“2 is the last one here!” Teresa yelled, hoping Ezio would catch what she was saying. He was the most capable when it came to disabling the reactors, and honestly he was detrimental to fight with. His nuclear
“But-”
“Just go!” Teresa interrupted, not letting Ezio make any excuses. He was ultimately a one trick pony from what Teresa had seen. He had an absurdly powerful
Either way, this was not a fight Ezio could really contribute to. Honestly even a low level skill could be useful, Teresa’s
had only reached level 6 and was putting in work. To be fair, that skill got power leveled pretty hard fighting against high level Avatars in under an hour, but Teresa’s attributes made up for that.
Regardless, unless Ezio had something crazy in reserves, he was more useful tending to the last reactor. He had only been in the fight for a couple of seconds, and now Teresa was worried the building might collapse on them. She might be fine if that happened, depending on how much HP that drained, but the others would probably be screwed.
Ezio nodded and ran off, heading through the corresponding door. Rubble fell from the ceiling as a massive hole in the wall threatened the structural stability of pretty much everything around them. To be fair, if nuclear
Shame it didn’t.
A quick look around revealed many of the remaining combatants were done for. A few were dragging the healer with a missing foot away, while the others stood to guard them. They were out of Mana and Stamina, revealing a weakness in many of their fighting styles. Even out of resources, so long as Teresa had HP she was able to contribute something.
Thankfully, the sudden drop in numbers was remedied by Ezio’s party. Teresa ran towards the Prime Avatar along with them, letting them go first to gauge the situation. One might think she was using them as bait, which was only kinda true. They simply had more resources, while Teresa had to be careful with what she had left.
Lilith swung her mace at the Prime Avatar at a lightning fast speed, hitting it square in the back before following up with an overhand attack. The second attack was much slower than the first, but seemed to carry more weight to it. The Avatar managed to barely block the mace with the flat of its blade, and for a moment Teresa thought its grip might give out on its sword.
The Prime Avatar launched an uppercut back at Lilith, who managed to avoid the attack. Axton immediately followed up with a tackle that smashed the Avatar against the boundaries of Jake’s
A loud twang rang out as a bullet from Mordecai shot Cher in the back of the neck, damaging a component that seemed important to Teresa. Even with the damage, the Avatar raised a hand at Elaina, who was providing buffs to the rest of her party.
Its palm glowed blue, and a
The Avatar continuously shot out multiple instances of
Teresa chose this moment to step in, using the remainder of the flail she found on the ground. The handle had been split in half, barely giving Teresa any room to hold onto the weapon. She also had no experience using a flail, but she was hoping
She swung the weapon,
still not off cooldown, smashing the spiked ball against the Avatar’s right shoulder. It wasn’t a direct hit, unfortunately
It didn’t do much in terms of damage, but it still staggered the Avatar and disrupted its attack on Jake and Preston. Lilith was right there next to her as well, slamming her mace into the machine as well. Teresa and Lilith proceeded to tag team the Avatar, each hitting it with one attack after another.
Lilith had better Agility and comparable Strength to Teresa, but Teresa was being bogged down by her weapon. She honestly wasn’t a big fan of the flail, it was hard to wield and it made rapid attacks difficult. With her Strength, her sword had felt light as a feather, combine that with her Agility and she could swing that thing like a maniac.
Then again, the flail had more power than her old sword. At first thought, a shortsword might be the best move for Teresa since she liked rapid attacks, but considering how she also wanted more striking power then perhaps a larger weapon would be nice.
Like that massive sword the Prime Avatar was using.
Teresa wanted it.
She had been attacking the machine’s sword arm consistently for that reason. It was massive, Teresa wielding it would almost look comical considering it was probably as long as she was tall, if not a little longer. Thus, even with the flail, Teresa perpetually targeted the Avatar’s right side.
“I’m running out of Mana!” Jake yelled, giving everyone a heads up that
Cher swung her blade at high speeds towards Teresa and Lilith, having trouble targeting either one. Lilith was insanely quick on her feet, while Teresa simply had a lot of experience reading her opponent's movements. Axton kept shoulder checking the Avatar as well whenever an opening arose.
Things were looking good until Jake’s skill deactivated, and immediately after the golden tether vanished a blue wave of Mana burst out from the Avatar.
