Chapter 428: Have Grenade, Need Hatch
Milo's worry about what the snail was doing was confirmed as he examined it again for any weakness. It wasn't just healing; it was turning into something worse after snacking on the defeated Warforms, each of them brimming with whatever strange nutrients the Collective and their allies were using to build bigger soldiers. Its shell was now segmented, similar to insects that could roll into tight balls as a defensive maneuver. The Engineer known as Pillbug got his nickname from implementing that type of defense into his mechanical armor. Force would be distributed from one overlapping plate to the next, making it very hard to crush.
Gargantua, Mutant Snail Boss (Under Construction) Monstrous Level XX
Considering the problem of killing it before it 'hatched', he saw parallels between Gargantua and the Tiger Tank used in ancient warfare. The tank was slow and ponderous, but armed wth weapons that easily destroyed other tanks. Its heavy armor had made it nearly impervious to the enemy tanks' return fire, while its much larger gun allowed it to dominate the battlefield from a distance. But the large tanks needed support. Infantry could move around them, plant explosives, or throw grenades without something to stop them. Gargantua had lost its supporting army, and now Milo had to find a way to crack open its shell. In the ancient movies that Big Butch loved, it was always a sneaky soldier who managed to get a grenade inside the tank through the top hatch. Milo didn't have a hatch to use and would have to make his own.
Hitting it with brute force went poorly. The shell reflected or absorbed anything less than a cannonball. He was afraid of using the Mace of Annihilation for fear of killing himself if the blow reflected back at him. His claws could just barely cut into the hard material, and after making several long, parallel cuts, he was able to remove a strip of the outer shell. The next layer was rougher and not as resistant to his claws. Each of the first two layers was an inch in depth, and he wondered how thick the shell was. Already, he saw new growth filling in his small groove, but rather than going deeper, he experimented. His crystalline pick had been sharp enough to cut through gneiss, but the shell was even harder. Shadowblight penetrated, making a deep puncture and weakening the area around the wound. Curse of Brittle Bones had some effect, and let both his pick and his spikeystick penetrate further.
He opted for a two-handed attack with one tool in each hand. Slowly, he began to dig a hole in the incredibly tough shell. He was glad for the time he'd spent mining with the girls. The competition with them had pushed him hard, and he'd gained more strength and a higher mining level, both of which were coming in handy now. Shadowblight didn't seem to care for the job. Like it had done at odd times in the past, the weapon moaned and vibrated. The weapon had had enough of playing pickaxe and unleashed its Rune of Sundering
. Milo was surprised as shattered pieces of shell pelted him in the face, and he would have slid off the snail if he hadn't caught himself with his tail. "Warn me next time, will you?" He had the oddest feeling that the stick was laughing at him.Inspecting the hole, he had to admit that the weapon had made the correct move. He'd gained a full inch and revealed the next layer of shell. Calculating the rate he was excavating, he'd be able to just keep ahead of the regeneration. He put his pick in his belt, using only Shadowblight and Sundering with each hit. With all his recent increases to his stats, he could keep up the Sundering effect much longer, breaking chunks of the shell as he went deeper. He was in a race with the snail's regeneration, and as he stripped away layer after layer of shell, he realized he might lose. A larger hole meant more surface area and more new growth, and he hadn't expected that the shell was over a foot thick! Gargantua could be hurt by cannon fire, but not killed. The Myconians had truly created a monster, and a worse one was on the way. To keep his hole open, he kept having to clear the same area over and over.
Finally, Shadowblight punched through the last layer of shell, revealing the cavity inside. Like smaller snails, it was filled with the lungs, heart, and other vital organs. He had an opening, but there was no possibility of making it large enough for him to do more than cast one or two spells before it closed up. He discarded other ideas and went with Plan B. This plan involved the combination of two tools: A large ball of cataclysmite and his new staff.
