K!ngdom of the Mala!se (40)

I felt exhilarated as I ran alongside the arm of the Boss monster known as mama tick.

Feeling the blood rush to my head as I fell straight down, I caught myself on one of the many arms and treated my blade with some blood.

Dragging the blade through the arm with the same difficulty of someone trying to cut apart a block of wood with a hammer I frowned.

Stabbing the blade straight into the arm it briefly resisted before the purple chitin broke apart and the blood sword pierced the flesh of it.

A screech was the reward I gained from piercing the shell of the being but not for long.

That was because the boss monster wasn't so kind as to allow me to carve it up, the only reason I hadn't been sliced to pieces was because I fell incredibly far and the arm I was on was much farther from their scythe like hands/ legs?

Nevertheless, my time trying to stab into the flesh was cut off, but not without reward.

Twisting the blade deep into the flesh, I tore the arm apart and with a loud screech which gathered eyes towards me, one of the many insectoid arms fell onto the ground with a thud.

Grinning, a path seemed to flow in front of me providing me insight on what I would need to do.

Jumping off from the not cut part, several arms descended on my previous position a majority of the purple eyes which were checking out the other two bosses now looking at me.

And with those eyes looking at me, more arms descended from above and ascended from below painting a picture of a large spiked spear like maw trying to bite down on the very earth itself.

Luckily, I had a thing called the shield of Cthulhu at hand.

'I really should make a grappling hook when I have the time.'

Having those thoughts I charged straight to the side and ram runed downwards into a small gap in the network of spikes.

Stopping that charge into the ground where Large ticks awaited me alongside Blowgunners and Banished.

I glanced at the blood river they stood on and looked straight back up before a flash of inspiration hit me.

Quickly opening the inventory before I would be to preoccupied to fight, I equipped the Broken Inferno Shard and accidentally glanced at the icon of the egg that had been alongside my adventure in this new world for quite some time now.

Staring belatedly at it, I absent mindedly moved my body like a machine and sent an air cutter flying with red sparks.

And when those red sparks touched the red river...

All hell broke loose.

Hungrily jumping onto the blood like a starved beast in front of meat the flames seemed to grow larger and more ravenous as they started to consume the entire river of blood into blood red flame.

And by extension, the blood red flame consumed the monsters knee deep in the river of blood.

Screechs from unholy monsters of any kind resounded the skies as the river of blood turned into a river of flame.

And from a distance I could even see some of the flames were crawling up the body of Conjunctivis.

And despite the circumstances, I couldn't help but find the red flames quite beautiful...

If you ignored the fact that the red flames had a craving for blood and would crawl into anywhere to get it and I was now a hundred feet off the ground and a very angry monster mama was trying to eat me.

Twisting my body mid air with the help of a wooden block, a scythe arm tore through the air and I was now able to latch onto the arm once again and begin the cycle anew.

Using [Frost Blast] to briefly freeze the arm I was on, a follow up ram rune broke the fragile skin apart and sent the ligament flying into the river of flames.

Watching the arm quickly get burnt down into ash and devoured, I silently gulped down my saliva as I pulled out all of my possible tricks to try and survive the plight I was in.

Vine rune was now relatively useless due to the literal sea of fire.

Ram rune had high chances of me falling to my death.

Unless.

A plan sparked in my mind.

Who said I only needed to fall downwards when using it?

Immediately moving to put my plan in action, I began climbing up the many arms while accumulating a few scratches which shed my blood into the fiery abyss below.

Ignoring the beast, I plastered my last remaining slime gel onto the moving arm and stuck several explosions to it.

'Enjoy that.'

Jumping upwards with a double jump and shield charging upwards, the many arms which were knotted together in a tight nest of spikes suddenly tightened.

Thanks to the Magnetic Grenade holding them all together before they could move away and release the explosive cache.

Everything exploded.

Sending several bloody fragments careening away in the explosion, I enjoyed the scream of pain the creature made and used that gap in movements to put my thoughts to the test.

And my plan worked!

Sort of.

No leg flight but definitely leg launcher? Name in discussion.

But anyways.

Soaring through the skies I silently crafted several weapons in my inventory as the path in my vision slowly split into several branches as I soared higher into the sky.

Despite the myriad of paths that I could take with my skills it would be useless if I couldn't capitalize on the opportunities that the path gave me.

Reaching the apex of my ascent the screeching mama tick mourned the loss of its arms and directed all but two of its eyes towards me.

