Chapter 134: Bloodstarved Tyrants

While Kurome was skidding across the rooftops searching for Summer and Ferry, Parc instead had taken the more grounded root. As much as he would have truly loved to use his newfound flight it took too much out of him leaving him with not enough to get to the two and help them should they be in any form of danger. So the best he could do was keep his ears and eyes open, tracing his war path and the dozens of bodies scattered around the village.

Or… at least that was his plan. After back tracing from corpse 18 to 15, he had come into a worrying problem. Grimm. And they were feasting on his leftovers. The sounds of crunches coming from them as they sore open the ribcages, ripping the flesh from severed bones and swallowing it. There was a faint, dark glimmer to them every time they devoured a morsel of man. They grew greedier the more they ate. The ones that had the most swiftly turned violent towards the others and it swept a clawed digit towards those nearby it, severing them in twane sending their ghastly forms disintegrating to the winds as per the usual for grimm. The others who stood around stared enviously at their brother, how he got to feast but none rushed the rapidly dwindling body. All watching as limb, ligament and eyes were swallowed down like a starved hyena

Even once the body was all gone the grimm clasped the ground, its throat bubbling and bulging before its neon yellow jaw cracked and burst out, a thick black tendril dripping with a grimm's equivalent of saliva dripping off it, licking at the blood ridden floor for it beloved sustenance. The changes didn't seem to end there as the plating across its body cracked allowing its body to elongate, fingers turning to unholy lengths, it's limbs protruding to the point that were it to stand up right Parc wouldn't even get to its pelvis.

"It evolved!?" Parc whisper screamed, though not soft enough for the blood guzzling shambler and its compatriots to not notice him. The bloodstarved shamblers head lifted from the ground, its tendril still lapping up the semi-fresh stain off the ground while its large red eyes came to land atop Parc. Only then did its tendril halt and retract into its mouth like a measuring tape. It's throat bulging to compensate for the space it needed for the newly formed appendage.

Upon the grimm noticing his arrival the few shamblers immediately went into a frenzy for the new meal before them. Though their numbers were lacking, they were still swifter than the few he had encountered upon his arrival earlier this day. Still simple enough for him to kill with a single stroke of his dagger across their chests. Were that his only issue.

Right as one shambler ran before him, its arms out reached to grab him, he prepped his dagger for a slice across the neck to sever and kill the beast. But by the time his dagger swung from left to right a black tendril had drilled through the plated back and chest of the shambler before him. Nearly piercing through his chest in the process had he not been ready for whatever the bloodstarved shambler would send his way.

It's tongue was swift and unrelenting, snaking through the air like an eastern dragon, at its tip a thin, jagged barb like that of a scorpions that glimmered with a sharpness that could put even Murasame to shame. The way it pierced straight through the stone walls behind him being proof enough that he couldn't let himself get gored by the thing.

And though the beast's tongue was swift, the grimm itself surprisingly was not, even though it could stand nearly three times his height, it did not. It instead walked hunched on the ground, its back arched violently with spikes protruding while its clambered across the ground on all fours. But what it lacked in mobility it gained in unparalled attack which in itself formed its defense. Its tongue would track Parc like a heat seeking missile that could be diverted to intercept Parc before he could get near the main body.

"Shit," Parc grumbled, kicking himself away from the grimm. Far enough that its tongue couldn't reach. Which turned out to be about 20 meters away. "bastards a bitch in melee," he grumbled and sheathed his dagger at his hip. His hand turned to his satchel and from it came a silver rod, a branch of metal topped with a clear, large diamond that exuded a magical glow.

His time in the terrarium had given him an ample source of interesting pieces of equipment, from various melee based weaponry, to more ranged alternatives he could through or shoot. There were even things like this, wands from which he could siphon his collections of mana collected from stars fallen from the heavens into mystical projectiles. Or even to summon entities, though he had few of those. But at this moment, in hand he held the diamond wand, the strongest of the gemstone wands crafted with numerous ingots of platinum and several high-quality diamonds scrounged from the earth. All collated together into this, a weapon that could harness celestial energies into a magical bolt.

And with a rough flick of his wrist and whipping motion of his arm it was sent flying. His mana coursed through his veins, absorbed into the platinum, running down numerous vein like magical pathways and into the diamond. It shimmered a brilliant white light and once the snap came, the bolt was sent flying leaving behind a trail of white notes that faded to the wind.

