Sya stood along with the rest of her party, covered head to toe in the forged Streamer Battle Robes, courtesy of Yuro. Just as she had thought many times since first acquiring them, the robes were very comfortable. She understood why Arden loved wearing the Stoneflesh Shroud even outside of combat.
Resting Rogier’s Tree against her shoulder, she looked over the vast open expanse where her two targets had made their presence known. The cave opened up sometime over the past day or so, and now it looked like several biomes were at war with each other. The sandy desert-like terrain was shifting to have some vegetation as well. The area Sya was looking at looked like an oasis.
She focused her attention closer to the oasis where the sand transitioned to grass around a small watering hole. She could see what looked like tread marks from a tank, only there was just one of them. She saw its path, but she couldn't see where the path led thanks to the introduction of vegetation.
Using her aura sense, she could read the lingering traces of stellar essence that the red-tier Celestial was passively emitting. She opened her eyes, finding where the hotspot of the Celestial's aura was concentrated. She glanced at Lodi who was standing next to her.
“Do centipedes swim, Instructor?”
“I think you'll find that any Celestial has some capacity for swimming.”
“That doesn't really answer my question.”
“It wasn't supposed to.”
“I'm aware of that, Instructor,” Sya said with a bit of edge in her voice.
‘It doesn't matter if it can swim. What matters is why the bone rending centipede is lurking underwater to begin with.’
Sya thought back to the dossier she got the night before. The bone rending centipede was one of her targets, and according to its notes, its greatest strength was the acidic poison that it constantly secreted like sweat. If it latched on to someone without strong enough gear for too long, then the poor individual would melt, assuming that they weren't killed by the numerous puncture wounds delivered by the centipede’s legs as it wrapped around them like a boa constrictor.
“Passive acidic poison…”
Using her aura sense once more, she could tell that the bone rending centipede had barely moved from its spot in the watering hole.
“Okay. I see what it's trying to do,” she said, casting her gaze back to Lodi. “Do Celestials drink?”
“Low-tiers do, but they don't have to. They're like low-tier Starborn in that regard.”
“That's all I needed to know.”
For a few seconds, Sya did nothing as she looked inward, trying to restrain her aura as best she could. It still wasn't perfect, but it would be enough to deceive a red-tier bug. Even if some of her aura leaked out, she was weak enough that it wouldn't alert her prey. With her presence masked, she began walking towards the watering hole.
*****
“W-which one is it?” Kepler asked.
Vera narrowed her eyes and looked at the tracks that Sya was currently following.
“I think it's the centipede.”
Arden grimaced.
“I think that roach bastard gave me a fear of bugs…”
The party along with the rest of the expedition stood around 30 meters back from Lodi as they watched Sya embark on her first solo hunt. The party knew from the night before that Sya’s targets consisted of a highly poisonous centipede and an earthworm with an obnoxiously high poison tolerance, the first of which was now in Sya’s sights.
“What's she doing?" Torvis asked, pointing at her. “Why does she keep a full mop bucket in her inventory?”
*****
The crunch of the sand beneath Sya’s feet went silent as she stepped onto the soft grass that miraculously grew in a dry cave. Honestly, she was more impressed with how the grass and duo of trees grew down here without the sun rather than without much water.
As soon as she was out of the sand, Sya stopped and did another quick aura sense, just in case the centipede could feel her approach through the vibrations. If that were the case, then it was doing a good job faking it and going against whatever natural instinct the Celestial had.
She held a weapon in each hand as she slowly approached the pond that looked to be several meters deep. Deep enough to obscure whatever was hiding beneath the surface thanks to the dim lighting of the cave. In her right hand, Sya held her trusty guandao, Rogier’s Tree, and in her left she held a mop bucket filled with a mixture of household cleaning chemicals and her blood. Thanks to a bit of help from Kepler, the mysterious fluid had been mixed better and a catalyst had been added as well, making it quicker to affect whatever had the misfortune to consume the forbidden tonic.
