Monarch Chapter 191 (Patreon)

Chapter 191

As soon as the tendril came at him, Rayne moved to the left, twisting his body just enough for the sharp end to pass beside him.

He barely had time to regain his balance before Lyra reacted.

Several seeds flew from her hand and struck the tendril directly, and in the very next second, the entire mass of sludge around the impact point violently exploded.

The blast scattered filthy chunks of the creature in every direction, sending pieces of grime across the walls, floor and their armor.

A portion landed directly on Rayne's shoulder, and even though his armor kept it from touching his skin, the sensation was disgusting enough to make him instinctively shake his arm.

"Make sure you don't get grabbed! It might break your body in seconds!"

After saying that, Rayne immediately activated [Analysis], hoping to understand exactly what they were dealing with.

The information appeared almost instantly after taking a fair bit of mana, and the moment he saw its level, his heart sank.

Monster: Mire Devourer

Level: 65

Rank: King of the sewers

A level 65 monster.

Rayne's expression became serious as he looked at the enormous creature in front of them.

For a brief moment, he considered retreating. The mire devourer was clearly dangerous, and if they turned around and ran, there was a good chance they could put enough distance between themselves and the monster that it wouldn't be able to follow them very far.

The problem was that this sewer was their route toward the inner city, and unless they discovered another path, they would eventually have to pass through this exact area again.

Running now wouldn't solve the problem. At best, they would only be delaying it.

Besides, retreating without understanding how the creature fought would be a waste.

They had already encountered it, and now they had a chance to learn what it could do. If they fought for a while and discovered that killing it was impossible right now, they could always retreat afterward.

Rayne immediately let go of [War Pulse]. There was no reason to continue stretching his senses through the surroundings when such a large monster was directly in front of him and he hadn't sensed any other threats nearby.

Maintaining the skill would only divide his attention when he needed to focus on the creature itself.

Instead, he pushed his mana into his sword and concentrated.

Dark death mana gathered around the blade, causing its surface to shine with an ominous light.

Rayne swung, sending several arcs of death mana tearing through the air toward the devourer. The attacks struck its massive body and carved through the sludge, causing large chunks of it to fall onto the ground.

For a moment, Rayne thought the attack had worked. Then the creature's body began to move.

The missing sections simply filled themselves again as more sludge shifted from one part of its body to another.

At the same time, several new tendrils emerged from its mass, each one longer and sharper than the last.

The creature seemed almost incapable of remaining still, with every part of its body constantly moving and reshaping itself.

Then all those tendrils shot toward them.

Lyra reacted first. She threw several more seeds onto the ground, and thick vines immediately erupted from the stone, wrapping around two of the incoming tendrils and pulling them aside.

The remaining attacks came straight toward the party, forcing everyone to raise their shields. The sharp ends struck the metal with enough force to make several of them stagger.

Andrew and Bran, however, didn't waste their time trying to defend against every attack. They moved forward instead.

Andrew drew his heavy sword and charged toward the mire devourer while two short blades began floating around him.

The weapons moved independently, cutting down tendrils whenever they came within range of him while he focused entirely on closing the distance.

Bran remained farther away, continuously firing arrows into the monster's body, each shot reinforced with mana before it struck.

The attacks were doing almost nothing.

Bran quickly realized it and changed his approach. Reaching into his quiver, he pulled out another arrow, this one carrying a small vial attached to its tip.

He drew his bow and fired without hesitation. The arrow struck the devourer and shattered the vial.

Flames immediately spread across the creature's sludge, crawling over its body and burning through the filth.

For the first time, the monster reacted violently. Its entire mass twisted as a strange cry came from somewhere within it, and the tendrils around its body thrashed wildly.

Andrew saw his opportunity and took it.

He rushed forward and drove his heavy sword deep into the monster's body.

The blade disappeared into the sludge almost to the hilt, but instead of blood or anything resembling flesh coming out, the sword simply sank into the creature as if he had stabbed into a pool of mud.

Rayne immediately knew that the attack hadn't done anything meaningful.

Andrew seemed to realize it as well, because he quickly tried to pull his sword free.

Before he could, another tendril formed beside him and swung toward his body. Andrew didn't even turn around.

