Star glider, bronze rank creature.
Monster index entry not found; all information has been provided by identification power. Weaknesses and associated powers unknown.
The monsters had a long sinuous body, less like a snake, and more like a crocodile with no legs. Instead they had these long body length fins that moved in waves as they propelled themselves forward. Their bodies were a deep, almost vanta black color. Their eyes rather than appear on the top of their heads, were instead placed like the eyes of a fish on the side of their head, but were proportionally much larger than they should have been. From just a glance Seras guessed they might have a total 360° of visual coverage, or at damn near it.
They were also absolutely huge, one being the length of a bus, while the other was at least two and half buses.
Oh, and one more salient fact. They were PISSED!
The frag grenade did dick all but piss them off, with the smaller one taking to the brunt of explosive force. Small holes peppered one side of its enormous flank, and a glittering black blood like liquid onyx was bleeding out into the warped gravity field.
They charged at the ledge where they had camped the ‘night’ before. For a moment Seras considered the tunnel, but the smaller one must have known her intentions because it veered off its charge and blocked off their escape.
Seras summoned her gun, activated two abilities, [control bullets] and [Metal reinforcement], and aimed the revolver for the monsters giant beady black eye.
Bang!
Wing!
Crack!
The bullet hit the eye dead center but instead of a gooey mess of viscera and eye goop the bullet ricocheted off the diamond hard capsule protecting its enormous weak spot.
The Star Glider whipped around and lurched for Seras with its jaws, she leaped backwards and escaped its grasp. Only for Seras to hit a patch of warped gravity and her trajectory changed mid arc. She spun around to orient herself as she was now standing on the shaft wall like it were normal ground.
She had a moment of vertigo, but had to push it aside as the longer of the two went for her.
Seras set herself and aimed her gun with one hand, blue lines flowed across her body and into the gun.
BANG!
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
She shot the longer glider dead center of its narrow head. Black glittering blood flowed out in little globules as they floated in free gravity, but the monster kept coming for her.
Seras watched the glittering blood, then saw one of them fall sideways from her perspective and leapt in that direction. The Glider tried to whip around and snap at her, but Seras had tucked her legs in and begun to spin as her sense of gravity changed again.
She was falling again, but this time she had an idea of where she was going. She stretched her legs a little, spread them out, and landed on the smaller glider with a heavy ‘THUMP’.
The smaller Glider, which had been going for Athena, was not prepared for several hundred kilograms of cyborg to land on its back with so much force. And as such it fell into the rock of the alcove and skidded a half dozen meters, just passing Athena as it went forward.
Seras saw her shocked expression, and in a moment of impulse she reached down and grabbed the woman and dragged her up.
“Hold on!” Seras roared as she commanded the spent casings to leave her gun and new bullets to enter.
That was all she had time for as the Glider got up off the ground and roared as it realized it now had passengers.
It bucked and twisted. But Seras had been riding to meanest Heidel in all the Five Deserts for months, and Buck had prepared her well for this.
Damn cocky Heidel was getting extra apples when she got back.
Athena surprisingly held on just as well as Seras, though she had the ability to plunge both hands into its hide and grip on that way.
As it tried to buck them off Seras pointed her gun down and fired.
Aura of Ruin has inflicted enfeeblement on Male Star glider.
Male huh, did that make the big one a female? Did monsters have genders? If so why?
Doesn’t matter. All that mattered was that it bled.
She fired all six shots, and got only one more instance of Enfeeblement.
It had flown away from the alcove, and gravity was doing strange things to its blood as it flew. The Gliders themselves seemed immune to the warped gravity, but not their blood, nor the two passengers.
Seras reloaded her gun and stuck the barrel straight into the deepest wound and began to fire again.
Another two instances of Enfeeblement, but she realized her problem pretty fast. “Not enough, I need more power!” she roared.
A shadow passed over them and Seras looked up to see the whipping tale of the second glider coming for her. She tried to move, but without letting go of the male Glider she could only do so much. Not enough.
The tail hit her square on and flung Seras right off the back of the Male Glider. She flew forward, felt a shift in gravity, then a second shift.
As she tumbled, her guts churned, and Seras would have vomited if she had eaten more than just a spirit coin for breakfast. In one of her wild revolutions, she saw the second Star glider coming for her.
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She aimed, thought better of it, then tossed a grenade instead.
The monster had its jaw opened as it was snapping for Seras, so the pyro-grenade went right down the hatch.
