Maids VS Apocalypse

Danger bells rang in Mark’s head, but something penetrated the creature’s right eye before he could react. Noticing the dark gray shaft, Mark realized it was Lara’s spear.

He understood what had just happened and quickly backed away from the Rift, but not before returning the drone case to his inventory. Thankfully none of the drones were deployed yet.

"We got company!" He shouted while equipping his rifle.

Lara’s spear vanished and appeared in her hand. The dead creature slowly slipped out of the rift and fell into a puddle of its own murky red blood. A long silence followed as if to cast shade on Mark’s judgment, but then something else emerged from the darkness behind the spatial hole.

A second primate, this one five times the size of the first. Roaring, it raised its large arms and started drumming its chest. The sound each strike made was that of a hammer hitting an iron surface, and the reason was clear to see.

The creature was covered from head to toe in a strange armor-like carapace. Its color was a light shade of purple, and the metallic sheen on its surface showed it wasn’t a simple cover.

A long tail extended from the creature’s back. Going by its segmented shape and the bulbous stinger it ended with, one could easily recognize it as the venomous tail of a scorpion.

Mark aimed his rifle and pulled the trigger without giving the action much thought. Bullets rained on the creature, but all of them seemed to bounce against its carapace, barely leaving a scratch purple surface. He stopped firing once he noticed that and the beast raised its arms in the air and roared as if to mock his pathetic attempt at harming it.

A white ark of energy burst forth the next instant and passed right through the roaring creature. Its voice was suddenly cut and its movements halted. A second later, the upper half of its body slid down and fell to the ground.

[Lara has defeated an Exo-ape (Fiend)]

[+25AP]

Mark glanced at his maid who had just stepped between him and the Rift, her spear held at the ready. She already had her halo out and a white glow enveloped the blade of her weapon. Seeing the seemingly mystical aura, he couldn’t help but think back to another matter that troubled him the previous night. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

A third monster appeared soon enough and a fourth one followed right after. Lara took a step forward and brought her spear up with swift grace. Another arc of white energy shot forth and bisected the monsters, causing two messages to appear in the corner of Mark’s field of vision.

[Lara has defeated an Exo-ape (Fiend)]

[+29AP]

[Lara has defeated an Exo-ape (Fiend)]

[+27AP]

Seeing the ease with which his maid disposed of them, Mark relaxed a little. The Fiend beside the creatures’ names alerted him to them being of a higher Rank than the Fallen they fought before, but going by the amount of AP they earned from killing them, Mark realized they were much weaker than Malarak’s spawn.

As he began to question the reason behind that discrepancy, someone grabbed him by the collar and tossed him back. Though the impact of the fall was absorbed by his Force Field, it pissed Mark off nonetheless.

He turned a glare at the one responsible and was about to yell some curses at him, but then he noticed that something was happening to the Rift.

What emerged next wasn’t more of the scorpion-ape-like monsters. They resembled the heads of gigantic white worms emerging from under blackened soil. Their movements seemed aimless and erratic until they coiled over the edge of the rift, each moving in a different direction.

Silently, the tear in the dimensional border gradually widened, ripped open by whatever caught hold of the edge. Two more appeared, then another two. Once the count reached ten, Mark realized that he was looking at the fingers of some giant monstrosity.

"Lad! You alright!?" Ben asked while extending his hand toward him. "I think it’s better if you stayed in the back with me."

Mark allowed the big guy to pull him up to his feet while he kept his eyes on the Rift. The darkness inside it expanded, gradually reaching the size of a four-story building.

"Uh-oh, seems we have a big one this time," Ben spoke, his eyebrows raised and his eyes wide open.

"Did another Demon move into the Dark Mountain already?" Elya began stretching her as if she was preparing to go on a run.

"Looks like it." Alex did the same. "I call dibs on the last strike."

"The hell you do." Ramsay held out his hand and an intricately designed bow fell into it. "You aren’t the one who’s been stuck babysitting for the last two years."

"I’m sitting this out." A pair of sickles appeared in Franco’s hands, their handles joined together with a chain. "Leave the small fry to me."

"Can you help the old man out?"

As she spoke, the petite Peace Keeper manifested a massive broad sword and rested it on her shoulder. She glanced in Lara’s direction as if to say those words were meant for her, and after a moment of thought the maid retreated and stood protectively in front of her master.

Alex produced some equipment of his own; a short one-handed sword with thin blue lines running along its blade and a golden heater shield that seemed to share the weapon’s design.

When the rift reached thirty meters wide, the massive fingers retracted into the darkness only to emerge once more an instant later. Gigantic fists landed on the uneven ground, their armored knuckles crushing whatever happened to be underneath them.

The beast’s head appeared next. Like the ones Lara had just killed, it looked like an ape, although a gigantic one. The carapace covering his head looked like the helmet of an ancient Roman gladiator, complete with a crest made out of brilliant red feathers.

As more of its body emerged from the darkness inside the rift, ending with a train-like scorpion tail, Mark couldn’t help but think of it as the result of an unholy marriage between King Kong and some scorpion kaiju.

The giant armored gorilla looked around leisurely before fixing its sights on the squad of Peace Keepers standing in front of it. Letting out a mocking snort, it leaned back and raised its fists in the air before bringing them down on its chest.

"Oo Oo Ooo OOOOOOOOO!!!!"