Aster Loka
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Chapter 145
🕑 Added 2022-05-21 01:56:26 +0000 UTCThe Stone Centipede boss was absolutely massive. Not simply an upsized version of the eight-foot sort like Cen and Centoo, instead it had coils upon coils sprawled out behind it, significantly longer than Maggie. Its front section reared up to twice Levi's height and at least five or six times that much length, bladed legs raised ready to stab.
The room itself was even bigger, walls towering so high above them that they dwarfed even the monstrous centipede, making the entire room feel out of scale. The boss probably could have stood to its full height and not reached the ceiling.
The relatively narrow split, a broad central area splitting into four narrowing cracks, would play nicely into the boss’s attempts to corner them and slice them apart while they couldn’t reach anything but its heavily armored front. And its stomach was impressively plated. While Cen and Centoo had overlapping stone coating their own fronts, it was rough as if they'd been carved from the side of a mountain. The boss's was polished and smooth, dark slate grey scales that gleamed almost metallic. It would be hard to cut through in a frontal attack, not that its back was much more accessible.
While ordinary Stone Centipedes like Cen and Centoo had thick hide across their backs which was more vulnerable to attacks than the stone plating on their stomachs, this plus version had a double row of blade-edged stone plates down its back to deter anyone attempting to slice it from that angle, something like a stegosaurus.
"Ho boy, this is going to be a long one." Given the tanky nature of stone centipedes anyway, Levi expected this boss to take a lot more to bring down than any other boss they'd previously faced. It was still only single-plus, so it should be easier than the Essence or that subterranean kalvex, but that didn't mean it would be easy.
"What's the plan?" Gordon asked.
"The way the room is built, it'll be easy for it to corner us. Best plan would probably be to surround it and keep its attention moving. Your first job is to stay alive. If you can hit it, do, but don't get yourself trapped. Drok, you'll be in front. Keep it from rushing us until we can get out from this crack and spread out around it."
“Drok yes.” Drok took his position and leaned forward, crouching like a runner at the starting line, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.
Cen took to the wall, while Centoo lowered his head in preparation to charge. He should be able to get himself and Skarm around the boss before it could trap them down the narrow entry area.
Frosty grabbed Plus and Shadevine, rushing up to the ceiling by the door, ready to ferry them inside the moment Levi gave the signal. Two skulked in the shadows.
Gordon drew his two-handed sword, and Flomper crouched ready on his shoulder. “Do you have any health potions left? I’m out.”
“Oh, sure.” Levi passed two of the health restoratives to Gordon, who nodded and tucked them into his storage belt. “Anyone else, before we go?” No one spoke up. “Then… let’s go.”
He drew his swords and charged, Drok just in front, Cen and Gordon on either side, and a thrill of familiar dread mixed with anticipation hummed through his blood. The way he’d felt when his squad was tasked with bringing down a demon warrior, or when his training group finally reached a boss. Something others might consider impossible stood before them.
Levi let the fear and the excitement blend, both empowering him as he leapt forward.
The moment they entered the room, the giant centipede charged down the crack at them, the high walls boxing them in with the now-closed door at their backs.
Drok met his charge head on. The impact cracked out, shoving Drok back three steps before he got his feet set and started shoving back. He grabbed the centipede’s descending foreclaws as it stabbed down at him, but he only had two arms while the centipede had dozens. Squelchy thuds sounded, centipede blade-legs stabbing into Drok’s tough ogre hide with hardly a pause.
Levi closed the distance and jumped between the narrow walls to gain height, flipping over Drok’s head to stab down at the centipede’s eyes. It reared back to avoid his strike, but Levi activated Beast Bite as his sword slid by, snagging the very tip of the centipede’s blunt head in its spectral jaws and snapping off one of its mandibles. The centipede hissed and thrashed in fury, but the momentary distraction let Drok shove it back another few steps, opening up an avenue for the others to slip by and begin attacking it all along its length.
As Levi dropped to the floor, he caught sight of Frosty flying through the air. She’d dropped off Shadevine and Plus safely, both sat nestled against the boss’s back scales, but her own escape was interrupted by three bladed legs slashing out, sending her spinning away, trailing frosted blood from a gash in her furry side. She spun in the air, but righted herself quickly and spat a glob of web to intercept her path, bouncing her gently to the floor instead of slamming her into the wall at full speed.
Levi spun and slashed with the Destruction blade, pushing as much power into it as he could, drawing a deep gouge in the boss’s chest plating but barely moving its health bar even with everyone else attacking too.
