Malenia was now regretting her decision to bet with Tom; Masato's condition was quite dire now.
"I guess it's a wrap then. His performance is enough to increase his rank and pass this test; but lo! Elicia de grace, and your dear sister Hellen seems to have already slain their sand worm…" Tom said his shit eating grin. Malenia just gave a cursory glance to Hellen's and Elicia; saw that hey were chatting under the shadow cast by the sand-worm's prodigious body. After not getting a reply from her Tom added. "What? Cat got your tongue?"
"Nope, the fight's not over, tom." Malenia said with eyes that glimmered like a fire-fly in the gloom. "Look at what he's doing."
Then Malenia watched as Masato beamed three elemental orbs of different color; he held them his left hand; while he aimed, and fired off a red-bolt at the place where the body of the worm, and ground met.
Masato loaded another red bolt;— without waiting to see if he missed or not ,and fired it at the same place.
The first bolt met it's target, and a chunk of the abomination's flesh got blasted off along with the bolt which had now turned into small fragments spreading the rot.
Wrooooooooo!
The worm roared in pain, but started to go down even faster; then another bolt hit it in the same place then another, and so on so forth.
By the time Masato reached a dozen or meters from the worm Masato had only one red bolt left, but a good chunk of the worm's flesh gone by now… Although the bastard was healing them in a speed visible to the naked eye. While only a meter of the sand worm's body was left above the ground.
"See? It's no use. Get ready to lose Malenia." Tom tried to sound condescending, but anyone could see that he was invested in the fight as well.
Malenia saw that Masato had taken out two more orbs of different color; one was red while the other was light blue. Masato kept held them in his right hand, and loaded the last red bolt had.
"Well, I think it's your turn to lose again." Malenia smirked. "See those orbs? It'll be my ticket to win this bet."
"those three orbs?" Tom started, "He still needs to get close to the worm to activate them, doesn' he? And do you think it's easy to do that without his hoverboard?"
Malenia then saw Masato aiming at the worm, while shifting the blue orb from his right hand to the left, and fired the bolt, which met it's target again.
-wooooooo...
The abomination shrieked in pain while writhing on the ground; and Masato threw the blue orb towards the ground where the worm's body was sliding inside. Masato snapped his fingers right after it had touched the ground.
-shing!
The blue orb then started to give off a glaring glow, and the area around where the orb had landed on turned into ice. And the unfortunate worm that was only inches away from completely submerging itself inside the sand was unable to do so.
- - - - - - -
"But that isn't going to last long isn't it?" Tom asked the expert.
"Yeah, the earth spikes from before got some earth essence from the sand, but the ice spell won't." Malenia answered. "So he as to do what he plans a little faster."
Masato also seem to know that he had to be faster so he reached with worm as fast as he could, and unsheathed his tachi, which hadn't seen much use till now.
"So he's going to finally use it huh…"Tom said while looking nostalgic.
"But can't he only use one fractal from it?" Malenia asked. "Unless he lost his mind and changed them."
"Yep, it's the most basic non-elemental fractal. But one of the most practical for any warrior." Tom answered. "And I don't think he has changed any fractals there…"
Malenia saw that Masato's sword was now covered in a blue glow; signifying the activation of the fractal in the sword.This was [sword aura] which didn't use mana like the skill ones by warriors.
Masato then reached beside the worm; which was still struggling in the frozen ground; — while the ice was already melting around it; then he slashed horizontally; the tachi slicing it's flesh like hot knife through butter; and he suddenly accelerated forward with the tachi still lodged inside the worm.
-wrooooooooo!
The worm opened it's mouth wide, and roared in pain, but Masato had already jumped up and threw the red orb inside the wide open mouth of the worm, but Masato couldn't activate the magma orb as the roar blasted him, and as he was quite close to the worm, he fell down on hard on the sand while clutching his head after dismissing the helmet;unable to move a finger, much less snap them.
"This was what I was talking about; those orbs are a great and all, but they have quite a lot of limitations." Tom said to Malenia in a gloating tone.
Malenia didn't pay attention to tom, and only looked at the screen with furrowed brows waiting for Masato to do something, and if she could, she would have already used [clairvoyance] to see the outcome. Alas, the furball's ability was quite powerful.
*********
Masato felt like his head was inside a bell that was constantly being rung by someone from outside; the roaring worm in front of him appeared like a mirage;— distant and near at the same time; while the glaring sun reflected from his helmet that was beside him; right towards the sand worm as if it was signal from the gods.
"God damn it…' Masato weakly cursed aloud while trying to stand up in his feet; which felt like two heavy rods instead of his own legs, and trudged towards the worm which had started to writhe around;—trying to go inside the sand; the poor creature following its instinct.
He had expected something like this to happen when he had decided to throw the magma orb inside the worm's mouth, but he had underestimated the effects from the worms' roar's effect. However, even if he had thrown the magma orb while the worm's mouth was open he would still be in the same situation; bleeding from all of his orifices and unable to deal any damage to the abomination to finish It off while the magma was still damaging it's insides.
Masato went to an area near the worm from where he could activate the orb, with his helmet clutched at his side;— leaving a trail that was similar to a rattlesnake moving in the sand; with drops of his sweat here and there;— the early symptoms of heat stroke was ignored by Masato who was nauseous, delirious, and furious as himself.
