Continue Online (Part 4, Crash) (39 page)

The beast’s sweeping hand grasped at dirt. Huge fingers curled inward then yanked. It even dared to pull
[Arcadia]
’s earth into the abyss which spawned such a terror.

My face drained of color watching it all happen in slow motion. I ran forth with my weapon held to one side and leapt off the crumbled ground’s edge. An uncharacteristic roar of denial escaped my lungs.

It was destroying my world. This mindless being had only the purpose of removing land I had traveled and felt alive in for the first time in forever. It couldn’t be allowed.

My blade dug into its chest and I slipped down. Below me there was a pit that went even deeper than the one
[Charge]
crawled out of. Falling in there would be certain doom, failure to stop the monster. Everything.

“No!” I said in slow motion. One hand reached for
[Morrigu’s Echo]
. I would climb this damned thing all the way to its eyes and gouge them out. Anything to prevent it from swallowing
[Arcadia]
further.

One of the monster’s hands slammed over me. A broken message appeared in the darkness resulting. My eyes couldn’t find a path out. It was just too big for the likes of me to defeat alone.

I waved it away, kicked at the creature’s palm with my heel and risked activating
[Gait of Bowman]
’s specific effect. Armor clinked together as the creature tried to squeeze me tightly. My body screamed in fresh pain and felt like a grape about to pop. Pressure hit me behind the eyes and my mouth tried to swallow down upchucking guts. Even through the armor, this thing was far stronger than
[Charge]
had been.

It opened the hand slightly. A giant face loomed in front of me. I wasted no time throwing
[Morrigu’s Echo]
into its eyeball. It reeled back with a yell. My body went flying in the air.
[Power Armor]
was promptly turned off while Continue Online still moved in slow motion. I cast
[Blink]
again and ended up on the towering shadow man’s hand.

[Morrigu’s Echo]
was
[Recall]
ed again. Its durability was down to half. I tried to run up the creature’s arm but the beast shook.
[Morrigu’s Echo]
jabbed down in a long icepick formation. A singular sharpened point functioned far better at piercing its hide. The creature shook and I held on. These motions were nothing to a man trained to ride
[Callibur]
s.

My body felt minuscule next to the shadow monster. I had faced larger beasts and come out alive. This thing paled in comparison to the
[Leviathan]
. It lacked the relentless bloodthirsty aura of Auntie Backstab. Nothing it could do would deter me from whittling away at its essence.

The bucking arm stopped and I quickly got upright. Time stayed slow as I ran up its limb.
[Morrigu’s Gift]
dragged behind me causing cuts and scratches. My enemy pulled its head back as I ran up the arm. Another hand lifted over to swat me like a bug. I
[Blink]
ed again. My new location was a few feet above its collar bone. I slashed across with
[Morrigu’s Gift]
. Smoke burned away at the contact.

It roared and I hacked again. The hand shifted then caught me. Giant fingers pinched my toga.
[Blink]
wasn’t off its cooldown yet. Everything existed in slow motion while
[Awareness Heightening]
allowed me to look around for an escape.

“Holy shit, that’s awesome!” someone shouted. It was followed immediately by another person screaming out.

“Uncle Grant!” My niece’s sharp tone rang through.

Breath came in labored gasps. Thank the Voices, I wasn’t alone in this world. The beast came to a conclusion regarding fighting me and tossed me high into the air rather than try to squish me again.

The wind whistled slowly around my head. My body held straight and I
[Recall]
ed
[Morrigu’s Echo]
.

Gravity pulled me down once more. I accepted its call and gasped for a breath of air.
[Awareness Heightening]
allowed me a measure of calmness amid chaos. In my hands sat the gift William Carver had passed to me during his last seconds. It expanded to the absurdly large two-handed sword and pointed downward like a meteor.

This was the Uncle Grant my niece deserved to see. Happy and defiant against all insane odds. Elated at the thrill of meaningful combat. Not a sad lost man who couldn’t look people in the eyes.

I was better dammit. I finally felt like a fucking hero.

Session Eighty Two - I Be So Glad

My body was unstable and there were no
[Red Imp]
wings to right me.
[Awareness Heightening]
gave me a slow motion view of the world spinning below. As I fell downward with
[Morrigu’s Gift]
ready, I wondered how insane this would look to anyone who didn’t play the game.

There were times I worried these events were a dream. Was I just lying in the ARC having some fantasy where everything wrong in my life was gradually being fixed? A broken man like me going from previously suicidal with a dead fiancée and unborn child to Hermes felt that unreal.

Regardless, I felt alive. This place was more than computer code being pumped through my senses. My mind stopped wondering about sanity and focused on fighting.

Below me, the giant screamed in a delayed manner. Beth’s sword slashed through air creating glowing streaks. Her form stood out brightly as I hit the creature’s body. Pain rippled up my legs and certainly felt real.

[Morrigu’s Gift]
dug into its chest and I slipped down. The beast cried out and reeled back.
[Awareness Heightening]
once again showed its broken properties because I had enough time to calmly stand up on its nearly vertical body. Both feet gained purchase. Side effects of prolonged usage would include nausea, vomiting and possible loss of consciousness. This monster would die first. I intended to give everything I had to ensure that.

“Keep hitting it!” I shouted. The beast didn’t bleed, but it burned away in chunks.
[Morrigu’s Gift]
pulled out of flesh with a searing flash of light. Dark flakes of shadow skin flew around like confetti in a parade, flaring up as they vanished like flaming paper.

