Prytaneum
Buried
It felt like a meteor had struck the surface of the water, impacting so hard that the water was deformed and displaced by the intensity of the blow. As it did, a shockwave rippled through the water, slamming into me at the same time the sudden flow of water pushed me up and away. I had enough time to think about protecting myself, to will the water to both protect and ignore me, commanding it to flow over me like it did when I remained dry or ignored the tension on its surface.
Whether I was too slow on the draw or if it simply wasn't entirely effective, I wasn't sure, but the next moment I was in pain. Even though I wasn't in the line of the blast, the shockwave struck me with unbelievable force and seemed to pass through me like I wasn't even there. I felt it somewhat in my limbs, like a rattling of flesh and bone I couldn't quite describe, but that was nothing compared to my head and chest, which seemed to ignite with pain. It was like the blast had slipped through all of my defenses and struck at the fleshy bits underneath—a feeling I was sadly familiar with, from my past experience with explosives in the water. When Beckendorf and I had blown up the Princess Andromeda, I'd been a couple hundred years away and the explosion had still shaken my world, knocking me out even though I'd been in the sea at the time.
This wasn't quite that bad—hard to beat an explosion based on Greek Fire—but it wasn't pleasant, either, and I felt the blow more than a Minotaur's punch. It left me feeling almost sick, as if parts of my organs had suddenly gotten jealous of my heart and decided to try out this whole 'pulsing' thing for themselves.
What's worse, the blast was followed a few moments later by another, this one a bit further away but no less painful for the distance. I flinched as if I'd been struck by lightning when the blast struck, my whole body jerking roughly, and it didn't take me long to realize what was happening. The Goliath was doing…something, making these explosions to get to me. And I don't know if it was just bad luck on my part or careful planning on his, but it was working, even through my defenses and the water. He was the dynamite and I was the fish, or that's probably how he intended for this to work out; if I insisted on hiding, he'd just keep blasting the water until I turned belly up and floated to the surface.
But I'm no fish and rolling over to die just wasn't my style. If waiting him out and buying time wasn't an option, fine—onto plan B.
Before he could attack again, I lifted my hands and flung them forward, calling to the lake in the process. Even before the second blast finished pushing me back, the water was rising again and it carried me along for the rise, flowing up and up and up. All at once, the lake was on the attack and it rose into a wave a hundred feet high before rolling over the shores and the monsters upon them. I'd have said it hit them like a truck, but a description like that would have been an understatement—I hit them with a fleet of trucks, rolling over them in a wave that crushed everything in its path.
Most people don't associate water with weight, but take it from someone who knows—water's heavy. Enough water to fill a bathtub could weigh as much as a small car and I wasn't splashing them with a bathtub here, I was hitting them with a good chunk of a lake, with more water than I'd have dared summon by myself. What must have been dozens of Level 2 monsters were flattened beneath the sheer force of the rushing water, breaking against its surface, getting caught up in its flow and tossed about to collide with tree and rocks and more. The trees around the lake itself snapped like twigs or were torn out of the ground by their roots, carried along by the wave like they were nothing.
And at the center of it all was the Goliath. The wave crashed towards him and hit him with all the force and speed I could put behind, tearing through everything else as a simple side measure. I felt him release that blast of his again, felt it crash against and spray the water, but at best it mitigated the damage slightly. Even for a giant, there was only so much that could be done about a tidal wave and I wasn't holding back.
The eighteenth floor seemed to tremble and shake as the wave fully capsized and flooded through the forest—or maybe that was the Goliath being tossed around like a ragdoll by it. It was hard to be accurate with something so large, but I did my best to make his ride as uncomfortable as possible, guiding his massive form towards trees and rocks that now stuck like splinters and daggers from his flesh as he lay prone in was had once been a woodland and now was a wetland. He might have been dead already, for all I knew.
