Chapter 17 - 16 — Before the Minute Ends [II]
The Manticore was still coming.
[Androphagos Duration: 00:06.]
I waited until its good foreleg planted for the leap, felt the whole weight of it commit through that shoulder, and threw myself sideways.
It could not turn.
Turning meant loading the burned leg, and the burned leg would not take it, so all it could do was carry straight on into the space I had just left.
Its shoulder hit the second support square on.
The timber snapped.
The cracked section of ceiling came down across its hindquarters and its tail in one piece, then broke apart on top of it.
The stone kept coming until there was a low heap of rock and splintered beams where the back half of the animal had been.
The rest of the chamber held.
Loose stone caught me across the back and legs while I was still rolling clear.
[Health: 187/220 → 154/220.]
[Manticore — Level 24.]
[HP: 3,018/3,600 → 1,426/3,600.]
[Movement severely restricted.]
[Tail function impaired.]
[Androphagos ended.]
[Cooldown initiated: 05:00.]
The change was instant and it was ugly.
The Manticore was still right there in front of me, and I could see it perfectly well, and everything else simply switched off. The weight in its shoulders, the tension running down its spine, the exact place its paw was going to land next.
Gone. My blind spots belonged to me again.
And it was not finished.
It got its remaining foreleg under the rubble and hauled, and its chest came free of the stone with a sound like a wall being dragged, though the arrow and half a ton of ceiling kept the tail where it was.
The jaws worked. The front claws worked. That was enough to kill every one of us.
It lowered its head at me like it meant to bite.
Then it did not bite.
The paw came instead, out of a movement I had already committed to reading as a lunge, and without Androphagos I understood the feint about a third of a second too late.
The claws opened my side and threw me into the broken support.
[Health: 154/220 → 91/220.]
[Warning: Deep laceration.]
I tried to get up. Blood ran down inside my armour, warm and far too fast, and my right leg went out from under me on the first attempt.
Nia got to me before I made the second.
Pale light gathered under both her hands and sank into the torn part of me, and I felt the edges of it pull toward each other and the worst of the bleeding stop.
It did not close all the way. The light thinned out before it could, and her breathing went ragged, and she stopped because there was nothing left to give it.
[Health: 91/220 → 136/220.]
"That will tear open again if you move hard," she said. "I mean it."
Past her shoulder, the Manticore dragged another foot of itself out of the rubble.
"Then make sure I only have to move once."
It came up onto its remaining forepaw and lifted it over me while I was still on one knee.
Bria got there first.
The amber spread over her shield again, thinner this time, already broken in places, and she caught the paw above her own head.
The shield bent inward around the claws. The amber came apart in pieces down both her arms, and one knee hit the stone, and she did not let the limb come down.
Idris went along the open side.
Mana drew his edge tight again, and he drove the sword into the same foreleg joint that Aten had burned and that he had already cut once.
It went in deeper than either time before.
The leg folded, and the whole front of the Manticore came down with it, chest and shoulders and head dropping toward the floor.
It turned that face on Idris and opened its mouth.
Tomas had one more arrow on the string.
The mana compressed around the head until it was the brightest thing in a chamber full of dust, and he put it straight into the Manticore’s left eye.
The eye burst, and the head snapped sideways with it.
[Manticore — Level 24.]
[HP: 1,426/3,600 → 1,137/3,600.]
It was not a killing shot and it was never meant to be one.
It took half its sight and all of its balance, and it left the underside of that jaw hanging open in front of me.
Bria was still holding the paw. Idris still had his sword buried in the leg.
I moved.
[Aten output increased.]
[Mana: 106/170 → 50/170.]
[Warning: Output exceeds current physical tolerance.]
White-gold covered both gauntlets and ran up over my wrists, and the metal carried it the way it was built to, and the bones underneath started complaining before I had even swung.
I drove both fists up under the jaw, into the throat rather than the skull, because a skull is the strongest thing an animal owns and a throat is not.
The head went up off the floor.
I kept the gauntlets pressed into the soft length of it and pushed everything I was holding through the flesh.
It thrashed.
Bria’s shield finally tore out of her hands and rang away across the stone. Idris hung onto his sword to keep the leg from straightening. Tomas had no shot at all with me standing inside the creature’s neck.
The eye it had left found me anyway, and the jaw started opening wide enough to take my whole head.
I did not pull back.
I forced the last of it inward.
[Warning: Right hand fracture detected.]
[Mana: 50/170 → 32/170.]
[Manticore — Level 24.]
[HP: 1,137/3,600 → 0/3,600.]
[Orange Gate Boss defeated.]
The body stayed tense for one full second, still holding its own weight against my hands.
Then the jaw fell open, and the whole of it went down against the rubble, and the chamber was quiet except for stone still settling somewhere behind us.
[Boss experience: 480.]
[Level-gap bonus applied: +480.]
[Experience acquired: 960.]
[EXP: 40/300 → 1,000/300.]
[Level increased: 3 → 4.]
[Level increased: 4 → 5.]
[Excess EXP carried forward.]
[All attributes increased by 2.]
[Strength: 20 → 22.] [Endurance: 22 → 24.] [Agility: 25 → 27.] [Perception: 18 → 20.] [Willpower: 34 → 36.]
[Maximum Health: 220 → 240.]
[Maximum Mana: 170 → 190.]
[Mana: 32/170 → 52/190.]
[Unassigned Attribute Points: 0 → 6.]
[EXP: 300/500.]
Two levels at once, and the Mana line finally showed me the shape of the rule properly.
An SSS Mage picks up ten Maximum Mana every level, so going from three to five put twenty on my ceiling and twenty in the tank, and that was all it did. Everything Aten had burned through was still burned through.
I left the six points where they were.
My right hand was broken inside the gauntlet, Bria was on her knees, and the mine had not finished making up its mind about whether to stay standing.
[Gate Failure cleared.]