"I thought you had to kill a bunch of avatars," Brand said. He spared a glance to the swirling cloud before firing a three round burst into a giant spider.

"We should," Angelica pulled that massive Anti-tank rifle out of her inventory and fired it. The shell ripped through a dozen mobs before Humbaba swatted it out of the air with his club. He didn't even break stride. Angelica pulled the gun back into her inventory. "I don't like that guy."

"He doesn't like us either," Brunhilda pointed out, she then slammed her gauntlet together, and with a ringing chime my health was topped up. "I wouldn't care in most situations but if that Humbaba isn't zat least level forty then I am an elf."

The helicopter made another pass. It was being a bit more selective in its targets but Helen was still blaring borderline evil laughter as she fired into the crowd of monsters. Humbabe picked up a snow lion and flung it at the helicopter. Luckily the snow lion did not cooperate in this endeavour. Its claws tried to hook into Humbaba's arm, but didn't get enough purchase. I am not sure if the claw tore the bigfoot's flesh or simply ripped out of the cat's paw. Either way it flew wide of the helicopter, but it was a close thing.

"Cat!" Helen shrieked, causing the speaker to feedback, "Charlie move!"

That caused the helicopter to gain altitude and adopt a different flight strategy, a much less aggressive one.

I had been spending this time pummeling the hell out of mobs. I was still pulling the vast majority with the Vitae of Tumult… oh goddammit I am stupid. Well not so much stupid but didn't consider it, because… I didn't like the idea.

"There he is!" Sunit shouted. He was juggling a mace, a spear, a shield and a massive curved knife as he dismantled three mobs. Angelica was faster at inventory management than me, but Sunit was a master of it. He was seamless with his inventory. He had weaponized it.

I followed his view and Grond was emerging from the corpse of a dead mob. He didn't have a cloak made of a mob's skins this time. Instead he had another set of the scale mail armor, just like the curse set Adora had given him. He gazed at me as he began to twirl a chained weapon in his hands. Grond spared a glance to Aiko, before returning to me. He then grinned and turned to walk toward the goblins. He then whistled once and pointed.

A good third of the mobs turned and charged toward the goblin, Blood Frenzy be damned.

The mob met a determined and organized gunline. Don't get me wrong the horde of monsters was taking horrifying damage, but they were going to hit that line more or less intact. That is when the scouts popped out of the snow. They were to the side of the mobs, and the crossbow fire was more effective than I would have guessed.

Trouble was all of this did little more than jack shit to Grond. A few bullets pinged off his armor before he moved almost instantly into the goblin line. The chain whirled and green bodies were torn to shreds.

I was too far away,and there was almost a half mile of monsters in the way. Also Humbaba was about to crack my head again with his big ole club. One of the worst feelings in the world is the realization that you can do nothing to stop what is about to happen. It really is like that dreadful moment of weightlessness before you hit the pavement.

Thank god for Celeste. Faster than the light blazing around her she struck Grond. She had aimed for his neck. With comparable speed he partially dodged. Celeste's spear stabbed right through his arm. The six spears of light that followed weren't able to find their mark. Grond blocked three with his chain, ducked two and the last glanced off his armor.

Celeste wasn't actually interested in a one and done hit though. Her goal was to pin Grond and then take him for a ride. That was a lot more successful. In a fraction of second she and Grond were higher in the sky than the helicopter. Grond wasn't flying so much as standing on empty air as he lashed out his chain. Celeste darted out of the way and charged again.

I would like to tell you what happened, but Humbaba demanded my attention. As an apocalyptic noise of metal on metal shook the earth, I side stepped Humbaba club. I placed a hand on the huge ape just as he backhanded me across the face.

Attack from Humbaba Successful!

You take takes 29 damage!

Humbaba's Seven Auras of Terror triggered!

Debuffs reset.

Humbaba is now Gore Soaked.

Humbaba is now causing Blood Frenzy.

…They are coming for him!

Titanic Regeneration heals 22HP

HP 593/600

The impact snapped my head to the side hard enough to cause the vertebrae in my neck to pop but nothing broke. Still I had managed to mark him with the Vitae of Tumult. Every inch of him that didn't glow with green energy had been painted a bloody crimson as he dripped blood.

Philip shot Humbaba in the eye again, "We should back up."

He was correct. We were about to be swallowed by the army of mobs again.

Through the haze of extreme agony, I managed to ignore the gore soaked condition again. A tumor covered bear that was about to try and bite me turned and roared at Humbaba.

