Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex ignored the sea of approaching gemstone crabs as his attention focused in entirely on the Corrupted Scuttler. Orchid had said she’d be able to buy them some time. He didn’t know how much she’d manage, but he was just going to have to trust her. There was no way they could deal with the huge monster while also worrying about all the backup it had summoned.

Interestingly enough, the Corrupted Scuttler hadn’t moved to press its advantage. The huge monster hadn’t even inched toward Derek to try and attack him while he was down. As far as Alex could tell, it wasn’t holding back out of caution either.

His eyes narrowed slightly. There was a chance that the monster’s strategy was to just sit back and wait for them to get overwhelmed by its gemstone children. That did feel like it would be a pretty effective method to employ. But he couldn’t help but notice that the monster didn’t exactly look… healthy.

Something about the way it carried itself was wrong. Its large claw had fallen back down to the ground after it had struck Derek, where it still remained now, as if magnetized to the earth. Even as Orchid sent waves of elemental magic crashing out in every direction, raining down a hailstorm of icy bolts onto the gemstone crabs, shattering them into tiny, glistening, their master did nothing but watch.

The Corrupted Scuttler definitely wasn’t too weak to fight them. Even with the heavy shell on its back, it didn’t really make sense to just hang back. But this really wasn’t the time to sit around wondering what the huge crab was up to. They had to act while Orchid could still fight back against the encroaching horde.

Princess barreled forward. She loped across the ground, ignoring the smaller crabs that tried to toss themselves into her way and plowing right through them, flinging herself at the Corrupted Scuttler from the side opposite its larger claw as soon as she was close enough. This time, the Scuttler didn’t raise its larger claw. The huge appendage grated against the crystal on the ground with a loud screech. But, despite the noise, it didn’t manage to make it into the air.

Princess’ charge drove home. She looked more like an oily stain than a real threat when compared to the massive monster, but her attack had bought Derek and Glint moment to close the distance as well. Both of them dashed forward, leaping to strike at the portions of the crab that weren’t completely covered in crystal.

The crabs that Orchid hadn’t blasted to pieces flung themselves into their path. Glint wove around them easily. Derek just ignored them. A few latched onto him as he ran past, but they didn’t have a good fate waiting for them. He leapt into the air with a holler, hurtling straight into the side of the Corrupted Scuttler and smashing a few crabs that had been unfortunate to sandwich themselves between Derek and the Scuttler’s body.

Then Derek reared back and swung his blade. It accelerated into a silver blur.

A loud crack echoed through the air. Fragments of metal spun through the air past Derek as his weapon shattered to pieces. Fragments of it spun in a glittering rain around him as he dropped back to the ground. Princess’ attack wasn’t much more successful. Her claws screeched against the crab’s red shell, scoring thin lines across its surface and failing to leave any serious damage in their wake.

Glint was just moments behind them. It seemed like he’d held back a moment to try and get a better look at how the Corrupted Scuttler would respond to the attacks, but it hadn’t really earned him much at all.

His strike was considerably more effective than the other two had been. His razor-sharp cloak-wing carved across one of the crab’s legs, slicing deep into the chitin. Glint landed on the ground running, not even turning to look at the effects of his blow until he was out of range once more.

The results weren’t nearly what any of them had hoped. Though Glint’s attack had penetrated the crab’s outer layer, it still hadn’t been deep enough to draw blood — or whatever else might have lurked within the crab’s body. He’d done nothing more than cut up the outer part of the monster’s tough shell.

Goddamn. How tough is this thing? It doesn’t even look like it noticed the attack!

For that matter, the crab really didn’t seem to have noticed the attack. Even after the trio of blows it had suffered, no matter their somewhat lacking success, it hadn’t followed up. Alex’s eyes narrowed.

There’s no way we’re such a small threat to it that it isn’t even bothering to fight back, right? It had no problem attacking Derek. So what’s going on?

Derek pulled another weapon free from himself and let out a roar. Then he charged the crab again. Princess joined him. But, instead of running in after the other two, Glint turned. He left the others to fight the boss and darted right for Alex, all the while the crash of Orchid’s magic filled the air.

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Glint skidded to a stop before Alex.

“What are you doing?” Alex asked. “Why—”

“It’s pointless,” Glint said. “We need to leave.”

Alex and Claire stared at the Glasmir.

“What?” Alex asked in disbelief. “What do you mean, it’s pointless?”

He was so surprised that he nearly didn’t even notice a gem crab plummeting through the air from the stands above. Claire’s wing snapped out, striking the monster in the side with a loud crack and sending it spinning away to shatter against the ground a dozen feet away. She grimaced in displeasure.

“Sorry!” Orchid yelled, her voice strained. “There’s a lot of them! I can’t hold them back for much longer!”

