Any animosity between Lloyd and the miscus chieftain was forgotten as he charged forward. He didn’t like the miscus, and he didn’t think they liked him either, but he could not willingly let thousands of weak, innocent miscus civilians die because of his grudge against their leader.
A plasma bolt shot towards the lizards back as Lloyd began to bombard it with mana bolts, it didn’t do any real damage, but it did do what he had intended. The lizard temporarily disregarded the miscus chieftain and turned to face him, the lizard glared at him like he was a pest that couldn’t do anything to protect himself.
In a way the lizard was right, he couldn’t do any meaningful damage to it by himself, good thing he wasn’t alone. The physical damage the miscus had took was mostly superficial and was closing up quickly thanks to the healing skill it kept activating, meaning that it was in much better condition than it looked.
This had tricked the lizard into a false sense of security, making it think its foe was far worse off than it really was. While the lizard was distracted with Lloyd, the miscus chief leapt forward, slamming its fists into the back of its head, opening up a deep cut along its neck.
The lizard spun around and pushed the miscus off with monstrous brute force, or at least it looked that way. In reality Lloyd could see mana congealing around its leg as it did so, meaning it was using a skill. While this did mean the lizard could still easily ragdoll the miscus, it meant it wasn’t strong enough to do so based on raw stats alone.
Lloyd wasn’t sure whether this was meant to be reassuring or not, as just one strike from that thing was enough to turn him into a red stain on the ground. As the lizard turned back around to face the miscus, Lloyd continued his assault, targeting the eyes of the beast.
The mana bolts all connected, but they were so weak that the lizard wasn’t even bothering to face him, if he wanted to do any real damage to this thing he would have to get closer. Lloyd ran up behind the lizard while it was preoccupied and pushed mana into his legs, launching him onto its back.
Lloyd landed on its spine, summoning his halberd as he ran along the ridge of its back to its head. He slashed Thunder Bone down on the lizard’s head opening up a deep jagged cut along its brow, just missing the beast’s eye.
The beast shook with anger, it tried to swat him off but was too preoccupied with the chieftain to get to him. Seeing that it couldn’t hit him with its legs, the lizard abandoned that idea and focused on the miscus again.
Lloyd aimed for the eye again, the beast’s beady pupil darting around as it saw the incoming blade. The lizard was unable to grab him, and with an eye gone it would be put at a major disadvantage. Before the blade could connect with the eye a green flash made Lloyd drop to the ground, missing the hit.
He looked around for what had just tried to slam into him, finding his answer far faster than expected. The sharp club on the lizard’s tail shot right past his face, just a foot away from bisecting him, then it stopped moving, hovering in the air like a cobra staring down its prey.
Whenever Lloyd moved it followed him, whenever he ducked, bobbed to the side, or tried to attack, the lizard it would copy his movements and intercept him. With the tail following him around like this, he couldn’t do anything while on the lizard’s head, he had to get back down.
Before the tail could try to intercept him, Lloyd summoned a plasma bolt and launched it towards the tail, before running to jump off the beast. The plasma bolt harmlessly scattered across the surface of the tail club, not leaving so much as a burn mark.
In an instant, the tail cut of his route of escape and began to change, the sharp bony club unfurled into a three-pronged claw, and in the centre. An eye. The pupil dilated, shifting into a hostile slit, before shooting forward like a viper striking.
Lloyd tried to jump away, but the claw was too fast, in an instant, it had almost caught onto his legs, he couldn’t get away this time. As the pincers started wrapping around him, Lloyd ran out of space to cast any spells and had to stow away thunder bone for fear of having it lost or even broken.
As the tail club started wrapping back up around him, Lloyd desperately tried to break out from his ever-shrinking cage. Lloyd crouched down as the walls pushed inward around him, beginning to better understand the plight of claustrophobia as he was compressed.
All the while the beady orange eye at the bottom of the cage stared up at him sadistically, then he got an idea, it wasn’t a guarantee, but it might just work. Lloyd filled his left leg with mana and pushed up against the roof as he stomped down with full force.
The pupil dilated once more, expanding significantly as the walls pushed down with renewed fervour, but it was all proved futile when Lloyds false legs pierced the iris, sending blood and pus all through the chamber. Light rushed between the claws as the cage fell apart, he was flung down as the lizard screeched with its tail flailing around wildly.
