Buller
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Chapter 56: The Death of a Beast
🕑 Added 2021-11-07 07:31:47 +0000 UTCHow could the Worm barrel through tons upon tons of rock without getting the slightest scratch? Previously, a few tons had been enough to kill it outright so what exactly had changed as of late? Well… the Core was beginning to think that nothing had changed. It was simply looking at two different scenarios and thinking of both of them as identical. But that was as far as possible from the truth, the [System] not having a hand in one of them.
It was a [Skill]. That was the easy answer, the Core figuring out as much when it had first seen the creature jump through a piece of stone. It would have worked afterwards, the stone was meant to just resist due to a lack of other options. One could have asked where the stone pushed away went when there was already plenty of material to all sides, but one would have just been left with an empty shrug. Even when looking at it at the current moment, the Entity couldn't answer as it being due to anything but an extremely specialized skill about digging forwards. It was either that or the Black Mana was simply taking in the destroyed material. Yet, then again, that could be defined as a skill in the eyes of the [System], though that was more a guess than anything. The Core was not truly versed in what was a skill of not, everything seeming entirely requirement-based. There were just too many factors to count, though… since the creature itself was one who had a primitive mind, it was perhaps not the worst presumption that it was using the crutches of [Skills] instead of pure Intent.
It did not matter much in the end. The point of it all was that the Worm was unable to bear the same weight that it could smash against its head repeatedly. While it might have seemed like it could be unphased under the weight of several tons, that illusion was nothing relating related to the actual digging. The Worm wouldn't be able to protect itself if attacked with heavy firepower from the side.
Not Magical fire-power, however. The Core had known that from the start, the Black Mana did not work in its favour. If that had been case, the Entity would have likely attempted to spear the damn thing, creating a massive rod created out of Physical Arcane before trying to run it through the creature’s mouth all the way to the back. Yet that idea had to be scrapped, no matter how fun it seemed. And effective, of course. Getting a foreign element forced through one entire body was not truly an experience that anybody could survive easily, much less a creature made from assimilating countless dead bodies. There had to be some inner weak structural points on that thing, after all.
But… another technique was being used. One that had previously shown its use and would likely be used again when the time came. The Core would crush it. Yes, it was perhaps not the most ingenious method of destruction but it had shown its uses. And while the ability to dig may have made it seemed impossible, the Entity knew better than to believe such things, already had planned.
With there being three different points constantly travelled around, there wasn't much opportunity to alternate the route. The Worm always went the same way in the same path with the same curvature. In the start, it might have dug tunnels between them but those tunnels were similarly everything needed. It seemed that even the most primitive mind could figure out the usefulness of sustained structures, using the same paths already made by itself.
This did also allow for the Core to use them, however. One of the reasons for letting it roam for so long was that a bit of preparation had to be spent in one of those tunnels. Because the Entity was going to make one of them collapse while the Worm was inside them. That was truly one of the greatest benefits of having predictive enemies. If one knew where they would be at a certain time, and had enough time to prepare a strategy, the chances of winning the fight increased tenfold. And since the Core had grown quite skill in making the small Mana-Lines, it had successfully covered an entire fifty meters of the ceiling, now able to destroy it all on command. And… it would be beautiful.
Originally, there had been the idea to cover an entire one hundred meter track instead of the bare minimum, but the resource reserves were dwindling too quickly, and the Entity knew that it would run dry of White Mana soon. The Worm had already started to seem less interested in the amounts, more focused and looking over at the direction of its Queen more and more. Within a few minutes, the Entity fully expected it to ignore the White Mana entirely, there being too little for it to catch anybody's interest.
But it would work for now. The Worm had just passed the point where the Core could collapse the tunnel. Instead of doing it at that second, the Entity have delayed it, running final checks to make sure everything was in order. Letting it fail at the needed time would be quite disastrous, after all, since there were no real other plans on how to kill the large beast.
Not it would need any other, the current plan seemingly works just fine. The Mana-Lines was perfectly set up and were responding to the Core’s every whim. While there still was a battle going on around its Main Domain, the Entity wasn't distracted enough to pay attention to such a thing, instead of making extra sure that it would time the next Light-Switch perfectly.
And… that it did. Just after the Beast came within twenty meters, the White Mana closest to it flickered out as most of the Energy was reabsorbed. Meanwhile, the one energy to the left of the Creature turned on, while also being nearly three hundred meters away. The Core looked at the sight of the beast turning rapidly to chase after it with a small inner smile. Two turns left more until the beast would be at the perfect position, just being slow enough that it would get hit by a mass of falling rocks.