Fire burst from the monster’s mouth, but that didn’t divert its flight. It was still coming for Seras, mouth full of fire, and snapped down on her torso. She felt the teeth dig into her flesh and Seras screamed in pain. She fired a full revolver into its head, but it just clamped down harder.
Tears streamed from her eyes and fucked up her vision. Seras didn’t even have a chance to wonder how she could have tears with no tears ducts. She dismissed the pistol and got a hand on the monsters jaw and tried to force it open like she had when she saved Flint.
But with only one arm she wasn’t gaining any ground.
“No, no, no!” She cursed as the teeth went down further.
~~~*~~~
Athena heard the desperate cries from Seras and looked up to see a heart stopping sight. Seras trapped in jaws of one of the monsters, its long teeth digging into her torso and legs. She was struggling to force its jaws open with one hand, but she was losing the fight.
The smaller monster was still trying to get Athena off its back, but she was clinging to it like a tick. But that meant she didn’t have any chance to unsling the rifle on her back or find a way to help the outworlder.
Accept…
But this was the worst time for that. She needed both hands to stay on.
But Seras would die if she did nothing.
Athena cursed all the Gods and creation itself as she reached out to Seras. “I claim your pain as my own.”
Her words seemed to resonate in the air, and Athena could almost saw she saw a wisp of red fly from Seras and to Athena. Pain overwhelmed her mind as blood burst from her arm and Athena’s severed arm let go of the monster and flew off into the strange space.
Moreover another sort of pain came with it. This one was so much worse than anything she felt during the fight with the Omeda.
It was so much that Athena blanked out for just one moment. But that’s all it took to lose her hold on the monster.
~~~*~~~
For an instant Seras felt like she had taken a hit of the most euphoric drug in existence. She stopped feeling pain, she stopped feeling constantly under pressure. She felt happy even.
Her broken arm had even repaired fully, instead of the two weeks she was supposed to wait.
Then she realized why. She snapped her head around so fast she might have broken it if it were still flesh. She saw Athena flying freely in open space, her arm now a stump, her torso full of bite marks, and her face wrenched in pain.
The smaller glider had twisted in midair and was rushing for Athena, but in a stroke of fate she had flown near a crystal cluster and had been sucked straight down into the tightly packed growth of the spear like mineral. She had fallen just right to avoid impaling herself and was now wedged between two long crystals with the width of an old tree.
She woke in the crystals and began muttering to herself.
Seras didn’t get to see more as the monster who had been trying to eat Seras turned away from the scene. Seras looked back down at her pinned body, met one of the monster’s great beady eyes, and she spat.
It had no eyelids to blink with, but Seras could tell it wasn’t happy about the phlegm sticking to the hardened shell protecting its soft eyes.
With the message clearly conveyed to the monster Seras began to struggle once again. Now that she had both arms available she was able to push and slowly force the jaws apart.
The monster redoubled its effort, but with part of her legs freed Seras was able to press down with them and get more leverage against its jaw.
The jaw opened further and Seres grinned as she saw the flames still burning within. She summoned a small keg in front of her, her last primitive grenade. Little more than a barrel filled with black powder and lead balls. It rolled into the monsters mouth, and she saw its throat ungulate as if it were going to swallow it. The keg rolled into the still burning napalm like goop and some of it stuck to it.
But it wasn’t burning quick enough, and Seras had just received an unwelcome message.
Biolite left arm muscles have been overtaxed and are now at 86% of peak strength. Auto repair in progress, time remaining 2 hours and 11 minutes.
She could hold the jaws open, but not without breaking herself. So Seras decided to gamble.
The monsters jaws were now fully open with Seras holding it up by standing on her tip toes and her arms held high above her head. She removed her damaged arm and summoned her revolver again, immediately the force pressing down of her became unbearable, and she felt her arm bending out of place at her elbow.
Seras raised her pistol and took aim at the keg.
CRACK!
BAAAAANG!
The keg exploded and Seras was flung outwards at high speed as the monsters jaws were blown apart.
Titanium alloy ribs, Biolite abdominals, and left mammary, have been damaged. Time to repair-
The message was cut off halfway through as the wounds vanished. Seras was spinning about violently from the explosion, but she caught a single glimpse of Athena in one moment before she was out of view.
Then she received another message.
You have slain female Star Glider: bronze rank. The body is still within range of your aura and can be looted. Would you like to loot Female Star Glider: Bronze Rank?
“Yes!” Seras roared.
ERROR. Looting ability ‘Bountiful Greed’ requires incantation to activate.
Incantation, what was this shit? She didn’t have time to figure out a chant in the middle of-
Words rose from subconscious and found their way to her lips unbidden. “Break; and fuel my rise!” she said.