He landed on the ground nearby the miscus chief, the lizard stared him down while the miscus charged in to target the its head once again. By now the miscus had covered the lizard’s front legs and gullet in a mass of bloody lacerations and cuts, all oozing blood across the plaza.
Lloyd charged forward alongside the miscus, summoning a plasma bolt to launch at the lizards remaining eyes. A swarm of mana bolts began harassing the lizard, trying to draw its attention away from its true assailant. The plasma bolt shot forward, striking the lizard near the eye but missing by a tiny margin once again.
Lloyd stopped himself just before he jumped towards the lizard’s head, stopping the mana and trying to get the chieftains attention. All around the lizard’s head, mana was surging, meaning that it was using a skill, and judging by the quantities, it was a big one.
The lizard’s bony maw opened wide, its bottom jaw separating down the middle, revealing a mouth full of rows upon rows of jagged, serrated teeth. The miscus now realised the danger that it was in, it tried to back away, but it was too late. From deep in the back of the lizards throat, a viscous, green liquid shot out, straight onto the miscus’ chest.
A sickening sizzle came from the miscus’ body, its skin was burning and flaking off, deep pockets of flesh decaying at a visible rate. The miscus roared out in pain, its regenerative skill quickly overpowered by the acid.
The lizard turned its head to Lloyd and gave him a cruel stare, several more globs of acid shot out at him, but he was able to dodge. It seemed the lizard already considered the miscus chieftain a lost cause, as it didn’t even bother finishing it off, and honestly Lloyd couldn’t blame it.
The chieftain was on its hands and knees, its whole body covered in burns and necrotic flesh, it arms were hanging limply to its side, and it was quickly bleeding out. When Lloyd had fought it earlier, it had also gained hundreds of cuts all over its body, and subsequently healed them like it was nothing, but that skill had relied on the general miscus populace helping out, and they were preoccupied.
Up amongst the branches above the plaza, a brutal battle between the iguanas and the miscus was raging with no clear winner. The lizards had cornered the miscus and pushed them back to a single region, taking control of the only connecting branch.
The miscus soldiers, empowered by the shamans, were fighting valiantly, refusing to give a single inch, but the lizards were beginning to overwhelm them with sheer mass. There were far fewer lizards than miscus, but each lizard was the size of a van, and able to take down a small army of miscus on account of body mass alone.
If nothing changed, the miscus were going to be overwhelmed, and once the front line had fallen, only the weak and the children would remain. Lloyd looked for something he could do to help, but all he could do from the plaza was to try and knock the lizards down from the branch.
Lloyd readied himself to throw a plasma bolt but was interrupted before he could execute the skill. With the chief incapacitated, the lizard had decided to go on the offensive, and it was far faster than it had any right to be. Lloyd sprinted across the plaza, but the thunderous footsteps of the lizard were only getting closer.
He hadn’t used it until now, but he had no other options. For the first time, Lloyd activated the unique enchantment on his boots.
Swift step.
Suddenly, Lloyd was moving far faster than the lizard, but it was hard to control, it felt like he was running on ice and could fall at any minute. Nevertheless, Lloyd was now able to outpace the lizard, though his false leg was making it extremely difficult to keep balance.
Lloyd sped away from the lizard, launching a plasma bolt into the swarm up in the branches. The beast he hit was instantly thrown off balance, stumbling around and biting the lizard closest to it in anger. The beast retaliated in kind by slamming its tail club into the other lizard’s head, in seconds the lizards had started fighting amongst themselves, spitting acid everywhere and giving the miscus a chance to take control of the battle.
The miscus were relentless in their advance, the disorganised ranks of the lizards were quickly overwhelmed and pushed back. Any lizard too slow to back away was swarmed and thrown from the branches, thuds echoed out across the treetops as the lizards were turned into gory stains on the plaza floor.
Though the miscus sacrificed many in their charge against the lizards, the numbers were negligible compared to the lizards’ devastating casualties. Seeing how its kin were being slaughtered, their leader down in the plaza called out with deep guttural roars, but it was already too late.
The lizards’ ranks may have reorganised, but with the miscus’ advance the shamans had gotten the chance to work their magic. Deep-red magic circles and runes appeared in the air, beams of energy and violent explosions tore into the lizards ranks in a one sided slaughter.
