Chapter 408: Taking on the Centipede Guardian

The giant centipede loudly munched on the large lizard hanging from its mouth. At this point it was down to the tail being the only thing left of its prey as it spit out little bones from that had been left over from the acid dripping from its mouth. The bones of the lizard had to have been fairly sturdy to survive the acid from the centipede's mouth that was burning holes through the rocks that it dripped down on to. When the centipede finished the last little morsel of the lizard it spit out one last bone that landed in a nearby pile of similar bones before curling up its head under one of the massive archways that the rest of its body was curled around.

The centipede was oblivious to the danger that was approaching it which would be its biggest downfall as a guardian. It was a powerful creature with heightened senses, but the beast that was approaching it from the ridge nearby was one known for its stealth. At the moment Cinder was climbing down a nearby pile of rocks in her full size. Even with her massive frame she was greatly dwarfed by the full size of the centipede that was laid out in front of her. Each one of Cinder's legs slightly melted the rocks that she walked over as she raced down the short cliff without making a single sound. At the moment she was in her fire form preparing to start off Henry and Joshua's plan.

In the distance behind cinder you could also see several vines growing out of some of the large rocks along the cliff as they slowly made their way into the area as well. Titus wasn't able to make an approach in the same way as Cinder since he wasn't nearly as good when it came to stealth as the younger beast. Tank of course would be completely hopeless in such a situation so it was no surprise that at the moment he was hanging back at the top of the ridge. His giant shell made him look like a giant rock in the distance from the centipede's position. The massive creature had a great sense of smell and hearing, but it couldn't see much at all since it spent most of its time digging through the earth when on the move. Luckily the heavy acid smell in the area made it impossible for the creature to notice Cinder moving in or Titus's vines coming into the area.

When Cinder got close enough to what Henry had pointed out to be the center of the centipede's body she started to put things into action. Cinder quickly went all out in her assault with several different types of flames to heat up the portion of the exoskeleton that she was attacking. First off she shot out several threads of burning silk to wrap around the area along with some smoldering smoke that not only burnt the exoskeleton, but also hid Cinder from view as the centipede started to react to the sudden attack. Before the creature could get out of the way Cinder sent a huge fireball that slammed into the area she was attacking.

The centipede quickly reacted by trying to turn its head in Cinder's direction so that it could go on the attack, but it was met with the sight of a giant turtle that came rolling down the ridge with its massive shell that slammed into its body. The collision didn't do any real damage to the massive centipede, but it did knock it back and rattled its skull causing its body to become sluggish for a moment. Titus use this as opportunity to use his vines to wrap around its tail end so that it couldn't attack any of them with that side of its body. It took several large vines to keep the thrashing portion of the centipede from ripping itself free.

With the centipede kept busy Cinder moved on to the next step of her portion of the attack and changed into her ice form. The portion of the centipede that she had rapidly heated up earlier was now being bombarded with an icy fog to rapidly cool it down. The sudden shift in temperature caused the exoskeleton to stiffen and make some cracking sounds whenever the centipede tried to move that portion of its body. The legs that were unlucky enough to get got caught in the icy fog were also frozen solid and unable to move. Now whenever the centipede moved around that portion of its body would have to be dragged slowing its movements down considerably.

Cinder leaped back out of the way as the centipede tried to slam a portion of its body into her to knock her away. The force of the collision with such a massive creature could have done some damage so she made sure to avoid getting to close. The centipede unraveled its body from the archways as quickly as possible as it turned its head around intending to go for the beast that hurt it the most in the confrontation, but Tank wasn't going to allow the massive Centipede to just ignore him. He quickly slammed his shell into the underside of the creature knocking the front part of its body on its side as it let out an annoyed screech. Tank then blasted its face with a torrent of water that kept the beast from being able to spray acid at him.

