Too Stubborn to Die

Book 4: Chapter 29

As his barrage of heavy weaponry crashed down on the intruder, Emmy was reminded that Lance was okay. Still, his power was made possible thanks to his “crew,” and needing four heads kinda seemed like an idiot thing to do, she thought. Then again, he was acceptable at what he did, she supposed.

It was a powerful attack that he leveled, and the intruder must have been pushed back, as she could no longer see him through the thick, blanketing smoke that Lance had covered half the chamber in.

Her gaze shifted back to the boss, who was still struggling to pop the seemingly endless number of bubbles she was shooting out.

Perhaps I should finish this idiot quickly.

Her gaze narrowed on the boss as she planned her next move, but just before she acted, he was distracted once more by an intruder.

He was yelling her name.

“How annoyingly distracting!”

Her nose wiggled with determination. She was Emmy Sharp, not some idiot, and she wouldn’t be distracted so easily.

With a simple command, bubbles filled her ears, blocking out the annoying man who was trying to distract her from the boss.

“Gonna have to try harder than that to beat me! I won’t fall for such obvious deceptions.”

With the shouting blocked out, she could focus on the task at hand. Which was good, because as confident as she was in herself, she wasn’t arrogant enough not to see how precarious their position was. They were being attacked on two fronts, and even as Lance sent another barrage of rockets flying toward their ambusher, she knew something had to be done about it, and fast.

She could sense that her bubbles had landed on the intruder, but it was only a minor debuff so far. She could do more, but that would require breaking her focus on the boss, and if the bubbles stopped coming their way, they would no doubt go back on the offensive.

We’re not gonna let that happen!

She already knew how to win, obviously. They just needed a quick victory over the boss. Once that was achieved, they could then level their combined might against the intruder. And she didn’t care who they were; they weren’t going to survive that. No one ever did.

There was a slight obstacle, though. Emmy’s bubbles didn’t focus on sheer power. Individually, the bubbles cost very little mana to summon. And of course, they came with their drawbacks, for example, they were quite slow for her level. Not to mention, most of her attacks didn’t even do any damage. But what they lacked in damage and speed, they made up for in versatility.

Normally, this was exactly how she liked to fight. Keep Lance up in the vanguard, either on defense or blasting the area with explosives to keep their enemy on their feet.

The strategy worked brilliantly. Her bubbles were so cheap to summon that she actually recovered mana as fast as she used it, and so the longer the battle lasted, the further it tipped in her favor, usually.

But she could be flexible, too. And with enemies on two flanks, she was going to need to be. This predicament required speed. To take out one front so that their combined efforts could be focused on the other. And so she poured far more mana than she usually did into her Skill, amplifying the number of bubbles and the speed at which they shot out. The overwhelming result was immediate to see.

“Idiots making me work harder!”

Emmy didn’t like to use her Skill this way. It wasn’t as efficient and required more effort.

The boss did his best to counter the growing number of bubbles, his stabbing spear attacks shooting out with increased speed, like a dangerous game of whack-a-mole.

But the bubbles just kept coming, faster and faster as they scooped up an increasingly large number of shieldbearers. And a moment later, the barrier flickered.

The boss yelled in its guttural alien language and tried to increase its speed further, but it was a losing battle. The odds were stacked in Emmy’s favor. Even when the bubbles were popped, the shieldbearers were out of position and took a second or two to rejoin the formation. And within a few seconds of this dire situation getting worse, the barrier shimmered again.

“Lance, now! Hit the barrier!” Emmy cried out.

She was already irritated to have had to take this fight as seriously as this.

“Roger that!” Lance barked back and turned immediately. Without pause, he fired his next barrage of missiles that he had been about to launch at the intruder.

The missiles slammed against the faltering barrier, roaring angrily as they exploded across it. The barrier actually managed to absorb the first few missiles that crashed into it, but it wasn’t enough. Several missiles got through the flickering barrier, and they caused quite a scene.

The remaining shieldbearers that were in position were forced to either block the missiles and break the barrier’s remaining strength or eat a direct hit. And neither option was good for them.

Several missiles exploded against the shields, while a few blew apart the ranks, sending several alien defenders flying from their positions.

“Auto canon!” Emmy shouted as she pointed at the faltering alien line, and Lance did as he was told.

A hail of bullets hit the remaining shieldbearers who were still recuperating from the missiles. The bullets did little against the shields, but those who were not ready for the attack took a beating, and what was left of the barrier completely disappeared.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Gotcha!”

The attack had been relentless, and the moment that the boss had moved to assist its shieldbearer minions, Emmy had taken control of her bubbles that had seemingly been aimlessly floating about and turned them on the boss.

The alien boss had no time to react. Bubbles came at it from all directions. Bubbles it had thought were of no threat, and within a second, those bubbles had captured and immobilized all of its limbs.

“Bye bye, alien guy!” Emmy waved playfully and then swung her wand.

The moment her wand flew through the air, the bubbles that had captured the alien boss began to flash red, and barely a moment after that, they exploded marvelously, blowing the alien boss into smithereens.

“One idiot down, one to go.”

Emmy smiled at her triumph, but barely slowed for a second. Her bubbles could deal with the rest of the shieldbearers, and she turned to face the intruder, who Lance was still shooting at.

“Alright, let’s finish this already! I can’t believe I worked up a sweat over these idiots!”