Axton was able to completely ignore this and suddenly grew a couple inches taller, his equipment growing in size as well. This was his
Unfortunately, Axton was under the impression that his Strength would be comparable to the Avatar’s. He was wrong, and he found out the hard way when he tried to sock the machine in the face with the edge of his shield.
Now that Lilith and Teresa weren’t able to perpetually bother it for a moment, the Prime Avatar stopped the attack with its free hand and elbowed Axton in the face, causing a nasty sound as his neck snapped.
HP: (223/1550)
Stamina: (90/1550)
Mana: (32/1584)
As Axton fell to the ground, Cher sprinted away towards the last reactor site, ignoring everyone nearby. Mordecai landed a shot that struck it in the knee, an incredibly remarkable hit as far as Teresa was concerned. It caused the Avatar to stumble, only for Sarah and Randall to each shoot the Avatar themselves.
Randall shot it in the torso once again, not doing significant damage, though Sarah did something more creative. Her arrow struck the same knee Mordecai just hit, only for
Teresa activated
to also drain the last of her Stamina. Her flail whipped down on the Avatar’s wrist, finally smashing it enough to make the machine drop its sword.
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Fuck yeah!
Teresa was immediately ecstatic about this as she grabbed the sword by the handle, and immediately realized a problem.
Oh fuck!
She was exhausted.
HP: (224/1550)
Stamina: (0/1550)
Mana: (0/1584)
While you didn’t necessarily need Stamina to move, having none felt exactly like being gassed out pre-System, as if she had just sprinted until her lungs forced her to collapse. Her willpower had grown a lot since the System became a part of her life, which is what allowed her to stay standing even while desperately panting for air. Maybe in part it was her Fortitude that kept her from completely collapsing, but in reality it was most likely a combination of her stats and her own refusal to stop.
Her vision was blurring at the edges, but her Perception allowed her to stay focused on what was directly in front of her. The Prime Avatar stood up, and Teresa could hear people trying to speak to her. Under the current circumstances, Teresa couldn’t make out a word they were saying. Her mind was focused entirely on the Avatar in front of her, hyper aware that she could easily die here.
The Avatar’s left fist clenched and Teresa preemptively moved the sword to her left side. The weapon was heavy, and she wasn’t sure if that was a result of her exhaustion or the actual mass of the sword itself. Its width was about as wide as the distance between the outside of each of her shoulders.
It made for a good shield, but she could barely move in time to block the strike. The size of the weapon made it awkward to wield without any practice, causing her to protect herself without stabilizing her footing.
PWANG
The Avatar’s fist smacked into the sword, causing the flat side of the blade to whip into Teresa as well. This sent her tumbling back and knocked her to the ground, but the damage was drastically less than what a direct hit would have done.
She almost dropped her new sword, both her wrists ached profusely as she held onto the weapon. Maybe she could use
Nope, not the time to think about that.
The Avatar pressed forward and applied more pressure. Teresa kept the flat side of the blade between herself and the Avatar at all costs, but soon it wouldn’t be enough.
PWANG-PWANG-PWANG
The Avatar launched punch after punch, eight high powered hits striking her makeshift shield in just one second. It was moving much faster than Teresa could hope to match, but she didn’t have to. Every attack from the Avatar required it to launch a full punch, while Teresa only needed to slightly move her wrists to block each hit. Otherwise, Teresa would have been pummeled into the ground already.
A metal hand gripped the sword’s blade, causing immediate panic. Sparks were flying as projectiles struck the Avatar, but it ignored them in favor of finishing off Teresa once and for all.
As Teresa was expecting to die, Lilith stormed in and struck the Avatar, giving Teresa a chance to yank the sword away. She reeled back, pulling on the handle from an awkward angle while trying to put distance between herself and the machine, but in her winded state her speed was greatly limited.
The movement caused sparks to fly along the Avatar’s hand, and Teresa was shocked to see that she managed to cut through its armor plating and split its hand in half. How sharp is this damn thing?
Now that she had a chance to break free, she took in her surroundings in a daze. Preston had been striking the Avatar repeatedly while it was attacking Teresa, and Jake had been on his way to help. Axton was getting back on his feet now that Elaina healed him up, and Lilith was back in action after getting blown away by the
Teresa tried to stand up, and was immediately light headed as she did so. She still firmly held onto the sword handle, but didn’t have the ability to lift it at all. Lilith and Preston were making sure it wouldn’t pursue her, and even the others who had run out of resources had managed to regenerate just enough to use the bare minimum version of their skills to try and help out.
