Infinite Mana - Chapter 167: Miasma (Thank you for your support, al!) (Patreon)

The worm crashed through a rock formation under the sand with enough force to break the stone apart and send fragments bouncing across the chamber. Sieghart activated Impulse immediately, throwing himself sideways before the creature’s enormous circular mouth snapped shut where his torso had been.

He landed badly, one boot sinking into the loose sand before he forced himself upright. The sand shifted several dozen meters away before the disturbance curved sharply toward him. Sieghart strengthened his focus until the rest of the chamber became secondary, concentrating almost entirely upon the moving pattern beneath his feet and the faint vibrations reaching him through the ground.

He launched himself backward with another Impulse just before the earthworm erupted beneath his previous position. Sand and broken stone exploded upward around its head while Sieghart formed a Poison Sphere and threw it directly into the creature’s open mouth.

The sphere burst across the rings of hooked teeth before the worm closed its jaws. Another Poison Sphere struck the side of its head, followed immediately by five more that exploded across different sections of its pale segmented body.

Green magical residue spread across its flesh, but the creature barely reacted. It twisted violently instead, smashing several meters of its body through another rocky formation while Sieghart watched for any indication that the poison was actually weakening it. There was nothing obvious. The worm was still fast, still violent, and still strong enough to turn the surrounding cavern into rubble simply by moving carelessly. Whatever resistance it possessed, a few concentrated doses of his weakest Poison Magic were nowhere near sufficient.

Sieghart fired again anyway. The monster disappeared beneath the sand once more. Sieghart tracked the mana disturbance, waited until it accelerated, and then used Impulse diagonally upward when the creature erupted from below. Its mouth snapped shut beneath his boots while another Poison Sphere formed between his hands.

He threw it downward during the fall. The sphere struck the creature’s upper body and burst, adding another layer of poisonous vapor to everything already lingering around the chamber. Sieghart landed, immediately moved again, and avoided the worm’s tail sweeping across the sand behind him.

He was beginning to recognize its rhythm. The creature relied upon overwhelming momentum and unpredictable attack directions, but the giant body still needed to prepare before changing course. Magic Vision exposed those tiny shifts in mana several moments before raw sight could reveal anything.

That did not make dodging comfortable. Every mistake still meant being swallowed whole, crushed beneath several tons of flesh, or thrown against stone hard enough that Protection would receive another very unpleasant durability test.

Sieghart continued firing Poison Spheres between every dodge. Some struck the creature directly while others missed whenever the worm changed direction unexpectedly, exploding against sand, stone, or shattered formations scattered across the enormous underground chamber.

Eventually, the accumulated poison began changing the battlefield itself. purplish haze remained suspended between the broken rocks, and the sand absorbed enough magical residue that every violent movement from the worm threw contaminated particles back into the air.

Sieghart noticed the smell before anything else. His own Poison Sphere had always produced an impressively revolting mixture of rotten vegetation, sewage, spoiled meat, and something acidic enough to make breathing through the nose feel like a mistake. Dozens of spheres inside an enclosed underground chamber were considerably worse. The overlapping clouds had nowhere to disperse naturally, turning the air into a slowly thickening miasma that followed every current created by Sieghart’s movement and the worm’s rampage.

Sieghart coughed several times while using Impulse to escape another descending strike. His head felt strangely light when he landed, and his balance took half a second longer than usual to settle beneath him.

“That might actually become a problem. Killing myself with my own Poison Magic would be an embarrassing way to prove the spell finally works,”

Protection could stop claws, impacts,and several other external threats, but it did very little when Sieghart willingly breathed poisoned air into his own lungs. White Magic reduced some irritation, though First Aid was hardly a replacement for clean oxygen.

He raised one hand and prepared Wind Magic, intending to push the contaminated air toward the opposite end of the chamber before his own experiment became more dangerous to him than the giant earthworm.

Then Sieghart stopped. The creature crashed into another poisoned patch of sand, sending a thick cloud rolling across its head, and something about the reaction made his eyes narrow.

The worm had breathing openings along the upper portions of its body. Sieghart had already noticed them earlier and one direct Poison Sphere near those openings had caused a small reaction even though the poison seemed ineffective overall.

