Chapter 56: War of attrition

The Husk Regent straightened its hunched spine with an unsettling series of wet, popping sounds. The dozen lidless eyes running down its skull swiveled simultaneously, focusing their collective, mismatched gaze onto Rain.

It let out a low, vibrating roar that rattled the water around Rain’s boots, and lunged.

The beast’s right claw swept across the water in a massive horizontal arc, aiming to bisect Rain at the waist. Rain anticipated the wind-up, reading the shift in the creature’s massive left shoulder a fraction of a second before the swing launched. He ducked beneath the sweeping arm, letting the pale, bone-tipped fingers whistle six inches over his hair, and drove a vicious left hook straight into the soft, black fibrous tissue exposed at the creature’s armpit.

The abomination winced, its left leg sweeping out in a low kick to catch Rain’s standing foot. Rain leaped backward, his Agility allowing him to land cleanly two yards away just as the creature’s foot shattered a floating supply crate into splinters.

"Holt! Strike the right leg!" Rain commanded, his voice ringing sharp and authoritative across the pit. "Fen, take the flank! Keep its focus divided!"

Holt blinked, momentarily stunned by the authoritative tone coming from an eighteen-year-old carrier.

’What is this kid’s deal,’ Holt thought, dragging himself up onto one knee despite every part of him screaming to stay down. ’He fights like a real combatant, not some academy kid pushed into a raid. He’s quick, he’s calm, he sees the fight before it happens.’

Any other night, any other person, and Holt would have been furious getting barked at by someone half his experience. But there was something in how the kid moved, how he’d read the leg sweep coming, how he’d called the graft before either of them had understood what was happening to Fen. It wasn’t bravado. It was someone who actually knew what he was looking at.

His survival instincts took over instantly. "Right leg! Go!"

Holt surged forward, the grey sheen flaring along his broadsword once more as he delivered a heavy overhead chop into the creature’s right knee joint. At the same time, Fen executed a short, blurring dash around the left side, driving his dagger into the creature’s lower back.

The Husk Regent roared, its body twisting violently as it absorbed the dual strikes.

Then, something terrifying happened.

Where Fen’s dagger had bitten into its lower back, the thick, fibrous black tissue suddenly surged forward, wrapping around the steel blade like living roots. The creature turned its head back toward Fen, its lidless eyes flaring with a dark, crimson light.

Rain watched the wound seal shut around the dagger, the tissue there thickening and coiling in on itself, taking on a texture that looked wrong on something that size, dense and springy, almost exactly like the muscle he’d just watched flex in Fen’s own legs seconds earlier.

’It’s copying him,’ Rain thought, cold understanding settling into his chest. ’It just took whatever made that dash possible and put it on itself.’

The creature’s multi-jointed legs suddenly twitched, and with a terrifying, unnatural blur that mimicked Fen’s own burst-speed skill, it launched itself backward, slamming its heavy shoulder straight into Fen’s chest.

Fen let out a strangled gasp as he flew backward, skipping twice across the surface of the water before crashing motionless against the far wall.

"Fen!" Holt yelled, turning his sword toward the creature, but the Regent was already moving with its newfound, unnatural speed. It spun around, its left claw driving straight for Holt’s throat.

Rain saw the trajectory instantly. He knew Holt’s physical reinforcement wouldn’t save him from a direct throat strike at that speed.

Rain sprang forward, driving his body directly into Holt’s side, tackling the heavy hunter out of the strike zone. The pale claws sliced through the empty air where Holt’s neck had been a millisecond prior, the wind pressure alone cutting a line across Rain’s dark hoodie.

Both Rain and Holt hit the flooded floor, rolling through the cold water before coming up on their knees.

"It adapts," Rain said rapidly, his breath cold and steady as he tracked the creature’s movements. "It just took Fen’s speed off that hit he landed. Don’t leave your weapons embedded in it. Strike and retract, every time."

Holt stared at him for a full second, water dripping off his jaw, something guarded flickering behind the exhaustion in his eyes. "And how exactly does a carrier know that?"

"I don’t know it," Rain said. "I’m watching it happen. Same as you could, if you weren’t half-dead on your feet."

Holt’s jaw tightened. For a moment it looked like he might argue, might waste the breath on it, but the creature was already turning back toward them, and there wasn’t time for pride.

