Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6) by Dakota Krout (best romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

him twice as fast as it had been just a moment ago, and his eyes went wide as it crushed him into the ground and tried to turn him into a waffle. Specifically not a pancake, what with all the holes it tried to drill into him.

Sneak attack successful: 917 damage taken. (Crushing/Piercing).

Exquisite Shell: 2,645/3,562.

“Ow. Seriously, almost a third of my shell in one go?” The ball continued past him, reaching the spot it had started from and popping out to see if Joe had been destroyed. Joe groaned and got to his feet, staring murder at the Hammer Beast. “Oh, look, you have an attack pattern I can exploit. I appreciate the opportunity to test my new weapon on you, beast bro.”

Joe chuckled at the absurdity of his words as he mentally lifted two of his new orbs into the air. Maybe his time with the Dwarves was affecting him more than he thought it had been.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Hammer Beast wasn’t giving Joe any time to prepare himself, but that was fine by him… at first. Joe was all sorts of excited to have some ball vs orb action, until he realized that the beast’s ability to maneuver was far superior to his own. In fact, all the beast’s physical characteristics topped his by a significant amount.

Joe dove out of the way again as the beast rolled past him, still getting clipped by a spike on the outer edge of its armored shell.

Exquisite Shell: 2,299/3,562.

“Abyss! That barely touched me!” Joe wasted no time in striking the beast with lightning, completely forgetting his new weapon in his haste to deal some damage. The spell hit just after his shadow dissipated, missing the beast entirely but at least catching it in the area of effect.

Damage dealt: 267 (AOE of Dark Lightning Strike and 41% damage return from Retaliation of Shadows.)

Joe remembered his orbs, and looked around to find them. They had fallen to the ground and were just… sitting there… so he tried to get them back in the air and attacking on his behalf. Just as they lifted off, he had to move again as the beast came rolling back at him once more. The orbs fell to the ground as soon as his mind was off of them, but at least Joe had managed to avoid the follow-up attack. The Hammer Beast skidded to a stop, unfurled, and got a bead on his new location once more. With a sound a buzz saw would have been jealous of, the beast shot toward the Reductionist again.

Joe jumped, this time past the original attacking position of the beast, and sent a Cone of Cold at the creature. He missed entirely as the beast stayed ahead of the attack and moved over thirty feet in the blink of an eye. He was hoping that the layer of frost left on the ground would make it harder to roll on, but had forgotten the Hammer Beast’s spikes, which allowed it to power past the area without issue like it was wearing cleats. It came to a stop right about the same spot it had started from, but it unexpectedly stayed in that position for a longer time.

It took an Acid Spray and a hundred and thirty damage on its shell for the trouble, but it was also able to find Joe as soon as the stinging liquid started to eat away at it. It let out a screech from both heads, and Joe felt something… latch onto him?

You have been targeted!

“What does that even mean?” Joe didn’t have the option to look deeper into the message, as the Hammer Beast started moving in an odd manner that it hadn’t used before. It shot directly at him, as per usual, but when he got out of the way, it no longer came back in a straight line. Instead, the beast swerved to put itself directly on a collision course for him again. “Balls! Attack!”

Joe ordered the two orbs off the ground and sent them spiraling in for an attack. They hit the beast head on, actually slowing the buzz-saw movement slightly. There was a tremendous *crack* and the orbs went flying into the long grass surrounding the road that Joe was on. A small notification let him know that they had hit for fifty-eight blunt damage each thanks to his new ring and automatically applied bonus armor penetration, but Joe lost sight of them entirely. “An~n~nd they’re gone.”

As the beast came at him, Joe went for the tried-and-true ploy, jumping over it to get into a better position for attack. To his terror, the beast bounced off the ground at him, and only the power that Joe had put into the jump allowed him to avoid taking a spike directly to the face. The ball whizzed under him by a fraction of a foot as he watched with wide eyes in almost slow motion.

Joe pulled two more of his orbs out of his ring before he hit the ground, sending them at the curving-around figure of the Hammer Beast. He urged them onto their greatest speed, casting Dark Lightning Strike just as they landed on the beast. There was a tremendous *bang* as the three attacks hit as one, and the beast was dazed by the various pains it was feeling, so much so that it flopped out of position and landed roughly on the ground. It bounced a few times, slowly coming to its feet and trying to reorient itself on the human causing it such injury.

Damage dealt: 1,180 (140 blunt + 1,050 Dark) (Perfect critical hit!) Target is dazed for four seconds!

Joe was astonished at the damage values that he had just seen, but he barely wasted a moment in getting his orbs back into position for attack. Since his target wasn’t moving much, he pulled out the last two orbs and added them into the next attack, now having four orbs out and moving together to strike the beast. He