Chương 132: B2 Chapter 24: Under Test

In a matter of moments, the weather changed. I would have thought that the giant centipedes would reach us first, giving us ample time to retreat from the depths, but the thunderstorm took no time at all to rage over the blighted chasma. The harsh downpour did not reach us in the depths, but the winds were still no more than a squalled, erratic hail. It was only a matter of time before the storm flooded the chasm. While that might not be too troublesome for us, it could create a fiasco among the dwelling monsters.

All of which meant we would have to dispose of the two elite demons before any of that came to be, or Elnar would take it upon himself to end them before taking us out of the chasm. We stood prepared: I at the front, floating a couple of steps in mid-air, with Tallos and Marcus on either side, followed by Lauren and Valeria. Everyone had mounted their preferred weapons. The monsters did not keep us waiting for long, and unfortunately, it was not merely two of them.

The elite demons had brought along a swarm of minions as they broke into the ditch in a wave, their numbers far superior to any we had disposed of in a single clash.

"Blighted hell," Marcus muttered.

"Perhaps this is a bad idea."

"I hope you do not mind me hogging them," I said, yanking all my essence threads into existence.

"I will much prefer if you can clear the minions fast," Valeria said.

"Alone, they are nothing but a nuisance, but when we are battling against the elites, a moment of distraction can be fatal."

"I think it's best if he keeps one of the elite distracted until we are done with the other one," Tellus said.

"We won't have to kill all the common centipedes either way. Vale, you and Lauren can keep them breathing over our shoulders." I shared both of the opinions. Still, I felt I could do more.

"What would I do?" Marcus asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" There was no smile on Tellus's lip.

"You and I will fight the other elite demon." The swarm gave us no more time to strategise. Despite any complaint Marcus might have, he fell in line with everyone for the task at hand.

"Shout if you need help," saying that, I hurled up into the air. I shaped half a dozen spears of smouldering flame and hurled them at the swarming monsters. Wherever the spell struck, it tore apart the demon before digging into the rugged terrain. The centipedes were not frightened at all this time, however. Despite my fire spell devastating their numbers, they merely changed direction towards where the spear struck.

Adjusting my threads, I implemented a wide sweep of wind blade, cutting down a number of them in a single attack. I was not holding back, as over a dozen centipedes were dismembered within the blink of an eye. However, their numbers poured in incessantly. I could not keep focusing on them anymore, as one of the monstrous elite centipedes hurled towards me with a piercing shriek. The elite one was easily ten times larger than the regular ones, but it was not merely its size that concerned me.

Compared to the average twenty segmented bodies, it had nearly sixty, covered entirely in jagged protrusions. Most concerning, however, were the two pairs of frontal appendages shaped like elongated scythes. They struck towards me, cutting through the squalling wind with unprecedented swiftness. Relying on my relic, I pushed the force field to meet the attack, to learn how potent its power was.

The monstrosity could not penetrate the defences of the [Vigil of Protection], but it was more powerful than I had imagined. I was knocked back more than a couple of steps, and that with the levitation boots working against the force. The colossal centipede charged at me, swinging its scythe-like appendages swifter than my blade could apprehend them. Without the relic and the boots, it would have been impossible to keep up with its movements.

Tentatively, I shaped a large harpoon of fire and shot it at its skull to gauge its defences, which I imagined to be robust. The elite demon turned out to be shrewd as well, ducking the spell so it barely brushed its barbed form. I drove the second harpoon closer to the massive demon's movement. If only the result had been more to my liking.

Had one of its lesser counterparts been struck by something like that, it would have exploded into a hundred pieces, but here the jagged monstrosity was barely even knocked back. Right, I had to consider its high arcane resistance. As I tussled with the centipede on one side, my team fought its counterpart on the other side of the pit. Working together, they could have handled the elite centipede well, but not with half their attention spent on the swarm.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The squeals of monsters and the bombardment of thunder made it almost impossible to hear verbal cues. I thought I had heard my name, but the words that came after vanished in the wind. Only when an arrow exploded at my side, sending shards of stone and mutilated demons flying, did I notice Valeria.

"Keep up!" she said, or I believed she did.

"... a minute or two." There were still hundreds of centipedes pouring in. Although most of their numbers vanished into the depths, even a fraction of them could overwhelm the others. I could split my focus to give them a hand, but the monster kept me engaged completely. Shooting a spell or two in between would not be highly efficient, either. I could fly out of its range, but that would give it a chance to attack the others, and they were already suppressed by its counterpart.

