Nightmare Realm Summoner: A LitRPG Adventure, page 35
The moment they go down, the number of monsters I can take out goes on a timer. I’ll start running out of magic a lot quicker if I’m using Glint’s abilities to kill things. For the next 24 hours, I have to optimize every single second as best I can.
A Boneraptor spotted Alex’s approach and peeled away from its group to meet him. It was followed by a second Boneraptor and a spider-like monster that Alex hadn’t seen yet. The creature stood at around half the Boneraptor’s height, its eight limbs a chitinous ivory and twelve glistening ruby-colored eyes lodged in the center of its head.
Clattering Bonespinner (Novice 7)
“Deal with the Boneraptors first,” Alex ordered. “Spark, take the one on the left. Glint, the right. I’ll keep the attention of the Bonespinner until you’re both finished.”
His monsters darted to follow his orders. Alex stepped up to the Bonespinner, making sure the monster’s attention was on him so it couldn’t gang up on one of his summons. His plan worked—possibly too well.
The huge spider chittered and advanced toward him, its legs making a rapid drumbeat against the dirt as it moved with disconcerting speed. It ground to a halt, and Alex jumped back as it snapped at him with thick, thigh-sized ivory fangs.
With a hiss, the Bonespinner shot toward him again. The distance between them evaporated in less than a second. Alex dove to the ground as the monster’s jaws slammed shut above him once more.
He rolled to his feet, a grin crawling across his features. The monster was a fair bit faster than he was, but every time it went to attack, it paused for a moment. Speed wasn’t that much of a help if its actual attacks could never land.
Fun fight, though. It’s like playing a really messed-up version of tag with someone who really sucks at clutching up the last bit.
“Come on,” Alex said, shifting from foot to foot. “What are you waiting for?”
The Bonespinner lurched. Alex hopped back as a pointed leg slammed into the dirt where he’d been standing a moment before. His eyes widened, and he danced back, avoiding several other rapid strikes as the spider did its absolute best to skewer him.
Cold energy pressed against Alex’s body and flowed into his System. It nearly made him trip over his own feet. He corrected at the last second and threw himself into a roll as pointed feet pounded through the dirt in his wake.
He scrambled to his feet just in time for a second flow of energy to roll through his mind. Bone clattered against bone as the Bonespinner lived up to its name and clicked its fangs together. The sound was loud enough to make Alex’s ears throb in pain.
“Would you stop it with the loud noises?” Alex demanded.
The Bonespinner’s legs bunched. For a moment, Alex thought it had suddenly gotten second thoughts about the fight.
Then it jumped.
Alex had seen spiders jump before. Everyone knew about jumping spiders. They were tiny, fuzzy, fingertip-sitting creatures that people photoshopped tiny hats onto. They were supposed to be cute.
There was absolutely nothing cute about a horse-sized spider plummeting through the air above him.
He sprinted to the side and threw himself at the last moment, hitting the grass in a roll. The ground shuddered behind him as the spider crashed down, and he heard the drumming patter of its feet as it raced after him without a moment of delay.
A pained screech split the air. Alex spun to find Glint atop the monster, his claws raking across its ruby-colored eyes. Spark arrived a moment later, an armored fist slamming straight into the spider’s chin.
The Bonespinner spun and jerked from side to side in an attempt to dislodge Glint. All that did was turn Glint into a little blender attached to the top of its head. Every motion caused his jagged claws to rake deeper into the monster’s head, destroying any intelligence that may have been encased within it.
Spark delivered another blow to the front of the monster’s face. One of its legs flitted out for the Echo Wraith, only to find nothing but smoky darkness as the monster swapped positions with its shadow.
The Bonespinner didn’t get a chance to do anything else. Glint tore through the rest of its head, sending grayish-black brain matter splattering across the ground. Legs gave way, and the Bonespinner crashed down, hitting the grass with a thud.
Cool energy flowed into Alex as his monsters stepped away from the corpse. It struck Alex that Glint looked more dangerous than the monsters they’d just killed did. At 5 feet tall, the gaunt monster wasn’t all that much shorter than Alex.
