Nightmare Realm Summoner

The Gorgonaga’s heads snapped out toward Alex and Claire. They probably weren’t even capable of biting anymore at this point — too much of them had been destroyed by Claire’s destructive counterattack.

But that really didn’t matter much. Just being clubbed by one of the hydra’s massive craniums would be enough to pulverize all the bones in a human’s chest. And, at this point in the fight, nobody had the magical energy left to tank a hit like that.

The next good blow that landed would be the last.

That went for all of them.

Alex launched himself into the air, drawing on all the strength his legs could muster. The jump could only be described as marginally better than pathetic. But in a fight that shouldn’t have taken place at any location other than a retirement home, pathetic was just enough.

He cleared the Gorganaga’s bloodied head by mere centimeters. His hands reared back. He reached for the few meagre scraps of magic that he had managed to recover in the past few harried moments. There was so little that he couldn’t even think about trying anything fancy.

Activating any of his actual abilities was entirely out of the question. So was trying to summon back any of his monsters or using Encore. But there was one tried and trusty ability that used nearly no magical energy, and it was just the one Alex needed right now.

A snikt sliced through the air as a razor-sharp blade of glass courtesy of the power Glint had imparted Alex with upon his death burst from his palm. The blade was barely any longer than a dagger, but it would be enough.

Alex came down on the Gorgonaga’s still-outstretched neck. The monster’s charred, blackened scales were surprisingly slippery. His feet slipped out from under him as it yanked its head back.

The world flashed by Alex in a blur of colors. He twisted as he fell, his gaze managing to locate his target even as he plummeted face-first toward the ground. And, with a roar, Alex drove his hand toward it.

There was a wet thump. A moment of resistance sent a jerk traveling up his arm and into his elbow — and then he felt something give way with a pop. Liquid splattered across his palm. His hand jerked forward until the base of his palm was driven directly against the seeping remains of the Hydra’s eye.

The monster let out an agonized scream as the blade of glass drove into one of its brains. Its body thrashed hard enough to send Alex flying back. He hit the ground with a pained grunt and skidded several feet before slamming into the stump of a charred tree. The air was knocked from his lungs in a pained wheeze.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Alex saw black claws jut out from Claire’s fingertips as she drove her own hand toward one of the hydra’s heads.

Attacks as telegraphed as this never would have worked while the Region Boss had even some of its wits remaining to it. But the explosion had done immense damage to the monster. Its surviving heads had to have had severe concussions.

And, possibly worse than that, it was scared.

The grip of fear may as well have been the claws of the Morrigan herself. That fear made it sluggish. Afraid to act in the way it should have and trade blow for blow with Claire, exchanging the hit she landed for one of its own.

Instead, it lurched back, trying to protect one of its two remaining heads. And that was a fatal error. Claire’s claws slammed into its burnt scales. They dug onto the grooves caused by the explosion and she drove her other arm up in a second strike.

The Gorgonaga realized its mistake too late. It thrashed to try and throw Claire free, but her hand was already upon its target. Her claws drove clean through its eye and into the unprotected meat beneath.

She dropped to the ground as the seventh of the Region Boss’s heads dropped to the ground a heavy thud. Only a single one of the once-proud monster’s necks still had any strength in it. The rest were limp and worthless on the ground around it like dead straw.

But the Region Boss was not yet dead.

Its final head let out a furious snarl. It lurched forward toward Claire, broken jaw hanging askew as it went to devour her even as the hydra itself sat within the jaws of death.

Claire tried to scramble back, but she couldn’t move fast enough. Her limbs slipped on the blood slicked ground; she fell to her back with a grunt.

A loud crack split the air and a tiny bolt of lightning snapped into the Gorgonaga’s head. It flinched back with a hiss of fury. A second bolt of lighting followed it, joined by a third a few moments later.

Each one sent the Region Boss flinching back. Not one of the spells actually left any lasting damage to the monster. They couldn’t have done much more than sting slightly, but even taking a flicker of damage from magic must have been completely foreign to the vile creature.

Fury washed over the monster’s as it realized who had attacked it again.

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Standing valiantly near the trees was none other than May. The little Snapcaster stood boldly in the face of a monster dozens of times more powerful than her. She, someone whose magic was nothing more than a pathetic mimicry of the Gorgonaga’s, dared attack it.

And it had worked.

A literal child had managed to give it pause.

Alex’s lips twitched in amusement as he forced himself back to his feet.

He staggered forward, forcing one foot in front of the other. Slowly, steadily, he accelerated. Every movement he made felt like it was like moving the world, but he would not be stopped. He couldn’t afford to be. Not while the fight still continued. Until either he or the Gorgonaga laid dead, there could be no stopping.

Claire pulled herself up as well, pressing an arm against her knee as her trembling legs pushed her back up.

Alex’s feet beat against the ground as his stumbling walk turned into a jog, and then that turned into a run. Each step he took came faster than the last.

