Evacuation: And The Brood Mother Rises

Time dilation was an overpowered skill. That was a fact. I was not about to hide it. And combining all of my other skills — brute force, speed, leapfrog, and sky glider — I became an unstoppable force on the battlefield. Nothing could touch me. Nothing could lay a finger on me. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take it back to the top.

***

Shortly after I’d left Lumia and the little girl in the alleyway, I stepped into the streets, flinging my sword at a Widow Maker running across the roof of a house. The weapon sank deep into the side of its neck, hurling it off the wooden building as it squealed in pain. After that was taken care of, I went to work hunting the rest of the monsters.

Triggering all of my abilities at once, except for time dilation because of the ten-second usage limit, I basically activated a mini god mode. I reached out my right hand as four of the monstrous gray creatures appeared at either end of the street, blocking me off.

“Axe,” I called, and a subtle glow enveloped my right hand before quickly dissipating, leaving behind the most powerful weapon in my arsenal — the double-sided cursed axe. Meanwhile, the monsters were drawing closer.

“Alright,” I said, smirking as I brandished my weapon and traded glances with all four Widow Makers. “Who’s first?” The moment those words left my mouth, all hell broke loose.

The Widow Makers lunged at me simultaneously, and that’s when I triggered time dilation, causing the creatures to slow while suspended in midair. I had ten seconds to finish them off. That was more than enough time.

I swung my axe in an upward arc in front of me, splicing the first creature’s head in two — from the bottom of its jaw through its skull. Bits of bone and flesh scattered into the air, suspended in a limbo of their own. I turned my attention to the next one.

Widow Maker number two received a cleaving strike to the side of its face, sending it, in slow motion, crashing into a nearby pantry shop. I didn’t need to confirm whether the monsters were dead. Those were devastating head strikes. They weren’t surviving those.

I turned my attention to the remaining two Widow Makers floating above the ground behind me and made quick work of them — same moves, head strikes. Even though their blood was a weird mix of green and red, at least they weren't leaking maggots and worms like the zombies back at the castle.

When the five seconds were up and time dilation finally ran out, I caught sight of Lumia running out of the alleyway with the little girl on her back. They were moving toward the temple. Right — I still needed to clear a path for them.

I activated my speed and agility, shooting past them in a gust of wind. I was one-shotting Widow Makers on my way to the temple with every swing of my cursed axe, making sure to deliver killing blows so the creatures wouldn’t get back up in my absence and attack Lumia and the girl coming up behind me.

When I arrived, I could see the faint outline of a barrier surrounding the stony temples of southern Dumaria. People were safely held up within the structures inside the magical dome, but unfortunately the exterior was completely blocked off by scorpion-tailed monsters on every side. They were pounding and clawing at the barrier, trying to find a way in. If Lumia and the girl arrived now, they wouldn't be able to get past. I needed to clear out the horde.

“Hey, uglies! Over here!” I waved my hands over my head, drawing the creatures’ attention away from the barrier.

“I hope you know what you're doing,” Rachel said. “You may be a lot stronger than before, but you're not invincible.”

“Don't worry,” I told my AI companion as I adjusted my grip on the cursed axe, keeping my eyes on the fourteen or so Widow Makers gradually approaching me. “I got this.”

The creatures lunged at me, and in response I activated speed plus time dilation as I tore into their midst, hacking and smacking with my axe, destroying the six-legged monsters limb from limb.

There were so many of them flying at me from all directions that I had to trigger the special move of the axe, the double-sided storm of destruction. Body parts went flying everywhere, along with reddish-green blood.

A number — 55 — had been flashing at the bottom of my vision with a yellow outline, and I soon discovered it was my actual health percentage, and it was blinking because the healing potions were about to wear off.

After clearing all of the Widow Makers surrounding the temple, I downed another healing potion, my health pushing back up to seventy-five percent. “That’s more like it,” I muttered.

Lumia and the little girl finally arrived soon after, and they looked at me with both horror and astonishment, maybe because of the number of dead monster corpses littering my feet. I gestured for them to keep going and not to stop and talk while I stood guard outside the barrier, cutting down more Widow Makers as they appeared.

Several minutes later the evacuation party began moving out the back. I continued fighting, buying as much time as I could. Only when Rachel told me they had reached a safe distance did I finally change locations and sky-glide over to the next barrier. It was the central plaza at the town square, and there I basically used the same strategy: fight more Widow Makers so the people could escape out the back. I did this for six more locations around town, cutting down the six-legged monsters while the people fled for safety.

I incorporated different fighting techniques as well. Ground gliding happened when I used my sky-gliding skill in close combat. On more than one occasion I shot toward a Widow Maker with extreme velocity, my momentum ramming it against the opposite wall.

There were times where I also briefly swapped to my sword whenever the axe got too heavy, leapfrogging to avoid getting boxed into a corner, and repeatedly summoning my dagger to throw at distant targets trying to run past me.

“And that’s it! That’s all of them!” Rachel cheered as I briefly stopped to catch my breath. “All evac parties now safely leaving the area. You did it, Hunter,” she said. “You saved the day.”

