[Skill-Eater] Chapter 150: Boom

With a groan of tortured wood, the silo started to topple.

The tip tilted by a couple of degrees before coming to a stop again, causing Edge’s heart to jump into his throat. Come on. Fall, you stupid fucker. We can’t afford to blow this chance.

If this trap didn’t work, the team would be forced to face the angry lizard head-on. Even with [Overdrive], he wasn’t sure that they could win, let alone come out the other side without losing anyone along the way.

But then the damaged silo let out a series of cracks like thunderpeals, as the final beams began to give way. The top tilted by another couple of inches… then began moving faster, picking up momentum along the way. With a burst of splintering wood and the screech of steel, the weakened side caved in—sending the whole structure toppling toward the wounded beast.

Edge took cover behind the corner of a building while waiting to see if the crew’s efforts would pay off, or the colossal beast moved out of the way in time. It looked up after hearing the clamor, comprehending at the last possible moment that its life was in danger. He could see in dawning realization in its eyes. The understanding that if it took the impact head-on, it was going to be crippled or killed in that moment.

Afraid for the first time since the battle began, the immense predator began scrambling out of the way. Its feet slid across the slippery soil, but it planted its toes and drove its claws in deep—panic lending it strength as it fled for its life. The hasty maneuver wasn’t enough to get out from under the falling building before it landed. But it was enough to keep its body from taking the brunt of the blow.

Instead, the silo came down onto its tail—crushing the appendage beneath tons of wreckage and pinning the beast to the ground. Edge pulled his head back as debris went raining across the farm, narrowly avoiding taking a warped metal plate to his face in the process. Good enough. Now that the tail is out of the equation and the beast is tethered to that spot, it should be sufficient to turn the tide.

The instant that it was safe, he rushed around the corner and charged with the point of his naginata leading the way. He was ready to go all out and take advantage of the window the team had created. It was time to finish the predator off before it recovered from the heavy hit.

The padamas struggled and strained as the melee team closed the distance, but it couldn’t free itself as the hunters came racing toward it. It sent its pink tongue lashing for Trapper, but the agile hunter had enough Reflex to get out of the way. While Edge, Jumo, and Blue advanced from the beast’s blind side, the others unleashed a fresh barrage of ranged attacks.

A pair of poisoned arrows flew beside a lightning bolt from Trapper’s crossbow and a flame imbued javelin that Sasha had retrieved from the cart. The aether-infused bolt discharged into the padamas’s body. The voltage caused it to lose control of its muscles for a few seconds, protecting the team from counterattack. We’re lucky that we took those tail spikes out of the fight.

Sasha fired off a round of imbued arrows that left burning patches all along the beast’s body, but they didn’t seem to be doing serious damage. So, she grabbed her spear and raced to join the others in melee.

Trapper must have run out of electric shots, because she switched to earth bolts at that point—black stone shafts that boasted incredible penetrative power. Each magtech missile plunged into the beast’s scaly skin, hampering its mobility, although they weren’t sufficient to reach the organs below.

Proving that she knew her way around a fight, even without a core, Violet threw a series of homemade firebombs at the lizard’s head. They wreathed its face in flames and temporarily blinded it. She switched to her short bow when she ran out, focusing on distracting the beast by shooting at its face, since she lacked the skills or attributes to deal significant damage.

With Jumo on his left and Blue on his right, Edge readied his polearm as he cleared the last few feet of open ground. Violet turned and cast enhance beast—his first time seeing the skill in action. A sheet of mana left her body and wrapped around Blue, granting the mighty dinosaur even more Power as she charged. She thrust the moment that her horns were in range, unleashing a powerful skill combo.

Her triple horns pierced the padamas’s body, parting scale before sinking deep into the muscle below. It was a heavy hit, but the battle-trained beast wasn’t finished yet. She ignited her core and activated rend, widening the wounds while issuing a trumpeting cry that rattled Edge’s teeth within his jaw.

The padamas screamed and lashed out, catching Blue with a swipe of its claws that sent the dino rolling back in the dirt. She was battered and bleeding. Wounded, but not critically so. When Edge saw the lizard’s jaws crack open, he stepped in front of it, diverting the beast’s focus just as its lightning-fast tongue came lashing out.

