ca-book Chapter 93: Time
Chapter 93: Time
“Run?” Tulland looked up. “We could run.”
“No point. We’d just be making me face the dive in a non-optimal way.”
“Got it.” Tulland held up his pitchfork. “I’ll harry it. If I can. Even if it’s just distraction, it should help.”
“Tulland…”
“No. No more. If I don’t help, I’m going to go crazy. You can’t hold up the entire load by yourself.”
“I can. I will.” Necia flexed her arm. “But if you really need to, you can throw him off balance where you can. Just be safe about it.”
Tulland never got the chance. As the sphinx dove, Necia planted her feet and got ready to block-counter the attack. She activated the ability with the same timing she had for every sphinx yet, perfectly intercepting the force of the attack and reflecting it back onto the animal. But where previous attacks had at worst sent her spinning to the ground, this one blew her back as the disturbed earth around Tulland’s makeshift cave turned out to be just unsettled enough to give way.
Every single hit Necia took should have created a big furrow in the ground as the stat-enhanced combined strength of her and various monsters clashing
Farm Status:
Total Points: 4344
That was a huge, almost insane jump in power, and all of it was coursing into his pitchfork, enhancing what it could already do to new, previously unimaginable sharpness and rigidity. The sphinx had been caught off guard by the first stab, and seemed to have a very hard time recovering from that surprise as Tulland hit it again and again, now able to injure it badly in any area he hit.
The next hit after the first caught it in a wing, which didn’t do much to its functional fighting strength but did seem to be painful enough to keep it on the back foot. The pitchfork came around again just as the sphinx turned to face him and ripped through the hide on the animal’s forehead, showering its eyes with blood and letting Tulland got to the shoulder joint on the other side of the animal.
After that, it was more or less defenseless. Tulland took no chances. He didn’t stop until the animal was dead. As it turned out, he didn’t even stop after.
“Tulland.” Necia’s voice reached him weakly from the ground. “I think it’s dead. You can stop.”
“Necia!” Tulland rushed over. “You’re fine!”
“I’m not. It broke almost every bone between my neck and my waist.” With Tulland’s help, she rolled painfully onto her back, several bones clicking into alignment as she did. “Oh, that’s not good. I wanted to get a bit more healed up before I had to deal with another one.”
They must have been pretty close to the spawn point. The new sphinx was already approaching from the horizon.
“Shit. This is going to hurt.” Necia tried to sit up, all of her frame making distressing noises as she did. “A lot.”
“No, don’t.” Tulland looked up at the sphinx, which was almost into dive range. “I’ve got this.”
“What?”
“I’ve got this.” Tulland looked down at Necia’s eyes. “I promise.”
Necia furrowed her brow a bit, but finally nodded and plopped back down.
“Good, then. I wasn’t sure if I could actually help. I’ll watch from over here.”