Chapter 286: A Source of Wealth (2/2)

It was an unfortunate thing to see. Schema's rule was so unyielding that he didn't take advantage of this place. Elysium did, so now...now Gypsum helped fund Elysium's war efforts. This planet was where all the orichalcum came from that Elysium used. Some of the rarer ores for their tech came from here too.

I took these observations as notes, ensuring to videotape what was necessary and some stuff that wasn't. This place would be a surefire target for us later on in the war effort, so I reported what I could. I was in luck because most of the security here was primarily in orbit, preventing anyone from establishing a real foothold here. Warping in was possible, but it would be dangerous and difficult. Portalists struggled with getting the coordinates right due to the complexity of Gypsum's orbit, and that didn't even mention the hazardous surface conditions.

I thought they'd warp underground to compensate, but that required absolute precision. If you messed up the warp, it would fuse portions of a person's body with the surrounding stone. Recovering from that required extensive surgery, and if your head submerged into it, well...you died instantly.

That meant that Elysium's warps were popular here since they were safe. We weren't totally out of luck, though. Spear could get us in here with his dimensional slicing, but that would alert people we were here. It also would tax our Sentinel since maintaining a warp large enough to move an army wasn't really possible for a single person. Helios would struggle for the same reasons, and he needed this planet's orbital information before he could warp in anyways.

We needed someone with massive mana reserves and a lot of computational ability for that kind of thing. Fortunately, we had just that kind of person at our disposal, and he happened to lead the guild. I just hoped Daniel would be able to learn this kind of thing. He already managed an absurd amount of stuff, and asking him to become one of the galaxy's premier warpers was just piling on even more.

We'd have to see if it worked out. Daniel pulled off some crazy stuff in the past, so maybe he'd do it again. Either way, it was about time we got out of here and returned back to Mt. Verner. I was getting tired of the mission, and our rendezvous time was closing in. I came back from my morning infiltration while looking forward to leaving. I raced across the barren desserts back to our base. As I did, the old megastructures groaned like ancients beasts, the wind causing them to bellow out noise into the distance.

Those echoes passed me by as I reached our base. We got a lot of useful info during our stay here, but we were all ready to leave. Hod's defense of the place left hundreds of bodies piled up in front of our domain, the bodies giving off an oily smell. That odor drifted out over the hills as I landed beside the birdman. Hod turned to me, his eyes blank as always,

”Hod glad to see lady friend. Hod kill many monster today.”

I grinned at him, ”Good job, but you're supposed to clear out the bodies, remember?”

Hod smacked his forehead, ”Hod forget again. Hod do that right now.”

The absent-minded birdman ran into the base before taking out one of Lester's napalm bombs. Tossing it onto the pile of corpses, they singed with the smell of copper, smoke, and erosion. The wind pulled the smoke and dispersed it out without us even needing to disguise the stream of dark gas.

Hod put his hands on his hips, ”It time for Hod rest. Hod tired. Other Hod come out now.”

I frowned as his eyes turned from a hollow white to a full red. The crimson color swam over his eyes like the eclipse of two moons. His shifting feathers engulfed in shadow, and Other Hod stretched his darkened, muscular arms. He groaned out in a dark, menacing growl,

”Gagh, I needed a good rest. Much better.” He looked at the corpses, ”I missed much of the killing, didn't I? A shame.”

I raised my eyebrows, ”You ready to leave?”

He walked towards our base, hearing the others toiling,

”I am. Let's part ways with this desolate and barren land.”

I raised a finger as we walked into the room, ”It's actually less barren than you'd think.”

Amara snuggled into a corner, her work with her status already finished days ago. She worked on gaining as much information for our guild as possible, all while inspecting various cipheric energy flows. On the other side of our encampment, Alexander toiled till his fingers bled on the runes required for warping.

Complex computations smothered the entirety of the walls, most of the metal having been engraved on. Alexander learned to use a torch to work on the steel, and it slowed him down. He also didn't think that it would be as complicated as it was. He still got it done, having pulled an all-nighter the day before to finish up.

Alexander sighed as he got the last marking made. Lester and Isa prepped a few more of their weaponry and tools for eldritch slaying. They harvested hundreds of bodies' worth of supplies during our stay here. Those resources made them rich and happy as could be. The task still bore down on them despite their initial enthusiasm, however. There were only so many glands you could harvest before it got boring.