The fact she’d managed to hold the horde at bay this long was already impressive enough. Unfortunately, just impressive wasn’t anywhere near enough. They had to find out how to take the crab down.

“The crab,” Glint hissed. “It’s not the enemy. We’re fighting the wrong monster. This whole thing is a bait. ”

“Bait? How?” Claire asked. Her eyes darted around the arena. “I mean, we’ve already triggered the trap. Can’t stop that now. We just need to kill the boss before—”

“No,” Glint hissed urgently. “Not the small ones. The big one. It doesn’t look it, but it’s just like the rest of them. If we stay here, we’ll die.”

Alex hesitated for a flicker of a second. Then his eyes narrowed.

Princess threw herself to the side, abandoning her attempts at damaging the Corrupted Scuttler. She grabbed a very surprised Derek, who only had a moment to let out a surprised yelp before he found himself hurtling through the air. He hit the ground a few feet away from Alex and Claire with a grunt and a bounce. Then he looked up at them in befuddlement.

“What was that for?”

“We’re leaving,” Alex said, grabbing Derek by the arm and yanking him to his feet. He raised his voice. “Now! Go!”

“What?” Orchid exclaimed. “What do you mean? We haven’t even—”

Alex didn’t wait for the rest of her sentence. He was already moving. Orchid let out a startled yelp as he grabbed her by the waist and slung her over his shoulder, sprinting for the exit of the arena as fast as his feet could take him. A wave of shimmering stone crabs crashed toward them, spilling down from the stands and rising to snip at his feet.

Instead of dodging or trying to avoid the little monsters, Alex bounded straight across their backs. A few of them managed to snip at his legs, but he was moving too fast and his flesh had been empowered too much by body tempering for the cuts to do anything more than sting.

Claire and Derek caught up with him as he raced into the hall leading into the interior portion of the stadium. A weight lifted off Alex’s shoulders as Derek liberated Orchid from his grip mid-stride, barely even looking bothered about the whole thing.

“It’s just like the first time we met!” Derek exclaimed cheerfully. “Why are we running?”

“I want to know the same thing!” Orchid yelled. “What happened? Did someone get hurt?”

“No! I don’t have the faintest damn idea what’s happening!” Alex yelled back, backhanding a crab that dropped from the ceiling in an attempt to latch onto his face. The blow stung. He would have cursed if he’d afforded himself the time. Instead, he let the crab shatter against the ground and kept running as fast as he could.

“Neither do I,” Claire called.

“Then why are we running?” Orchid asked — and the fact she could speak at all while getting bounced around like a sack of potatoes on Derek’s shoulder was somewhat impressive.

The fact that Derek was keeping speed with them whilst carrying a passenger was equally impressive.

“Because Glint told me to,” Alex replied as they darted down the corridors.

“What?” Orchid asked. She twisted herself in Derek’s grip to face forward, pointing her staff at a wave of crabs that had built in their path. A blast of molten flame erupted from the end of the gnarled white wood, splashing across the monsters and sending them spinning in every direction with a loud bang. “Your monster?”

“Damn right,” Alex agreed as they darted down the corridors. “If that bloodthirsty murderous psychopath thinks that we need to get the hell out of dodge, then that’s what we’re doing. I’m not gonna be the idiot in a horror movie that refuses the obvious foreshadowing and then gets killed in an incredibly ironic manner as punishment.”

“What is he talking about?” Orchid yelled to Claire.

“I have no damn idea,” Claire yelled back. “But he’s right! If Glint thinks something is bad, then we need to get out of here!”

A tremor rolled through the ground.

Then the passage before them exploded.

Alex and the others were all thrown back as fragments of stone and glistening pink crystal tore through the air. The ceiling briefly passed through Alex’s vision before the ground rose up to meet him, knocking the breath from his lungs. He’d rolled to the side and shot back to his feet within the second—

Just in time to see the fissure running through the stadium before them cracking and growing wider. Brilliant pink light, sickly and bright, cut into the hall as it spilled free from the lengthening crack. The gemstones all around the growing hole were glowing a similar color, and it was spreading like an infection.

More fissures split the walls and floor, spreading far faster than any of them could have ever hoped to run. The rumbles shaking the ground grew louder. Crystals burst up from the ground and spilled out from the ravines, burning with Benadryl-pink light.

Something was coming.

“Shit,” Glint breathed.

Alex couldn’t help but agree.

Only too late, he realized what they’d missed. The boss monster hadn’t been the Corrupted Scuttler at all. It had been the gemstones covering it. The gemstones that had been spewing out baby crabs… and the very same ones that were also covering practically every surface around them.

It’s the entire goddamn stadium.