Risen World

Chapter 38: First Conflict with the Big Bad Boss Part 2

'So what's the plan?' Madalyn said through the mental link. After inspecting the area around the boss's location they knew that there weren't any other creatures nearby. It was as if the boss was daring someone to try to take it on instead of hiding behind waves of creatures under its control. The fact it had so much confidence in dealing with its enemies was a bit off putting, but sense this was the weakest level of boss they could go up against then killing it would be their best chance at finishing this.

'For now we're only here to test if our abilities actually do damage to it. Will start off with the old tried and true method of explosion by poison gas then see how it reacts. Be prepared to run right after the explosion.' Joshua replied. Both girls nodded before Madalyn took a bag she had been carrying across her back off and started pulling out several canisters similar to the ones Joshua had been using earlier. She then moved up to the edge of the roof before twisting the lid and tossing one of the canisters across the street into the purple cloud. She continued to do this repeatedly until the bag was emptied and there was a towering green cloud quickly mixing in with the purple haze.

Unlike with Joshua or Laura, Madalyn could breathe in the gas without any problems so she didn't use a mask as she tossed them towards the area of the boss. When she was done she chunked the now empty bag down to the ground below before stepping back and giving the space to Laura. Joshua and Madalyn watched as Laura raised her hand conjuring a ball of flame the size of a baseball. They had decided a head of time to save their energy sense this was all just testing and not a legit attempt at killing it. If it was anything like the last boss then this attack wouldn't be able to put it down, but if it did a significant amount of damage then they would have a good plan going forward.

Laura launched the ball across the street and they all watched as it floated into the green gas. The moment it made contact a searing wave a fire quickly expanded through the air of the surroundings. The flames towered into the sky as they completely engulfed the large purple cloud that was in front of them. The searing heat was so hot that it scorched even parts of the building that they were standing on. It took a while for the fire to die down, but even then it continued to block their view of the target with all the smoke in the surroundings.

When the view finally became clear the first thing the three of them noticed wasn't the flaming ruble or the damage dealt to the surroundings, but was instead two enormous purple eyes now glaring down at them from within the cloud. The purple haze in the surroundings seemed to be dragged back towards the behemoth's silhouette as it slowly thinned out and allowed the group to see what was in front of them. When they first had looked at the boss they had assumed it was standing at three stories tall based off the shading of its figure in the cloud, but now they could clearly see that was a great mistake. The boss was three stories tallwhile sitting. Even after the enormous explosion it was still just sitting there, but now they had gained its attention as it looked over towards them.

The creature had a rather golem like shape with an enormous upper body, but smaller legs. Its arms were as thick as oak trees and long enough that its hands reached all the way down to the ground while sitting on the destroyed building as if it was a throne. As it slowly started to stand up Joshua was able to get a better judge of the monsters size and when it had fully stood up it towered over every building in the area as it stretched out to nearly six stories high. Its chest was similar to a regular human, but its stomach was a completely different story. The one glaring thing about the creature that stood out from anything Joshua had seen before was the fact that its head only had eyes and a nose, but no mouth. The reason for that was the fact that a giant vertical mouth expanded over its bloated out belly. Several fanged teeth could be seen within it while two rather long tongues would occasionally flicker out of the mouth to lick the sides of its belly as if it was licking its lips.

This monstrosity had its full attention on them and that's when it let out an earth shattering roar. The killing intent filled the air and was far stronger than that of the sub boss. Both Laura and Madalyn were frozen on the spot while even Joshua was finding it harder to breath as the wave of killing intent caused him to tense up. That's when Joshua started to go through several thoughts at high speed. Their goal wasn't to kill this thing yet, but to figure out if they could hurt it and what it was capable of. Considering all the burnt skin and smoldering patches all over the monster it was safe to say that they could hurt it. The problem was the fact that this damage, that took and explosion big enough to destroy a three story building within seconds, was healing at a rate that made his heart sink. Within ten seconds most of the skin was healed and by thirty there was hardly a scratch left.

'Snap out of it guys!' Joshua shouted through the mental link to break his two comrades out of their trance like state. 'We've seen the results now we need to get away before this thing kills us. We don't know what types of abilities this thing has, but I'm not sure we'll survive finding out without being better prepared.'

