The New Chimera

Anala grunted as she batted aside a kobold with her shield before decapitating it with her sword. The small fry were…more troublesome than she had expected. Contrary to most groups of monsters, the army was well-ordered and worked together, and though individually, the goblins or kobolds couldn’t do much, they served both as a distraction from greater threats and as a means of tiring her out.

The defense of the city had gone extremely poorly, to say the least. For the first ten minutes or so, the walls stood strong and the defenders were able to whittle down the army’s numbers from behind them. The tanks perched on top of the wall and attacked the grounded monsters, while most of the other defenders kept the skies clear or dealt with patches of monsters the tanks missed.

But that seemed to have been expected. None of the truly strong targets showed themselves during the initial wave of monsters, and then, all of a sudden, dozens of them surged towards the wall. They aimed for the tanks in particular, managing to overwhelm about a quarter of them with strong, concentrated attacks.

But still, the walls had held. The monsters weren’t trying to destroy the walls, they were focused on destroying the tanks and sowing chaos among the defenders. Or so Anala had thought, right up until the walls just…collapsed into a sinkhole. Something had reached the base of the wall without being noticed, and had broken the wards that kept burrowing monsters from getting below.

Bruce had been able to telekinetically shunt their party to safety, but many of the other defenders weren’t so fortunate, and sustained heavy injuries in the fall. It was at that point that the defender’s focus shifted from defending the town to getting to the portal and fleeing, where they would escape to Westtown. With the walls gone, many of the defenders injured, and no end to the horde in sight, the guild master had called for the retreat. There was no sense in losing more life than had already been lost, not over a city that was as good as taken.

To make matters worse, monsters had sprung up from tunnels that had been dug under the walls and behind the defenders, neatly surrounding those that had been caught up in the collapse of the wall.

There were more defenders on the other side of the city, but they were, apparently, dealing with their own issues, so it didn’t seem like they could count on reinforcements. And so it was that Anala and her party were carving a path towards the portal, dealing with the monsters that had come through the tunnels and desperately trying to save as many people as they could.

The tanks were focused on keeping the wave of strong monsters that had attacked from the front busy, so it was just the regular people in the rear. Fortunately, it seemed that most of the monsters that had come through the tunnels were of the weaker variety, but they were also still pouring out of the tunnels, with no end to them in sight.

“Somebody collapse those tunnels!” Anala yelled, striking a goblin that tried to knock her feet out from under from her. “If we don’t do something about them, we’re never going to be able to get everyone back!”

“I’m working on it!” Bruce called out. “But if I’m not careful, the ground is going to go down with the tunnels. Hold on just a bit more!”

There was a rumble from the other side of the city, and Anala could see a column of dust rising from the general direction of the sound.

The tunnel to Anala’s left collapsed, taking with it the monsters that were coming out from inside. “Nice one, Bruce!” Anala yelled, taking advantage of a distracted kobold by slicing it clean in two. “Keep it up!”

“Wasn’t me!” Bruce said. “That feels like Jameson’s work!”

Anala felt a bit of relief at that. Selfish as it was, it was nice to know that Jameson’s party was on the same side of the city as her. They had proven themselves time and time again to be strong, almost as strong as Anala’s party. Having them backing up the retreat would make things much safer.

Anala’s momentary lapse in attention was instantly punished by the monsters in front of her. Two goblins attacked her sides, and, while she was dealing with them, a large tiger…thing with spines of crackling electricity pounced on her and began pumping electricity through Anala’s body.

The tiger was nigh-instantly blasted off of her by Raesn, who was wielding a gun he had made himself using his Blessing. Anala gave him a grateful nod before running off into the thick of the monsters and activating one of her Skills, Quick Spin.

Quick Spin allowed her to perform a spinning maneuver, slicing out with her sword and hitting all targets within arm’s reach. If her sword made contact with anything, it sort of…passed through after causing a wound, allowing her spin to complete without her sword getting stuck. The technique, while powerful, had its downsides – the spinning strike was very one-dimensional, and anything with fast enough reflexes would be able to dodge without too much issue.

Furthermore, the blows weren’t any more damaging than a normal sword stroke would be, and if something was able to block with a shield or weapon or…anything, then her spin was stopped dead in its tracks. In addition, it wasn’t an ability that could be used in quick succession; attempting to do so resulted in extreme dizziness, which was as good as a death sentence on a battlefield like this.

And, finally, it ate up a lot of Stamina compared to most other sword Skills she had learned, so a lot of care was required to make full use out of the Skill. But, as difficult to use as it was, against mobs of small fry like the ones she was fighting, there was no better tool.

The Quick Spin handily mowed down the monsters nearby, leaving Anala standing in a circle of corpses. She didn’t stop to appreciate her work, instead choosing to rush towards the tunnel that had been collapsed, killing the monsters around her on her way.

