When he lifted his face, the dark-red giant a hundred meters ahead of him was in the process of ponderously turning its bulky body, massive enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the surrounding rocky mountains—Higashi Ikebukuro skyscrapers in the real world. Its target was not Zelkova or the nearby Burst Linkers popping back into existence, but rather a group of about ten people on the opposite side of the giant, making a break toward Sunshine City.
It took about ten seconds for Tezcatlipoca to annihilate them and turn back in the opposite direction again. If Zelkova turned and started running as fast as he could right that second, even a heavyweight avatar like him could probably put fifty meters or so between himself and the colossal Enemy. But it would have been nothing more than useless flailing. He was certain to be hit with Toxcatl again and be yanked back to the giant’s feet before he could manage to make it out of the attack zone. This Enemy’s job was likely not to simply kill Burst Linkers once and move on, but to keep on killing them until they lost all their points, no matter the stage attributes.
Around 40 percent of the Burst Linkers who regenerated around him turned and started running, but the other 60 percent stood helplessly rooted to the spot like Zelkova. In another two days, there would probably be no one still trying to survive. Although by that time, he would be out of points.
He was too tired for his brain to work properly. I could take a nap until my next regeneration after I die. But I’m maybe too hungry to actually sleep… Thinking these absent thoughts, he waited for Tezcatlipoca to turn around.
“Zel!” a voice shouted from his immediate right.
He shifted his gaze from the giant Enemy and saw Taupe Cape, who had regenerated a few seconds after he did, standing there with a tense look on her face.
She’d also been steadily accumulating points for a while now, and she wasn’t the type to waste them in the shop, so she should have had even more in reserve than he did. But it was a fact that total point loss came closer with every passing second, and they could panic all they wanted, but there was nothing they could do about it. She had to have known that as well.
But she whirled around before he could say anything and began to run at full speed. “This way!” she cried.
With no other choice, he chased after her. Her course cut around to the left, rather than in a straight line away from Tezcatlipoca like those of the other regenerated players. Getting away from the group would indeed lower their chances of being targeted, but the attack ranges for Toxcatl and Miccailhuitontli were simply too large, the blast wave too far-reaching. Any distance they could gain by running was basically a tolerance error.
Zelkova chased intently after the purple-gray cape armor fluttering before him as he opened his mouth to call out and try to stop her. But again, her sharp voice interrupted him.
“Zel!” she shouted, throwing an arm out to point at something. “Let’s take this thing down!”
He looked and found a black pill bug–like crustacean crawling along the base of a large rock. But while a pill bug was small, this thing was more than a meter long. He was pretty sure it was an Eboniluce, a Lesser-class Enemy with minimal attack power and no annoying special abilities. But it rolled up its entire body at the slightest jab, and its armor was as tough as ebonite, which meant that physical attacks had limited effect, as did heat, cold, and electricity.
Thus, in order to defeat one of them, you had to do enough damage on that initial hit to cause it to die instantly. But Zelkova and Taupe had both only just regenerated, and their special attack gauges were empty. Their opponent might have been a Lesser class, but it was still an Enemy. Even if they both hit the weak point of its head at the same time, its health gauge wouldn’t even drop 20 percent.
Kkkrrrrrraaaar! Came a ponderous roar from behind him to the left, like the thunderous rumbling of a mountain. After slaughtering the group that was fleeing in the direction of Sunshine City, Tezcatlipoca had turned around and was now beginning its attack on this side. In less than five seconds, one of its three special attacks would pour down on them, and crush, cook, or obliterate Zelkova and his comrades.
Even so, Taupe didn’t stop.
It couldn’t have been that she simply wanted to take out her frustration on the Eboniluce. And now that he was thinking about it, this was the first time since the start of the Unlimited EK that he’d seen any Enemies within a range reachable on foot after regenerating. He wasn’t sure what Taupe’s aim was, but this was probably the first and last Enemy to pop up near them. In which case, he had to have faith in his comrade—his “parent”—and give this everything he had. He was sure that Silver Crow would never stop racking his brain for a millisecond, even in a hopeless situation like this.
See more, take a broader view like he does…
The eyes he’d had fixed on the Eboniluce grew almost too big and caught sight of something he hadn’t been able to see before.
“Taupe!” he yelled. “The rock!”
Taupe Cape responded immediately, just as she was about to go around to the head end of the Eboniluce.
The massive pill bug was sluggishly crawling along the base of a rock that looked to be about five meters across. If this was a Scorched Earth stage, it would have been porous like pumice, but fortunately, this was a nature-type, earth-affiliated, neutral Demon Stone stage. The large stone Zelkova and Taupe leapt onto shone with a greenish luster, and simply touching it, he could feel how dense it was.
If the rock had been half—no, even a third—buried in the ground, the two of them alone wouldn’t have been able to move it a millimeter. But the thick bedrock was exposed in this area, and the massive rock was simply resting on top of it.
“Hngh… Aaah!” Zelkova howled as he pressed his right shoulder up against the rock and pushed.
An ominous roar sounded behind him, like thousands of motors whirring into operation. Miccailhuitontli had slammed into the ground and generated a micro black hole. Once the power of its gravity began to pull on this stone, they would have no chance of moving it in the opposite direction.
“Hnnnnngh!” Taupe Cape let out a groan the likes of which he had never heard before, pushing on the rock with her hands and head.
Zelkova also mustered up the last of the fuel he had, his consciousness 70 percent worn away, and pushed with everything he had.
He felt the pull of the black hole on his back just as the rock wobbled and pitched forward slowly, as if to toy with them. Before the Eboniluce crawling along the base on the other side had time to curl up into a ball, the massive rock crushed it. He heard a horrible squelching sound, and the Enemy turned to dust rather anticlimactically.
A message informing him of the points he’d gained was displayed in his field of view. This bump delayed their descent into total point loss the slightest bit, but Taupe’s intention had likely not been to stave off the inevitable for the briefest of instants.