At the edge of Donis"s vision, there was a hulking ma.s.s approaching at a great speed. The regular Sandracons had a body that was about 4m long. The tail was 2m long by itself, and it"s head took up a large portion of its upper body. This thing though was at least 9m long, with a 4m tail and a head that seemed to be far too large.Donis shuddered at the idea of the size of the fangs inside the maw of a creature of such size. Let alone it"s power. The Sandracons while highly leveled, physically powerful and aptly suited for the environment weren"t all that impressive. They had high aggression and a good body, but nothing to worry about if you could see underground.
The queen here would be an anomaly. They had limited information on Sandracon Queens as they are normally cleared out quickly, leaving no survivors. They"re a plague of a species on the local wildlife and fauna. They take over an area and leave it dead when they finish.
Donis alerted everyone of its position and took out the monster logger, hooking it up to his visual input. He sat perched up and a makeshift hill made of sandstone from the previous battles. He didn"t know if it would stay submerged.
The soldiers and the crew were still tired from the excursion and battling for the last 15 minutes. Donis didn"t actually realise how long had pa.s.sed, to him it felt like hours of constant battling and the soldiers shared his thought process. Fighting that hard drains you more than any sort of training.
They set up whatever makeshift defence they could, and prepared with extra potions to fight this thing. Donis saw that he still had 5 minutes of the buffs left and decided against drinking it right now, and drinking them when the battle begins. He did chug a few Mana Potions and a detox pill to rid of the toxins that build up after too much potion and pill ingestion.
Donis noticed the queen speed up and diving deeper which gave him bad vibes.
"Guys, the queen has sped up and dove deeper, I think she"s looking to resurface and I don"t think she"s going to land softly!"
The sand rippled around everyone, unsettling even Striga. The sheer force required to affect this much sand is unimaginable. It"s not like stone, in which vibrations travel at the speed of sound. This is sand, it"s supposed to dampen the effects of vibrations and the like.
"She"s coming up!" screamed Donis.
As soon as the words left his mouth, the queen shot up into the air, easily clearing 15m vertically and landing with a loud boom, sending sand in all directions. A screech unlike any they have heard before a.s.saulted their senses, dizzying the men standing, and knocking out the ones unable to fight.
Donis was unaffected but his ears still hurt. Etheria who had been hiding inside of Donis the entire time began trembling out of fear. Donis felt something off about this whole thing. The Monster Logger gave some really vague information about the queen, but what Donis saw was a hulking monster unlike the other Sandracons.
They seemed like tame pets in comparison. The maw was ma.s.sive, the spines were sharper, more deadly looking. The colour of her skeleton was off a few shades, and it looked damaged from years of battling. The tail never stopped swaying, always looking like it was ready to lash out. This was a true dragon. Donis finally met something worthy of the t.i.tle, and something inside of him called out to the beast ahead.
[Sandracon Queen]
[Level: 51]
[Danger Rating: Deadly]
[Mana State: Breath]
[Health: 4,304]
[Mana: 946]
[Strength: 82]
[Agility: 60]
[Perception: 77]
[Intelligence: 7]
[t.i.tles: Hive Mind, Broken Limits, Sand Demon, Mother of Sand, Everliving, Survivor, Ancient, Overbearing, Mutation – Hunger]
No wonder. She was powerful. More powerful than anything they"ve faced and with many more t.i.tles that seemed to really push her over the edge. With the Hive Mind t.i.tle she must have felt her children dying and rushed over to the battle, but it looks like she was too late. If she had arrived earlier with the entire army of Sandracons, they may not have stood a chance at all.
"Soldiers, behind me. I"ll distract her while the remaining soldiers throw as many spells her as you can! Don"t cease fire until you run out of mana or we"ll all die!" commanded Striga.
"Sir, yes sir!" the soldiers bellowed out in unison.
She donned the Witching Hour once more and bolted off like a flash. An afterimage of Striga could be seen rapidly dashing through the sand. The queen saw Striga incoming and accepted her challenge with a roar.
Striga threw [Dark Lightning] at the queens weak spots, namely her eyes and open mouth. The queen dodged deftly and sunk underground far too quickly. A creature of such size shouldn"t have the mobility the queen just displayed. Striga cursed under her breath and dashed to the side as the queens tail tore through the sand and at Strigas previous location.
"DONIS, I NEED YOU TO TELL ME HER EXACT LOCATION AT ALL TIMES!"
"GOT IT!"
Donis proceeded to call out the location of the queen every time she sunk under the sand, giving Striga an edge over the unseen queen. She was monstrous, but she was currently manageable. At least until the queen got sick of missing and began taking the fight to Striga.