So all I could do was train my sword-sense on the trajectory of its attacks and dodge them until I could read it like a textbook. An elite centipede was not supposed to be tougher than a stonegorger, but I had Ouroboros in hand when I defeated the stonegorger, and it lacked the hundreds of minions distracting us from killing it. A few moments into the squabble, I learned that for all its ferocity, the giant centipede's attacks were quite basic.

To be honest, anything is simple to Swordsense once I manage to read its pattern. The thing with the elite demon was its berserk pace. Moment by moment, evading its attacks became easier. Soon, I fell into the pattern of hovering at its front before flying to its sides or back to hurl a spear of fire or my blade into the same segmentation. The first few attacks barely left a dent, but once a crack began to form, a single well-shaped fire spear penetrated well over a foot into its body.

Black ichor gushed out from the laceration, but the monster was beyond stopping. Taking the complete aggression of the colossal abomination, I glided towards its lesser counterparts. The enraged demon ran over its minions to chase after me, making my task halfway easier. Dodging its constant strikes, I flung wide, sweeping wind blades, dispatching the monstrosities littering the blighted stone floor.

Meanwhile, Marcus and Tellus were doing the heavy lifting of keeping the monster at bay, as Valeria bombarded it with arrows. She had blinded it, even disposing of its sensory antennae, sending the monster into madness. It smashed its body into anything in its path, losing all direction as it struck at us. It evidently made killing it quickly difficult, but at least it could not strike them if they maintained some distance. They had it under better control than I had hoped.

But I still did my part, raining wind blades and fire arrows on the swarming minions.

"Watch where you throw your spells!" Valeria shouted, gliding along the rugged wall. She was the one who jumped into my line of attack, but I suppressed my annoyance. Haste turned out to be my best weapon against the centipede's berserk speed. As soon as I evaded its scything appendages, I used Haste to move to its flank and channelled an aura-charged blade into the deep laceration.

After a dozen blows, there was a clear, distinctive severance between two of its segments--enough that its scythes were turning sluggish, as was the monster's pace. To hasten the process, I charged more aura of sharpness, digging through the wound a centimetre more with each strike. Icky muck, blacker than its dark carapace, gushed out from the wound. It froze quickly to close the wound, but I did not give it time to recover. Ultimately, the colossal demon chanced to flee.

With a couple of bursts of Haste from the levitation boots and my Rune Imprint, I managed to shoot a fire spear into its eye socket, blinding it on one side before dicing through its antenna. I gave it no time, bombarding the crack in its segmented body with my spells, severing it completely. Even in death, the bisected monster still ran rampant on the ground, its form striking the stone with maniacal fervour. Phew! An elite centipede seemed a little tougher than a corpse fly.

I reckoned a better blade would help, or perhaps mastering my aura. Pushing those distracting thoughts away, I turned towards the others.

"Need any help?" Nobody heard me. Marcus seemed to be running out of steam, as his sword did not have the same force as before, whereas Valeria had been forced to fight in close quarters, having lost all her arrows. Lauren was not of much help against the elite monster. Only Tellus seemed to be keeping up with his robust form. Well, to their credit, they had done half the work. I would feel bad if I stole the kill from them, so I decided only to play an auxiliary role.

They had already crippled one of its four scythes. As I helped distract it, Talos capitalised on the opening to smash his battle-axe into its skull. Its carapace cracked as the great weight of the axe struck. The burly augmenter channelled his gift to the very limit, amplifying the weight of his attack by four or five times. The second the weapon hit, it sprayed black ichor into the wind.

Over two hundred of my threads sprang into motion, keeping the monster in place as Talos began to smash the thunderous mass into its skull, one blow after another in wild abandon. The colossal tail sprang to plunge into Tellus, but I was prepared for it. Awakening the defence of my relic, I obstructed it completely. Talos was ready to evade, even though he had no time. Finding the tail swing frozen in mid-air, he hesitated for a moment, his gaze meeting mine, and then carried on with the skull-smashing.

Finding the opening, even Marcus chanced to deal a couple of blows to its end. By then, there was already a knee-high wave flooding the chasm. Tellus let go of his axe to cast me a look.

"I might be wrong," he said, huffing, "but I think they won't have much left to teach you if you enter the academy a year later." I returned a smile, giving little consideration to his words. And I was proven right as I turned my head to the others. Not everyone came out of the battle unscathed. Marcus was saved by his expensive armour, but Valeria was not without a scratch. She showed a brave front, standing upright, but this was the first time her close-quarters capacity had been tested.

Finally, Lauren, she could not even stand on her own, as Elnar had to come forward to her rescue. I had failed to consider her safety once when I was dealing with the first elite demon. ================