His gangly arms hung by his sides, the long mirror shards emerging from his fingertips stained with black and blue blood. The Shardwalker’s glowing yellow eyes burned into Alex like two spotlights as he waited for instruction.
I wonder what Spark will look like once I get him a little juiced up. But I shouldn’t need to do that yet—not unless we aren’t killing monsters fast enough. I don’t want to waste the potential power I could have.
Speaking of which… I want to know where I stand in the event. Where the hell is that leaderboard we were promised?
No sooner had the thought graced his mind than the air in front of Alex shimmered. Golden lines sprawled out and formed into a floating square as words took form within it, scrawled by an invisible pen.
Local Leaderboard—Initialization Event
Ogre (Novice 9): 19 Kills
Gentlewind (Novice 7): 13 Kills
Ash (Novice 7): 11 Kills
Fangs (Novice 6): 9 Kills
Ben-10 (Novice 5): 7 Kills
Extra Pickles (Novice 5): 5 Kills
NoIDontWantAName (Novice 4): 2 Kills
NoPickles (Novice 3): 2 Kills
Daggerman (Novice 3): 1 Kills
Joe (Novice 2): 1 Kill
…
24. Bricks (Novice 1): 1 Kill
25. Dorriv (Novice 1): 1 Kill
There were twenty-five total members listed on the leaderboard, but everyone below Rank 8 only had a single kill.
And that was it.
The System didn’t give any other information with regard to the leaderboard. It was just a list of names and kills, without any distinction as to which monsters the kills even were.
It took Alex an embarrassing second to remember that his name for the leaderboards was Ash rather than Alex. That meant there were two people above him. Ogre and Gentlewind. As for Claire—he was just guessing, but something told him she was probably fangs.
Nobody in the village was anywhere near Novice 9, and I didn’t see anyone that was ranked Novice 7 either. They could have both been just wearing an item that concealed their powers or just been somewhere else, but… Novice 9 is a lot. It’s difficult to get that high up. Could Ogre be—
The leaderboards flickered and updated.
Local Leaderboard—Initialization Event
Ogre (Novice 9): 25 Kills
Gentlewind (Novice 7): 14 Kills
Ash (Novice 7): 11 Kills
Fangs (Novice 6): 10 Kills
Ben-10 (Novice 5): 7 Kills
NoIDontWantAName (Novice 4): 4 Kills
NoPickles (Novice 3): 3 Kills
Daggerman (Novice 3): 3 Kills
Joe (Novice 2): 3 Kill
Dorriv (Novice 2): 2 Kills
…
24. Bricks (Novice 1): 1 Kill
25. Slicer (Novice 1): 1 Kill
“What the hell?” Alex muttered. Ogre had gone up six kills in mere seconds. He dismissed the leaderboard with a thought. There wasn’t time to mess around and just sit staring. This was a race against time and his opponents. Sitting around was going to cost him the victory.
Glint and Spark both shot forward at his command, and the three of them sought their next target amid the sea of monsters waiting for them.
Alex lost count of the exact number of monsters he fought. The world was an endless blur of blood—and none of it was the right color. Glint and Spark tore through the ranks of the bonelike creatures in their path, though they kept near the edge of the horde to avoid getting completely swarmed.
Sweat soaked into his clothes and poured down the front of his forehead. Every breath he drew was labored. This was more physical exercise than he’d gotten in a long, long time. Even with the improvements his body had gotten from the System, he’d been fighting for what felt like hours.
He didn’t bother checking the Leaderboard while he fought. The distraction wasn’t going to help anything. All that mattered right now was putting every scrap of power he had into the fight and killing as many monsters as possible.
Alex turned to find his next target. His eyes landed on a Boneraptor near a pile of corpses, both human and monster alike. It bore down on a Novice 5 warrior, who was scrambling for safety from it. Alex lifted a hand toward the monster. “Glint, go—”
A loud crack echoed through the bloodied clearing. A head-sized rock slammed into the Boneraptor’s face, shattering bone and practically ripping its head clean from its neck. Blue fluid sprayed out from its neck as the monster collapsed.
