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CH 64: Openings
🕑 Added 2024-12-26 15:00:00 +0000 UTCFear threatened to build in Reid's stomach. He pushed it down and hardened his resolve. He could fight this thing alone. He could win if he worked for it. As long as he fought hard enough, he could make an opening. Or, he could get away. But his preference was the fight. The win.
Toby's skill did its work as the creature came straight towards him. Bits of red became visible at the wall breach behind the Titan, and Reid found himself hoping that the things would be too stupid to advance. They milled about and started moving forward through the gap in the wood. Small salamanders looked at the elites, and the elites looked to the guardian.
The guardian stared at Toby and Reid. Pops and screeches set the smaller salamanders in motion, and the guardian took off behind the Titan in a dead sprint.
This... wasn't ideal, but it was one of the possibilities they'd planned for. Now they just had to hope Toby and the others would take the attention to keep the bulk of the enemy forces away from Reid. The ATV rumbled to life, and Reid shared a nod with Toby. He dropped the taunt on the Titan, and sped off out to the side. There was less room to run and fewer safe paths to take with the beasts emerging into the space. Reid hoped Toby would be able to keep the thing off himself long enough to let Reid finish his work.
The Titan loomed above him - angry, seemingly at again being forced under the influence of a skill. Its swirling orange eyes burned at Reid and it let out a growl. Reid answered with a roar, and charged forward. Rage-fueled strength surged throughout the muscles in his entire body, and he hefted Requiem above his head and brought it down hard in an arcing blow aimed at the Titan's arm. It plunged partway down, then halted against a crystal growth. The Titan shoved him up and away, and Reid stumbled as he regained his footing on the landing. The beast advanced, claws out and swinging.
Reid evaded, barely, by staying two steps or one large jump away from its range at nearly all times. He let himself be pushed by the Titan's assault and pulled it into a wide, circular motion that took the both of them through the field.
The guardian ran past the two of them, hot in pursuit of Toby. In some glorious miracle, the smaller salamanders that reached them steered well clear of the fight between Reid and the Titan, and even parted behind him as he retreated out of the way of its blows. If Reid weren't in a life-or-death situation, he would've spent more time wondering about the beasts' rules and etiquette.
The smaller salamanders flooded towards the volunteers perched on their improvised platforms. Many had gotten themselves impaled on or tangled in Mark's traps, and there was a bit of a squirming wall developing where the beasts were having trouble getting past each other. That didn't mean the volunteers were free and clear, though. There were over 1,600 salamanders still alive, and they pushed through and over their brethren to reach the humans firing at them from afar.
Kills and losses counters ticked upwards. A single level 10 launched itself forward atop the backs of other beasts, and its wide swipe killed one archer and knocked a man holding a rifle to the ground where he perished. A group of salamanders that had arrows sticking out of their arms - but none in their heads - tore into and through the base of one of the tow-behind campers. The roof collapsed, and the people that had been atop the thing died inside the wreckage.
Beasts slumped over or fell back as short-range bodkin point shots drilled through skulls and ended them. The better fighters lashed out with spears and melee weapons to secure kills as the things reached the edges of their platforms. The worse ones stayed away from the edges, and only fought once salamanders had already climbed up to meet them. Those groups didn't last very long.
Towards the rear, volunteers for back-gate defense had moved themselves from the ground to the wall. They fought hard against a handful of beasts that had made it through the rest of the defenses - including one elite. Reid saw it go after one of the ladders. The next time he could spare a glance, it was on the wall ending lives.
His fight with the Titan wasn't going much better. If he slipped up, even for a moment, he'd pay for it. Even the glances around him were an unnecessary risk. It was just hard to not keep an eye on things.
Each time its claws lashed out, Reid felt the power emanating through them. They carved through the ground with ease, and the one time smaller salamanders hadn't cleared out of the way of their fight, the Titan carved straight through them like a hot knife through styrofoam. Reid tried to lead it into the surrounding beasts again as a way to thin their numbers, but they quickly scurried out of the way. The only bonus from the action was that it forced some of the things away from the slowly-thinning volunteers. The battle continued. Vicious swipes from the creature barely missed him each time he landed a blow, and he was already sweating with strain.
Anger and strength flowed through Reid. He dodged, and struck opportunistic blows. The Titan's legs turned bloody as cuts accumulated, and the lazy ring he was pulling the salamander through had started to get slick with its lost blood. But he couldn't just bleed the thing dry - or at least he was pretty sure he couldn't. Reid was dealing damage, but nothing decisive nor momentum-changing like Sara's targeted removal of a limb. Reid worked towards the same strategy, but the thing had started to better guard that leg.
Instead, Reid had another idea. Every salamander he'd fought had extensively used its tail in either combat or to help it move around the battlefield. If he could take off the thing's tail, there was a decent chance it could help create the opening he sought.
