Alexia

I quickly use Quantum Echo to replicate the last Bolt I sent at the boss, only to notice that some of the drops of poison raining down on me are being diverted after glitching out slightly, avoiding me along the way. Which reminds me of Quantum Aura, which I haven’t really seen get used much as of yet.

My attention is reclaimed by the boss when it suddenly slashes one of its massive claws in a diagonal arc towards me, sending a blade of poison flying my way. So I quickly teleport away, avoiding the attack before it repeats it again towards where I’m standing now.

I grit my teeth thanks to the poison but teleport again despite the pain.

This isn’t going well anymore. Looking at the connector between its upper and lower body, all I’ve managed to do is badly damage its carapace. My attacks haven’t even damaged its body underneath it yet. And with this poison raining down on me along with its attacks…

Out of nowhere the monster begins charging at me again, making me teleport away. But this time, a misty purple aura appears around the boss as it crawls across the ground, somehow speeding the thing up to the point that I have to hurriedly teleport multiple times to keep my distance from it, and the teleports are starting to build up, taxing my soul.

So after a brief window of planning, I decide that the only way to take it down now without burning all of my soul in the process just to avoid its own attacks… is to jump onto its back.

Right when it’s about to reach me again, I teleport. But instead of teleporting away from the thing, I teleport directly up and forwards, only barely managing to teleport on the other side of its upper body where I then slide down its back.

I grit my teeth as I continue ignoring the poison raining down from above and dissolving my skin and armor before I swing my polearm and stab the blade directly into the damaged carapace I was firing Bolts at earlier. And to my relief, the blade manages to pierce through the weakened carapace directly into the creature’s much squishier insides beneath. Insides that end up splashing a purple liquid on me that I quickly find to be poisonous blood.

“Shit,” I grunt out loud only to practically force my mouth shut to keep any and all of the poison out of it. But the poison still soaks into my face and neck and starts hissing as it touches my armor. Unlike the other poison though, this one simply makes my skin itch and burn with pain. It doesn’t literally melt it like the poison that is finally starting to lessen from that rain of poison, the poison that was in the glob finally running out.

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So I quickly use Quantum Reversal, burning through vast amounts of my soul and gripping onto my polearm as if my life depended on it despite the massive amount of pain. And by the time the reversal finishes, the majority of my burns and all of the most recent poison’s damage is reversed. But at the same time, doing just that alone cost me nearly a quarter of my remaining soul, which is already only at about two thirds left of my total soul.

Whatever type of poison the creature’s blood is consistent of was literally soaked into my body, so none of it remains on me anymore. With that in mind, I grab my polearm, only to duck when a tail suddenly shoots straight at me, making my previously addled mind realize that I have been standing on the back of its back…? Or is this its neck? No, a neck would be behind its head, not the connecting part between its upper and lower body. I’ve been standing on its back for several seconds now and it hasn’t attacked me with its claws yet.

When I look to see why, I realize its claws don’t seem to be able to reach back here. Although its tail has no such issues.

I move to the side to dodge its tail again while putting force on my polearm to dig deeper, being extra careful to avoid splashing any of its blood on me in the process and avoiding coming out of its wound with my feet as well.

The creature lets out a loud screech of what I’m assuming is either pain or anger. Or both. Then it repeatedly swings its tail at me, trying to sting me without stinging itself on accident.

And the moment I notice that along with the fact that my polearm won’t go any deeper in it, an idea comes to me. So I move around my polearm while using it to keep my balance before focusing on the tail entirely.

I kneel down, moving my body as close to the boss as possible while it begins swinging its upper body a bit, albeit too slowly to really matter. Probably because it would only be disorienting itself and losing its own balance if it tried swinging its entire upper body around with abandon.

For it to know when to pull back its stinger and aim it so as to avoid stinging itself, it has to be able to see behind itself somehow… please work…

The thing swings its tail at me several more times, only to end up backing off right before hitting my polearm that I use to block it. Then it eventually decides to go all in and swing straight down towards me, at which point I teleport to the other side of my polearm and send a Quantum Bolt towards the back of its head that it dodges while the stinger continues moving down to strike into its own back.

Yes!! It worked!

It also proved my theory that the creature is somehow seeing from the back of its head, so while its head was being attacked it stopped paying attention to where its tail was striking.

Right when the creature seems like it’s about to pull out its stinger from its back, I teleport next to it and stomp on the stinger, sending it deeper inside. Then I do it again and again, only to eventually resummon my polearm and stab straight into the base of the stinger while also sending a Quantum Bolt at it.

And after a few more attacks, the stinger finally gets ripped off of the tail with a loud screech from the boss.