Relief washed over the survivor’s face. He turned, his hand raising in appreciation—and a second crack split the air. A stone slammed into his skull. His face caved in, and his body ragdolled, rolling across the ground to lie still beside the dead monster.
Alex spun toward the source of the stones. A towering man stood at the top of a hill, his pale skin dirtied. Enormous muscles bulged beneath a torn-up, blood-splattered tank-top that did not fit him in the slightest.
Diego - Steel Crusher (Novice 9)
47
Alex stared at Diego. For a long second, neither of them moved. There was no doubt that they’d seen each other. The hill Diego stood on was at least a few hundred feet away from Alex, but he’d seen what had happened to the last two targets of Diego’s throws.
He’s here. Diego has to be Ogre, then. Holy shit. He’s already Novice 9, and without the monsters in the Mirrorlands to power-level him. He must have just been fighting people and monsters this whole time… but the threat from them is comparatively lower. The only way Diego could have gotten this strong is if he didn’t advance his Mind Palace at all and is dumping all his power into leveling up.
The huge man reached down and pulled a rock free of the ground. It didn’t look like he was any more interested in settling things peacefully now than he had been before.
Alex burst into motion, and his monsters followed after him. Standing around in one place would just make him an easy target.
If he wanted to keep climbing the leaderboard, he was going to have to deal with Diego. It wasn’t lost on him that the last fight he’d had with the massive man had nearly ended in both of their deaths—and that fight had been a two versus one.
But things are different now. He might be stronger, but so am I—and unlike him, I’ve been leveling my Mind Palace, and I’ve got a whole lot more tricks than I did the last time around.
Diego hurled the stone. It streaked through the air like a cannonball, but Alex wasn’t a slow-moving target. The rock slammed into the hill a fair distance away from him with a loud crunch, and Alex’s charge continued, unhindered.
Another stone hurtled in his direction. Alex slipped out of the way a second time, but this one passed a little too close to comfort. Diego must have been a baseball player before the apocalypse had rolled around. His aim was terrifyingly good.
Alex reached the bottom of the hill Diego stood on and started up it. But even as he ran, he was more than aware that there was no way he’d be fast enough to dodge a rock when running up an incline directly in front of Diego.
It would clip him at the very least—and at the speed that Diego was throwing the rocks, getting hit would probably be enough to take out an entire arm if it didn’t kill him straight out. That wasn’t even to mention that Alex couldn’t afford to spend every last scrap of energy he had on this fight.
You’re a roadblock in my path, not my goal.
“Spark,” Alex ordered between breaths. Hedging his bets would only stall the fight out. He needed to be decisive. “Block the stone for me.”
Diego rose up above Alex, having claimed another rock. He reared back. The Echo Wraith lurched forward, its stormy form darting past Alex and appearing before him. With a roar, Diego flung his makeshift weapon.
It whistled through the air and slammed into the Echo Wraith even as Alex threw himself into a dive. Chitinous armor shattered. The stone burst out the back of the monster like a bullet. With a loud crackle of energy and a pop of blue lightning, the Echo Wraith crumbled to dust.
Alex rolled to his feet and continued his charge alongside Glint. Power poured into his body, granting him Spark’s powers—and then he crested the top of the hill and found himself face-to-face with Diego.
Anger and fear mixed on the large man’s face. He took a step back and raised his hands, flexing them into fists. “You came back. Sharp, painful, little man. I am glad. We did not get to finish what we started. I hate leaving things unfinished.”
“Says the one that ran away,” Alex countered, circling around Diego as he waited for an opening. He hadn’t forgotten just how fast his opponent was—and that had been several ranks ago. Now, he had no idea how strong Diego had actually gotten.
“Phil always said I shouldn’t face problems I’m not ready for before I’m ready for ’em,” Diego said, cracking his neck. Silver crawled across his skin and covered his body. “But I’m ready for you now.”
The huge man drove his foot into the ground. Dirt exploded upward in a line toward Alex as steel spines burst free of it, traveling out in a wave to impale him. Alex flung himself to the side, activating Spark’s powers to leave his shadow back where he’d been standing.
