After they agreed to go find her everything went too fast.
The father immediately tried forcing the cabinet open but he could barely scratch its surface both with his axe and his earth element.
We need to go around, do we split up or take a gamble.
Im not your daughter if a monster comes to me alone i will actually be in danger im not in the habit of gambling my life.
So which side do we choose?
Well... based on the construction of the bar and the actual position on the fridge door we can safely ensure with a somewhat of certaintly that...
Faster woman i don't have all day.
Left going left we will probably have more chances to find a weak link.
As soon the father heard a destination he bolted left ignoring the rest of the words the doctor spilled out.
Honestly i can't believe it, i thought this was an easy monster that i could let her face so she can understand what the path she tries walks entails ,but i never expected for the plan to get so messy so quickly.
Still after running inside the bar a small ball slowly reached him trying to slowly touch him in his anger he immediately cut it in half.
And when he did five identical balls shot through their hidden places.
Jesus calm down what if that thing exploded or something also don't run so quickly i can't protect you.
Doctor your job here is. He slashed one ball killing it with one slash. For you to protect my daughter as soon as we get to that cursed monster. He effortlessly slashed another two balls and was getting ready to kill the other two.
They hovered just above his range trying to waste his time but he simply ignored them i don't have time for this. He kept running inside trying to reach the side wall and when he got close the balls that he ignored shoted towards the doctor but before they reached her two earth pillars cleanly destroyed them before they even the got close.
After he made three steps inside another ten identical looking balls appeared together with what seemed to be their summoner and obscured his path. He immediately charged in and five balls cycled him and attacked in all five directions, he made a quick spin destroying all them before they even had the chance to move.
The bigger ball attached the other five to it and shoted straight to him he simply run to it ready for whatever it throwed in his way. After coming too close for him to dodge it shoted all five balls and self exploded adding immense force behind them. Still he was already familiar with such tactics so he immediately used a earth pillar to push his body out of the way.
His body rammed through the rubble like a train but he immediately got up like nothing happened. He had to thank his earth armour for that it was as sturdy as a chainmail but had the added benefit to actually absorb a bigger portion of the damage and most importantly self repair itself without adding weight to his body. In fact it didn't was apparent he had such armour in fact both his shirt and body looked completely normal.
Ok now what? He quickly stood up when five self exploding balls and twenty five small ones appeared.
Doctor can you at least shoot something at them or try to trap them leave our defence to my i just need you to attack.
I can try i guess but it won't be good.
Good im counting on you.
He kept walking inside we the floor below exploded and from below three new type of balls went to the surface.
Are you okey ? are you hurt i can't see you.
He immediately took a step back making himself visible to the doctor. Looks like we can't rush in i was confident i could surpass the previous ones but three of that type of shadowy is extremely problematic.
Why what do they do?
Oh nothing special really they can infinitely spawn the small balls and use them to grow their bodies making them effectively huge defensive walls one of them is easy enough to deal with but with three they can create an infinite chain.
And how are we supposed to kill them?
Well it's nothing complicated really we just break the chains while also taking care to not get shooted down by the medium ones.
After he said that all the balls moved to action.
Ten original small ones run to the doctor another ten to him and five whent to a single self-exploding balls the other four exploding balls went immediately to one of the new ones merging with it.
Oh this is going to be so much trouble.
The doctor tried to ask what happened when the whole place got bombarded with one of the big ones. The father sat still with weapons ready for when the real mayhem started coming. The ten balls started coming towards her while she had to form a small shield in case a stray ball hit her. The balls immediately became spear like and in unison they descended to her like thunder. She jumped out of her small shield when she saw them barely dogging them.
Good god they can adapt two looks like just using light shields will no longer work.
Still he didn't answer and for good reason. He had to deflect a good fifty small balls while also trying to defend himself for the exploding balls, the big ball that has attached itself the four exploding balls came in close the area around them became a mining field and the area around them was filled with explosive air and the feel of death.
Apparently the other ten balls understood they weren't useful in that fight and charged targets to the other human two exploding balls came to their aid aiming to overwhelm her.
It didn't take a long time for her to start het damaged and when she did from the wall behind her rushing straight to her was by far the biggest ball she ever saw it eazly was 60 cm witch was unheard of but also more weirdly enough wasn't a ball in fact it was a bit oval in its shape not enough to be completely deformed but enough to be easily separated.
Rolling to the ground and slowly getting up clearly not fit enough to keep up such manoeuvrability for long it looked the ball in awe.
