Artemis Child

Artemis Child Ch57

  Cory looked for once terrified. His already pale complexion seemed to loose more color in the red atmosphere.  "We are going to have to acquire new weapons." He said looking around the terrain himself, "For now let's look for a place to set up a base camp for now."
   "What's wrong with these weapons?" Andrew asked looking down at his sword. "No no no. Let's go back a little." Kaylyn chimed in moving to the middle of our group. "Why did me and Max get roped into this? Who or what was that being? And why the hell did you open that fucking box?" She looked distressed, but her sentence hit all of us like a train. None of us had the answer.
  "The weapons here work like normal weapons, but for some reason monster blood will deteriorate anything Imperial Gold, Celestial bronze, ect." He said trying to move along the conversation and get us to start moving.
  "I smell something nearby." He said changing the direction he was facing. "We are not going that way." He said waving his hand for us to back up and start relocating to elsewhere.
   "I thought I smelled you again." A voice said from the direction we had come from. It was a huge Chimera, the very one Serena and Cory had fought. This time it was turbo mode. The way Cory and Serena had described it, this one would eat that one for a small meal. Its lion beard glistened with fresh blood, its dragon head had sparking lightning dancing around its mouth, and its Snake head tail writhed like a Cobra.
  Before we could get far it was apon us. Claws bearing down on Serena's shield, its claws breaking through slightly. It was on a new level, one that might be impossible. Marc fired arrows into its dragon face as lightning spewed out towards us. Cory threw his spear to act like a lightning rod, it redirected the lightning and pierced into the lion's left paw. It shook off the jolt and continued its assault.
  Everyone swarmed it, Cory grabbed his spear, the tip was rotting away till the blood was gone and the top 3 inches of the blade were no more than a jagged chunk of iron on the end. Weapons were breaking left and right. Max's sword cut off the snake head but rotted in half becoming a thick cleaver like dagger.
  The ranged fighters were running out of ammo and this creature was still pushing them back. My ring transformed into chains that tried to hold the dragon head shut but the lightning was causing the metal to super heat and bend free.
  The lion head grabbed at Toni but Serena shielded him. They got pushed back into this decaying grey pillar that was sticking out of the red soil. We were all getting our shit pushed in by this one beast that took two people to beat last time.
  The lion snapped at Cory, this attack would have gotten his arm if it wasn't already missing. He leaped at the chance to stab his bones onto the lion face, it was a shallow hit as lightning crashed down forcing him back. He bumped onto the pillar too. His bloody hand pressed onto the pillar, his eyes darted back and forth with fear. He had been here before, it should be survivable with so many people.
   A spike of bone came out of nowhere landing near my foot. Suddenly a hail storm of bone came whistling down, Kaylyn used arcane magic to lift soil above use to stop the falling attack. The Chimera was drowned in a storm of bone. Its blood painting the soil an impossibly darker color of red. The beast was dead but something was approaching.
  Toni gave a yelp. One of the bone spears got him in the lower ribs. He was dying in front of us. His eyes looked at Cory but he reached for Serena. "Toni." She said looked a him holding his wound. "Look at me. Stay with me." She said trying to get the bleeding to stop. "Stop." Cory said walking over and removing the bone from the wound. Blood pooled fast against Serena's hands as he started dying faster. "What are you doing!?" She screamed at him.
   "He can't leave here." Cory said looking over the bone spear, he de-summoned his broken spear and decided to keep this bone weapon. Toni coughed up one final bit of blood as he died, Serena drew her damaged sword on Cory, making Lexi and I draw weapons on her. "He won't stay dead." Cory said again not making any sense. He raised up his hand and counted down from four. Three. Two. One. Not even the moment he put that last finger down did Toni's body burst into red soil and his yelling could be heard from where we came from.
  "When you die here, you get revived where you started."Monster bodies reform and their souls from here go back to their bodies. But we don't have bodies on the outside. So we are stuck here. The only reason I got out last time was because of my healing factor from the alpha werewolf. But now I'm a regular one-armed demi-god that can grow claws and ears." He said growing claws from his fingers.
  "Run!" Toni said running towards us fear in his eyes as he ran. Close behind him was a massive reptile with spiked quills signaling it was the one that killed the alpha Chimera. This was a new level threat. It had a narrow crocodile snout, hippo feet and thick plates on its hind legs.
   Toni was shooting as he ran which seemed to not make a dent in the creatures hide. "Everyone grab a quill." Cory said readying his in his hand. Toni passed through the quills that impaled the Chimera corpse that was slowly turning to soil. A beast like that eating other monsters would take a while to separate the old monsters to their original forms. We wouldn't have to fight that beast again. But we still had this bad boy. Toni clapped his guns on the quills and used the material as bullets. Blood immediately being drawn from the monster, but it also drew out its temper. The inner parts of the quills attached to the beast began to glow orange against its harsh green skin.
  "Marc aim for my puncture wound." Cory said having him and Lexi charge the beast. Cory stopped short having lexi use him as a spring board to get height. The quill landed in the chest of the hippo like body but slide out as she dropped from the monster. The beast snapped its huge jaw at her, Marc didn't flinch to fire and arrow into the open wound. Its left side seized up and it fell over. "Basilisk teeth arrows." I heard him say with a smile.
  Cory plunged the quill into the bottom of its jaw and used his wyvern blade to open the wound more as he drug it down to the throat. Its seizing leg kicked him, the quill was used to block but it broke in two, he definitely felt some of that.
  Andrew, Kaylyn, Serena, and Max didn't sit around. I on the other hand felt this was all pointless. I was feeling like giving up. If we die I would be brought back over the lava. Then that would be a constant burning that I wouldn't be able to do anything about. Fighting would lead to death, but so would running. It was pointless. I was starting to hyperventilate, I stumbled a bit trying to get some support. The soil and quills fell behind me as Kaylyn got into the fight.
  I put my hand on the stone pillar. The carvings felt so soft against my hands, rough and cracked from all my craft work. The beast was getting up and shaking like a dog, its glowing quills hummed with energy.
   Quills fired off rapidly Andrew being struck through the leg, Max clipped in the ear, Serena's shield being broken, Lexi being stepped on, Cory slicing at the leg trying to get her free. This thing was just getting warmed up. I did what anyone would do. I started praying.
  My hand against the stone, grazing over the bloody print of Cory's only hand. "This is our end huh? Or our hell?" I said a small tear starting to come down my cheek.
  The carvings of the pillar reached outwards in the shape of a human trying to wipe my tears. "No." Was all it said as the carving emerged from the pillar, color transformed all over the being. Textures and sharp reality took form. It was a human in old cotton clothing, he was wielding a wood cutting axe. He took off in a sprint towards the monster. He slung the axe straight like a two-handed tomahawk. The axe broke hide as it landed in the monsters face. He neared the monster, and a giant tree rose from out of the ground striking the monster from underneath its jaw. He held on a branch and rode the tree up to above the monster. The axe was in his hand again, he must have grabbed it on his way up. He came down chopping the head off the monster and crashed down in a big plume of blood, soil and leaves.
   "Where the fuck am I?" He asked as he landed in front of everyone. The monster dead as it can be for now and everyone readying their weapons towards him.