Emily could remember a time when she was in training for special forces. They'd ventured up a mountainside and into a cavern for part of it. It was a place where footsteps echoed, and any wrong move, she could be disqualified. At that time, her heart was racing in her chest, anticipating blanks from rifles.
Now that she was in a creature cave, she didn't feel nearly as scared. Perhaps the scent of blood should have aroused her sense of fear, yet there was far more determination in her steps. This pales in comparison to anything that scientist threw at me.
It was almost calming to use that as a reference. Even though it was a mind-numbing experience, it brought about a certain amount of rigidness to her willpower. Though, she was starting to realize there were cracks in her heart's armor. I don't want to lose this boy the same way I lost Ratagast.
Emily's ears twitched as one of them leapt from the wall. Her staff formed into a blade once again, severing its head from its body.
[Congratulations!]
[You have gained a level! Proficiency with [Cybermagic] increased!]
Is it just going to be more of the same?
She continued down a slope incline where she was ambushed by a few more raptors but dealt with those as easy as she dealt with the first ones. It was only when she reached the bottom of the cavern, did she feel something strange was happening.
The raptors had stopped ambushing her, and they'd intentionally left something there for her.
There he was...Matthew Hemrich. The boy was laying on the ground, unconscious in the middle of the dark room. Emily could see him from the light provided by her staff. A pool of his blood surrounded him on all sides, mingling with the scent of the fading raptor repellent. Her intuition was right, the scent was growing colder every second, and he was worse for wear.
What Emily saw made her want to exterminate all raptors in the world on instinct. His hand was half severed from his wrist. Bite marks ran up and down his arms and legs. His noble clothes had barely protected him from their attack. There were scratches and teeth marks all over his body. She could even see an embedded raptor tooth sticking out of the back of his thigh.
There was so much blood, yet she could still see the faint rising and falling of his chest.
She looked around the silent room, listening for the scuttling of more raptors. She could definitely hear them, but time was of the essence. Her ears twitched towards more heavier footsteps deep within the tunnel, but she didn't hesitate. She lunged forwards into the large room.
Emily was surprised that she was able to reach the boy without an ambush. She pulled a small amount of remaining silk from her amulet and stopped as much bleeding as she could. Unfortunately for her, there were no more vials of potion in her pouch. She'd used the last one on Daisy, and she had no idea how to heal with magic.
She clicked her tongue and poured the raptor repellent on his body. She started pulling the boy back towards the entrance, but it was when she did this that she realized she was surrounded.
There were 12 raptors standing all around her like she was a gladiator in an arena, and they were spectators. Curiously, none of them moved to attack her. Then she noticed the heavy footsteps again.
She looked up towards the top of a small cliff that continued the cave further in, and she saw the monster...
There it stood on two legs with grey skin. It smelled of rot and had a brown leather cloth draped over its privates. Further up the creature's body, it had more leather covering parts of its chest and the top of its abs.
Emily started to wonder whether the thing was a monster at all, and as she did, she heard it speak through its large mouth with white-yellow tusks protruding from its bottom lip.
"Ka'effah La'im...Du..." The man beast narrowed his eyes, his grey brow wrinkling at Emily's obvious confusion. He swallowed. "This language?"
Emily's eyes widened in recognition of the words. Her right eye quickly narrowed into a target, inspecting him in the dim light of her lantern.
Name: Gru'kesh Raptor-Claw
Race: [Orc]
Age: 19
Sex: Male
Level: 27
Class: [Journeyman Beast Tamer]
Sub Classes: [Adept Berserker]
Devotion(s): Orcinash
Title(s): Corpse Eater, Brute
Health: 1,040
Stamina: 940
Mana: 320/550
Skills: [Adept Hand to Hand]
Equipment: [Common Leather Chest Plate],[Common Leather Loin Cloth],[Epic Raptor Claws]
Mother fucker...
The guy leapt from his post, the raptors leaping down with him. "So you do understand this language? Tell me, why is a kitsune this far south?"
Emily swallowed and looked down at the barely breathing boy. She took a deep breath and stood to face him. "Not the first time I have been asked that. I suppose you won't mind if I leave with him?"
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
The orc laughed with a hint of rasp behind his voice. "Even if I let you run away, that boy would not live. Too much blood lost."
She sighed and looked towards the raptor claws gracing his fingers. They were all connected to his knuckles with a small ring of metal. And each of them were raptor dew claws that were way too large for such little creatures.
Emily started channeling mana down her body and into her staff. I need to get him first.
Though, he must have sensed the change in the air. He rushed forwards before she could do whatever she wanted.
Emily's eyes widened in shock at his speed. The ground behind him rumbled from his lunge. She watched his knee rise into the air, and she instinctively moved her nanobots to cover her stomach.
A hard impact shattered those nanobots, and pain assailed her as the air was knocked from her windpipe. She was sent sprawling on the ground, and before she could do anything, the guy climbed on top of her.
