264 Reconquest 3

Hey, Gamma here with a quick message.

After ducking into cover Dax suddenly found himself with enough time to spare that he was able to think, something which he wasn't all that happy about. If anything it only served to put him more on edge. Assessing a surveillance satellite downlink trained on his current location to get eyes on the elder which was still launching razor sharp mana crystals after him, Dax finally realized that the elder was doing something strange.

(What the fuck is it doing now?)

Judging from the satellite feed, the elder was purposely shredding its biomass while producing some sort of strange black, goo like liquid while flowed out endlessly from its rune covered, grotesque body.

(Well, whatever it is doing I'm not just going to sit here and wait for it to finish.)

Tasking CAS through his satellite connection a slight smile appeared on Dax's face while his eyes lost their focus as he primed his arm mounted 50 mill launcher. Even if he refused to admit it, there was a part of his qiton blood which screamed out in joy over fighting for his own life, the high chance that he could die the second he stepped out of cover was simply amazing.

"ZU RA!"

(FIREMISSION CONFIRMED, DANGER CLOSE.)

Rushing out of cover, Dax caught the elder mid transformation as he opened up with his 50 mill launcher, detonating the grenade early to create a mana interfering smoke screen right in front of the elder which screeched in due to the mana formations it used to keep its body together was disrupted, at the same time the first volley of orbital artillery support finally landed.

[SPLASH, NEXT WAVE: 7 SECONDS.]

With the area around the elder being pelted with a potent mix of airburst and semi armour pricing shells it was forced to put up numerous shields, thus it was temporarily blinded. Expecting Dax to emerge from one of the flanks as it knew that Dax would also have his spells disrupted by going through the middle, it slammed down its remaining tentacles and created a surge of rock shards which shot towards the left while sending out a hail of crystal shards towards the right, but at the same time Dax emerged out the mana disrupting smoke with a bloodthirsty smile on his face.

(I don't need mana to kill you!)

With the shields the elder had put up blocking its attacks, the elder was slightly affected by Dax's dense killing intent as it hastily started tearing them down as it sent out a shotgun like burst of high pressure wind blades, only realizing that such an action was a mistake the very last second.

[SPLASH, FINAL WAVE: 3 SECONDS.]

[SPLASH, FIRE MISSION COMPLETE. IMI ASSESSES GOOD EFFECT ON TARGET, TARGET NEUTRALIZED.]

"... Why the fuck did you have to say that?"

Going by his gut feeling Dax was pretty sure that the elder was still alive, even after he was sure that he had sliced its core in half.

(There is something strange about this elder, especially after it had realized he was stalling for time, it seemed like it was trying to alter its- !!!)

Realizing what was going on at the last second as all the hairs on his back suddenly stood on end, Dax broke his posture, just as a crystal tipped thin, whip like tentacle pierced the area where his head had been only a split second before. Flipping his shortsword to a reverse grip Dax rolled on the floor to avoid more of the whip like tentacles which tried to sewer him alive before he got back on his feet, then taking a defensive stance Dax started cutting down a seemingly endless wave of tentacles emerging from the dust cloud in front of him which was slowly starting to clear up.

[Target not neutralized, I repeat, TARGET NOT NEUTRALIZED! Requesting additional fire support at priority omega and immediate backup!]

[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED, TASKING ALL AVAILABLE ORBITAL QRF TEAMS FOR IMMEDIATE DEORBIT.]

Creating a second weapon in the shape of a battle axe out of mana crystals Dax stepped forward as he cut apart yet another tentacle, amplifying the energy released from his step to create a gust of wind which blew away the elder's cover.

Standing 4 metres tall, the elder had drastically changed its shape. With 4 muscular arms holding 2 gigantic cursed swords, its androgynous body spouted numerous tentacles from its back and legs while its smooth head which had no mouth had 4 closed eyes with the possibility that it had more eyes on the back of its head. Worse yet, the elder no longer had any signs of decay or sickness, words like decay and rot could no longer be used to describe the elder's body. Glancing at the elder's feet while still keeping his defences ready and potent, Dax's hunch that the elder was stabilizing the ground beneath its feet proved correct, meaning the elder still had a considerable amount of its original mass and could properly keep regenerating its tentacles almost endlessly.

Opening its eyes to reveal eyes not unlike his own, the elder stared at Dax as it released truly dense killing intent, if the elder had a mouth at that moment he was sure that it would be distorted into a bloodthirsty smile.

"ARE YOU NOT COMING? GOT SCARED ALL OF A SUDDEN?"

Generating sound waves with magic, the elder spoke to Dax in an ancient dialect of traditional qiton as it continued to radiate bloodlust as the bladed tentacles on its back writhed around creepily.

"Because you have the advantage, there's no way I'm simply going to walk into that. Besides, my objective is to stall for time, remember?"

(This one is way smarter than the rest of its kin… I don't like this one bit.)

Answering the elder in the politest tone possible inside the traditional qiton language he knew of, Dax's mind was working in parallel as he was truly desperate to survive until his drone reinforcements arrived.

"OOH? SO YOU ARE ONE OF US… INTERESTING."

Narrowing its eyes in curiosity, the elder seemed to not be worrying about Dax��s reinforcements in the slightest.

"THEN ALLOW ME TO SHOW YOU HOW IT'S DONE, YOUNGLING."

Launching a few of its tentacles at Dax, the elder completely disappeared at the same time as Dax cut them down, reappearing right in front of him only a split second later as it was already swinging down both its massive, rune covered swords. Having somewhat predicted that move Dax had already started evading before he cut the first of the tentacles which served as a distraction, sidestepping the blade which swung down towards him from the left, Dax used both his axe and shortsword to redirect the elder's other greatsword, stepping further into the elder's range as he used the sword he redirected as cover while he did so. Reaching the elder's right leg, Dax used mana to condense a large amount of air around him into plasma which he formed into a concentrated lance not unlike a HEAT charge, Dax launched the plasma lance at the leg from almost point blank range at the same time as all the retrograde thrusters on his armour fired, pulling him away from the mass of tentacles which were swooping down from above to nail him to the ground.

(2.. 1.. Splash.)

Having just escaped to the minimum safe range, the elder was once more hit by a barrage of orbital artillery, pelting it and its immediate area with ultra high velocity APFSDS, or so Dax had hoped.

"IS THAT REALLY ALL YOU CAN DO? SUCH A DISAPPOINTING YOUNGLING."

"Fuc-"

As the elder suddenly appeared right behind him, Dax just managed to spin around and prepare a somewhat lacklustre defence with his shortsword to the elder's greatsword that was already swinging towards him, as the two blades connected Dax felt the shock travel all the way up his arm, breaking every single bone in it as he was shot away. Crashing through a few trees on the way, Dax's momentum was eventually stopped when he hit a solid rock builder which partly disintegrated upon impact.

"GHA!"

Puking up a mouthful of blood on impact which immediately spattered on the inside of his helmet, Dax scurred to his feet with a weapon still in hand as his regeneration kicked into overdrive. Prepared for another attack from the elder, Dax was surprised to see that it was just observing him, not even bothering to take a stance.

"HMM… IF ANYTHING, YOU'RE ONE DURABLE YOUNGLING."

"Why thank you for the compliment, if anything I aim to be a least a pain to kill, if not outright obnoxious like a cockroach."