His two floating short blades shot backward and cut through the tendril, severing it before the sharp edge could reach him.

The creature's body suddenly changed.

A section near what could loosely be called its face opened up, stretching into a wide, unnatural gap that resembled a mouth despite the creature having no actual head.

Rayne's eyes narrowed when he saw something dark gathering inside it.

Then the devourer released it.

A torrent of black sludge poured from the opening and rushed directly toward Andrew.

Andrew immediately tried to retreat, but there was simply too much of it. The stream spread across the passage, covering a wide area and leaving him with nowhere to move without exposing himself to it.

Rayne reacted instantly.

Threads burst outward from his body and rapidly formed a dense shield directly in front of Andrew. The dark sludge crashed into the barrier, and Rayne's expression immediately changed.

The threads began melting. They didn't break under the pressure. They were simply being dissolved.

At the same time, some of the sludge slipped around the edges of the barrier and struck the stone floor.

A sizzling sound immediately filled the sewer as the stone began to melt beneath it, releasing an awful smell into the already foul air.

Andrew quickly pulled himself away from the attack as Rayne reinforced the barrier, but there was no mistaking what they had just discovered.

"Acid..." Rayne muttered.

The others had noticed it too. Their expressions became considerably more serious as they watched the floor continue to dissolve.

The mire devourer could use acid. That made everything much worse.

They were already struggling because their physical attacks seemed almost useless against its body.

Even Andrew, their strongest spellsword in terms of level, had driven his sword straight into the creature without accomplishing anything.

Bran's normal arrows were even less effective, and while his fire arrow had caused a reaction, it hadn't inflicted enough damage to suggest that they could simply burn the monster to death.

Lyra was their other major source of power, but she wasn't a mage like Casper who could unleash enormous amounts of destructive magic over a wide area.

Her greatest strength was battlefield control, and while her vines were useful for restraining the tendrils, they weren't enough to destroy a monster this large and he didn't know how many more seeds she has.

Rayne knew they had a problem.

Unfortunately, he didn't have time to think of a solution.

Several more tendrils suddenly shot toward him.

Rayne swung his sword and released another series of death mana arcs, tearing through the incoming attacks and sending pieces of sludge crashing onto the ground.

But the mire devourer simply formed more tendrils from its body, replacing every one he destroyed with another.

One of them slipped through the gaps between his attacks and came straight toward him.

Rayne raised his shield.

The tendril slammed into it with tremendous force, making his arm shake as he was pushed backward across the wet stone. The sharp end scraped against the shield before Rayne forced it away, but as he looked up, he saw even more of the creature's limbs moving through the darkness.

Before any of them could come toward him, Jason and Nate rushed in from the side, swinging their axe and sword respectively and cleaving through the incoming tendrils.

The severed pieces of sludge fell onto the wet floor, writhing for a moment before becoming indistinguishable from the filth already covering the ground.

"What are we going to do?" Jason shouted. "I don't think cutting off these tendrils is doing anything to it!"

Rayne knew that was true. Even as the tendrils were cut apart, the mire devourer simply let out a deep, distorted growl and created more from its massive body.

Every piece they destroyed was quickly replaced, and the creature didn't seem to care about losing them in the slightest.

If anything, the longer they fought, the more tendrils seemed to emerge from its body, filling the sewer with constantly moving limbs.

Flames and explosions were the obvious way to go, but even that wouldn't be enough by itself. They needed to reach its core if they wanted to inflict any significant damage.

Rayne had learned enough in his time in the army to understand that creatures of this size usually had an enormous amount of protective covering around their vital organs.

Even if they were able to burn away layers of their bodies, they could continue fighting for hours without suffering a truly serious injury unless someone capable of overwhelming them was present.

That was why large monsters were often dealt with by powerful mages.

A mage with enough destructive power could tear through the monster's defenses and reach its core before the battle dragged on for hours.

In the end, they would win if enough flames or explosions could reach the creature's core.

The problem was that they didn't know where the mire devourer's core was.

More attacks came before Rayne could think any further. Several tendrils slammed toward them while another section of the monster's enormous body suddenly lifted, as if it intended to crush them beneath its weight.