With their overwhelming victory up in the treetops, the miscus’ spirits soared, filling the forest with screams of victory. With the tribal spirit reignited, the shamans used the energy and began hastily erecting familiar runes, runes of healing.
The miscus chanted in unison, the runes glowing like the sun, and a familiar figure rising from the dead. The miscus chieftain was beginning to rise, its broken body reforming, and its rotted flesh being rejuvenated at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The lizard roared in primal fury at seeing its brethren slaughtered like cattle, and snorted in indignation at the chief, like it was daring it to try again. The chief accepted this challenge happily, its size swelling once more now reaching well over twenty feet into the air thanks to the manic fervour of its kin.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Lloyd stared in disbelief. Had he been wrong to challenge this thing? It had been halfway through deaths door, and with the power of tribal belief alone, it had become even more powerful than before. Lloyd would have had to kill this thing five times to defeat it, the chief really was one tough nut to crack.
Unfortunately for the miscus, the lizard seemed to be an expert nutcracker, as it was undeterred by the chief’s explosive growth, heedlessly charging forward once more. The two met in a clash of titans, the lizard trying to use the acid spit skill again with the chief holding its jaws shut with brute force and will alone.
For the first time so far, the lizard looked on with genuine worry, it desperately tried to get the toxin out of its body, thrashing about to try and get out of the chief’s vice like grip. The chief however was having none of it, the lizard’s jaws were held shut like they were the gates of hell as it was forced to expel the acid by spitting it out of its nose like a Galapagos iguana did with salt.
The toxin pathetically splashed onto the miscus, leaving only a tiny flesh wound as its dripped of its chest. The lizard however did not fare so well, without a place to go, the toxin was forced to sit in the lizard’s mouth and nose, causing it to rot. Withing seconds the acid burnt its way through the lizard’s gullet, leaving the plaza rank with the smell of rotten flesh.
The chieftain threw the lizard to the ground, defeated and disgraced. It growled at the miscus, baring its gruesome three-part maw, rank with the smell of necrosis. Lloyd was quick to act and sent a swarm of mana bolts into the beast’s throat, causing it to stumble and cough in pain.
The miscus shot forward, taking advantage of the lizard’s pain, unaware it was falling into a trap. The lizards tail swept across the floor, knocking the miscus chieftain to the ground. Before it could get back to its feet, the chieftain was gripped across the chest by the lizards clawed tail and hefted into the air.
In a lightning-fast movement, the lizard slammed the miscus into the ground, sending a shockwave across the plaza. The chieftain coughed up blood, its ribs cracking as the lizard pressed its foot down on the miscus’ chest.
The chief growled in defiance, refusing to be humiliated like this, it pushed up against the lizard’s stomach, lifting it into the air, but it was for nought. When the lizard had first engaged the chieftain, it had been flinging it around like it was nothing, and Lloyd had wondered how. Every time he thought about it, he came to the same conclusion, it was using a skill. One incorporating weight.
While the lizard was big, it just simply wasn’t big enough to constitute that kind of power behind its swings. This theory was proven true when the lizard activated its skill. Mana fluxed around the lizard’s leg as it pushed back down. The chief was pushed flat to the floor, and a sickening crunch sounded out as the lizard pressed down with its full force.
The chieftain’s blood was flowing freely from its body, yet it still looked up with a look of supremacy as it roared into the sky. The lizard responded by pressing down harder, causing the miscus to groan in pain, the satisfaction this brought the lizard, however, was not long lived.
As Lloyd ran forward to try and help the chieftain, sanguine-red magic circles lit up on the ground all around the lizard. From up in the air, thousands of cheers echoed out from the miscus as the shamans drew on the ground with devoted fervour.
Before the lizard had a chance to react, blood red chains shot from out the magic circles, ensnaring it in a trap. The lizard writhed and struggled as much as it could, but was unable to free any more than its tail.
The lizards tail lashed around like a gargantuan whip, tearing up the branches where its passed. In its anger, the lizard tried to crush the chieftain even more but found that its bindings blocked it, only increasing its anger.
Out from the ground, giant bone spines pierced the lizard’s stomach. Yet another attack from the shamans. Blood spouted everywhere, coating the platform red as the lizard roared in pain, it was fast realising the inevitability of its death, but as it did, something else clicked within the lizard’s mind. It would not die alone.