While the beast were in the middle of fighting with each other Joshua and the rest of his group weren't idle. The first ones to make a move were the mages in the back. Julia slammed several different spots of the centipede's body with large fireballs to heat the exoskeleton up. Brook would then drench the areas in water making it easier for Cinder to freeze them over with her icy fog. Robin however just went for straight up damage from the get go as she blasted the massive creature with lightning blast so that it would be stunned from time to time while trying to hold off Tank, Cinder, and now Titus that had leaped down in slammed into its head.

This tactic created several brittle spots along the centipede's body so that all of the close ranged fighters could go in and get to work. Of course they didn't go in without a bunch of support buffs placed on them. Lilly had Flutter out as her fourth beast companion giving everyone a boost in their physical stats, Henry was buffing as many people as he could with different support spells here and there, and lastly Jacob and Evelyn started playing music to put the odds in their favor even more so. Jacob started playing an amped up tone with his guitar that irritated the massive centipede making it angrier, but at the same time making it harder for the creature to think throughout the fight. This made it so that the centipede kept focusing on Titus and Tank even though they weren't its greatest threat at the moment. Evelyn played music that boosted everyone's speed so that they could avoid any of the legs that tried to strike out at them while approaching the giant creature.

Joshua was the first one to reach the centipede with his burst of speed from his aura. He leaped up into the air avoiding all of the legs of the centipede out right before slamming his scale blade into one of the weakened portions of the skeleton of the creature. The attack created a large crack along the area, but looking at the overall size of the beast it was nothing more than what would come across as a paper cut from its perspective. Even so it created an opening allowing Joshua to send an energy slash through the crevice causing some pain to the beast. Even if they had to whittle the giant thing down it'd eventually collapse if it took on to many injuries.

Amy didn't have to worry about aiming for spots where the exoskeleton had been weakened. She left that to everyone else as she dashed around the body of the massive creature and slammed her fist into any space that looked like it could be a weak point. Each of her blows penetrated straight through is exoskeleton causing the centipede pain and internal injuries even if it was on the small side. It couldn't turn its attention towards Amy or Joshua in its rage as Titus had his vines tangling its tail end up while helping tank beat up the front side of the creature.

Adrian, Victor, and Allen went straight to cutting any legs off that they could get to so that the creature wouldn't be able to move around so easily. At first it was hard to get to the weak spots with how much the creature moved around, but with each leg they cut off the centipede grew slower and slower. Aito and Katsumi helped from afar peppering its injuries with bullets and arrows that only caused them to worsen. The giant beast was taking on wounds at a fast pace and it decided to respond before things spiraled out of control.

The centipede reared its body up high before shooting out what looked like acid in the direction of Titus since it didn't want to bother trying to burn through Tank's shell. Titus used several vines to block the acid long enough for him to get out of the way, but the centipede didn't seem to be done with its counter attack. It ripped its tail end from out of all of the vines that were still trying to hold it in place and tried to swing it around to slam into Cinder, but it didn't expect to slam straight into another trap. Cinder had set up several webs near its tail end just in case it broke free from the vines. These webs were made while Cinder was in her ice form so the moment the tail end of the centipede tried to swing through them it was not only tangled up, but slowly being frozen in place.

Natsumi quickly rushed towards the head of the giant creature which had been recently bombarded with several fireballs. At the moment her sword was covered in ice as she waited for Tank to once again blast the centipede in the face with another torrent of water. The drenched head screeched once more, but Natsumi took this as an opportunity to cut into the exoskeleton while generating as much ice as she possibly could. The sword wasn't able to pierce very far into the exoskeleton, but the ice was forming quickly as it spread across the head of the creature stiffening its movements and making its head a giant target. She pulled out her sword and jumped off when the creature looked like it was about to slam itself into one of the large arch ways.

When the beast crashed into the arch way it dazed itself a bit giving Titus the opportunity to leap onto its head and pin it to the ground. He held it in place while Tank stomped on it ferociously breaking the newly formed ice and the exoskeleton altogether. After a few seconds of stomping the creatures head was smashed in as its body thrashed around for a while before going still.