Aard smashed the white fog and pushed down two of the growling bodies. The last one was already inches away from Roy, arms outstretched towards the witcher's waist. It opened its maw and tried to chomp on Roy's artery. The bite was powerful and audible, but it didn't manage to reach the witcher. Instead, one of its teeth went flying.
It shook its head in confusion, for its target had gone missing. The witcher stood on his tiptoes and spun his body, dodging the body's attack while circling around to its blind spot simultaneously. His lean muscles went taut as he raised Aerondight and swung it down on the body.
One big head flew into the air before it fell with a thud.
The headless body remained in a half-kneeling position as black blood spurted from its neck, and its head was still snapping at the air uselessly.
Roy heaved a sigh. It might have looked effortless on his part, but just those few moments of battle expended most of his stamina. His forehead was covered in sweat, and his armor was drenched, but there was no time for respite.
Two more monsters came charging at him. Roy remained in his spot, but all of a sudden, he grabbed a hand crossbow out of thin air. The young witcher pulled the trigger so quickly it left afterimages, and he didn't have to lock or aim either.
Before the bodies could even reach him, Roy fired two bolts, and they hit the monster's head, sending it flying back with the impact.
The bolt destroyed the body's brain before it came flying out of its head.
As the first body hit the ground, Roy lifted Gabriel up straight and slammed it into the attacker on his left. At the same time, the young witcher hit its face with his sword's hilt.
The monster howled as it lost its balance, but the witcher gave it no chance to rest. Roy thrust his blade deep into the monster's eyeball, and it went limp.
'(3) Revived killed. EXP +15.'
"Good thing these bastards don't know how to use their brains." Roy heaved a sigh. If he were facing a troop of highly trained soldiers with the same physical capabilities, he would be hard-pressed to defeat them.
The young witcher made another Quen sign to cover himself with the yellow shield. Roy flicked his wrist again to cleanse his sword of the blood. As the battle dragged on, Roy cast Fear again, and the crimson tentacles squirmed in the air.
But it didn't work against something without a will like the revived. Roy darted into the fog and charged full speed ahead to the place where he heard the grunt.
The fog and dim light restricted his sight, but his super senses more than made up for that. Roy was listening to his surroundings and sniffing the air. The sounds and smells were telling him where he needed to go.
The stench of preservatives was coming from ten yards to his left, and two distinct footsteps were coming closer to him. The bells that rang from their ankles told Roy there were two revived there.
It was a weird feeling. Even though his sight was failing him, his smell and hearing alone gave him enough information to make out a rough map of the monster distribution around him.
"Here!" The smell of fresh blood. It's different from these monsters' rotten blood. He took a few steps ahead and heard the sounds of someone huffing and puffing. Through the fog, he could vaguely see the silhouette of a human leaning on the black wall.
"Todd?" Roy cast a mini Aard and blew away the fog ahead of him. Then he came face to face with the mercenary.
Todd was in a worse state than him. Part of his right thigh was gone, most of his body was covered in blood, and his face was as pale as a ghost. Roy had never seen him look so bad before. His scalpel was gone, and the rib spreader was all he had. Filthy flesh and blood were stuck to it, and a revived with a smashed head lay beside him.
"Shh!" The mercenary was crouching behind the wall's corner, pointing to his left nervously and telling Roy to be silent.
Roy nodded and sat down beside him quietly. As if by magic, he produced a marigold potion and tossed it to Todd, telling him to drink it. He then pointed to himself and raised all his fingers. I killed sixteen of them. He then pointed a questioning look at Todd. How many did you kill?
Todd raised five fingers.
"So there's at least fourteen left."
Roy held his blade up and was about to go left, but Todd quickly held him back and shook his head.
He mouthed something silently, and Roy managed to read it. "There's a big one?"
Bells started ringing in the air again, but it was different this time. A dozen of them were ringing at once. It was as if a bunch of revived were moving at once. At the same time, a head poked out from their left.
Calling it a head was slightly incorrect. That 'head' was something like a bloated mass of flesh smashed into smithereens and then stitched together with a dozen faces. All of the mouths opened and closed at the same time, and fluids made of drool, blood, and tissue fluid dripped to the ground.
Its multitude of noses were sticking to the ground, sniffing it like they were hunting dogs. And then all of its eyes moved to look at the witcher and mercenary. It felt like a big fly was looking straight at them, but that was not the end. A bigger shadow emerged from the fog, and then out came a big torso with a bunch of limbs attached to its side. The monster looked like a gigantic human centipede, if you could call something like that a human.
'Gigantic Revived
After getting its body blasted into smithereens, this revived went on a search for its missing body parts, but instead came to the conclusion that everyone else's parts looked better than what it had. The desire to devour engulfed it and merged these bodies together, and thus, this gigantic monster was born.
