MagnusGrey
patreon
[Skill-Eater] Chapter 158: Believe
🕑 Added 2024-12-02 18:00:07 +0000 UTC(Twenty Seconds Earlier)
Sasha stood within the ruined farmstead, staring at the titanic beast towering above her. The euphoria from having their hunt go so well until now had evaporated like water falling onto a hot pan, leaving only shock and horror behind.
Not only had the garax just eaten Trapper, but for some inexplicable reason, Edge had flown down its throat under his own power. She had no idea what was happening. All Sasha knew was that it was a bleak, hopeless moment. Two of her friends were dead, and the rest of them weren’t going to last much longer.
Just when victory was within their grasp, the crew’s fortune had changed in the blink of an eye. It felt like the ground was crumbling beneath her feet. Like she was falling from a great height, half a heartbeat away from hitting the pavement.
But it seemed that Sasha was going to live for at least a few more seconds. The garax wasn’t looking at the hunters right now. Its attention was turned inward, as the beast recovered from its astonishment that its prey had leapt into its mouth of their own volition—something that had never happened before.
She was pulled out of shock by Jumo’s hand on her shoulder. “Don’t give up on them yet. Trapper is tough as nails and the smartest person I know. And Edge has saved both our lives before. He must have a plan to have done… whatever the hell he just did.”
She could see in his eyes that Jumo was trying to talk himself into believing those words too. By now, Sasha was able to turn her head, so she cast her gaze across the rest of the crew. Riller’s face was beet red, although he’d taken a big breath before the roar hit him this time and would probably endure until the effect wore off. Violet had already regained control over her body. She was doing her best to keep Blue from panicking, but the dino was only moments away from losing it completely.
That was when the behemoth’s belly bulged—pulsing and writhing like something was trying to fight its way out from within. The sight relit the fire of hope within the guarded hearth of her heart. That flame swelled into a raging bonfire when Jumo pointed to a patch of frost that was spreading across the beast’s leathery underbelly.
Sasha forced her body into motion through sheer effort of will—shrugging off the lingering aftereffects of intimidating roar. “That must be Edge’s iceblade. They are still alive! We need to help them get out before it’s too late.”
Jumo didn’t hesitate. He ignited his core and dashed straight for the bipedal behemoth, which now wore a distinctly distressed expression on its gore-splattered face. He gathered his strength and jumped with his shoulder leading the way. The hunter hit the beast’s belly hard and fell to the ground, then he came running back to repeat the maneuver.
Violet reached into her belt pouch and hurled a pair of stink bombs—shattering their contents high on the creature’s chest where the stench would hit it full in the face. Sasha began firing arrows at its throat, doing her best to make the beast gag.
By now, the garax’s stomach was noticeably bloated, and it was starting to heave. Just a little more should do it. But what else can we use? The answer to that question arrived from an unexpected quarter, when Violet reached down and scooped up a double handful of Blue’s shit.
With a mighty throw, the crew’s quartermaster chucked the sinking muck straight into the beast’s face, getting some inside its mouth and nose. The combined assault from the inside and out must have been too much for the behemoth to bear, because at that moment, the garax opened its jaws and began to retch.
It made a piteous, whining, gag before regurgitating the contents of its stomach. Along with the waterfall of smoking vomit arrived a miraculously uninjured Trapper, who was surprisingly clean under the circumstances—surrounded by a bubble of condensed air.
Jumo reached out and caught Trapper, ignoring the mess raining all on all sides. Sasha, filled with rising hope, looked around for Edge. But he was nowhere to be found. Her heart skipped a beat until she glanced up, to where he was standing inside the garax’s mouth. His body was covered in a layer of crystal, and he was trapped between the beast’s teeth.
He’s stuck. I need to make it puke one more time before it’s too late. She cocked her spear over one shoulder and sent it flying, catching the garax square in the belly. As she was hoping, the pressure was enough to make it retch one final time—ejecting Edge in the process.
Sasha raced forward, held out her hands, and jumped. She snatched him out of the air and held him cradled in her arms. At that point, Trapper picked up her sword and said, “That was fucking awful. Let’s finish the bastard off before it recovers.”
