Zac spat out some blood but quickly scrambled to his feet, even though he felt like every bone in his body broke from the impact. Another swing was already upon him, but this time, he dodged with his movement skill and moved under the large guard. He didn’t hold back and infused a [Chop] with the seed of Sharpness, aiming to tear a large gash all along its belly.
The mantis’ speed wasn’t a joke, though, as it almost teleported away from the swing. But the velocity of Zac’s swing wasn’t anything to scoff at either, and with a roar, one of the insect’s legs was lopped off, causing a torrent of green blood to pour out from the guard. It screeched in anger and backed away a few steps, using one of its sword arms as a crutch to keep itself stable.
The brief respite let Zac take a glance around. The huge tank-looking thing was still occupied by the combined distraction of Alea and Janos, and Ogras was fighting the fourth herald that truly looked a bit like a spider, apart from its head, which reminded him of a vomiter.
But instead of acid, small pitch-black ants were pouring out of its mouth, looking absolutely horrifying. Tens of lances were erupting out from the shadows between the tubes on the ground to stab the spider-looking guard and its spawn, but the small things seemed almost endless.
The guard was also conjuring netting toward Ogras, but the nimble demon was deftly dodging any attempt to catch him. Zac felt that Ogras could handle himself for now, which left two of the guards for him. Before he could decide which one to attack next, he realized that they were trapped inside.
The tunnels with the tubes were all closed, not even providing enough space for a hand to push through. Blood was streaming out of the exit they’d used earlier, and Zac realized that Herod had been crushed to death. The only upside to the situation was that it hopefully meant that they wouldn’t have to handle a horde of small ants as well.
Two elite warriors of his demon army were dead in under an hour, and Zac was reminded of the harsh reality of this new world. Not even powerhouses were safe. A quick glance at the mantis showed that it still was a bit distracted from its missing leg, and its lethality was likely impacted. It clearly was focused on speed and offense, but missing a leg would take away much of the danger.
Zac’s eyes turned to the final guard and saw that its eyes were glowing again. He didn’t know what kind of skill it used to hit him last time, but it hurt quite badly, and he was in no mood to take another one of those shock waves. Besides, if it hit Alea or Janos, he wasn’t sure whether they’d be able to keep fighting.
He quickly charged up a [Chop] and infused it with the Dao of Sharpness as well, giving the fractal blade a silver sheen. Without any break, he sent the five-meter edge right toward the main eye of the large-headed royal guard. But as the edged ripped through the air, it suddenly changed color and turned into the normal pale blue.
At the same time, Zac felt a heavy atmosphere descend upon the cave, like another type of mental pressure. It was as though he had lost one of his senses, but not one of the normal five. The fractal blade kept moving toward the large eye, though, but the eyes blazed into light for an instant, and the attack was smashed into smithereens.
Zac planned on sending a stream of blades toward the eye, but to his shock, noticed that he wasn’t able to infuse the skill with his Dao anymore. The mental pressure was persistent, and it somehow blocked him from empowering his skills. He quickly looked around and saw that the core of the hive queen was shining in a brighter light compared to before, emitting a huge amount of energy. It appeared the queen was somewhat sentient and helped her guards from the sidelines.
“My Dao is blocked!” Alea shouted, telling Zac that he wasn’t the only one affected.
He gritted his teeth and used [Loamwalker] toward the large-headed mage. He might not be able to use his Dao, but skills were still possible to use. He ran around the huge tank-monster, which was wildly flailing its thick arms around, trying to hit whatever was blocking its sight. But Janos and Alea simply kept a safe distance and mainly kept their eyes on the mantis and the eye-monster.
With his speed, he was upon the large-headed guard in no time and felt that he was almost physically punched by just the eye’s glare. He didn’t understand whether it was some sort of mental pressure or actual air pressure, but no matter how he struggled, he couldn’t move the last meter to reach it. As all the eyes stared at him, he was even starting to get pushed away, no matter how much he strained his muscles.
Two huge spears slammed into the side of the large-headed guard, eliciting an enraged screech, even though they barely seemed to penetrate the hard shell. Many eyes quickly swiveled toward Ogras, and Zac temporarily felt the pressure disappear. He didn’t hesitate and, with a roar, pushed himself right onto the head of the beast, wildly swinging [Verun’s Bite] into the large central eye.
A quick glance toward Ogras showed that he was currently beset by both the mantis and the spider, and the attack on the large-headed one put him in dire straits. The mantis was swinging down one of its swords on him, and he was receding into the shadows to dodge. However, the blade somehow pulled him out from safety and tore a large gash over his chest, blood freely pouring in all directions.
Zac wanted to help out, but he first needed to finish off this one. He took a deep breath and actually pushed himself into the large eye, frenziedly swinging his axe around. The ant spasmed and pushed all around, waves of energy flying in all directions. Zac didn’t let up, however, and kept hacking further into the head until a huge surge of Cosmic Energy told him his work was done.
He was completely covered in brain and eye goop by now but had no time to clean up. He rushed toward Ogras, who was in big trouble at the moment. He was desperately dodging the nets from the spider and the sword swings from the mantis. There were also three small pitch-black ants latched onto his body, and he seemed to be trying to get them off.