Humbaba was unperturbed about the bear. That was mostly because he was dealing with a snow lion clawing at his neck, two spiders biting his legs and three of his own Bigfeet fellow clubbing him. The damage the lesser mobs were doing was pitiful. Most couldn't seem to pierce his fur. Humbaba's response was what I hoped for. He crushed some with his club. Then splattered a few of the spiders with his feet before seizing a bigfoot by the neck and wielded the unfortunate monster like a club until its body pulped. Then the boss mob pulled the snow lion off of it's back and bit the cat's head off.

A blinding flare of light preceded a crash so loud ice shattered. In the relative moment of calm brought on by the mobs fixing their aggro on Humbaba I looked up. Celeste and Grond's battle was vastly more frantic than the explosive crash rattling the Goblin Waste's every minute or so would imply. Neither was manipulating time… as far as I could tell. That meant they truly were that fast. Celeste zipped through the air in a complex trajectory before trying to strike grond with her spear. She then repeated this tactic three more times. Grond dodged two of the attacks, jumping off of the air before finding footing again on open space, and blocking another of Celeste's attacks. The chain whiled faster than the blades of the helicopter shattering spears of light and lashing out at Celeste as she pressed Grond and feinted trying to find an opening.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The explosive impacts happened when either managed to land a blow. The last one had been due to Celeste catching Grond in the stomach. The spear punctured the scales of his armor with that thunderous noise before the six shards of light Celeste conjured also connected. Reddish golden ichor leaked from the wound briefly. Grond healed fairly quickly, but not instantly. Each mob that died sent a great mote of power to the God of Beast on its death.

That was the point of the Blessing of Grond. Sure it probably handed out some buff to the monsters, but also connected the mobs to him. Grond being the type of guy he is then leveraged that to take everything he could from them. In this case all the power he could pull to fight Celeste.

I wasn't sure how things really stacked up between them. The system seemed purpose built to allow vagueness into the particulars of higher Scale conflicts. Grond's essence this form he manifested as was a level fifty Demigod. I couldn't predict how that would stack up against Celestes level thirty-something Divine Scale Angelic form. That was just Scale and levels. The interaction of Class, Traits, and Perks further obscured things.

Observation put them on fairly even footing. At least that was the case for now. Celeste couldn't maintain her power indefinitely.Twenty minutes is a long time in a fight, but high Scale conflict seemed to go in two directions, either a quick and brutal K.O or a prolonged tortuous slog. Grond was also running out of mobs. He had started with multiple armies worth mobs. Now… he still had six figures worth nightmares but he was on the low end. His forces were trending toward five figures as well. The industrial nature of the slaughter occurring did nothing to blunt the violence of the reality.

Yet another explosive crash echoed over the battlefield. Grond had connected with his chain. Celeste was sent spiraling from the impact. No, wait she was untangling herself from the coils of the chain. She pulled free an instant before Grond yanked it tight. This shredded Angelica's snow gear, and revealed a gleaming celestial chainmail armor. Celeste always shone with a holy light, powerful yet calm and peaceful. With the armor though the nimbus of power radiating off of her was both wrathful and so profoundly bright it dimmed the sun in comparison.

Humbaba burst through the sea of mobs. The big bastard was still dead set on killing me. A good dozen mobs had also tried to take a chunk out of me as well. The vitae should have focused things on the Boss Mob. I still had the stupid Curse of Grond. I had assumed that was part of why the snow lion kept appearing. Sure, that was mostly Wilson being an asshole, but he likes to have in-universe reasons for things happening. That is the trouble with competent assholes, they tend to get what they want.

The Extreme Agony condition was dulling my focus. I was contemplating Narrator meddling when I should have been dodging. Luckily, Brunhilda had her head in the game. The Spectral dwarf deflected the club. The impact seemed to knock the ghostly protector off their feet. That was a problem, but it did give me enough heads up to side step Humbaba's kick.

I talk down my fighting capacity fairly often because quite frankly I am not that good at it. I rely on my high stats and Scale to cover the gaps in my knowledge and instincts. Without the system enabling my success in martial pursuits I would have died long ago, probably well before that first Snow Lion Alpha. Despite all of that, I had honed the reflexes needed to counter attack.

Attack from Humbaba dodged!

Counter-Attack Successful! Humbaba takes 54 damage.