Standing on the water's edge, she slowly dumped the inky black liquid into the pond. It was slow, methodical work, but it was necessary if she wanted to taint the watering hole with her own poison without the centipede realizing that its own poison had been supplanted.
‘If only I had a giant mixer…,’ Sya sighed.
Not wanting to get jumped by the centipede before she was ready, she held off on using her spear to mix the fluid into the pond. She would have to wait a little bit for it to mix naturally.
‘I waited years to stop being a burden,’ she thought. ‘I can wait a few minutes for a centipede to be poisoned.’
In the meantime, she made a few last preparations. She looked all over herself, noting the patches of white bone fragments that adorned her armor like jewels encrusted on a crown. They were sporadically placed in clusters, with only some of them placed on her torso.
She needed to change that.
The Ribbonbone aspect on the armor stated that everytime she took a hit, the bone fragments would shuffle around on her armor. Frankly, Sya felt that having her torso protected would be better than having the rest of her lightly armored.
She poked herself several times with the back of her blade against the non-covered parts of her armor. It took a few attempts to actually pierce the clothes Woven Mail aspect, but once she felt it get past, she watched as the bone fragments shimmered for a second then reorganized themselves elsewhere on her armor. They still weren't in the right places, so Sya cut herself several more times until she was satisfied with the bones’ positioning. Now the majority of the bone fragments formed abstract patterns across her chest, stomach, and down her back as well.
The last thing she did was unsummon her armor, cut her hand open, smother Rogier’s Tree in her polluted blood, then re-equipping her armor. No way was she going to hurt herself again now that she finally got her armor the way she wanted.
As soon as her armor was in place again, she heard the sound of the water bubbling and splashing violently. She didn’t need to feel its aura to know that the bone rending centipede was coming.
She jumped back just as the centipede emerged from the lake like a hydra. Its many legs clacked together through the chitinous exoskeleton it wore and it gave a bereaved buzzing shriek.
In the dim light, Sya could see a black substance leaking out from beneath its chitinous plates and from its mouth surrounded in mandibles and razor sharp teeth. Her poison had already taken root.
‘It’s bigger than I thought…’
Sya wasn’t sure how big mundane centipedes were able to grow, but she highly doubted they were as large as the bone rending Celestial variant in front of her now, considering this was more than six meters long. She understood why her brother seemed to have developed a mild case of entomophobia.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
She rushed towards the unsavory specimen as it cried out in anger. She didn’t want to give the first moment to the beast. As she closed in on it, she gripped the shaft of her weapon in different places along the shaft, and performed an upwards slash into the hopefully soft underbelly of the beast that was exposed.
Her blade didn't make it far before it got caught on one of the many legs, unable to progress forward or be pulled back. In response, the centipede fell forward, aiming to crush Sya in her moment of lost momentum. Not wanting to take the hit or lose her weapon, Sya activated the Spear Shift aspect, shortening the length of her polearm which allowed her to move out of the way of the attack with Rogier’s Tree in hand.
The impact of the large centipede on the ground threw up a cloud of dirt, sand, and dust, obscuring her sight. Even though she could barely see, she didn't slow down. Slowing down meant she would get caught, getting caught would mean death.
Splitting her focus between aura sense and her normal motor functions was a tall order. Doing it at the same time while fighting was even worse. Sya felt like someone was driving an ice pick up her nose as soon as she made the attempt.
She saw its aura for a brief second, speeding towards her, before she ended her aura sight and threw herself out of its way. Maintaining her balance, she spun around as she commanded Rogier’s Tree to expand back into its long guandao form, and extend into the centipede’s body. This time, her blade was not caught. However, it was still too shallow of a cut to seriously injure the beast.
But her specialty was never showstopping attacks. She played the long game. The only difference between now and the fight with the blast bull was that she was alone, but her prey was also weaker than the blast bull. She could do this.
