Gargoyle 3

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"GO!"

Yuli swore she heard a voice and realized it was the cub's. She gave up on retrieving the cub as it ran into the forest brush and out of sight. Her brother's hand dragged her into the forest as the remaining freelancers consolidated their defense. The bears were resilient and began their pursuit. Yuli was having trouble keeping up on the uneven ground and vegetation in the way. She was disorientated and lost where they were heading.

"Brother! I cannot keep up!" Yuli said desperately. Reinold immediately holstered his revolver and pulled Yuli up into his arms to carry her.

Elliot and his men were keeping the monster bears away by blasting them back with freezing spells but they weren't taking effect quick enough. The large beasts simply got back to their feet every time.

Elliot and Samuel then let their lever rifles down their slings and drew their swords. They both swung and released a sharply concentrated spell towards the giant monster bears. Their swing sliced the bears in half before they could reach them.

Just as they were getting things under control, many more mana blasts whizzed through the air and caught them again. They were coming from the opposite direction this time.

The numerous monsters then caught and ate the remaining few freelancers until Samuel and Elliot were the only ones remaining. The two blocked the blasts from the unknown enemy with their swords as they fled into the forest with Reinold and Yuli.

The dead were used as bait so they could escape. Yuli witnessed the horror as Reinold carried her. Again, she felt powerless. They ran until their breath ran out, all except Yuli. She felt guilty as they rested behind a dense brush near a clearing. Laying down a disruption field to blind the monsters to their position, the four survivors needed to hash out an escape plan.

Yuli finally met her bow with an arrow and looked behind to where they once were. The bears were searching for them. Perhaps if Yuli and Reinold fought together with Elliot and Samuel, the others wouldn't have had to die. Reinold had his hands full because of her injuries. She steeled herself and gripped her bow tightly.

Samuel was the first to speak up in a haggard breath, "Are we… the only ones?"

Elliot answered as he looked at the bracelet on his wrist. It was seven small mana gems with a string threaded through them. "No, it seems Tasha is still alive," he said so in the calmest voice he could muster.

Reinold whispered as he spoke next, "What do we do?"

The three were looking at Elliot for an answer. Elliot sat against the bark and closed his eyes tightly as let out a heavy sigh. Feeling the emotions in his heart, Yuli was terrified.

Elliot spoke, "We're being pursued by a Dungeon Master."

They all knew what that meant. Even if the disruption field was used, the monsters could still find them because of their coordinated efforts. They knew monster activity has been unusual as of late, but they never thought a Dungeon Master would appear outside their dungeon!

Yuli's guilt became ten-fold as Elliot said those words. The Dungeon Master she picked up, could it have...? Her face distorted as her thoughts were spiraling to a full panic attack. However, even so! She controlled herself and breathed. She couldn't be weak, not now.

"I want you three to run and get to Riverside. I'll stay behind to deal with the Dungeon Master," Elliot said.

"But, Captain!" Samuel protested.

"This is not up for debate. Go, now. Sam, we have a mission to complete."

A complex face of grief and sorrow appeared on Yuli as her brother's face was of pain. They were going to sacrifice themselves because she was too hurt to run… Reinold didn't know what he could do but he wanted to repay them, "If there is anything I can do for you… please say it."

Elliot gave a gloomy smile, "My wife, her name is Cherry. She lives in Viennera. She's sick with a heart disease," he talked to Reinold. "Can you promise me to get her the medicine she needs?"

"I will," Reinold said without hesitation. No matter how difficult, he promised to supply the medicine.

'I am sorry,' Yuli wanted to say this to Elliot whether it was warranted or not. However, he seemed to understand as he stroked Yuli's head. Her tearful blue eyes caught him off guard for a second but then he smiled. To the people who saved her, befriended her, and protected her, "I want to see you again…"

Samuel insisted to go with Elliot and he finally relented. Elliot didn't want to leave Tasha alone but he wasn't in a position to refuse him. Honor called him to fight and not run away. Reinold and Yuli would hopefully make it on their own. With the two distracting the Dungeon Master, they should be able to buy enough time for them to reach the main road in the distance. Killing the Dungeon Master would mean the monsters would stop chasing them.

"Sam," Elliot said.

"Captain?" Samuel said.

"Cherry said she wanted to have children. I'm not sure if I'll make a good father."

"Captain, after what I've seen with you and young Yuli, I think you'll do fine."

Samuel had his own regrets about his own children, but he owed it to himself and them to survive today. When the monsters noticed them, the two drew their swords and battled. They were nimble with their swords. Their spells also made their strikes very effective. After the carnage, they were faced with the boss, the Dungeon Master.

They spotted it and they didn't believe what they saw. It was a gargoyle. The only possible way for there to have been a humanoid monster was if the monster's spirit possessed a human vessel. They were rare and dangerous.

