Nightmare Realm Summoner

Chapter 55: Cracked

Alex and his monsters looked up at the towering mass of flesh and bone as it bore down on them. Claire stood by his side, drumming her fingers against the hilt of her sword and shifting from foot to foot in impatience.

"So, how are we splitting this one up?" Claire asked. "Because unless the rules for the last fight are any different than the previous ones, only one of us is getting the kill."

"Last hit?"

Claire let out a snort. "I think we both know you're going to win that one. You've got two extra bodies — but if I'm honest, I'm kind of curious to see just how high you can get your score. If there's a reward and it's gated by total score, bet it would be better to have someone at the highest possible number rather than two people at relatively high ones."

"What, you're just going to let me finish it off?"

"Oh, no. I'm going to do everything I possibly can to make sure I get the kill," Claire replied with a smug grin. "Anything else would reduce the challenge to both of us, and I'm not trying to get scammed out of the experience. You're going to have to earn it. Just know that you owe me."

Alex chuckled. "But you aren't going easy. Why do I owe you?"

"Because I'm raising the challenge for you by making it harder to get the final hit."

"And lowering the challenge by backing me up in the fight."

"So the amount of reward for killing the Crawling Tomb should be just about the same. The fight will just be easier for both of us. Less work for the same challenge level. Sounds like a good deal."

"You skipped the part where you're going to try to steal the last hit," Alex said with a chuckle.

Claire grinned at him. The rumble of the approaching monster's limbs slapping and digging through the ground grew louder. She pointed her sword toward it. "Sorry. No time to hear your counterargument. Monster approaching."

She darted off toward the Crawling Tomb without giving him a chance to respond. He let out a snort before sprinting after her, Spark and Glint at his sides.

He didn't actually know if the System would actually count the increased challenge of getting the last hit of a kill as a legitimate part of a fight's difficulty. The competition did technically make things harder, but there wouldn't be a way to find out if her theory actually worked unless they ran into a second Crawling Tomb. It was an annoyingly convincing argument.

She actually managed to make it sound like her trying to steal the kill is going to be beneficial for both of us. That's scary levels of twisting words.

Alex was starting to see why she liked the Dhampir game of Court so much. She certainly had a lot of practice in it.

That's not to mention it would have been lame for me to insist that she just give me the kill or stand out of the fight when we're in the middle of a Trial. We both want to win, and we're both going to give it our best shot. Any other approach is just disrespectful and boring.

Alex extended his power toward Spark. Energy hummed to life between them. Arcs of blue lightning crackled and popped beneath the Echo Wraith's armor.

The monster expanded, his floating plates parting to accommodate the growing storm within him. Lightning arced across his knuckles and buzzed in the air like a swarm of angry bees.

"Spark, shadow. Go distract that thing," Alex ordered, veering to the side to avoid standing directly in the Crawling Tomb's path. It hadn't shown any signs of slowing down in its advance toward the town to fight them. "Glint, see how much damage you can do to one of those big flailing limbs. Don't get squished."

His monsters rushed to follow his orders. Spark formed a shadowy replica on the ground before flying up toward the Crawling Tomb in search of an opening while Glint dashed across the ground just a short distance behind Claire. Alex let himself slow slightly, staying just out of range of the fight for the time being.

The Crawling Tomb is too big for me to use Funhouse directly on it for anything other than a moment of distraction. The repositioning effects only work if the spell is bigger than my target, and I can't make anything near two stories wide. I have to bide my time.

Claire reached the Crawling Tomb first. Black veins carved down her arm, pulsing with energy as she swept her blade at the finger of a boney hand. There was a loud clang. The weapon rebounded, vibrating in her grip, and a small chunk of bone spun free.

A furious moan echoed from the Crawling Tomb. Its blur of limbs ground to a halt as it registered the attack. Within the forest of bones, Alex spotted two horse-sized pitch black eyes swiveling down to look in her direction.

Several hands unfurled from the monster's body and reached for Claire. She launched herself out of the way, skidding across the dirt when she landed. And, before the monster could retract its hands, Glint leapt onto one of them.

