Hell's Glitch (LitRPG): Into a Dark Adventure (7 page)

6 An Unreal Fight

Back in the game world ...

Sam shivered.  He was now face to face with the strange plant
creature, Hardass and could see that it didn’t have a real face, only hollowed
out cavities for its fake eyes and mouth like a puppet.  Normally Sam found
stuff like that sickeningly cool, but right now his body was racked with pain
and his health bar was steadily draining.  Now, he was under twenty percent,
dangerous territory since each of Hardass’ previous attacks had taken more than
a third of his health.

Hardass stood in place and started shaking spastically, so
Sam ran.  He put as much distance as he could between himself and the plant
creature.  Unfortunately Hardass was quick despite looking like he was made out
of wood.  It remained only a few paces behind him.  Sam ran for a while, but
saw that not only was his green stamina bar nearly depleted, but so was his
health bar.  He had no choice, but to stop and grab the Soul Fire from his hip
and take a swig from it.  His health shot up nearly to maximum along with his
stamina.  The only problem was his health bar remained deep purple with the red
POISONED
message above it, and of course his health was still draining. 
Hardass launched another attack from behind and Sam just barely dodged it with
a side roll.

“Crap, I’m really starting to feel sick.”

He didn’t know if it was because of the poison or the
rolling.  He didn’t like how realistic this game felt. 
Why would anyone
want to feel pain like this
, he wondered.  He approached Hardass again to
attack, but noticed that it was already moving towards him.  It had good
recovery (freedom to move) after most of its attacks.  The only one that left
any sort of opening was the spinning attack, but Sam’s weapon was too short to
take advantage of it.

Maybe that long range piercing thing it did on me has a
long recovery too.  With it being a straightforward linear attack, I should be
able to avoid it and counterattack easily enough
.

That was easier said than done.  Sam was still sure he
wouldn’t have enough time to backstab the creature again.  He blamed his lack
of offensive options on his starting weapon.  The Dagger had no reach at all
and now Sam saw that it did no real damage with normal slices and stabs.  All
its power seemed to come from critical strikes.  That last backstab had netted
him about ten times normal damage since Hardass was currently near half
health.  His other two strikes hadn’t even done a decent fraction of damage to the
creature.

“There’s only one way.  I have to do it!”

He ran straight at Hardass and dodged to the side.  His roll
took him much further than he expected, but Hardass was already protecting its
back by moving away from Sam.  It was quick and smart enough to know not to
expose its weakness a second time.  Sam slashed at its side for a small
pittance.  It attacked and Sam rolled again to the same side and struck it
again.  Hardass’ back was again close, but just out of range.  Sensing danger,
Hardass prepared its spinning attack again and Sam was forced to roll twice to
the left to get out of its range.  The attack took as much recovery time as Sam
had predicted and he was also right about not being able to close the gap
between himself and its back.  He couldn’t even get a good slash in before it
was ready to attack again.  All that and Sam’s health was already down to
seventy-five percent again thanks to the poisoning.

He then stood at mid-range and waited for the creature to
attack again.  It went with the long piercing attack.  Mid-range was definitely
too far, so Sam closed in the gap and instead of attacking, he stopped and
waited for Hardass to attack.  Hardass lifted its right hand and struck down at
Sam with its most straightforward attack so far.  Sam used his Deflector and
pushed its whip-like arms and razor claws towards the sky.  Hardass staggered
backwards a little, leaving its pulsating heart exposed.  Sam took one step
forward and thrust his blade into the dark blue heart.  A drum beat echoed in
his ear along with the sound of a knife slicing through flesh, sounds of a
successful parry and opening blow.  Hardass wilted down; its wood splintered
and cracked as Sam kicked it from his knife.  Some strange glow from its body had
enveloped Sam in a ghostly white mist.  Sam’s soul count popped up in the lower
right corner and he saw it increase from zero to four hundred.

Hardass’ corpse remained on the ground but seemed to be
quickly decomposing into mulch.  The poison it had laid on Sam was still
draining his health.  He was currently at less than fifty percent.

