start to turn, the tigers being peppered with strikes until they dissolved, but even then that was a struggle, that is until Brax arrived. The young leveler strode into the hall with a bundle of spears under his arm.

He picked one spear out, leaned back and then hurled it.

The thing shot out perfectly, and simply obliterated the tiger it struck, the impact point of the spear causing the tiger to crater around it.

He did it again and again, methodically destroying the shadowy creatures until there was none left apart from the true monster itself, a great wild beast surrounded on all sides by civilised levelers.

Brax strode toward Rain, the one remaining spear in hand. He held it out, pointed at Rain's head.

"They say that if you lead a good life you may be reborn once more as a leveler, karma for a life well spent. But you Rain, you vile little poisonous beggar, were reborn as a monster. Fitting. It's clear now that you are one of those people who would be enormously improved by disappearing from the world forever."

Rain stared at the proud leveler, the very picture of a hero, head held high, pose noble.

Rain's voice came out completely flat and dry.

"I invite you to dine on my taint."

Brax's eyes flashed with white hot indignation and he lunged with a cry, the spear aiming for Rain's heart.

Rain shifted, just avoiding the incredible and lethal speed of the spear by taking it in the shoulder.

The thing was, he'd wildly underestimated his opponent. The spear sunk through skin and muscle and flesh and struck bone, piercing deep then getting stuck before pushing, pushing with such immense force that the bone was yanked from its socket, dislocating it.

The bone shattered as it popped free and the spear drove through the other side, puncturing back out into fresh air. Brax set his feet and twisted, fists gripping as he swept to the side.

The spear ripped out the side of the arm, gore exploding around it as muscle and flesh tore.

Rain looked down in disbelief at his instantly destroyed arm hanging limp at his side.

What the fuck was this strength?! Brax made an orc look like a toddler! How!? How was he capable of this?!

He barely had time to think as the spear swung around and was brought down with a chop, not even being used as a spear but as a cutting weapon like an axe.

Rain's good arm moved and his paw snapped up, catching the shaft in his paw and preventing it from bisecting him.

To his dismay he found that he couldn't stop it, the spear still came on, his muscles bulging as Brax drove it down, all the superiority of his noble arrogance clear on his face.

Rain could only watch as the spear was driven down, down, until the blade was touching his chest, digging though his flesh.

He snarled and changed position, leaning into the spear and digging his claws into the marble below for grip.

He still found himself being pushed back, feet slipping across the marble and scoring lines with his claws as Brax forced the spear down through sheer unimaginable brute force.

It wasn't supposed to be this way!

Rain roared, pouring everything he had into forcing the spear back.

It didn't matter. The blade began to saw down through his sternum cutting into his chest, into the bone.

With a howl of frustration he managed to shove the spear to the side, slicing a deep cut across his chest in doing so, and stumbled back.

Brax didn't let him have a moment to recover, stepping into his retreat and stabbing hard and fast, the sick thud thud thud as spear met flesh filling the air as hole after hole was shot through Rain's chest, lungs, stomach, legs, arms, neck, groin, and face, the attack was relentless, a none stop gatling of thrusts that Rain couldn't stop even in the slightest. He was powerless.

"Stop!" came a ragged scream, and Brax hesitated, a moment Rain took to allow dark to disgorge from his fur as a confused un-formed morass of teeth and claws that made Brax take a wary step back, unwilling to come close to it.

He glanced to the side to see Opal on the stair, two dark talons in her hands, a sheep girl holding onto her clothing, holding her back.

That caught Brax's attention. He very clearly noted the dark cloud spilling from Rain and the things Opal was holding.

"Yours too?"

Rain opened his mouth, or what was left of it, his jaw had been divided neatly in two and gallons of blood waterfalled over his chest.

"N-NO." he managed, the word garbled as his tongue was split apart.

It was the end. Brax did not have even the slightest bit of mercy in him. Rain would die here, and Opal would be next, with her their children.

He had made a mistake coming here, a dreadful terrible mistake.

A mistake that would cost his and Opal's life.

He needed…

He needed to flee with his tail between his legs to put it bluntly.

But how? He was surrounded by an audience of levelers in every direction, levelers eager to kill him, he the object of their attention.

…maybe that was the answer, change the object of their attention.

He swallowed, licking what remained of his lip with what remained of his tongue.

There was a chance this might backfire.

He did it anyway.

Paw reaching, he took hold of the cloud of talons and teeth and claws and drove his will into it, hammering it, forcing it to take the form he wanted, all while pouring more and more and more of the dark from his fur, until he had forced out every single last drop he had left inside of him, forcing it out and all into one single being.

The black morass grew, taking shape, rapidly growing taller, passing well beyond his own height, reaching thirteen, then fifteen foot tall, great talons the size of cart wheels rolled as hands formed, a scale covered tail lashed, and long flowing barbells emerged from a gleefully smiling muzzle.

The giant Panthara stared down at the audience of levelers, the star-scape of its eyes becoming a deep horrifying red.

It smiled.

Rain ran.

The audience screamed.