novelraw Chapter 94: Up Close
Chapter 94: Up Close
Stanley ran outside the house as soon as he heard the siren and watched in horror at the Crawlers that had made it into the veil.
There were 5 of them.
His eyes widened, his fingers trembling. Today was the day he had been waiting for. Today was the day he would get revenge against those damn monsters.
Stanley ran back into his room and quickly wore his armor before taking his sword and running back outside. Even from this far away, he could already see the Defenders down there were starting to struggle.
He ran down the fields, through the muddy ground and the slippery slopes. Thankfully, he was wearing the heavy shoes with spiky metal bottoms that his brother had given him. These shoes were excellent for running in this environment.
The rain fell on his eyes as well, but there was nothing he could really do about that. He could only use his arm to block it while he ran.
As he went towards where the crawlers were, he remembered a set of instructions that were given to everyone on how they were supposed to fight the Crawlers.
The first piece of instruction was to never crowd up. If your powers could be used from far away, or you yourself could use your powers to support others far away, you had to stay away.
The Crawlers moved erratically, so one could never tell how they were going to attack. The more defenders there were that fought it, the easier it became for the monster to hit them.
And a single hit from something like the crawler meant the breaking of all bones in one’s body.
The second piece of instruction was that you should never treat the Crawlers like you would a human. A Crawler didn’t have a front or a back. It didn’t have arms or legs.
It had a single spherical body with 5 limbs coming out of it, all of which acted the same most of the time. There were times when they would have fewer limbs, but the rest was always the same.
That was to say that a Crawler had no front or back, and as such it would always see you no matter where you hid. So, when fighting a Crawler, hiding behind it was the last thing you could do as the monsters had no behind.
He looked for the Crawler that was closest to him. It was the 2nd Crawler from the right and from what he could see, the people there were struggling against it a bit already.
There weren’t many guarding the veil at all. Despite the number of people that had taken up the rest of the Defender’s job, they were still low on numbers.
After 6 more months and many people quitting later, there were barely enough people to fight 3 monsters if they came in.
And the number that had come in was 5.
Stanley ran past the stone and glass booth that had a man hiding within it. He could feel tell the man was scared. So was he.
However, his hunger for revenge against these monsters outweighed his fear and he arrived close to them.
Finally, he could see the crawlers so very clearly.
The inky black body, the silky tendrils that moved around like vines on the surface, the very shifting surface. It all looked so eerie. Its arms were massive, the size of metal drums where water was stored.
From far away, a Crawler was nothing but a blob of a black body with limbs coming out from it. Up close, it was an even scary monster whose body was impossible to tell when it was moving.
Stanley gulped for a moment and then determination filled his eyes. "I"m here to help!" he shouted as he arrived.
The Defenders were happy that help was here, but when they saw who the help was, they frowned. It was a young boy in damaged armor, not the veteran fighters they were hoping for.
"Go back, kid," one of the men said. He ran forward as fast as he could and stepped on something invisible that launched him into the sky above the beast.
As he came down, he placed the sword in front of him, while crossing his arms at the same time. As he did so, his entire body seemed to harden as once, becoming petrified.
The stone body fell from the sky with immense speed and strength and landed on the Crawler.
Stanley remembered this man now. It was the man that had been there when he had given the survey for the Census. Was his attack going to work?
The man slammed onto the Crawler with such strength that it buckled the Crawler into the ground.
The Crawler had been standing on 3 limbs so it quickly brought down 2 more to stabilize it. However, the force of a stone statue falling down from the sky onto the crawler was truly quite strong.
The man quickly got rid of his armor, the stone crumbs falling around him as he ran away from the Crawler. The Crawler was already up and was starting to slam its limbs while following the man.
The man did his best to dodge while someone else ran in close and started attacking its other limbs.
As long as they accumulated enough damage on the Crawler’s body, it would fade away. However, the damage that needed to be done to the Crawler was quite a lot and very unspecific.
So, the Defenders could only continue as they were and hope this one died earlier than the rest.
Stanley watched in awe at the group of 7 people handling this Crawler that would usually require at least 10 people.
He looked to the other side. Should he go help the others?
A thought came to him as he turned around and saw a man standing on the other side, trying to sneak attack the Crawler.
Stanley wanted to help, but his danger warning cried for him to not do anything. So, he could only watch as one of the limbs of the monster moved unnaturally and slammed onto the man, crushing him in a single attack.
The rest of the people’s expressions grew tense as they realized that the Crawler still had quite a lot of fight let in it.