He now noticed a smaller purple bar under his health bar
that seemed to be ticking down.  He guessed that it was the duration of the
poison effect.  He only had to endure for a bit longer to be rid of it.  He
waited in place while the little bar had completely run out.  By the time it
did, he was left with less than ten percent of his health, but more importantly
he was free of the poison.  He took another swig from his Soul Fire which
restored his health close enough to full.  He was left with only three more
drinks before the container was empty.

He took a deep breath then brought forth his menu and
checked over his equipment, mainly his Dagger.  He was right about it only
scoring its main damage from critical hits.  It was an assassin’s weapon after
all.

Dagger

Knife

A small blade, typically reserved as a last resort on the
battlefield.  For most, it is a useless weapon, but a few know human vital
points quite well and look for the perfect moment to strike.

ATK (total attack power) 37

     Weapon Damage 10

     S ATK (strength attack power) F = 0

     D ATK (dexterity attack power) B = 27

     M ATK (magic attack power) F = 0

     B ATK (belief attack power) F = 0

     F RAT (fire rating) 0

     L RAT (lightning rating) 0

     D RAT (dust rating) 0

     P RAT (poison rating) 0

     B RAT (bleedout rating) 10

Weight: 1 lb

S ABS: 200

“There’s no way I’ll be able to fight a boss like this.  I
need a better weapon.”

He closed his menu and noticed the shredded remains of
Hardass were in three separate piles.  They hadn’t fallen like that, so Sam
wondered what the heck was going on.

Is it still alive
?

He wasn’t too concerned if it was.  Now he knew which of its
attacks to avoid and he knew how to get in close to defeat it.  He would avoid
another fight so soon if he could though, so he opted to walk in the opposite
direction.  That was a mistake.

“What the—”

The three piles sprouted up from the ground with three new
enemies.  Sam couldn’t believe his eyes.  All three creatures looked just like
the Hardass he’d just barely managed to kill.

“No!  No!  And hell no!”

Sam was terrified but he kept moving.  He kept his wits
about him as he considered his options.  He knew that running, in a game like
this, could be more harmful than good.  He might easily pull another group of
enemies into the fray and that would be disastrous.  The enemies watched him
and slowly closed in and he circled around them.  Besides the fear of pulling
more enemies, Sam also felt like he had a chance to win this fight.  When he
stripped away all the bullshit from his previous encounter, it was clear that
it had taken two blows to actually kill the original Hardass.  The two critical
blows weren’t easy to get, but they were very powerful, doing at least ten
times the damage of his most damaging normal attacks. All he needed was to get
in close and find his opening.

Two of the Hardass clones started to attack.  One wound up
for the piercing attack, which Sam knew would poison him and the other went for
the whipping attack.  Sam concentrated on the one with the piercing attack and
made sure to circle around it.  The one with the whip attack was feinting again,
so Sam had enough time to get in close and backstab the other one since it was
already in range.  The third one, which he had named Murderass—after Hardass
Number Two and Hardass Number Three—was only now starting to attack.  It went
for a whipping strike as Sam’s blade claimed over half of the other creature’s
HP.  Sam was just wresting his blade from the creature when Murderass and
Hardass Number Three’s attacks passed right through him.  He smiled at his turn
of luck.

“Wait your turn, Murderass and Hardass Number Three.”

Backstabs and hopefully other special attacks had some
invincible frames to them, meaning he was safe as long as the attack was being
performed.  This fact and his speed were about the only advantages he had in
this fight and he made sure to use every advantage he had.

The very end of the animation, right after he kicked the
enemy from his blade, was not invincible.  Hardass Number Two’s whipping strike
showed him his vulnerability.  The quick strike lashed at his leather clad body
and reduced his health by a fifth, while Murderass landed a successive blow
reducing him by another fifth.  That quick, he had lost over a third of his
health.

“Damn, you guys are hardcore.”

