The world blurred as Leon raced back toward the boss, leaping from tree to ground and then tree to tree as he bounced, rapidly building up momentum on his path back where he'd come from.
Stupid thing took him by surprise, but he wasn't going to get hit like that again, particularly since he couldn't see his health on his System screen. He felt fine, mostly, but that had to have done some particularly intense damage and assumed that his adrenaline had mitigated the pain.
It loomed above him, watching with violence in its eyes as it swung its human hands down at him to hit him as far as half a mile away.
Hideous.
That was the only word that came to mind as he looked at it.
Cantankerous Wolf Horror
Lv. 85
With a grotesque lupine face with writhing fur that looked like parasites were crawling underneath, a body that seemed to constantly be bleeding from underneath its patchwork skin and fur body, the only seeming normal part of it was its arms, and even they filled Leon with revulsion.
Stepping to the side as the fist slammed into the ground, a minor explosion rocking his body as he dodged, he avoided it by a few mere feet.
Leaping up to a tree and stomping his foot into it, he catapulted himself up on its arm, he sped upward towards its head.
Glistening maggots covered in human eyes chewed their way out of the skin to attack him, and he swung Chris's sword fast enough that a non-Walker wouldn't even be able to track it and cut them all down in a single second.
His System tried to show him their names, but he blinked and the information flicked away.
They were going to die as soon as he reached them, why would he care what they're called?
The other hand slapped at where he'd been a second prior and he backflipped onto it, immediately continuing his sprint as dozens, no, hundreds of the maggots began accosting him, dying in droves as he sped along the arm.
The wolf head, still disgusting by the way, opened its mouth and vomited along its own arm, and a wave of horrific bile came at him like a solid wall.
Landing on his foot, he pushed off into open air just as the viscous fluid, filled with more of the maggots and what appeared to be human sized dead flies, turned to track him.
Focusing as hard as he could, the world slowed in his gaze as he grabbed the tassel of the great sword, swung it behind himself, and used it as a handheld springboard to reach the face.
As fast as he was going, it still took over thirty seconds to get to eye level with the nightmare and just as it opened its mouth to hit him with the vomit attack, he did his little spring board trick again, now throwing the sword as soon as he leapt, hitting the wolf in the eye.
Green and brown fluid leaked out of the wound as it howled in agony, practically deafening him in the process. He ignored the pain in his ears as he, still flying toward its eye, swung his leg back and, finally reaching the shattered eye, kicked the sword horizontally, sending it to the other eye and carving the monster's snout open.
Landing delicately on the cusp of its eye, he leapt toward the sword, grabbed the hilt and swung the sword that was lodged into hardened bone to swing himself into the creature's head.
Now covered in filth, Leon pulled the sword free and spun the sword as hard as he could, creating a high pitched whine with the blade as he began using it to cut his way toward the thing's brain.
No matter how strong something was, having your brain blendered to a soup should kill almost anything, right?
As it would turn out, that was wrong as having the organ whipped up didn't hinder it in the slightest as a fist blanked out the light behind him as it punched into its own face.
Letting out a tiny yip of fear, Leon swung the sword downward, blasting a hole down into its throat and kicked off the top of its skull into the gap he'd made.
Reaching the fight a few minutes after it'd begun, Chris and Jennifer were greeted with the sight of the boss punching its own head so hard that it blasted off its shoulders, creating an explosion that destroyed the forest behind it.
Looking at his current companion, Chris screamed, "What in the ever loving hell is that, Jennifer!?"
She shook her head and shouted, "I have no idea, its not in any of the records!"
Chris looked back at the monster and realized he didn't have his sword. Even if he were strong enough, which he wasn't, there was no way he could fight this thing.
System Prompt:
Skill Earned: Bisect
Bisect: Cut the rot until nothing is left.
Leon looked at the prompt as he fell through the throat and said, "Huh, that's useful…and convenient!"
The wet darkness was illuminated as energy flooded the great sword and Leon shouted, "BISECT!"
Grabbing the hilt with both hands, he swung the sword in a vertical arc so hard it momentarily stopped his descent as the power released in a massive circle.
Jennifer was readying some spell when suddenly a towering arc of energy carved its way out and up through the horror, cutting it clean in half.
Her eyes widened as the two halves of the creature fell to each side, blood and organs practically exploding outward, covering the two of them in maggot infested gore.
Now free falling from hundreds of feet in the air, Leon looked at the twisted, melted ruin of his friend's sword and sighed. He was never going to hear the end of this, Chris loved this sword and spent hours tending to it.
The thought flashed through his mind as the slightly more concerning realization that he had no way to get down safely struck him at the same moment the blood and viscera did.
Mentally slowing the world down again, he whispered, "There's no way, right? Like, there's no chance this works."
Priming himself with as much energy as he could, he kicked up at the only thing within his range.
The blood.
It was practically solid as his foot touched it, so fast was he moving that he was able to use it as a foothold and so…he did.