She reshaped her guandao into a pike and thrust it forward, catching one of the centipede’s legs again. This time however, with the extra penetrating power, the leg cracked and bled, forcing more of Sya’s poison into its bloodstream.
Sya tried pulling it back out and then back in repeatedly to load it up with even more blight essence, but she was only able to do three more times before she was smacked in the side with the full weight of the centipede's tail.
Sya yelped as she took the attack and was knocked back down into the loose sand. Some of the bone fragments crumbled to the ground while the ones that remained reorganized themselves. She had already taken her free hit.
She rolled to the left less than a second before the centipede slammed its head into the ground, just barely missing her.
She quickly got back to her feet and stabbed forward again, but her attack didn't land. Despite her training, she stumbled slightly as the sand shifted beneath her and the centipede.
When the centipede stopped attacking her for a moment as well and gave a shrill warning cry, Sya grew worried. She gave another aura scan and she realized she was right to be worried. There was the familiar aura of the bone rending centipede, but there was another red-tier approaching from beneath them at a startling speed.
Just before it was upon her and the centipede, she tried to leap out of the way, but her timing was wrong. With a burst of sand, the interloper appeared, knocking her out of the sky and leaving her half-buried in the sand.
Her only saving grace was that the invader seemed far more interested in the bigger prey. Sya’s second target, a nefarious sandworm, launched toward the centipede like a bullet, looking like a cross between a worm and a shark. Leaping from the sand, it crashed against the other Celestial and was caught between the centipede’s legs.
Sya managed to return to her feet just in time for the sandworm to slip free, taking several centipede legs with it in the process.
“Why are these red-tiers so big?” She muttered.
“Because this is an environment where they were created specifically to hunt,” Lodi said, appearing at her side. Orange sparks appeared around her, but Sya intervened.
“Wait!” she said. “I'm not done yet. I can still kill them.”
“There are two of them,” Lodi said.
“I know, but I can make it work.”
Lodi looked into Sya’s eyes. They weren't trembling at all. It wasn't arrogance or the thrill of the moment. She genuinely believed that she could slay both Celestials without worry.
“Fine,” Lodi acquiesced.
Sya looked at the two Celestials in the middle of their own turf war. They were both stances up, with the centipede upper body rising into the air, and the sandworm's body half submerged in the sand like a shark at the water's surface. Both were roughly the same size, around six meters long with bodies a full meter thick.
Looking between the two, Sya knew that the centipede was going to be the harder kill. Piercing the centipede’s exoskeleton had already proven to be a trying endeavor. The marks she left behind barely hurt it. It wasn't enough to fully get her poison going. Truthfully, she felt that she did better when she spiked the pond. Even when the worm attacked it, the shell of the centipede was barely cracked. Most of its damage came from the worm taking out some of the legs when it escaped the centipede's grasp.
“A heavier hit…” she said.
A rough plan started to take shape in her mind. Knowing that she would either have to make the plan work or fall back with the rest of the group for a second attempt later, she sprinted towards the pair of Celestials.
She had used Rogier’s Tree for a while now. It was her main weapon. Her fighting style was all about misdirection. Fighting with one form of polearm only to switch it to another, all the while hiding her corrupted blood. Out of all the forms she used for the Maverick’s weapon, only the great spear got little to no time in the sun. It was just too heavy to use efficiently.
But a heavy attack was what Sya needed to kill the centipede.
So she ran. She ran towards the instrument that would be capable of delivering such a blow to the centipede. She ran towards the pair of warring Celestials, towards the nefarious sandworm.
The two Celestials were still fronting on each other, waiting for the other to make the first move, when Sya made her move, and plunged her pike into the worm's soft flesh near its head. As soon as her weapon dug into the monster, she held on for dear life.
As she predicted, the sandworm flailed around in a frenzy, trying to do everything in its power to shake off its diminutive aggressor.
It wasn't enough for Sya though. The worm needed to be closer to the centipede, and it needed to be furious.