Thats their summoner if you manage to hit it at least once it will help tremendously in the fight it doesn't matter what is aa long it actually harms it.
And how the hell you are expecting me to do that?
Well, do you want to change places?
By now the two other medium sized balls were finished preparing and were actively participating in trying to bombarded the man to death.
Are you joking no way i won't last a second
Then good luck both my daughter and me depending on that one hit so you better not slack off.
By now the oval ball resummoned 30 small balls and 15 explosive one and was done deciding the ratios.
Yeah don't expect too much.
Still when the balls came raining she quickly understood that defence was not the play here. Her energy reserves were diminishing at an appalling rate while her enemy could do that forever.
How the hell will you do that alone?
Well usually i don't allow the starting monster alive it protects the weak point of the balls hiding place while also looking weak enough for the humans to not bother killing it. If we explored the bar through the bridge site there was a very big change assuming these two are the only monsters here that we would find the summoner alone.
It simply can't summon the big balls and also needs time and space to do anything by itself are an easy opponent. It came out because it saw you getting injured while also being very certain im unable to help if you die i will eventually either die or be forced to retreat and you probably know what choice im going to take.
So hurry up. No pressure though.
Yeah figures honestly i don't think i can win so lets run believing in your daughter is probably our only bet right now. If it tries to go to your daughter we will regroup and we will be much more likely to break the chain if it follows us your daughter will fight her own battle.
I'm worried too but i also can't allow my worries to cloud my vision in pretty sure she would prefer to see us both alive and well and right now i don't think that's possible in my opinion though you are free to disagree but...
You talk a whole lot do you know that? If we fought against creatures that make other sounds i wouldn't be able to hear half of what you just said. Ok let's run truth be told i was starting getting tired too.
So they runned farther inside the oval ball chasing after them. The interior of the building was an inn for people to stay and sleep both of them turned up the stairs to the rooms when suddenly he stopped her and drag her down.
What the hell do you think you are doing?
But before he even had the chance to answer, the ceiling from above broke down from a barrage of balls from the oval ball behind them.
We were too slow to o up now we need to get out of the building before it destroys it. Say hypothetically speaking how many seconds can a light shield hold should the entire building falls down?
Are you crazy we will die in a heartbeat.
Well we can't go up last time i checked digging underground is impossible and behind us is a monster we can't defeat that is fast approaching, any ideas?
Both of them had to contend with a shooting barrage from up and in front now that the ceiling was broken the oval monster abused it to the fullest.
But after a while a grim realization hit both of them the ball adapted mid-fight. In fact right now its body convulsed and constantly changed shapes its summons no longer the same. The small balls now spawned in different shapes and targeted specifically the element that were good against the explosive ball no longer got destroyed by using all of their strength and more importantly grew smart enough to sometimes make chains of multiple explosions forcing them to either sit like ducks or give up defending. The medium balls changed too even though they didn't respawn, their change was more subtle it was about how they used their attacks instead of mindlessly bombarding the humans they created chain reactions by cooperating together creating an inescapable cycle of attacks.
Both of them were a battered mess by now their bodies a bloody mess by the explosions or the occasional wooden splinters that pierced their bodies.
Theoretically speaking how much you would survive on your own?
Are you insane man? We barely manage to contend both of us how much do you think a simple abuse doctor can take?
A minute survive a minute or both of us will die after ten minutes, the longer we drag this the better and stronger our opponent becomes and the more tired we become.
I will not let you die but also not sacrifice my family to you i heard your plan now is the time to pull your weight.
Can you win? I can't imagine any human that is cable walking through that minefield alive.
I can't.
Then ... why?
Because i must for me for my daughter for you and everyone back in town counting on me to come out of this alive.
Then go and survive, but if you die i will hunt you in the afterlife.
He smiled and for the first time in this fight he didn't try to defend the incoming attacks. In her panic the doctor defended both of them by spewing blood from the overextension.
Are you crazy.... Still she didn't get to finish her sentence because he was already running towards the oval ball. Its summons refocused on her forcing her to focus solely in defense.
The man ran at speeds the doctor couldn't comprehend but that was mostly due to her inexperience than the actual speed in the world of fights he was below average at best. Still if you asked her she would tell you that managing to run and turn with such speeds while the building was literally crumbling under its weight in such limited space due to the destroyed stairs and narrow hallways she would tell you that it was nothing short of miraculous a testament of his absolute focus.
