As the great worm slamd into the ground, I felt an earth-shaking thump rattle through the city. Even the monsters swarming towards the splinter of wood paused, before so of them backed off.
Whatever made monsters chase after valuable items in the Market, it seed that it wasn’t strong enough to compel the more intelligent monsters forward. They seed to have realized that the tree bark was now claid by sothing else.
I looked at the spot where the worm had landed, and as I analyzed the scene with my soul sense, I blinked in surprise. When we had seen the worm devour the billboard after arriving in the Market, it had looked as if it were evolving into sothing else. I had expected that the massive creature would be dozens of tis more powerful now - but it was the exact opposite. The worm’s life force was much weaker than it had been when I glimpsed it, hanging above the Market like an ominous teor preparing to crash to the earth.
Had it failed to evolve, and suffered so kind of backlash as a result? If so, that would be the best case scenario. I wasn’t sure whether the worm was venting its frustration at its failed evolution, or if the attraction of a valuable Market item was what had caused the worm to fail its evolution and get distracted… but either way, it looked like things were evolving in the best direction possible for our group. Both major threats we needed to deal with were fighting each other.
On the other hand, I was concerned. Only a few streets away from us, there was now a giant worm blocking the path of the scavengers. If we stole the splinter of wood, that thing would turn on us imdiately and chase us like a bloodhound chasing a bloody steak. If the worm won, there was no guarantee it would overlook us, either. I suspected that the worm might continue to vent its frustrations about its failed evolution on all nearby life - and we were probably high on its list of targets, since we were transmigrators.
The only scenario where this turned out well for us was if the scavengers and the giant worm were evenly matched, and hard each other enough for us to swoop in and claim the spoils of war. If either side had a big enough advantage, we wouldn’t get what we wanted out of the fight.
Still, even if the odds were low… I couldn’t help but feel a flicker of hope. If the worm and the scavengers were evenly matched, we might have a real chance to turn things around. Perhaps we could swoop in after both sides were weakened, take the tree bark, and run. If the two sides hurt each other enough, perhaps we could even deal with both threats, then run back to the school and see what other goodies we could find inside the ruined magic academy. With Felix’s work as a craftsman and a few more valuable items from the Market, I felt better than ever about our odds of buying more lives.
Furthermore, we had already ascertained so of the weaknesses of the heroic-grade shooter. If one side wasn’t overwhelmingly dominant, we could always even the odds a bit by interfering with the fight. It was just a matter of finding the right opportunity, and surviving the aftermath.
The four of us kept running through the streets. The monsters near us ignored us, thankfully - the ones that were still moving towards the fight were far too entranced by the splinter to bother paying attention to us. We ignored them as well, until we got to the site of the battle.
There were about half a dozen monster corpses strewn about one of the streets of the Market. Nearby, there were flattened, crushed, and ruined shops - it was impossible to tell what had once been sold in each shop, because they were so utterly ruined that only rubble remained. The twenty-eight scavengers were scattered into smaller groups of people. So of them were dealing with new monsters that joined the fight, while others focused on harassing and injuring the giant worm.
I saw a bright flash of light and heat slam directly into the monstrous worm’s head, and imdiately located the heroic-grade shooter. He was alive and well, and seed to be the main force against the worm.
His lasers didn’t seem to be bothering the worm very much. The massive creature shrugged off the laser beam to the face, and then vanished into the ground, as if the massive wooden planks beneath our feet were thin air instead of solid wood.
I retreated several steps, to make sure that neither side of the conflict spotted . Then, I turned on my soul sight and shared my vision.
Beneath our feet, the giant worm slithered through the wood like an eel. The coils and folds of its body twisted hypnotically as it circled around, before it suddenly sprang towards the surface. Like a spring, it launched itself out of the ground - right beneath two of the scavengers.
The Scavengers managed to get out of the way in ti, though. I wasn’t quite sure how they did it - one mont, it looked like they had been engulfed by the worm’s maw, and the next mont, they appeared several ters away. They hadn’t teleported - I hadn’t felt any ripples of spatial manipulation. However, they had done sothing to escape.
