Randall immediately fired
with his musket while Sarah shot an arrow using
Several light warrior archetypes used
Unfortunately, none of this really mattered.
The first shots to land were those fired from a gun. Randall’s
left a barely noticeable scorch mark on its body The only bullet to actually do any damage was one fired from the Completionist in group three, and even that barely left a dent.
The arrows unfortunately didn’t do much better. As a matter of fact, the Prime Avatar was even able to dodge them, bursting through Jake’s
“Disappointing.” A robotic female voice said, coming from the Avatar. “It is hard to believe I allowed this to go so far. Before I kill you, I would like to propose a deal.”
“You’ve been able to talk this whole time?” Preston asked, but he was pointedly ignored.
“Whoever gives me the Elephant’s Foot gets to live. I am assuming it is stored in someone’s
“Why should we give it to you? Are you worried you won’t be able to get it back if you kill the wrong person?” Noel asked, probing for information.
“I am fully capable of retrieving items from an
“What guarantees can you offer? For all we know, you’ll kill everyone anyways.” Teresa asked. She wasn’t actually planning on giving up the Elephant’s Foot, but every minute wasted talking was one more minute for her to regenerate resources. It would also buy time for Ezio to disable another reactor. Teresa was using her mental stats to think about the current situation as fast as she could.
Reactors 4 and 3 were guaranteed to be disabled now. Reactor 1 was probably offline as well, leaving only reactor 2 and potentially 5 and 6. They needed to shut down reactor 2, but so long as the Prime Avatar was standing in front of them that was highly unlikely to happen.
“There is no amount of assurance I can provide to convince you. I understand the lapse in logic I have made. Very well, I will just kill you all.”
The Prime Avatar sprinted straight towards them while Noel, Jake, and two other tanks stood ready to do whatever they could. Jake preemptively swung his axe, ready to deliver a
Once again, this accomplished very little as the Avatar simply outpaced them, easily dodging both of their attacks and following up with a backhand slap that sent Noel flying into a wall. His body smashed through the structure, skipping along the ground on the other side of the wall as he struggled to move, needing
The tanks from group three each attempted to counterattack, one using a flail and the other using a simple Tutorial Sword. The Prime Avatar swung its jagged sword in response to block the attacks. It cut through the flail and its user, slicing both in half while the other tank bailed and dropped to the ground, having the briefest amount of extra time to react and avoid being bisected.
Preston jumped high in the air and activated
Teresa swung her own sword down towards the side of the Avatar, using
for extra force. Simultaneously, Sarah fired another arrow with
These attacks all landed at once, though they did very little damage. The Prime Avatar stepped back, getting out of range before anyone else could land a hit, and its sword began to glow blue. At first, Teresa thought it was using
A
, a skill that functioned similarly to
Randall shot the Avatar in the knee while a shadowy pillar shot out of the ground next to the machine, slowly encasing the Avatar in a layer of darkness. Teresa herself swung her own weapon at the wrist of its hand wielding the sword impaling Jim, striking it ten times within the span of a second as she utilized her Agility and Strength to the max.
The light warriors from group three were also striking the Avatar while another shot using
It wasn’t enough.
The Avatar flicked its sword upwards, slicing through Jim and cutting his head in half. The mage from his party, Chris, screamed as he rapid fired
A healer from group three kept shooting
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The Prime Avatar activated
The healer, someone from The Mall, dropped to the ground with a surprising degree of Agility for someone of his class archetype. He managed to avoid the first swing, but the Avatar was fast. Less than a second after the sword whizzed over the healer, it swung again ready to kill the healer who was in no position to dodge again.
Teresa activated
He screamed as his foot was sliced off, still using
Projectiles kept pummeling into the Avatar’s body as several people shot it repeatedly. One of Sarah’s arrows managed to pop a tiny chunk of its shoulder off with
Each of the remaining light warrior archetypes sprinted over and attempted to hold the Avatar still. The Avatar thrashed, but hundreds of points worth of Strength across multiple people were giving it their all to wrestle the machine away from the injured healer while the rangers and mages continued to shoot it. The darkness from the
On top of that, the tanks arrived and began pummeling the Avatar’s torso as a different person held each individual limb. They could really use some heavy hitters, but the image of Jim’s death and Noel being launched from a single attack crossed Teresa’s mind.
Thankfully, Noel was back, although he didn’t look great. His armor was nothing more than scrap metal that made it harder for him to move now, but it was clear he was pissed. Noel and Jake each repeatedly struck the Avatar, each hit using a different ability as they cycled through their skillsets to deal with the various cooldowns.
