Thanks to Nick’s heavy investment into dexterity, he was able to pull off something fancy. He landed lightly on the beast’s head then disengaged with a backflip as it rose. While the maneuver was one of the more badass feats he had accomplished, the landing placed him squarely inside the bug’s strike zone, staring up at the jagged hooks jutting from its mandibles.

The centipede lunged as he lashed out with his blade, the sword’s edge catching one side of the streaking lengths of chitin. It was obvious that the beast expected to effortlessly block the strike, then end Nick when it moved to counterattack, but that was not what happened.

Instead, the mysterious weapon bit deep into the bug’s natural armor. It might have sheared the appendage off completely if the creature hadn’t managed to arrest its momentum and pull back at that point, mitigating the damage in an impressive display of agility. The sword is definitely getting sharper as it regenerates the missing pieces.

The render skittered back to evaluate its injury, hissing in pain as spews of hot ichor dripped onto the stone below. They painted the rock with faintly glowing splatters that reminded Nick of a blacklight reaction. Although he had failed to land a critical blow, he wasn’t about to let the opening go to waste.

He advanced to keep the beast within his reach then reversed his grip, borrowing momentum from his charge to send the sword whipping around in a high arc. He gathered his strength and sent the weapon streaking back down, aiming for the same mandible that he had already wounded.

As he expected, the centipede turned its head to track the blade. Before the sword landed, the beast pulled its head out of the way… which would have caused him to miss if that had been his true target.

But Nick had been counting on this exact outcome, and the abrupt motion left the bug’s flank wide open. He continued guiding the powerful swing, bringing the sword down to follow the contour of the beast’s body. He sheared through a dozen bladed limbs in the process, which fell to the floor in a twitching, ichor-coated heap.

Now the centipede was seriously injured, causing it to reevaluate the threat that Nick posed. The beast hissed and tried to retreat, the motion rendered clumsy from the missing appendages and the blinding pain of its wounds.

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He had done well to make it to this point, but he still had a serious problem on his hands. After his latest attack, Nick had finished judging his ability to penetrate the beast’s chitin plates.

Although his sword had proven to be more effective than he’d anticipated, he couldn’t swing it hard enough to shear through the thick shell protecting its body. While he could wound the creature with his weapon if he struck its mouth or legs, Nick had no way to dish out enough damage to end the fight quickly.

Though he had managed to remove several limbs, the beast still had hundreds more. On the other side of the equation, one good slash would be enough to take him out of the fight.

Once the centipede realized his limitation, it could easily escape into the sandpit or overwhelm Nick by rushing straight at him and binding his movements with its legs. But he had no intention of letting the fight drag on long enough for either of those things to happen.

While those thoughts passed through his head and his opponent recovered from the shock of its wounds, he had already begun casting piercing ray while drawing the wand from his belt. The beast reacted the instant that Nick started pulling mana into the spell. It was clear by this point that it could sense what he was up to.

The big bug seemed to intuit that he was nearly helpless during the ten seconds it took to cast piercing ray. Which was why the beast came charging straight for him, intending to end the fight before he could pull his ace out of his sleeve. Fortunately for Nick and the integrity of his organs, the giant centipede was operating under a slight misconception.

While it was true that Nick was nearly helpless while casting, as forming the spell required most of his attention, the flesh-render would soon learn that there is a vast chasm lying between nearly and totally helpless. A lightless depth into which the creature would momentarily fall.

As the beast’s momentum carried its body forward, mandibles rising to disembowel Nick from stomach to sternum, he brought his wand to bear and fired. He activated the magical instrument from point-blank range, pointed straight at the top of the creature’s head.

With a whump that he could feel in his bones, the wand discharged, arresting the beast’s momentum in the blink of an eye.

Its armored head was blown straight down, slamming into the bedrock with a sickening thud. Its face impacted the rocky surface so hard that it bounced back up, sending an undulating ripple down the length of its segmented body. Perfect. Now to finish the job.