Reid let his anger boil and his muscles suffer under the strain as he shifted himself to rounding the creature's blows and getting his own in on the thing's rear appendage. It attempted to shift its focus on blocking both legs and its tail at once, but it couldn't pin Reid down every time. He punished it with more and deeper cuts on both legs, and a growing bloody gouge in the top of its tail, close to the base.
On the platforms, gunshots and shouts rang out. The volunteers had fallen back to the once 'command center', and were ardently fighting off an endless tide of red flesh and crystal claws. The elite on the wall had decimated nearly all of the people there before it was put down. Its body sat there with a spear embedded in the eye.
Reid's vision tunneled as he concentrated on the task. Minutes and motions blurred together as the fight dragged on, moment by moment.
When the gouge in the Titan's tail was nearly two thirds of the way through, Reid decided it was time.
They hadn't needed to cut all the way through its leg to get it to fall, so the same should be true for anything else it needed to put weight on.
Reid got one more good hacking blow into the wounded tail, then did something new. He waited for an opening that he'd normally use to hit the tail, and went for a leg instead. Requiem slammed into the back of the salamander's knee with every bit of strength he could call - and drove it a half step forward. It stumbled and overcorrected, then instinctually flexed its tail to catch its bulk.
The beast let out an ear-splitting cry as its tail folded under the strain. Its monstrous form tilted and tipped, then slammed onto the ground with a thunderous boom.
He'd done it.
The Titan's white belly was exposed to the sunlight and its already-wounded legs were splayed out half useless. Its arms were still technically mobile - but that was a risk Reid was willing to deal with.
This was the moment - the single opening he'd worked so hard to achieve. He wouldn't waste it.
Reid climbed atop the Titan's belly in two swift steps, and sprinted up towards its neck with Requiem's spiked tip aimed at the Titan's lower jaw.
His mace slowed considerably as it stabbed up into the beast's flesh. Reid willed it to continue inch by excruciating inch. Just a bit farther up. Just enough to kill the beast.
He was so close. Reid twisted his heels to solidify his footing on the Titan's neck. His muscles screamed under the strain and he felt his calf tear itself apart as he tried to force himself up into the beast. Sweat stung his eyes and clouded his vision. The Titan's blood spilled from the wound and split into two rivulets that ran down opposite sides of its throat.
He saw one of the things arms stir and start to rise.
Reid screamed with effort as he forced his body to work harder than it ever had before. More power. More effort. He was so close, and it didn't matter if he tore himself apart so long as he could kill the beast.
His mace's momentum halted with a clink.
Reid's eyes went wide and his stomach dropped.
He thrust the weapon up again, over and over, and each time the clink rang out like a funeral bell.
He'd bargained for an unprotected area under its brain, but the lizard's crystal barrier encased its entire weak point.
No. No no no no no. It can't end like this. It isn't right. I won. I goddamn won.
The Titan lifted an arm, and backhanded Reid away with a devastating flick of its wrist. He saw sky, then ground as he flipped end over end. His body slammed into the ground on his left elbow, and momentum slid him across the grass. His head felt like he was still spinning when he finally got back to his feet. Things weren't looking good.
The top half of his bone mace was stuck in the Titan's lower jaw. Reid held the rest of Requiem in his right hand. The handle was intact, but the weapon itself had a shard-like break partway up its shaft. It made the thing look like a bone-version of a crude, pointed stick.
The Titan didn't give him time to recover. It advanced with claws and teeth flailing in his direction. Reid pushed power into his shredded calf muscle and backed away as quickly as he could.
Then his heel caught on a rock.
It was a small, unremarkable thing - just a few inches of hard surface in the middle of a field, a few hundred feet from some RVs, that had been exposed where the soil around it was scraped away. Reid cursed his luck as he fell. He'd managed to trip on the only rock in the area. If he had been able to build his dexterity, there was no way such a minor thing would've sent him off balance. But just like his enemy, Reid tripped and couldn't keep himself upright. The Titan's blood had turned the dirt around it into a muddy texture, and Reid's feet slid out from underneath him.
Blue glowing claws split the air above him with a whistling slash. The side of the closest one brushed against his nose, and the force behind it slammed his head hard into the ground.
Had he been upright, the powered strike would have caught Reid in the chest and torn him in half. If there was a secret luck stat, it might be the inverse of Reid's dexterity.
Reid's bottom half was still in the muddy dirt. His arms were in the grass, but he could barely lift them. He ran strengthening though himself again just to prop himself up on an elbow.
The Crimson Titan above him roared out with anger.
It had intended to kill an injured, weakened Reid with that strike. Instead it missed, and that same injured and weakened man was prone on the ground.
The Titan opened its maw, and teeth descended.
