Risen World

Chapter 47: Making Their Last Stand Part 2

Laura moved to the top floor of the little store across the street from the gas station with both Madalyn and Natalie following close behind. They avoided going to the roof because they wanted to evade any chance of being notice by the boss instead of it zoning in on the decoy they had created. They made sure that the building they picked out was both far enough away from the gas station that the upcoming explosion wouldn't affect them and that there was a direct line of sight with the target so that Laura could fire her attack when the time came.

The three of them waited quietly for Joshua to come through in their plan. Natalie was near the ladder that lead to the roof so that she could move out as soon as possible when things started off. Madalyn on the other hand was quietly leaning against the wall with her eyes closed for the moment. By her breathing Laura could tell she was still awake, so she didn't worry too much. 'You think this will work?' Natalie asked the others via the mental link to avoid causing any noise.

'The big oaf hasn't let us down yet, so I would be surprised if he did now.' Madalyn confidently replied without even opening her eyes. Laura simply nodded before turning back to look out the window. It didn't take much longer for them to hear an enraged shout coming from the center of town that caused them all to tense up and prepare themselves for the upcoming fight. After waiting and listening to the occasional shouts and crashing sounds that were slowly approaching there direction they all knew Joshua's plan was working up to this point. It reminded Laura of the time she was being chased by the monster so she knew all the crashing came from it destroying buildings left and right. That was exactly what they needed it to do for things to work out.

Suddenly they heard another small explosion close by before things once again went quiet. For a few seconds there was nothing but absolute silence which worried them for a moment. Then they could hear the footsteps of the creature as it slowly thumped heavily along the ground with each step. All three of them were soon able to see a large shadowed figure a ways away from them as it searched the area. What they assumed was one of its tongues started to flick around outside of its abdomen before pointing towards the gas station. In the next few seconds it turned in that direction before flashing from its spot and appearing directly next to the building before going down to one knee and slamming its fist into the doll.

'Perfect!' Madalyn nearly shouted through the mental link. The creature screamed in rage as it tried to pull its arm out of the building as a large amount of poisonous gas started to fill the area after the doll was destroyed. 'Seems like the acid works well against this thing. That doll was filled with enough gas and acid to not only damage its hand, but also cloud up the entire gas station. You're up flame girl.' Madalyn smugly said before backing away from the window. Natalie followed her lead and gave Laura some room as well.

Laura snorted in response to Madalyn's jab at her, but put that aside and quickly formed a large ball of flame before the monster wised up and moved out of the way. She then sent it directly towards where the gas pumps were before ducking back behind the wall in the building to avoid any stray objects that might come flying their direction. It didn't take long before they heard a large explosion that shook the place so hard it felt like an earthquake for a moment. It took a while for things to die down and all they could hear was the roar of the flames along with a loud piercing shriek that most likely came from the boss monster. The three of them rushed up to the roof and were shocked at the scene before them.

The entire area was a complete mess from the explosion. Several windows that weren't already destroyed on the buildings in the surroundings were shattered and some of the buildings close to the gas station were wrecked from the explosion. Even the building next to theirs took a large amount of damage because of Joshua's burning truck being lodged into it. When they looked towards the gas station most of their view was covered by a mixture of the purple haze, smoke, and large plumes of flames that would occasionally burn green. They were able to make out the shadowed figure of the screeching boss that had fallen completely onto both knees after the explosion. It looked as if it was bowing down onto the ground with how its head was almost touching the floor.

After watching it scream and shout for a while the monster once again roared in rage before trying to stand up, but stumbled in its attempts. That's when the large mouth on its belly opened wide and started sucking in the purple haze around it, but also managed to suck in a lot of the poison along with it. Laura hoped that would slow it down a bit more in the long run, but didn't plan to rely on that. The more the purple haze rushed into its large mouth the more it thinned out at the same time. By the time the monster was finished they were able to clearly see it as it once again roared into the air.

Even after healing up from absorbing the haze it was still in far worse shape than they had ever seen it before. Its body was slowly recovering from several burns all over it, but the area that was burnt the most was its legs that were closes to the explosion. Even after trying to heal it could barely stand on them as it tried to maintain its balance. One of its arms was completely blown off in the attack as well along with the other still having signs acid burns along with the fire that was slowly dying out. Its head had a few burns, but because it was the furthest part away from the explosion it avoided damage for the most part. The mouth on its belly on the other hand seemed to have several broken teeth, and large amounts of purple blood was bleeding out from it. Its tongues had severe burns all the way along them.

They could tell it was slowly healing, but it would take a long time for it to fully heal unless it absorbed another large amount of purple haze. The creature turned and glared at them after taking notice of them standing on the roof, but in its current state it was clearly wary of them. Instead of charging towards them like it had done several times before it teleported further away from them and opened its mouth wide before forming a large ball of purple haze and sent it straight towards them. 'Looks like things are going all according to plan.' Natalie said before they all rushed to jump over to another building and avoid the monsters attack.

Not long after they made the move they could hear whatever the thing had sent their way crash into the building they were previously on top of. The three girls let out a sigh before preparing to confront whatever came out of the now clouded building. 'That should be the sub-boss this time around girls so make sure to lead it away and kill it before coming back to help me out.' Joshua voice appeared in their heads. 'I'll handle this big lug until then.' After saying that they could hear the boss monster screech in pain as a small explosion smashed into its wide open mouth causing it even more damage. They all saw Joshua rushing past it as he threw a couple more poison grenades and caused more explosion as he hit the clouds of gas formed with flaming arrows. The large boss was enraged and slowly lumbered after him out of site.