The queen jumped out of the sand, sending sand everywhere again and obstructing vision. The beast charged at Striga using her tail to accelerate with an extra push. Her maw was wide open but Striga flashed out of her way in the nick of time thanks to Donis"s information.
The soldiers were throwing spells left right and centre, giving Donis notification after notification, but he had no time to check them out. He pushed them to the side of his mind and focused on helping Striga as much as he could.
There was spells of fire, water, earth, void, air, metal, combinations of some, and powerful traps were being set up all over the place. Nothing was working, they all were glancing off of the hard exoskeleton the queen had. It seemed nothing was working and Striga was quickly running out of stamina.
If she fought at peak strength she would be able to easily keep up with the queen and probably corner her. Yet nothing seemed to be working, and the queen was getting closer and closer to catching up to her.
Donis was beginning to panic.
"Where was Horrigan? Where are the reinforcements? What the f.u.c.k is going on?! Why were there only 20 soldiers sent to help us out?" screamed Donis internally.
He couldn"t figure it out. If Horrigan realised how big the horde really was, wouldn"t he send more people to come and help Striga out?
"Wait. Does he want Striga to die here?" he thought as a shiver ran down his spine.
Caught up in the moment, Donis sprinted over to her location while throwing pot shots of both [Flashpoint Strike] and [Air Pulse] infused with Void Mana and Fire Mana at the queens eyes. They weren"t doing much, but he hoped they"d distract her long enough to give Striga a moment to breathe.
He felt useless once again. Everything was going to s.h.i.t. Everything was the same. Nothing changed.
"No. I"ve changed," he thought, calming himself down once again. He pushed aside the anxiety, and delved deep into the sea of calmness.
He looked around and saw the metal rods still embedded in the battlefield. He quickly picked up as many as he could and stored them in his [Inventory]. He dashed over to Striga and called out to her.
"Striga, I have an idea but you have to listen and trust me okay?" screamed Donis.
"What do you want Donis? This is dangerous, get away!" she bellowed back.
"Listen, I have an ability that lets me not die to any limb loss okay? I want to get in close to her face and throw a metal rod into her eye and mouth. I don"t have any lightning abilities, but you do! The soldiers do, and if you all shoot it at those you might be able to fry her from the inside out!" Donis blurted out as quickly as he could.
"You f.u.c.king crazy idiot, you"ll die! No. f.u.c.k you! Do NOT DO THAT!" Striga screamed back in between dodges of the queens tail and bites.
Donis stopped listening to her as soon as he told her his plan. He ran to the soldiers and told them to shoot the queen with any and all lightning abilities, and to drench her in water if at all possible. The soldiers were confused but when they realised what he wanted to do they started shouting at him to not throw his life away.
"I"m not dying today. I will become more. I will become what I need to become," he thought to himself.
Unbeknown to Donis with each action he took that put himself in mortal danger, it tempered his Will far faster than any kill with [Immolate I] would. His draconic side was seething with excitement and his human side was screaming at him to stop.
He cast [Trackless] on himself and dashed towards the queen. The soldiers seeing that Donis wasn"t going to be stopped started casting water and lightning spells on the queen. Even this seemed to be working slightly as the queen ended up slowing down, letting out screeches of pain.
Donis smiled and continued his run towards the queen. He created a shadowy area right above the queens head who was currently stationary with [Aura Rework] and prepared himself for the ride of his life.
He threw a metal rod onto the floor and cast [Phantom Limb II] in the hopes that maybe, just maybe it would save him from losing a body part. He took as many precautions as he could. It was time to do, or die.
He shouted at Striga to get ready, and before she could reply Donis jumped between shadows. He appeared right above the mouth of the queen who was in the middle of letting off another pained screech. He threw the rod into her mouth, and one right at her eye as hard as he could.
Everything seemed to be going well. The metal rod embedded itself deeply into her eyeball, and she swallowed the metal rod whole. Donis then used the platform he created to jump backwards as hard as he could, barrelling towards the ground. Upon landing he broke a few bones, but he was alive and away from the mouth of the queen.
Striga cursed loudly but created a large [Water Prison] pillar all around the queen with her remaining mana. Donis aided her from the side with whatever he could muster as he tried to blot out the pain of breaking most of his bones in his shoulders and arms.
Striga cast a [Dark Lightning] and the soldiers threw as many lightning spells as they could at the queen. They lit her up like a firework. Sand and ash flew in every direction, in combination the bright light blinded everyone.
After a brief pause, Donis checked her stats.
"SHE HASN"T FALLEN YET," he screamed across the battlefield.