It was muffled, thanks to the bubbles in her ears, but she could still hear shouting getting louder through the smoke. It seemed this annoying intruder was still trying to distract her with words. He’d pay for that.

Not only that, there were messages addressed to her on the global chat pinging away like crazy. Luckily, she muted the channel. No more annoying messages to deal with now.

There was something a little weird about the fight, though, she had to admit. The intruder still hadn’t attempted to counter with his own attacks. That was peculiar, but she wouldn’t let it cloud her judgement.

Readying her next Skill, she joined forces with Lance and his crew, ready to finally finish this fight. Although, of course, she was the brains of the operation.

“Firing ultimate barrage!” Lance roared, and a combination of missiles, bullets, and grenades shot out, peppering half the chamber in deadly explosives.

And Emmy’s flood of bubbles wasn’t far behind.

Between the two of them, there was incredible destruction and annoyingly pervasive and versatile bubbles.

One attack was straightforward and destructive, and the other could overcome all kinds of defenses and weaken their opponent. And together, they could take just about anything out.

Not only that, but if this intruder wanted to try and outlast them, he was going to have a terrible time.

Of course, Lance would soon run out of mana and have to recover, but that was all part of the plan.

There was no one better at endurance fighting than Emmy Sharp, and even if their devastating attack failed to finish their foe, she could keep him at bay with her bubbles while Lance recovered, which was made easier thanks to his crew—the additional heads—who could down mana potions while he continued to fight.

For several long seconds, the bombardment continued, the entire chamber being turned to rubble and covered in sleek, slippery bubbles and soapy residue.

But they didn’t stop, even as smoke and dust filled the air. They just kept firing and firing.

“This will teach you for making me be serious!” Emmy cried out as she poured even more mana into her bubbles, which by now effectively filled half of the entire chamber.

It was a perfect synergy of attacks, and there was no way anybody was surviving it.

“That should do,” she said, raising a hand and popping the bubbles in her ears so that she could hear Lance.

“He must be dead now,” Lance said, scanning the area as the smoke and dust cleared.

“These bubbles are really annoying, you know that?”

Standing in the middle of the carnage was a man, covered in soapy bubbles that made his arms glisten on display thanks to his striking sleeveless bear-fur hoodie, and far too much skin showing on his thighs, thanks to his uncomfortably short shorts.

“He survived?” Emmy gasped, but then her bro bent. He was alive, but he wasn’t going anywhere with that many bubbles on him. “Fire the ultimate!”

Lance just nodded, and in an instant, a storm of missiles shot out from him. But that wasn’t all, Emmy activated her own Skill, and a smirk creased her lips as her bubbles turned red.

All at once, the man was utterly consumed by explosives that blew a huge chunk straight out of the room, leaving nothing but smouldering rubble.

“That’ll teach you, idiot. Don’t cross Emmy Sharp!”

“What’s that?” Lance murmured.

“Huh? What?”

It had only lasted several seconds, and Emmy’s smug grin twisted and turned before completely disappearing from her face.

She could feel it before she saw a thing. A rush of energy she didn’t quite understand was bursting out from somewhere she couldn’t see.

Then, within the blink of an eye, the energy formed into the shape of a man. Bones were materialized before her very eyes in a near instant, then wrapped in veins, muscles, and blanketed in flesh.

“Oww. That one hurt,” the man said, cracking his neck. “Oh, wait! It got rid of the bubbles!”

The man looked at her and smiled.

“Wh-what… how?”

She blinked in disbelief. How was this man alive? Furthermore, he had managed to get her to drain her mana almost completely.

“Emmy?” Lance backstepped, and she figured he was in a similar position, having gone all out.

“Not gonna lie, that feels much better,” the man said, stretching his arms. “Those bubbles of yours are quite annoying, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“H-how? How did you survive that?”

“Oh, that?” The man facepalmed as he looked over his shoulder. “Right, Skill of mine. Anyway, as I was trying to say—”

“Hey, hang on! Don’t I know you? I know! You’re that guy! The fat one! Or at least you normally are, aren’t you?” She said. She hadn’t recognized the man as he looked a bit different from how she remembered; in particular, he wasn’t looking as chunky as she remembered. “Yeah, you are! You’re the one who fought the big blue guy with six arms! Arragon, was it? Congrats on losing so much weight!” Emmy tilted her head.

“Fat guy? And it’s Aaron,” the man groaned. “Why don’t you just inspect me?”

“Oh, right. I forgot,” Emmy shrugged.

“What’s going on here?” Lance interjected.

“I know this guy. Arragon was in the trials with me. I think we talked once?” Emmy said as she tapped her lip and searched her murky memories. “Or maybe not. Dunno.”

“So, we’re not enemies?” Lance said, looking as confused as ever.

“Not unless you wanna be, mate.”

Lance looked at Emmy.

“Nah, he’s good. I think we made a pact not to fight each other, right?”

Aaron groaned. “Yeah, something like that.”

Aaron

Shaking his head, he just let it go. He could feel that both of them were exhausted from firing everything at him, and didn’t really have much choice.

That said, he was willing to give them a chance to explain themselves. After all, he had come here to steal their kill. And despite besting them without throwing a punch, Aaron had a feeling that Emmy’s Skills could come in handy in the future.

“Perhaps we make a new alliance,” he said.