Cyber Mortality

Chapter 49:

The second we walk through the door all hell breaks loose.

"Duck!" a voice screams but it is too late for the first few who go through the door. A large blade slices them clean in half before they can even react.

"Scatter!" Vyra screams before dodging to the left. In the center of the room a large creature towers at almost thirty feet in height.

"May!" Rocky shouts after dodging to the right with me. "Can you get me up their?" he points toward a balcony thirty feet up.

"Yes," I reply and grab his arm to wrap it around my waist. "Hold on tight!" I take two great bounding steps with wind before launching us upward. The wind carries us up and I gently set Rocky down once we arrive at the balcony.

"Thanks!" he replies and pulls his bow off his back. The bow is nearly white with a band of green running through the wood.

From up here I get a better view of what we are fighting. In body shape it is similar to a praying mantis. Rather than only two large arms attached to the torso it has four. On the exterior of each arm is some sort of plating and long blades extend along the forearms. It's tail also appears to be some sort of blade. It's eyes are large and red as they gaze around the room looking for who to strike next.

Everyone cowers behind the few sparse bits of cover that the room offers. Twelves columns and a few boxes mostly. Far below Vyra glares at the beast, scanning for weaknesses.

"It has a lot of plating on it's body," Rocky observes. "Looks like the eyes might be a good places to shoot and maybe the joints. I'm sure a sword could do the trick on the joints too."

"I'm going to go to Vyra," I tell Rocky before sprinting along the balcony. It spans the whole room in a large circle about three hundred feet in diameter. As I approach the place Vyra hides thirty feet below I leap off the balcony and plummet toward her. My braid floats above my head as I fall and when I am ten feet from the ground, I throw out a cushion of air to soften my landing.

"Rocky thinks we should go for the leg joints and eyes," I tell Vyra once I am standing on the ground.

"That is what I surmised as well," Vyra purses her lips. "It has six lower legs to support it's body and four arms with blades. It won't be easy to get in close to slash at the legs."

"Rocky plans to shoot at it's eyes," Vyra gazes up to find Rocky leveling an arrow toward the beast mantis. His eyes find Vyra and the second she darts forward he looses the arrow. The barbed tip soars toward the beast and stabs into it's left eye. I dart after Vyra and dodge an arm as it flails about wildly while the beast hisses in pain. We approach the beasts back right leg just as it takes a step forward. Vyra turns her staff into a naganata and slashes toward the leg as it raises. She misses the joint by a foot and her blade bounces off. Vyra kicks off the leg and flips to land back beside me.

"What is your plan?" I ask as we gaze at the leg which is the width of a small tree.

"It doesn't know we are back here yet," Vyra replies. "But once it does we will be in trouble. We need to take out as many legs as possible at once before it realizes we are here. You can use wind magic, right?"

"Yes," I nod and take a step back as the beast plants its leg where I had been standing.

Vyra's eyes turn toward where we had been hiding before rushing under the mantis. Birch stands with his shield and sword in hand and a small group of close range fighters behind him. Vyra gestures to the front right leg and Birch nods.

"Birch and his group will attack the front right leg while we go for the back two," Vyra says. Vyra then gestures to Jez who stands to the far left of the mantis with a group of mages. "The mages and archers will provide cover. You take the back right leg. Go for the higher joint. You should be able to propel yourself with your wind magic right?"

I nod and ready my swords.

"Go!" Vyra leaps forward as Jez unleashes a barrage of fire.

Birch rushes forward, deflecting a slash from the mantis' arm.

I leap, propelling myself with wind, toward the joint attached to the mantis' body. My swords slash at the joint one after the other but only cut halfway through. I keep myself afloat and take another slash, this time cutting the limb clean off.

The mantis screams, it stumbles back and nearly slams into me as I scramble to get out of the way. I propel myself backward and land some distance away.

Vyra has also severed her joint and only half of the back left leg remains attached.

The mantis stumbles before becoming accustomed to having two less limbs. Birch's team had not even gotten close to the front right limb with the onslaught of the four arms which were directed toward them.

"We need to find a better way to take care of those arms," Vyra grits her teeth. "I don't know how many more direct hits Birch can take."

"I might be able to get us up on it's back," I offer up. "It might give us a better angle if we wanted to take an arm off."

"That could work," Vyra nods.

We duck as the beast turns and its tail slashes overhead.

"Grab on," I hold out an arm and she presses herself close. Once she is secure, I propel us upward, dodging another swish of the beasts tail, before flying above its body. I glance toward Rocky as we hover above the beast looking for a good spot to land.

Rocky launches arrow after arrow at the beasts head while Birch continues trying to get close to the leg. Bodies are littered about on the ground from those unfortunate enough to not dodge out of the way of a slashing arm or leg quick enough.

I drop us on the place where the mantis' thorax starts to slope upward toward his head. Unaware of our presence, the mantis continues to slash at those on the ground before it. The joints for the arms are around the width of a sturdy silver maple tree.

"Let's go for that one," Vyra points toward the one closest to us. As we approach a sound erupts from behind us. The wings on the mantis' back move a bit to reveal smaller mantis' clinging to their mother's back. "Well shit." Vyra whips around to stab the first baby mantis with her spear  as it lumbers toward us.

Several more emerge as they discover food waiting for them. Their mandibles clack softly as they take steps forward. Small blades the size of hunting daggers peek out from their forearms.

I grit my teeth and hold my blades out before me. After a moment the hatchlings decide we will make excellent food and shove past each other to reach us. Vyra and I stand side by side holding off the onslaught.

Vyra's blade transforms with a blinding light and she starts to slash with a dual sided naganata. Her gold armor shimmers as she dances back and forth, hacking and slashing like a practiced performer.

I lob off a limb here and a head there with much less tact than Vyra. Where she swirls like a ribbon in a gentle breeze, I hack and slash like a hurricane.