Capítulo 48: Claw (2)
Here is the equipment I aim for Lyze to have by the time a REALLY BIG development happens FAAAAARRRRR into the future, one which only my Patrons know about.
Golden Armour (Image)
Final Form Excalibur (Image)
I think it's a wicked combo! Do you agree?
Before you answer, read the lore on the Beast Quest Golden armour and tell me it is not fit from a king who fights monsters.
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(Lyze POV)
The trick was to move in real close into Claw's personal space. Thanks to his monkey stature, his arms were extremely long. So long in fact that if he were to walk, the back of his hands would be dragging on the ground.
And while this definitely gave him a lot of reach to keep his opponents away, it also made it difficult for him to defend himself when his opponent was both fast and inside his reach. Which was exactly the situation with me.
Claw's eyes widened in surprise as I moved in and slammed a fist right into his chest. The chainmail protected him from direct contact but the impact of the blow sent vibrations throughout his whole body. I didn't stop and proceeded to land another, which to my delight was stronger and heavier than my last one.
Claw was surprised by it too as though he made a move to pull his arm in and grab me, the sudden increase in pain from my second attack stunned him. Now fully assured that my skill was in effect, I unleased about ten more punches, each one creating large thumps that got louder consecutively. The last one took the monster off his feet and landed him back near the each of the water.
He stumbled a bit, shaking the dirt off of him before he snorted, his nostrils billowing outwards as bits of steam became visible. He jumped onto his palm and then swung his tail sideways under his body. The barb sliced though the air, coming in from my left sighed.
I lifted my arm guard and the bone barb collided with the piece of metal, emitting screeching metallic sounds as the tip of the barb began shaving bits of material away from it. Claw then went for a scorpion sting as the barb arched over his head and speared towards me.
I ran forwards and ducked under the tail as it sailed overhead and past me. Rushing towards the monster, I cocked my fist backwards, a blatant telegraph of my next attack. He anticipated this and punched forwards with his own massive fist.
I smiled as he fell for my feint and dropped the fist, instead lighting the fur of the offending arm on fire. The ape began screaming shock as it hurried over to the water and doused the fire. Steam rose from the pool as the monkey hissed in pain from dousing it to fast.
Just then I realized smoke began to fill the area a bit and both the monster and I glanced in the direction it was coming from. My attempt to bomb him earlier on with a fireball had resulted in a small forest fire that was slowly beginning to spread.
Once again the ingrained fear of fire overcame the monkey and he leapt up into the trees opposite to get away from the scene. I'd decided enough was enough though as I equipped Grigor again. I hadn't seen any clearings around with treeless ground I could lure him to. So if I couldn't find open ground, I'd have to get rid of the trees.
Posing in a prepared stance, I readied my aim as I locked my eyes on the retreating monster. With a release of heavy breath, I quickly unsheathed Grigor and filled the blade with magical energy as it slid out of the sheath.
A shockwave of pure magical power was generated as the sword swing completed its full arc. Tree trunks were cleaved through like butter as they all fell to the ground simultaneously. Depriving Claw of a good few metres of trees in the process as the one he was currently swinging on came crashing down.
He turned to look at me and I fixed him with a stare as I hurled a fireball in his general direction. The beast tensed as it seemingly headed towards him, only for it to sail over his head and land behind him. My actual target had been the line of trees I'd felled, particularly on the edge of the area where I'd cut them all down. I'd practically cut down an entire forest's worth.
The leaves and logs caught alight as a wall of fire was created in front of Claw, barring him from any means of escape. He chattered in fear before fixing me with a confounded look.
"It doesn't mater how powerful a monster is." I said, smiling under the helmet. "As long as I can take away any environmental advantages, and so long as they don't have magical attacks like I'm sure you don't, then it's only a matter of time before I kill you." Unlike the dumb monsters of the dungeon, I knew or rather believed that Beasts who hailed from Claw's universe understood human speech, hence why I was talking to him. I levelled Grigor at him.
"Are you going to take the chimp's way, and run?"
