[The Primeval Apocalypse] - Chapter Fifteen (collaboration with u/hydrael)

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The Primeval Apocalypse by Robert Keene and Alex Raizman

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The air was already filled with screams of panic and pain before I’d even gotten a good look at the giant monster. It wasn’t a good sign. There should have been sounds of combat. Of people fighting back.

Someone let out a wail of grief and rage, and my detection was able to pick up on a person kneeling over a corpse. But other than that, it was only agony and fear.

Of course, there was no mystery as to why when the monster roared. The sound was a deep and bassy thrumming sound, and I could feel the vibration of it in my lungs. Even as intent as I was to risk life and limb to save people, the sound made me seriously consider turning tail and running.

There was another series of screams, and a giant plume of debris filled the air, forcing me to dive to the ground to avoid the cloud of flying crap. It wasn’t just bits of tents and improvised camping gear. Flailing people flew over my head, screaming, cursing, or just silently bewildered as they went.

It felt like the beast had been given free reign for hours by the time I finally reached the scene. No matter how fast I ran, it never felt fast enough when someone else’s life was on the line.

The space where it had landed looked very appropriately like a crater. Around it the ground was scorched in visually striking rings, even as flames danced here and there, consuming the scattered debris.

Even without my new darkvision, the area was well-illuminated by the fires.

The beast itself was just as monstrous as my detection had warned. Six legs, at least twenty feet long, with the last seven feet being a thick scaled tail, and twelve feet tall at the shoulder. It was no longer wreathed in brilliant flames as it had been when crashing down onto the camp, but it still had a vague glowing red aura. And even from across the crater, I would feel heat radiating off of it. It had a stubby snout with two layers of serrated fangs, and four curved bull-like horns sprouting from the sides of its head. The creature’s scales were a reddish-purple, and all down its back was a mohawk of jet-black feathers. Each of its six legs ended in almost human-like hands, with enormous black claws.

Glowing red eyes turned and locked onto me almost instantly, nostrils flared.

Tangled in its horns on the right side was a familiar blue scarf, now tattered, torn, and bloodstained.

This thing had come from the Mandrill camp.

And while there, it had slain the alpha.

And probably everyone else besides.

This was not going to be easy.

The monstrous creature let loose an angry snort and charged right at me. As it grew closer, the radiating aura grew hotter and hotter. Before it was even in attack range, my health started to tick down from the aura. Even at a run, its passage was eerily quiet, its clawed hands cushioning its footfalls so much that it didn’t make a thunderous noise as it rushed at me.

And the silent rush of the reptilian creature was terrifying. It didn’t roar again, it just charged, slowly opening its mouth as it came. It wasn’t big enough to eat me in one bite, but the image of it doing so was enough to make me freeze in place.

By the time I realized that I should be running, it was too late. The time to kite the beast around had passed. Now it was time to lock myself in an unwinnable fight and hope that my sacrifice was enough to let James rally a proper defense.

My first reflex was to hit it with Pacify, but this thing was definitely already in combat, and definitely much more powerful than me. Betting my stats against it was not a winning prospect.

If I wanted to win this fight, I couldn’t waste time on impossible long shots.

I didn’t hesitate to activate Enrage. From all my past experiences with fighting giant dinosaur monsters, I knew their scaled hides were tough to overcome. I found myself wishing for Noaich to debut his Howl ability to help hack through that natural armor, but that was hopeless. Before the attack, there would have been no way to get him through the camp without slowing down. And if he was here now, he would probably get roasted by the burning aura, and I couldn’t stomach the idea of him dying when I was hanging so many hopes on his survival.

I dove to the left to let the giant jaws clamp down on air. As soon as I came to my feet, I lashed out with my handaxes, hitting the creature with Maul across its shoulder. The blade dug a shallow scratch through the hide there, but the blast of my bleed ability turned it from a bloodless cut into an open wound. I had no illusions that I could kill the beast by bleeding it slowly, but I needed to do everything I could to soften it up for when Jamestown started to strike back.

