Chapter 13: The Demon’s Wrath

With the glass doors no longer in front of them, Miguel and Tarja were being ejected into the arena with the monstrous demon. Feeling something pushing them from behind – the walls, or perhaps the entrance doors – there was nothing they could do to stop themselves from proceeding into the combat zone.

Miguel stepped forward on the sand, a surface already sprayed with blood as well as with ichor from the demon.

The area looked a lot smaller from inside.

The demon was still moving towards Chloe, and Miguel raised his crossbow, yelling and pulling the trigger at the same time. A bolt flew out, hitting the back of the demon’s head without doing much damage, and then deflecting up onto its horn which snapped at the tip.

He was surprised to then see an immediate notification, despite the fact that the combat was still ongoing:

Notification: You have gained 5XP

The creature paused, then, and in his mind Miguel pictured it turning, striding towards him with its crushing tentacle legs.

But no.

Instead it continued to move closer to Chloe, looming over her while Gwendolyn and the others edged away. Chloe was now huddled down against the side wall. Terrified, or ready to dash at the last minute?

Neither.

The demon leaned in, its face coming close to her, and at that moment there were a series of bangs – five in all, followed by a streaking movement as Chloe rolled, stood up, and then dashed around to the side of the arena, joining Gwendolyn near the large oblong boulder.

The beast leaned back, and a screaming noise came out of it, so loud and distressed that it was quite unlike anything Miguel had heard before. He hesitated, his finger still on the trigger of his crossbow, wondering if it was time for a celebration.

He certainly hoped so.

But no.

Whatever Chloe had done to it, the demon wasn’t dead. And it was now turning towards him.

The creature’s face had been badly mangled due to the gunshots, but from where Miguel was standing, this simply made it look more terrifying. There were three gaping holes roughly where its eyes would have been, and another lower down. What he now saw looked like a ruined mockery of a face.

Miguel fired his crossbow, aiming at the same damaged areas, and two bolts struck home before the monster was on him. But as it closed in, he turned and began to sprint away, hoping that his exceptional speed would save him. He could certainly feel its terrifying looming presence just behind.

Unequip crossbow

Equip axe

Equip shield

Running hard, and gripping the hand-axe that he had picked up by the lake, Miguel passed by Sid, who was still cowering in one of the arena’s many pits. But he knew that he was barely keeping ahead of the enormous creature... And soon he felt a thump on his upper arm which sent him stumbling towards the side wall, and he realized that he had been slashed by one of the pincers.

You have lost 4 hit points. You have 8 hit points remaining.

Steadying himself against the wall and turning, Miguel raised the shield and used it to block one blow from the demon and then a second, while simultaneously blocking a third with the axe.

Notification: You have gained 5XP

He then moved in between the demon’s limbs, and raised the axe high above his head as it loomed over him. He slashed it down, forcing the weapon into the beast’s chest with all his might.

Notification: You have gained 10XP

But despite the open target and the splash of ichor which resulted, the axe bounced straight off, with the demon barely reacting to the wound. It then lowered its two remaining limbs, picked Miguel up and began to lift him towards its gaping mouth, its pincer-like claws digging into his chest as it did so.

You have lost 1 hit point. You have 7 hit points remaining.

Miguel screamed in terror.

Desperate, and unable to think of another move, he dropped his axe and raised the strange ring he had found, pushing it directly into the demon’s face. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was hoping for... perhaps just that it had some kind of magical defensive property, or might repel the beast.

What happened next was entirely unexpected.

The ring partially exploded, causing a circle of white energy centered around Miguel to blast outwards across the entire arena. The top of the demon’s head was blown off entirely, as were its two remaining claws.

As it stumbled backwards, roaring and blinded, Miguel fell directly two meters to the ground with a groan.

Notification: You have gained 20XP You have lost 3 hit points. You have 4 hit points remaining.

The demon was still moving, but in a wildly chaotic way, staggering around the arena and swaying. Clearly, it was severely wounded. It roared again, but the sound sounded muffled due to the damage to its head.

Miguel lay on the ground for a moment, stunned and in a lot of pain, but he swiftly realized that he was in danger of being crushed if he didn't pick himself up.

Besides.

This was the chance to finish it, surely, he told himself.

His hand axe was lying on the ground by his feet, and he picked it up and ran towards the creature, slamming its wide blade sweetly into its body. This time there was a genuine reaction to his hit; the demon gave out a muffled roar and pulled away from him, half turning as it staggered forward.

Notification: You have gained 10XP (critical success)

He now picked up his shield, too. Picturing himself finishing off the demon in a glorious and heroic move, Miguel stepped forward again, ready to follow up. But whether because he was too busy visualizing the move or simply due to the profusion of obstacles in the arena, he tripped two yards from the creature, slamming downwards face first into the ground, and landing on the blade of his own axe. A notification then came up:

You have lost 2 hit points. You have 2 hit points remaining.

Cursing his low agility stat again, he picked himself up again, his whole body aching.

The demon had now turned back towards him. It looked really badly smashed up; all three of its upper limbs had been removed or severely wounded, its face was more or less destroyed, and several other wounds and gashes were visible, with multiple arrows and crossbow bolts now protruding from it.