The Shardwalker raced up the Crawling Tomb's arm. He dug his claws into the monster's body as he raced up toward its center of mass. Bone sheared apart in his wake, splitting like the surface of a choppy lake.

At the same time, Spark flew up to the monster's eye-level. Blue lightning rolled and hissed within his gauntlets as he shot forward, slipping past the grasping hands, and drove a fist into the huge monster's skull.

Bone shattered with a loud explosion. A scream of pain tore from the Crawling Tomb and it rolled back like a tortoise tipped on its shell, limbs flailing all about it. The motion launched Glint into the air like he was an acrobat in a circus.

"Catch Glint, Spark!" Alex yelled. "Glint, do your best not to stab Spark!"

Spark veered away from the Crawling Tomb, shooting up toward the plummeting Shardwalker and grabbing it from the air. Mirrored blades screeched against chitinous armor, carving deep gouges into it, but the two monsters managed to avoid killing each other.

Claire threw her sword to the side and launched herself forward. Claws burst from her right hand, sharpening to black points, and she ducked past a skeletal foot to reach the gray skinned core of the monster.

She drove her sharpened claws into it, sinking her hand nearly a foot into its body. Claire leaned in and bit down, clamping onto the monster's flesh and gulping the blood that poured free.

As it turns out, the big bone thing does have blood after all.

The Crawling Tomb rolled to the side in an attempt to crush the Dhampir beneath it. Before Alex could call out another command to Spark, Claire blurred. She threw herself away from the monster, hitting the ground in a roll and launching back to her feet in the same motion.

Dark blood dripped from her hand. She lifted it to her mouth, licking the last of it free, and flexed her fingers. Claws pushed free from her other hand and black veins crawled down across the rest of her skin. They worked up her neck and down her legs. The bones of a bat wing burst from her shoulder and furled over her right arm like armor.

One of the Crawling Tomb's limbs crashed down toward her. Claire swung her fist up. Their blows connected with a loud crack.

Bone shattered.

Claire stumbled.

A bone hand the size of a small room crashed down behind her, shattered and broken clean off at the wrist. Some of the normal color returned to her skin and the claws protruding from her fingertips shrank.

"Throw Glint back into the fight, then attack the same spot you just hit!" Alex ordered, realizing he was just standing around and watching Claire fight.

Spark took Alex's orders literally. The monster spun, whipping Glint through the air, and launched the Shardwalker down at the Crawling Tomb. Glint tucked his limbs in, transforming into a veritable ball of spinning shards.

He struck the huge monster. Glass scraped against bone with an irritating screech, carving clean through it. An instant later, Spark was upon the Crawling Tomb. The Echo Wraith raised its gauntlets into the air, a blue storm roaring within them, and brought them down with a crash.

There was a brilliant crack like a bolt of lightning had fallen from the heavens. A blue flash lit the air. Bone shattered.

White fragments exploded in every direction.

They carved through Spark, impaling the Echo Wraith like javelins and killing him on the spot. A stream of energy flowed Alex before he could even try to command his monster to swap with its shadow.

Thick, electric ozone flooded the air.

The Crawling Tomb's limbs flailed in agony. Grey blood poured from a massive gaping crack in the bone between the flesh and its beak, pouring onto the ground in gallons. Another scream ripped from the monster's mouth as Glint unfurled himself and burrowed through flesh and bone alike, cutting through everything in his path on his way into the monster's core.

Claire wasn't one to be shown up. She dashed forward, launching herself onto the monster's side and scaling it. The Dhampir dodged flailing limbs as she made her way up to its eyes. A hand reached for her and she drove her palm into it, shattering the limb with a single strike. With a cry, she drove her other hand down into the black orb that was its eye.

It popped with a squelch.

The monster screamed.

Its cry was so immense that it formed a shockwave that erupted in every direction around the monster. The rolling air drove into the dark mist that had settled over Towntown and hurled it in every direction, banishing the darkness like some herald of light.

Alex clapped his hands to his ears. He felt blood against his palms. His head rang and a headache pounded at his temples. Pushing through it, he craned his neck back and squinted upward.

Claire clutched onto the monster's side. Her fangs dug into its flesh and her fangs were buried within the monster. Blood trickled down the sides of her face as she swallowed, drinking greedily.