Sasha began to laugh as she looked down at Edge. He was so worn out that he couldn’t support his own weight, although he was awake and looking around.
She didn’t have time to savor the moment. The fight wasn’t over yet, but they had one last chance to bring the garax down. And while Sasha had no idea how they could kill the behemoth beast, it seemed like Edge had a plan.
***
Edge found himself in Sasha’s arms, just as the final second on [Overdrive] expired.
The great engine detached from Skill-Eater and faded away—vanishing from his mind’s eye like a leviathan returning to the ocean’s depths. Half a heartbeat later, an onyx avalanche of exhaustion broke over him. He looked into Sasha’s gorgeous green eyes, while trying to remember what he was supposed to do next.
He could barely move. Barely think. Edge didn’t even have enough energy to turn his head toward the immense beast looming over him. It was still gagging and belching—suffering from the effects of an icy, tainted stomach and a shit-smeared face. But he was dead certain that in another few seconds, the behemoth would recover and finish what it had started.
At the cost of his secret, he had managed to save Trapper in the end. However, attacking the stage-three beast from the inside hadn’t been enough to end it. Even with the extra Amplification provided by his ultimate ability, he couldn’t pierce the garax’s tissue deep enough to land a critical wound. Although it was injured and low on mana, the angry dino still had plenty of fight left in it.
The crew had unleashed their heaviest hits. They were shocked, shaken, and running on fumes. To make matters worse, the timer on the quest would expire in another few minutes. At which point, all their struggling and striving would come to nothing.
Of more immediate concern, within another handful of heartbeats, the garax would come charging back in. In their condition, the hunters would be helpless to resist its assault. Trapper, Riller, and Violet had recovered enough to start pelting it with ranged fire, but their attacks didn’t do more than annoy the big bastard.
Edge still had another twenty seconds of exhaustion to contend with. Even if he didn’t, he was out of mana, and his skills wouldn’t have been able to end the fight regardless. Despite their best efforts, the hunters hadn’t found a way to overcome the difference in ranks, stage, and stats between their team and the behemoth creature.
He wanted to steal intimidating roar so badly that he could taste it on his tongue. Not to mention, claim the rewards that the System had dangled in front of his face. But it wasn’t going to happen unless he could disable the creature long enough to use [Extraction] and then finish it off before the clock hit zero.
As matters stood, the crew wasn’t going to escape the encounter with their lives, let alone the pile of treasure they had risked everything to obtain. But it wasn’t all bad news. Right now, the garax was incapacitated. It wasn’t dazed or critically injured, so it could still resist his chains, but it was having trouble controlling its body.
Edge knew in that moment that he still had one chance to turn this around. It was time to play the final ace he’d been hiding and pray that his hand was strong enough to win.
“Tell everyone to run and keep me pointed in the beast’s direction,” he told Sasha. “I’m going to finish this, here and now.” She looked down at him—astonishment at his words written all over her face. But since the situation seemed otherwise hopeless, Sasha just nodded and draped him over one shoulder. Then she relayed his message and started to run.
“Everyone, get away from the garax! Edge is doing something, and it’s going to be big.” Without a word, the hunters followed her command—trusting his judgment without question. Fighting against his exhaustion for every inch, he reached into his backpack and grabbed onto his final hope of living through the day.
When his hand came back out, it was holding Warren Ellington’s custom spellslinger and the three shots loaded into its chambers. The revolver’s barrel flashed in the late summer sunlight as Sasha carried him away from the center of the farmyard.
He struggled with everything he had to lift the heavy weapon and point it at the beast, who had just finished puking and was looking at the hunters with fury smoldering in its eyes. It was only moments away from tearing into the crew like a wrecking ball through a stained-glass window, but he didn’t let it distract him.
Just as the garax began to charge, Edge pulled the trigger—his prayers soaring alongside the crystalized spell as it burst from the gun and took flight.
Comments
Bryan Dickerson
Lol. Thank you!
Robert McCarter
Fantastic! Thanks for a great chapter! :-) REALLY happy it's not a Friday...