Standing up straight, I leaped onto a nearby roof to take a look around. There were wildfires everywhere. Entire buildings and homes were crushed under the weight of the monster invasion. The streets were almost completely silent, except for the stray Widow Maker scuttling here and there. It seemed like they were retreating, heading back out the front gates. Well, I didn’t know if I’d call it saving the day, I thought. For the most part, though, it looked like the worst was over.

Still standing on the roof, I turned to gaze at the evac caravans — the one Lumia and the little girl were a part of. Rachel zoomed in on them using a section of my vision, and I saw the two of them sitting together, the girl resting in Lumia’s arms.

I had promised the child I was going to come back, but I wasn’t done with the creatures yet. More of the beasts still remained outside of town, and I needed to ensure they didn’t go after the evacuating parties.

I was still planning on keeping my word. As soon as I was done here, I would eventually catch up to them somehow. After that I would help the little girl find her parents before setting off alone to find Emma.

***

I sat on the roof, waiting to see if any of the monsters would try running after the escaping caravans so I could cut them down before they even got close. But it seemed like they weren’t interested anymore; they had all fallen back.

Also, the militia fighting outside the city walls were all dead. I didn’t want to leave my post; I couldn’t risk a Widow Maker passing me and catching up with the evac party, so I was unable to go help them. They ended up getting slaughtered. All of them.

“It was a tough call, but you made the right choice,” Rachel said, trying to comfort me and make me feel less guilty. I didn't want to even think about it right then, so I asked a question as a distraction.

“Are you able to get a read on her. Emma? Are you able to get a read on her location?” I asked.

“Processing…” Rachel responded, taking a moment to look up my request.

“Sorry, Hunter,” she replied. “No. I'm still not able to find her at the moment, due to an unknown patch in my algorithm. However, I do know for a fact she was deployed to this world. It’s in her files. As soon as I have something, I’ll let you know.”

“Alright, thanks.”

***

“Greetings, strange insect.”

It happened roughly twenty minutes later. The evac caravans were long gone at this point, and while lying on the roof and staring up at the night sky, I heard a voice in my head other than Rachel’s.

“So, you were the one who killed so many of my babies, so many of my children.”

I might have been dozing off, but the sound of the intruder in my head triggered my fight-or-flight senses, causing me to sit up in an instant.

“All they wanted to do was feed,” the intruder said. “To eat all of the insects, all of the food, until their hearts were content. But now you’ve killed them. What do you think a mother is to do? How do you think a mother is to respond to such crimes against her own hatchlings?”

“Rachel?” I called out to my AI companion in a whisper as I glanced around, looking for anything out of the ordinary — or, better yet, anything that wasn’t there before and was suddenly there now. “Who was that? Where is the voice coming from?”

“That’s strange,” Rachel responded, trailing off as she realized something and forgetting to answer my question. “How did I not catch that before?”

I was about to call out to her a second time when the ground began to rumble. Even though I was sitting on a roof, I could feel the vibrations.

I held on and stayed still. It was like an earthquake with no end. It just went on and on. Then, finally, it stopped.

“Hunter, here!” remembering my question, Rachel finally indicated a spot on a map in the corner of my vision — the source area of the earthquake. It was just outside town. I needed to go see what it was.

I took off, leaping and gliding toward the location to check it out. But then... “Wait,” I said, noticing something about the place Rachel had specified on the map. “Isn’t that the Widow Makers’ nest...?”

“I see youuu…”

Something came smashing into me midflight, something large, something pink. I flew back toward the town from the impact, eventually smashing my back into towers, roofs, houses, and shops. I ended up falling onto my back in the street. Even with the temporary healing boosters, my health instantly dropped below fifty, and my vision blurred at the edges. Pain radiated throughout my entire body, and getting back up felt impossible. I was pretty sure my left elbow was crushed, and blood was already leaking down the back of my head.

What the hell was that? What the hell had hit me?

“Hunter?!” Rachel shouted. “Are you okay?! Can you hear me?! Can you get up?!”

Struggling to get back on my feet, I shook my head from side to side, trying to clear my blurry vision. It improved, but only a little. I guessed I was still badly hurt.

Using the remaining energy I had, I leapfrogged onto a nearby building to get a better look at what had slapped me out of the sky. I suddenly couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Was this thing even real?

Standing in front of the town was a giant, humongous, towering pink Widow Maker the size of a mountain. It was massive, nearly eclipsing the town in its shadow. It had a patch of bluish-gray hair stuck to its head, and its jaws were wide open, revealing shark-like jagged teeth. All six of its black eyes were staring directly at me.

“My God,” Rachel commented. She brought up a menu in a corner of my vision a second later, showing me the creature’s stats.

_____

Name: Brood Mother

Level: 200

Species: Widow Maker

Status: Very hostile

_____

“So, you are the insect who killed my babies,” the brood mother said, its voice assaulting my senses now that it had fully emerged from the ground. “Very well. Prepare to die.”