Teresa was out of Mana from using
The strategy was working. Chunks of metal were slowly being chopped away from the Avatar’s front while the rangers and mages attacked it from the back, numerous debuffs stacking on top of each other.
Strangely enough, the attacks began doing less as a pale yellow material with a hint of blue covered the Avatar’s surface, though it wasn’t enough to completely block the damage. Wait. Was that
A terrifying scream emanated from the Avatar, sounding like it came from within it rather than from a speaker system of some sort. An additional blue wave of energy shot out, applying a large amount of force that pushed everyone away. Its Strength increased as it managed to fling everyone holding it down, once its legs were free it used
If Teresa had to guess, that was a combination of
Did this Avatar have a class? The Avatars never really had any skills in the past, but many of the skills this one was using could belong to either a tank or light warrior type class. The Avatar certainly had absurd physical stats, being incredibly strong, durable, and fast. Teresa would believe it if the Avatar was a mixture of the light warrior and tank archetypes.
An
Normally this skill did a lot of damage to whatever attacked him, especially when it was a stabbing motion. Nearly all of the force from the strike would be sent back to the point of contact. If the whole sword had struck his shield, the force would be spread evenly across the edge that hit him. Since it was a stabbing motion, all of that force would be pushed back into a smaller refined point at the end of the sword.
Against some monsters, this was enough to completely obliterate a limb, and often against opponents with equipment it would damage or even shatter the thrust attack.
That didn’t happen.
The sword was repelled, but looked like it was still in great condition otherwise as the Avatar swung again. What the hell was that thing made of? It must have been a ridiculously high level sword, prompting Teresa to use
Materials: ???
Enchantments: Heat Resistance
That wasn’t overwhelmingly helpful, it didn’t even have a description. At least Teresa knew this weapon was in fact protected against heat the same way the Avatars themselves were.
Jake slid across the floor as he blocked the second strike that came almost immediately after the first, the excessive force making it impossible for him to just stand there and tank it without a skill assisting him.
The Avatar paused for a moment, clenching its fists as it looked like it was in pain. Did someone do something to it? Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but Teresa wasn’t going to waste the moment. It seemed the others were keen on taking every advantage they could get as well.
Multiple people charged the Avatar at once, Teresa using
on its sword wrist once again. If she could disarm the Avatar and take the sword for herself, that would be a huge benefit.
Metal creaked as she slammed her sword into her target, her own sword bending from the strike. Shit, she didn’t have the Mana to repair her weapon, and it was damaged to a barely usable condition.
The more the fight went on, the less confident Teresa was that they could pull through. They had managed to damage the Avatar by this point, but it was only a matter of time before it killed more people. Every second was a war to stay alive, the fight hadn’t even lasted two minutes yet and they already had severe casualties.
Teresa was trying not to freak out about Jim, he had been a good guy from the little time she knew him, but she had plenty of experience procrastinating panic attacks.
A series of skeletal hands, each gripping the wrists of the previous, shot out from a mage in group three towards the Avatar. It wrapped around the Avatar’s body, once again causing corrosive damage wherever it made contact, but the skeletal link was broken by a quick swing of the sword.
The Avatar deflected a glowing green arrow with its sword and darted towards the Completionist ranger that had been repeatedly trying to restrain it with
This put the Avatar in a position away from the others, and a glowing sea of flames shot over the machine. Ezio had returned with his party, and blasted the Prime Avatar with nuclear
The flames died down after a few moments, to reveal a relatively unscathed Prime Avatar. Its exterior was looking rough from the battle so far, but its movements were still pristine.
Lilith and Axton charged forward, each prepared to engage with the incredibly powerful Avatar. Teresa took in her surroundings, trying to think of what she could do to contribute.
HP: (211/1550)
Stamina: (205/1550)
Mana: (13/1584)
Her resource pools weren’t looking too great. Teresa’s sword was pretty much scrap until she could repair it with enough Mana, but she could always pick up someone else’s weapon. There was half of a flail on the ground, it would be incredibly awkward to wield but still possible.
“This is so fucking stupid.” Jake was saying, getting Teresa to turn her head.
“Shut up, it’s gonna work!” Preston replied. Teresa felt like she must have had a concussion at what she saw. Preston was giving Jake a piggyback ride, and ran straight into battle with the Avatar.
Jake activated
It was an amazing idea, one that just might buy enough time to shut down reactor 2.