Two stellar corundum capsules have been added to your pocket space.
Ten bronze rank spirit coins have been added to your pocket space.
One hundred iron rank spirit coins have been added to your pocket space.
Fifty bronze rank void quintessence have been added to your pocket space.
Fifty bronze rank spatial quintessence.
One Very large Star Glider hide.
No monster core? Were these not really monsters, just naturally magic creatures? Seras had read about them, creatures that were almost all naturally magical, griffons, phoenixes, dragons, Xuan wu, and Leviathans. But these didn’t appear in any registry.
They were called Star Gliders, gave spatial and void quintessence, and had a natural way of moving through warped gravity. Where these native to space? Could magic allow something to survive and evolve in space? Why the hell were they deep underground?
Didn’t matter. They were after her and Athena, they bled, they died. That’s what mattered.
Seras felt her gravity shift as something pulled her in, she got her feet below her and narrowly avoided being speared by the Stibnite like spike. Actually, now that she could touch it.
Attractive Stibium spear. One of the minerals categorized as floatstone or anti-floatstone.
And the other one that seemed to want to push her away.
Repulsive Stibium tile. One of the minerals categorized as floatstone of anti-floatstone
Clank!
A sound like breaking pottery rang through the shaft. Seras whipped her head up and saw what had made that sound, the smaller Star Glider was tearing at the floatstone spikes trying to get at the bleeding form of Athena, the scent of her blood driving it into a frenzy.
Seras cursed and looked around desperately. The beast was trying to get at Athena, and unless Seras had something substantial to draw its attention it would gore the wounded Athena in moments. Her little pea shooter wasn’t going to do shit against it.
Seras pressed her hand to the metal spike and had idea.
Seras used Reinforce metal on herself and struck the spike at a thinner spot, then again, and again. It broke off at the third and Seras gripped it and used shape metal on its tip to sharpen the point into a proper spear tip. She smoothed out bumps and made a cutting edge.
The spike resisted her magic, and required more effort on her part to shape than it should have. Then again Antimony was a metalloid, not fully metal, not fully non-metal. But with Astral Wellspring Seras could eat the increased mana cost.
When she had her makeshift spear she pulled it into her pocket space. She then braced herself against another spike and used it as a hand hold to force herself against the surface of the repulsive stibium and crouched down to spring off it.
It was like pressing herself against a ceiling of a room, and when she launched forward it like falling, but with extra force pushing her away.
Physicists would have an absolute field day with this shaft. Imagine if they could launch a rocket with this stuff inside it. Magic was so bullshit.
But bullshit she’d fully abuse to do whatever the hell she wanted.
Seras soared across the space between her and the Male Star glider. She got pulled into the well off another stibium cluster, but her angle of attack was just right. So instead of falling she swung around it, picking up speed.
It flung her right on course for the Star glider, Seras summoned up the attractive spear and pointed it down.
The attractive force of the spear drew her forward, and the force of the cluster drew her forward. With both forces at play Seras accelerated even more.
She barely had time to think, and almost didn’t reinforce the metalloid spear fast enough. Her ability worked on metals and some metalloids so long the total percentage was high enough. That’s why it worked on Petra’s conjured stone armor but not the monster leathers Rohan wore.
Blue circuitry like lines finished covered the makeshift spear a mere moment before it stabbed into the creatures hide. With all the force behind Seras’s attack the spear went straight through the beast and into the crystal cluster.
It roared, and Seras felt her aura shiver as its power pressed down on her, a death throw from a dying beast.
She gritted her teeth as the hostile aura washed over her, even with limit breaker she was struggling to keep her eyes open. Then the worst happened.
Athena passed out.
All the pain came back to Seras in one moment, and with it a wave of nausea.
Seras wavered one way then, then another, and despite having eaten only spirit coins for the last few days she felt her stomach heave.
She may have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing she knew she was falling.
The last thing she saw was a single prompt in her vision.
You have slain male Star Glider: bronze rank. The body is still within range of your aura and can be looted. Would you like to loot male Star Glider: Bronze Rank?
She reached out on instinct, “break, and fuel my rise.”
Two steller corundum capsules have been added to your pocket space.
Ten bronze rank spirit coins have been added to your pocket space.
One hundred iron rank spirit coins have been added to your pocket space.
Fifty bronze rank void quintessence have been added to your pocket space.
Fifty bronze rank spatial quintessence.
One Very large Star Glider hide.
One awakening stone of the cosmos.