Still the oval ball was not impressed, instead it simply kept shooting and summoning its minions to him, not even trying to move away.
The closer he was coming to it, his ability to dodge or defend was becoming a even more impossible challenge and by reaction the quicker the attacks would come to him and more importantly then all for the oval ball, he would get closer to it and its three guardians making it easier to snack on his head allowing it to advance farther into the path of power.
At this point the fight between the two of the simply became a blur but he slowly and steadily approached the monster. In retaliation it stopped focusing solely on him and started to destroy the ground below creating enormous holes. Also it revealed the fact that it could summon below ground which was its ace in the hole. At that point he was practically flying into the air creating thin pillars jumping for one to another or using the currents of the explosions to his advantage close the distance.
In fact he came so close that the oval ball now panicking united all its guardians and tried to swallow him whole, by using his earth element to its maximum and making a spinning pirouette in the air he barely survived the explosion knelling down tired.
Unfortunately the building itself didn't survive and by now the whole second floor was falling in waves ready to crush all of them.
You gotta be joking, there is no way, this is a dream i will simply wake up any time now in my boring office ready to treat anyone like any other day. Still she had to accept that for a dream she had one very corrupted and twisted fantasy.
The floor came falling in waves ready to crush her the balls hunted her down uncaringly. The worst part was she couldn't just use a light shield and try to push off the debris because if she did the monsters would undoubtedly break it apart either by piercing or using so many explosions keeping it up would kill her through energy exhaustion.
She kept running until that wasn't an option anymore by now the rumble collapsed with so much quantity that it created a sort of labyrinth by ruble. Still that didn't mean she got away from the pesky balls in fact quite the opposite in front of her three small ones bared her path from behind her a explosive ball was quickly coming to range ready to split her body apart in her left and right another ten small balls in each side where ready to charge in the second she showed weaknesses.
And so unable to run and ready to get turned to a pasta by the falling upper floor for the first time since coming here she didn't use her light to defend herself instead she rushed straight to the three balls enveloping her hand in light they came rushing to her trying to scare her away but she simply punched each and every one of them killing them and make them dissolve into black sparks.
Wow that was easier than expected i just hoped to push them back but i guess their defenses aren't so high that changes things.
As for him by now all three guardians together with their summoner were three feet away from him blasting him with anything they got. In the millions of exchanges that happened he apparently made a small mistake and tried to step into a broken down ground. It immediately crumbled under the pressure making him fall underground the oval ball tried to abuse the advantage by blasting him away but before it did.
Using the force of the fall and making a single rotation of his hand he threw his axe straight to it. The summoner didn't even register that the attack came when it finally hit it.
As soon as it did it morphed in pain and with it every summon in its command. They rippled in so much pain they stood in the air trying to recover.
He didn't let his chance away using his earth element he shooted earth pillar after earth pillar hitting only the oval ball. It tried to use the force of them to escape but he simply didn't allow such thing to happen. Now it was its turn to feel trapped inside the fact the building fell down and everywhere around them were debris in his advantage and so he attacked again and again while also trying his best to at least stabilize the building. They still had to get away after all.
When that happened Zery fell to the ground too tired and hurt to bother moving still. That was when under the immense pressure the place she stood broke apart making her fall uncontrollably deep underground and hitting her head into the dirt below. It took all her willpower to not pass out and protect herself from above just in case another rumble fell.
Eventually he killed it even if it took a while. Then he easily went out of the hole literally rising the earth above. After that he searched and found her helping her get above ground she immediately said.
Didn't your mother teach you to always save the lady in distress especially when she falls god knows how far deep down.
Sorry my esteemed lady but i was preoccupied getting out of my own hole. Then he extended his hand, here you go beautiful esteemed lady your knight in white armour is ready to serve you.
She blushed profusely not knowing what to say lost for words she simply took his hand rising up.
Pff if i didn't knew you were a married man with a child i might have fallen to our esteemed valor.
Don't worry, I don't need to be married to you to appreciate your blinding beauty.
Now actually redder and clearly flustered she quickly pushed him away. Save that type of compliments for your actual wife.
Ha ha, that's advice i can always obey. Are you ok? can you walk? we still need to get one more person and get the hell out of here.
I will manage lets go.
Without the ball reaching the fridge didn't take long or was hard.
And when they finally did reach the small room they saw the little girl as she pinned the stickman down, her left hand up in the air clearly hesitating. As they tried to reach her a black part of the body of the stickman shooted straight to her chest where her heart was clearly impaling her.