Peeking his head out of the corner, 13 looked at us and waved. "I'm glad you guys survived, that thing was terrifying."
The others slowly came out of the side rooms aswell.
As I was waving back I said. "Yeah it didn't do much but damn, that's something I never want to experience again."
"Speak for yourself." 13 responded. "Do you know how hard it is to make ice strong enough to withstand the creatures on this floor? Its so damn... You know what it doesn't matter. How many cursed are left in this section."
36 was the one to answer. "We just finished killing the last one before that monster came."
"Oh that's good news, sorry to make you guys do most of the work then. We clearly didn't kill even close to as many as you guys."
Walking up slapping him lightly on the back I said. "No worries, I'm just right next to collapsing. Nothing much."
13 looked at me slightly concerned, as much as he likely could be concerned anyway. "You should probably go rest for a few minutes then."
"I have."
He looked at me for a few seconds before saying. "Oh."
"I'm stretching it a bit, I'm definitely exhausted but I can probably kill a few more of the cursed." I said, though I wasn't even sure if that was true but I was sure it would turn out fine.
"The section ahead only appears to hold one cursed creature." 34 interrupted
"A large one at that from what 34 described before." 36 said to which 34 nodded in agreement.
"Ah, boss fight time." 7 said jokingly.
I looked over to him and asked. "What's a boss fight?"
"You know the names of so many extinct animals but you've never played video games?" 7 responded as if offended by the fact I was unfamiliar with the concept.
"It was exactly in my priorities in research and the outer rings weren't exactly a place you could get a personal computer."
"God, he even says 'personal computer'." 7 said in disgust "Whatever we need to get to work."
-
Standing at the door looking at the preparations we had made for killing this thing. We had spent the last few hours weaving plant fibre into a massive string. This was then made into a ballista, a truly frightening weapon.
The cursed inside seemed to be made of some kind of rock, though its mobility indicated that it in fact had fleshy insides. The rock like exoskeleton was likely both protection and camouflage.
'I really don't wanna know what this thing would need to hide from.'
Our group was split up into two groups, these groups were exactly the same as before with the exception that 33 was in the vanguard group.
Speaking of which the group I was stuck in was of course the group in the front, taking the brunt of the danger.
'Why is this becoming a trend? I'm not even that strong.'
36 signalled us in.
The vanguard group walked in, all of us with big and heavy hammers apart from 5 who like always didn't seem to have any weapon.
We had timed the attack for when the rock monster was asleep, but we still couldn't get careless.
As I approached the rhythmically rising and falling pile of rocks I noticed that even as it was sitting down I still had to look up to the boulder I thought was a head. 36 would be the one to attack first. While 7 was definitely stronger 36's insidious ability to pierce things is exactly what we needed in this moment.
The job of the vanguard group had two phases, first phase was to damage the monster's exoskeleton. The support group would ensure we could do our job properly and relatively safely.
The second phase was to shoot the ballista in the rock monster's weak spots and finally kill the thing, but for the vanguard the role would be to try hold the monster in place. Almost a death sentence but apparently 7 had something for this situation so we trusted him.
The room itself was likely a store room which had long been emptied, and so had plenty of space for our fight. The vanguard group were less of a line of defence which attempted to tank the hits and more of a group of flies, taking hits at the massive behemoth. Trying to whittle it down slowly but surely.
The slam of 36's hammer onto the behemoth's head was incredibly loud, we had made sure to block the door to sections further down and use ice as some kind of sound proofing which we could only hope was enough.
As the monster woke up and moved to stand up faster then what should have been possible I slipped under its notice. Running behind the rock behemoth I slammed my hammer into the back of the things 'knee', hoping it would collapse.
To my dismay the behemoth only staggered but a crack did from from where I attacked. The piercing effect of 36 was truly insidious but wasn't nearly as powerful when he himself wasn't the one attacking.
Running and hiding behind a pillar I turned back to see 33 run in and hit the same knee I had just attacked again. The monster turned around and 33 had to dodge for her life as a wall of rock came flying towards them with enough force to wreck a house.
This created an opportunity for 7 and 36 to attack together its chest. The attack was risky but we were unsure of where exactly the weak spot of the monster inside the fleshy insides would be so we had to break a lot of places and then find out which one was a weak spot.
The behemoth turned its attention to 7 and 36 and begun to try and swing its giant fist at them but the behemoth seemed to randomly stagger down to a knee which 7 and 36 took advantage of with no hesitation and slammed into its chest.
At the same time I ran in and slammed my hammer as hard as I could into its lower back. The behemoths arm instantly swung behind it and tried attacking me, as if on reflex.
dropping to the ground and watching as the massive rock flew right over my entire body, I briefly considered how I would absolutely die if it decided to simply squish me onto the ground.
Jumping away and hiding behind the same pillar again.
"I think we found it guys." I announced. "It seemed to reflexively attack me when I hit it's back. I can't be sure exactly where it is though."
There were no signs of acknowledgement but I knew they had heard me regardless.
33 ran in towards its back, but swiftly dodged back after the monster noticed her moving and tried to crush her before she got close enough to hit.
7 took advantage of this of course and attacked the same knee, It was on the verge of breaking now. The rock monster twisted and swung at 7 who didn't quite have enough time to dodge but masterfully used the momentum of the attack to launch himself away, even though he not so masterfully crashed into the wall.
"Ahh fuck." He grunted but seemed to overall be fine.
36 took the monsters attention and backed away, trying to have the monster face a particular direction before we had its knee fully broken and right as 36 got the behemoth in the perfect position the behemoth's leg seemed to collapse.
36 dodged away as the falling body of the behemoth threated to crush him against the wall. The behemoth was left in the perfect position, stuck against the wall.
And so begun the second phase
All of the vanguard group approached and attacked the behemoths back, trying to find the exact weak spot.
After a few seconds 36 shouted. "Four fifths up along its spine, I'm sure."
We all jumped into action, taking turns slamming into the exact spot 36 indicated. The behemoth seemed the writhe about but it was unable to move for the moment.
The rock in this spot was thick but we were peeling it slowly but surely. When our weapons broke we quickly picked up other ones, freshly made by 13. We regularly cycled our weapons too, to ensure the piercing enchantment 36 was able to do would be maintained.
The relentless attacks eventually bore fruit. Blood started seeping through and bit by bit chunks of rock were being torn off.
36 quickly backed off towards the ballista, no doubt to enhance the piercing from the massive bolt loaded within.
A few seconds later I saw a blur then suddenly a massive bolt made of ice was lodged into the back of the creature. The mystical ice immediately begun to sizzle and dissolve. The cursed behemoth was much more powerful and therefore its dissolving property was much more powerful, especially inside its body.
After the tail end of the ballista fell out and another ballista was loaded the fired bold blurred in the air before suddenly missed the exposed flesh and hit the rock, shattering.
A shard of the mystical ice flew towards me as incredibly high speeds. I moved to dodge at speeds which I didn't know was possible for me, allowing me to miss the shard by centimetres.
And as I looked up I saw the behemoth beginning to push itself away from the wall.