Zac rushed toward the mantis and was about to commence an attack, when a deluge of small spiders started skittering toward him.
“Don’t let them touch you!” Ogras wheezed out, but it was too late.
Two of them instantly latched on to Zac’s legs, and it felt like he suddenly was in a gravity array. The spiders were emanating a gravity field in some way, and their effect seemed to be stacking. He tried to rip them off while dodging the other small spiders who ran toward him, but it was to no avail. It was as though they were fused to his leg, and he was unable to remove them with force.
“They are stuck. I think we need to kill the spider to get them off!” Ogras shouted as another sword swing was descending on him.
The demon gritted his teeth, and a blue sheen enveloped him from a necklace. The sword smashed into the shield, and Zac almost tumbled away from the shock wave the strike created. Luckily, it cleared most of the small spiders from the area, as they were blown away from the force. The blue force field was the type of shield that returned the force back to the attacker, as cracks appeared on the arm of the guard, and it stumbled back from the recoil.
“Now!” Ogras shouted as shadows were starting to gather around him.
Zac activated his movement skill and sped toward the mantis. With the two spiders attached to his legs, it felt like he was slogging through waist-deep water, but he could only endure and push through. He appeared next to the hurt mantis and started swinging toward the insect’s side with a [Chop].
The first swing was intercepted by the sword arm of the mantis, but the huge force of Zac actually destroyed it. It was already cracked by the recoil of the shield, and Zac’s power did the rest. Now the mantis only had four legs remaining, and it was forced to choose whether to stand up or attack, as it needed to use its second sword to maintain balance.
It quickly made its choice as it swung its sword toward Zac while it was tipping over. The air was rippling with power from the swing, as it clearly pushed all its remaining energy into it. Shadow spears rose up to meet the falling body and pushed into its torso using the momentum to its advantage. It scree
ched frenziedly but completed the swing.
Initially, Zac was intending to dodge it, but unknown to him, another two spiders had attached themselves to him, making him almost keel over. The Dao was also still blocked, and he couldn’t use Seed of Trees to increase his resilience. He could only activate his armor, and a green shield enveloped him. The sword of the mantis slammed into the shield, and Zac was launched like a rocket into the wall.
However, just as he was readying himself for a follow-up, he felt another stream of Cosmic Energy, this one quite a bit smaller compared to the last. It looked like Ogras had taken the main contribution from the kill. That left just the tank and the spider alive. Unfortunately, Janos and Alea were clearly struggling by this point, even though less than a minute had passed since the start of the fight. Alea was carrying a deathly pale Janos on her back as she dodged the huge monstrosity.
“Janos is out of Cosmic Energy. Hurry!” the demoness shouted as she scrambled away from the ant.
Each slam from its huge arms created tremors in the ground as it tried to crush the two into meat-paste. It looked truly irate from being confused for a minute from illusions and hallucinogenic poison, only to wake up to two of the royal guards dead.
“We need to take out the spider first. If Alea gets a gravity ant on her, both of them will die,” Ogras said, and Zac could only grit his teeth and agree.
The spider was clearly focusing on entrapment, spawning both the gravity-minions and shooting out waves and waves of thread that were starting to turn a large part of the cavern into a sticky trap. However, both of the offensive guards were dead, and its own lethality wasn’t too high unless it managed to stack enough spiders onto someone, simply crushing them from the weight.
When there were no more interruptions from the other guards, Ogras had no trouble avoiding both the spiders and the sticky webs, and gracefully moved toward the large body of the guard. It screeched in alarm, but the huge armored guard actually ignored it, intent on killing the two pests next to it.
Zac didn’t have the nimbleness of the demon and could only do a more simple approach. He launched a large blade that flew toward the head of the spider, ripping any webs or spiders into pieces that were in the way. The attack essentially created a path for him, and he quickly moved through the passage with his movement skill. It took less than ten seconds for the two to finish off the third royal guard.
Zac and Ogras were breathing heavily, but they couldn’t stop yet. Ogras was still bleeding from his wounds, but he somehow was reducing the blood loss with the help of shadows that tightly twisted around his torso. Zac’s whole body was hurting from being slammed by various attacks and shock waves, but he got on his feet with a sigh and started charging toward the fourth royal guard.
There was still one to go.
109
The final push
Alea was in dire straits—dodging and movement weren’t her strong suits—and she was further impeded by carrying Janos around. The mage was weakly trying to confuse the last royal guard with illusions after having absorbed enough energy from a Nexus Crystal, but it was as though the huge armored ant was locked on to them.
Zac saw with some surprise that the cracks that appeared when both he and Ogras assaulted the crystal were already closed up, making the chitinous armor look as good as new.
“He has regenerated the damage already,” Zac said, and Ogras only nodded in response.
Zac sighed and readied his axe, but Ogras held up his hand.
“What?” Zac asked, anxious to help Alea and Janos out.
“When we kill this big guy, all the royal guards will be dead, and we’ll be able to attack the queen’s core. But we don’t know if the hive queen will be able to unleash some sort of last desperate attack when the guards are down and the shield is removed. The queen is a true E-ranked being, while the guards only seem to be elite F-grade beings on the cusp of evolving,” Ogras said while looking over his wound.