He wanted to take advantage while the other Hardass was
still on the ground recovering, but together left no openings.  When he saw the
third creature getting to its feet, he tried to quickly create an opening with
one of the other two.  He tried to parry one of the whipping strikes, but only
managed to partially reduce the damage and still took full damage from the
other Hardass’ follow up strike.  All in all, he now had less than a third of
his health, so he retreated behind a tree and drank from his Soul Fire.  He
heard the blows from the creatures raining down on the thick trunk behind him. 
It gave him a wonderful idea.

He ran to the next tree, narrowly avoiding two piercing
attacks.  He did this around them, watching them, timing their blows as they
struck tree after tree.  Finally, he saw his next opening.  As two of them
launched the long range piercing attacks, the third continued to press forward
towards him.  He’d lost track of which one this was, but counted his blessings
that it was closer than the others.  Sam ran in close before it started its
attack and simply waited, like he had with the original Hardass.

This Hardass clone did not disappoint.  It went for the same
close range strike as its predecessor and was met with the same response.  Sam
successfully threw its whip-like arm aside and plunged his dagger deep within
its heart.  This Hardass clone lost over half of its total health too.  And
just like with the backstab, the opening blow also had invincible frames for the
duration of the attack.

“Oh no!  Got to move!”

He was still only invincible while attacking and kicking the
enemy from his blade.  The short recovery afterwards where he was forced to
back away a little was where he was still most vulnerable.  This time the
piercing attack from the other Hardass caught him right in the chest and he
lost half his health instantly.  He was unfortunately also poisoned.

He quickly rolled to the side and behind another tree before
the other one could follow up with an attack.  The poison was coursing through
him again, making him feel nauseated, and putting that hissing sound in his ear
again.  He let the health and poison duration bar drop a little before he healed
himself with another swig of his Soul Fire.  He only had one drink left and the
poison assured he’d need it for that.  He couldn’t get hit again or he would be
seeing his first game over screen.

He had again forgotten which Hardass clones were which.  Two
of them were near death and the third still had all its health.  All he needed
was a good parry then opening blow or a backstab.  He danced around the trees
and considered his options.  His enemies were still attacking, but there were
only two of them together.

“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!  Where are you?”

Sam’s stomach nearly dropped down to his feet.  The missing
creature was right in front of him and out the corner of his eye, he could see
the other two running to other positions around him.  They were trying to box
him in.

“Shit!”

The one in front of him looked to be going for a new
attack.  Sam froze.  He didn’t know what to expect.  All he knew was that he
couldn’t parry too early.  He had to be reactionary.  He had to perfectly
predict his foe.  He had to see the moment and origin of the strike.  He saw
it!  It came right from the creature’s shoulders.  The blow was fast and came
from a new direction, but Sam was ready.  The sideways slice was deflected
upwards, leaving Sam with the perfect view of the creature’s pulsating blue
heart.  He quickly thrust his Dagger into it and watched it wilt away as its
health ticked down to nothing.

The other two were approaching from his sides, both too far
to attack, leaving Sam nervously ticking down the seconds of the opening blow’s
animation.  He saw his soul count increase but didn’t have time to see the
amount.  He rolled away backwards in a nick of time.  Both Hardass assholes had
launched twin piercing attacks.  No doubt it would have killed him if both had
hit at the same time.  His health was ticking towards seventy percent.

So far, Sam had used some surprising skill and good tactics
to take down one of the foes—well, two counting the original.  Now, however, he
needed luck.  One of the Hardass clones was already half dead.  He’d need to
take that one out next if he had any hope to survive this.  Fighting the last
one, one-on-one, would be infinitely easier than his current dilemma.

He backed up a little, then circled around to the clone on
his left.  He heard the one on his right start to run, so he sprinted, burning
through half his stamina to quickly get near the other one.  Now behind a tree,
he heard both Hardass clones attacking him with long range attacks.  He
couldn’t see which ones they were using.  One of the clones ran around the
tree, startling him.  It went for a whipping strike, which Sam wasn’t sure how
to parry yet.  He rolled out the way of the whip and quickly ran back to face
the creature.  Sam was now in close range and waiting for one of the two
attacks he had seen before.  He also paid attention to any other movements
around him.  The other Hardass clone seemed to be attacking at the tree again.