He hit the ground in a roll and shot to his feet. Diego’s foot slammed down on the dirt beside him, and he swung a meaty fist at Alex’s head. Alex ducked to the side, narrowly avoiding the strike. Wind howled past his head, and he skipped back, not even bothering to try and punch Diego—he knew all too well how effective the man’s metallic skin was.
“You know the drill, Glint,” Alex said, dodging out of the way of another blow and stepping under Diego’s arms, trying to keep behind him. He reached within himself and drew on his power.
The Shardwalker leapt, and a strand of energy connected to him as Alex activated Rift Flood. Power poured out of his body and into the Shardwalker.
Glint warped midway through the air. The glass blades jutting from his body jerked outward and expanded. His mouth grew, flooded with enormous, glistening fangs. The Shardwalker’s eyes turned a shimmering reddish-purple, and power twisted within the mirrors covering him.
Fear flickered in Diego’s eyes. He staggered back and swung an arm to bat Glint from the sky, lifting the other one to protect his face.
Alex thrust his hands forward and drew on more of the magic he’d been saving to activate Funhouse. The air around Diego cracked. Fractures jerked and raced through reality, quickly expanding to surround the large man.
Diego’s eyes widened in surprise and confusion as his body twisted like it had been put through a blender. Shapes and colors mixed and swirled within the large area of warped Space. Diego stumbled forward, suddenly finding himself facing away from Glint.
Alex dropped the spell right before Glint passed through it.
The Shardwalker slammed into Diego’s back. His empowered claws ripped into his huge back, shrieking as they met steel—and tearing deep into it. A scream of pain tore from Diego’s mouth.
He reached back and grabbed Glint before the Shardwalker could dodge out of the way. Glass crunched, and shards drove into Diego’s palm, piercing through his reinforced skin and sending blood splattering across the ground. He ripped Glint off his back and lifted the monster in the air before him.
Alex gritted his teeth and drew on his magic again. Diego stumbled as the air around him shattered into fragments once more. His foot slammed down, and he swayed, nearly losing his balance. The surprise cost him his grip on Glint, who dropped to the ground and skipped to safety.
“Stop that!” Diego snarled. He lurched for Alex, extending his hand to reach for his face. The giant of a man moved with terrifying speed, closing what little distance there was between them in the blink of an eye.
If Alex had just been a normal human, the blow would have connected.
But, unlike Diego, Alex had been putting power into his Mind Palace. He didn’t have any abilities that made him stronger or faster, but his very body was upgraded, and that included his reaction speed.
Alex swapped spots with his shadow. Diego’s hand drove through a cloud of inky darkness, closing down on nothing, and he let out a snarl of frustration that quickly turned into another scream as Glint leapt onto him.
Diego had gotten stronger—but so had Alex and Glint. And, unfortunately for the huge man, it looked like he hadn’t invested too much effort into reinforcing his defenses. Perhaps they’d been enough against the other people he’d been killing.
Glint was not most people.
Diego let out an agonized scream as Glint ripped into him. The big man’s ability wasn’t strong enough to keep the Shardwalker’s Rift-empowered claws from cutting straight through it, and below the metal, Diego had nothing but normal human flesh.
The huge man grabbed Glint, ignoring the glass shards that ripped through his hand, and threw the monster to the side with a scream. Diego took a step back and nearly lost his balance as his foot found the edge of the hill, where it came to a sharp stop.
He glanced over his shoulder, then looked back to Alex and Glint. Fury twisted his features, and he let out a bellowing roar.
The massive man lowered his shoulders and charged. He extended his arms to either side, covering as much ground as he could as he raced toward Glint. The Shardwalker dipped out of the way, avoiding Diego’s grasp, but the man made no move to slow his charge.
He hadn’t been aiming for Glint. He’d been going for the source of his troubles.
Alex tried to dodge out of the way, but Diego moved too quickly. He snagged Alex’s wrist, and his huge hand clamped down around it in an instant. Bone cracked. Alex hissed in pain as pain raced down his arm, and he was yanked into the air like a doll.