The grimm had not been expecting such an attack, nor had it been fast enough to dodge. Its tongue rose to flick the approaching wave of ominous energy only for the bolt to tear the tendril asunder and continue on its path towards the head of the grimm. It's bafflement from its tendril being so easily destroyed having been its downfall. When the bolt collided with the grimm its head shot back, burstinging into thick wafts of dark smog. Its body soon joining in the disintegration, though also exploding out into a thick smog that left Parc partially blinded for a few moments.

Parc was left with brow raised, scratching at his head with the end of the inlaid diamond. A hint of disappointment that it had gone so easily. "Well that was anticlimactic…" not seconds later he was greeted with a loud thump, and growl from down the street. Lifting his head he was greeted to the reason. A thickset grimm, a body builder with messed up proportions. Its upper body swollen with armour clad muscles while its lower body looked more normal.

Unlike the other Shamblers he had encountered, this one lacked a lower jaw, instead having a small—compared to the bloodstarved shambler—tongue hanging freely, flopping about as it waddled its way towards Parc like a gorilla on crack cocaine. "I just had to fucking speak." Parc grumbled, sending another wave of mana into the wand, firing off a bolt towards the tank like grimm.

Things didn't turn out as he had hoped. The bolt collided with the arm of the brute, ramming into the thick armour plating only to explode in a burst of magical noises leaving behind a single scratch in the armour that truly, pissed the grimm off. It bloody eyes widened, reeling onto its back legs, thumping its chest as it let out whatever form of roar a jawless creature could make before slamming its muscular hands into the ground. Ripping concrete from the ground and rose above its head a giant slab of dense concrete. Hurling it with ease at Parc.

"Oh what the fuck!?" Parc exclaimed, skidding away from the landing point of the concrete slab in a flurry of feathers. Casting another few volleys of mystical bolts at the grimm which proved fruitless as like before they only furthered the grimms pissed-offness rather than damage it.

"Great, fucking great! Magic doesn't work on the thing," Parc threw the wand into his satchel, replacing it with a yellow, shark based minigun and fired a good few dozen pellets at the tyrant only for it to pepper off its body like ping-pong balls hitting a frying pan. "Okay, minishark does not work." All the while he had been shooting the tyrant had been swapping between charging him, its stride shaking the earth, and throwing said earth at him.

"Last on the list of, this better fucking work," he returned the minishark to his satchel and removed a handful of grenades, the sticky version, and decided to send them the tyrant's way. The tyrant itself rose its arm and attempted to flick the fist sized explosives away only for the gel substance around the ball of them to stick like glue to its arm. Exploding in a brilliant display red flames and black smoke.

Parc remained still at first, waiting for the smoke to dissipate and show him the carnage he was hoping to have cause which of course was not the case as when the smoke did dissipate all that was revealed was now an extraordinarily pissed off bastard. It proceeded to rapid fire smaller chunks of earth at Parc by digging its hands into the earth and flick the stones at Parc with simple, brutalist flicks of the arm.

"This is going no where," he could tell his weapons were nowhere near what he'd need to deal with this thing. Not if he wanted it dead quickly that was. Perhaps if he was persistent and decided to spend the better half of a month whittling down its armour he could, but right now, he couldn't. Not when there was still a horde around. A horde which he could see rushing in from behind the tyrant.

As luck would happen, his scroll blared, attracting him to pull it from his waist and pull it open after having ducked behind a wall. On the screen he was greeted to the ugly mug of Bertilak with his mohawk and goatee.

"How the hell did you get my number?" that was by far the least important problem he was having at the moment.

"I'll explain it at the bullhead. Get your ass over here, your ladies just arrived. So it's now or never, there's a crowd in the distance, more than just half a thousand bud. Much more."

At that, Parc flicked the screen pulling up a popup screen with all his scrolls apps, one of which being the enemy radar which now held a number that sent Parc's skin pale. '1278 enemies detected!' they had more than doubled in barely half an hour. "Fuck. Yeah, yeah, I'll be there, just do me a favour-" Parc lunged out of the way of a thick, black tendril boring through his wall. Now another bloodstarved had appeared alongside the tyrant. It's tongue as active as the last one. "Get that fucker off the ground, BUT DON'T CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR!" cussing all the way as he sprinted away from his crumbling cover on a one-way trip towards to port. His scroll slammed shut with nearly enough force to shatter the screen were it any normal scroll that is.