CH9: Kill It Dead

The system was not forthcoming with my question. But Goliath was with his fists. I tried to parry and felt my spear crack fatally. After the big green fist fully extended, I dodged a swipe and realized I was playing dark souls for keeps. My enemy was an undead that could have infinite stamina but, despite his brain capacity, might have a limited move pool.

Somehow I wasn't panicking. My mind fell into the zone, and the details around me that weren't important vanished.

I broke the pointy end of my spear off and thanked whatever god was helping me that I hadn't panicked. That, too, was weird. My fight or flight wasn't the best, and while I did have some practice recently, that shouldn't have helped much against Goliath.

The undead shot across the ground but wasn't impossibly fast. I wasn't completely outmatched while it was worth 3x more than me to the company. I could keep my distance; it didn't know what to do with its feet when attacked. Looking at the situation with a calm mind helped.

Goliath swung down with both arms and jumped. I ducked and rolled away. My body moved better than it ever had before. I remember catching a pony's kick once aimed for my groin in my teens. Since then, I have let my body slowly deteriorate, only occasionally exercising. The dungeon was quickly shaving off the fat.

"Burst," I moved, poked Goliath in the side, and jumped away before a swipe hit. "Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee," I said, moving in for a second hit.

My stab slipped into the monster's side, and he backhanded me away. My Gambinson took the blow like a champ. The padded clothes were great. I couldn't wait to get some chainmail to put over it, and then those zombies couldn't bite me. That thought alone also ruined zombie films for me.

The guys who lived in a mall could have dressed in thick clothes, and bites would be a none issue. All they would have had to worry about was being knocked down.

Goliath stood up and charged full throttle. His yellow feet pounded the ground, and his clawed toes scratched the stones for some insane traction. From what I could tell, he had paw pads on the bottom of his feet. I shot forward like I was playing chicken with the monster and dove to the side at the last moment.

The monster swiped and caught my boot. My other foot left the ground, and the unthinkable had finally happened; the insanely strong monster had me.

For a split second, the world slowed as adrenalin pumped through me. I saw the side of the monster's leg like it was in slow motion off the ground, about to slam down. My spear needed a place to sheath itself while I tried to survive. I stabbed into the side of the monster's leg at the joint. The monster took its next step and stalled.

Time moved like mud instead of sand, and I took a risk. Burst was still active, but I had precious few seconds left. While the monster had my foot, it held it in a way that could help me leverage myself into the monster's face.

I pushed off the ground and used the monster's grip to get into its face. Its eyes were distracted, and its thoughts were bent toward solving why my knee buckled. There were good odds the monster couldn't feel pain at all.

My hand latched around the bonelike protrusion of the monster's trapezius. I needed some leverage to get at least one additional point of damage. Then I started punching as fast and hard as possible on the stitched-up mess of the monster's skull. Light flashed as the double damage ate into the monster's mutated head. I could feel the flesh softening with each strike as I dealt 5 blows before the monster swapped its focus to me. It wasn't very intelligent; its creator was sore about that.

A solid blow at half my health knocked me back. The monster released my boot, and I flew away from it, weaponless. I saw a massive fist-shaped cavity in the monster's head and smirked. Goliath roared and scraped at the oozing flesh.

I sucked in a painful breath and coughed up a mouthful of blood. That wasn't good. I could have some internal bleeding.

After my coughing fit, I managed to get back on my feet as Goliath power walked over to me on a damaged knee. I bounced on the balls of my feet and felt my lungs burn. While I wasn't out of the fight, I wouldn't last much longer. Goliath only had one working eye and was clearly going for the kill.

That's when Burst went on cool down.