Chapter 61 - 61 – Boulder
'What the fuck do I do?!' Kyle thought as he watched the Ore Fiend preparing for another jump.
'This stupid fucking voice is no help at all. The only thing it can do is complain. Well, what am I supposed to do about this?! This thing is far beyond my current level!'
'Run away? Dude, there are so many more of these things out there!'
Kyle jumped to the side as the Ore Fiend jumped once more.
The Ore Fiend landed almost perfectly beside him and extended its hand towards him.
BANG!
Kyle barely managed to move the hand away by striking it full force with his hammer.
But then, a second hand came, and Kyle fell on his ass.
In one fluid motion, he rolled over his back and barely managed to avoid the hand.
Then, he scrambled onto his feet just when the Ore Fiend was ready to jump again.
'Fuck this!'
Kyle immediately started to run towards the spiral staircase.
The Ore Fiend jumped and misjudged Kyle's trajectory, luckily.
However, Kyle knew that his luck wouldn't hold on forever.
BOOOOM!
The Ore Fiend landed on top of the spiral staircase, but Kyle just barely managed to squeeze in.
He lost his footing and tumbled down the stairs for a bit.
Fortunately, his body was powerful enough to resist the tumble, and he managed to catch himself after a quick tumble.
The entrance of the spiral staircase was over ten meters wide.
Obviously, the architect of this gigantic spire wanted it to be as imposing and grand as possible.
Sadly, that was also how this Ore Fiend managed to get up to the Inheritance Crystal.
'If you had just been a slight bit humbler, you wouldn't have been eaten by this fucking rock eater.'
Kyle looked at the Ore Fiend, which looked back at Kyle.
"Can't jump now, eh?" Kyle shouted with a smirk. "Guess landing on these stairs is difficult."
"What are you doing?!" the voice shouted. "Run! Tell Sulfur there are Ore Fiends!"
"Dude, I literally just told you that there are like 20 of them out there!" Kyle shouted back.
"20?! I knew I should have gotten rid of the Ancestral Stone Spring! My entire Inheritance Crypt is ruined!" the voice shouted.
Kyle blinked a couple of times.
'Didn't he say that exact same thing a couple of seconds ago?' he thought in confusion.
Once more, the voice shut up.
The white Ore Fiend just kept looking at Kyle, who looked back.
This was troublesome.
How was it supposed to get him?
At that moment, the Ore Fiend's brain had an idea.
The next moment, the Ore Fiend pulled its legs and arms in, turning back into a boulder.
'What's it doing?' Kyle thought.
Then, the Ore Fiend tilted forward...
And tumbled down the stairs.
'Fuck!' Kyle thought when he saw that.
He knew that this Ore Fiend wouldn't be damaged by falling down the stairs.
That weaker Ore Fiend outside easily survived a fall from a hundred meters!
The only damage the Ore Fiend could cause by tumbling down the stairs was flattening Kyle.
"Run!" the voice shouted.
'Run?' Kyle thought.
At this moment, Kyle remembered all the movies he had seen about a big boulder following the hero.
Outrunning a boulder was impossible, despite what all the movies showed.
This thing would pick up speed so fucking fast.
The only thing Kyle could do was to jump into the middle of the level, which meant falling for about 90 meters, going splat.
This thing was like a train.
'Train?' Kyle thought.
Then, he got an idea.
'Train!'
BANG!
Kyle rammed the pick of his hammer diagonally into the outer corner of the spiral staircase.
Naturally, this spire was ridiculously hard, and Kyle's hammer didn't even crack it.
The next moment, Kyle ducked behind his hammer.
'This thing is round!'
'Round things go in the square hole, and the square hole has plenty of space!'
The boulder ground against the walls of the spiral staircase.
The walls and stairs shook.
Then, the lower left part of the boulder hit the corner of the hammer.
The hammer was pushed back, and Kyle was pushed back with it.
However, the kinetic force of the boulder also pushed the hammer into the staircase's corner.
Each action had an equal and opposite reaction.
The boulder jumped like a car that had hit a bump in the road.
Or like a train that had driven over a track with a steel ball on it.
The boulder jumped over the hammer and over Kyle.
It left the stairs, flying a bit over the open center.
Then, it entered the vicinity of the staircase again but at a different angle.
BANG!
The boulder hit the walls and bounced off.
Finally, it rolled over the edge of the staircase again and entered a freefall.
Kyle rapidly stood up and ran down the stairs.
The boulder was still falling, but Kyle knew that the Ore Fiend wouldn't even receive a scratch from that fall.
It kept falling.
BOOOOOOOM!
And landed on the second layer of the spire.
It landed on one of the hard gems, and Kyle heard a cracking sound reverberating through the spire.
Its weight, coupled with the hardness of the big and dull crystal, was enough to crack its armor.
Naturally, as soon as the Ore Fiend landed, its body lost its boulder shape.
Right now, the Ore Fiend laid on the floor with its belly pointing up.
Kyle's mind was going wild.
The Ore Fiend's armor was cracked, but he couldn't see where it was damaged.
From a height of about 70 meters, Kyle saw the Ore Fiend slowly standing up.
It hadn't looked at him yet.
Kyle's entire body was heating up.
He was afraid.
But he was also excited.
There was a chance!
There was a tiny chance!
Kyle started shaking as he gripped his hammer tightly.
'Fuck it!'
'We ball, or we die!'
'There is no way out!'
Then...
Kyle jumped.