Chương 65: 1.3.21 - The Queen's Gambit (3)

"Annie, send part of your water to where those three soldier ants are converging and create a puddle" I instructed. While that would reduce the amount of water Annie had to defend us from the Queen's acid attacks, the probability of that happening was a lot lower now that Roderic's team was engaging the Queen ant.

The moment the blob of water Annie sent flying landed between the three soldier ants, dousing them in water while creating a puddle that connected all three, I let loose the Lightning Bolt I had been charging. I was running low on mana at this point and I could only cast a few more full powered Lightning Bolts before I ran dry. I could feel the Basic Mana potion I took earlier taking effect but my rate of consumption was still faster than the increased regeneration.

CRAK The Lightning Bolt landed on the puddle instead of any of the soldier ants. The effect of the spell was already weakened by the extended distance, and even further suppressed when divided by three targets. However, I just needed to stun them momentarily.

"Annie, freeze it now!" I quickly called when the three ants faltered from the electrical shock. The stun did not last long and the ants quickly recovered after a few seconds, but Annie's frozen ground did its job of stalling the ants long enough for some of the other parties nearby to engage the ants. The sound of my spell also helped to alert the nearby adventurers.

The Silver Ranked wind mage in Roderic's party took the opportunity to release a disc of wind that looked like a saw blade, targeting the seams between the head and the thorax. Another two parties managed to catch up to the other two soldier ants while they were trying to find their footing on the frozen ground. This gave Roderic's team the space they needed to dispatch the other two soldier ants that were approaching them. I could tell that Randell was out of steam at this point.

He was breathing hard, hands on the platform we stood on while keeping an eye out for any approaching ants. He could not take a mana potion since he had already taken two healing ones. It was fortunate that at this point, the number of remaining ants was dwindling and the other parties could handle them. The ants were also distracted by the fact that their Queen was under attack, which ironically made them easier to dispatch.

My higher vantage point meant that I had a clear view of the battlefield compared to the other parties. I used that advantage to continue assisting the other teams with stunning the ants at opportune moments to whittle down their numbers faster, all the while keeping an eye out for Roderic's team. Roderic facing off against the Queen by himself while his team supported him from the backlines was something else.

Even though he had a Fire Affinity, it seemed that his years of experience had taught him to develop defensive tactics while relying on an affinity that was usually used offensively. Instead of blocking blows like an Earth mage or dodging blows like a Wind mage, Roderic used his giant sword to parry the blows from the Queen.

Being a Blue cored mage meant that he had his fair share of experience hunting beasts or monsters that were physically larger than him, which must be one of the factors for his weapon of choice. Even though the Queen's mass probably outweighed him by an order of magnitude, Roderic was able to keep up with its attacks purely through swordsmanship and well timed use of some fire burst spell.

At the moment of contact between his sword and one of the Queen's claws, a burst of fire would appear at the flat of his blade to help with the force needed to parry away the claw. Even though Roderic had skill on his side, the Queen had numbers on its side. While Roderic only had a single blade, the Queen had four claws. Outnumbered in blades, Roderic was unable to parry some blows fully, or could not parry them in time.

He applied the same fire burst to his armor instead, using it to propel or shift his body to change a full on strike to a glancing blow. The armor he was wearing was likely enchanted, as blows that would normally cave in armor barely left a dent. There were also flashes of yellow at the points of contact where the claws came in contact with the armor. While Roderic was holding on, he was not gaining ground on the Queen. This was despite the support offered by his team.

The Earth mages had softened the floor underneath the Queen, and coupled with water summoned by the team's Water mage, it had turned into a swamp like terrain. Whenever one of the Queen's claws sank into the swamp after being parried, they would work together to harden the soil to temporarily trap the claw. This would buy Roderic a few moments of respite while the Queen tried to pry its trapped claw out.

Having seen that the Queen's own chitin was immune to the acid, the Air mage focused on deflecting the acid to the side of the cavern instead, preventing the acid from accumulating near Roderic. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. It was at this point that I spotted the opportunity, which I had been saving my last fully charged Lightning Bolt for.

When two of the Queen's claws were trapped, I fired off my Lightning Bolt, targeting its body where one of its claws was attached. My spell did not do much damage but it gave Roderic the opening he needed. When he saw that the claw froze mid swing, he lunged forward while using his spell to propel his own body faster. I saw his blade light up in an orange glow before he swung it. He used the same fire burst to further accelerate the blade, targeting the seam between the claw and the leg.

