When the creature appeared in the distance, Villin got nervous. As it started swimming closer, Villin had a better idea of its exact size. The Ottoia was shaped as an octopus, its ‘head’ was about fifty meters tall and its tentacles a hundred-and-fifty to two-hundred meters in length.
When the creature was a hundred meter away from the dome, it stopped moving forward, this way it would remain outside of the effective range of most of the spearguns and only a few could attack it while it wouldn’t have any problem attacking.
When it stood still, it began moving its tentacles and about a dozen of them could be seen moving around, as if the Ottoia was simply creating a show for them to watch.
Still, the information it gave was helpful as Villin managed to count fifteen massive tentacles in total, it seemed that the myths were slightly exagurated but it was still a truly fearsome opponent.
As the beast was doing his little dance, the soldiers weren’t standing stills. The soldiers on the ground spread out further as they continued to deal with the smaller threats, if they grouped up the Ottoia would have a clear target, this may make it a lot harder.
As for those manning the spearguns, Villin saw they weren’t making too many moves which somewhat annoyed him. Whether they had a good shot on the Ottoia or not, the vast majority pointed their spearguns towards the creature, preparing to fire.
Just as some of the spearguns were about to fire, some of the Atlantians manning them, heard a voice within their head, the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, the voice couldn’t be recognized but the message was clear.
This was of course a derivatory version of ‘Mentallage’. No matter what Villin was a large part of the defenses on the eastern front and he wasn’t just about to do nothing and watch his allies make mistakes.
The people handling the spearguns that could potentially harm the Ottoia from their location got the following message: “Atlantians! This is your leaders speaking. Hold your fire, currently the beast is occupied with its dance, this allows us time to prepare the reinforcements. Hold your fire until the beast finishes its current non-harmful movements. And rest easy soldiers, help is on the way.”
Villin decided to pretend to be the Atlantian leader, after all being able to talk within one’s mind was a foreign ability to them and if anyone could do such a thing it would be their leaders. It also helped calm the troops as panicked soldiers weren’t the best at aiming. As for using his own name and voice, they probably wouldn’t listen if he did that.
After he contacted this group, he turned to the soldiers manning the spearguns that probably wouldn’t be able to harm the Ottoia from their location. “Soldiers! This is your commander speaking! Help is on the way, right now all you have to do is minimize damage, do not worry about killing the monster. Instead, aim your spearguns to the battlefield on the ground. When the tentacles come to attack soldiers, give them hell, do not let them create another crack within the ground! Reinforcements will be there soon!”
As Villin stopped the spell and let out a deep breath, he saw a number of the spearguns aiming their spearguns towards the battlefield, they seemed less downcast as well.
Finally, Villin turned to the benders atop of the massive towers, even though he didn’t have a line-of-sight with them, he had learned how to cast mentallage through his magic power long ago so this wasn’t too much of a problem.
“Benders of Atlantis, I know you all are tired and have worked hard but do not give u hope! We will kill this beast and take its head! If you keep the dome up I assure you all that you shall be heavily rewarded!”
Even though Villin didn’t identify him this time, he was sure the benders would assume it’d come from a leader or the main general, he also noticed the leakage soon lessened as morale improved. Villin knew it was temporary but he wanted them not to lose hope when the Ottoia attacked.
Lastly, Villin would’ve loved to be able to use mentallage to raise the morale of all the soldiers on the front but that would be too expensive in terms of magic power so he decided not too.
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Still, looking at the spearguns pointing at the main battlefield, Villin nodded in satisfaction, that could create a massive difference when the Ottoia attacked. He was also glad the regular soldiers spread out without even having been told so, it seemed that these people weren’t stupid.
The Ottoia did its little dance for a full five minutes before stopping, Villin could only assume the dance was used to either intimidate enemies or attract female Octopi, probably the former considering the situation.
When Villin noticed the Ottoia was finishing its dance, he used mentallage to once more contact the Atlantians that had their spearguns within range to do some damage.
Moments later, eight enchanted bolts shot towards the creature in the distance who was just finishing its dance. It noticed the spears and used a tentacle to shield his main body. The sound of the eight explosions was clearly audible and when the Ottoia was visible again, it was clear nearly no damage was done. Villin noticed some minor burns on the tentacle that the Ottoia used but there was no real damage.
Villin flinched when he saw the lack of damage. The water obviously decreased the power of the spear but the damage was even less than he expected. Even if they could potentially deal with the tentacles that attacked, Villin saw no real way for the enchanted spears to be able to harm the main body of the Ottoia from this distance.
As far as he heard from the Atlantians, the beasts that attacked wouldn’t leave when they were hurt, they would keep going until they died, this made some of them significantly more powerful compared to if you would deal with them in the wild.
Villin’s current plan was simple. Wait for the beast to attack, tie one of the tentacles up with ‘Vinea Tenura’ and transfiguration and let the spearguns and soldiers deal with the rest.
He was also hoping to get reinforcements from the north as the main threat seemed to be here but he decided not to count on it, it was best to assume he was on his own.
As expected, it didn’t take long for the Ottoia to attack. Two of its tentcles moved forwards rapidly, thei pierced through the water veil uncontested causing it to become somewhat less stable. Then, as one, they swatted onto the ground, squashing a number of soldiers.
Villin got off of the ground as he sweated, one of the tentacles landed on where he was standing just a few seconds ago, he managed to jump out of the way just in time.
The tentacle next to him was a throbbing, sticky mess of meat that seemed rather terrifying. It didn’t have suction cups but teeth instead, ripping the people it went through apart.
Despite his close brush with death, Villin didn’t pause, as soon as he got up, he pointed towards the tentacle, and then, dozens of vines rose out of the ground, attempting to keep the tentacle down.
Even though more and more vines popped up, when Villin noticed the strength the tentacle was using to try and get away, he knew it would be able to escape within a could of seconds. And so, the tentacle began moving downwards, deeper into the ground.
The tentacle’s method to escape wasn’t methodical. It would trash around wildly until it got out of whatever caused it to be stuck.
Using ‘Syrtim Celer’ alongside transfiguration, Villin attempted to make the path down the one with least resistance and succeeded it doing so as the top twenty meters of the tentacle was being brought underground.
The second tentacle quickly noticed the other one was in trouble, it got off of the ground where it had killed a handful of soldiers and pointed upwards, preparing to strike at Villin and free its brother.
Just as it wanted to do so.
“BOOM!”
“BOOM!!”
“BOOM!!!”
Dozens of explosions rang out now that this tentacle had finally moved off of the ground, greatly decreasing the risk of the spears hitting their own men.
Villin would’ve smiled but he was too focused on keeping the first tentacle down, he was losing magic power in the heaps and he didn’t have time to pay too much attention to the rest of the battlefield.
Still, the enchanted spears coming from their enchanted spearguns were extremely effective. From this distanc the piercing power was great and most of them managed to just about make it through the flexible outer layer of the tentacle. Then it would explode revealing a small open wound. This wouldn’t be much but if a second spear hit the same spot, the tentacle would begin bleeding heavily.
In about a dozen seconds, all of the spearguns that had been prepared had fired their shots at the tentacle that was unable to react during this entire time.
Several holes had been made allowing people to see through the tentacle entirely, and cheers came from everywhere.
Yet, just a moment later, long before the spearguns could be reloaded, six massive tentacles pierced through the veil at once, within moments two of the towers holding spearguns had collapsed as two of the tentacles crushed them after twirling around the towers.
Two of the remaining tentacles turned to Villin as the other two began slaughtering soldiers.
Being able to kill one of the tentacles didn’t seem like such a bit achievement at this point in time.