He stared at me eyes wide as his eyes flickered about searching for ways to escape the fire, before it seemed he finally realized the was really no way out for him. The fires he'd originally been running from had reached our position now and the new ones I'd made were also keeping us together. Effectively, I'd trapped the both of us in a cage of fire.
A monster who fought best in trees fighting in an open area against an adventurer who had advantage on ground and air. Fights were all about matchups sometimes, regardless of the power scaling. Claw was physically stronger than me, there was no doubt about it. And while I was certain he didn't have any magical abilities, fighting him in the trees would have been hard.
But now that I'd taken his trees away from him, he had to fight on foot now. And with his curved claws, there was no way he'd be able to use his strength properly. With his balance out of whack, I had an easier chance of killing him now.
"It's a shame really." I said aloud, although the helmet muffled my voice a little. "After reading how ferocious of a monster you were while I was a little boy, fighting you in real life...seems disappointingly to easy. There is no substance to this battle at all." I tilted my head in his direction. "So please make this a little entertaining for me before I finish you off okay?"
This appeared to be the final straw for him as he gritted his teeth, slobber dripping everywhere before he screeched as he rushed towards me in a manner akin to that of a gorilla. Smiling, I also began running towards him, and we both leapt at each other as we clashed.
And so began a few minutes of a desperate fight to the death as Claw made sure to keep his distance from me as much a she could so he could use the claws on long arms and the barb of the tail. It became a little difficult for me as well even despite being put off balance on his feet, he was able to swipe with surprising accuracy with his arms and the tail.
Soon enough, I had cuts and grazes on my thighs and my biceps which were the only visible skin showing. But Claw had suffered damage as well there were gashes along his arms and a few of his fingers and toes were missing. I also punched out one of his fangs, and his upper lip was torn right to the nose.
But it would seem that luck would not always tilt in my favour. In one particular instance, he'd tried to punch me into the ground. I dodged, and as his fist slammed into the dirt, I ran up his arm and kicked him with both my feet on his face. He was sent tumbling backwards as he fell near a large boulder.
Upon seeing it, he hastily grabbed it with one hand and swung it at me mid-air just like he did with the smaller one earlier. As I was mid-air and had no place to dodge, I tried to execute a Full Counter as soon as I saw he was about to throw it. But it's trajectory was faster than I anticipated and I found myself flying with a boulder through mounds of dirt.
My front was screaming pain as the armour I was wearing which was already on its last legs completely smashed apart and the pieces slid off me as my body bounced on the ground while the rock rolled off elsewhere. I lay there dazed with pain before I realized that I'd actually lost grip of Grigor and it was now lying somewhere out of my immediate reach.
I picked up on Claw approaching me with 'Thread' but my body throbbed too much to move. As glorious as Full Counter was, there were a few drawbacks. You had to time it properly, and you needed to have a clear image of where the attack was coming from in order to repel it.
Claw picked me up by the leg and dangled me upside down as he held me above his gaping maw. He roared in triumph an mockery as he lowered my body towards his gulping gullet.
It reminded me very much of the Goliath situation and I responded similarly to how I did then.
"Explosion!"
Balls of magical energy formed and were sent into the beast's mouth as they exploded frying his palettes, searing his tongue and dislodging his teeth. He threw me aside in sudden shock and pain as he held his mouth with both hands, his eyes squeezed shut in pain as he couldn't even scream. I got up to my feet just in time to see the barbed tail head for my direction.
I unsheathed Cupid from my belt and timed it right to stick the sharp blade right into the tail above the barb point. Claw registered the pain alright but he still couldn't make noise as his voice box was probably fried. He opened his eyes though to see me doing it.
He tried pulling his tail back but I decided that I'd had enough of the stupid appendage to let it take me by surprise again. I leaned my full body weight onto the tail, pressing the barb into the ground as I refused to let Claw take it back. Cupid, my dagger, was still lodged into the base of the barb and with a particularly violent and sadistic twist from me, I tore off the barb completely as Claw's eyes widened in agonized despair as he removed his hands from his mouth to grasp his tail.