Lyra immediately threw more seeds across the ground, and thick vines erupted around the group, intercepting several of the attacks while everyone moved backward.

The area around them was fortunately large enough for them to dodge, but the devourer showed no signs of slowing down.

It continued attacking relentlessly, creating tendril after tendril while occasionally slamming its massive body into the ground and sending filthy water splashing through the passage.

Rayne had to move constantly, cutting through the attacks with his sword or raising his shield whenever one came too close.

The acid was even more troublesome. One mistake could severely damage their armor, and they couldn't afford to let the creature's corrosive sludge spread across the entire battlefield.

They needed a way to get through its body.

Then an idea finally came to Rayne.

It wasn't a perfect plan, and there was a good chance it would fail, but considering what they had seen so far, it seemed like the most effective method they had.

Rayne immediately began dodging another series of tendrils, ducking beneath one before jumping away from another that crashed into the floor beside him.

He raised his voice so the others could hear him through the constant noise of explosions, splashing water and their own movements.

"Listen to me! We're going to force it open and attack the same spot together!"

He quickly explained the plan while they continued fighting. The devourer didn't seem intelligent enough to understand their words, and that was probably for the best.

If it understood what they were planning, it might become considerably harder to execute.

Not everyone looked convinced.

There were too many unknowns. They didn't know exactly how much damage the creature could take, how quickly it could regenerate, or whether their combined attacks would actually penetrate deep enough to reach anything important.

Still, Rayne reminded them that they weren't committing themselves to dying here.

If the plan didn't work, they would retreat, return to the city and come back another day with a proper method for dealing with the monster.

That finally made them agree.

After a few moments of preparation, the plan began.

The mire devourer continued its barrage, sending tendrils toward them from every direction.

Lyra threw seeds around the battlefield, and vines immediately burst from the stone and wrapped around several of the incoming limbs.

The tendrils strained against them, trying to tear themselves free, while the ones that escaped were handled by Nate, Kesh, Heins and Jason. They moved together, keeping the monster's attention on them while avoiding the sharp ends of its limbs.

Lyra then moved to the second part of the plan.

Instead of using her seeds to restrain the tendrils, she began casting the same exploding seed spell she had used when they first encountered the creature.

Several glowing seeds flew through the air and struck the mire devourer.

The explosion was immediate.

Flames engulfed a section of its body, and the force of the blast sent a large portion of the sludge outward. The monster reeled backward, its massive body losing shape for a moment as chunks of black sludge were blown away.

"Now!"

Rayne moved at once.

He pushed as much death mana as he could into his blade, pushing his will into the mana to be destructive, then he swung with everything he had, and several enormous arcs of death mana tore through the air.

But this time, he wasn't aiming randomly.

Every arc targeted the exact section of the monster's body that had been exposed by Lyra's explosion.

The attacks struck one after another, cutting deeper into the damaged area.

At almost the same moment, Bran fired several arrows.

Small potions had been tied around them, and the moment the arrows struck the same damaged section, the containers shattered.

Explosions erupted across the creature's body.

The force of the combined attacks shook the entire sewer. Tendrils thrashed wildly as part of the ceiling above them cracked, sending pieces of stone crashing down around the group.

The mire devourer staggered backward beneath the assault, and flames spread across the exposed sludge.

Andrew moved next. His two short swords shot forward through the chaos, each one carrying a potion that had been carefully tied around its hilt.

He controlled them through the air, guiding them around falling chunks of stone and avoiding the sludge that dropped from above.

He was directly aiming at the opening they had created.

The swords disappeared deep into the devourer's body, carrying the explosive potions with them.

Rayne saw them sink farther and farther inside and shouted, "Keep going!"

Andrew pushed the blades even deeper.

Then Rayne raised his sword once more.

He gathered his remaining mana into the blade, concentrating it into a single attack before swinging toward the same opening.

Another arc of death mana tore through the air, and struck the potions.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the monster's body erupted.

The explosion was far larger than the previous ones, tearing through the monster from the inside and sending a tremendous wave of filthy sludge across the sewer.

The walls shook. The ceiling cracked.

And the entire massive body of the mire devourer was thrown backward as the darkness of the sewer was swallowed by fire and debris.