A shuddering moan echoed out. It barely reached Alex's throbbing ears. The Crawling Tomb was seriously injured, but it wasn't dead. Not yet.

His eyes flicked to the shadow that his Echo Wraith had left behind. It still remained in the same spot that the monster had left it, now just feet away from the Crawling Tomb. Interestingly enough, Alex could feel the shadow like it was his own.

Spark's power rolled in his body. It begged to be used — and he obliged it. Alex swapped spots with the shadow.

The world shifted. He appeared directly before the Crawling Tomb. The monster was still reeling and thrashing, trying to rid itself of the pests ripping it apart.

Alex drew on Spark's magic even further. Blue energy popped across his wrist, sending tingles racing down his arm. The magic intensified, transforming into hissing arcs that flicked in the air like his hand was the end of a tesla coil.

He clenched it into a fist.

The power gathered in his palm, humming and pressing against his grip. His fingers trembled and his lips pulled back. One of the Crawling Tomb's hands shot out for him. Alex burst into motion, dodging under the limb.

This might have been an Initiate level monster, but it was injured. And compared to what he'd seen in the Mirrorlands — this was just a body that needed to be put back in the grave.

Alex launched himself into the air, directly toward the weeping hole beside the Crawling Tomb's beak. It reached for him, but it wasn't fast enough.

He crashed down.

His fist slammed into the exposed, bleeding flesh.

A massive thunderclap split the air. The Crawling Tomb pitched back and fell to the ground with an earthshaking crash. Crackles of electricity screamed out across it, carving across gray skin, burrowing through its body like worms. The smell of ozone mixed with rancid, burnt flesh.

The gateway behind the Crawling Tomb crumbled. The ivory towers pitched away from the doors and crashed to the ground, shattering. Color bloomed in the pitch black void as it turned translucent, then vanished as the gate disintegrated.

[Trial: Cull the Meek]

Objective Completed. Rewards Earned.

Power flowed into Alex.

The monster was dead, and he'd claimed the final blow. The amount of energy the Crawling Tomb gave wasn't an insignificant amount by any means — but compared to his fights in the Mirrorlands, it was nothing to write home about.

Alex's appreciation for the benefits of the Mirrorlands grew even further. Without the power and combat experience he'd gotten within the warped world, this fight would have been nearly impossible. But with it… the Crawling Tomb felt like nothing more than a slightly powerful normal opponent.

The monster's body rent apart. Glint carved his way free from the sopping wet, scorched mess. Gray blood soaked the Shardwalker. It dripped from the glistening mirrors that covered him, marring their perfect reflections.

A grin split Alex's features. He'd finally won a fight without killing one of his summons, and he hadn't even gotten a chance to truly power them up yet.

The future was looking good.

"Damn it," Claire said, spitting gray blood onto the ground and wiping her mouth with the back of a sleeve. "I was eating! You don't kill a gal's food while she's fang deep in it!"

"Sorry," Alex said with a laugh. He glanced back at Towntown. Ben and the remaining survivors stood, watching them in slack-jawed disbelief. "I—"

A loud hum carved through the air and swallowed the rest of his sentence. Huge, golden lines carved into the sky far above them, the width of a barn door. And judging by the looks on everyone else's faces, Alex wasn't the only one that could see them.

Local Announcement for Subsector 735

Part [2/3] of the System's initialization has concluded in this location. Rewards will now be distributed. Bonus rewards will be distributed to the top scoring members from every Local Leaderboard in Subsector 735.

Subsector 735 Leaderboards will activate and populate at the start of the 3rd Initialization Event.

Even as Alex read the massive message in the sky, more words from the System drew itself into the air directly before Alex.

Congratulations on achieving Rank 1 in your Local Leaderboard.

Reward deferred.

Congratulations for scoring among the top 10 Local Leaderboards in Subsector 735.

Reward received.

Rewards for the victors of the top 10 Local Leaderboards in Subsector 735 will be distributed at the Subsector 735 Nexus Point. Please prepare to be transported.

WARNING: You will be temporarily removed from your current location until your reward has been distributed. Ensure you are prepared before proceeding. Are you prepared to proceed? [Yes/Yes]