Before I had ti to process the strange movent ability, I heard a loud boom from inside of the worm's throat. The worm roared in pain.
I asked.
said Felix.
The worm groaned in pain, and its already weakened life force shuddered. In my soul sight, it was as if the worm were now a third of the way dead. Most of that damage had co from its interrupted evolution, but the mines had certainly done so damage as well.
I asked.
said Felix.
I held my breath as the worm glared at the Scavengers, and then its body swelled like a balloon. To my surprise, a mont later, the top quarter of the worm’s body exploded like an overfilled balloon - but its life force grew stronger, not weaker. It actually seed that it had healed after blowing itself up.
Then, I noticed that the blood falling out of its exploded head wasn’t falling to the ground, the way blood usually did. Instead, each droplet of blood flew through the air in a controlled streak of motion. A giant swarm of these droplets of blood surged towards the scavengers - before a round of laser beams ignited most of the droplets of blood, turning them into steam. Blasts of laser beams continued to pepper the worm, while the other mbers of the scavenger team spread and started using their own thods of attack against the worm. Gunshots, swords, arrows, spells, and even a few robots sward the worm.
However, the worm was indifferent to most of the attacks. It bellowed again, and then dove back beneath the surface. anwhile, the droplets of blood in the air continued to replicate themselves, constantly creating new threats. Combined with the constant pressure of weaker monsters swarming the scavengers, the scavenger team was quite distracted as the worm tunneled beneath them. Just like before, the worm launched itself into the air. This ti, it managed to grab three scavengers who didn’t flee.
Instantly, the other scavengers turned on the worm, launching another wave of attacks against the creature - but the souls of their friends disappeared inside of the belly of the beast. The worm’s life force began to weaken again, but it quickly made its way back underground. I frowned. The worm was definitely weakening much faster than I had expected. At this rate, it might struggle to take down even half of the scavengers before it died - and the other monsters swarming this area were too weak to pose a real threat to the scavengers.
I said.
said Felix.
The four of us crept closer to the battlefield while I kept a nervous eye on the worm’s life force. Then, I noticed sothing else. Near the edge of the battlefield, a few of the scavengers were throwing together a wide variety of different components. It looked almost like a cannon.
The sight seed so ludicrous that for a mont, all I could do was stare at the spectacle. Then, after several seconds, I realized that the scavengers really were assembling a cannon. It looked as if the cannon were designed by so sort of sci-fi civilization - there were nanobots and tiny magnetic pieces that were pulling different chunks of cannon together, almost as if the technology could assemble itself. After only a few monts, it was ready.
The worm circled around for another attack, but as the worm maneuvered, the heroic-grade shooter dashed towards the cannon. The worm sprang towards another group of scavengers. Then, the cannon roared, and a giant beam of fire tore through nearly a third of the worm’s body.
The worm bellowed in agony, and nearly half of its life force dissipated. Burnt chunks of worm-at fell off of its body - and then turned into a completely new monster. The new monster looked like a patchwork horror - it had far too many limbs to resemble anything other than a piece of at surrounded in arms and legs. Before the heroic grade shooter could react, the glob of flesh and limbs pounced on another two of the scavengers, before it rapidly tore them apart. I didn’t even see how they died - I just saw them get enveloped in the mass of flesh and limbs, before their souls disappeared.
The glob of flesh started to quickly lose its life force, and I realized the glob of sapient flesh was kind of like my clone. It was temporarily animated by magic, but once its animation spell ran out of essence, it would die.
The heroic grade shooter ignored the glob of flesh, and shot another laser beam at the worm. This ti, the creature teleported out of the way, taking by surprise - but it was clear that it was heavily injured. Its life force was starting to drain away now. I suspected that it might die of its own injuries soon, unless it had more spells and abilities up its sleeve.
I glanced at the scavengers again. Five had died while fighting the worm, and one more had fallen to the monsters nibbling at the edges of their group while they fought. The glob of sapient flesh was also a problem for the scavengers, but it was rapidly weakening.
I said.
she said.
It was ti to make this battle a bit more balanced.
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