It really was lucky that only the weaklings had come through the tunnels. If the monsters had all been on the level of that tiger that had attacked her earlier, this would have been much more problematic. But, for whatever reason, they hadn’t come. Perhaps the monsters were too large? Maybe the Queen of Monsters just wanted to hamper the defender’s retreat so as to inflict more casualties?

She executed another Quick Spin, tidily mopping up most of the small fry that the tunnel’s collapse hadn’t already taken care of. She held the location for a minute longer, waiting for the rest of the defenders to catch up before she went off to clear another place of monsters.

There was a rumbling as another tunnel collapsed, and Anala shifted her attention to the area, aiming to secure as much ground as she could for the retreating people. The battle continued like that for another ten or so minutes, tunnels being collapsed and then the areas cleared, until, finally, the portal square was in sight.

As was an enormous snake, one Anala guessed would be as large as the buildings around it were it to coil itself up. It was currently attempting to crush the portal, but didn’t seem to be making progress. The thick, unidentifiable material the High Arbiter had used to make the portals stood strong against the snake’s repeated assaults which meant, for now, hope was still alive.

They just had to defeat the snake…somehow. Anala regrouped with the rest of their party, eyeing the snake carefully as it paid no mind to the approaching people and continued its attempts to crush the portal.

“How are we going to deal with this?” She whispered. “It looks strong.”

“The scales aren’t made of anything special.” Raesn said. “They’re just hard. Our weapons should be able to pierce them with ease, and they only provide a bit of resistance to magic.”

“How are the tanks looking?” Ava asked. “I haven’t gotten a good look at them while I’ve been out, but I can still hear them. One or two of them might be able to really help here.”

“Not that great.” Bruce said. “I was towards the rear most of the time, and they were having a rough time of it. Their shots really don’t do that much to the big monsters, and the monsters have been really whittling away at their batteries. I’ve seen more than one driver forced to bail before their tank gets torn to shreds.”

“Let’s let them keep the rest of the army at bay.” Anala said. “We have to be able to do something about it our–”

There was a deafening hiss from the snake as it turned its attention to the defenders. There, on its head, was the figure of a small angel with long, blood-red hair, stabbing a sword deep into the snake. A moment later, the snake was pelted with a barrage of spells from its side, and six wolf-monsters dashed out from the perimeter, launching themselves at the snake fearlessly.

“Looks like we’ve been beaten to the punch.” Raesn said, hefting a large rifle and taking aim at the snake. “No time to think, we need to just do.” He snapped off a round from the rifle, striking the snake just behind the head and blowing out a chunk of its scales.

Anala nodded, and dashed forward. She hesitated for only a moment before activating Weight of the World, speeding up as her stats increased explosively. It was her trump card, one she had gained after maxing out the “Protector Hero” Class she had gained access to after being granted the High Arbiter’s Blessing.

It was a simple Skill, really. It massively boosted the effect of her Blessing in exchange for restricting access to her Blessing for a long while afterwards. The others had similar Skills, but Anala’s was by far the most effective and, simultaneously, the most costly; it, in essence, tripled her already tripled stats, giving her a massive boost, but she could only keep it up for ten minutes, and she could lose her Blessing for up to a day if she kept the Skill active that whole time.

It wasn’t something she could safely use earlier, but now, with the portal in sight and a fierce monster in their way, she felt there was no better time to use it. She raised her sword high as she charged, then swung down and activated Spatial Rend, another Skill she had gained from the Protector Hero Class.

It sliced the very fabric of space between her and the target, allowing her to both rapidly close a distance and deliver an extraordinarily powerful blow, but it also used an enormous amount of both Mana and Stamina, equal to her entire pool of each after the bonus from her Blessing. So, for now, it was basically only usable while she had Weight of the World active, but the results were worth the expenditure.

As the rift was created, she stepped through, coming out right next to Eve on the snake’s head, a huge spray of blood erupting from where the Spatial Rend had hit.

“Ah, so you’re here too.” Eve said, thrusting her sword into the snake’s head once again. “Help me finish this thing off.”

The snake violently swung its head around in an attempt to dislodge its attackers, but Anala and Eve were able to deal with that. Eve seemed to have some sort of spell cast on her that made her feet stay firmly planted on the snake, while Anala stabbed her sword into the snake’s hide and held onto it that way.

“I’ve been trying to get to its eyes, but it starts shaking violently the moment I try, and Jameson’s magic isn’t perfect, I’ll get shaken off if I try and press forward during that.” Eve said. “So, I’ve just been making life a misery up here instead. Any ideas, or should we just hit it ‘till it dies?”

“Well–” Anala was cut off as, suddenly, the scales in about a five foot circle around Eve and Anala stood up and pointed at them, revealing razor-sharp edges. They were rustling dangerously, too, as if they were trying to pull themselves free of the snake’s body.

