Starbound: A Space Odyssey 98 The Great Hunt 20

It charged at John in the second the pain on its back stopped.

The creature wanted nothing more than kill the little human that dared to hurt it at such extent.

John did successively jumps to the side wanting to dodge the incoming charge.

*Whoosh*

The charge he was able avert, but...

*Bam*

"Puh...." John was sent flying spraying a mouthful of blood by the Ixodoom's scythe that moved at a blinding speed.

*Bam*

"*Cough*..." John coughed more blood as he had hit a tree bark.

*Splash*

His head was dizzy and his body momentarily weak. He fell directly on the small pound of water that was beneath the tree.

The attack came out too sudden that he didn't have the time to even think of activating the Barrier Tech that he has.

He didn't even had the chance to recover himself when he felt his senses tingling, warning of the impending danger.

Gritting his teeth, he recovered some strength and rolled to the side.

*Splat*

In the place where he just have been, there nothing more than a small crater that was soon filled with water from pound.

The Ixodoom's acid that made the crater, proved its strength.

If the green ball of acid had managed to hit John, he would be just a pound of melted flesh and bones by now.

Cold sweat dripped from his back as he thought of the possible sad ending if he wasn't fast enough to roll.

He cleaned the corner of his mouth that had blood dripping from it and grimly looked at the Ixodoom that appeared to be preparing itself to do something.

[Nuru...where are you?] John thought while he struggled to keep himself on his feet.

The armor on his chest has a huge, deep, diagonal slash mark on it, caused by the Ixodoom's scythe.

Before he could properly stand, John saw that the Ixodoom had spit a ball of green liquid toward him.

He was having difficulty to even stand, so he had no other choice than using the Tech Ability.

*Tsssshh*

The moment the ball of acid was about to his John, a dome of that looked to be made of transparent blue gla.s.s appeared around John.

John's PIPS was able to store up to 300 UE, together with his Scavenger's Set of Armor, which in total provide 900 UE of storage, he had a total of 1200 UE that he could use.

To activate the Barrier Tech Ability he had to pay a initial price of 100 UE to form the forcefield.

The acid was blocked by the forcefield, further dropping John's UE to only 900 UE, from the previous 1100 UE that he had after using 100 to activate the s.h.i.+eld.

*Swish*

But it was in this moment that a string of web suddenly was shot from the Ixodoom and had John's Barrier.

*Bam*

The attack didn't dropped a lot his UE, but it still sent John flying backward until he smashed into a tree once again.

Even though the Barrier protected him from direct harm of the web and also from hitting the tree, he still was dizzy for a moment after smas.h.i.+ng on the tree, before he recovered and tried to get out from the tree because he saw that the Ixodoom had start to charge at him.

"Huh?" But John soon realised how sticky and strong was the web. He tried to move from the place with the Barrier still activated, but he was stuck on place.

John struggled to get out of the web, unfortunately all his efforts were in vain. The web had completely covered the Barrier, once John deactivate the forcefield, the web would fall on top of him.

He was also unable of cutting it with the dagger from the inside since the Barrier Tech Ability completely isolate the person from any contact with the exterior.

In other words, it was impossible to shoot a gun from the inside and hit something on the other side without first putting the s.h.i.+eld down.

John was on a tense situation now. His mind worked overclock trying to think of a solution.

He looked up and saw the Ixodoom picking up speed and charging directly at him.

"f.u.c.k!" John cursed out loud.

Bullet Time

John decided to use the power to give himself more time to think at how to deal the situation he found himself into.

He didn't know how strong was the web and neither if he deactivate the s.h.i.+eld he would be able to cut it open.

There was a risk, but John decided to try it out. He unsheathed the dagger and deactivated the forcefield.

As the forcefield disappeared, the web started to fall upon John.

*Swish*

John slashed with his dagger using his full strength, trying to cut the white, sticky, web.

The dagger cut the web with somewhat difficulty, but John was still successful.

He was about to leave his position when he saw that the Ixodoom was already right before him, charging with full force.

"s.h.i.+-"

*BAM*

John was. .h.i.t by the charge, but just before he was sent flying, he was able to activate the Barrier Tech Ability once again.

*Crack*

But that didn't worked up well enough. The strength behind the Ixodoom's scythes slashed at the Barrier and completely broke it into shards.

John was able to fall on the ground, on his knees, but at least better than being burried into another free trunk.

He gasped for breath as he swiftly glanced at the PIPS. His entire UE storage was used up to protect his life from that charge.

*Roar*

The Ixodoom roared to the sky and stared at John that was already somewhat weakened.

*Boom!!!*

The monster was about to spit another ball of acid when it was. .h.i.t by something that exploded right into its face.

*ROARRRRRRR!!!!!*

The creature howled in extreme pain.

"What the..." Once the smoke that came with explosion vanished, John was able to see the gaping hole that was made in the middle of the head's sh.e.l.l.