More importantly, Sieghart could smell his own poison. That meant the unpleasant odor was not merely a magical effect targeting enemies. It was an actual characteristic spreading through the surrounding environment. And Sieghart happened to possess a spell created specifically to make smells significantly stronger.

A slow grin appeared across his face while the earthworm surfaced once more. Instead of throwing another Poison Sphere, Sieghart pointed directly toward the sensory structures around the creature’s head and carefully gathered mana there.

“Maybe the poison isn’t the problem. Maybe your senses simply aren’t good enough to appreciate everything I’ve prepared for you,” Sieghart said as he used Enhanced Smell on the enemy at higher output.

The earthworm stopped. Its enormous body did not freeze magically or become physically restrained. It simply ceased moving for one strange second as if whatever passed for its brain had suddenly received far more sensory information than it could process.

Then the creature went completely insane. Its head slammed into the ground hard enough to create a crater. Sand erupted in every direction while the worm twisted sideways, smashing several segments of its body against the nearby wall with enough force to crack the stone.

Sieghart laughed despite the poisonous air burning his throat. The reaction was far more dramatic than anything caused by the Poison Spheres themselves, confirming that the enhanced sensory input had found a completely different vulnerability.

“There it is. You can eat magic, ignore poison, and tunnel through stone, but apparently smelling terrible is where you draw the line,” Sieghart said while increasing Enhanced Smell even further.

The worm convulsed violently. Its head buried itself beneath the sand for several seconds as though physically hiding from the odor could remove the sensation overwhelming its reinforced sensory organs.

That only made things worse. The ground itself had absorbed enormous amounts of poison from missed attacks, and the creature’s movement dragged contaminated sand across every breathing opening along its upper body. Sieghart raised his other hand and gathered Wind Magic, but instead of forming blades or another movement spell, he began controlling the atmosphere throughout the chamber with careful directional currents.

The poisonous haze shifted slowly at first. Green clouds moved out from behind broken stone formations, descended from pockets near the ceiling, and rose from contaminated sand while Sieghart gradually pulled everything toward the thrashing earthworm.

Maintaining Wind Magic and Enhanced Smell simultaneously placed noticeably greater pressure upon his concentration. His Mentality could handle both spells, but controlling an entire chamber’s airflow while accurately targeting the monster’s sensory system required far more precision than ordinary spell spam.

The effort immediately proved worthwhile. The worm raised its head from beneath the sand, froze again, and recoiled before the concentrated miasma even reached it. Enhanced Smell allowed it to detect the approaching poison with overwhelming clarity.

The poison had finally reached somewhere that mattered. Sieghart maintained Enhanced Smell and pulled another concentrated wave of miasma forward, surrounding the creature’s head before directing the thickest current toward its open mouth.

The worm snapped its jaws shut, but too late. A stream of contaminated air had already disappeared between the rings of teeth, and closing its mouth merely trapped part of the poisonous mixture deeper inside. Its body convulsed again. Several segments rose from the sand and crashed down independently, creating overlapping impacts that shook the chamber while Sieghart used Impulse to avoid being struck by the monster’s uncontrolled thrashing.

The irony was almost perfect. Poison Sphere had been too weak to overwhelm the creature directly, so Sieghart had simply forced the monster to experience every trace of that poison far more intensely.

Enhanced Smell did not technically make the toxin stronger, but it transformed the environment into unbearable sensory overload. The creature panicked, breathed faster, moved more violently, and consequently inhaled increasing quantities of contaminated air.

The earthworm swung its head through another stone formation and shattered it completely. Its body twisted behind it like a collapsing bridge, throwing sand and broken rock across the chamber while Sieghart continued moving beyond the range of each uncontrolled strike.

The poison was disrupting biological functions faster than the worm could compensate. Its magic-eating ability still operated around the mouth, but there was apparently an important difference between consuming constructed spells and having ordinary poisoned air enter its body through respiration.

Sieghart followed without approaching too closely. Wind Magic continued feeding poisoned air into every disturbed opening, while Enhanced Smell remained focused on the sensory structures near the head.

