Chapter 166: The Tripping Storm
Hell—that was all anyone saw as the swarm crashed down on them.
Knights and adventurers alike braced themselves, swords and shields raised, spells glowing at their fingertips. Then, with bone-rattling force, the creatures hit. Men were plucked straight off the ground like dolls and carried shrieking into the sky, while the lucky ones managed to slash a few down. Others were locked in desperate combat, blades flashing against slime-coated flesh.
Finn dropped flat just in time as one screeched past overhead—so close he swore he felt the wind of its wings brush his hair. If he’d stood an inch taller, he’d be screaming his lungs out on the way to bird-hell right now.
The creatures were nightmare parodies of people—humanlike shapes with arms and legs replaced by twisted bird wings and talons. Their mouths were jagged beaks, their faces eyeless hollows. And their skin still oozed that same revolting slime, dripping as they shrieked.
"Finn, stay low!" Theron’s voice boomed over the chaos. The man parried a diving abomination with his cane like it was a fencing foil. "They’re only swooping on those tall enough to reach!"
Say no more—Finn dropped lower, practically belly-crawling through the muck like a worm in a panic attack.
Around him, swords slashed, spells burst, and bodies slammed into the ground.
Then—one of the creatures crash-landed right in front of him. It clawed itself upright, slime dripping, head cocking as it looked directly at him. Its eyeless sockets seemed to lock on him anyway. Then it screeched and scrambled toward him on crooked talons.
"NOPE—NOPE, NO THANK YOU—" Finn scuttled backward until—
WHAM!
A giant ham-shank club came down, smashing the creature’s skull like a melon. Slime and gore splattered across Finn’s face, hot and chunky. He immediately gagged and puked into the mud.
"Ho, ho, ho! Now that’s what I call chunky stew!" Chunkus bellowed proudly, rubbing his belly before turning to wallop another one out of the air.
Finn was still crawling when CRACK! A knight’s armored boot stomped down right on his back. Finn squealed like a dying guinea pig, the noise so loud it startled the knight. The hesitation cost him—an abomination swooped in and ripped him off the ground screaming.
Finn lay gasping in the mud, back aching, slime and vomit dripping down his face.
’Where the hell am I even going?!’ he finally thought. ’Shouldn’t I, I don’t know, have a plan instead of just panic-worming around in the mud like an idiot?’ He cried internally.
Finn searched the battlefield for shelter and found none. Everyone was busy—knights grappling with winged abominations, mages hurling spells that bloomed into explosions of light. The maids were nowhere in sight; the one time he actually needed a cavalry of women, they were absent. Silvara had been useful in the guild, but she wasn’t here now.
Chestelle stood only a few yards away, oddly still. Earlier she’d been laser-focused on the winged horror; now she simply idled as if mall-walking. Seeing her like that split Finn in two: one part of him wanted to crawl inside her chest-form and hide forever; the other part, the part that didn’t want to be a worthless sack of fear, wanted to fight.
laying on the mud and thought, and thought, and then the chaos clicked. People were dying. He could keep panicking in place—or do something stupid that might actually matter.
He clenched his fists and made a decision. "I’m getting inside Chestelle. These people can all die," he muttered, absolutely certain of his cowardice.
Scrambling to his feet and ran. He dodged a falling adventurer, rolled under a sweeping talon, and barreled through a gap as if a horde of tiny disasters were chasing him. He was inches away—he could see Chestelle’s muddy scales—when a screech split the air. A creature dove and snatched her up like a prize.
"CHESTELLE!" Finn screamed, sliding on his stomach across the muck. "Turn into a chest, now!"
Unfortunately for him, she must’ve not heard him.
The creature clutched her, dangling her like a ragdoll. Finn’s hand whipped out, and he tripped it mid-flight. The abomination shrieked and dropped, and for a second Chestelle fell free like a puppet with its strings cut.
She didn’t flap. She didn’t fight. She fell like a limp toy.
Another creature intercepted her mid-fall and carried her off. Finn’s mouth went dry. He pushed past a line of slogging adventurers and fired another trip. The creature wobbled; Chestelle slipped—only to be snatched by yet another bird-beast fighting the first for possession, talons slashing and wings beating in a brutal, greedy tangle.
