Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

She felt a terrible impact as the room in front of her started accelerating sideways. Monique didn’t have much time to register the pain of her ribs breaking, as the next impact was already asking for her attention.

In a rain of rubble and dust, she crashed into the dilapidated throne that the former owner of the boss room had occupied at one point. Her ragged breath echoed in her ears, as she tried to form a coherent thought in her shaken mind. It was a weird thought that formed. She was just really grateful to her past self, that she had put on the helmet.

Her eyes slowly gained focus to observe the room in front of her. She was covered in rubble, the weight pressing on her, and looked out only through a thin slit.

What she could see was a massive figure, standing in the middle of the boss room. It was so tall it could barely fit under the ceiling of the room. It held a hammer the size of three people, appropriate for its size, and was swinging it at the Faer, ignoring the damage it did to the insects around them.

There was also a giant hole in the wall of the boss room, that had not been there before. Slowly, as if swimming through honey, she gathered her thoughts and came to the conclusion that it was the big guy that had broken through the wall behind her and walloped her over here. She couldn’t see the wasp.

With a sudden urgency, she tried to move, only for her broken ribs to tell her quite clearly that this was a stupid idea. The rubble weighed on her and every little movement was answered by her bruised body, still. She slithered her hand up to her mouth as quickly as possible and took a high potion from her inventory to drink.

She was coming up with a plan, while she felt her wounds heal. Monique felt bad for just watching the Faer get pounded, but she knew that they were even harder to kill than herself. If she wanted to stop it, she had to recover as quickly as possible before-

A rumble stopped her thoughts. It seemed like her opponent was not inclined to make the typical mistake of giving the opponent time to recover while thinking they were dead. Ignoring her screaming body, she grabbed her weapon and charge out of the mount of debris.

From the corner of her eyes, she could see the Vespinae general, that was searching for her. Ignoring the big enemy, she aimed for the big target. Enveloped in bright silver flames, her spear was thrown, aiming for the back of the big beetle that was pulverizing the Faer with his massive pestle.

It was not a copy, but her actual spear, leaving her unarmed in the eyes of the wasp boss. The thrown spear was too fast for the beetle to react before it buried itself deep into the gap between the wings.

Hit by the sudden force of the spear, the giant broke out in a primal screech as it stumbled forward, falling to its knees. Its cries of anguish were answered by the wrathful wasp that charged at the faltering Monique.

Going for the kill, it pulled all stops to increase its speed staring at Monique’s panic-stricken face, as her target whipped around to meet her attack!

“Ksh, How?!” the wasp exclaimed, looking past the spear and a silvery barrier at the dilapidated, gasping softskin that had managed to block her stinger.

Monique smiled, despite her churning stomach, aching body, and trembling arms. She had indeed thrown away her weapon. She had thrown the Fang of Decay. The spear that causes any wound to decay and cause triple damage to vitals was now deeply lodged into the giant beetle’s back. From the looks of it, it may have even caused a mental disruption.

In the nick of time, she had managed to whip out Tatzel’s Sacrifice from her inventory and block the wasp’s attack with the skill. But now she could feel strength leave her body. Unfortunately, it was not like in a game, where you were totally fine after drinking an antidote and a healing potion. The fight had still left its marks on her body and she needed time, she didn’t have, to recover.

She wrenched around her spear and tried to attack the wasp while it was still in range, but the boss had quickly taken its distance to return to its hit-and-run tactics. Monique was in a worse position than before, she wouldn’t last long in this fight.

Just where were their reinforcements? She even went so far as to ask Seth to come and ambush them from behind, in an attempt to impress Athena with her strategy, but it seemed like the Hive had thought of that quicker than her… If they didn’t come soon, there was no telling if she would make it.

“What have to done to him?” the wasp spat at her as she charged again and Monique barely managed to evade, stumbling around.

At least it seemed like she had knocked out the big guy for good. The giant beetle had let go of his club and stopped moving ever since the Fang of Decay was lodged in its back. She quickly hurriedly and stabilized her posture to face the wasp again, when-

A projectile the size of a person suddenly detonated a breach into the mass of insect bodies with body fluid and parts flying everywhere. It shot past the silent giant and anticlimactically rammed into the Vespinae general, catapulting it away, before burying itself in the wall to the back of the boss room.

Moments after, she could hear a cacophony of battle cries as a flood of knights filled and widened the path opened by the projectile. Monique stared in a stupor, while the Vespinae General had a hard time getting up, after taking a body check from a freight train. For a boss, it was rather frail.

Under their shocked gazes, a man clad in dark armor climbed from the hole and rabble in the back. The figure calmly patted off the debris from his armor before leisurely strolling toward Monique. He greeted her with a quick salute from the helmet.

“Monique, the reinforcements have arrived. Are you okay?”

At this moment, she could not answer as a wave of relief washed over her and she sank to the ground. She was just glad that she asked for reinforcement when she did and that Seth made it in time.

“Hey, hey, don’t go off dying on me now. I even refrained from a great entrance to make it in time,” Seth said worriedly.

“What do you mean? I was just about to finish the general here,” Monique bluffed with a wry smile.

“I wouldn’t call aggressively countering its attacks with your body “finishing it off”…” he said playfully before stepping to her side and playing his hand on her shoulder.

A wave of warmth flooded her body and she could feel the fatigue being washed away and her body recovering. Seth had cast one of his healing spells on her.

“Are you alone?”

“Why? Do you think I’m not enough to save you?” Seth joked.

“No, I just asked-“

“It’s okay. The others are already back guarding the camp.”

In the meantime, the reinforcements of Faer and Golems allowed them to stop worrying about the writhing mass of bug bodies and bicker a little before turning toward the boss that made its way out of the wall. The wasp looked worse for the wear after taking on the tower master’s full-frontal body check.

Before it could do anything, it was pinned to the ground by Tatzel’s Sacrifice burning with a silver blaze. Monique wasn’t ready to take any chances and wanted to finish it, now that she had recovered some of her strength. However.

“Wait, wait. I have an idea, don’t kill it yet. Let me try something,” Seth suddenly stopped her.

It seemed like the tower master had a plan again. Monique wanted to know how much experience they would get for the boss, taking into account how much experience she needed now. Still, she stepped back and made way for Seth.

The blacksmith crouched down beside the dying wasp and she could see how life quickly left its eyes the moment he touched the body. Had he harvested the soul? Monique kept watching. Only for her jaw drop to drop to the floor.

Soon after it died, without giving any experience or system notification, it started to heal! It opened its eyes and its wounds started rapidly healing. She watched on speechless as the wasp regained its health and awkwardly prostrated before Seth.