Half a heartbeat later, the first wasp hit the sand at breakneck speed, unable to arrest its dive due to its missing wing. The abrupt collision spooked the closest beast. It turned to look at the wasp crawling toward it and reared back, pulling its head beyond the reach of its lethal stinger.

On a brighter note, the move put the render right in the path of the final wasp, who rammed the beast’s head, clamped on with its legs, and stung it in the eye. Half a heartbeat later, the other centipedes realized what had happened.

The swarm converged on Sophia’s summons and tore both wasps to shreds, but the damage had already been done.

Leaving their wounded member behind to succumb to the spreading frost encasing its head, the other three centipedes zoomed straight for Nick. He had taken advantage of the distraction to reposition, and was now standing behind the modest protection provided by the minecarts.

He took inventory of his supplies without breaking his gaze. While this was still a tight spot, removing one of the renders from the board gave him more options to work with. A strategy for how he could hold off the other three beasts for a few more minutes was beginning to form.

Unfortunately, his newly built plan collapsed like a house of cards only five heartbeats later. Because that was the moment when, to his rising dismay, another centipede arrived through the mouth of the tunnel.

Nick was once again left to contend with four of the deadly beasts. They turned and began streaking for his position, swimming across the sandpit like fish in a river. Shit, this is looking bad. What am I going to do?

He was making steady progress on judging how much mana he had left in his core. At the moment, he had just enough energy to cast four mana darts without running out of juice. Or one piercing ray and one dart, if he decided to use his spells that way instead.

Stolen novel; please report.

Neither option would save him from the matriarch when she reappeared, given the beast’s keen reflexes and thick natural armor. But he only needed to hold out for another four minutes while Sophia finished up with… whatever it was she was in the middle of preparing.

At least both of his spells had worked well against the juvenile renders. His darts could temporarily disable them, and his ray was able to put them down for good… if he was able to finish the casting without being interrupted.

As he raced to decide how he would hold the beasts back, he could hear Sophia’s chanting echoing out from the bowels of the refinery, her voice thick with excruciating pain.

That doesn’t sound good. I think she’s doing something that’s a lot riskier than she implied. He wanted to rush over and see what was wrong, but Nick couldn’t afford to stop moving. Not if he wanted either of them to survive. He hardened his heart and shut out the sound as best he could, devoting his attention to the task at hand.

In the end, Nick trusted Sophia to do her part. He needed every scrap of concentration that he could muster if he was going to do his own.

I don’t need to kill them, just slow them down. It’s not impossible, just closer to improbable than I would like. But if the plan is to delay rather than defeat, then my best move is to… he made his decision and conjured three mana darts in succession, the maximum that he could control at once with any degree of accuracy.

By the time that the third silvery wedge flew to join the others in their orbit around Nick’s head, the flesh-render pack had cleared the side of the sandpit. The bladed beasts came charging across the bedrock, streaking for his position along the edge of the refinery.

Three minutes, a fragment of his awareness that he had partitioned to maintain a countdown clock informed him. A little trick he had learned through a lifetime of competitive gaming.

First things first. Slow them down and make them hesitate. With that goal in mind, he brought his wand to bear and pointed it at the ground ahead.

Nick took aim while judging the optimal distance, preparing to expend the wand’s last charge not on the quartet of lethal bugs swarming for him, but on the pile of loose rocks he had stacked while waiting for the beasts to arrive.

Wait for it. A little longer. Now!