Finn kept tripping. He tripped one, tripped two; he tripped a third and sent two creatures colliding into each other so badly they tangled and fell in a writhing heap. Chestelle slipped toward the ground again, and then—one more creature dove for her. Finn struck out, his arm a blur of desperate motion: another trip. The creature spun out and missed.
This was ridiculous. This was horrible. They looked like vultures on a corpse, not warriors hunting a person. Every time Chestelle was falling, some new horror tried to claim her.
Finally she slammed into the mud hard, somewhere past the main clash. Finn skidded to a halt, sliding on his hilt, stomach dropping into his boots. "No—my safety pod!" he howled.
He shoved through the crowd, knocking shoulders, shoving past a dazed knight, ignoring shouts. Mud sprayed his calves. He ran like a man who’d decided the only thing worth risking was the one stupid companion who’d once been a chest and somehow saved him before.
Chestelle lay there, limp and muddy—but alive. Finn hit the ground beside her and reached for her, breath tearing from his lungs and the world still a spinning slurry of wings and screams. He ignored the gore, the slime, the roaring sky. All that mattered was getting her out of the mud and back into chest-form so nothing else could hopefully pick at her like a magpie.
***
"Chestelle, I need you to turn into a chest! If you don’t, then more of those things are going to swoop us up like free samples!" Finn pleaded, desperation cracking his voice.
Chestelle giggled, mud on her cheek. "That was fun. I want to be thrown again," she said with a big, vacant smile.
A single tear slid down Finn’s cheek. "Oh my god... the birds dropped you and scrambled your brain even worse." He sniffled.
She only laughed louder, not even dignifying him with a response.
Finn’s chest caved in. His last hope for safety—gone. Chestelle wasn’t functioning right, not as a chest, not as a person. She was just a broken toy with a laugh track.
His face darkened. Sure, he had other party members, maybe even the maids somewhere in this mess—but he didn’t know where, and frankly, he didn’t feel like looking for them. Too much effort.
Lazy survival, that was his brand.
But then something broke in him. Lowering his head, he clenched his fist, snapped his arm out, and tripped one of the winged abominations mid-dive.
It slammed into the mud with a sickening crack.
Once turned into twice. Twice into five. He whipped his arms, hands flaring like a conductor gone mad, and one after another the horrors plummeted. Talons scraped, wings folded, bodies broke in the dirt.
Soldiers and adventurers didn’t waste the chance. They surged in, blades and spells cutting the fallen creatures to ribbons. For the first time, the swarm faltered.
And it was all because of Finn.
Without meaning to, without even realizing it, he had given them hope. He had raised morale simply by doing what he did best: making things trip like idiots.
But Finn didn’t notice. He wasn’t watching the others, wasn’t basking in their shouts or momentum. His world had collapsed into a tunnel of pure, stupid fury.
Trip. Fall. Trip. Fall.
That was all his mind knew.
He was a storm of hatefully tripping things, and somehow in his miserable life, it was actually working. Paying off for him.
From all the tripping, the chaos was finally beginning to settle—creatures were dropping faster than they could swarm, and for once, people were holding their ground.
That’s when Finn spotted one of his party members.
Majestria.
Unfortunately.
She wasn’t fighting. She wasn’t helping. She wasn’t even pretending.
Instead, she stood behind a circle of knights who guarded her like she was the kingdom’s pampered princess, idly inspecting her nails as if this was a spa day instead of the apocalypse.
And Finn knew exactly why. She didn’t want to get dirty.
It made his blood boil. People were bleeding, screaming, clawing for their lives—and she was worried about mud under her cuticles.
So, Finn waited. He bided his time. Then, just as one of the creatures dived, he flicked his arm out, tripped it mid-flight, and sent it crashing directly into Majestria’s little royal circle.
What followed was nothing but screams, cries, and the kind of chaos Finn lived for.
He smirked, satisfied. That was all he needed to know—mission accomplished.
Then, without a shred of guilt, he turned his focus back to the real fight: helping the others trip, fall, and butcher the winged horrors until they had a chance at pushing the swarm back.