But since I was eternally blessed with good fortune, I wasted no time to follow up. Exhaling and inhaling a new lungful of water, I pulled back my hands and then shoved them forward yet again, drawing up another wave—smaller this time, but more focused as well, and I went along for the ride, drawing Riptide from my pocket and unveiling its glowing blade. The wave carried me high over the lakeside, stretching fifty feet into the air before cresting and coming down fully on the Goliath's body, crashing into his prone figure like a hammer that literally pounded him into the mud.
For my part, I took aim as the wave fell, braced myself, and slammed blade first into the giant's forehead. My shoulder's jolted as the blade struck the Goliath's skin and bones, and they were some of the toughest things I'd ever tried to cut—tougher by far than the plant monster's skin had been, maybe even tougher than dragon scale—but I had the force of a tidal wave at my back and both skin and bone broke underneath my sword. A couple feet of Celestial Bronze sank cleanly into the Goliath's forehead as I sheathed my blade to hilt in his skull. Even for a creature its size, it should have been a fatal wound.
So—not gonna lie—I was a little surprised when the Goliath just reached up with one hand, grabbed me with enough force that for a moment I thought my head was going to pop off, and promptly threw me like a baseball. I don't know, Iguess I just expected him to have more of a reaction to being stabbed in the face, maybe something like 'Alas, I am slain!', but apparently he didn't give a fuck.
Which was good to know, I guess, though I'd have liked to know before right now. But hey, live and learn. Assuming I did the former, because damn, but the Goliath could have tried out for the Yankees given his throwing arm. And maybe it was just because he'd crushed me a little when he grabbed me, but the speed with which I was approaching the cliff side seemed like something I should worry about.
Water, I thought as I struggled to focus my thoughts through the sudden pain and disorientation. I need to cushion myself with water—
When I managed to open and focus my eyes, I was in the cliff—as in, literally in the cliff, my body in something like a Percy-shaped crater. It probably went without saying, but my impact had not been cushioned by water. It had instead been cushioned by rocks.
It hurt. A lot. Enough that for a long, long moment I couldn't do anything but feel it. It felt like my everything was broken, like I'd been cut in pierced in a hundred places. Some of that might have been the stone I'd just been smashed into. The rest was probably my own broken bones piercing my flesh. It was hard to think and when I tried to move—unwillingly, because I couldn't help by cough—I failed to do anything but make my arms and legs quiver in place. I did succeed in coughing, however, and I spat out a startling amount of blood and teeth, clearing my throat in the process.
On the shore, the Goliath rolled over and stood, hands flexing before reaching up to brush away some of the things that had stabbed through his tough skin. More worrying than the fact that he was standing just fine, however, was the sight of his injures.
They were closing. Every single one was mending before my very eyes, including the relatively small stab wound on his head. In a matter of moments, he looked as if I'd done absolutely nothing at all to him and wasted no time focusing his beady eyes back on me.
No fair, I thought, still aching and unable to move. That's supposed to be my trick. And a shot to the head killed Goliath, didn't it?
Clearly, this Goliath had thicker skin and had learned from his namesake's mistakes, because he seemed to have no intention to leave me be and let me do what I wanted. Something like light began to gather between his monstrous open jaws and even though I'd never seen it before, it didn't take a genius to realize this was probably the source of the blasts before—and this time, I'd catch more than just the shockwave unless I moved. Unfortunately, moving wasn't really an option for me right now.
But…fortunately may not have been the right word, but for better or worse, I'd had…well, worse. In fact, my recent head-on collision with death and experience with immolation was currently serving as a guard against the Goliath's attempts to earn a ranking in my top five most painful moments and with that experience, I managed to think through the pain enough to do something. Just before the Goliath fired, a narrow cord of water shot from the water far below, wrapped itself around my leg, and tore me from the cliff side with enough speed and force that I nearly blacked out again—but instead of being shot directly, I was left to fall perhaps a hundred feet to the water below, the force of an explosion at my back.
I sure could use a Plan C right about now, I thought as my world shook again.
I should probably get on that.