Chapter 16: The Demons Close In

Miguel raced towards the scene, but was soon cut off by the remaining four monstrous spiders, which now began to surround him. He flung a throwing star, killing one outright.

Notification: You have gained 20XP

He then tried to use his newly assembled shield-and-ring combination to blast another. Nothing happened. Either they didn’t work together, or he had been right – the ring was spent, its mana used up.

“This way!” called Chloe.

She was back on her feet, clutching at her wounded leg with one hand but still bearing her katana with the other. And as they walked on, she closed in on Tarja, who was still doing her best to free herself from the spider-demon that was upon her.

Miguel fully expected Chloe to take her revenge by stabbing the blade through Tarja’s heart, but instead his sometime companion swung the blade through the air immediately above the blonde woman's head, causing an explosion of stinking ichor. The spider demon fell dead.

“Back to the stage,” called out Miguel as he reached the pair. In that moment, he realized that they would all rapidly be killed by the demons if they didn’t stand together. One of the six contenders would nevertheless win – but only by being the last to suffer a rapid, painful and inglorious death.

But Tarja and Chloe had now resumed their hostilities. As the three contenders stood in a rough triangle fending off more attacking spiders as well as a new wave of blue gator-demons, all of which had recently emerged from the long grass – their struggles were interspersed by Tarja stabbing at Chloe with one of her knives, and Chloe swinging her katana at her muscular rival in return.

“Cut it out, you two,” said Miguel, grunting as he kicked out at a blue demon and then shot it between the eyes with his crossbow. “We need to help each other – it’s the only way.”

Notification: You have gained 20XP

“She tried to kill me,” snarled Chloe, skewering a demon-spider in one moment and then slashing the dripping blade towards her rival in the next. “My leg is in agony.”

“Both of us,” Miguel reminded her. “But come on – first things first. We may be rivals, but we’ll all three be dead if we can’t work together for a moment.”

“He’s right, honey,” said Tarja. The warrior was apparently out of crossbow bolts, but showed herself to be just as capable with a knife in one hand and a ball and chain in the other, crashing the spiked ball of the latter weapon down onto one foe after another. Miguel wondered if she had picked up the weapon from Dustin Chu after he had been killed in the last trial.

“Plus that was only payback for the lake,” added Tarja.

“There’s no time to think about what we’ve all done before,” said Miguel. “Unless we want to hand this thing to Sid and Gwendolyn right now, we’re all gonna have to hold the stage until the waves of demons stop. Then, if more than two of us still survive, we fight it out, gladiator style.”

Notification: You have gained 25XP

The two women were still clearly furious, but they nodded, and the three contenders then moved towards the stage as one.

There, Sid and Gwendolyn were still holding their own – just – mainly by dint of propelling one attacker after another away from them. Sid was using his axe again, while Gwendolyn had once again reverted to magical attacks; she was firing one blast of white light after another from the palms of her hands, each one hurtling towards their foes like a glowing cannonball.

The red gator-demons were all down now, but more of the blue ones had emerged from the grass at the far side. The blue ones were faster but slightly smaller, making it possible for the pair to thump or kick them from the area, propelling each one back by some distance, but at great risk from the ferociously gnashing jaws. Both contenders were already streaked with blood, their legs and arms covered in minor wounds.

“Truce,” called Miguel as he reached the stage, just below Sid. “Let’s hold these guys off, and then settle it among ourselves after.”

Sid nodded, but Gwendolyn said nothing, for she was busily engaged in yet another struggle with a blue gator-demon which had gained the stage and clamped its jaws around her leg. Tarja vaulted up, raising her ball and chain again and slamming it down onto the beast’s back. Gwendolyn followed the attack up with another blast of magical energy which sent the creature flying several yards away before it crashed down onto the ground, dead.

Miguel then helped the wounded Chloe up onto the stage; she was moving better than he expected. “How bad is your leg?”

“I had a potion left,” she said. “It was a really bad wound, but now I’m back to eighteen hit points.”

“That’s better than me.”

Soon the five surviving contestants were arrayed around the edge of the metal stage. From the elevated height, Miguel could see just how many foes they still had to face. The blue gator-demons had been quick to emerge, but more of the slower pale spider-demons were now arriving near where he had been standing in the long grass. Worse – he could now see a mob of hideous flying attackers making their way from the hills. Each was like a blubbery orb with two clawed arms and a single eye. Their approach was eerie and sinister as they floated over the grass – it would be no more than half a minute until they arrived.

Closer, the long grass had started moving again, and soon a group of monstrous insects with heads like stag beetles – the same as the ones that had chased him in the tunnels during the second task – were emerging. They had appeared in a clump all to one side, swarming over one another, gnashing their enormous jaws. They would hit his side of the stage first, he quickly realized. And the demonic floating orbs were now almost upon them.

“We need to be ready – everyone hold their area,” he called out, glancing around at the other four.

That was when he realized that Gwendolyn was just behind him, her fists glowing and her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. Then she spread her fingers and a blast of magical energy hit him, sending him flying off the stage and towards the approaching giant insects.

You have lost 4 hit points. You have 12 hit points remaining.

Miguel hadn’t yet hit the ground when he realized what a big favor Gwendolyn’s treacherous attack had accidentally done him.