His hands wrapped around her throat, and he displayed a smile of ecstasy as she started heaving for breath. Foul smelling breath seeped into her nostrils from Gru'kesh, and her legs started wriggling on instinct.
"You dumb bitch. Should have just let me eat that boy..."
Rage boiled behind her eyes. And she struggled to reach for her nearby staff. Her vision started to grow cloudy as his grip strength increased. Her eyes flickered towards the unconscious boy and the surrounding raptors all waiting for the orcs orders.
She could feel her rationality slipping as carbon dioxide piled inside of her brain. What the fuck is this? Am I really gonna die...without saving him. Without doing anything...again...
Tears welled up in her eyes, and her vision started fading to black. Ratagast...
Once again, she'd been overwhelmed. Once again, she'd been forced to rely on the help of someone else. Only, this time, there was no one except for her. She was the only person within this small world. But what will happen if I die again? Will I wake up in the lab?
No...
Her mana traveled towards her brain from the inside of her body. Small nanobots started transforming into cells that delivered her oxygen. They bypassed his hands entirely. Though, with renewed life inside of her brain, she could feel his hands more profoundly. Anymore squeezing, and he will break my neck.
She positioned another row of nanobots on top of her chest, and within an instant, they formed a sharp blade. They launched forwards and stabbed into his abdomen.
Gru'kesh winced in pain and shock, confused at how she was still lucid.
That momentary lapse in his judgment was enough for Emily to get her bearings. She grabbed her staff, transforming it into a small sword and cutting off one of his hands in the same motion.
She sliced cleanly through his wrist on both sides, leaving the hand to fall to the floor beside her ears. Blood splattered on her cheek as the man-eater above her growled in anger.
His screech was music to her ears as she rolled in the same direction of his fallen hand, narrowly missing his other hand's raptor claws digging into the ground where her face used to be.
He stood up and shouted while clutching his bleeding hand. "You fucking bitch! You stupid fucking fox! My fucking hand!"
Emily wanted to laugh at the whining brute. The way he clutched his hand was almost perfectly fitting for a man-eater that preyed on weaklings. Emily's small display of power had shattered something within Gru'kesh. He became frantic as he pointed with his remaining hand.
"Kill her!"
The raptors all descended on her in one swift motion. She could even see feathers launching towards her from the ones that had mastered some level of magic. Her nanobots became a sphere of armor that deflected all of the feathers, making them fall uselessly towards the ground.
All of them were in the air with their talons extended towards her, hoping to be the first ones to claim her life.
Emily formed 13 bullets, one bigger than the rest. She pointed her staff at one and shot it through with a small bullet, much like the 5.56 Nato rounds she was used to. It pierced the creature's head, and then she did it for the next one after dodging a dew claw.
The rest of the rounds were shot in short succession as if she had a full auto magazine, destroying the creature's brains with one shot.
Even the brute tried to lunge towards her after his failed attempt at killing her. However, the 13th round was the one that packed the most punch. It was equivalent to a 50 caliber shell shot from a Barrett.
She fell backwards from the recoil, and the bullet slammed into his shoulder blade, taking it clean off. It even continued further and slammed into the wall behind him, creating an echo from the loud boom.
Gru'kesh's eyes widened as even his other arm was made useless. The appendage was dangling by a thin thread of bone and tendons.
He shouted in pain and fell to his knees, tears forming in his eyes and dripping down his cheeks. "Please! Don't..."
In Emily's eyes the man-eater looked prepared to start begging for his life, but she severed his wretched head from his spine with one swing of her staff-turned-sword.
[Congratulations!]
[You have gained 2 levels! You are now a [Journeyman Cybermage]!]
The kitsune nearly slipped on trails of blood and brain matter from the velociraptors, but she maintained her balance. She walked over to the boy and dropped down onto her knees next to him.
Her hand reached down and felt his chest, but it had stopped rising altogether. Emily's eyes searched for any sign of the boy still being alive, but there was none. She tried pressing her finger against his neck, but there was no pulse. She tried feeling for breath coming from his mouth with the back of her hands, but the lungs had given up.
In the end, Gru'kesh was proven right...
She swallowed hard and searched desperately for any remaining life signs. There were none, but the good news was that his body was still warm. She pressed her hands to his chest and allowed her nanobots to seep into his body through his skin.
They quickly found his heart, and her worst fears were confirmed. It had stopped pumping blood through his body. Not willing to give up, she had another set of nanobots climb in his body through his nostril. These ones searched for signs of life in his brain. Please, as long as you don't have brain death, there is still some hope.
There it was. In some corner of his mind, the brain was still at work. The nanobots could feel his electrical signals working faintly.
With her other nanobots, she started to make his heart beat artificially. They wrapped around his heart and created a barrier to reinforce it. Each time, she pumped mana into him, his heart pumped with it.
And each time his heart pumped, she saw his brain light up with more signals...