A wave of Black Mana sent it back into the Main Domain, the Coer quickly trying to figure out what had caused such an outburst of Mana. It seemed… that things were still going well. Another four of the Queen’s ants had been forced together to create an abhorrent machination of flesh. It didn't do much but remove all the spears in the middle before succumbing to the [Bites] of the defending ants. However, this did leave the plain more open and the defenders more susceptible to straight attacks. Putting up some more rough ground where the spears had been ripped away, the Entity began to go back to focusing on the approaching Worm but was again stopped by an outburst of Mana from the Queen.
‘You're not looking at what’s happening inside your own home,’ the Queen commented, suspicious in her tone. That wasn't good, the Core not wanting the leader to catch on to anything. Making another ant come forth to act as a better defender, the Entity hoped to show that it truly did watch the fight, yet the Queen seemed unimpressed. ‘Was it so interesting that you move your sight to several hundred meters away? That gaze of yours slips so quickly. Could it be… ’
She was catching. The Core knew it. Throwing over its sight to the Worm, time was not being kind to it. A second or two more transpired before the second of three left turns were made. Another was needed before the plan could come to fruition. Just twenty seconds. Barely half a minute. It just needed to wait for that amount of time.
‘You think you can simply distract me with your pitiful copies of my underlings? Do not make me laugh,’ the Queen said, clearly not in the mood for humour. The Intelligent Ant did not like to be underestimated. The Core should have realized as such when it began to focus on something else. It needed to distract her!
A rain of rocks and stone began to hit the Queen’s shield from everywhere, the Entity throwing some close to a thousand Mana-Points away in favour of making it seem like it was doing something. And to be quite fair, it was able to make a few cracks in the Ant’s shield by focusing a fifty-ton rock into a single point. While the damage was repaired a few seconds after, the Coer was starting to get an understanding of how the shield worked. It had a general tolerance towards blunt damage, but the piercing attacks was where the secrets lay. That would be later on. For now, the Entity returned to the blunt attacks, hoping to let the distraction live on.
The Queen was perhaps forced to shift her attention to repairing her shields more at that point, but it nevertheless stopped the Ant from doing one simple thing. It wasted just as much Mana as the Core, sending out a screech of Darkness towards the direction of the Worm.
The Worm in question had just reached the third and final left turn, ready to run back into the trap and get crushed to death. Yet… it slowed down upon hearing the call, looking to the right instead of the left. Slowly but surely, it began to leave the triangle of tunnels created. It began to leave from the place where the Core had placed the trap that would kill it.
That… that was unacceptable. The crackling heard from a failed trap was ignored as the Core frantically began to gather as much energy as possible before wasting it all on one strong beam of White Mana. It emptied its reserves at that moment, knowing that having enough for three more rounds wouldn't matter if the Worm was going to ignore them regardless. Three whole rounds of Light were spent and more of it gathered with every second, even if the tunnel close to that tedge was beginning to crack and be torn down.
But that didn't matter, the extreme energy bringing the Worm back into action. With a mighty roar, it turned its head and nearly flew through the tunnel at speeds never seen before. What should have taken ten seconds took five and the Core barely had time to react before it need to activate the trap.
Yet it was still put out and the Worm was near-perfectly placed under it. Near was the keyword that the Core forced itself to repeat over and over again as the rocks fell atop the creature. Not a bone went unbroken, the pressure of suddenly getting tons upon tons of material smashed into oneself being too hard for the [Worm] to bear. While the head went untouched, anything behind it was utterly shattered, the Black Mana within spewing out in all directions, following the tunnel's passage. It had to have been thousands of Mana-Points worth of energy, more than the Core had ever touched at a single time. Truly, it had been a powerful creature.
And with the Energy spewing out so rapidly, it followed the tunnels in whatever direction they had already been dug. With the Worm having come from the cave close to the Dungeon at the start, this meant that the energy was quick to come along from that way. It wasn’t in high enough amounts to truly damaging anything but it was more than enough to feel. And feel it the Queen most certainly did, the [Leader of the Colony] faltering for a mere second as the realization hit her. Her mighty beast had fallen victim to a simple rock. How tragic and… ironic. The Core couldn't help but exude a little satisfaction in the successful nature of its plan.
