"Right," Sol muttered, his knuckles turning white around his spear. "Of course there’s a mini-boss before the Final Boss."
Without a single sound, the Guard on the left vanished.
Sol’s instincts scread instantly. He didn’t even try to track the movent visually, he threw his entire body backward, flooding his legs with Golden Liquid.
SWISH-HISSSS!
A superheated scythe cleaved through the empty air exactly where his neck had been a millisecond prior. The sheer radiant heat of the blade singed the edges of Sol’s dark leather armor, leaving a trail of blistering sll in its wake.
Before Sol’s boots even touched the ground from his backward leap, the Guard on the right was already there.
They were flawlessly, terrifyingly coordinated. They didn’t fight like two separate beasts, they fought like a single organism with four blades. The second Guard swept its scythe low in a devastating, horizontal arc aid directly at Sol’s shins.
Sol violently thrust the butt of his Void-Oak spear down into the floor, using it as a pole vault. He launched himself into the air, pulling his knees to his chest as the glowing red blade sliced through the petrified wood below him like butter.
"Too fast," Sol grunted, landing heavily on a cluster of royal eggs, crushing them beneath his boots into a sticky, glowing paste.
Even though he had recovered, his body was still protesting. The infinite stamina of the Golden Liquid was incredible, but he wasn’t fresh. He had spent the last several hours kiting a massive horde, executing high-speed maneuvers, and violently rging his dual-auras.
The deep, burning fatigue in his muscles was slowing his reaction ti by vital fractions of a second. But chances like these don’t co easily, so despite the exhausted body he took the risk. what was that saying, yes, "Sotis a man gonna shut up and take the risk" it was that type of situation.
The Guards didn’t give him ti to breathe. They rapidly advanced, their bipedal strides eating up the distance instantly.
Guard A brought both scythes down in a brutal, overhead guillotine strike. Sol brought his heavy Void-Oak spear up in a two-handed horizontal block.
CLANG-HISS!
The impact drove Sol to his knees, cracking the floor beneath him. The superheated biological tal of the scythes bit deeply into the dense Void-Oak shaft, the acid imdiately trying to eat through the indestructible wood. The sheer physical weight of the fifteen-foot insect was really crushing.
"Get... off!" Sol roared, his Golden Liquid core flaring. He angled the shaft, letting the scythes slide off to the side, and lunged upward, thrusting the obsidian blade directly at the Guard’s thorax.
CLINK.
The obsidian blade, capable of piercing standard stone armor, sparked harmlessly against the blood-crimson runes etched into the Guard’s chest. The On-Blood defense was simply too dense.
Before Sol could pull his spear back, Guard B flanked him. A scythe swept in from his blind spot.
Sol twisted his torso violently, but he wasn’t fast enough. The superheated tip of the blade grazed his left shoulder.
Instantly sharp and blinding pain exploded across his arm. The dark leather armor was instantly lted, and the skin beneath was seared to the muscle. Sol let out a sharp hiss through his teeth, stumbling backward, his left arm hanging slightly limp.
They’re too damn coordinated, Sol’s tactical mind raced, his eyes darting between the two towering monstrosities. I can’t fight a two-on-one battle against superheated tanks when I’m already running on fus. I need to break their rhythm.
But the clock was ticking.
Through the soles of his boots, Sol could feel a distinct shift in the subterranean vibrations. The dull, distant roar of the surface war was changing. The explosions were dying down. The frantic, chaotic scrambling of thousands of ants above him was beginning to organize.
The battle outside was ending. The ants had won. And the mont the Layer 2 Commander ants realized their Queen’s chamber had been breached, they would flood down here by the thousands.
He had minutes. Maybe less.
The two Guards raised their scythes, their black runes glowing blindingly bright as they prepared to charge in unison to finish him off.
Sol gritted his teeth, ignoring the agonizing burn in his shoulder. He couldn’t win a purely physical battle. He needed his cheat.
He closed his eyes for a split second. He bypassed his exhausted Golden Liquid core and reached straight into his heart, tapping into the deep, cool reservoir of the Silver Liquid.
He didn’t try to rge them this ti. He just needed the raw, tyrannical weight of his ’Free Use’ Domination power.
As the two Guards lunged, Sol snapped his eyes open, his pupils dilating into pools of liquid silver. He didn’t target a single ant, he projected the absolute, crushing weight of his taphysical authority outward in a wide, indiscriminate shockwave.
SUBMIT!
The ntal command slamd into the two Layer 2 On-Bloods like a physical tidal wave.
It was powerful, but wasn’t enough to control them. Their souls were too dense, their bloodlines too high-tier, and their singular, biological imperative to protect the Queen acted as a massive firewall against his ntal invasion.
But it was enough to distract them.
The sheer, alien shock of having their neural pathways violently assaulted caused a catastrophic stutter in their perfect coordination. Both Guards froze mid-lunge for exactly half a second, their faceted eyes widening, their scythes trembling as their brains fought off the Silver Liquid.
Half a second was all he needed.
Sol ignored the agonizing strain in his mind. He channeled every remaining drop of Golden Liquid into his legs and right arm. He exploded forward, becoming a blur of dark leather and golden light.
He aid directly for Guard A’s impenetrable thorax.
He slid beneath the frozen, superheated scythes, planting his boots firmly into the ground, and thrust his Void-Oak spear upward with the force of an angry bull.
The obsidian blade slamd against the Guard’s thorax... a shell so dense it rang like iron, refusing to yield. For a heartbeat, the weapon skidded uselessly across the beast’s armor, sparks spitting as if the jungle itself mocked Sol’s strike.
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