The Gorgonaga snarled — and another crack of weak lightening drove right into its mouth. It flinched back once more. Then it reared back to bring a foot crashing down on Claire’s body.

Mite’s puppet dashed forward. It flung itself at the Region Boss, slamming into the hydra’s leg with enough force to knock the huge appendage just enough to the side to miss Claire.

The puppet exploded from the impact, sending fragments of metal flying across the ground in a clanking rain. Fury was so evident in the Gorgonaga’s eyes that they burned like the pits of hell themselves.

Its badly damaged jaws yawned open. Power crackled within them. The Region Boss had given up any hope of surviving the fight alive. There was only one thing left within its eyes.

Vengeance.

Claire tried to scramble back, but there was nowhere for her to run. She was too close to the monster and too weak to attempt dodging. Lightning roared within the monster’s mouth. And, as Alex ran with everything that he had left and the crackle of lightning reached a crescendo, one harrowing thought struck him with complete certainty.

He wasn’t going to make it in time.

The magic would hit Claire before he could do anything about it. It would kill her — and quite possibly him as well, if he were close enough to the explosion, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Alex reached out. He felt like his entire body were trapped in a block of jell-o, unable to do anything but watch as the end descended upon them all. His fingers grasped at the air, digging for the faintest shred of hope to cling onto.

He was only moments away, just mere inches away from the monster’s head and the deadly magic swirling within. Alex leapt into the air. If he was just a little closer—

The lightning tore free from the Gorgonaga’s mouth with a thunderous boom.

And something gave way before him.

For a flicker of an instant, he could have sworn that the world was painted black like a starry sky… and the bolt of lightning before him looked an awful lot like a rather stretched out star.

Alex strained.

The air around him wavered. An immense wave of pressure roared in his ears. But the pressure it didn’t push outward.

It pulled in.

And the bolt of deadly magic, already midway through the air, jerked to the side. It averted courses like a horse whose reins had been yanked back, twisting to shoot right toward him.

The lightning screamed past Alex’s ear, whistled around his shoulders, and was well back on its way toward his side when it suddenly remembered that it was meant to fly in a straight line. It rocketed off, streaking through the air to slam into a tree at the side of the clearing with a deafening boom.

Surprise exploded through the Gorgonaga’s eyes as it begun to turn toward Alex. But there was no more time for surprise. Not for it — and not for Alex.

After all, Alex was already in the air.

He let out a wordless scream as he plunged down, driving his bare fist into one of the hydra’s two remaining eyes. The wet orb burst beneath his fist, but he wasn’t done. Alex’s other arm shot out and drove into the monster’s other eye, ripping it free from its socket in a spray of blood and bodily fluids.

The Region Boss thrashed, sending him hurtling straight back to the ground. There wasn’t even any air left in his lungs to knock free. He couldn’t even twitch anymore. All he could do was stare up at the blinded monster as its head snapped back and forth in the air.

Blood sprayed from the two new wounds. It splattered over the ground and across Alex’s face. Then its head lifted into the air directly above him, neck trembling as if reaching for the heavens.

Alex tried to roll to the side. His body wouldn’t respond. Claire was just a short distance from him, but she was equally as drained. She remained frozen on her knees, unable to rise any higher.

The Gorgonaga’s head fell.

And then Orchid was standing above him, her staff braced like a lance. Aaron stood beside her, arms braced, and beside him was Abby. The Gorgonaga’s skull drove down on all three of them — and there it came to a stop. For a moment, they held the Region Boss’s head in place, fighting against its weight.

Then the three of them threw the monster’s head to the side. It crashed to the marshy ground with a final thud, its empty, sightless eye socket just inches away from Alex’s head. There was no more life within it.

It was dead.

Alex’s lips twitched as Orchid crouched beside him. Mite ran over to join them. He yelled something, but the words didn’t reach Alex’s ears. The world was fuzzy and distant — but not nearly enough for him to miss the immense wave of energy that slammed into his chest like a surge of electricity.

Alex drew in a sharp, stunned breath as the dimming of the world was temporarily halted. Then it returned at double the intensity, nearly swallowing his vision in an instant. He was dimly aware of Mite grabbing the ring from his finger and summoning the box of healing pills from within it.

Orchid’s mouth was moving. She really shouldn’t have bothered. No sound reached his ears.

Alex’s lips twitched again.

”Now that,” Alex breathed, the words falling from his numbing lips muted to even his own ears, ”was one hell of a fight.”

A shimmer of light danced before him. It squirmed past the darkness lurking at the edges of his vision to twist into words that glistened before his eyes like the final spark of a dying star.

Global Announcement for Planet 274-50

The first Region Boss kill on Planet 274-50 has been claimed by Ash of Mirrorwane in Subsector 735.

Alex’s lips twitched into a smile.

Then the world went black. He slipped into a deep, peaceful oblivion, the knowledge of the rewards waiting for him heralding him into unconsciousness.