Facing the Devil

Auditory Atmosphere Supplement Activated. Now Playing: RichaadEB - Black

“So, do you want to explain what you’re doing here in my Barrier?”

John was struggling against the strong grip of the man holding him by the throat. His weapon was lying on the floor, too far away to get any grip on it. The hand around his throat only got tighter as he was looking around.

“Are you going to answer me? Or do you want to die?”

Not one to die easily, John summoned a Mana Dagger into each of his hands, sticking one into the arm holding him in the air and throwing the other one into James’ face. As he expected, the grip on his throat lessened a lot, and James had to shift his focus on dodging the second dagger, enabling John to push himself back away from the other man thanks to Flash Step.

He didn’t have much time to catch his breath though, as the blood around the fresh wound in James’ forearm crystalized and formed blood red spikes sticking out of his arm.

“So you actually have some cards up your sleeves, goodie. That makes this a lot more fun,” growled the bloodied young man in front of John as the blood on his arm grew, forming a solid gauntlet-like shape.

What the fuck was the guy?

James Calaway
Student Lv.3
Bloodletter
Relationship: -50 (You are more of a nuisance than he expected, it could’ve been so easy.)
Threat Level: +
Ability Ranking:
Physical: D
Mental: E
Offense: C
Defense: C
Utility: F

That… didn’t seem that bad? It was annoying that apparently part of his ability worked and part of it didn’t, but that Threat Level wasn’t that bad. Or, it was bad and John just had no idea how to read it yet.

A yip to the side pulled John out of his thoughts as Thorn and Gary ran up the stairs to stand beside him, growling at the enemy.

“Aaaaw, how cute, you brought your little pets along. You want them to see you die, don’t you?” mused James as he leapt for John, who was taking slow steps towards the corner where his spear lay.

Thankfully, John wasn’t reliant on his spear to deal with an enemy by now, as he retracted the blade from his new Gauntlet of the Vampire Hunter and swiped at the ‘Bloodletter’ with it, who was able to dodge the swipe aimed at his head at the last second, still getting struck in the shoulder though.

14 DMG (Unarmed) + 3 DMG (Lightning) +5 DMG (Fire) + 5 DMG (Blade) + 5 DMG (Vampire)

Wait… did he just receive extra damage due to the ability of the gauntlet against vampires? Did that mean…? Not letting that moment go by, though, John grabbed the exposed shoulder of the seeming vampire and slammed him into the ground face first.

23 DMG (Impact)

“You will not lay a hand on them. You will have to walk over my dead body to get to them,” growled John, defending his companions.

Apparently, this wasn’t James’ first fight either though, sadly, as more bloody spikes protruded from his fresh wound on the shoulder that John had just grabbed, impaling his hand with them.

“That can be arranged.”

-15 HP (Armor Ignored)
Effects of Vampiric Blood stopped by Gamer’s Body

Shit! So he actually was a Vampire! Quickly retreating into the corner with his spear, he threw another pair of Mana Daggers at James, which were deflected by his growing blood armor.

So that was why his defense was ranked at C…

Not taking any chances himself though, the vampire jumped back just in time to dodge a sticky shot of web from the spider and a small ball of lightning from Thorn. Since when was the wolf-dragon able to do that?

Now once again equipped with his spear, John decided it would be best to switch to the offensive to take down the enemy. In the back of his mind, he knew that he should probably open the Nexus so that Aloy and Brun could help him, but taking his eyes off his enemy for a moment to take out the card would probably mean disaster, so that idea had to wait…

Charging into his opponent, John was taken by surprise when his attack was simply deflected by the bloody gauntlet that had grown mere moments before. How strong was that stuff?

Now that he was the one exposed from an attack, James used that moment to deliver a powerful punch to John’s gut, almost sending him flying if he hadn’t held him in place.

-2 HP (Armor Reduction included)

That strike itself wasn’t that bad, but the next three punches before John could retaliate with anything were increasingly stronger.

With a hateful glare, James looked at John, “How the fuck canyou fight against my blood? You should be dead!”

-3 HP
-5 HP
-8 HP

As James was taking a moment too long to wind up for another punch, John was able to strike him in the thigh with the spear by twisting it in his locked hand and ramming it down. And what did he mean with ‘fight against his blood’? Would his blood actually damage him if it wasn’t for Gamer’s Body?

23 DMG + 30 DMG (Light) + 5 DMG (Fire) + 5 DMG (Vampire)

Elemental Weakness! 2x Damage!

Well that was unsurprising, but it did have a nice effect because it made James scream out loudly, unlocking his grip on John who took the moment to strike again with his spear, this time using a quick combo of Flash Step and Charge.

Charge Applied! x1.75 Damage!
33 DMG + 30 DMG (Light) + 5 DMG (Fire) + 5 DMG (Vampire) + 27 DMG (Mana Charge)

5 DMG + 12 DMG (Lightning)

Now we were getting somewhere! Even Thorn seemed to get a hit in there, taking a bite out of James’ leg. The only thing that was annoying about this was the growing armor that protected more and more of James’ body. Well, with enough ****, he would still get through that.

“Oh I’m going to enjoy seeing your broken body in front of me so much once I’m done with you!”

Or, John would’ve done that, if at that moment an ashen spike hadn’t embedded itself in James’ chest, making him drop to the ground.