Humbaba has been marked for death

Eitrkaldr triggers! 40 MP spent.

Humbaba takes 2160 damage.

Humbaba resists 25% of damage.

The knife cut through Humbaba fur, and slid between his collarbone and ribs. That is when I pumped forty mana from the well into the blade. A surge of absolute zero chill coursed into Humbaba and ravaged his insides. The thing is having done more than fifteen hundred points of damage in one hit, Humbaba was still alive. I had picked forty because Brunhilda said forty when guessing his and the well was starting to run dry. It was below two thousand MP already. The fighting wasn't done yet.

Sunit clocked Humbaba with a flaming wheel. The green energy running over the boss mob's body fizzled out. He still wasn't dead but he was running out of steam. Humbaba swung his club wide and nearly caught me. The dozen or so mobs around him though had a last day of their lives. Quite a few of the were snow lions. Fuck them.

Philip shot Humbaba in the eye yet again. This time though the injury stuck. Half blinded roaring in pain and anger, Humbaba lost track of us. The sky flashed as holy light clashed with godly ferocity. The cataclysmic noise of divine beings battling could not drown out Humbaba's words. "I come back! I kill goblins! I kill you!" he pointed far to my right.

It took five minutes for the mobs to bring Humbaba down. By the end the creature was a tattered skeleton, but right until his last breath he was slaughtering the creatures mauling and shouting vengeance against goblins and me.

We were dealing the spillover of mobs and the goblins were still defending themselves

Bigfoot Dungeon Failed!

Insufficient mobs slain within the dungeon boundaries.

Spawn rates will be increased for the next 48 hours.

Dungeon can not be cleared for the 24 hours.

Better luck next time.

New Achievement!

Mob Justice

You have managed to kill a boss with mobs! It is an impressive display of manipulation and sociopathic weaponization of living creatures. You must be fun to have around at parties. Now, I am sure you have a busy schedule arranging dog fights or cooking up the rooster who lost, but you should take the time to appreciate what you have managed here, unspeakable abject violence.

Reward: Bloody Handed

Once per day you may mark a creature as the target. All mobs that can perceive the target will prioritize the target unless attacked by another living being. A word of warn though. The target will be immune to any and all attacks from you. This ability will last for 24 hours. Should the target survive they will no longer be marked. That would be awkward.

Experience withheld. Please consult with Narrator for details.

Oh wow that is evil as shit, and an obvious trap. That did seem on brand for the system.

The mobs now missing a primary target were beginning to swarm everything. I pulled up the menus and stopped ignoring the Gore Soaked condition.

I was the Tank. I would keep doing my job. As the mobs focused on me again, I went back to living second to second. It was a little easier without the complicating factor of Humbaba. I also had three stacks of Ablative Shell at the start. That let me go back to using the Claws of Darkness. I wasn't alone either, Philip and Sunit continued to kill targets of opportunity as the mobs fixated on me. Brand was still protecting Aiko. Aiko was weathering the storm surprisingly well. She kept her heat on a swivel and avoided letting the surge of mobs surround her, but she kept one eye on the sky as well. Brunhilda was making her way back to the goblins. Between Grond's initial attack and the third of the mobs still attacking the goblins, they needed a healer.

Celeste and Grond clashed again. The constant turbulence of their aerial battle seemed to be triggering a storm. Clouds darkened the sky and hail had begun to fall. After the impact of Grond's Chain against Celeste's mail and her spear against his scales. Lightning crackled across the sky.

They were evenly matched. I had a theory on how to kill Grond. He was smart enough to stay out of range of the knife. I pulled the knife into my inventory before equipping the Claws. I shrugged signally Philip. He hopped off and caught the haft of Sunit's spear.

I clanged the claws together, "Hey Grond! Your toys are shit!" I thundered with Voice of the Titan.

Taunt Check… Critically Successful!

Warning! Continued use of Voice of the Titan could trigger Mana Bleed.

The dumb son of a bitch looked at me and started shouting something. Celeste may have the moniker of Truth as part of her name, but the truth was she was not above hitting the evil god with a cheap shot. Good for her, Grond was a sack of shit. I hope what happened next hurt. Her spear caught Grond below the ribs, punched through his arm and then she levered the tip up into his heart.

Against any mortal human before the system it should be a killing hit.

Time stopped. The impossible still followed that thrum of everything stopping

All processes stopped.

Arbitration will begin in…

5…

4…

3…

2…

I sighed. Of course…

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