He held it above his head, gargling in pain as he couldn't scream properly, his eyes watering with the pain. And in that moment, I found the perfect Achille's heel. The golden chainmail had been protecting his vials from me and I just couldn't pierce it. I tried stabbing him between the neck and the shoulder but it his fur made it difficult to see exactly how tight the collar was drawn to his neck.
But in this moment as he raised his head in lamentation, he briefly exposed his throat and I saw his Apple bobbing up and down as he tried to scream. And I had the perfect weapon in hand to finish this.
In the small window I had, I activated Cupid's gravity ability and flung the white dagger towards Claws throat. As soon as the blade lodged in, the enchantment activated and the temporary gravitational pull made the dagger sink deepened into his neck, right up to the hilt.
Claw literally clawed at his throat trying to take it out before the blade finally severed his jugular. He stopped struggling and began to sway for a moment before he fell forwards in my direction, his body kicking up dirt at me as blood started to spurt out of the wound in his neck and colouring the ground. His fingers twitched for a bit before they stilled and his body went limp.
I stood around for a bit longer cautiously as I watched him before carefully making my way over to the body. Giving it a light kick, I sighed in relief as there was no response. Claw was finally dead. I knelt by the body, breathing for a few seconds as I took time to heal my wounds and also contemplate what had just happened.
What was a monster from Avantia doing in this universe? Moreover, what correlation did it have in anything? I hadn't read the book series ever since I was a kid and although I didn't remember much about the franchise, or at least not as much as I used to know when I was a fan, I couldn't figure out why he was here.
Obviously Nekros was behind this. I mean why else would this monster appear? It clearly didn't belong in the dungeon as Claw was not disappearing in a puff of smoke like the other monsters did. So what was the purpose of this monkey being here?
My eyes caught the bling of the golden chainmail and I remembered the bit of lore I gauged from this encounter. This chainmail was one of six parts of the golden armour, a legendary set of artifacts that when used together by a chosen individual...
.
.
.
...could be used to control the Beasts. And in this world, wouldn't beasts equate to monsters? I gingerly touched the beautiful chainmail.
"Could you be the cause of this?" I muttered as I ran my hand over the fine links.
All of a sudden though, it vanished and I immediately felt a new weight on my body. My small body was suddenly clothed in this giant golden chainmail, leaving Claw's corpse naked.
Before I could fully process what was happening, the chainmail starting to shrink until it became my size. It stayed there for a few moments before disappearing into motes of golden light as the weight disappeared off my body.
I blinked in confusion at what had happened. Did the chainmail just become some sort of drop item? Or had I literally just been chosen as its wielder? I tried thinking about it appearing again, and sure enough it did as the familiar weight came back to although this time less noticeable. And it was surprising comfortable as well.
I stood up and began to ponder deeply. If my memory served me correctly, Claw had been the second beast the protagonist of the Beast Quest series, Tom, had to fight in his pursuit of reclaiming the Golden armour. So why had I fought him first?
Was I meant to claim the Golden Armour too? But to what end?
I had Chaos with me already, which gave me plenty of power enough that I could probably control any monster if I wanted to anyway once I became proficient with Chaos Magic enough.
Knowing Nekros, it was probably for the sake of his entertainment. He always did love tormenting me with familiar things, and dangling monsters from one of my favourite childhood franchises was atypical of him. But what was the purpose in me gaining an artifact like this?
And would I have to fight the rest of the monsters? The rest of the keepers of the five other pieces? If so, where were they? Did I have to start going on my own quests now?
Or perhaps it was meant to be a distraction. The Golden Armour didn't just give a person the ability to control the Beasts. It also had other powers which it could give to its wielder. For instance, the chainmail I was wearing gave the user increased strength of heart. it gave them more courage and more willpower to fight powerful opponents.
And I could definitely tell it was working as my heart was experiencing something similar to an adrenaline spike. It was pumping, ready for a fight even though I'd just finished one. Which begged the question, what fight was there yet to be had when I defeated my opponent?
My answer came in the form off footsteps reaching my ears of the crackling of the fire. Turning my eyes in their direction, I caught a glimpse of the silhouette of a large humanoid figure just beyond the fire wall.
And I just knew that my struggles on this floor was not over just yet.
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