The bladed claw spun as it flew through the air, before embedding itself in the cavern wall nearby. The Queen shrieked as the pale yellow ichor oozed from the wound on the leg, splashing it about — some of it landing on Roderic's armor. Fortunately, the blood did not carry the same acidic properties as its spit. Once the Queen lost one of its bladed claws, the fight began to tilt in Roderic's team's favor. Roderic took the opportunity to block one of the claws head on, holding it still for one second.

The Air mage on his team took the chance to release the same disc like saw blade to slice off another of the Queen's bladed limbs. At this point, most of the other parties had cleared off the remaining ants near them and started helping out with the other teams, which really accelerated the rate at which the worker and soldier ants were killed. Soon, all the worker and soldier ants in the cavern had been killed and all the parties began to converge on the Queen.

The front line adventurers could not really go in to help Roderic, as they did not have the reflexes nor the endurance to survive a single hit from the Queen. The strikers that had further range could help a little. While the spells themselves did little damage, and barely left scuff marks on the Queen's chitin, they did serve to distract it — especially those aimed at the face or the softer abdomen. At this point in the fight, it was only a matter of time before we took the Queen down.

The question was could we take it down without losing anybody else. I could see some of the members from various parties that were lying to the side, too injured or exhausted to join the final fight. Some people had burns that would heal with time, while some lost entire limbs to the acid attack by the Queen. There were also a few bodies lying about, some without their heads and some with a gaping hole through their bodies.

As the fight dragged on, I started seeing some of the Steel Ranked strikers in the various parties working together to fuse their spells to create an effect that was stronger than the sum of its parts. Fire Arrows were enhanced by spiraling winds to increase the oxygen concentration, making it burn hotter. Water mages softened the soil and reinforced the plant constructs summoned by Wood mages, making the vines stronger and more difficult to snap.

Earth mages summoned rock shrapnel to be added to Wind Blades, making the spells more abrasive. Our team wanted to join in but we were already running on empty. If we were not protected by the raised platform that Randell summoned, we might have had the same fates as some of the bodies lying on the ground around the cavern. Waldo was struggling to maintain the orb of light that was still hovering near the cavern ceiling, its light getting dimmer by the second.

Though the immediate area surrounding the Queen was still bright, lit up by the glow from the fire spells. Unlike typical RPG games where the final boss enters a phase 2, there was no last desperate surge. Roderic found the opening to thrust the blade into the seam beneath the Queen's jaw, stepping to the side a moment later as the Queen's body came crashing down on the cavern floor. The cavern went quiet, the noise of spells hitting chitin died along with the Queen.

Everyone collapsed where they stood, glad to have survived the ordeal — everyone except Roderic's party. It goes without saying that the core of the Queen would go to his party as they did most of the heavy lifting taking it down. What was surprising was instead of claiming the blue core for himself, he gave it to the Earth mage on his team. He and the others then went round to the back of the Queen's body, disappearing into what seemed like another chamber.

The rest of the adventurers did not rest long though, as they promptly got up and started walking towards the bodies of the worker and soldier ants they took down. We did not have long as the cores were already degrading by the minute, some of the cores in the tunnels probably completely degraded by this point.

"Come, we should go claim our cores as well" Randell said as he began to lower the platform we stood on. While his mana was low, unsummoning the pillar took a lot less effort and we were down on the ground in a few seconds. There seemed to be some unspoken agreement between the parties here, as I did not see any parties breaking out into fights about the right to the cores. Where two parties worked together to take down an ant, the original party that had fought it the longest had the claim.

We agreed to give the soldier ant's core to Randell, as it would give him a four times boost with his Earth affinity and the higher grade Green core the soldier ant had. We divided the rest of the cores between us. Some of them had already degraded more than half by the time we got around to it. With the adrenaline gone, I could tell there were several notifications waiting for me even before I had absorbed the cores, something I would get to later. I saw Roderic appear from beside the Queen after a few moments.

"We have destroyed all the eggs in the egg chamber behind the Queen. While the toughest fight is behind us, our job is not done yet. I will send word to the guild to harvest the monster parts. Rest assured, compensation will be provided to the families of those that have sacrificed themselves. While we need to put our comrades that had given their lives today to rest, we first need to comb the woods for any remaining straggler ants to end the threat for good."

Roderic announced while some people were tending to their injuries, and others mourned their fallen friends. I guess what they said was true, there is no rest for the wicked.