Anala grabbed Eve and pulled her behind her tower shield, and looked desperately around for a way to protect their backs and bottoms from what was sure to be a sudden onslaught of scales. And…there, where her Spatial Rend had hit, the scales weren’t standing up. They seemed to be broken from the blow, so they should be relatively safe to stand on.

Anala tugged Eve over to them, then activated Damage Sponge, a Skill that would allow her to take any damage someone she was touching would take, with the added bonus of making the attack have to contend with both Anala’s armor and the armor of whoever she was protecting.

“I got your back.” Eve said. “You just focus on your side of things.”

There was a wet snap as the scales wrenched themselves free of the skin and flew towards Anala and Eve. Anala braced herself for the impact of the scales, but…it never came. The scales were stopped mid-flight by some sort of magic, and ended up falling limply to the ground.

It was at that moment that Ava reached the top of the snake’s head having run up the air to get at it. During their training, she had obtained a Skill that let her create temporarily footholds in the air that only she could use, allowing her to reach places that were, normally, quite difficult to get to.

It had come in handy on more than one occasion, and this one was no different. She jumped off of her latest foothold and down to where Eve and Anala were standing, bringing down first her fire sword and then her ice sword into the now-unprotected flesh of the snake.

The snake let loose another deafening hiss and began to thrash about again, but it was…weaker this time, as if the snake didn’t have as much energy as it did before. Seeing her opportunity, Anala waited for the thrashing to die down before using Spatial Rend yet again, seeking to deepen the already-sizeable gash she had made in the snake with her first strike.

Or, she would have, but a sickly-sweet smell began to fill the air as the snake let out a blast of some sort of…gas from its mouth, and Anala began to feel faint.

She grit her teeth, held her breath, and activated Pure of Body, cleansing the poison from herself. But, almost immediately, she began to feel the effects once again, just as strong as before. It appeared that the poison worked just from contact; it didn’t need her to breathe it in.

The snake began to buck again, and this time, holding on was much harder. Strength was leaving her limbs the longer she remained in the cloud of gas that was expanding to fill the pavilion they were in, and every time she activated Pure of Body, the relief seemed to get weaker and weaker.

And then Eve placed her hands on both Anala and Ava, and suddenly everything was…fine. It was like there was a bubble around the three of them that was keeping the poison at bay, and Anala felt completely cleansed of the stuff.

“Hurry.” Eve choked out. “You have something that can end this, right? I can only keep this at bay for so long.”

A wind was picking up and pushing the gas away, but Anala didn’t have time to pay attention to that. She looked to Ava, nodded, and then activated Spatial Rend, using most of her remaining Stamina and Mana to deepen the wound as she had planned.

And, the moment she had, Ava struck, activating a Skill and releasing waves of energy from her sword, striking directly into the open gash.

There was stillness for just a moment, and then…the snake went limp, falling to the ground as its muscles stopped supporting its weight. Eve grabbed Ava and Anala and kicked off of the snake, flapping her wings furiously as she tried to keep their descent from becoming dangerous.

They touched down in the square a few meters away from the now-motionless body of the snake, Eve panting heavily. “I think…we did it.” She said. “We can…get out now.” And then, with a grunt, she collapsed to the ground. “Looks…like I overdid it. I’m going to need to rest.” She closed her eyes and went limp, slipping into unconsciousness. Anala grabbed her before she hit the floor, making sure the girl didn’t sustain any damage from something stupid like that.

There was a cheer from the watchers, and a moment later, one of Anna’s dogs bounded up to Anala, and gave a pointed look at the girl in her arms, then looked at its back, clearly motioning for Anala to lay Eve on it. Anala didn’t hesitate, carefully draping Eve over the large dog’s back. It was fortunate that Eve still had the body of a child, because the dogs were only barely bigger than a normal large-sized dog, and though Anala had seen them do things that hinted at great strength before, it would still be awkward for them to try and carry an adult.

Anala heaved a sigh and let Weight of the World deactivate.

The strength that had been coursing through her stopped, leaving Anala feeling weak and tired as she slumped against Ava. “I’m out for about five hours.” She said. “Can you handle things here?”

Ava nodded. “Yeah. You go get us a room in Westtown, alright?”

Anala gave her a weak smile, forcing herself to stand up straight and walk to the portal. Anna was already there, activating it and shepherding her dogs and Eve through. “Good job up there.” She said.

“You guys too.” Anala replied. “Don’t know what we would have done without you. Especially at the end there, Eve saved our hides.”

Anna smiled. “She tends to do that.” She said. “Now go on, you’ve earned a rest. We can handle things from here.”

Anala gave a nod and trudged into the portal. The day had gone poorly, but…they were able to evacuate the defenders, at least. They would have to wait to see what the exact damages of the day were, but…it could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse.