Juvenile Santipede —> lvl 52

"We're dead’ Was everything Liz could think of when she saw the towering monstrosity.

It had dark brown scales and countless sharp legs. Liz could feel the mana flowing around its massive body, twisting under its will.

She rapidly tried to think of a way out of this place, a way to run away from the monster, but she couldn’t think of anything. Even before switching her stats, she had little hope of escaping, but after switching them, she was completely hopeless.

Just like her, everyone stared at the monster with grim expressions.

“Step aside.” A man’s voice echoed through the battlefield.

Liz watched in silence as the knight started walking towards the Juvenile sandtipede.

‘Right, we still have our failsafe.’ She smiled internally when she remembered the lvl 58 knight’s purpose.

The sandtipede and the Knight remained motionless studying each other for a few seconds, at the same time, the infants simply watched, not daring to move a muscle.

Instinctively, everyone understood the truth, their fate was in their hands, whether they lived or they died, depended solely on that one fight.

Mr. Frol unsheathed his sword, a slightly curved single edged blade almost as long as his arm, and grabbed it with his two hands.

He took a deep breath and stared at the towering monstrosity, a single hit from one of its legs would instantly kill any human below level forty.

He felt his hands gripping his sword tightly, his knuckles were probably white already.

He poured some mana into his sword, and a small stream of water started flowing through the blade.

The monster in front of him seemed to be done with his preparations too, so he simply lowered his hips and prepared his body.

In his mind, he saw countless different scenarios, dozens of possibilities, of ways the fight could go wrong, and exhaled.

He felt his muscles tensing as several of his skills activated at the same time.

‘Water sword…’

Instantly, his body shooted forward, leaving a trace of water behind.

The monster didn’t stay idle either, instead tens of sharp legs started moving towards the knight, who looked like an ant fighting a giant.

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But Mr. Frol simply twisted his body, easily dodging all the attacks, and sometimes even severing some of the monster’s legs.

Even Liz was amazed, he was almost dancing rather than fighting, flowing like water, but striking in the most lethal and efficient way possible.

Slowly, the seconds turned into minutes, and the monster’s limbs covered the sand beneath their feet.

The knight was swift and nimble, sometimes he was slow, like a falling leaf. Other times, he was too fast to be seen by the naked eye, leaving only a trace of water behind.

But the sandtipede seemed to be tired of the useless fight, and roared.

Liz heard the deafening noise for only a second, then, everything became silent, and she felt a liquid falling from her ears.

She screamed, and tried to maintain her Flare.

It was almost impossible for her to maintain the cohesion of the spell while her ears screamed in pain.

The light flickered for some minutes, turning on and off several times, until she finally grasped the mana, and the Flare became stable again.

Now that her magic was stable again, Liz turned her gaze back to the fight.

Mr. Frol had blood flowing from his ears, and several cuts in the side of his clothes, revealing the dented metal plate beneath, but he was still mostly unscathed.

Unlike him, the monster was clearly struggling. Most of its limbs had already been chopped off, and whatever that scream was, it seemed to have drained most of its mana.

Knowing that it was losing the battle of attrition, the santipede decided to go for a last attack with all of its remaining limbs.

Frol’s eyes widened as the seventeen sharp limbs descended towards him. He rapidly shifted his weight and reinforced his grip, taking a deep breath.

“Torrent.”

Instantly, his body became blurry, his movements were much faster than before. In a single second, all of the monster's limbs laid on the ground, covered in a mixture of blood and water.

A second later, he was right on top of it, shifting his grip once again.

The constant stream of water flowing down his blade was much bigger, and Liz could see a blue glow behind the plates of his armour.

“Cascade.”

The blade fell with incredible strength, cutting through scales, flesh, and bone, in an instant, the defenceless monster was simply decapitated.

Everyone watched speechless as the massive head fell to the sand, almost like they were expecting it to keep moving, but nothing did.

For a few moments, everything was silent, then, fearing for their lives, all the surviving sandtipedes turned and ran away.

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Once all the infant sandtipedes were gone, Mr. Frol simply walked towards Iso, and pointed at his ears.

Liz saw Iso’s mouth moving, and the green glow of mana covering Frol’s ears, moments later, he thanked him and walked away.

After that, Iso healed Dere and her. Glad to be able to hear again, Liz walked towards Gustav, who laid in the ground with most of his wounds healed.

“Ok?”

Gustav looked at her, and then pointed at his bleeding ears.

Liz thought for a moment, then gave him a thumbs up and tilted her head to the side.

“I’m fine, you?” Gustav said between laughs.

Liz simply smiled and gave him another thumbs up, before asking Iso to heal Gustav next.

After some time, and a couple of mana restoring potions, everyone was completely healed from the battle. Luckily, no one died during the attack.

Now, Liz was looting one of the corpses with a long knife of blowing mana. She had dispelled the Flare some minutes ago, but now that the battle was over, they were free to light some fires and lanterns to help them see.

She used the knife to sever the flesh beneath the large scale, allowing her to easily take it off with her increased strength. After repeating it with the fifth scale, she placed them on top of a mana sledge and carried it towards the merchant’s wagon.

Once she reached the wagon, she curiously stared at the large cloth bag that Mister Calter, the merchant, was holding. She carefully watched the mana around the bag change, as the merchant introduced several large scales inside the bag.

“Five more” She said, leaving the sledge next to him.

Calter nodded and Liz walked away, dispelled the sledge, and walked back to the remains of the sandtipede, ready to harvest more of the creature, and maybe have a bite or two while no one looked.