“We should instantly destroy the crystal the second the last guard dies to avoid any unexpected things. If I kill this big fucker, do you have a finisher to use against the crystal?” the demon continued.
Zac thought it sounded like a good idea and, after some hesitation, nodded.
“I need ten seconds of time to charge the attack,” Zac said. Actually, he barely needed half that, but the attack he was about to unleash was his current ace in the hole, and he didn’t want to give out its details. It put Alea and Janos in danger for an additional five seconds, but he could only make it up to them later.
Ogras nodded and readjusted his grip on his spear.
“Start charging,” the demon said as shadows were starting to gather around him, and his eyes turned completely black. Shadows were soon covering every inch of his body, turning him into a being of darkness. Ogras started emanating a sinister pressure that gave even Zac a hair-raising feeling. Whatever the demon was doing was something Zac had never seen before, and it was likely his strongest attack.
Zac didn’t hesitate and started pouring huge amounts of Cosmic Energy into his right forearm. It was time to unleash [Nature’s Punishment]. The eleven days of mindless killing had been more than enough to finish his quest to decapitate ten thousand enemies. Luckily, the System considered his kills solo battle, even though he was part of the demon army, as long as he was fully responsible for the kills of the insects.
The fractal on his arm was like a bottomless hole, and after seven seconds, he already had poured 80% of his remaining Cosmic Energy into it.
“Get ready,” Ogras hissed in a raspy voice, currently looking like a true denizen of darkness. Two ephemeral black wings had sprouted on his back, softly waving back and forth, each reaching over three meters in length. The spear in his hand was throbbing like it possessed a heart, and as the last seconds passed, the heartbeat quickened to a frenzied thumping.
Just before ten seconds passed, Ogras punched off from the ground, a wave of darkness flooding out from him. He turned into a large black beam that shot straight toward the chest of the last royal guard.
There was no impact and no sound from the clash.
Suddenly, there simply was a hole spanning three meters in the last guard’s chest, going straight through the beast. The guard’s head was only attached to its body with a small string, which broke and fell down onto the floor with a thud where Ogras appeared once again. He stabbed a four-meter-long lance of darkness into the head to make sure it was dead.
Zac didn’t hesitate and put [Verun’s Bite] into his bag. He pushed his hand forward in a grasping motion as though he were trying to grasp the huge crystal from a distance. It felt like he was trying to push through solid matter with his arm, but he only roared and pushed forward with his arm as he poured the last of his energy into the fractal.
With a large dissonant sound, a huge crack appeared in the air as a gigantic rough brown hand emerged out of nowhere. It was quickly evident that the hand was not of a humanoid, at least not one of flesh and blood, as the hand was wrought from tree and roots.
The fingers didn’t have any nails, and only got thinner and ended in sharp spikes. Its size was huge, each finger being roughly five meters long, and if one looked closely, one could actually see that many of the roots formed what looked like fractals all across the limb.
The wooden hand mirrored the movement of Zac’s hand, grasping toward the crystal. The translucent shield that earlier was somewhat visible around it just gave a bright flash before it winked out of existence, showing that the protective layer that had stopped them earlier was gone.
The core wouldn’t simply lie down and give up, and it started to emanate an even greater pressure from before as its green light turned painfully bright. The energy emitted was so great that Zac was starting to get pushed back even though he stood almost fifty meters away, but [Nature’s Punishment] kept moving forward. As the wooden hand pushed toward the crystal, it started smoking and steaming due to the light. It looked like the light from
the core was burning it, and simultaneously, Zac’s hand started to blister as well.
Zac only grunted and pushed his hand forward, and the enormous hand gripped the core like a vise and squeezed. A weird screeching echoed throughout the cavern, and the whole structure started to shake, while the large hand actually caught on green fire. However, the power in the hand was enormous, and cracks quickly started to appear on the crystal until it completely crumbled with a huge explosion.
The hand dissipated as an enormous shock wave slammed Zac and his party into the wall of the core room, the force almost enough to knock him unconscious. He shook his head, dizzy from the impact, and looked around. His whole body felt broken, and a stinging pain throbbed from his right arm. When he looked down at it, he saw that it was completely scalded, looking like he had put his arm into boiling water.
The [Nature’s Punishment] had worked out really well, apart from his blistering hand. The core gave out a force that kept even Zac away, unable to approach, but it managed to push forward without any problem. It was a shame that the core somehow was able to obscure the Dao from him as they fought, since Zac had wanted to try the skill with its full power.
He was pretty sure that the attack would be strengthened with the Seed of Trees, since the hand was made of wood and roots. Perhaps the attack would be even stronger, or perhaps the hand would have been more resilient, and he wouldn’t have ended up with a burned hand.
At least he’d gained another level from the fight, as a huge surge of Cosmic Energy entered him the moment the core shattered, a far larger amount compared to when he killed the Fiend Wolf. That was the third level he gained during the ant waves.
Defiance of the Fall: A LitRPG Adventure Page 64