Drok still had its front claws gripped tight in his dark-surrounded fists, face set in a determined snarl. Two was slipping in and out by the centipede’s tail, stabbing and rushing off into the side crevices, then repeating the strategy. Skarm leaped from Centoo’s back and dove headfirst down at the back of the centipede’s neck, grabbing hold with his claws and swinging around to slash repeatedly.
Paradoxically, the bladed plates along its back actually prevented it from fully coiling back on itself, making smaller irritants like a gremlin more difficult for it to dislodge. Skarm evaded its best efforts at crushing him, and Two was almost impossible to see in the shifting shadows caused by the deep crevices and the boss’s constantly thrashing coils.
Centoo himself wasn't as fortunate, his size preventing him from slipping away as easily as the gremlins. Cen was using the height of the walls to his advantage, but though he stood above the boss's head and sparkled as brilliantly as he could manage, he didn't manage to get the effect through its resistance. That, or it was just an expert at ignoring sparkling centipedes.
Drok bellowed and ripped the centipede's frontmost legs right off, first one, then the other, hurling them away and grabbing another pair. But he was taking a serious beating from all the other front legs that it had. Though Drok held his ground at its front, grappling and holding it in place, a dozen bladed legs continually slashing dropped the ogre's health far too fast for comfort.
For the moment he formed a physical barrier between Levi and the centipede, keeping its claws from reaching him where he stood in close, and Drok's constant pressure prevented it from rushing forward and crushing him beneath its bulk, but that wouldn't last long at the rate Drok's health was falling.
Levi stabbed his sword into the centipede's chest again, this time using Beast Bite, but its jaws only left scrapes across the armor, not piercing it sufficiently to do any noticeable damage.
Level 3+
(Stone Centipede)
Health 92%
Still, between the gremlins, Levi, and the shadevines its health was beginning to fall.
Frosty started trying to obstruct the usage of its legs, while Flomper burrowed beneath and opened sinkholes beneath its feet, but apart from the very front section held up in place by Drok it was moving too fast and erratically for their attempts to do much.
Maggie slithered out from the wall, lunging for the centipede's middle, for the gap between two of its protective plates. She coiled herself around it in a sudden rush, closing the distance and diving into the opening.
The centipede screeched and reared up, plates grinding as it tried to slice Maggie in half, but the magma snake was made of sterner stuff. The plates began to melt instead of crushing her, the harder the centipede forced them against her side the hotter they glowed, until molten stone dripped down from its own protective scales onto the centipede's vulnerable back and it thrashed even more wildly in an attempt to stop the burning.
Level 3+
(Stone Centipede)
Health 84%
Levi grimaced. Even with their progress, it was taking too long. Its defences were too high, their attacks doing too little to properly bring it down. Drok had less than 40% of his health, Centoo was steadily dropping toward 50%, and while Maggie was holding up better than most from her close encounter, her own health had fallen to 90% as well.
Levi abandoned any thoughts of managing the fight and shifted fully into combat mode. He dove at the centipede, slashing and slashing and slashing, beginning a relentless barrage that drained his stamina steadily as he carved away chunks of its plating with the Destruction sword, then snapped out the flesh behind with Beast Bite, then did it again and again and again.
His mana dropped even faster, the power fueling the swords a relentless stream, and when it ran low he glanced at Drok's remaining health and swallowed a mana restorative without a second's hesitation.
The ogre still had 22% of his health, and could protect Levi for as long as it took the raw mana to work its way through his system, at least.
Levi continued his assault the moment his vision cleared, distantly registering the actions of the others as they continued to attack.
Cen discarded his plan of stunning the boss, dropping onto its head to join Skarm in slashing its back apart.
Maggie threw another coil across its back and slammed her fangs into its flesh, eyes glowing like embers as she pulsed magma straight into its body. Her attacks were less effective against the stone creature than it would be against something more fleshy, but far from ineffective.
Centoo managed to sever two of the legs along the centipede's left side, while Two continued his hit-and-hide tactics to maximize the bonuses from stealth attacks.
Levi didn't pause his all-out assault, carving deep into the centipede's chest until his mana ran low again.
Level 3+
(Stone Centipede)
Health 61%
With one final defiant roar, Drok tore off another pair of the centipede's legs, then hurled himself forward, shoving Levi aside as he slammed both fists into the opening Levi had made in its armor. The shadowy gloves Drok wore pulsed with purple darkness as he threw all his mana into that single attack, then the centipede's retaliatory slashes dropped his health to zero. With an unceremonious thud, Drok fell lifeless to the ground.
But the lingering darkness he’d inflicted remained, burning away at the centipede's insides however it slashed and thrashed to escape it.
