Hollow Twilight - A LitRPG Novel

Chapter 25

Gurn drew back her fist, eyes glimmering with excitement. Reid thought about Gremlin back home. When he would dangle the mouse, when the cat knew it was just playing with a toy, that was the shine in its eyes. Same as Gurn.

The Pariah lunged forwards and Reid felt the shadows around his feet coalesce and rise up, forming a barrier. Gurn's heavy punch slammed into it and Reid felt the force straight through his chest. He coughed and stumbled backwards, glancing up to see the wall of shadows crack and shatter.

He didn't have time to comprehend how an absence of light could break like a mirror as Gurn threw out her other hand, an icicle launching from her palm straight at Reid's heart. He jumped to the side, feeling the chill in the air as the frozen projectile passed. As he landed on the asphalt, he could already see Gurn looming above him. She was relentless, like no boss he had ever fought before. There was no down time, no pause to gloat. She was, as she had said, going to tear them apart.

Kari's axe drove into Gurn's chest, knocking her back slightly. Gurn batted down a flying lamppost from Maple, firing off another icicle in her direction. In the momentary distraction, Reid scrambled to his feet and ran, trying to get the shadows around him to reform. Faint traces of them wrapped around his arms, growing stronger each second but they were nowhere near what they looked like normally.

Reid still had no idea how these powers worked. He had been pretty confident going into this he had a good idea about how he could manifest them and form weapons or defenses but he hadn't thought they could run out. He wasn't aware of any magical rules or draining effect, but apparently getting shattered into little pieces by a Pariah was a setback. That made sense.

"Behind you," Issac shouted and Reid leaped left again, taking a chance and guessing at a direction. He saw Gurn go flying back a second later, eyes making contact for a split second as she passed. He couldn't tell if it was a grimace on her face at missing him or a grin at the inevitable death pursuing him.

A scythe landed in the ground next to Reid. He looked up and spotted Tim gesturing for him to come towards him. "Grab on!" Reid did as he was told before feeling his arm nearly get wrenched from its socket as the scythe shot back to its owner, pulling the teen along for the ride. "I guess your stabbing trick doesn't work this time?"

"Maybe," Reid panted. He knelt down for a second, feeling a sudden burning in his lungs as all the exercise got up with him. His eyes bulged for a moment and he blinked a few times to bring them back under control. He squeezed at his chest, trying to alleviate the pain. It was futile. "It took a chunk. We could keep hitting the same spot?"

"We don't really have the chance to aim," Tim replied, bending over to check on Reid. "And those two can only buy so much time." Tim gestured at Maple and Kari who were still engaging with Gurn. Both were up close now, always attacking from opposite sides to keep both of Gurn's arms in use and yet she so easily held them off.

"What about the teacher?" Reid pointed at Mr. Crawford. The equations going past him were speeding up, becoming increasingly complicated. Reid couldn't understand any of them anymore, even some of the symbols involved were foreign. "He said he has an exponential force. It just keeps going up even faster as he holds it so it has to be pretty big by now."

"That's a lot to put on a skill we've never seen before. But if you think it'll work, it's that or die, right?" Tim tried to beam at Reid but he could see right through it as it faded. His eyes were clouded with concern, his cheeks smeared with dirt and grime from going through a building earlier. Reid took a moment to register just how much Tim had gone through. His jeans were torn up the left side, with a thin smear of blood from some surface scratch. His left shoulder was also exposed, his shirt shredded and loosely holding on. A bruise was already forming on the skin. The usual exuberance and brightness Tim bounced around with was gone, hard as he was trying to stay optimistic.