Risen World

Chapter 49: Making Their Last Stand Part 4

Joshua found himself crashing hard into the top of a large metal trash can after having avoided another close call with the one fist the boss monster had left. For the past few minutes Joshua was desperately avoiding the enraged monster while making sure to keep peppering it with poison and flames to keep its wounds from healing too quickly. Even with all his efforts he could clearly see that the boss was slowly regenerating and he needed to figure out a better way to stop it before he ended up all the way back to square one.

Running down the alley and across the street to a ladder that lead to the top of another building, Joshua hurried to get in position before the boss could teleport towards him again. By the time he had gotten to the new roof he only had about ten seconds left in his mental countdown before the boss would be able to teleport to him. He watched as the boss monster searched its surroundings a bit after it had finally pulled its arm out of the building it had just destroyed. It took a moment for it to find Joshua's location again before it started to slowly make its way over as it glared at him.

Joshua glared right back before his eyes roved its body to check on how he was fairing against it. At this point its legs were almost completely healed from the burns caused by the explosion at the gas station and the damage to its large mouth was already completely removed. All of its teeth were as sharp as ever and its now healthy pair of tongues swayed back and forth as it continued to slowly move towards Joshua. The one major injury that it was still trying to heal was its destroyed arm that had been blown off. It was already starting to grow a new one out of the stump left behind at its shoulder. Although it wasn't growing fast it would probably only take half an hour or so for it to finish growing back completely.

'I need to get closer to its arm to try to stall its growth.' Joshua thought as he started to position himself on the roof to where he could easily evade the creature's next attack. That's when a crazy idea hit him and a smile crept on to his face. Joshua pulled out his combat knife and put his bow back over his shoulder before bracing himself as he watched the giant in front of him flash and appear next to him once again as its arm streaked through the air above before smashing into the roof. This time instead of jumping away onto another roof Joshua simply moved back and allowed the fist to slam through the roof in front of him. As the building started to collapse in on its self below him he pushed off and jumped as high up on to the arm as he could before smashing the knife into its skin and holding on for dear life as it started to move once again.

Apparently the small stab from the knife wasn't enough to enrage the large monster as it simply seemed confused as it started searching the building for its prey after it pulled its arm out. Joshua used this opportunity to climb as far up the arm as he possibly could without being noticed until he got to its shoulder and slowly sneaked around the back of its head so he could approach the spot he needed to get to. When he got close enough he waited patiently for the boss to lean down again near a building as it searched for him before taking out a poison canister and smashing it into the opened wound on its shoulder. He then jumped off and landed in a roll on the roof before pulling out his bow and making another flaming arrow with his lighter and a gasoline tipped arrowhead. He let it fly before closing his eyes at the nearby explosion it caused. The attack on its opened wound caused the behemoth to scream and shout in pain before pulling itself away from the building. It patted its shoulder trying to quickly put out the flames before turning back to scream towards Joshua.

Joshua simply smiled in response before sprinting to the other side of the roof. By the time the boss had teleported and tried to smash the pest in its fury Joshua was already leaping through a window into another building. He rolled for a moment before his momentum came to a stop then he quickly stood up and ran down the nearest flight of stairs before rushing out the back door and sneaking into a building a little ways away. After seeing how well his last attack had worked against it he decided that he should focus completely on keeping that arm from growing back. The only problem was the fact that he would have to continue to get extremely close in order to hit the spot accurately. When the boss stood straight up he towered over the buildings and that made it extremely difficult for Joshua to be able to hit the wound on its shoulder from roof level.

'Guess I'll have to climb up its arm again, but I doubt it won't notice me this time around.' Joshua thought as he started to think of a plan to make his idea work. He would have to climb it again, but this time he would have to be prepared for it to try to attack him while he was trying to climb up its body. He looked over his gear and noticed one thing in particular that would help him avoid getting smashed like a fly while attempting his next assault. The other thing he decided to change in his upcoming plan was to use one of the wrapped up jars of acid that Madalyn had prepared for him on the wound instead of just poison gas this time. The gas and fire combo was able to sear open the wound once again, but not much else. The acid on the other hand would be able to burn deep in to its body in a similar fashion to how it had on its fist. Even though it had been well over ten minutes by now he could still see some signs of the acid burns every time it tried to smash him with the scarred hand.

After letting his breath calm down for a moment he made his way to the roof to attempt to have another successful exchange with the beast. When he made it outside and on top of the roof he instantly spotted the mad figure as it was crouched over looking through an alley of a nearby building. Joshua too the chance and quickly rushed over and leaped as far up on to the creatures arm as possible seeing as how it was the closest part he could get to. This time around the creatures seemed to take notice of this and let out an enraged roar as it extended to its full height. Joshua held on tightly at the abrupt movement before quickly scaling his way up its arm as fast as possible.