Also, everything I could do to keep it angry at me would let the wounded escape.

My success at pissing it off came at a predictable price. The monster turned with shocking alacrity, and smashed the horns on the side of its head into my body. My whole nervous system lit up with agony as the heat of its aura caused the crushing blow to burn me. It was like being hit by a flying oven, with the heating elements all red-hot. I leaned away from the impact, and was sent flying, landing in an uncontrolled tumble nearly ten feet away.

Scrambling to my feet, the Intuition ability kicked in and I jumped as high as I could straight up as soon as my legs were under myself. I felt the rush of air as the creature’s tail whipped through the space where I’d landed, just shy of clobbering me into last week.

“Come on!” I heard myself cackling. Apparently the adrenaline pumping in my veins had evicted my good sense. “Is that the best you can do?”

The creature had obviously tried to smack me with its tail so that it could continue to plow forward farther into Jamestown to cause more havoc, but at my taunting cry, its head turned. The glowing red eye on that side narrowed at me, and I realized that Wild Empathy meant that it could understand my mocking cry.

“You heard me!” I said, unable to stop the manic cackling that had taken root in my diaphragm. “A little fire is supposed to impress me? A little love tap and you think I’m done?”

The creature snorted again, and its message was very clear. Even without Wild Empathy, I could guess at what it wanted to convey to me as it slowly turned to face me again.

“Yeah, if you want me dead,” I cackled, “you’re gonna have to try harder.”

The creature rushed me, moving at tremendous speed. I couldn’t even pretend to try and meet its charge. I physically threw myself to the right in a wild dive to try and get clear of the attack.

I failed.

Giant jaws clamped down on one of my feet, and the whole world spun. I didn’t even know what it was doing to me, I just knew I hit the ground three times before I was sent flying into a tree. Fortunately, it wasn’t enough to kill me. I was low enough that Last Stand activated, though, which was a mixed blessing. I knew I could withstand a tremendous amount of punishment with it active, but knowing that the creature had only needed two solid hits to rip 80% of my HP out of me didn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

When I was able to decode the spinning mess of my surroundings, the creature was already on top of me. Giant clawed hands crashed down and I barely rolled out of the way. Last Stand was reducing the burning aura damage to nearly nothing. From beneath the beast, I knew I was looking at the softest part of its hide, so I sat up sharply, driving my forehead into its belly with Skull Bash.

Instincts screamed at me to get out from under the beast while it was stunned, but logic won out. I smashed my axes against its underbelly, knowing this was my best chance to do lasting damage to it. Each blow opened a wound in the thin part of the hide here, even if they were shallow strikes. I didn’t have the leverage to do better, but I did have the damage increases from Enrage and my Skull Bash achievements, so they were still meaningful damage.

It turned out that my instincts were right. When the creature’s stun wore off, it just flopped down on top of me, crushing me beneath its bulk.

My defense and constitution were high enough to withstand the creature’s tremendous weight. It was heavy, but it was also very large. The weight was spread out over too large a distance to really hurt me. But I was still painfully pinned, with the tree roots beneath the thin layer of dried pine needles digging into my back.

For a moment, I thought that I was fine. The creature’s flesh was still searing hot, but it was a manageable heat. With Last Stand active, I could take it, and use Second Wind strategically to keep me alive for probably several minutes.

More than long enough for it to either get bored and move, or for someone else to come to my rescue.

Of course, the heat redoubled as soon as I had that thought. I could see flames on the corners of my vision as the monster reactivated whatever it had done to turn itself into a burning meteor. The intensity forced me to use Second Wind twice in rapid succession just to stay alive.

This was the end. Months of survival. All of my work to ingratiate myself to James to earn a spot on the raid team. Everything I’d sacrificed. All of it was literally going up in smoke now as I watched my hit points burn away.

I only hoped that the people I helped along the way were worth it. As long as the time I bought ensured the survival of just one person, it was better than nothing. If I could believe that someone I had saved would still be out there, I could accept my death.

Not that I had a choice.