Chapter 222: Chapter Two Hundred Twenty Three

The door rattled in its frame at the impact, and it occurred to me  that the protections probably reinforced existing defenses. Doors and  windows would be the weakest spots even with the protections. It made  sense to create entry points like that too, because otherwise there'd be  no point to the internal defenses and the invaders could just bust in  anywhere once the protections came down.

Still, the door  was big and looked sturdy. The mirrored surface was metal, not glass,  and the thing was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Whatever was  trying to take it down was STRONG. I'd lifted that bar holding it shut,  if the door was made of the same material I knew I wouldn't have been  able to make it shake like that even if I used my strongest blow.  Whatever was out there was raining down blows and from the look of it  the thing wasn't going to hold out for long. I reached out to take  Callie's hand, giving it a squeeze, half to reassure me and half to  reassure her.

Before I even had a chance to withdraw my  hand and the door was smashed inward with a boom. Not just broken down  either, it was like a cork popping out of a champagne bottle. It burst  inward, flying across the room to smash into the wall, and a THING,  stepped through. It was huge. Easily fifteen feet tall and bipedal, with  huge slumped shoulders and long, thin arms tipped with long fingered,  sharp taloned hands dragging dark metal shackles attached to nothing.  It's blood red eyes had no irises, just a single pitch black dot in the  middle that roamed around the room as it turned it's massive, antlered  head.

I thought back to an exchange I'd heard from the  others back when Abel saved us, a comment one of the enemies had made  about 'releasing the Wendigo'. The others had dismissed it, almost  disgusted by the idea, and part of me had been amused that they would  dismiss a potential weapon like that. It had sounded like a living,  thinking thing, so holding it in containment instead of using it seemed  stupid, even if I was glad they'd decided to do it.

Now  though...now I got it. I'd looked up the word Wendigo. It was a racial  trait, a horrifying one that granted some pretty immense bonuses at the  cost of losing your inborn ability. Mostly passive multiplicative  enhancements to Vitality and Might (ten Might counted as twenty, that  sort of thing), along with some ice based touch abilities. I hadn't been  able to find a picture though, just a description, and this thing  definitely fit the bill. 'Red eyes blazing with hellish flames of hate'  was a dead on description of this beast.

It radiated a  palpable sense of malice and hate, and I could almost feel the decay and  death coming off of it. Just looking at it made me sick, and that was  without even taking into account that this thing had been a fucking  PERSON. Someone had willingly chosen to become this in order to gain  power. Racial traits couldn't be forced any more than abilities could.  This had been a decision, and it just proved to me how monstrous the  other side of the hero coin could really be. I'd always thought about  criminals and gangsters when I thought about villains, but the line  between human and monster wasn't exactly impassable. Hell, the Lich  proved that, even if I hadn't really taken it to heart.

From  behind the Wendigo poured a score of robed figures, all wearing beaten  bronze masks just like the ones we'd seen on the other Sanctuary Hall  goons. Like the Wendigo, they were all G-ranked as expected, and it  occurred to me that we were damn lucky the Wendigo had been a person,  because if it was a tamed beast they could have brought something at the  F-rank. Still, I was pretty sure from the damage it had done that it  was almost entirely Might and Vitality focused, and I was guessing the  thing was at the high end of G rank, meaning we were talking potentially  thousands of effective Might after passive enhancement.

A  fact that everyone, including Jessie, clearly understood, because my  blonde teammate gave a quiet command and Randall, all several tons of  him, hit the Wendigo like a speeding truck, smashing the unnaturally  lanky creature to the ground and beginning to rain down blows on it one  after the other. I hadn't ever been slapped by a bear before, but  something about the way it looked made me pretty sure I didn't want to  try it. I wasn't sure what it was about those strikes that made them  look so much heavier than a normal super strong person could deliver,  but they were scary to see.

With Randall moving, Sloane,  Beric, and Croll also blitzed forward, ready to attack. Sloane blurred  as she moved, her fox and bird vanishing, and I saw her hands flatten  and twist into talons as a pair of fox ears emerged from her scalp. She  sprouted a pair of silver wings and her face elongated into a fang  filled muzzle. Beric had expanded into a massive fur covered tiger form,  and Croll had shifted into a thin, swift looking scaled form that  looked incredibly deadly. The three of them spread out around the big  fight between the Wendigo and the bear and hit the other robed figures  as hard as they could.

I wanted to watch, but I found my  gaze drawn back to the spectacle of animal vs. monster. The Wendigo had  twisted in some sort of unnatural, jerky lunge and managed to get out  from under the paws, slamming its antlered head into Randall's upper  body and driving the huge bear back. Randall snarled, but the bloody  furrows the antlers dug (surface wounds only from the looks of it)  closed almost immediately, a green glow knitting them back together.  Jessie had obviously juiced her tamed beast up nice and full.