Colossal volumes of energy were siphoned out of the air and into the lizard’s body, fuelling the last skill it was yet to unveil. The lizard raised its tail above its head like a scorpion, mana filling its tail as it prepared to strike.
All around the lizard’s tail, replicas made of mana congealed into existence, all aimed down at the chieftain. Lloyd was shocked, after all this, the lizard was still able to unleash such a devastating blow.
He couldn’t let it land.
The chieftain had done so much already, it was without a doubt the main contributor to this fight, with Lloyd only distracting the lizard, and occasionally assisting the chieftain as it did all the heavy lifting. Lloyd could not let it die now.
His legs were flooded with mana as he leapt skyward to intercept the strike. Thunder Bone was ready in his hands as he went in for the strike, he activated electrify, but it wasn’t enough. It would not be strong enough to neutralise the hit. He had to take a risk.
Lloyd had pondered this before, but not had the chance to test it so far. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get a test run, he had to do it right the first time.
Thunderstrike.
Lloyd emptied the last of his mana reserves as he activated the enchantment on his bracers. Unadulterated power flooded into his arms, within a moment they were ready to burst from the energy, but he couldn’t let that happen.
All of the energy was sacrificed as Lloyd transferred it into his swing. Vibrant cerulean energy crackling with electricity rushed though the shaft and bloomed across the blade as his halberd connected with the lizard’s tail.
The claw on the end of the tail shattered like glass before the might of the swing, the energy passing through the tail with ruthless indifference. The tail exploded along with all its copies, unable to contain the energy, sending shards of bone and gore flying in all directions.
The tail was shredded down to a stump, with not but a scorched mass of mottled flesh remaining of the lizards hidden ace. The lizards blood ran like rivers, coating the plaza a vibrant vermillion red.
Lloyd walked to the head of the fallen beast, he raised thunder bone, and slammed it down, finally felling the beast for good.
You have slain a Hook Tail Iguana Titan lvl -24
Experience gained, + 190 credits
Level 24? That thing was over ten levels higher than him, and seven above the miscus chieftain, no wonder it was so hard to kill. There was no way he could have done that alone, some voices crept into his head saying that maybe he was just that strong, but he shut them down instantly.
Without the assistance of the chieftain and shamans, Lloyd would have had to run away or been killed. Even now, he was in a very bad condition, he had used nearly all of his mana during the fight, and he hadn’t even been active for most of it, just assisting from the sidelines.
In his current state, Lloyd would be hard pressed fighting anything, everything hurt, and just moving around was painful, but he was lucky. Blood gushed from the body of the miscus chieftain where the lizard had stood, broken bones stuck out from its flesh like needles, giving it the appearance of a rotten corpse.
Yet somehow, despite its wretched state, the miscus was still alive and breathing. Lloyd hobbled over to see if he could help, the miscus was taking deep heaving breaths, trying to hold on as long as it could.
As much as he wanted to help, what could he realistically do? He had no health potions to give the thing, and too little mana to try and heal it manually. Before he could reach the chief, Lloyd was stopped in his tracks, a group of miscus jumped down from a branch and barred him access to the chieftain.
Lloyd held up his hands defensively, backing away to avoid engagement. He could easily kill these four miscus, but if he did, he couldn’t escape the rest of them before running out of mana. The miscus forced him away from the chief, staring him down while baring their razor-sharp claws.
A growl came from the chieftain down on the ground and the miscus backed away, giving him a path toward the chief. By now, small group of miscus had managed to pry him from under the corpse of the lizard, to reveal what was below the waist, and it was not pretty to say the least.
Its legs were crushed and broken, the femurs and shins seemingly fractured all over, Lloyd was astonished the chieftain hadn’t passed out from pain already. He could only hope the situation would be improved by the shamans he could see rushing across the plaza.
The shamans surrounded their chieftain like paramedics around a patient, guiding Lloyd to the side as they began their work. One of them produced a large ceramic jar full of a thick, dark-red paste, they then passed around handfuls of the mixture before smearing patterns all over, and around the chieftain.
Intricate patterns containing the runes of healing, growth and rejuvenation spread across the ground like a giant mosaic. The shamans meticulously checked every inch of the magic circle, careful not to let anything pass by unnoticed. After they checked the runes for what felt like the hundredth time, the shamans walked to specific locations of the pattern and placed down beast skulls and claws to work as batteries.