He regretted setting the snap of his fingers as the activation signal for the elementsal orbs; he regretted trying to fight a fucking sand worm while the temperature had already gone past 100 degrees in Celsius; and he regretted not having an ability to go back in past so he could punch his past self in the face.
Masato remained standing for sometime while trying to come up with any excuse to turn around, but he had already went too far to do that. He had to get the damn [soul fractal] even if he couldn't awaken for sometime…
'Just get this over with.' He told to himself; then he wore his helmet again; faced away from the worm; crouched down on the ground; and jumped away as soon as he had snapped his fingers through the finger-less gloves of his armor.
Then the loudest roar that could be produced by the abomination was heard from behind him.
(-W00000000000!)
The worm's roar seemed to have come from the depths of it's soul; the sand around it got blown away due to the air pressure;—forming huge waves as if someone had dropped a huge stone in a still lake; and Masato was pushed away far from the worm— got buried inside the ground, and stayed there until the damn worm stopped roaring; and noticing that the damage this time wasn't as bad as before; — he clutched the tachi with both of his hands—activated the [sword aura] fractal, and moved towards the worm without delay.
He had forgotten why he was here in this damn desert— why he was killing a fucking sand worm of all things while sweating buckets; and why they hell he couldn't hear a damn thing. He just abandoned any technique; and butchered the worm; out of pure spite and rage; sweating buckets in the burning; his throat as dry as the sand below him, and his aching aching due to the loss of water; this were all of the early symptoms of heat stroke that he ignored for now.
- - - - - -
"Oof… a magma orb inside the worm? Quite ingenious, although a bit risky;— but I like that!" Malenia said with a laugh, "Well, that was surprisingly satisfying to watch."
"Hah… I feared that he would do this… now I knew why he had taken that crossbow; he was already planning this tactic with the elements orbs." Tom said with sigh."The kid was also cutting it up while it was trying to heal a magma eating it from inside…"
"Hah. You sound like he was cheating or something." Malenia scoffed. "He's won fair and square, Tom. Just admit it."
"I know that. In fact, I'm thinking of trying to suggest the old man to increase the technomancer's budget. Cordelia was already nagging me about it." Tom said with an aggrieved look, and, " And the brat's talent assessment has to be increased as well."
"Really?! That's a good decision Tom, and we can even use this video feed as an evidence.." Malenia said with a grin.
"I almost think that the brat had fought that sand worm for that exact reason…" Tom narrowed his eyes after hearing Malenia. "Well, let's wake up the furball now."
- - - - - - -
Masato had immediately taken a rest after throwing the orb inside the worm.
it had been sometime and the worm had already stopped roaring and shrieking, and as dead a worm with all of its insides burned to crisp.
Masato was even leaning against the worm for what he was going to do next.
His body wasn't injured for the worm had only one way to wound him; swallowing him up. But he was mentally fatigued after using every bit of mana he had. In fact he had already used it up when he had pulled extended the sword aura to cut the sand worm. So, he felt like he couldn't even move a muscle even though he could run a 6-7 kilometers and still not lose his breath; a body of an aspirant, and a second stage warrior was no joke.
Then Masato rubbed his hands like a thief would before stealing something— which he was in some sense— touched the worms body without the gloves and closed his eyes sensing for something inside the worm's body.
Masato stayed like his until he felt like he had 'touched' something near the monster's mouth.
"That's it!" Masato cried with elation.
Then he released a bit of his mana towards thing to call for it; at first it seemed reluctant but sensing something inside his body— probably his pseudo-soul core— and reached his soul sea through his hands, but it was blocked by something before it could reach the soul. The thing tried to go past whatever it was blocked by, but it simply couldn't do so.
"Hah…." Masato then sighed in relief, and continued leaning against the worm with a satisfied smile. However, he suddenly felt weak all over after sometime, and something inside him hurt like hell… his thoughts become muddy and vague; — his eyes heavy as if they were filled with lead. Then, he slowly closed his eyes and lost consciousness for a minute, but opened his weary eyes in another. He still felt the heat in his butt but even that was gone after sometime.
"What…you— hah…heavy—" Masato heard someone mutter, but he felt like he was floating at the bottom of the ocean although he had never seen a ocean or had been stupid enough to swim to the bottom…
The last thing he felt was someone dragging him away from the sand worm and he completely lost his consciousness.
- - - - - - -
Syrian, who had woke up after Masato had started to butcher the sand worm was the first to notice him acting weird by touching the sand worm and looking jubilant after sometime.
"Why was he acting like that…? It's as if…" Ms.Malenia had said after re-winding the video feed; she added while shaking her head, "No, it's impossible that sand worm just a replica…"
"Look Ms.Malenia Mr.Tom! He's fainted as well!" Syrian said while pointing at the screen, but he noticed that they had already noticed the change, and their faces were a mix of horror and surprise.
Syrian looked at the other displays as well but didn't notice anything different; some students had been wounded and some were actually on the verge of death but nobody was like Masato who had fainted after acting weirdly.
Syrian saw Mr.Tom contacting someone in his communicator and the face of Cordelia appeared in the air.
|hel—|
"Cordelia, no need for formalities. Just tell the supervisors in the sector 7 to check the soul sea of the monster slain by the students, and hunt a sandworm check it's soul sea as well." Mr.Tomas interrupted her in a grave tone. "And send someone in the coordinates that I've forwarded to you. It's code red."
|Alright, Mr.Tomas. It will be done.| Ms.Cordelia replied without any question, and her solemn face vanished.