But he’d seen the attack coming and was already in the process of transforming—shadowing stepping out of the way with inches to spare. He rematerialized and then leapt to gather momentum, transferring the force of his charge into a powerful thrust that pieced the padamas’s flank. He began slashing with his naginata in a frenzy, carving painful wounds along the beast’s belly that divided its attention.

Jumo dished out damage with his heavy spear, alternating between thrust and rapid strike to keep the creature off balance. He ducked beneath one set of scimitar claws, then rolled out of the way of a bite, dodging the beast’s hulking jaws with inches to spare.

Sasha used her skill-bolstered spear to put some more fire around its neck, although she couldn’t reach high enough to get its head. All the while, Trapper fired off stone bolts with her massive magtech crossbow, doing her best to take out an eye, or the joints of its shoulders and knees.

Since the padamas wasn’t focused on him, Edge was able to get in close. He dropped his polearm, switched to elemental blade, and started letting loose with everything that he had. He was double striking with his iceblade like a fiend, each blow causing twin lines of rime to build along its body.

The combined assault of the hunters and the damage from their traps was overwhelming the giant lizard. The painful barrage kept it off balance. It could only turn within a limited radius with the silo pinning it to the ground, making its movements predictable and impeding its ability to dodge.

It’s working. I think that we’re going to pull this off after all. If we can weaken it just a little more, it shouldn’t be able to shrug off Extraction. Just when Edge was trying to decide how to steal some skills without getting caught, the fickle flow of battle shifted, turning against the hunters within a paltry handful of heartbeats.

The fire around the lizard’s head flickered out as the last of Violet’s oil and Sasha’s mana burned away, revealing scorched scales and sizzling flesh. Unfortunately for the hunting team, its eyes were intact.

Fast as thought, the padamas lashed out with its limbs. Jumo and Sasha took glancing hits, which knocked them back and sliced into their armor. Edge was able to dodge the claws, but he misjudged a headbutt that sent him flying. He hit the side of a building, then fell to the ground. He was monetarily stunned, although he hadn’t broken any bones.

Before anyone could follow up, the lizard spun around and bit. Not targeting Trapper’s crew, but the space where torso met tail. It chomped straight though in a single bite, sacrificing the appendage to free itself.

The big beast had taken some serious wounds over the course of the fight. It had lost a limb and its mobility was reduced, but it wasn’t finished yet. Not by a long shot. It was ready and eager to bring the pain to the puny creatures who had dared to challenge its might.

This is bad. I think we can regain the upper hand, but I’ll need to use Overdrive after all.

Edge realized that he had dramatically underestimated the magnitude of their predicament when the padamas wavered out of existence. A pair of poison arrows and a javelin went sailing through the space it had occupied a heartbeat prior, only to clatter against the ground instead. The beast was already gone.

He knew that it hadn’t retreated. That it had activated its cloak of invisibility to reposition and would reappear at any moment to land a killing blow. Trapper’s eyes were glowing gold, as she desperately tried to use sense life to counter the beast’s skill in time. He could see on her face that while she could tell it was nearby, the crew’s leader wasn’t able to home in on the lizard’s exact location.

The big bastard could be anywhere, mere moments away from striking, and he didn’t have a clue where it was. It could be about to bisect him in a single chomp, or claim the life of his friends with a tongue lash, and he was helpless to stop it this time.

He got ready to activate [Overdrive]—prepared to go all out the instant that he knew where the lizard was. Edge rode the ragged rim of panic, certain that at least one person was going to die before he could react, possibly even himself.

However, that was not what happened.

The next event in the climactic battle was one that no one saw coming, although it wasn’t too shocking with the clarity of hindsight. A turn of events that magnified the danger the crew was facing beyond that of anything the padamas could create.

Because that was the moment when Edge felt the ground shuddering beneath his boots—a rhythmic pounding that grew louder by the heartbeat. Boom. Boom. Boom.

By now, the trunks were swaying in time with the earth shaking. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew that it was bad news.

Trapper put it together faster than the rest of the team. “Something is coming. Something big. Abadon the battle and regroup. We need to get out of here, before it’s too late!”