Giant Scorpion (Part 1)

Hearing the sound of the horn, Grant couldn't do anything but stand there with a confused look on his face because it didn't seem smart to have an alarm system like that.

It may be a quick way to alert the settlement to danger, but it would also attract the attention of literally every monster within a certain range. Zombies especially would come swarming with the sound of the horn as a homing beacon.

His thoughts aside though, he could tell that something dangerous must be happening because everyone in the courtyard seemed to have become a few shades whiter after hearing the sound.

After the sound of the alarm faded away, Grant could hear the periodic sound of gunfire ringing through the now silent courtyard.

Grant turned to Ally to see what her reaction to the situation was, and to his surprise, she was looking straight at him as if wondering the same thing about him.

He could deduce that if they were willing to sound an alarm that loud just to alert the people, then it meant that whatever danger they were facing was probably something beyond their control. And seeing the look in Ally's eyes, he knew his assumption was probably correct.

She didn't say anything, but he could tell that she wanted to ask for his help. If anyone other than Ally had been the one to ask, he would have said no. He didn't want to see all of these people die or anything, he just wanted to see how the leadership would handle the situation. If they threw people at whatever enemy they were facing and then turned tail and ran, that would be proof that he was right all along. Even after things had looked good at first glance.

But since it was Ally asking, he just shrugged his shoulders and started walking in the direction of the gunfire. While he was walking, he heard the sound of multiple sets of footprints catching up to him.

Eventually Ally and Jerrod were walking in stride with Grant as they headed towards the sporadic gunfire.

Jerrod looked like he was ready to run towards the gunfire at any moment, so Grant told him that he didn't need to lead them there, they would be there soon enough even without him.

Before Grant could even finish giving him the go ahead, Jerrod was already sprinting down the street.

The conviction with which Jerrod ran towards the danger impressed Grant. He could tell that Jerrod wasn't very strong just based on the aura he was emitting so there was no way he would be able to influence the flow of the battle to a large degree and yet he ran towards the danger without hesitation.

As Grant and Ally approached closer to the wall, the gunfire became louder and more pronounced. He was able to hear the shouts and sounds of someone or multiple someone's fighting the monster at close range too because he could hear the distinctive sounds of metal clashing against a hard surface.

Grant could tell that whatever it was that they were fighting, it was already an Enlightened Tier monster because he could sense the fluctuation of mana, which meant that the monster was using skills of some sort.

When the two of them finally reached the makeshift wall, instead of Grant charging through the opening and straight into battle, they both walked up to the top of the wall to see what the situation was.

When they reached the top of the wall, the full picture finally came into view. About a half a mile away from the wall in the middle of a four way intersection, a massive scorpion was fighting against a group of no less than 20 men.

Some of the men were wielding guns while some of them had different types of weapons that were no doubt the result of Random Rolls. Grant could see hammers, swords, bows, axes, and so on in the different peoples hands.

The men were bombarding the scorpion with a torrent of different attacks but since none of them had entered the Enlightened Tier, no one was using any skills in conjunction with their attacks. Which in turn made the attacks too weak to do any real damage to the scorpion. The best that the group could do was annoy the monster enough to keep it from advancing on the wall any more than it already had.

While Grant was standing on the wall, he noticed that Jerrod had run out to the group and was trying to help them. He was firing at the monster with a gun, that he presumably got from one of the other defenders, along with the other soldiers at the monsters eyes trying to blind it.

However, none of the gunshots managed to pierce through the protective layer covering the eyeballs of the scorpion so instead of blinding it all they were managing to do was annoy it.

Which eventually led to the scorpion launching consecutive attacks with its tail, piercing the bodies of two of the defenders, and killing them instantly.

While it was launching attacks with its tail, the scorpion didn't allow its claws to remain passive either, as it snapped out at anyone unfortunate enough to be within range of them, instantly splitting them in half.

Seeing the gruesome sight in front of them, Grant could feel Ally turn her body and place her face in his side trying to block out the view of what was happening. Unfortunately, although she managed to block out the visuals, the blood curdling screams and sounds of death couldn't be blocked out by looking away.

As the fight raged on, Grant could feel a few stronger aura's approaching the battle ground from behind him. At first he thought that maybe it was Richard and Robin, and he got a little excited at the prospect of seeing them again, be he soon realized after closer inspection that the auras he felt were entirely unfamiliar too him.

And sure enough, a few moments later, an older man, a middle aged woman, and a young man who had to be around Grant's age came bounding down the street.

Grant could tell that the three of them were probably around the level 15-20 range and were without a doubt the strongest people he had seen since he entered the settlement.

As they approached, they didn't even spare a glance at anyone standing on the walls and immediately headed through the opening in the wall, going straight towards the battle that was taking place not far away.

"The older man at the front is the leader of the settlement, his name is Scott Ryan. The lady in the middle is Carly Wolf, she used to be Scott's assistant before The Path's emergence. The young man is Toby Dawson. Toby was just a student at the university but he was the one who initially rescued a large portion of the students hiding in their dormitories. He's a bit of a celebrity around here. Other than Richie and Robin, they are the three strongest members of this camp."

Grant looked down at Ally who was still snuggled up against his shoulder in fear and nodded his head in gratitude. He felt a bit awkward letting Ally stand so close too him but he didn't have the heart to push her away so he distracted himself by looking back towards the fight.

When he looked back towards the fight, Grant realized that the three people whom Ally had just introduced, were already fighting against the scorpion. It appeared that although they were the leaders, they didn't shy away from a fight.

Although they didn't appear to be doing much damage to the scorpion, Grant could tell even from where he was standing, that they were managing to actually do some damage, unlike the people who were fighting it before them.

While observing the fight for a few more minutes, Grant realized that even with the addition of the three people, the group that was currently engaged with the scorpion had absolutely zero chance of winning the fight. If they wanted to win the fight they would have to send swarms of people at the scorpion until it was exhausted and couldn't fight back.

The only downside was, that the scorpion seemed to be able to spew poison from the stinger on the end of it's tail because after it started taking damage from the three new arrivals, it began to fire streams of poison periodically at the people outside it's melee range.

Grant knew that it was definitely a skill from its Path because he could feel the fluctuations of the mana moments before the attacks were launched.

At this point, Grant was curious how they would handle the situation. Would they continue to throw bodies at the scorpion until it was exhausted and defeated or would they force their men to fight while they ran away?

After a few more minutes of back and forth with the scorpion, Grant saw Jerrod running back in their direction followed by the rest of the men and women who had been part of the initial group to engage the scorpion.

As Jerrod was running, he started to yell instructions at the people on the walls.

"We can't beat that thing! Scott said that the three of them would hold the scorpion back while we gather the rest of the survivors and flee from this area!!"