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[Skill-Eater] Chapter 151: Big
🕑 Added 2024-11-21 18:01:02 +0000 UTCThe last word of Trapper’s warning was still hanging in the air when the situation went from bad to worse in between one heartbeat and the next. Because that was when a threat appeared that made the invisible lizard stalking the party seem downright cuddly by comparison.
As it happens, in addition to their stage, the beasts of Ord can also be categorized by their size. Creatures like the jobos, which only weigh a few times what a person does, are generally referred to as big. Beasts clocking in around the mass of an Earth elephant are called huge. Next comes colossal creatures—entities that are in the ballpark of the padamas’s girth.
What came striding up to the breech in the perimeter fence was even bigger than that. Something so large that it made the padamas look petite. Fuck my life. Edge took in the beast with eyes wide with shock. That’s a stage-three behemoth.
The behemoth in question was a bipedal dinosaur. It was a towering predator—at least fifty feet tall and twenty feet wide, although when it moved it leaned in and its head was lower to the ground. Its body was covered with navy blue scales, patterned with white spirals and black diamonds. It had broad feet and a thin tail, neither of which seemed geared toward combat. But the rest of its features more than made up for the difference.
The behemoth’s long arms ended in wicked sets of claws, each shaped like a scythe and longer than Edge’s naginata. Its wedge-shaped head tapered to form its hulking jaws. Within its cavernous mouth was a living arsenal, filled with row after row of jagged teeth.
He realized in that moment that while they were trapped, the situation wasn’t hopeless yet. The beast was blocking the exit, but it wasn’t looking at the crew. If we don’t attract its attention, we still might have a chance. If it goes for the lizard or the grain in the silos, we can circle around and make our escape. We won’t last five minutes if it comes to a brawl.
Trapper clearly agreed with his assessment. “Abandon the wagon and fall back. Stay out of its way and pray that we’re not worth the trouble of running down.”
Everyone began walking backward. They were terrified but refused to panic. Running would only trigger the beast’s predation reflex. They were wide open from behind, but they didn’t have a choice. The padamas was still somewhere nearby, but the hunters were gambling that it wouldn’t reveal itself with a superior predator in the area. Before they could take two steps, the behemoth opened its mouth and roared.
It was a raging torrent of sound, fueled by a high rank-skill and infused with a staggering amount of mana. It reverberated throughout every cell in his body, filling him with a primal dread. The instant that the intimidating roar broke over him, Edge’s body was petrified—overwhelmed with an absolute terror that he was helpless to resist.
He couldn’t take a step or turn his head. He couldn’t speak and had to fight with everything he had just to draw a breath.
He knew in that moment that he was screwed. That the lumbering giant would eventually pick them off at its leisure. He was filled to the brim with a mind-numbing, soul crushing horror. The only thing that kept him sane in the middle of that waking nightmare was the fact that the padamas had wavered into existence a few dozen feet in front of him—unable to maintain its cloak of invisibility while stricken by the behemoth’s skill.
Everyone in the farmstead was frozen stiff, including the big lizard. As bad as it was for Edge, and it was really, really bad, Riller and Violet were in worse shape. The crew’s uncored members had been critically impacted by the behemoth’s skill.
Their lungs were paralyzed and unable to breathe. Their faces were beet-red and within another minute at most, they were both going to suffocate. Edge thought they were dead for sure, and from their expressions, the hunters did too.
But Trapper wasn’t about to let that happen.
The crew’s leader flared her mana, creating a pulse of Disruption like the one she had used during their duel. It was enough to let her take two staggering steps over to Riller’s side.
When she got there, she reached out and touched him and Violet with her hands. Then she flared her Disruption again, repeating the same move. It couldn’t counter the behemoth’s high-rank skill, but it was enough to let them draw in a pair of gasping breaths.
The looming predator didn’t even glance in their direction—the tiny humans were clearly beneath its notice. Even Blue was barely an appetizer. The behemoth strolled right past the cowering crew. It stepped over Edge, coming within two feet of grinding him to paste when its talons came down.
The immense dinosaur’s gaze was locked onto the padamas, which was slowly beginning to regain control of its body. But its recovery arrived too late to save it.
The behemoth raised one arm high above its head, then brought the limb down like a battle axe the size of a shipping crane. Its wicked white claws carved straight through lizard’s thick hide, cutting into its scaley torso all the way down to the bone. It must have judged its own strength sufficient for the task, because after that first roar, it didn’t bother to use another skill.
The small corner of Edge’s mind that could still form rational thoughts realized it was more than that. That the environment didn’t contain enough magicytes for the stage-three beast to use its skills freely. Not that the insight offered him any way out of what seemed to be certain death.
While this opponent was so far above the man that he couldn’t conceive of besting it, Edge was never alone. There was another consciousness slumbering inside him. An ancient creature who knew what it meant to truly stand at the apex. An entity who had climbed the planet’s food chain. To whom the behemoth was only a tiny fish in a vast and turbulent sea.
In that moment, Skill-Eater opened its eyes. Though the Ravenous Lord Bound in Chains could only exert a fragment of its true might, it still saw itself as king. It wasn’t about to surrender its prey, no matter how mighty the challenger.
As his reactor roared to life of its own accord, searing heat erupted behind Edge’s ribs. Skill-Eater’s confidence seeped into him, causing the tsunami of terror to break against a will stronger than steel. Along with that boost to his morale came an impression—an image showing him what he needed to do if he wanted to regain control of the situation before it was too late.
Since the alternative was to cower in place while waiting to be eaten, Edge listened to his core and activated shadow step. When the world turned to fog and gloom, the crushing intimidation of the behemoth’s skill receded. It wasn’t gone, but the effect was severely weakened, letting the gears of his mind turn once more. That type of magic must not be able to affect ethereal creatures at full strength. I’ll have to remember that.
That act of defiance had cost Skill-Eater something. Because it closed its eyes and went back to sleep, leaving Edge to decide how he wanted to proceed. To make the move that would determine his fate. For a second that seemed to stretch on for eternity, he drew a blank. Even though he could move once more, he didn’t see any way out of this mess.
Then, in the midst of that black moment, a realization struck Edge like lightning descending from the clear blue sky. A blood-soaked epiphany that would probably get him killed, but just might save his friends and feed the mysterious titan slumbering inside him.
If I use Extraction on the padamas before the behemoth kills it, I can steal a skill, steal the kill, and lure the creature away from the crew, all in a single maneuver. This is going to be risky as hell, but the alternative is even worse.
He had already started running toward the giant predator. Armed with a plan born of desperation, he put everything that he had into his reckless charge and leapt—streaking across the ground like a bolt of black lightning.
He leapt again every time that his feet hit the ground, momentum multiplying by the heartbeat. Edge shot forward like a bouncing bullet, surging toward the giant beasts that were towering over the farmstead.
By now, the behemoth had opened its mountainous maw, preparing to bite the lizard’s head off in a single blow. In another three seconds, its teeth would end the padamas’s life, and his chance to save the crew would die with it.
But on this occasion, two seconds were all that Edge needed.
A heartbeat before the dinosaur’s jaws snapped shut, he resolidified beside the mortally wounded lizard, raised his arms, and willed [Extraction] to activate.
Comments
Bryan Dickerson
Thank you!
Robert McCarter
Love it! Thanks Magnus! 😀
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