The three new landwalkers snapped away with their massive claws, each claw at least 10 times the size of my head, and began scurrying down the incline of sand–the one thing standing between the scout supports and the monsters.
They were moving to attack.
Knowing the landwalkers had already seen us, I didn’t worry about them catching my movement and pushed myself out from underneath the dead one, getting bits of sand in places that I don’t want to discuss. I was also a little preoccupied, so I had no time to worry about chafing.
Once free from the carcass, I leaped to my feet while simultaneously positioning my spear in the direction of the oncoming monsters.
Patricia joined me at my side, poising a shoddily made, chipped knife toward the landwalkers. Her bottom lip trembled as she whimpered, but she bravely stood her ground. Will’s and Rory’s faces went pale from fear, but they slid themselves out from the sand and positioned themselves right behind Patricia and me, gleaming daggers held out in front of them.
We were ready.
“Retreat!” Gareth cried. “Scout supports, retreat now!”
There was no time. The landwalkers were mere feet away–their pincers for hands alone could reach out and snap any of us in half just with a slight outreach of their arms, even if we tried to run.
Gareth cursed, but I soon saw him station himself to the left of our scout support clump, bracing to throw himself into the impending battle. He commanded the remaining scouts to join the fray, as well.
I urged my body to stop from shaking and tightened my grip around the shaft of my spear. I can do this…. I can do this!
Yes, I didn’t have Dex to tell me what Tier level these monsters were. I didn’t have him to help in this fight in any way–something I had gotten used to, but I was determined. I had talent by myself, too. I didn’t always have to rely on Codex, or Drayek, or Sarina…. I had my own merits.
Although, advancing to Tier 4 could prove useful against these three landwalkers, and I assumed I couldn’t Tier up during the fight without having Dex to do it for me. I had only done so during my duel against Cinthara because Codex had said that he could cultivate essence to my core without me having to meditate. Codex cultivating for me had been a very taxing process and not something I could do without the AI to help me. So, I didn’t want to risk it. I also had no idea how to go about cultivating without meditating, and I didn’t have time to figure it out, especially as a claw engulfed my entire body in shadow and came crashing down above my head.
I rolled over my right shoulder, dodging the blow, and, thinking quickly, poured some essence into my spear and thrust its sharp tip toward the claw before it could recover from its impact with nothing but sand. My spear all but bounced off of the blood-red claw, even with essence coursing through the weapon.
The main scouts all landed blows with their various weapons, and even Will and Rory got in a hit or two that made the landwalkers stumble. Patricia looked just as helpless as I did–neither of us knew the weak spots on the beasts like the others in our party did. And I was once again reminded that I didn’t have Dex to scan the landwalkers and tell me almost instantaneously where the creatures’ weak spots were.
I rubbed at the bits of sand that had found their way into my eyes and scrambled back to my feet. I did know, from having watched the scouts fight the first landwalker and from harvesting the bits of meat I had from the carcass, that parts of the landwalkers’ underbellies were softer and more vulnerable.
Gareth had already slid underneath the landwalker in the middle, the biggest of the three and the obvious leader. I maneuvered behind the other fighting scouts and scout supports, careful to keep myself out of the landwalkers’ eyelines, which was difficult considering they could stretch their strange stick eyes in most directions. But the poking and prodding of spears, swords, weapons, and knives distracted the monsters from looking my way.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I slid underneath the smallest of the three landwalkers. Sand got in my mouth and continued to wiggle into other less-than-ideal places. And what made it worse was the difficulty of maneuvering my spear well enough to achieve any momentum for my strikes. Still, I made the best of it, succeeding in digging into the landwalker by at least two-inch deep gouges.
But my success didn’t last for long.
The landwalker above me roared in anger, then scuttled to the left and began aiming for me with its slender, sharp-looking legs. Sand exploded into golden clouds all around me as I rolled this way and that, avoiding (some narrowly) every strike of the beast’s legs.
