So a late chapter but I have an excuse for this.
Acid burn
Not something I ever thought would happen to me someday but here we are with an acid burn on my left arm.
Thankfully I'm right handed, but the fact that I have to keep applying some sticky medicine annoys me a bit.
Anyways, now that my excuses are out of the way, enjoy the chapter!
+++
Hands covered in a blazing flame, the Concierge leapt through the air, hands being brought down like hammers.
Crashing into the bridge, large chunks of stone broke off from its edge, falling into the sea below.
'That's a big drop.'
Having already seen how tall the bridge was to cover the high tides present during the night, the ocean below the bridge engulfed the numerous pieces of stone and wood dislodged by the rampaging Concierge.
Orange eyes flashing, the white dome surrounding its body glimmered brightly as the inverted triangle bulldozed through everything in its way.
Swinging his arms everywhere, he continued to slam his hands into the ground like a jackhammer.
Sending waves of fire around him in a circular fashion causing me to leap around like a scared cat that's surrounded by cucumbers.
And although I would like to fight back, with how structured that white egg shaped barrier was like, all the arrows I attempted to shoot all dinged off harmlessly.
Vaulting over another blast of flame that traveled outwards and dissipated into several embers, I wondered
'Should I just go to the edge and wait it out?'
Seriously putting thought into that question, the Concierge seemed to have enough of this charade as they answered my question.
Egg shaped dome around his body flickering slightly, the Concierge stomped towards me at a steady pace, bladed arms dimming slightly in the mean time
'Well that can't be a coincidence.'
Narrowing my eyes at the sight, orange light gathered around the Concierge's legs in an instant.
Legs forming small craters underneath his feet, the Concierge's eyes flashed bright white for a brief moment before he disappeared from his position.
'BLOODY HELL!'
Screaming internally, surprise was evident on my face as I saw mister inverted triangle fly towards me with bloody murder in his hands.
Bladed arms raised high above his head, the Concierge flew through the air as quickly as an arrow.
Bringing the two arms down like a hammer, I instinctively rolled straight towards the Concierge, going underneath the arc he had created..
Feeling the rough stone underneath my limbs, a shockwave sent through the stone rippled up to my arms as a burst of dust shot out from my previous position.
Twisting my body around so that i was now facing the Concierge once again, my eyes focused on the figure hidden within the dust.
Denoted by the four glowing orange parts, my eyes widened as I rolled once more to the side as the Concierge came barreling out of the smoke like a professional linebacker.
And if you've seen american football, you would know that the moment that they get their momentum going, unless you were literally the wall, you couldn't stop a bull's charge
And I wasn't about to find out if I could stop a super powered bull.
Crashing straight through the broken carriages behind me, wooden fragments flew through the air as a flash of inspiration lit up the inside of my head like fireworks.
Getting up from the ground so that I was now crouching, my head looked up.
I saw the Concierge slowly turning around, his arm blades now glowing brightly as he raised it above his head in the same position as when he unleashed the flame waves.
'Not today bud.'
A green flash filled my vision as I felt something flow out of my body and into my arms.
The image of vines glowed on my arms much like when I activated the Blaze rune.
Green light seeping through the dirtied bandages, almost instantly, they began to manipulate all of the wood in my vision.
And seeing as the Concierge had just ran straight through most of them, providing me a clear view of all the pieces of wood around his body, I would say that would be a lot.
Growing as if they hadn't been cut down and processed, several vines made of wood instantly wrapped around the Concierge's raised arm.
"!"
Shocked at what had just happened, the Concierge tried to raise its other arm only to be stopped by the numerous vines that wrapped around his other arm.
But that wasn't the end of it.
No sirree.
I still had all of these carriages to use.
Instantly arcing towards the Concierge, the sharpened ends of the vines drew blood on the undeads skin, forming hooks as they wrapped around the Concierge and Pulled
*Snap!
But as the recipient of all this pain and wood, the Concierge's arm bulged with rage as he pulled at the wooden vines around his arms.
Snapping quite a few of them in the process, I smiled.
'There's more where that came from.'
Feeling a tingling sensation as the substance known as mana flowed into my arms, they carved a path in a vine like manner before following my will and forming vines out of the surrounding wood.
Breathing new life into the corpses of carriages gone past, the carriages had their previous job of ferrying people across the bridge scrapped in favor of a more violent job.
Hooking into the Concierge's flesh, where they couldn't hook they made a place to hook.
Wrapping around his armor, they snuck into every crevice, greedily sinking their jaws into his flesh.
Wrapping around every exposed body part until he was more ball than boss monster, I clenched my hand.
And almost instantly, the sound of metal groaning and the voice of something struggling echoed in this empty bridge.
'Yes!'
Wearing a stupid grin on my face, my eyes glimmered brightly as I stared at the Concierge ball of vines.
Glaring daggers at me from within the ball, the only discernable thing within his eyes was rage funnily enough.
Probably not the most honorable death, but then again, seeing as he had attacked all of these carriages which no doubt used to carry innocents, its probably for the best.