HP: 200
Strength: 16 (+8 due to its size)
Constitution: 20 (+10 due to multiple hearts)
Dexterity: 10 (+5 due to its sheer number of legs)
Perception: 14 (+10 due to all around perceptive organs)
Will: N/A
Charisma: 0
Spirit: 2
Skill:
Flesh of the Dead (Passive): Revived by unknown energy. A body without a soul or sense of pain. Immune to mental attacks and poison.’
***
"This is the thing that slammed the door and sent me flying?" Roy scowled. He thought he had seen a lot of disgusting creatures in his life, but this one broke the record on his disgust meter. This is the stuff of nightmares and horror stories.
A gust of stomach-churning breath wafted over the duo. Roy held Todd's arm and tossed him away. The mercenary grunted, but that was the least of their worries. Then the witcher slid ahead on the ground the moment the creature tried to flatten him.
He managed to hide underneath its head, but the monster slammed into the wall, and everything shuddered. It created a big hole in the wall, but the monster also looked dazed and stunned. The headbutt had injured it as well.
Todd, who barely escaped with his life, struggled to get up, but what he saw made him gasp. If that thing had crashed into me, I'd be mincemeat by now. But where's Roy?
He looked around nervously and saw a crimson light flash from underneath the monster. Three of its right legs were cut off, and a bloody man with a sword rolled back out.
Roy was not in his best state. He overestimated his skills. The monster didn't crash into him head-on, but it still smacked the witcher's back. It sent agony screaming up into his head, and his organs were injured, but luckily, he managed to create a big hole on the monster's soft belly and brought down half of its HP.
But the crisis was not over. "Activate!"
A cool sensation coursed through his body like a masseuse giving him a relaxing massage. His HP and Mana were healed by a third of their values, and Roy was reinvigorated.
Getting injured sent the monster into overdrive. The eyes on the back of its head focused on Roy, and it turned around to pounce at its attacker.
Roy was one step too slow this time. He was sent flying into the mist, and his magical shield broke, but it managed to offset the impact. He landed safely and staggered backward, but Gabriel was still trained on the monster.
Once again, he let off the combo of Guided Arrows and Stun Bolts at the monster's grotesque face. Then he tossed Dragon's Dream and cast a jet of flames at it the moment the bomb broke.
The flames ignited the smoke and mist, and the explosion made the room shudder again. There was also the sound of something crying and howling in pain.
As Roy peered through the smoke, he saw the gigantic revived rolling on the ground in an attempt to put out the fire that was burning it like a flaming porcupine. Its eyes were still firmly on Roy, and there was murder in them.
Roy switched his hand crossbow out for Aerondight and cast another Quen over himself. He held the sword behind him calmly like a dracolizard swinging its tail, and then the young witcher charged straight ahead at the humongous monster.
He leapt into the air and stood firmly on its gruesome head before burying Aerondight in the monster's skull. As he ran down the monster's back, Aerondight made a smooth cut along its nape and back, opening a long and bloody gash.
When Roy's attack came to an end, so did the monster's life. It fell with a crash, and its body split into two halves from its head.
'Gigantic revived killed. EXP +50. Level 7 Witcher (1900/4500).'
"Whew!" Roy felt his strength leave him as he slumped onto the ground. He didn't even have the energy to lift a finger.
"That's it? We won?" Todd limped over, still holding that rib spreader in his hand. He stared at the mountainous corpse dumbly, still in disbelief that it died. He didn't see how the witcher killed him, as the mist obscured his sight.
"That's it? You think that was a walk in the park? I would have left you behind if I hadn’t been able to win just now!" Roy barked. And then he realized something. With the death of the gigantic revived, the mist that was covering the chamber was slowly fading away, and their sight was not obscured anymore.
The duo held up their weapons and took defensive stances as they looked around, but what they saw was a shocker. All the corpses of the revived and the gigantic revived were gone, leaving behind nothing but bloodstains.
It was like the battle just now was a dream, but Roy's EXP did increase, and Todd was badly injured.
The duo held themselves up and went into the morgue once more, but the deeper they went, the more surprised they were. All the corpses they fought just now had been returned to their original places by some sort of mysterious entity.
The corpses that came after them like crazed beasts were lying on the beds once more like the lifeless bodies they were.
Eventually, they turned their sights to a certain bed: the one Elsa was on.
Roy arched his eyebrow, while Todd's jaw dropped in sheer disbelief.
The cuts they’d done earlier were all gone, and the organs and ribs that were on the tray had disappeared as well.
Where did those things go?
Elsa was once again whole and unharmed. There was not a single wound on her, and she was sleeping on the bed like a little princess cursed by an eternal slumber.
***
***