’Well, that was kinda anticlimactic…’

Turning around, John could see that the woman who had been **** before was now standing over the broken casket which had held her minutes before. In the few moments John hadn’t looked at her, there had been some major changes going on around her face. Where her face was a pale white before, it now was black with a white skull painted on it… He had no idea where that had come from... She had her arm pointed at James, and a hole at the base of her forearm was just closing up.

‘Did… did she just shoot a stake made out of bone at James?’

The look on her face spoke of pure, unadulterated hatred and rage, first directed at the lifeless body of James, then slowly shifting towards John as a solid bone slipped out of her forearm.

Raising his arms in a nonthreatening manner, he slowly said, “I’m not an enemy, I wanted to deal with this guy myself.” He wasn’t quite sure if he would have gone as far as killing him, but if push came to shove, he’d protect his own life against someone willing to take it.

The bone started to flow in her hand, slowly taking the shape of something that was definitely not usually made of bone: a sword. It was a blank, bone white blade with a slim, unrefined crossguard, but it looked menacing as hell… He didn’t have much time to admire it though as she screamed with pure rage and went in for an attack. As she leapt towards him, John had but a sliver of a second to use Observe:

Andrea McIntyre
Lv. 10 Holy Osteomancer (Current Level: 25)
Relationship: +15 (Help me.)
Threat Level: +++
Ability Rating:
Physical: B
Mental: F
Offense: B
Defense: C
Utility: E

...Did… did his Observe sheet just tell him to fucking help her?!? Also, that Threat Level looked really bad...

Blocking her sword with the shaft of his spear, he was surprised when he was thrown away by the power of the girl in front of him. As she swung in for a second strike, John braced himself against it by securing his position with a Flash Step construct around the heel of his raised foot.

Fighting to keep his stance, John noticed two things in rapid succession. Firstly, he could hear the phrase “Help me” in her angry breathing, supporting the belief that he didn’t just imagine the line in his Observe sheet. Secondly, he felt a sharp pain in his side as a fist with spikes implanted itself into his side. That meant that she not only overpowered him with a single hand, but she also had enough control of her power to use it at multiple body parts.

-23 HP (Armor Applied)

And she hit like a fucking freight train!

Quickly deciding for a different approach, John back stepped away from her using Flash Step, trying to get some distance between him and her.

She seemed to be able to deal with that as well, as she just pointed a finger at him in the shape of a gun and then shot a bullet-shaped bone from her finger at him. The bone was simply traveling too fast, leaving him barely any time to dodge. Instead of hitting him in the chest, the bone bullet went into his shoulder, sending an overwhelming pain through his body and forcing him onto a knee.

-45 HP (Armor Applied)

Okay, he couldn’t take a lot of those… By the way the first second of this encounter had gone, John decided to do one thing:

Run.

Picking up both of his companions, he bolted up the stairs, forcing the berserking woman to
follow him.

’FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!’

Behind them, the ‘lifeless’ body of James started to groan and shift.

With Kim and Kaen, 17:20 PM

“Okay, so, what’s the plan?” asked Kaen, looking at the spot the monk had been lying at a minute ago.

“We try to move below the cover of the building to either lure out the archer or to keep him out of the fight. Fighting that monk wasn’t that difficult, he was just extremely agile… Could you burn him to ashes?” answered Kim, periodically looking into the sky to get some hint on the whereabouts of the archer.

Shrugging, Kaen looked at her gauntlets, “I mean… I should be able to, unless he’s fire resistant… But I can try.”

That was good enough for Kim. Looking once more into the sky, she hoped that John would deal with whatever made him curse soon enough, because he would be better suited to deal with a flying opponent. They feft their current hideout through the door leading into the building, trying to find their opponent which wasn’t that hard to do, they just had to follow the loud smashing and rumbling coming from below them. As they closed in on one of the staircases that were in the same position as in the original school building, the ground beneath them gave way and revealed the monk’s twisted and angry face. The four skulls above his head were looking at them as well

Both of the girls reacted quickly with Kaen grabbing his extended arm, increasing the heat on her hands to burn through it, and Kim swinging her leg down in a guillotine kick at to his face. Any momentum the monk had prior to the kick immediately vanished as he was sent back down into the ground with a cauterized stump, leaving Kaen with a burnt arm in her hand.

With a disgusted face she quickly threw it away, “Ew, ew, ew, eeeeew.” Then both of them landed on the lower floor. The monk was stuck in the ground face down, and his head seemed to have been dented in by the impact with the ground. Another one of the skulls disappeared, and not only the body of the monk rose up again but also the arm that Kaen had burned off was moving as well, making her jump away from it and into Kim’s arms. “Eeeeew, that is SO gross,” whined the dragon girl, to which Kim just rolled her eyes.

“Keep your focus on the enemy; if we can kill him three more times, then this farce should finally be over.” At that moment, Kim’s phone vibrated, signalling a new message. Normally, she would have just ignored it and moved on with the fight, but in this case, it could be important for the progression of the things to come.

Dropping Kaen on the ground, she pulled out her phone, checking the messages:

John [17:28]: BOGEY INCOMING, PREPARE FOR IMPACT, REQUIRE ASSISTANCE!

...What?