With Alexander finishing, I turned to the dungeoneers and spread out my hands,

”Hey, we're done here. We can finally go.”

They jumped up, expecting to head out any minute. Packing over the next few minutes, everyone prepped for getting the heck out of here. We'd be taking the room with us, just like when we first warped to Giess, but we didn't want to leave anything behind. Alexander took a break in the meantime, the poor guy exhausted from all the runic languaging.

As this all happened, Other Hod stood guard of our campsite. He walked out of the sound-absorbing barrier, peering around for anything nasty nearby. His head twitched with irritation, and I stared at him as he struggled to discern what he just heard. I didn't want any complications, so I jogged off towards him, Other Hod jittering about.

I enlarged my own ears, and the wind howled in from all angles. Wanting to know more, I grew wings and leaped up. Flying in place, I peered around and found a sandstorm coming our way. I shouted at Hod,

”We'll have to stay in the shelter, but that thing shouldn't be too hard to wait out.”

Other Hod's dark feathers bristled over his phantasmagorical skin as he yelled,

”That isn't a storm. It's an eldritch.”

I stared at it, the giant sandstorm coming our way. At the center of the storm, a darker blot of dust shifted in place. I expanded my eyes, finding what lay beneath. A muscled insect walking on four limbs rushed toward us. It traveled by digging with its front two legs and wiggling its back ones, cascading a vast plume of sand behind the monster. As it got closer, the forty-foot tall eldritch showed a beetle's shell over its back, stripes over its carapace, and two large mandibles under its jaw.

Racing out of the sand, it tore through portions of the ancient metal structures surrounding us. It used bulked arms designed like crab claws with three fingers. Using those hands, it ripped steel like paper and devoured any metal eaters nearby, snatching them into its mandibles. Other Hod stared at the burning bodies of metal eaters besides us,

”That idiot. Hod left an enormous pile of rotting corpses...You all did.”

I raised my hands, ”I was trying to spy on enemies. We burned them at the end of every day to make sure this didn't happen too. We always left a few since harvesting the venoms was the only thing Lester and Isa could do the whole week.”

Other Hod seethed, ”Now we pay for their boredom by facing an enormous monster. It's a matter of simple prioritization.”

I shook my hands, getting a little nervous, ”It's fine. We made a mistake. Let's go out there and kill it before it wrecks the ritual site. It shouldn't be too hard. The eldritch here aren't too strong...Usually.”

Other Hod breathed deeply,

”Fine. Let's go.”

I flew into our camp and shouted, ”Everyone, an eldritch is coming. It looks powerful, so we need to get out of here asap. Get the ritual going, Alexander.”

The teenager sighed but pushed himself back up to work. The other Dungeoneers put on their rebreathers and goggles, running outside with us. Using grappling hooks and rope, they reached towards the megastructure's upper portions, Hod and I flying instead. The colossus came at us, so I tried inspecting the thing using Amara's makeshift system. It worked.

Sorta.

Alloyed Beetlecrab King, exact species unknown(lvl 6,000-15,000) - This variant of an alloyed beetlecrab king seems to be a stronger, more able version than most, probably. They usually tear through colonies of sandworms, feeding on the larva in most cases. This could be a different case. Hard to say.

A beetle king spawns when the beetlecrabs overgorge on nearby food supplies. The beetlecrabs subsequently starve, and the remaining beetlecrabs devour their kin. The last one remaining from this cannibalistic cycle is a beetlecrab king variant. This variant then gorges on the densest metals and minerals of metal-eating eldritch. Overtime, likely decades, this beetlecrab king evolved into some kind of variant with far denser shell structures and muscle fibers. Once again, this is all an assumption.

This developmental process resulted in a destructive, powerful creature capable of killing even classers with relative ease if given a chance. Be careful of its abilities, though this update can't be sure of what they are.

So yeah, good luck.

The vague descriptions weren't typical, but they worked well enough. I kinda figured it was a beetlecrab after seeing it anyway. I sent my teammates screenshots of the description in case they couldn't inspect it. Other Hod shouted over the sound of distant ripping steel,

”This does not appear to be a 'weak' eldritch, Althea.”

I sighed, ”I don't get it. The security for the giant megastructure is minimal. How do they even maintain a society with these things running around?”

Other Hod grimaced, ”Does it matter?”

