Overwhelming Firepower

Duke Vardon looked at his wife, whom he had missed for years. There was once a time when he, too, was a young man filled with dreams and hopes for the future.

Yet with her death, everything seemed darker; he was not even able to cry in front of his wife’s grave. Even though she should’ve thought that he was a horrible husband, here she was telling him to come to her, telling him to rest.

Duke Vardon closed his eyes and took a step forward.

***

Sir Thalos looked at the smiling faces of his wife and daughter. He had dreamt for so long to meet them again.

He would have done anything, absolutely anything, if he could bring them back. Now they were there in front of him, telling him to be with them. It was everything he ever wanted.

Sir Thalos smiled as he took a step forward.

***

Robert hesitated in his mind. He was sure that the being in front of him could never be Thelwin. It was just a hallucination created by the monster they were facing.

That’s what was in his mind, but in the back of his head, there was the question of what if? What if that was truly Thelwin, and the battle with the shadow monster was the hallucination?

Could he risk it? Could he forsake the person who taught him everything, who treated him like family?

Robert sighed as he took a step forward.

***

Harlik saw the familiar faces smiling, drinking, and eating. He wanted to join them and share stories with them.

These people were the ones he had fought side by side with. There were a few times he had regretted the decisions he made, and maybe those decisions of his were the reason they had died.

He wanted to speak with them again. Harlik shook his head and took a step forward.

***

Lucen, who was fighting against the shadow monster, got close enough while dodging its numerous attacks. Lucen then used gun creation to create a trench gun; he also imbued the bullets with fire elements.

Lucen shot at the creature’s torso at point-blank range. The blast tore a crater through its chest, fire blooming outward in a violent burst. Darkness scattered like torn cloth.

But the creature did not stagger. It instead attacked Lucen with its own type of burst damage. Several spikes of darkness came out of its body, and on the ground, Lucen was standing.

But because of his skills, gun kata, and battle instinct, Lucen was able to sense that incoming attack and dodge, jumping backward, then sideways.

It was at that moment that he saw, at a distance, his Father, Sir Thalos, Robert, and Harlik had taken a step forward.

He did not know why they were walking towards the shadow monster with vacant expressions on their faces, but he understood it was not a good thing.

’Damn... Should I just knock them out?’

While Lucen was thinking the Shadow monster continued its attack on him. Lucen then tried to get near his Father and the others, but the shadow monster did not give him a chance to do so.

Lucen grit his teeth as another shadowed limb lashed toward him. He twisted his body mid-air, the tip of the attack grazing his coat and slicing through fabric as if it were paper. He landed roughly, boots skidding across the frozen ground.

His ruby-red eyes flicked past the creature again. His Father and the others had taken another step forward. It was slow, but they were getting near the shadow monster.

The shadow monster’s surface rippled. It was no longer merely smiling; it was swelling. The darkness around its feet thickened, stretching outward like a waiting tide.

Lucen fired twice more to force it back, lightning tearing through its torso. The wounds closed instantly.

”Sh*t!”

He changed angles, sprinting left, trying to get to a better angle. The monster continued to stay in place, but even then, the way it attacked was getting harder and harder to predict.

’I can’t reach Father and the others like this. The only other option I have is to somehow kill these monsters before Father and the others reach them. But I already attacked it with every way I can while using RELEASE, and it’s still able to heal itself. I can’t risk using an explosive bullet that will leave me vulnerable if it survives...’

As he was thinking of what else to do while continuing to dodge the shadow monsters’ attacks, he noticed something nearby. It was the body of a fallen dwarven warrior, and in its hand was one of the Iron Spheres with alchemical acid.

’Maybe that could work.’

Lucen did not hesitate and made a mad dash towards the Iron sphere. The shadow monster attacked Lucen with tentacle-like shadows. Lucen shot at the tentacles, but they regenerated quickly, which gave him enough time to reach his destination.

”Sorry about this.”

Lucen pried the iron sphere from the hands of the dead dwarven warrior. The Shadow monster attacks seemed to intensify as if it was aware that the iron spheres were the ones that destroyed its first phase.

The darkness around it trembled, then surged toward him in violent waves. Spikes burst from the ground, jagged and merciless.

Lucen rolled forward instead of back. One spike tore across his thigh, but he ignored it. Lucen rose and sprinted straight toward the monster.

The monster’s torso split open again, layers of shadow peeling back like a mouth widening to swallow prey. Tentacles lashed toward him from every direction.

Lucen fired as he ran, lightning rounds tearing through two, three, four limbs, but more replaced them instantly.

One wrapped around his ankle, making him stumble. Another coiled around his arm. The Iron Sphere nearly slipped from his grasp.

Lucen snarled and discharged a point-blank shot into the limb binding him. The blast severed it long enough for him to wrench free.

Lucen continued sprinting forward, and when he got to a good distance, he hurled the iron sphere towards the shadow monster. Lucen then shot at the iron sphere as it was now overhead of the shadow monster.

The contents fell on the shadow monster. Lucen expected it to melt as it had before, and it did. The problem was that this version of the Shadow Monster had the strongest regeneration among its three phases.

The acid was melting its body, but it was also healing at a quicker rate, and slowly but surely, it would fully heal.

That was when he noticed that his Father and the others were a few feet away from the monster now.

Lucen thought that the monster would eat them, so he was thinking as fast as he could of what he could do at this point.

It was at that moment that something he did not expect happened. His Father and the others attacked the shadow monster.

”Huh?”

***

Moments before Vardon and the others attacked the shadow monster. Duke Vardon, who had stepped forward, was not near Veyra.

”Come, my love, let’s be happy once more.”

Duke Vardon looked at his wife and showed a melancholic smile as he spoke. ”You know I missed you so much. You would have loved to see how great both our sons are doing. I didn’t know if I could raise them properly by myself, but even without me, they turned out to be great.”

”They’ll be with us as well, my love. Just come with me now.”

”I would have loved to go with you, if only you were the real thing.” Duke Vardon then, without hesitation, slashed at the fake Veyra in front of him. ”Unfortunately, you aren’t her.”

***

”Even though it was fake, I’m glad to have seen you two again.” Those were the last words Sir Thalos said before he attacked his fake wife and daughter with a punch and a kick.

***

”You almost had me. You were pretty good for a fake.” Robert spoke as he burned down the fake Thelwin before him.

***

”I’ll tell you guys, a great story once we truly meet again in Varkun’s hall of heroes,” Harlik said as he fired several shots at the fakes before him.

***

That brings us back to the present. The four had overcome the hypnosis and attacked the shadow monster in front of them.

The four struck as one. Vardon’s blade descended first, his aura mantle enveloped his sword with its silver-blue light, splitting the darkness cleanly in two.

Sir Thalos followed, his fist crashing into the creature’s flank with bone-breaking force. Robert’s flames surged outward, searing away the regenerating mass, while Harlik’s shots hammered at the monster.

The shadow convulsed violently. It did not expect the prey it thought it had caught to fight back.

Lucen joined in the attack as he got close and shot at the shadow monster that was distracted point-blank with his trench gun.

The creature shrieked as its body destabilized, darkness spiraling inward uncontrollably.

”It’s time for the end phase, you f*cking monster!” Lucen shouted as he continued firing at the monster.

The five of them advanced together, relentless. The monster roared and struck back in desperation.