The tremors had subsided, as the building stopped shaking. But the damage had already been done, as a major section of the ceiling seemed to have collapsed around them. Sand had filled the place from above, covering the entire place in fine golden particles. But the trouble was not over yet.
Kane and the rest of the guys carefully tipped around the collapsed area to find their way towards the training section, where Eli was. They struggled to find their footing in the sand while Kane gestured at them to be silent.
He had heard movement ahead of him, but failed to see through the dust.
His heightened instincts kicked into place as his ears transformed into elvish ears while his eyes also grew wider, turning a deep shade of violet. Using his mutated senses, he scouted the situation ahead to know of the situation. But something zoomed into him from the cover of the dust.
Before the weapon could reach him, Kane dove to the side while also pushing Asche, who was immediately beside him, aside.
An expression of caution covered his face as he recognized what had attacked them from the cover of dust. He looked back at his friends and whispered in haste, "Stay back and create some distance. Zephyr, go and find Eli in the chaos while I and Asche will engage the unknown entity. Jay, wait for an opportunity to strike. I'll clear the dust now."
He was quick in his instructions while lying low on the ground. He already had a good understanding of the abilities his friends had. While they might not have prepared for anything, his instinct guided him to command according to what clues he had in the small alteration just now.
Zephyr and Jay nodded, as both of them disappeared from their positions. One of them had teleported, while the other had turned invisible. Asche, on the other hand, jumped a few feet away before pulling a baton from his waist. The device transformed into a bow as he aimed in front of him.
Kane wasted no time as his whole body started transforming. The change was not obvious, but he had completely altered his bone and muscle structure. He had glanced at the weapon that had pierced at them and had decided to make his muscles and bones as strong as possible to absorb any penetrating impact with minimal injury.
It was a stringer that had struck at them earlier. But after that one attack, there was no follow up. His senses picked no movement, but he could make out a stationary figure hidden in the dust. He had to clear the curtain of dust as he started to suck in a deep breath. His lungs also had transformed to help with what he was going to do next.
The dust filled air burned his lungs, but he tried his best to ignore that. He kept taking in before letting it all out. Now normally this would have not worked, but because this is a fantasy novel, it totally did. Also, the bit about him transforming his lungs seemed to have helped pull this off.
The dust cleared to reveal the most disgusting sight the duo would have expected.
A colossal scorpion emerged from the curtain of dust. Its segmented body seemed to stretch for more than ten feet, its stinger almost reaching the ceiling. Each segment was covered in bristled, matted, dark fur. While its two pincers looked like the scythes of the reaper.
The creature's exoskeleton was dark ebony, reflecting the light of it. Its molten black eyes looked glassy as it swiveled its head from side to side, as if trying to sense something.
Kane jerked his head at Asche to point to him that the creature was blind. But almost immediately, the stinger reached for his head. Caught off guard, Kane did something extremely stupid.
He turned his fist to punch the stinger, meeting the metal like outgrowth with brute force.
Kane did not always act stupid, but this was also his first time fighting a monster. Yet, idiotic as his action was, his bet paid off. The stinger stuck his fist, but failed to penetrate, only breaking his skin. But he managed to avoid skewering his head. Even as he regained his balance, his hand was already healing, thanks to his superhuman physique.
He had trusted his increase in strength from the absorption, as well as the toughness of his bones and muscle. Which left him a stinging pain in his hand, but nothing too severe.
There was no specific mutation he could copy to make himself especially tanky, but he had decided to resolve to brute force this time. Understanding that the monster was blind, he knew that his illusion ability was useless in this scene. He just had to wait to create an opportunity for Jay or Asche.
And his archer friend did not disappoint, as he fired off two arrows at the beast. A chilling aura spread around as the arrows struck the monster on both its front pincers, freezing them. Asche had an ability that allowed him to shoot ice arrows from a bow. He had another two passives that could now apply a freezing effect and a slowing effect to the enemy. Not the strongest ability, but it helped.
With its pincers now out of commission for a while, Kane had to only focus on the stinger. He jumped forward, towards the scorpion's head, while avoiding another attack from the beast. Having seen the appendage attack him twice, his body was now comfortable to dodge its attack.
He had not fully tested his own enhancements yet, but Kane had known that he was definitely superhuman. And it was showing now, as he punched the dumb monster fiercely in its eyes, ignoring its frozen pincers that were for show. Asche also took this opportunity to aim for the stinger, hoping to apply his slowing and freezing affect to it. But unfortunately, he missed this time.
Shaking his head, he changed his position a little, drawing a little more distance and again channeled his energy to form an arrow. It took him a moment to create ice arrows, and then he had to aim. Kane, on the other hand, got busy with avoiding the stinger and dishing out knockers in between. Every time he punched the beast in between its eyes or directly in its beady eyes, it would let out a screech. He was doing damage and it was definitely annoying the shit out of this monster.
But Kane also noticed that he was unable to break through its exoskeleton, the damage he was doing was not accumulating. He did not have enough burst power to finish this beast off. And it would take only one wrong move from him to get punctured. He had to be careful.
Deciding that he had to create an opportunity for Jay, he readied for the pincer, while calling out to his invisible friend.
"Jay, watch me and attack when you see the chance."
Asche, meanwhile had found it impossible to aim for the swinging stinger. So he had gone back to focusing on the pincers and its legs, making it impossible for the beast to move or even use its strong pincers to affect Kane. After listening to Kane call out to Jay, he doubled his focus to not let anything worsen the situation at any moment.
The next time when the stinger came at him, Kane readied himself and caught the appendage by both his hands, almost losing his balance and getting pushed back into debris. But he held on. And that pause was enough, as Jay's figure appeared mid air above the creature's head.
He had a javelin in hand, which was now pointed at one of the creature's eyes.
As if sensing the danger, the creature panicked and tried to free its stinger from Kane's grasp, while it's frozen pincers and legs tried to break free, trying to shield from the sudden assassin.
Jay's javelin, which was crafted by Zephyr just like Asche's bow, met with the creature's chitinous exoskeleton instead, missing its eyes. The javelin managed to pierce half a foot before Jay had to let go and jump back. Kane also let go of the stinger, no longer able to hold its force.
The three of them glanced at the javelin sticking out from the beast's head, while the now annoyed monster waved its frozen pincers and useless stinger around.
Asche once again let loose few arrows, aiming at the beast's static appendages, slowing the monster considerably. So it struggled to even reach them, as the three gathered a distance away from it to discuss how they were going to finish it.
"I don't have anything else that could pierce its exoskeleton. My crossbow and arrow are going to do negligible damage, while Asche can only freeze the damned thing. I think we have no way to end this. What should we do?" Jay had a crossbow as his main choice of weapon, which he had received as a reward. Other than that, he had the ability to turn invisible for a few moments in motion. If he stayed still, he could increase the time he was invisible.
But his actual damage dealer was the poison element ability. Unlike Asche, who could only form ice arrows, Jay could use his poison ability to affect any weapon he had, while also having a passive that would activate his poison to flare at random moments.
But right now, he doubted his poison would do much to this big monster. Weren't scorpions venomous themselves?
He did not have time to think of that, as before Kane could tell them what to do next, something bright appeared flying through the darkness behind the monster.