Isa and Lester paled at the sight of the creature. Isa mumbled, ”This, uh, this looks pretty bad.”

I pointed at them, ”Uhm, you two, get ready to pull Alexander out if we can't get this thing under control.”

They gave me an immediate salute and followed my orders, both of them happy to not be confronting this thing. I turned to Hod, ”Let's kill it. Ready?”

Other Hod's form blurred, ”I am always ready for killing. It is my nature.”

I walked onto another plane, shifting through the veil. I flew towards the creature while getting my cannon ready. It was too heavy for aiming and firing while in flight, at least for longshots like this. Procuring a lovely spot, I landed on an elevated platform nearby, and Hod skulked into a series of shadows under steel girders. We waited in ambush.

The beetlecrab king ran through the nearby steel, its size dwarfing even gialgathens. It was like a small skyscraper peeling through the terrain, so I shot bone spears at the beast, using ones full of explosive material. This made them detonate once they made contact with an enemy, shotgunning their insides with bone. It helped make my spears better against formidable foes.

It might have also been an idea to counter Daniel's spear knocking technique, but that's beside the point.

Using a pre-prepared supply, I fired at the beast with abandon. I took that planning measure from watching Kessiah heal with her blood. She piled stockpiles of blood, and now I did the same with bone spears, lobbing the piercing bullets with great abandon. It made my longevity in fights better.

As my spears landed like clockwork, the beast charged forward without a care in the world. I would need every bit of stamina I could get. My shots drilled through the giant insect's chest before exploding, and normal creatures would splinter apart, their bodies shredded. This thing kept moving, undeterred and unstoppable. It ignored the tiny cannon holes, its regenerative ability remarkable.

At the same time, Hod peeled out of several shadows, sending umbral slices at the beast. The behemoth's carapace crumbled against the onslaught across its body, but it retained its momentum, bounding at the corpses. It passed us, so we chased the raging beetle.

It stripes blurred into the same color as the steel, making its outline challenging to see. At the same time, its shell opened across its back, its wings blowing up sand nearby. This made it difficult to make out, and the noise boomed so loud that I couldn't hear its crawling anymore. The shadows Hod used as weapons dissipated as a sandstorm brewed up as well.

The monster wasn't as dumb as it looked.

Other Hod adapted, creating a phantasmal form amidst the fog. Slicing from many angles, Hod evaded the quick, snapping swings of the beetleking's arms. I pelted the creature with spiked spears saved for just such an occasion. These lances carried dozens of hooked prongs over their surfaces, wrenching the guts out of any animal they impaled through.

Our attacks gored massive splatters of green, acidic blood from the beetleking. It leaked out from its beady eyes and mandible pronged mouth as it retaliated. Grabbing steel girders, it tossed missiles at us with accuracy. I flipped through the air to dodge, staying light on my feet as I evaded the metal chunks.

I used a strange evasive style oriented around swinging my cannon around. It was heavier than I was, so I turned myself around my gun. I did this while darting back and forth, making circular patterns while weaving around. This disorienting, movement heavy dodge style was difficult to learn and master, but it worked well. Even against larger attacks like this, just my baseline movement pattern alone dodge nine chunking attacks out of ten.

Hod's own evasive style was utterly different yet equally effective. He shifted in and out of shadows, changing positions every second or two.

It made me dizzy just looking at the shadow master, but he ran circles around even agile foes. Considering this beetle's power, we needed absolute avoidance of its attacks; otherwise, we'd be smeared apart against the metal beneath us.

We did just that, holding the line for minutes all while attacking the creature from every angle imaginable, and the beetlecrab's frustration expanded by leaps and bounds during that time. That contrasted its physical size. We ripped waterfalls of blood out of the monster, splaying its insides onto the outer walls around us.

The beetleking didn't fall. It stayed standing.

Condensing and growing smaller and sharper on all sides, its outer shell began hollowing out. Its form altered against us, and I started missing shots while Hod's attacks slowed as the beetleking swung faster. This eldritch beast turned into a nimble fighter within ten minutes, giving us a run for our money.

Hod sliced off one of its arms and legs despite this evolution, and the monster howled in despair. Its wings opened behind its back, and the creature went into the air. Hod shifted into shadows off the walls nearby, but the monster darted back and forth, evading Hod's swipes. In the air, Other Hod could no longer use his shadow techniques.