'Looks like the little guy over here is waking up.' Madalyn said grabbing Laura's attention. All three girls watched as the smaller sub-boss started to pull itself out of the building and into view. It looked almost exactly like the boss monster in shape, but it didn't have the large mouth on its belly. Instead there was a hole in that space and the mouth occupied most of its head as its eyes were placed on the sides of its skull like a fish. It looked similar to a Venus flytrap, but instead of an acidic opening there were several rows of sharp teeth. The monster was a little shorter than the building they were standing on, but they doubted that would stop it from reaching them as it turned to look in their direction.

When it took notice of them its mouth opened wide as it shrieked at them before teleporting right in front of the building they were on. 'Crap.' All three of them said in some variation before dodging out of the way of its clawed hand smashing into the roof. Unlike the boss monster it wasn't big enough to tear apart a building in one swipe, but even so its teleportation would still be a great problem for them to have to deal with.

'We need to move away from here and get to a place with more buildings to move through.' Laura said taking command as the other two nodded towards her. They knew it was up to her for the most part to kill the thing so they followed her ideas in how to do it. 'We'll split up once we get into a good spot and attack it from different locations. Madalyn will use her acid to damage it, Natalie will use her nail launcher to poison it and slow it down, and at the right time I'll go for the kill.' They nodded before all three of them raced from roof top to roof top leading the monster into a denser part of town.

Laura had come up with her strategy after having seen how these sub-bosses reacted in fighting situations on the past two occasions. They both always targeted whoever had hurt them last. Of course it would take actual damage to grab their attention, but at the moment all three of them had a way to inflict enough pain to gain the animosity of the boss. Back at the factory Joshua had used this tactic to keep the attention on him after every time Laura had severely hurt the monster. Then he and Natalie had used a similar strategy against the flying creature to keep it from killing all of the farmers back at camp. Hopefully it would be just as effective this time around with her at the lead.

It took a while for them to reach a location with several similar small buildings for them to weave through and confuse the boss. All along the way the creature would shriek and teleport in front or near them to try to take them off guard, but with their improved reflexes and speed they easily avoided these slow attacks. Luckily this boss wasn't like the flying monster or else they wouldn't be able to handle its speed. The fact several plumes of poison gas were mixed into its forming from the flames back at the gas station might have been the reason why it was so sluggish even though it was far smaller than the boss. Either way they would use that to their advantage.

'Now!' Laura shouted through the mental link and all three girls split into different directions after Madalyn tossed down a poison gas grenade to work as a smoke screen in front of the creature that had just popped up behind them. Laura followed that up with a flick of a small flame that caused the gas to explode in the monsters face. That gave all three of them enough time to spread out in the area and hide from sight. By the time it stopped screaming from pain and started searching for them they had already made it to their hiding spots. The large monster looked slightly agitated as its eyes searched its surroundings.

For a while it looked like it was all going well until another roar came from the direction of where Joshua had lead the boss away from and suddenly all the haze in the air started to thin out even more. The sub-boss noticed this and was turning to go help its creator out, but before Laura could even worn the others a glass canister smashed into its chest causing a loud hissing sound to fill the air. A large amount of acid started to burn into its skin making the creature to shout out in pain once again before turning back in the direction the acid had come from. Before it could take full notice of Madalyn another ball of acid came soaring out of a nearby building and smashed into the monsters head causing even more damage.

The sub-boss yelped while trying to spit out any of the acid before it could deal too much damage to it. When it finally calmed down it turned back towards Madalyn who had made it on to the roof and instantly teleported in front of her before clawing at the building in rage. Madalyn dodge at the last moment before jumping off the building to the ground below and tried to lose its line of sight as quickly as possible. The monster roared again in irritation at not killing her then it started to follow after her. Before it could close in on her though it was met with a large nail through the shoulder that came flying in from the side. Laura turned to see that Natalie was on top of another roof and already picking up her equipment and beginning to move.

The nail had plunged deep enough into its shoulder that the creature was unable to pull it out. In its frustration it raced after Natalie, but its speed was slowly starting to drop as the poison took effect. Before it could reach her another ball of acid impacted its back causing it to shriek once again as it turned around to try to look for Madalyn. This back and forth occurred a few times until Laura decided the monster was weakened enough that she could go in for the finishing blow. Its chest and back were so shredded that you could see bone and the several nails plunged into it made it have to completely rely on its teleportation to move around properly.

After one last acid blast and one last teleportation Laura started to form a large flame spear and aimed it directly at the creatures weakened upper torso area. After half a minute she was finished and waited for Madalyn to jump out of the way after another one of its attempts to kill her failed then she sent the spear soaring through the air. The moment it made contact with the creatures chest it drilled through its back completely before exploding on the inside and sending several pieces of the monster soaring into the air. For a moment the remaining half of its body just stood there before falling over on to the ground with a loud crash. Soon its remains started to crumble into dust as it faded away.

'Seems like we finished it.' Madalyn said through the link before all three girls felt a sudden surge of strength fill their bodies. Any tiredness they had built up over the fight or even the last few days had completely disappeared. 'Looks like we've reached max level as well.'

'Well then we're all set to finish this then.' Natalie replied as the other two nodded along. Just as they were about to turn to go help out Joshua they heard another loud roar before the air began to thin again at a huge rate.

'I hope were not too late.' Laura calmly said. They all rushed off in the direction of the noise hoping Joshua was alright..