The worm surfaced halfway and released a deep, wet roar unlike anything Sieghart had previously heard from it. Dark fluid spilled between its teeth and splattered across the sand beneath its mouth.

The color of its body worsened steadily. Pale flesh became sickly green around the head, then grayish purple farther down as the poison spread through vessels visible beneath the creature’s partially translucent skin.

Its movements were weaker now, but still dangerous enough to kill him. The earthworm raised several meters of its body and slammed sideways, forcing Sieghart to launch himself away with Impulse before the enormous mass crushed his position.

He landed farther back and immediately reestablished his control over the miasma. The worm turned toward him, mouth opening as if it intended one final desperate attempt to swallow the irritating creature responsible for its suffering.

For a moment, the earthworm towered above Sieghart exactly as it had at the beginning of their fight. Its circular mouth expanded wide enough to swallow him whole while poisoned fluid dripped between rows of hooked teeth.

Sieghart did not move immediately. Magic Vision showed the monster’s internal mana stuttering violently, and the muscles responsible for supporting its raised body were no longer receiving energy evenly.

The worm lunged. Its body failed halfway through the movement. The enormous head crashed into the sand several meters before reaching Sieghart, producing a final wave of dust and poisonous particles that rolled harmlessly around his Protection.

The creature tried lifting itself again. Its head rose perhaps half a meter before another violent convulsion passed through the body and slammed it back down. Green haze gathered around its face while the breathing openings expanded desperately. Each frantic attempt to obtain more air only accelerated the poisoning by pulling additional miasma into already damaged internal tissue.

Sieghart studied the effect closely through Magic Vision. The magical absorption channels surrounding the mouth were still functioning, but they could not simply remove poison that had already entered through ordinary biological pathways.

The earthworm’s tail suddenly jerked with enough force to strike the wall and break another section of stone loose. Sieghart immediately stepped farther away instead of approaching simply because the monster appeared nearly dead.

He had fought enough dangerous creatures to know that dying did not mean harmless. Several tons of muscle spasming randomly could kill him just as effectively as a deliberate attack if he became careless during the final moments.

The worm continued thrashing for another minute, though each movement became weaker and less coordinated. Its deliberate attacks disappeared entirely, replaced by irregular spasms traveling through different segments without any shared direction.

Sieghart reduced Enhanced Smell experimentally. The monster’s body relaxed slightly, breathing becoming less frantic for several seconds as the overwhelming sensory pressure weakened.

The worm slammed down for what appeared to be the final time. Sand jumped around the impact while its enormous body stretched almost completely across the chamber, occupying a path longer than several buildings placed end to end.

Only small sections continued twitching afterward. The discoloration beneath its skin spread farther toward the tail, and Magic Vision showed the once-powerful internal currents weakening one section at a time.

Sieghart maintained the poisonous airflow rather than becoming impatient. Thirty seconds passed without deliberate movement, followed by another thirty while he watched the monster’s internal mana carefully for any indication of recovery.

The channels around its mouth dimmed first. Those same structures had previously dissolved his frozen Water Magic almost instantly, yet now the complex network lost cohesion until only faint traces of mana remained.

The upper body followed shortly afterward. Internal currents weakened, flickered several times, and finally disappeared until only one dense concentration remained deeper inside the creature.

Its core.

That concentration remained bright, but the mana stopped circulating through the surrounding body entirely. Sieghart waited several additional seconds before finally allowing Enhanced Smell to fade.

He gradually redirected the remaining miasma toward the far side of the chamber, using Wind Magic to clear enough breathable air around himself before lowering his hand.

Silence settled over the cavern. Dust and poisoned sand slowly returned to the ground while Sieghart stared at the enormous dead creature occupying most of the battlefield.

“That worked much better than it had any right to. Apparently, making something smell poison harder counts as a combat strategy now,” 

Sieghart coughed several times. The dizziness had not disappeared completely. Turning an enclosed underground chamber into a poisonous gas trap while remaining inside it had been reckless enough that even Sieghart could recognize the flaw afterward.

Still, the result mattered. The worm was dead, Sieghart remained mostly healthy, and he had learned considerably more about Enhanced Smell, battlefield control, environmental Poison Magic, and the limits of magical absorption.