As the sandworm continued to flail, the centipede saw the chance that was presented to it on a silver platter. As if a switch had been flipped within the bone rending centipede, its behavior went from defensive and weary to aggressive.
It scuttled along the ground coming closer to the worm and Sya, who was still maintaining a hold on the worm despite being whipped around. When she saw the centipede approach and raise its upper body off the ground she clicked her tongue.
The bone rending centipede was a Celestial that melted whatever it was able to pin between its legs. If the worm got restrained, then the fight would be over. Sya didn't want that.
She took one hand off of her weapon and reached into her inventory. She previously mentioned wanting glass darts of her own blood, but she had been unable to acquire some before the trial. Now though, with Kepler the alchemist in the party, Sya now had something that would work in a pinch. Two potion bottles filled with Sya’s undiluted blood appeared between her fingers.
The first one was smashed just above the worm's wound, allowing her blood to keep into the worm, and the other was lobbed into the underbelly of the centipede. Both Celestials cried out in pain, especially the worm. It failed around even harder, whipping Sya back and forth like she was caught in a tornado. It even slammed into the pained centipede as well, knocking it onto its back.
Right as the worm rodeo was reaching peak intensity, Sya felt the spear shift a little bit. With the violent movements, it was starting to come loose.
‘It's time!’
Sya waited until the worm's head reared upward and pulled the pike out. With nothing holding her in place, momentum carried her several meters into the air above both Celestials.
As she careened through the air, Sya made another mental command, and the thin pike transformed into a large great spear. With the weight of the great spear starting to pull her back to the ground, a second set of red sparks appeared around Rogier’s Tree.
The Smoldering Ember's aspect took effect on Rogier’s Tree, and it was wreathed in flame.
Sya looked at the Celestial struggling to turn itself back over to its stomach. She wasn't expecting to manage to land an attack like this where it was already damaged, but the worm's panicked flailing helped a lot in making the centipede even more vulnerable.
She wasn't aiming for its stomach though. Affliction specialists were niche. They were good against the weird monsters, but against the average, she was just a slower, less efficient Starborn. If she wanted to prove her worth, she needed to kill average Celestials in a normal amount of time. So she aimed for the centipede’s head.
There was no resistance as the great spear of the Maverick crushed the head of the centipede. Its exoskeleton was cracked throughout just from the impact, and the chitin near the beast's head simply shattered and splattered.The fire was entirely overkill, but Sya didn't care when she saw her Status appear with a notification.
You have slain red-tier protostar Celestial, Bone Rending Centipede.
Pops came from the corpse of the great centipede as a weak fire began to ravage the bug. The smell was unholy, but Sya let it slide for now.
The nefarious sandworm still lived, and was still freaking out. The same black liquid that had once flowed from the centipede’s wounds leaked from the worm's. It writhe in pain in a way that made it almost seem like a character in a cartoon with the way it constantly slammed itself into the ground.
Sya had an idea.
She morphed her weapon into something lighter and ran to where the worm continued bashing its body into the ground. When the worm raised its head again, Sya was ready. She slid beneath the head and changed her weapon back into a great spear.
As soon as the worm's head came down on it, Sya was splattered with the viscera of the giant worm. Spitting out blood that she had inadvertently got in her mouth, she continued using her spear as a way to prop up the body and crawled out from under it.
You have slain red-tier protostar Celestial, Nefarious Sandworm.
As cheers and whoops echoed from where the rest of the expedition was, Lodi appeared at her side once again, handing her a towel which she immediately used to wipe her face.
Sya touched each of the corpses and sent them into her inventory. She would reabsorb the blight essence later, and she would give the bodies to Arden for processing as well. There were probably some nice materials that could come from them.
Sya gave one last look to the area she fought it, still covered in the blood of Celestials, her own corrupted scourge poison, and the massive displacements of dirt and sand.
“Wasn't so bad.”