When all the preparations were made, the lead shaman activated the array. They held up a staff topped with a crown of skulls and slammed the base of it into the array, the rest of the shamans followed their leader by slicing across their palms and dripping blood onto the patterns.
The pattern lit up with a vibrant glow as it was infused with mana. The energy from the skulls and claws was absorbed in seconds, reducing them to piles of calcium rich dust on the ground. While this was definitely interesting, the most remarkable thing was the focus of the ritual.
The gruesome, wide-open wounds that marred the miscus’ body began to close at a visible rate, muscle and flesh reforming out of the pools of blood, bones reconnecting and fusing, and the structure of its body restored.
Lloyd could barely believe his eyes as he saw what was happening. How could this kind of healing be accessible to such low levelled creatures? The shamans had just repaired about fifty shattered bones and a collapsed chest cavity while being below level fifteen. The fact that this was possible but regrowing his leg wasn’t, was just absurd.
The immense power of this healing method was not without its demerits though, the faces of the shamans were shallow and pallid, like they had just had all of the blood drained from their bodies. To be fair though, that was a pretty apt description, the ritual had seemingly sucked blood from their palms for the full three minutes instead of letting the wounds close up, not to mention the effects of using all that mana, the ritual definitely had one steep cost.
The shamans had completely repaired their chieftain in mere minutes, though not perfectly. The miscus had an obvious limp, and had to move slower than before, but nonetheless the chief had been healed.
He looked down at Lloyd with a puzzled but thankful look, as if wondering why he had risked his life to protect the miscus from the lizards. Thankfully the chief only seemed to bring thanks, not caring about how they had fought earlier.
As good as the chief may have looked, he was ultimately still recovering from having his chest crushed, and with a grateful nod, began walking over to the central building while his height shrank back to twelve feet.
Within minutes, the miscus had dispersed throughout the village, leaving Lloyd by himself in the plaza besides a few curious miscus who weren’t as good at hiding as they thought.
Confident that he would be left alone, Lloyd looked at the spoils of his fight. The chieftain had been too wounded to do much of anything, and the other miscus had shown no indication of wanting it, so Lloyd felt it was free for the taking.
The corpse of the iguana titan, while mutilated in several places, was still a prime crafting material of much higher quality than what was provided by the guildhall. Unfortunately, the tail claw, which was undoubtedly the most valuable piece of the lizard for making weaponry, had been destroyed in the fight, limiting his options for making blades.
The rest of the body, however, was in great condition. Luckily, among the things Lloyd was able to sneak out of the dungeon, were the knives provided in the cold room for skinning the beasts making his life a lot easier than if he was stuck using Thunder Bone.
Lloyd started off simple, just gathering a few sheets of hide from the lizards back. He made a shallow cut with the knife, making sure to puncture no lower than the flesh, before slowly prying off the hide. He used the knife to scrape away at the tissue holding the scales to the flesh until it came off, leaving him with a clean sheet of iguana leather to make armour with.
Hopefully, this would be the only piece of hide he would need, as it was large enough to serve as carpet for a small house, but you can never be too careful, so Lloyd got a matching piece from the opposite side just in case.
With a lifetime supply of premium iguana leather, Lloyd felt happy to move on to the rest of the lizard’s body armour. He carefully pried off the spines from along its back, some sturdy osteoderms from the elbows and knees, and a handful of claws. This left him with only one bit of the lizard’s armour left for him to collect, and it was by far the most difficult.
Instead of sharp teeth like most predatory animals would have, the iguana titan had differentiated itself by forgoing the teeth for sharp, durable, bony plates like some prehistoric fish did. These bony plates would be perfect for reinforcing certain areas of armour, like the front of a chestplate, or the bit covering the shins on some greaves, they would just be a pain in the ass to collect.
Not wasting any time, Lloyd began digging into the side of the lizard’s head to find the edge of the bony plate. Lloyd found that it went deeper into the side of the lizard’s head than he’d hoped, meaning he would have to go into its mouth to properly extract it.
This was extremely unfortunate, as the lizard’s mouth still reeked of necrosis from when it had melted its own flesh with acid. After readying himself for the smell, Lloyd covered his nose and pulled open the lizard’s mouth, before jumping in. He just had to hope it wouldn’t take too long.