The two girls looked to him and nodded before quickly turning around and making a run for it. Joshua followed behind making sure to keep an eye on the beast to see what it would do to keep up with them. By the fact it took so long for it to just stand up Joshua was sure that this monster was on the slower side. It was in the moment that they were about to make a jump to another building in their escape that Joshua saw something that he didn't expect. The monster didn't just walk after them, but instead it teleported right next to the building they were on. One of its large arms was slowly headed in their direction as it attempted to squash them underneath it like bugs.

Joshua picked up speed and caught up to the girls as the arm crashed directly behind them tearing into the building and caused it to start to collapse in on itself. As they were about to fall into the destruction Joshua shoved the two girls forward sending them rolling onto the only part of the roof that had yet to break apart while he fell into the rubble below. 'Keep going!' He shouted through the mental link because he wasn't sure they would be able to hear his voice over the loud crashing sound. Joshua landed hard on a now broken table on the first floor of the two story building. Pain shot through his back as he quickly rolled out of the way to avoid some pieces of the ceiling from falling on to him. He watched as the large hand of the monster tore itself from the remains of the destroyed building and then listened as the monster let out another roar before proceeding to follow the two bugs that had gotten away.

When Joshua walked towards the window he could see it following the girls as they jumped from building to building. 'Are you alright Josh?' Laura's voice could be heard in his head.

'Yeah I'm fine, just a little sore from the landing.' Joshua said before heading out of the building. 'It looks like it can't teleport repeatedly, so you guys should be able to stay ahead of it. Just be careful in the meantime.' Just as Joshua said this the creatures seem to open its large mouth as it looked in the direction of where Natalie and the others were outside of town. That's when several spouts of purple gas shot out in to the air as they soared in that direction. The monster continued to do so for a few minutes before once again turning in the direction of Laura and Madalyn and teleporting away.

'Damn this thing seems to be hell bent on catching us.' Madalyn's voice came through the link again after a few minutes of silence. 'Were going to have to try to lose it by going' She started to say when the mental link went dead.

'Girls can you hear me?' Joshua tried to use the link again, but without any success. He walked outside the collapsing building while trying to stay as silent as possible, but when he got outside there were none of the smaller creatures nearby. 'Looks like the mental link is down, that's just great. Hopefully nothing bad happened to Natalie and the guys.'

Joshua was about to start to follow the monsters trail and try to catch up with the others when suddenly a streaking cloud of purple gas came flying through the air and crashed through the building in front of him. Joshua pulled his sledge hammer from his back as he got ready to take on whatever came out of the building when he nearly dropped his weapon at what he saw. "Well shit!"

Meanwhile Laura and Madalyn had just avoided another fist that slammed into a building that they had just jumped from. They were quickly running out of buildings to roof hop on so they decided to make their way inside the next one and figure out a way to sneak out of the monsters view. Now that they had made it this far from the center of town they were getting close to leaving the purple haze, but the last stretch would be to out in the open for them. "Well, what do you think we should do hot stuff?" Madalyn asked after catching a breather.

"Don't call me that!" Laura said angrily, but kept it to a quiet level so as to not alert the monster to their location. "We should wait a moment before sneaking back around and exiting from another direction."

"Fine, but even if we do that we need to make some sort of distraction so that it doesn't lock on to us again and teleport right on over. Any ideas for that?" Madalyn replied with a smile.

"Yeah I think sohere's the plan." Laura said before explaining the steps they would take. After a few minutes a green gas started to spill from the windows on the top floor of the building. The monster that had been searching around the area took notice of this and headed over. It had seen these insignificant creatures try to hurt it with something like this earlier, but knew it wasn't anything that could threaten it. So the creature made its way over and leaned down so it could peak into the building and find its prey when it noticed a flaming rag just out of reach of the green gas. When it breathed out of its nose in surprise the gas was pushed into the rag and the entire room lit up into a large flame that hit the creature in the face and sent it tumbling backwards and crashing into another building.

The monster let out an enraged roar as it tore up the buildings around it in its rage. When it settled down it took notice of what looked like a moving silhouette in a building not too far away and decided to teleport in that direction. In the meantime two girls, one missing a jacket, were rushing in a different direction as they headed out of town. By the time the creature noticed it had been played and let out another angry roar they had already made it out of the haze and were quickly working their way back around towards where the others had set up shop to defend themselves.

While rushing they came upon a scene of their companions and one person they didn't expect to see struggling to fend off a wave of unknown creatures. They both looked at each other before nodding and rushing over to help.