“Jesus fuck Teresa!” Elaina yelled as she ran over, though Teresa couldn’t really see what she was so worked up about. She was really tired though, and not in a sleepy sort of way. It felt like her Soul was barely staying inside of her body anymore, like she was trying to keep air inside a balloon with a hole in it.
HP: (13/1550)
Stamina: (0/1550)
Mana: (1/1584)
Oh, well that didn’t look great in Teresa’s professional opinion.
Restoration Mana flooded her body, specifically her arms, and she realized both of them had been broken. Huh, how was she even holding onto the sword still? It must have been shock or something, that was totally how being in shock worked. So this is what shock feels like. If anyone were to ask Teresa what hurt the most, it was her heart struggling to beat in her chest, she hadn’t even noticed there was anything wrong with her mangled arms.
“You need a potion!” Elaina yelled, pulling one out of her
“I had one like, an hour ago or something.” Teresa said, thinking about the Mana potion she consumed right before blowing up the artificial hill.
“Well you’re going to have to stay alive until you can have another.” Elaina cast
Her gaze shifted over to the battle still ongoing as several people fought the Avatar at once, which was still trying to escape towards the final activated reactor. Randall, her dad, was screaming and running towards her, but it felt like it was in slow motion. Perhaps it was her brain still trying to perceive everything at maximum speed, the only reason she had managed to survive as long as she did.
Elaina handed her a pill of some sort, and without thinking Teresa immediately downed it. Damn, she should never go out to a club while on the verge of death, not that she was planning on it anyways.
“That was a Vitality Pill, it’ll boost your health regen.” Elaina explained, an eyebrow raised at Teresa who immediately consumed what was given to her.
“Awesome.” Teresa said, struggling to keep herself from vomiting. Would that lower her HP? It’d suck if that was how she died, not keeping her stomach under control after overexertion.
There was still the Avatar to deal with, and her new sword had demonstrated already just how good it was at damaging it. Ideally she’d let someone in better condition borrow it, but just as she was thinking this she got a System notification.
Questline
Contaminated Zone
Stop The Spread (2/2)
The source of the radiation has been revealed, within the Contaminated Zone lies Chernobyl. Avatar production has been made possible by the System to defend the sapient nuclear plant. Conquer the facility and destroy what stands to end the spread of the Contaminated Zone. City rewards will be based on combined performance. Individual rewards will be calculated separately. Exceptional rewards will be given to those who stop the source.
Radioactive Portals defeated (city): 80 [7129 points]
Radioactive Portals defeated (individual): 32 [5296 points]
Quest Complete
Rewards Available At City Monolith
All production at Chernobyl has been disabled. Radioactive Portals will no longer have accelerated spawn rates. Visit a City Monolith to spend your points.
Administering Additional Rewards…
Skill Acquired:
Title Acquired:
Skill Acquired:
Skill Acquisition Failed, Incompatible Host
Reattempting…
Skill Acquired:
Skill Acquisition Failed, Incompatible Host
Administering Alternative Rewards…
Type: General
Gain the ability to store physical objects within your Soul. Capacity is determined by skill level. Items can be forcefully removed from your soul by a sufficiently powerful enemy.
----->
Type: General
Gain the ability to store physical objects within your Soul. Capacity is determined by skill level. Items can be forcefully removed from your soul by a sufficiently powerful enemy. May interact with items contained within your Soul by entering a meditative trance, temporarily shutting down all external senses.
Questline
Contaminated Zone
Eidolon Slayer (1/1)
Chernobyl has been shut down, and all System benefits provided to [Cher] have been revoked. However, the Avatars still remain.
Deliver the final blow to {Prime Avatar Of Cher (E) [Attuned: Radiation] (lv 106)}
Only one may claim the prize.
Time remaining: 59 minutes, 59 seconds.
Reward:
The battle paused, even the Prime Avatar Of Cher hesitated for the briefest moment. For those with high enough mental stats, it only took about a second or two to skim through all the System messages.
All eyes turned to the Avatar, and in that moment, none of the Avatars outside had any restraints about dropping a building on everyone inside.
They opened fire.