The beetle charged at me, zipping past two of my harpoons. Running low on backup spears, I evaded sideways, and the beetleking's claws grazed my jumpsuit. The beast tore out a piece of my side before devouring the bloody chunk hungrily. A vivid spout of pain ran up my spine, causing me to grunt, blood coming out of my mouth.

I pulled a Daniel, gritting my teeth and clenching my fists. The beetle charged towards me, and I swung my cannon overhead with all I had. A cataclysmic impact ushered out, steel caving under my feet. My arms shattered at the blow, both my upper arms snapping like twigs. The beetleking somehow looked worse off than me.

Its face caved in, my swing crushing the upper half of its body. The creature's legs squirmed for a few seconds before its chest split open. It molted, revealing a smaller, metallic version of its larger self. Once again, I was reminded of fighting Daniel and his unending tenacity. I fought through that, so I sure as hell could fight through this.

I stared the monster down before it shot towards me. Hod appeared from behind it, trying to slice the beast. The hollowed corpse moved to block Hod's attack, and the molted shell began fighting with Other Hod. The new, metallic version sprinted towards me with its legs clicking and clacking.

I shifted onto another plane, walking sideways in time for it to miss. It scrambled and flailed its arms at random, and the beetle let out a frustrated clicking in frustration. I got unlucky, and it clipped me with one of its swings. It cut deep into my thigh. Stumbling away while dragging the cannon, I used stilts made of bone to set my arms and leg. Once usable, I got close before slinging the gun again at the beetlecrab king.

Everything broke on me again, but I left my cannon embedded in the beetleking's side, having caved its chest in. Exposed and vulnerable, I hobbled away. The creature pulled the gun out and lobbed the device at me. I ducked, and the cannon swooped past my head. It tore the metal under it, the weapon so dense and undentable that even the blunt side could cut metal given enough force.

The metal beetle ran away, and I let out a sigh of relief. I turned and found Hod dismantling the headless corpse of the old beetle king. As the acid blood melted gobs of metal, Hod outmaneuvered the headless king, ripping it apart. Stumbling over, I pulled my cannon out of the steel.

I couldn't complain about Daniel's weapons when it came to their durability. Leaning on that weapon, I waited for my arms and legs to regenerate. A few minutes later, I regrouped with Other Hod. He stood atop a defeated king, the shadow slayer oozing black fire. Other Hod hissed,

”Where is the other beast?”

I let out a frustrated breath, ”I don't know.”

A disgusting crunch echoed in the distance. We both sprinted towards the source of the sound. The beetlecrab king feasted on the burning metal eaters along with the leftover cobra corpses. The king's body expanded, rapidly reforming the massive exoskeleton it carried from before. I lifted my cannon, frustrated by the beast's revival. This was going to be a hard fight.

But it wasn't.

From our encampment, a bolt of violet lightning streaked out of a window. This bolt pierced the center of the creature, impaling the metal body within. Using the monster's momentary paralysis, Hod and I unloaded a series of bolts, swipes, and slices at the beast. It fell apart, its body no longer sustaining the acid within it.

Alexander's eyes widened as he heaved for breath. From behind him, Isa gave the boy a pat on the back,

”I knew you had it in you.”

The leftover pieces of the giant beast swelled as life left its body. We braced for impact, everyone hiding behind cover. The beetlecrab king's body splattered over every nearby surface. Alexander's head popped back out after the explosion, the teenager chugging mana potions. Lester threw a napalm bomb at the beetlecrab's remains while shouting,

”Normally, I wouldn't burn a good corpse, but I don't even want whatever that thing had in it.”

Alexander shook off his exhaustion, turning towards the ritual site. He hobbled over towards the runes and channeled more energy. The runes glowed for the ritual's completion. Before he finished, the melting corpse of the beetlecrab king seared the outside wall of our encampment. A pivotal portion of the wall disintegrated, parts of the floor falling apart as well.

Alexander gasped at the sight, half of his hard work melting before him. The wizard blinked a few times before his eyes rolled back in his head, and the boy fainted. Lester caught him before his head clunked against steel, and each of us stared at the absolute disaster before us.

I stared up, a foreign planet looming over our heads. Some kind of border guards began mobilizing in the distance, coming to inspect all the damage left behind. We all looked at each other, everybody too stunned to move or think.

We needed to move. Now.