The beast righted itself.
[Blink]
was off of cooldown, I grabbed my other weapon in a slow motion hustle then leapt backward with its sway. My body hung in the air before
[Blink]
put me behind the shadow man’s head. My giant enemy had no real brains and only a basic aggressive pattern. Given a Rank, this beast would be fifteen at most. Even then only because of its size and insane health, supposing such a monster could even be killed.

Inertia carried me into its neck where I jabbed my weapons. In real time, none of this would have been possible. I couldn’t fight giant monsters based on pure reactions. Not over a pit of endless abyss that represented a hole in the virtual world of Continue Online. But Hermes, the man I lay in the ARC dreaming about being, certainly had the abilities.

Both blades dug in. I alternated stabbing them swiftly as rhythmic pulsing filled my ears. My chest hurt a little as
[Awareness Heightening]
took its toll. I had to pray that we could drive it back before the creature got bigger.

Wait, it was smaller now, wasn’t it? Beth’s balls of multicolored energy were zipping around. Three swam together and formed a spinning bolt that cut through the air. A rainbow of colors splashed off the beast’s side and embers of burning shadow flesh fluttered away.

The creature was losing size. The pit beneath me appeared bottomless and I couldn’t tell where the legs actually were. I stabbed again while screaming in frustration.

“Hit it with the biggest spell you’ve got!” Awesome Jr. shouted.

“Casting! Fifteen seconds left!” my niece responded with an equal level of excitement. The two of them sounded like this was a roller coaster of epic proportions while I was fighting against something that might destroy the world.

Did they really not know? Of course they wouldn’t. They couldn’t be aware yet that Miz Riley had somehow killed Mother and the world would be crashing because of it. My gut clenched again as I reared back to stab the large man’s neck.

“You can use that sword to cast!? That’s so-“ his words were drowned out as my eardrums were boxed. The other huge hand slammed into me like I was a bug biting its neck. My teeth banged into the giant man’s surprisingly solid neck.
[Awareness Heightening]
faded with a jarring sensation.

The world abruptly went sideways as a giant hand tried to slide me off. My body flew through the air as if I had been unwelcome bird shit to be slung away in disgust. The pit’s edge came up quickly and I only had enough sanity to put the weapons into my player inventory storage so they wouldn’t be dropped.

My side crashed into the wall. One arm went numb. The other fingers scrambled for a handhold. Rock around me crumbled into the pit below. My feet kicked at the edge in panic. How far down did I have to fall before being subject to possible deletion?

I lost the hold and fell. The world was moving too fast now.
[Blink]
activated and put me midair where I fell into the ground again. Fresh pain reported in from my face and feet. Toes ached and my ankle refused to support standing. I need more skills, heals, or a regeneration ability.

Light went off on one side of the pit. Beth stood in front of a set of six cut circles. Her face dripped with sweat. The large creature was rearing back an arm to hit the young woman. I scrambled to stand up but the recently damaged leg gave out. My mind’s desire to override ARC signals and stand anyway met with failure.

[Blink]
had four seconds left. The creature’s arm moved fast. Awesome Jr. threw one of his weird concoctions and a pile of green goo expanded into the air like a slimy airbag. Its swinging limb slowed to a brief stop. It jerked once, then twice. The mess of materials Awesome had released was going to fail.

I took a breath, pulled out
[Morrigu’s Gift]
then
[Blink]
ed again. My body tumbled into its new position. Everything ached but there was no choice other than to grit my teeth and bear it.

Beth’s face looked haggard. Casting those spells must have taken a lot of energy out of her. Otherwise her health was fine. I refused to let the arm hit her though. The idea of this former little girl being hurt on my watch washed away some of my pain.

Dusk’s gift came in two forms. One required me to catch a ball of flame that came out of my mouth. The other made me feel like a comical virtual dragon shooting fireballs out. Maybe in Advance Online I could have stuck to the Gatling Laser. I looked at the shaking hand and wondered how the beast was so stupid it couldn’t figure out how to use its other arm.

Maybe destruction programs weren’t required to have intelligence. It didn’t look like the sort of being that might suddenly drop everything and wonder why there was a need to delete. Plus, we didn't have the luxury to wait for an existential crisis.

The man stared at Beth. There was no doubt that it would go right through me and slam into her. What tools did I have to stop that blow? I could have taken
[Wings of The Messenger]
and flown around to distract it, but no, I had a few other hopes.

A shuddering breath passed while trying to ignore the ARC’s feedback of pain. My throat swallowed then bulged weirdly as
[Breath of Flame]
activated. Without my hand to catch it the ball of fire shot out much like Dusk’s did. Fire pelted into the shadow creature’s face while Beth made three slashes behind me.

“Awesome!”

Its head stayed locked on Beth. I took a deliberate breath and another ball of fire seared a path outward. I swallowed afterward and it felt like I hadn’t had any water in days.

“Awesome! I love this game!” the young male declared again. A potion crashed into the arm and weird yellow looking lightning caused the monster’s arm to jerk uncontrollably. “I don’t know how long these stuns will hold!”

One last ball of fire went out before I had nothing left. Messages came up citing
[Hoarse]
and
[Winded]
. Dusk cranked these out ceaselessly and a few left me gasping.

“Got it!” Beth shouted as lights brightened up the night. Six total circles had been cut into the sky. Each one mixed together her green, light blue and scarlet spell schools.

The arm shook loose of goo and continued a path directly for my niece. I slammed a foot down and activated
[Power Armor]
. My toga flowed and joined together with my hat. The clinks of metal swam over my arms and legs.
[Morrigu’s Gift]
pulled out in its two-handed form. I flipped it sideways and braced for impact as the impossibly huge arm hurled into my body.