Millennial Mage

Chapter 535: Giant Arachnid

Tala snapped into action as the instructions came from Masters Clevnis and Meridius.

Their quickly pieced together redoubt was to be a fall-back point, but it wasn’t designed to stand up to Paragon—let alone Reforged—level threats. Thus, the time had come to strike out.

Meallain was going to keep the hunting cat engaged. She essentially could not use her magic at all due to her soul damage, but just holding the power within herself granted increased reactions and strength in a similar way to how Refined were generally improved by that advancement. Though, in her case—and in the case of all arcanes of a similar level—it was more extreme, but only lasted as long as she held sufficient power. When she was assigned to engage the large cat, the implication was almost explicitly stated that should she die in the attempt, that wouldn’t be too much of an issue... so long as she gave warning before she did so.

Rane and Master Girt were tasked with the cyclops, along with the fire wielding Arcane Hunter.

Tala was assigned to the scorpion looking creature.

And finally, two Arcane Hunters were assigned to each of the last two Reforged level creatures, Master Meridius partnering with the ice user against the conglomeration of limbs.

The goal was for Tala and Rane’s Defender unit—without Master Girt or Mistress Vanga of course—to work with the Talons and Terry to remove the Paragon level threats and the few lessers that were still scattered around the battlefield. Then, assuming no one was in dire straits, they would assist the Paragon closest to victory. At that point, they would turn and continue as such until all the greatest threats had been dealt with as well.

It was a solid plan as things went. Simple, easy to understand, and something that should survive first contact with the enemy.

Even as Alat conveyed all of this, Tala had lunged from the battlements, closing quickly on her target, ignoring the creatures who were on par with her and below—advancement wise—that she shot over.

That would have been rather foolish, but as she moved, Talons began to come into being in units of ten fighters, shields overlapping, and spears already lancing out.

Two hundred Talons had been deemed ‘worthy’ of this clash, and that meant that all of a sudden, there were twenty groups of heavily armored, magically empowered soldiers, scything through the enemy ranks. Given that there were only twenty or so Paragon level threats and a scattering of lesser creatures left? The deployment was instantly effective.

The precision and execution of the Talons wasn’t perfect, and they started taking injuries rather quickly. None of the greater creatures died immediately, either, but with the lessers slain quickly by their blades—and by the efforts of the others leaving the walls—each group was able to begin surrounding their target, working to keep the given creature locked down until it could be finished off.

The Talons who were injured healed almost as quickly as Tala would have, even if their reserves of materials to pull from would be far more shallow. They simply hadn’t had the time to build up to her level of physical mass.

Terry flickered around between the various clashes, taking less than a second at any given one as he kept each of the conflicts from tipping against the Talons and Defenders.

But even taking note of those opening moments of the various clashes almost cost Tala, dearly.

The scorpion was oddly colored, most of its body being brown and of a wood-like texture, shot throughout with splintering cracks of violently glowing, hot pink.

The venom dripping from its upraised stinger was thick and white, reminding Tala of various remedies that she’d seen her father mix up oh so long ago.

Even as she came in, landing lightly some hundred feet in front of it, Tala could feel that something was off.

As she pulled her entire focus forward, fully onto the creature, she noticed the oddities a moment before it might have been too late.

The creature’s authority was rushing toward her at speeds akin to a charging bull, while to all other perceptions, it didn’t seem to be moving at all.

She dove to the side just in time to see the ground behind her explode with a heavy impact, the scorpion coming into her perception only after the hit landed. RἈƝỗ₿ΕŜ

Something like delayed perception? How can it affect me? I’m not under its authority.

-Light, maybe? It’s delaying the light and sound from exiting its authority, thus there is no contest with you.-

That... shouldn’t work like that? Shouldn’t what we see be dimmer if that is the case? Or completely black because no light is getting through?

-I’m not sure, but I don’t think now is the time to debate this.-

Tala grunted, throwing her aura and authority outward in the tangible form of iron spikes, driving them into the ground to give her sway over the battlefield more resilience.

The scorpion was upon her again, now fully visible as it pressed through her aura and authority, remaining outside their domain but not still able to use the same trick as before.

The beast let out a strange, high-pitched, screeching chitter that set Tala’s teeth on edge.

Flow flashed out, clashing as a glaive against one claw before rebounding and blocking the much closer second claw in the form of a sword.

Tala then had to move forward, putting herself uncomfortably close to the human-sized face of the giant arachnid to dodge under the stinger, which slammed into the ground behind her.

She trusted her armor a great deal, but something about this creature made her want to be extra careful. Similarly with her healing and that venom...

Face to face with her opponent—even though she had her full defensive gear on, so she was behind a faceplate—she saw malice and hostile intelligence behind the many eyes.