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Still,  it was terrifying that the G-ranked Wendigo had managed to actually  drive back the bear. Granted, Wendigos had some serious weaknesses,  being almost completely Might and Vitality dependent and unable to  properly utilize most Skills, but still, being able to accrue this kind  of power at our rank...it scared me. Abel's combat power had shown me  another path than just grinding, and this was showing me a third. There  were more than just one or two ways to become powerful, and if I forgot  that I would probably end up dead soon enough.

The Wendigo  reared up on its elongated hind legs, suddenly even taller than before  as it shed the hunched posture. Randall was on his own back paws, reared  up in a display of primal fury I doubted I'd ever forget as he sent a  series of powerful swipes smashing into the stretched, too thin grey  body. Thw Wendigo's hide was the sickening pale grey of diseased meat  and its thin papery skin was stretched taught over its sharply angled  bones.

The monster opened its mouth, baring far too many  serrated and improperly sized teeth, and then it did the most horrible  thing it had done since it got here. It spoke. "Beast." It hissed out,  its voice the unsettling hiss and crackle of cold wind in dead branches.  "Were I not hampered by this place. No mere animal would restrain me." I  blinked in horror as I realized that this was the Wendigo AFTER  suppression by the defenses, and a terrified part of me decided this  thing had to die before that suppression wore off or we were all going  to suffer in ways I couldn't imagine.

Luckily, I was in a  position to help. The Wendigo was distracted, and my reading had  informed me of their biggest weakness. Wendigos were monsters of ice and  emptiness, unceasing pits of hunger. But ice could melt. I reached for  one of my fire attacks, triggering Touch of Tears, Consecration of  Flame, and Mercy Kill. I did NOT use afterburner, though it probably  would have straight up killed the thing, because this was just their can  opener, and being weakened before the real threat arrived would be pure  stupidity.

So I kept the attack to my easily repeatable  moves and then triggered a stored blast of flame from Cark. The absolute  torrent of aqua flames flew at the Wendigo's exposed back, and it  turned with unnatural, jerky quickness to stare right at me as the fire  came toward it. There was a gravelly roar and it raised its arms, now  wreathed in ice, to intercept the fire. I wasn't sure the ice would be  able to counter my flame, but in the end it didn't matter. When focusing  on me the monster had ended up ignoring Randall, and the bear didn't  let that go unpunished. He brought both paws down in an arc on the  Wendigo's wide antlers, and the monsters red, hate filled eyes went wide  in shock as it was driven to its knees from the force. The ice  dispersed as it unconsciously began to turn to the beast before  regaining its focus just in time to shove one of those long arms forward  in desperation to take the attack.

It roared in pain and  hate as the poisonous flame consumed its limb, leaving behind a  smoldering stump at the shoulder along with several burns along the  chest and ribs on that side of its body, all spiderwebbed with green  cracks filled with guttering embers. The Wendigo turned to glare at me,  vicious teeth exposed by peeled back facial skin, but it didn't have a  chance to attack before another powerful smash of paw landed upside its  head.

Down and arm, poisoned,  and reeling from being bear slapped in its ugly face, the Wendigo had  absolutely no chance as the higher ranked beast fell on it ravenously  and began to tear it apart. Razor sharp claws and fangs were flashing  like a busy nightclub as Randall laid into it, and I exhaled in relief  as I shot Jessie a thumbs up. She gave me a cold, solemn nod, that  showed me she was taking the threat seriously, and I carefully tucked  away the emotions that killing the thing were starting to stir, even by  proxy. I made a mental note to confront those feelings though. Not just  because they were important, but because I knew Jessie would need to  talk about it too, and she never would if I didn't bring it up.

Looking  at my blonde friend was all the saved me as I watched eyes widen in  horror. I didn't even think, I activated Double Trouble as I felt the  blades dig into me on either side, leaving deep gashes under my ribs. I  appeared behind the robed figure trying to bisect me with his daggers,  seeing another engaging a frantic looking Callie, who visibly relaxed  into her fight when she saw me escape, her mouth firming with  determination as she focused on taking her own opponent. I brought up my  cane, unleashing the force burst and a poison fire smash into the short  ribs of the dagger wielding assailant.

Then  I had to throw myself to the side, triggering a healing burst to patch  up the wounds in my sides as a second robed figure attacked. I cursed  under my breath as I rolled to my feet, readying myself for the rest of  this fight. Using my last fire attack to take out the Wendigo had been  the right call, but it had pierced my stealth and drawn attackers to me  like a beacon, endangering Callie too. I had to finish my fights and  help with hers to make up for that. I spun my cane as I pushed my back  to the wall behind me, cutting off an attack direction as I prepared.  The big guy was down, now we needed to finish the small fries before the  boss herself showed her face. I had a feeling that confrontation would  be problematic enough without minions underfoot.

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