Bristling with the purple spikes around its body, the ground broke apart as the immobile boss monster shifted around and revealed the rest of its gigantic monster body.

Using three much larger arms than the rest, the monster body of the creature revealed itself.

Pulling itself out of the ground, more eyes peered out of the broken ground as the giant worm like boss monster slowly climbed straight to the skies.

Seeing the full form of the monster which was dragging itself out of the ground the top of its head split open and revealed a gigantic spiked maw like something out of the depths of my nightmares.

Staring at the giant maw nearing me deceptively slowly I instinctively realized it was a bit to late to escape.

Cursing quietly, I felt a pull from in front of me and in my inventory.

Already knowing that the tremble in my inventory was the one egg that had accompanied from the start, I turned my attention to the one in front of me.

Staring at the giant magical looking observatory in the distance I felt my surroundings slow down exponentially as a familiar feeling overcame my soul.

Taking me out of my physical body I felt myself get transported straight towards the observatory in the distance on the tip of the mountain.

---

"GAHAHAH!" Spinning the giant sword around, by now Gerald was the height of the gigantic eye that Conjunctivis owned.

Covered in a layer of stone armor his surroundings trembled underneath every small movement he made.

Stomping down and crushing several tentacles trying to grab at his legs underneath him, the wide boot of the stone giant was splattered with blood.

Slicing straight through the tentacles which were hindering his way towards the boss, Conjunctivis continued to try and hinder him.

Whether that be by using the tentacles gripping at his stone skin and trying to worm their way in or whether that be by throwing giant stones which were effortlessly sliced apart and added to his armor.

By now the place known as Stilt village was unrecognizable from its original appearance.

But at the end of the day, when the time loop took hold of the world again everything would return to its initial appearance and the inhabitants would be all the wiser.

It was the reason that they all fought as if they didn't care about their lives.

Gripping his sword, the thick tentacles wrapped around the giant body as the sword slowly inched its way to the boss monsters eyes, inch by excruciating inch.

Glaring straight at the boss monster, Gerald's attention as stolen by a scarlet flame which was hot enough to seep through his thick stone armor.

Glancing at the source of it a loud screech resonated across the battlefield and basically stopped it all to look at the far end of it where one of the other boss battles was occurring.

Mama Tick was screeching in pain as the myriad of arms that the boss monster had was now reduced to a smaller number as green blood spurted from the wounds.

Falling into the red sea of fire which tried to crawl upward, Gerald barely caught sight of the tiny figure in the sky who was the main reason of the damage accrued onto the monster.

Initially replacing the rivers which flowed through the village with the color of crimson red, the crimson red flames devoured all the blood it could get and was now crawling everywhere.

And although he knew that except for special occasions he would soon revive, Gerald couldn't help but feel a tinge of fear enter his heart.

And as soon as it did, his heart beat louder with the sound of adrenaline.

Crushing the fear into tiny pieces and keeping it as a reminder like a trophy within his heart, Gerald roared.

"GAHAHAH! HOW COME SUCH A FUN GUY HAS JUST ARRIVED?! I'VE BEEN MISSING OUT!"

Pushing harder on the sword, the interconnected network of mana pushed forwards as the earth itself seemed to undulate before the blade somehow became sharper.

Shining brighter, the earthen sword pushed forwards and stabbed straight at the eye of Conjunctivis who gained a red sheen to their eye as the tentacles bulged with renewed screech.

"COME AT ME CONJUNCTIVIS!!!"

"SKREEEE!!!!"

---

"All of these cells will be enough to finally finish it!" The collector rapidly moved around the battlefield while taking all the blue cells which shined underneath his specialized vision.

Pulling out his syringe and sucking all the cells in his vision straight into the glass apparatus and converting it all into a drop of blue liquid.

His apprentice stared dumbfoundedly as the smaller figure helped their master gather the cells absentmindedly.

Seeing their apprentice moving absentmindedly a flash of displeasure went through their eyes and they shouted.

"What are you doing Apprentice!? Help me gather these cells you fool!"

Jolting to attention the apprentice glanced at the skies where the full form of the Mama tick which was a gigantic worm like creature was revealed.

Staring at the spiked arms which seemed to reach for the skies and the gigantic nightmare like maw which aimed to devour the small figure which dared to push it this far.

The apprentice seemed to have the figure who dared to push Mama tick this far reflected within his vision.

Slinking ankle deep in the red blood which burnt around them with the force of the crimson fire, the Apprentice moved the two flasks in their hand while sucking up all the cells hidden underneath the blood and above it.

+++

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