Once I caught sight of an opening between the landwalker’s blows, I threw myself to my feet and dove through the gap, getting as far away from the landwalker as I could. I hurriedly tucked my spear back into its sheath strapped to my back and waved my fingers over my nose as I cast Priest Kane’s water manipulation spell. I just hoped that we were close enough to the giant ocean that I could actually conjure a water weapon. I had to be close enough to water to conjure anything with the stolen spell. And the gods knew there was a lot of water in that ocean.
It seemed the gods were smiling down on me, for a massive broadsword made entirely from water shimmered into existence above the landwalkers’ heads. It was so big that its blade stretched across the entire length of the three landwalkers combined.
“What the…?”
I didn’t know who had spoken, but all of the scouts and scout supports glanced my way, knowing I’d been the one to cast the spell. Possibly because they’d seen me move my hands in the pattern to summon the spell or because they’d been among the audience to watch me cast the same spell against Cinthara during our duel. I ignored them, however, keeping my focus on the task at hand.
Essence streams darted around me like happy little bugs. I drew in everything I could see and channeled the streams toward my spell just as I commanded the sword to swing down on the landwalkers.
The extra essence I continuously directed to the sword kept it intact as the blade hacked and hacked at their heads. It took four blows to finally crack open the landwalkers’ shelled skulls, but once it did, the monsters fell to the floor, legs squirming to try and pick themselves back up.
The rest of the party hollered out triumphant cries and attacked in full force, leaping atop the landwalkers and slamming their weapons into their now vulnerable skulls. It didn’t take long for the group to kill the monsters and release plumes of essence that began dancing into the scouts and scout supports as the streams came their way.
My breaths were heavy, and my body shook from the exertion of fighting and casting a large spell, but I forced myself to focus and take at least half of the essence I saw. This meant less for the other members of the group, but at least I still left them half–I deserved a lot of the spoils based on how that fight had ended. Granted, my Soul felt… full anyway. Like it was about to burst. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to take in all of the swarms of streams that had been released from the deaths of the three landwalkers.
The scouts and other scout supports stood with hands on knees, breathing heavily as they tried to regain strength after an extended battle. Patricia specifically looked pale, and her dark eyes darted back and forth as if fearing more landwalkers would come. To be fair, though, maybe we all should hurry. I had a feeling there were more landwalkers where these four dead ones came from.
Will and Rory clapped one another on the backs and flashed each other giant grins. Had this been their first battle as scout supports? They’d seemed confident enough amid the fray and definitely had held their own, so maybe not. They weren’t as competent or as strong as the main scouts were–especially when it came to the scouts’ experiences with fighting as a unit–but Will and Rory had still gotten a lot of hits on the monsters, even while using just their small daggers as weapons.
“Well done, Rayden.”
I straightened to attention as Gareth approached. His armor and sword were covered in brown sludge–landwalker blood. In fact, I noticed as I looked down at myself that I was equally covered. It smelled terrible, too. Like rotten meat.
“Thank you, sir.”
Gareth nodded at me and slid his broadsword back into a hidden sheath at his side. “You have impressive battle prowess for a lowly scout support.”
I cleared my throat. “Lowly? I feel like the supports have an essential purpose if they’re the ones who provide you back up when you might need it.” I gestured around the mess of the clearing. “Like what happened just seconds ago.”
Gareth narrowed his eyes at me, and I shot my gaze down to my feet, realizing I probably shouldn’t speak to my superior that way.
“You’re right. My apologies,” Gareth mumbled.
I glanced up in shock at Gareth, and he tried a small smile in my direction. I could barely see it underneath his bushy mustache, and his eyes still gave off a hint of annoyance, but for the few hours I’d known him, he always looked like that.
“I’d like to have a longer…” Gareth glanced at each of our companions, then leaned closer to me and lowered his voice, “A longer chat with you. Alone. Once we arrive back home.”
“Am I in trouble, sir?”
“No, no.” Gareth gave a slight shake of his head. “But I have a proposition for you.”