Monster Hunting 401: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure by Andrew Karevik (book suggestions .TXT) 📗

The young man shook off his wounds and rubbed his chin, holding up a grenade in his hand. “Now I’m afraid to use this.”

The Orphine let out a deep, unsettling glurp sound, but otherwise did nothing. Its eyestalks merely leered at me, waiting for us to take the next move.

I raised a hand to stay Trig’s action. We didn’t know what we were dealing with here. The Eldest was intelligent, but what about this Orphine? Did it understand its actions enough to lure us into a false sense of security? Or was it so psychically powerful that it didn’t really need a main offense? If it could redirect all attacks through this link…I don’t know how we could take it down.

“You should leave,” I said. “Maybe distance will sever the connection.”

“Uhhhhh…” Trig stammered as he turned to face me, raising the bomb high. “Something seems to be happening here…and I can’t seem to uh, yeah I can’t control my limbs.”

Leap! Josiah’s Storm urged me, sending energy through my legs just in time. Trig’s explosive came hurtling towards me, exploding in midair. A burst of heat washed towards me, but I was far enough away from the impact point to avoid injury.

“Come on, Trig, block it out!” I yelled.

“It’s not a…not a mental thing, I don’t think,” Trig said as he staggered forward towards me, moving like a marionette doll. His blades were raised high, ready to fight me.

This wasn’t good. The Orphine was now in control of Trig or at the very least, his body. Damn…the Fylk charm didn’t seem to block out this level of control spells. Well…I couldn’t afford to let my ally start killing me in the middle of this fight.

“Just try to understand why I’m doing this,” I said, drawing a single arrow and nocking it, aiming my bow towards his hamstring.

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” he groaned as I released the arrow. It sailed through the air, striking him right in the leg.

To our right, the great Orphine let out a deep groan of agony, rumbling so loud it caused the ground to shake. Blood poured down from the side of its body and Trig, much to my surprise, remained upright.

“Huh…I didn’t feel that!” Trig said. His eyes brightened at the realization. The attack link worked both ways. Attacking the beast would hurt Trig, but attacking Trig would hurt the creature. “Shoot me again,” he said, pointing right towards his heart. “And make it lethal!”

His enthusiasm for becoming a human pincushion was admirable, but I had to think ahead here. The Orphine wasn’t stupid. It had to know that its ability would be found out at some point, right? So…what if this was a trick? Part of a way to get me to willingly kill my own ally. After all, now that the link was proven to go both ways, what reasonable hunter wouldn’t throw everything they had at their partner?

I decided to call this creature’s bluff, praying that it worked. I slung four arrows at once and aimed them right at Trig. He had suspiciously stopped lurching forward now, making me think that the beast had severed the link already, in order to see me kill my own teammate. I aimed, waited a beat and redirected my shot in a split second, burning mana to give my arrows extra speed.

The flame arrows crashed into the Orphine’s chest hard, streaks of fire burning its hideously bulbous flesh. It let out a shriek of pain and began to thrash its enormous body left to right, green blood oozing from the holes sticking out of its torso.

“Hah!” I shouted in triumph, readying up another shot. The beast was writhing in pain, but something told me to hold my fire. I had no way of knowing if that pain link was active again. I had caught it by surprise the one time, but would I be able to pull this off again?

Chapter 24

The Orphine, having taken quite a bit of damage from my attack, was no longer content to simply sit and laze about. It grunted and gurgled with great contempt as it recovered from the flame arrows, then began to uncoil itself. Its large body seemed to flop out and unfold as it began to snake and slither its way free from the long circle it had wrapped itself into. The beast groaned considerably, green blood dripping everywhere as it began to slither towards me.

Propping the long creature up was thousands of little centipede-like legs, skittering as they struggled to support a beast of such size. The creature’s movement was not graceful, but as it continued to unfurl itself, it picked up speed.

“So…what’s the plan?” Trig asked as we both backed away from the creature as it expanded outwards, its flesh stretching out to take up more and more space.

“Not sure…” I said, waiting for the beast to take its first move. Too many unknowns here. The beast was lethargic, yes, but it was gaining energy quickly. Would its psychic powers increase? Would the attack link still exist?

“I’ve got an alternate plan,” Trig said, reading my uncertainty. He pointed towards the bronze braziers that kept the green fire alive and well. “Kill the lights and run. Let uh…that shadow thing take its meal.”

I grimaced at that idea. It was a solid plan for killing the creature, sure, but the body and the Bloodpoints would be gone as well. Worse yet, we wouldn’t learn its weaknesses. Still, could we afford to get into a scrap like this?

“Trig, leave,” I ordered. “Go back to the wagon and wait.”

There was only a moment of hesitation and then, footsteps crunching on bone as Trig fled the area. He knew better than to argue with me in a combat scenario. Time was limited. The Orphine was spending a great deal of energy uncoiling itself and was seemingly distracted, still stretching itself out. My ally had precious little time