However, they didn't get the opportunity to fight it. Before Elliot knew what happened, Sam's sword was stabbed right through his back. He died instantly.

***

There were two of the gargoyle abominations. The slime realized this the moment the second monster's mana came out to cast a spell. The slime girl popped the first monster's crystal into her mouth and chewed. Her pain started to go away and the cracks in her crystal were repairing at a rate she hadn't seen when absorbing normal crystals. She was confident she had the power now to kill the other gargoyle.

She walked in her human form and was calm as she stepped carefully around the natural obstacles. This has been the longest she has been in human form in the last week or two. After what happened with Black and Jun, she has been in a poor mood and in pain. However, even now, the brief time spent in this body reminded her why she liked this female form.

She quickly reached the road and saw the dead human and monster body parts scatters everywhere. None of the horses survived either. Their blood coated the ground. The overturned stagecoach was in an odd condition. The structure of the stagecoach was still intact while the wood from the wheels and axels were blown away. She could see that spells were etched into the wood of the stagecoach itself by physical craving and mana infused into the material. The slime girl hung her bow to her belt and took out her long knife. The zombies of the dead humans were eating what they could from the other dead.

She tried stabbing them in other places but it seemed only destroying the brain or the life-crystal were effective in killing them. Were the dead turning into zombies a common thing or were they the work of the gargoyle? She absorbed the human bodies that were still relatively intact for templates and continued on.

She began running into the forest to meet the other gargoyle. She soon found a trail of monster bodies and followed it to a disturbing scene. One of the escorts had his sword through his fellow party member. The gargoyle that was there looked exactly like the other one.

It was a perfect time to hit them hard and fast as they were distracted. The man was under control of the gargoyle. The man's eyes were pure black with thick black veins spread throughout his body. The source of the darkness was the black crystal embedded in his arm.

The slime girl shot two crystal arrows at her two targets and immediately repositioned herself while hiding in the brush. The gargoyle sensed it and quickly prepared an energy ball to counter the arrow. It stopped the arrow but she used the remaining momentum to launch her slime from the arrow around the gargoyle. She expanded her slime and surrounded the monster until it was imprisoned in a hollow slime crystal ball.

The swordsman prevented this by slicing through the whole arrow. She captured the gargoyle. Now, she could do some interrogation… but it died. The soul disappeared just like what happened with the other one.

The slime wondered if the young girl was still alive. Please survive a little longer, the slime thought.

The possessed man was blocking her path. He didn't seem to know where she was hiding yet. She shot three more arrows towards the man's back. He immediately spun around to cut through the arrows in one swing as he released a spell from his sword to destroy them from a range.

He then dashed towards her almost instantaneously and slashed through her torso with anti-mana magic. She couldn't react in time and he sliced her bow in two. The slime girl fell to the ground with a gash in her chest. Her pain returned again and she was in agony again. She could barely keep her eyes open as the possessed man held his sword, preparing a final strike at her crystal heart.

Even though her Monster Sight was obscured by the man's cloaking spell, her human eye could see clearly. She saw the soul of the person standing over her was also in pain. The human in front of her was fighting the corruption and made him waiver for this one moment.

The slime girl rolled to the side to avoid the sword as it struck the ground. She took her arrow and dug deep into the man's infected left arm. She tore the arm clean off with all the gore she expected splattering her. They both fell to the ground, exhausted.

It was over.

This man was clever. There was a limiting rate in magic. Every action required mana to be expended and it could only be expended or gathered at a certain rate from the body. There were certain intervals when the rate of mana release was slower than its consumption. In other words, the limiting rate caused a lag time. He moved so quickly to her position that she couldn't shield herself in time.

He basically jumped and rammed her in a blink of an eye. She willed herself to stand and found a curious scene. The ground around her was on fire. She pulled the man out of the fire and cauterized his stump with her slime.

The man was alive and breathing. His amputated arm was still alive too but her foot killed it for good, crushing the corruption crystal. She suspected the fire came from a blast shot from the clearing they were before. The only things in the clearing were the dead gargoyle trapped in her slime prison and the dead human. She confirmed this with her Monster Sight as she approached the clearing.

The dead human was now undead and was twitching on the ground. The revolver in its hand was the thing that saved her. The burn marks on the ground headed in the correct direction. Was the bullet shot on purpose or done accidentally? She looked at the zombie flailing his arms about. It couldn't move its legs.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," she apologized to the man.

These people were dead or dying because of her. However, a stronger force within her told her that it wasn't all her fault. Even so, she felt the need to apologize.

"I'm sorry."

She plunged a knife into the zombie's head and absorbed him and the gargoyle. The second gargoyle crystal she absorbed today changed her slime color to a dark purple. She felt her mana pool increase dramatically and the structure of her body became sturdier. She felt so much more powerful than she was before.