The demonic orbs were closing in on the stage now, surrounding the other four contestants while still hanging in the air, just out of reach. What’s more, they had begun to fire zigzag-shaped blasts of red magical energy towards the four contenders who were still standing there. Each one was like a small crimson lightning bolt.

The four who remained were forced to retreat towards the center of the platform, using their weapons to defend themselves or simply dodging out of the way of the attacks as best they could. Miguel saw Sid being hit directly in the chest; the big man briefly convulsed as if electrocuted before staggering to his feet again. That had to hurt, Miguel was in no doubt – and would probably have had even more impact if it had hit a player like himself with a low mana stat.

But for now, that was not his worry. He just had to keep away from the insect-demons. The giant beetles. And he had already learned that he was faster than them.

Equip crossbow

He fired three, four, five shots at the nearest of the beasts – a task made easier by the fact that they were still clustered close together. Three of them dropped down, and Miguel then turned and ran, starting circling rapidly around the stage area in an anti-clockwise direction before he even saw the corresponding notifications.

Notification: You have gained 20XP Notification: You have gained 20XP Notification: You have gained 10XP

He quickly got up to speed, and recalled how he had sped past Chloe in the early task, and had also gained on the beetles in the tunnels. “You can do this,” he called to himself. With his speed stat of 20, he knew that he was quick. And it might save his life – or at least, his chances in this contest.

It wasn’t going to be easy, however. The beetles were now swarming around the area, and there were still many spiders and gator-demons around, too. As long as he kept moving he could stay ahead of them, but there were currently very few clear areas to run into. This was forcing him to continually jink to the left and right, and at least one foe managed to land a hit on him as he moved.

You have lost 2 hit points. You have 10 hit points remaining.

But he had to keep going. Stopping to shoot wasn’t going to work, he quickly realized, and after firing off a couple more wayward shots and then reloading his crossbow with the second ammo pack, he decided on a different strategy.

Equip shield

Equip axe

To his right, the players on the platform were still up against it, though some were managing to return fire against the orbs now. Miguel noticed Chloe teetering near the edge, blocking more of the red mana bolts with her katana. “Here, take this!” he called out, reaching out and slamming his shield down at her feet. There wasn’t time to see whether she was able to pick it up, for he was running on, now panting hard, and feeling very hot and sweaty.

It occurred to him that the flow of demons from the outer part of the arena had slowed; no more crates had fallen from the sky since the initial event, and it appeared that most of the demons had by now made it to the center. What had compelled them to move towards the players, Miguel wasn’t sure.

He then executed a running leap as he dodged past a further two beetles whose mandibles were coming together towards his groin. Around three quarters of those still swarming around the clear ground area were giant beetles, the rest being made up of the remaining blue gator-demons and spiders.

But with his four fellow contenders now doing all that they could to defend themselves against the mana bolts shot out by the floating demon-orbs, and with the beetles unable to reach the height of the stage, the numbers of the attackers near him hadn’t changed much for the past minute or two.

He would have to thin their numbers himself if he could.

Still moving at something close to his top speed, Miguel began to swing his axe as he went past. One strike, then another, and yet another. He was clumsy with the weapon and knew that he wasn’t likely to land any killing blows this way, but he could perhaps damage a leg or lightly injure one of his foes, and that would at least slow them.

He was taking hits too, however. One of the spiders fired out one of its web missiles, thumping against his helmet, while two more giant beetles slashed at him with their enormous jaws. He hit back, noticing that killing a beast outright seemed to get him double the number of XP compared to just wounding one.

The notifications had been mounting up:

Notification: You have gained 10XP You have lost 1 hit point. You have 9 hit points remaining Notification: You have gained 10XP Notification: You have gained 10XP You have lost 2 hit points. You have 7 hit points remaining Notification: You have gained 10XP Notification: You have gained 20XP

Between the cumulative minor wounds and his fatigue, Miguel knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep up his circular dash through the area for long.

More immediately concerning, however, was that the remaining spider-demons appeared to have picked up on his tactics. Rather than milling around randomly like the beetles or the gator-demons, the surviving spiders – around ten in number – had gathered at the far end of the arena near the edge of the tall grass.

And as he passed, he saw that they were starting to form a line between there and the stage, each one firing webs towards the next to create an enormous barrier. In the time that it took him to execute one more circuit, they would have formed a web that would slow him considerably – or perhaps trap him altogether.

Miguel had to think of a solution quickly, he knew. As he smashed his axe down upon the head of yet another giant beetle, he willed himself to think.

Notification: You have gained 20XP

The spiders were ready to block his run. The platform itself was still under heavy fire from the mana-using orbs. And assuming that he didn’t want to be caught in the spiders’ web, that only left one direction for him to go in...

As he approached the line of spiders again, he drifted towards the left, and then sprinted away from the area near the platform. They hissed as he approached, perhaps anticipating their prey. But as he got closer, he ran down their line and into the tall grass itself. The last spider from the line broke off, lurching forward in an attempt to stop him, but found itself still held back by the webs from its own comrades. It screeched, pulling towards Miguel; he took the opportunity to equip his crossbow, and sent two bolts deep into its brain.

Notification: You have gained 20XP

Soon he was running through the long grasses, crossbow still in hand. And if anything, his heart was beating even faster now, his whole body something close to panic.

Sure, the grasses had looked a lot safer from a distance in comparison to the no-man’s-land that surrounded the stage. But would there be other demons lurking in there that hadn’t shown their face yet? It seemed all too likely...