'Oh yeah Slade, don't forget that he can probably timebreak being stronger than an elite and all.'
I furrowed my brows.
'Wait, if he can time break, how come this bridge hadn't-'
Forcibly cutting off that line of thought, I hurriedly dodged a fragment of wood flying past my shoulder with an almost instinctual reaction.
Snapping my head from where said fragment had flown off to to where it had first originated, my eyes widened into saucers.
Despite more and more vines joining the giant ball of wood, the Concierge was literally tearing through it.
But not without a cost.
Black blood speckled with orange leaking out of his body, the Concierge roared loudly as something that I could only describe as a red mist emanated from his body.
And as I stared at that red mist from withint he confines of the wooden ball, it just as quickly disappeared.
But not without taking out a chunk of the wood, breaking it apart and sending the fragments flying far far away.
Like the one I had just dodged.
Furrowing my brows, the smug smile wiped right off of my face, I Instantly did away with the whole restrain than crush concept, opting for a much more aggressive approach.
And aggressive I did.
Vine runes glowing an almost blinding green, I felt aslight irritation on the skin where it was but ignored it in favor of the things I was currently in the midst of.
Hand thrusting forwards, the hook shaped vines formed with the intent of restraining the Concierge turned into sharpened spears.
Despite being made of wood, I had tested the extent of the sharpness and durability the wood affected by the vine rune could withstand.
And surprisingly enough, although they disintegrated quickly later, they were able to leave a nick on metal.
Now that wouldn't be significant in any way as the very moment that it forms, it breaks down in the next second, making it unfeasible for anything more than throwing weapons.
But where was I?
On a black bridge.
And what was on the Black bridge?
'...I'm suddenly tempted to say this is Sparta.'
Recalling the story of 300 men holding their own against an army of ten thousand, 300 spears made of hardened wood formed and instantly jabbed themselves forwards.
Disintegrating in real time, the Concierge let out a roar of final defiance as he ripped apart the final restraints on his body.
Revealing the body that was hidden from the naked eye, there were no parts that hadn't been covered in wounds as bits of wood stuck in his skin, digging into it like fish hooks.
But if that was the most eye catching part of him than I would be lying.
Do you know the red mist I had mentioned earlier?
Well it wasn't as simple as just a red mist that destroyed the wood surrounding the Concierge's body.
Instead, the red mist was just a portion of the real thing.
Floating red daggers flowed around his body, pulsating like a heartbeat as they seemed to pulse unstably for a second before steadying.
*GROOOOOAAAR
Letting out an ear ringing roar from the depths of his undead lungs, the Concierge charged at the 300 vines, breaking through the vines like nothing.
But with each collision with one of the vines, although the vines was instantly decimated, so did a portion of the daggers covering the Concierge's body.
From 300 it leapt to 200
150
100
75
50
20
15
6
3
2
And 1
*GRROOAR
Letting out a triumphant roar, the final bit of red covering the Concierge's skin disappeared in unison with the final wooden spear I had created.
A sweat breaking out of my head, I looked around for any spare carriages.
But due to the fact that they disintegrate soon after use, there were no more Carriages left in my immediate vicinity.
'...I guess I have to do this the old fashioned way.'
Moving to grab my Multiple Nocked bow and a few arrows, my arms instantly seized up in the telltale sign of a cramp.
'!?'
Instantly shook into confusion, I felt a pain distinctly in the portions of my arm with the Vine rune tattooed onto it.
Realizing what must've happened, my eyes shook before I shifted to another path.
Using my legs.
"Ugh!?"
The problem was that I couldn't feel them either.
An unprecedented weakness filled my entire body as I felt as if absolutely no energy remained within my muscles
Even the emergency supply of fat and the emergency generator that produced lactic acid were non functional.
So I was helpless as the Concierge got nearer to me, with, every, Step
Ringing loudly in my ears, my heart beat thundered in my ears as I couldn't tear my eyes off of the gigantic figure staring directly into my soul.
Slamming his arms into the space besides me, he moved his head besides me while letting out a deep growl.
The Concierge was staring straight into my soul, his orange eyes glaring into me as a beastly snarl covered his face underneath the helmet.
'...What the?'
But that's the extent of the things that the Concierge had done.
Staring at the stone masked faced that had suddenly appeared in front of my face and had granted me the pleasure of experiencing a heart attack, I poked the side of his helmet.
And as if I had interrupted some sort of delicate balance, the Concierge's head tilted to the side and collapsed into a bloodied heap.
Covered in several wounds, it was actually harder to find which parts weren't covered in wood than those that weren't.
'...So that just happened.'
Trying to calm my rapidly beating heart, I slowly tried dusting myself off only to fail and settled for just observing my surroundings
And its there that something caught my eye.
Thanks to the fact the bridge was now mostly cleared of anything within it, it was a simple task to see from one end to the other unobstructed.
'It's... repairing itself?'
Staring at the black bridge that slowly repaired itself as time went by, I finally found out how these ancient ruins lasted until this day.
'And here I thought it was just the time loop doing this.'
+++
Tree