As Silva bounded to the side, avoiding the skittering legs of the Scorchipede, its companion wasn’t idle and was already moving to engage. In an attempt to box us in between them and thus limit our mobility, it was moving towards Luna and me, lunging forward with a wide-open maw. For a brief moment, my mind flashed back to the Querder beneath the glacier on Mundus and the rings of countless sharp teeth that ringed their maws, ready to draw in prey and shred it apart. The Scorchipede looked awfully similar to that, its teeth not so much designed to bite and rip but to draw prey in and grind it down.

Without thinking much, I quickly drew one of my spiky Ice Balls from the pocket I stored them in, taking a moment to make sure it was connected to my Astral Power and gently lobbed it at the gaping maw. The throw was simple, even without Ice Magic I would have been able to easily hit the massive target and with a brief surge of Overflow, the spiky ball exploded outwards, taking but an instant to massively increase its size. Right in the middle of the Scorchipede’s maw, driving sharp spikes into the flesh beneath the rows of teeth and even cracking a few of the teeth, though far too few for comfort. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face when the Scorchipede reared back in pain, letting out a sound that was far too painful to be called musically but given that it was caused by the pain of my enemy, I wasn’t going to complain.

Sadly, It looked like the teeth were incredibly hard and solidly anchored in the thing’s flesh, a thought that was confirmed moments later when it tried to grind the Ice apart. What’s more, even from the newly opened distance between me and it, I could see steam rising from its gullet, making me think that there might be some sort of acid involved, in addition to the heat it undoubtedly produced. After all, everything it the Charland did, so why would a massive centipede be any different?

As I was gathering a bit of power for my follow-up attack, Alex lobbed some object into the thing’s maw, the throw hitting despite its pained flailing but before the payload could do anything, I caused the spikes I had delivered into its maw to burst apart in an explosion of razor-sharp Icicles. While I doubted they’d do much more to the teeth in the thing’s maw, I had no doubt that its insides were a lot less sturdy than the thick, chitinous plates its body was armoured with, so taking a moment to harm it where it counted sounded like a good idea. And a working one, too, judging by the continued shrieking and the burning mix of spittle and blood it was flinging everywhere. Given the way the liquid hissed, bubbled and smoked as it hit the ground, I had no interest in getting any on myself, so I took a few steps back, keeping both Scorchipedes and their prodigious bulk in my sight. I had no interest in getting blindsided by one of their rear ends, or any of their far-too-many legs.

With the obvious pain the thing was in, and the hopefully grievous wounds my attack had left, I shouldn’t have been surprised that it tried to protect its innards and vital organs by closing its maw tightly. Sadly, at least for the thing, it wasn’t aware of what significance the small object Alex had thrown had, maybe thinking it harmless given its size but before it could do much more than skitter to the side a little, the object made its presence known.

I had no idea what Alex had done to create it, nor was I certain I wanted to know, but despite the thing being deep within a massive creature’s body, I could hear the thump and see the Scorchipede’s body shudder, before blood started to rush out from the gaps in its armoured carapace. What’s more, it looked like its entire back section was suddenly out of order, the legs twitching for a few moments before folding apart, leaving the Scorchipede stranded and screeching in pain once more. By now, that sound started to become a lot more grating and less enjoyable, even if a part of me wanted to enjoy knowing the thing was dying. Maybe not fast but given the already grievous wounds we had made, it was certainly dying.

“Watch out!” Lia’s shout instantly focused my attention on the other Scorchipede, which was currently in the process of rearing back in a manner similar to the one used right before its companion had spit out the strange toxic cloud earlier. Given that neither Lia nor Silva had any way to really deal with something like that, or with heavily armoured monsters of this size in general, I took out another of the mist orbs, ready to throw it if necessary to protect my companions.

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To my surprise, what came out of the thing's maw wasn’t a cloud but looked more like a stream of burning liquid, forcing Luna and me to dodge aside while Alex was desperately clinging to Luna’s collar. I could see that Alex tried to use one of the strange objects they had used before to defend against fire, only this time, it didn’t seem to work. Instead, the burning stream hit the ground near us, throwing burning, boiling liquid everywhere with far too many splashes hitting Luna and me. Despite my relatively thick and sturdy clothes, I could instantly feel the stuff eat my flesh, with some power burning into my body but far worse was the scream of pain I heard from Luna. She, just like me, had been hit, causing anger to flare within me. My munchkin was hurt by that thing, and I wanted to hurt it back.

My fastest way to cause it pain was to launch my frozen Shuttles, trying to gore its flesh and rend apart its body, which is why I did exactly that. Sadly, I could only do so much against its thick carapace, I managed to score some hits, striking gouges made by Lia and Silva, but the strikes were far from the decisive blows I wanted to cause. Nearby, I could feel Luna’s power flare, though I didn’t focus on what my munchkin was doing, instead, I kept an eye on both Scorchipedes.

With Lia, Silva and I all focusing on one Scorchipede, the thing hunkered down, protecting its vital points carefully, not letting us get any real hits in. Sure, that also meant it wasn’t doing a whole lot to Lia and Silva, let alone to me, but it was an annoying stalemate. One that was broken from an unexpected direction, namely when the other Scorchipede started to flail around, surrounded by a faint halo of minty green intermixed with pale silver-white, an echo of Luna’s power. For a moment, I wasn’t quite sure what to think but given the increasingly desperate movement of the Scorchipede, I had a feeling whatever Luna was doing, it wasn’t good for it. And the first Scorchipede could tell that its companion was in serious trouble, giving up its attempts at playing defence to strike at Luna.

Only, in doing so, it opened itself up to our attacks, a fact Lia and I instantly took advantage of. While my shuttles didn’t have the precision to perfectly strike weak points, I managed to score some nicely bleeding wounds near the thing’s maw when it opened up but Lia did even better, wrapping her chain around some segments of its body and slamming the hook into its head, just as it was rearing back in pain from my attack. That, in turn, meant that its tremendous bodily strength was trying to rip apart a heavy-duty chain and something had to give. In this case, it was the carapace the hook was set it that gave, cracking apart and allowing Lia to drive her blade deeply into the thing’s head and whatever passed for a spine there.

The result was pretty much instantaneous. Where the Scorchipede Alex’s grenade had crippled was crippled somewhere around the middle of its body, this one was limp from just a few centimetres below its head. The head continued to twitch a little, the teeth moving about, it the rest of its body was just lying there, no longer a threat.

To my surprise, the other Scorchipede was in a fairly similar state and I had to blink for a moment when I realised what had happened. With its backside taken out, Luna had closed in and exploited that weakness in what was either bravery or foolishness or maybe both. Once she had managed to put her hands on it, she likely had used her Life Magic to influence the creature but instead of trying to heal it while keeping things like clotting and tumour down, she had done the opposite.

There was a reason why I had been training her to wield her magic in a precise fashion, namely because wildly growing and regenerating things within a body could be just as harmful as the original injury. Case in point, she had managed to take out the Scorchipede by, well, healing it to death.

“Well done,” I complimented her, walking over as I used my Blood Magic to take care of the wounds caused by the burning acid spit. When placing my hands on her, I realised that she hadn’t just taken out the Scorchipede, she had also healed her own wounds, making me nod in approval. My munchkin was beginning to master her magic and nothing could make me prouder.

“Think there’s anything worth harvesting? Or should we just move on?” I asked, looking at the others, before looking at the massive bodies once again. Either way, a quick glance at the sky ascertained that no matter what we did, we wouldn’t be able to get out of the Charland before dawn. Just as expected.