"Fine," Holt spat, dragging himself upright, his broadsword shaking in his grip. "Talk fast next time."

"Get up, Holt! It’s coming back!"

The Husk Regent advanced again, its movements now carrying that dangerous, flickering blur borrowed from Fen’s skill. It closed the distance instantly, raised both massive fists, and brought them crashing down toward Rain and Holt.

Rain triggered his movement skill.

’Flash Step.’

[Flash Step: Zero Drag activated]

[Mana: 9 -> 6]

Rain vanished in a streak, reappearing twelve feet to the right, directly behind the creature’s blind spot. He didn’t waste a single millisecond. He drove his right fist into the back of the creature’s neck with everything he had, the impact echoing through the stone vault.

The creature stumbled forward, its twin fists smashing into the empty water where Holt had been standing, sending a wall of water flying into the air. Holt rolled away, using the distraction to scramble back to his feet, swinging his heavy broadsword in a desperate horizontal strike that clanged off the creature’s reinforced ribs.

For the next five minutes, the chamber became a brutal, agonizing arena of survival.

Rain fought with surgical, terrifying precision. He moved like a shadow through the shallow water, anticipating every heavy sweep, every crushing stomp, and every erratic twitch of the multi-eyed skull. He took calculated risks, stepping within millimeters of lethal claws to land heavy, bare-knuckle strikes on the creature’s joints, drawing its aggression away whenever Holt showed signs of buckling under the weight of his exhaustion.

Every blow Rain delivered was direct and purposeful, targeting the seams between the calcified armor plates. Yet, despite his high Strength and anticipatory reading of the fight, the toll on their side was mounting fast.

Rain took a glancing blow to his right shoulder, a heavy sweep that knocked him sideways, his HP dropping slightly as his bruised ribs screamed in agony.

[HP: 42 -> 31 / 130]

He pressed his thumb against his hoodie pocket, feeling the cold glass of his final Minor Mana Recovery Potion. He held off on using it, saving the last five points of mana for an absolute crisis.

Holt was on his absolute last legs. The grey sheen on his arms was flickering weakly, fading entirely every few seconds as his stamina hit rock bottom. His broadsword was notched, bent, and slick with dark blood. Fen had managed to crawl out of the water near the edge of the pit, clutching his broken ribs, unable to rejoin the fight.

On the far ledge, Peter watched in sheer, paralyzed horror, his knuckles white as he held Priya against the wall. Priya stared at the center of the pit, her mouth slightly open, watching Rain dodge, strike, and maneuver around a C-rank monstrosity with a fluid, lethal mastery that defied everything she knew about carriers.

With a final, desperate combination, Rain leaped onto the creature’s hunched back, driving his knuckles into the base of its skull three times in rapid succession, while Holt summoned the last bit of his energy to deliver a heavy, two-handed thrust into its midsection.

The Husk Regent let out a horrifying, wet shriek. It thrashed violently, hurling Rain off its back. Rain landed on his feet, skidding five feet through the water, his breath coming in jagged, burning gasps, while Holt collapsed onto both knees, his broadsword slipping from his numb fingers into the mud.

All three of them, Rain, Holt, and Fen, were pushed back, exhausted, battered, and physically incapable of pressing the offensive any further.

The Husk Regent staggered back toward the center of the pit, its body covered in cracks, black fluid leaking from dozens of wounds.

Then, the air in the chamber turned deathly cold.

The exposed, fibrous black tissue stitching the creature’s body together suddenly flushed a deep, violent, angry reddish-orange. The dozen lidless eyes on its skull dilated wide, turning completely blood-red.

A thick, scalding white vapor began venting violently from the seams of its calcified armor, hissing loudly as it hit the cold standing water. The creature raised its head to the vaulted ceiling and released a screech so loud, so high-pitched, and so full of raw, unadulterated malice that the stone ledge fifty feet above cracked under the acoustic pressure.

Holt stared at the transforming abomination, his face turning completely pale, the last remaining trace of fight leaving his eyes. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet, hollow, and utterly defeated.

"We have to leave," Holt said, his voice trembling violently. "It’s going into its feral state. It’s gravely injured, and in this state, it’ll be five to ten times stronger."