Its mandibles clacked at her, trying to take a bite as it rushed forward before she could strike at its face. Tala bent backward, slashing Flow as a void-knife across the undercarriage of the beast in six quick strokes before it had fully overrode her.

The brown, wood-like chitin parted easily under the blade, but wherever Flow hit the pink cracks, it skipped over the material to plunge in again at the other side.

The gashes, even when they went in the full length of the blade, didn’t draw blood, or ichor, or whatever this thing had inside it.

It did elicit another chittering shriek, and the creature struck backward in response with its stinger. Tala barely rolled out of the way in time.

The scorpion was directly over one of her iron spikes, so Tala decided to do exactly as some had suggested so many times.

-Maybe? Do we really want to think about that, now?-

...Fair.

Tala was able to expand the portal even after it was opened, so she tried to make it a full circle. Unfortunately, something seemed to prevent that.

Regardless, she’d managed to buy herself a bit of time as she absolutely dumped power into the void and iron spellform within her artificial lung, creating absolutely insane amounts of dissolution power every few seconds.

Come on! Go faster!

Finally, she was able to close her u-shaped portal and open her mouth to breath out destruction, only having the smallest amount of containment magic come into place.

Her attack washed over all those that she could see, and they puffed to dust before going up like a pitch-soaked bonfire.

Tala cut off her breath weapon at that point and let out a relieved sigh, even as she turned her attention outward once again.

She had just enough time to notice that the Talons, Terry, and her Defender unit were almost done working together to take down the last two Paragon level threats. Unfortunately, at that moment, she felt a sharp sting at her ankle.

She jerked her focus downward and found a minute scorpion, with its stinger through her armor and into her flesh underneath, the little rusting thing seemingly having disguised itself using whatever trick of authority the big one had used earlier.

The arachnid was radiating concentrated authority like the whole swarm, while being obviously physically quite frail... the stinger excepted.

Tala had an instant to grunt in surprise before the drop of thick, white venom breached her skin, the power and material of the injection expanding like the ripple on a pond, obliterating her flesh and bone as it went.

Oh...

There was less than an eyeblink of hesitation, then Tala moved faster than she ever had before.

Flow grew into a glaive. For perhaps the first time, the handle of the glaive extended down below Tala’s hand, and she slammed the butt of the staff down, crushing the scorpion with ease. Only then did she see the unified reality node of the scorpion splinter and fade away.

I should have been tracking that the whole time. But then wasn’t the time for self recrimination.

Even the near instant killing of the last scorpion had allowed the wave of goopification to reach her knee, her very biology becoming nothing but sludge that was no longer bound by her magics which had allowed the increase of her density.

As a result, the pressure inside her armored leg was growing incredibly high, and the resulting sludge was threatening to push up past the already fast wave of decay, and Tala did not like the implications of what that might cause.

Thus, with a single motion, Flow became a void-sword and slashed down, severing her leg mid-thigh, well above the wavefront of destruction.

Using her own authority over her now severed leg, Tala flung the appendage away even as she regrew another and sprang backward.

As the discarded leg hit the ground low down on their hill, it seemed almost to detonate with pressure, sending a fetid geyser fountaining up the next hill.

The smell was atrocious, even at a distance and through her armor, and she immediately sealed up what small air-gaps there had been.

A feeling of absolute wrongness radiated through her, belatedly, and she had to remove her faceplate almost instantly after sealing her armor in order to retch.

Thankfully, that passed relatively quickly, and she was able to seal away the smell once again and focus elsewhere once again.

She actually had the space to really do so this time.

Her mind immediately went to Rane, and she found him, a bit battered and bruised but mostly whole, facing the Reforged level cyclops.

Master Girt wasn’t visible, but his presence was evident due to just how ragged some of the cuts on the twenty foot tall creature were.

The wounds were generally burned as well, showing that the fire-based Paragon hadn’t been slacking, even if he did have to take advantage of the cuts others opened to make his attacks cause more than superficial damage.

As for the cyclops itself, the club it wielded was more akin to a greatsword with how thin it was in one dimension. Though, it didn’t actually have an edge, so club was still the best descriptor.

As she watched, Rane took another glancing hit, his magics only able to mitigate the damage due to the constricting authority of the beast as well as its speed and power.

Well, I’m going there. Alert those who need to know. Rane would probably be fine, but if she could do something to ensure that? She was going to.

-I am doing so now. The battle is going well. There are no dead, despite nearly a hundred casualties among the Talons. I was able to get each out in time as needed, before any of their ability to heal was fully overcome.-

Thank you, Alat. It’s good to have your assistance.

-I aim to please. Before we can go to Rane, we need to ensure we aren’t needed elsewhere.-

Fine. Let’s do that quickly.

It was time to finish this.