[Your Compound Raptor Triumphant Has Ingested and Gained the Properties of Beon (Beetle Iron) Defense Increased by 5.6]
[Your Compound Raptor Has Slain Two Basic Beon Beetelus Beetle: You have gained 37 1-star Black grade Basic Beon Beetelus Card Fragment 40/100 and 74 system Credits]
I was bent over on my knees, breathing as hard as I could as I looked at the swarm of beetles coming towards me from an intersection in the tunnel. While going down the decline, Tri and I eventually came to a T Junction that evened out. The right tunnel had ended up in a dead end, which turned out to be a sort of nesting grounds for the beetles. At first I thought it was easy kill for both me and Tri, the fact that her defense had rose to such an unprecedented level more than spoke volumes of the merit of my idea. After all we were only picking them off one at a time by luring them individually or in sets. And then the 40th Beetled died and all of a sudden were public Enemy number 1.
I ducked down as one of the beetles chasing behind us used their pincer skill, it was enough of a pause for one of them skittering on the roof to fall on top of my head, pincers spread wide for an attack. Tri twisted using her tail to smash it into a wall as I completed the kill by stabbing my plundered pincers into its stomach. I turned and faced the back of my hands in the direction of the still incoming beetles the pincers still held tightly as I used [Echo] releasing a visible shockwave of sound that pushed them backwards and left cracks on the floor and wall of the tunnel. We turned around and kept running, as I tried to ignore the stinging pain at the back of my hand, but a grimace could be seen on my face as I frantically tried to think of a way to escape from the beetles.
We were getting closer to the T junction with only one direction left unexplored, I was tired of fighting, and I'm sure Tri was too, she was stronger than when she came here with a very powerful defense, but we were still quite lacking in stamina. I didn't have a defense stat like Tri, what I did have was constitution and that governed both defense and stamina and right now it was really, really low. All of a sudden I slipped, scrapping my knees on the ground, stretching my hands out to catch myself made me inadvertently use vibrations, and when my hand touched the tunnel walls, a heap of dust and fat chunk of earth fell from the top of it, almost crushing Tri's back.
{Master John!}
"Sorry Tri, don't worry, we have to keep moving." I said to her as I raised my hand to scratch at the back of my neck where the scar left behind form the installation of a custom made card cradle had been carried out a week ago. It was slowly becoming a habit for me to scratch at it when I needed to think about something, and right now I had an idea. Engineering wasn't just about technology, the knowledge was expansive enough to actually cover construction, with quite a few topics on structural integrity. Of course all dungeons defied physics in a number of different ways, but perhaps there was a chance if I use such a method.
I paid attention to the skittering behind us, as we ran through the tunnel heading for the T Junction. Tri was big enough to carry me, but she had ridges and tiny bone spurs on her back that would rip my ass to shreds if I sit on her without a proper saddle. So we had no choice but to run separately. I shifted to left, dodging another pincer skill, before turning around and throwing one of the pincer in my hands towards the incoming crowd of beetles, or rather towards a spot on the tunnel ceiling, making sure I added a lit bit of vibration to the natural blade in the process. The price I had to pay for that was a cut on my palm, but the ensuing result was well worth it as the section where the pincer ha stabbed into the ceiling had exploded into dust and massive chunks of debris that rained on unsuspecting beetles, utilizing enough to crush a few even with their superior defense. After all the glowing crystals that grew across the entire tunnel system were just as hard as Beon.
Cracks spread across the tunnel walls, ceiling and ground, more power being released from the vibration than I thought myself capable. But be that as it may be seeing the destruction left behind gave my somewhat suicidal plan a bit of credibility as I rushed forwards, coming out of the tunnel as we arrived at the T Junction in record time. The small collapse I had initiated had bought us a little bit of time, and in that regard I took a closer look at the T Junction and noticed that it was built differently. It would be hard to notice but, but all three tunnels seemed to have different coloration, just lighter and darker shades of earth that hopefully not only depicted that they were formed differently and separately by the dungeon, but also the structural integrity of each tunnel. I turned my back to Tri and called out to her.
"Tri! Roar, really loudly!" thankfully she didn't need me to explain anything else, she was in my head after all and she got down to it hoping to deliver as her master had commanded…. she was such a good girl.
{Crrrraaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkk}
Raptors were part birds, so obviously her roar would be a lot different than the norm. but be that as it may it was exactly what I need as I felt the soundwaves from her roar hit my body. I felt my spirals soak it up from my back as the ones in front of my body began to tingle. My knees ached as pain seemed to lance through my skull making my mind go blank for a moment. I felt a blood vessel pop somewhere as blood poured from my nose and ears and my eyes following soon after. I took the sounds of her screech, and I let it build, I let it grow, until it had reached a crescendo and pinnacle of sounds that was primal and ancient a Dinosaur's orchestra… and then let the world hear it.
[Echo]
*Wowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowow*
I let it all loose towards the tunnel, the upper part of the suit I was wearing was blasted to pieces as vibrational soundwaves ravaged the tunnel in front of me. It was strong enough that the beetles at the front who met the brunt of it were vaporized in an instant as the destruction continued onwards. The pain was almost blinding; in fact, it was all I could pay attention to as I had to close my eyes to focus. And after five seconds, the sounds of collapsing tunnels and cracks in the earth spreading in our direction was all I could hear, and even then that was extremely dim. I felt Tri wrap her tail around me, lifting me off the ground as she turned and bolted for the only tunnel we haven't explored yet, frantically trying to escape from my miscalculation. Because I didn't just bring down the tunnel that held the nesting grounds of the beetles... I was brought everything down, and we were in danger of being buried…. But just like before… darkness called to me.