But it was still moving.

The others in the arena, however, had now sensed their foe’s vulnerability, and were – with the exception of poor broken Laticia – now moving in.

Brad had raised his longbow again and begun to fire. Chloe had her spear in her hand once more and was poised on the balls of her feet. Even Sid, battered bruised and bleeding, had pulled out his short sword and was beginning to close in on the demon.

It was Gwendolyn that reached it first, however. Her twin swords were now glowing with a similar magical light energy to that which had been emitted by the ring; using these enchanted blades, she stepped in and slashed multiple times at the demon, just as Miguel was picking himself back up. Her blows hit the uninjured leg of the creature, further hobbling it and causing it to stumble.

As it attempted to turn and retaliate, it finally fell to its knees, and the demon hunters moved towards it as a pack.

The creature’s already-wounded torso was now exposed to the group, and moments later, all of them were frantically attacking, one hit after another landing on its body, all caution forgotten. Some of the contenders were standing back a couple of yards and shooting; others were leaning in and hacking or stabbing at the creature.

It raised the stumps of its arms one more time, and thumped down hard with both limbs at once. One hit Chloe with a glancing blow and she staggered backwards, falling to her knees, but quickly picked herself back up. The same limb then swung round and hit Tarja full in the face, and she stepped away, yelling in pain, before being pinned underneath the same limb, struggling on the ground. But most of the group were still attacking.

The creature’s foot then reached out and hit Dustin, snapping his longbow, the rootlike tendrils of the leg then fastening around his chest and pinning him to the ground. As the blows and arrows continue to rain down on the demon, it only tightened its grip on the man, right around his midriff.

From his prone position Dustin pulled out a ball and chain and began to wave it despairingly towards the monster, but could not land a sufficiently powerful blow from where he lay. Gwendolyn fired off a light-energy attack on the limb which knocked it slightly, but still it clung on.

And as Miguel watched on, still hacking at the beast with his axe, there came a crunch from Dustin's rib cage. The man stiffened up, slumping down under the crushing weight of the demon’s leg, until he lay motionless, the breath squashed out of him, his chest nearly flattened.

Tarja was still struggling, restrained by one stump of the creature’s damaged arm and hacking at it with one of her knives, but Chloe had got to her feet and approached Miguel. She looked down at the ring on his hand, and then back up at his face.

“How did you do that,” she said, her eyes intent and focused. She was bleeding in several places, and the side of her face was beginning to show severe bruising.

“It must be the ring,“ he said, ”but I dunno how it works. No idea.”

“Then figure it out, man! We need to do some serious damage to finish that thing off.”

Miguel knew that he needed to act, but did not know how. He was also aware that he was close to being out of hit points, and therefore out of the contest, with blood still gushing from the wound on his upper arm.

Just then, Bratislav’s words came back to him: If you could just focus your thoughts for long enough... Was it his focus that had caused the ring to emit the damaging light before?

Straining to picture a beam of light coming out from the ring, he held up his hand. The ring glowed, but nothing more. He clenched both hands together, then, and held it tightly while still pointing it towards the stricken creature.

Was there any power left in the strange ring?

And finally, as he willed the energy to come out of it once again, a narrow beam of light shot out, and blasted into the beast's wounded torso. The force of it was a lot less than the earlier explosion, and Miguel got the feeling that the item’s power had been largely drained, but he held on, willing more power to come out.

The beast shook vigorously for several seconds as the magical light hit its wound. And at last, just as the power of the light was dying down, it stiffened for a second, and then moved no more.

The surrounds blurred once again, and Miguel found himself looking at the huge square room with the benches once again, five other surviving contestants in the distance.

He grabbed a towel from one of the nearby piles, and applied it to his arm, unsure if that would make any difference to the recovery of his wound. It just felt right.

Notification: You have gained 90XP

That didn’t seem too generous considering the dangers they had just faced, he mused... But on the other hand, they had picked up XP with each attack.

Miguel noticed out of the corner of his eye that Sid and Chloe were putting down their weapons, the former lying right down on his own bench. He then walked wearily over to his own bench, and with a sigh, unstrapped his axe and shield and placed them down.

He then took a moment to check both for damage; the axe was strangely blackened but seemed to still be strong enough, while the shield looked entirely undamaged despite the hits it had taken. He noticed again the circular indentations, and took a moment to clean out what looked like demon blood from one of them.

With a grunt, Miguel then began to unbuckle his iron chest plate, and placed that down on the bench in front of him, too.

At just that moment there came an announcement.

"Contenders – all of you must sit, please."

Right. Miguel rolled his eyes. Do as we say. Stand. Sit. Walk through the glass doors.

An image of Laticia crushed beneath the demon's feet filled his mind's eye, and then that of Dustin, the man nearly sliced in half by the crushing tentacles which had flattened his chest.

Feeling decidedly unwilling to cooperate, Miguel instead stood in front of his bench, turning, folding his arms.

“Damn you all, he muttered.”

A silence reigned for a moment.