When the boss creature finally came to a stop it raised its arm up so that it could get a good look at Joshua. As the arm started to move the slope Joshua had to climb started flatten out so he pulled out his knife and starts sprinting up the forearm before leaping and grabbing on to the upper portion just before the boss monster smashed its head into the space he leaped from. When he got high enough he pulled out a dagger similar to the ones Madalyn had been using with a rope tightly tied to its hilt. Joshua rushed ahead before jumping high up on to its shoulder and using both his arms to smash the dagger deep into its skin.

The boss grew even more annoyed at its failure to kill the pest that kept jumping around its body so when it felt the slight pain near the top of its shoulder it used its one good arm to try to claw Joshua off its back. Before the arm could reach him Joshua jumped off while holding on to the rope and used the momentum of the fall to swing himself across its large back and land as close to the opposite shoulder as possible. When he got close enough he latched on with his combat knife before pulling himself up to the top and taking out the container of acid that was wrapped up in one of his bags. Joshua quickly jumped off the shoulder before the monster could make another attempt to hit him, but just as he started to fall he threw the glass container as hard as he could into the still slightly burning wound. He smiled as he watched it shatter and spread acid all over the area causing the boss to shriek in pain once again.

This time around Joshua had to land with several rolls to avoid injuring himself from falling from such a tall height. By the time he turned around the boss was falling to a knee in pain as it tried to get the acid off of its body in any way possible. Joshua took this as an opportunity to completely distract it so he could hide away and get a breather. He pulled out one of his poison gas canisters and chunked it into the building right next to where the boss was kneeling. It turned to look at the gas and squinted its eyes in glee as if to signal it was laughing at the fact that Joshua had missed, but the second it turned to look Joshua was already firing an arrow. The bright flash of flame caused the monster to flinch back and close its eyes which gave Joshua more than enough time to jump over a few buildings before making his way to a knew hiding spot.

After roaming the area for a good place to hold up Joshua was finally able to sit down for a moment and catch his breath. It would take well over ten minutes for the acid to stop burning through its skin, so Joshua had at least five to calm down before getting back on the move. After all the damage he had done to it he was sure it wouldn't rush off to find the others before killing him. While he was waiting he suddenly heard a voice through the mental link. 'Josh, you there?'

'Nathan? Yeah I'm here, but I'm kind of in the middle of dealing with the boss monster so whatever you have to say needs to be quick.' Joshua replied as he took a glance outside the window and looked at the boss as it tried to tear off the roof of a building that was close to the place he had been at when he attacked it last.

'We're already under attack here, and there are two sub-boss class monsters already inside the fence line.' Nathan said causing Joshua to focus more on what he was saying.

'Have you guys started moving down to the basement yet? You might be able to hold off one sub-boss for a little while, but two will wreck your defenses in minutes.'

'We haven't had to yetthey arewell they're fighting each other.' Nathan said causing Joshua to freeze up at the statement. 'It's like I'm watching some kind of nature channel territorial dispute or something. After they saw each other they immediately took their attention away from us and went straight to roaring at one another.'

'Well if that's the case then don't interrupt them, whichever one survives is the one you need to hold off as long as possible before moving to the basement. If you can hold out for another hour or so then we might be able to kill this thing by' Joshua started say before the boss creature let out a loud bellowing sound. Joshua turned to look outside the window again and saw the boss monster standing up as it opened its large mouth wide and started sucking up everything in its surroundings. 'Damn, I've got to go Nathan. Hang in there for as long as you can.'

Joshua didn't wait for him to respond before backing away from the window as the building started to shake violently around him. Outside the enormous mouth was already sucking up cars and parts of buildings as everything started to fly into the air as if a tornado was coming through the area. It didn't take long for the window and wall in front of him to start creaking from the force pulling on it. This was the first time Joshua had seen the boss use this ability to do more than absorb the purple haze so he was a little surprised, but if he stood around and did nothing then there would be no way for him to get away in time to survive the attack.

Noticing how the boss was basically eating everything that was coming its way Joshua decided to use that to his advantage. He quickly searched around the room for a big enough bag before depositing most of his poison canisters inside it along with his last remaining acid container. He then got his bow and arrow ready before the front of the building he was hiding in was ripped off and he along with everything else inside started to be lifted up into the air. The boss seemed to notice him and squinted its eyes in glee before the suction force grew even stronger as Joshua used a table to keep his balance and position as he floated through the air at a faster pace.

Joshua quickly threw one poison canister ahead of him and allowed the gas to fill up the air around the mouth of the boss before tossing the bag filled with poison next. The boss seemed to chuckle at him for his attempts to stop it as it just slowly sucked up the poison in the surroundings without a care, but before the bag could be sucked in a flaming arrow came soaring in and lit up the remains of the poison gas which in turn caused the bag and all its contents to explode into a giant red green plume directly into the creatures mouth. The force of the explosion knocked it over on to its back and caused the monster to shriek in pain as its flaming tongues swung back and forth frantically. Even some of the cars that it had been pulling in exploded causing even more damage to the monster as it flailed around on the ground.

After falling to the ground along with everything else that was being picked up by the pull, Joshua moved out of the way of any debris that could harm him. He started to move in order to keep the plan going through his head in motion.