In a nerve wracking move, he began bouncing off the blood in the air, occasionally killing a maggot in the process, sending hundreds of eyes in every direction. A little mess compared to the high intensity meat explosion he'd already created seemed like a fair trade.
Slowly, to him at least, he began converting downward momentum to horizontal as he adjusted his descent, creating massive rings of blood as he transitioned from jumping to sprinting along streams and puddles of airborne air, doing what he could to avoid having to punch the disgusting maggot monsters.
Easy to kill they may be, but touching them with his fists made him almost throw up more than once.
Previously overshadowed by the wolven nightmare he'd just killed, he now noticed that as they died they let out a tiny squeaking sound that only made keeping the contents of his stomach even harder.
Pushing their death throes out of his mind, he continued his impossible sprint as far as the blood would take him, realizing that he would run out of the vile fluid long before he hit the ground…but there was always the trees.
Still a hundred feet above the ground, he braced himself as he tried to step onto the first tree he reached.
Tried.
He tried to run on the trees.
The first one he hit bent so hard it slapped the ground and, so surprised he'd even made contact he couldn't react, it whipped him back in the other direction and smashed him into the ground, whipping him in the chest multiple times until it slowly stopped.
An explosion of dirt and stone erupted from around him and practically buried him in earth.
Several long minutes later, he lay there gasping and wheezing as the blood covered the world around him in a deluge of rotten red and green.
Now laying in an undulating puddle of the stuff, he heard outcries of disgust and panic as the wave finally reached a nearby group of Uplifters who had, justifiably, tried to find out what was happening.
Still trying to catch his breath, Leon slowly sat up, rolling himself out of his blood puddle and onto the soaking wet dirt, which he figured was at least marginally better.
Fears of disease were forced to the side, problems for later, as he watched the sunlight filter down through the trees.
He was covered in blood and painted in ichorous color combinations he hoped he never had to even think about again.
A familiar shout rang out as he lay there, "Leon! Where are you! I know you're still alive, you bastard!"
Smirking slightly, he let his friend keep searching as the pain of his landing finally started hitting him.
Holding his chest, his smirk slowly grew to a smile.
Was this fun?
Who would find this fun?
His smile widened as he thought about that question.
Only a freak would find this fun.
He started laughing as he thought of it, that only a freak would find this fun. He was having fun, for the first time since he'd awoken. It hadn't even occurred to him that he could have fun, and this was his idea of a good time?
His chest and stomach protested as his laughter got louder until eventually, following the growing cackling, Chris and Jennifer found him, looks of concern on their faces.
While the entire situation was, to put it politely, outlandish, Gate Walking wasn't without its risks, and even a landscape painted in the blood and guts of a massive monster could hold down a proper Walker.
After a quick use of a medical analysis skill, Jennifer said, "Leon…your entire ribcage is just shattered."
Nodding at the absurdist notion of such a dry delivery, Leon answered, "Yeah that makes sense."
Chris, somewhat less experienced than Jennifer, shouted, "Are the two of you insane!? He's lucky to be alive!"
Leon raised his free hand and waved him off as Jennifer said, "I don't even know how you're moving that arm."
That prompted another wave of laughter from Leon as his friend just shook his head in disdain, watching the two talk back and forth and realizing that he was probably going to need to attach himself at the hip to Leon, if this was his reaction to all of this.
Before he could say something to that effect, light began to swirl and spiral above Leon and a perfect duplicate of the wolf's head popped into existence and dropped onto his chest, eliciting a groan of pain.
System Notice:
The Frostfire Infection
Something in the Frostfire Woods has been corrupting the area and rendering it impossible for The Goblin Ascendancy to colonize the area, despite the vast resources locked away within.
Obliterate the source of the Maggot Corruption.
Error/Error/Error
Quest Completed.
Reward: Frostfire Gate converted to True Gate.
Weapon Delivered:
Vile Flail
Deliver the corruption unto the wicked.
The wolf head yowled in putrid rage as Leon, still struggling with his broken ribs, tried to push it off as the head tried licking his fingers.
The scene, despite how horrible the head was, finally got a laugh out of Chris as Jennifer said, "Not into that. Nope, not into that at all."
In a place distant enough from Earth to essentially be impossible to reach, the screens in a darkened office slowly lit up the room.
System Notice:
Sector 7-B9-12 has taken another step toward the final Emerald Dawn event. Awaiting further instructions.
The system, a perpetual mystery to all, save its creators, had reached some benchmark only they were aware of.
The notice went out to all the appropriate personnel, attempting to update those behind an agenda that spanned the entirety of the universe, an incomprehensibly complex and massive undertaking.
As the update went unacknowledged, the System slowly worked its way up the chain of command until the message reached a throne room in ruins.
But the room was abandoned, its inhabitants slaughtered several eons prior.
A light flickered on a tablet situated in the center of the room, where an emperor may once have sat.
But now, the throne was empty.