He remembered when Boom-Boom had shaken his head sadly when he'd seen Milo putting twenty pounds of cataclysmite into his Smugglers Stash. "You'll want more than that on hand. Always imagine the ways that more explosives make your life better, then estimate how much you'll need and multiply by ten. Twenty if you're married. Then add a little more. Trust me, young one, you'll see." Milo wished now that he'd followed his friend's advice. Calculating how much energy it took to kill a creature that he knew little about was impossible, but he could make a good guess, and it felt like he was going to come up short if he relied upon the explosives he had on hand or tried to kill it with spells. It was simply a matter of having enough destructive energy bouncing around inside and doing damage. But if he used everything he had? How much energy could he put into that shell? There was only one way to find out.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.Into the shrinking hole went the cataclysmite. With the butt of his Sage's staff, he pushed it deep down into the snail between two throbbing organs that might be lungs. The staff almost became stuck as he pulled it out. Three quick whacks with Shadowblight kept a narrow hole open, just long enough as he reversed the staff and put the crystal tip into the hole, leaving only a foot of the staff outside the shell. Within half a minute, the staff was embedded in the shell and not moving. Next came the hard part.
Like all Wizards' staves, spells could be cast through them, the effect coming from the tip of the staff. This helped the Wizard to aim his spell, and was a little safer than tossing fireballs with your hands. Milo put one hand on the butt of his staff and used his tail and free hand to rapidly build a complex Runic Array, with the center of the Array just past the crystal tip of his staff. Then he poured twelve thousand mana points into his array, nearly blacking out from low mana, and created a small ball of condensed plasma that fell onto the snail, burning its way toward the cataclysmite, and vaporizing anything nearby. Milo helped it out by using the staff to cast the biggest Lightning Bolt
that the staff could handle with what was left of the stored mana. As one would expect of a magical artifact owned by the Benevolent Sage, it used up every point of mana left in the staff, over three thousand points.No one saw the blazing bolt of electricity that burned into the snail, striking the plasma ball and then the explosives. Their eyes probably would have melted if they had. The explosion from the cataclysmite blew through the snail as the plasma ball released all of its heat, vaporizing internal organs close by and turning the rest into superheated soup. The energy from plasma, lightning, and explosives had nowhere to go, held inside the shell of the snail. Pressure built up to critical in under a second, and the sections of the shell exploded in all directions, their structure being designed to resist outside forces, not a storm of expanding energy on the inside. A huge cloud of noxious, superheated steam destroyed nearby mulch beds.
Milo flew through the air toward the ceiling. It wasn't his first time doing so, and he'd been ready for this to happen. He twisted to land feet first, absorbing most of the shock, and then scrambled for a handhold. He endured the steam, secure in his armor. With one claw and one foot anchored to the ceiling, he looked down at a horrible sight. A crater had been blown in the soft mulch over fifty feet across and half as deep. Parts of the snail were scattered everywhere, but most of it was in the center of the crater, and as bits of meat and tendons rained down, they pooled in the lowest part and began merging together with what was left of the snail's body.
Gargantua wasn't quite dead and was trying to reform whatever horrid creature it was evolving into. A large head reared up out of the center, partially armored but with meat, bone, and brains exposed. Two eyestalks waved around in the air, looking for something to vent its anger and pain on, even as the agony it was in made the creature scream. It pivoted towards the damaged bear being defended by three mages and a bee girl, keeping the damaged Ursula safe from the last two intact Battle Snails. Gargantua burped a mass of stinking green snot towards the bear. It missed Ursula and splashed behind one of the Battle Snails. The unfortunate victim of friendly fire thrashed as the vomit dissolved and killed it in seconds. Large tentacles and a long tail formed as the mutating snail partially lifted itself up from the still-boiling snail muck. Milo could see that the creature was dying. It was falling apart as fast as it was rebuilding. But not fast enough!
The neck swelled as Gargantua adjusted its aim for another shot at Ursula and her defenders. Milo experienced a fraction of a second of confusion as three parts of his brain came up with plans for Runic Formations, exploding skulls, or dropping a stalactite on the snail. The fourth part decided that those were sub-optimal plans with no chance of success, while its plan had at least a 32% chance of victory, and an 86% chance of distracting Gargantua. Higher, if personal survival was taken off the table.
Milo launched himself from the ceiling, holding Shadowblight in both hands. The weapon roared in delight as they flew through the short distance, gravity doing its part to enhance the blow. Milo struck at the area between chunks of thick armor, meant to protect the snail's head. Shadowblight carved deep into the exposed brain of the snail. Gargantua might have survived even a blow that tore through its brain, but the Rune of Sundering was another thing altogether. Brains exploded in every direction, and what was left of the creature slumped into the pit, taking Milo with it. Flesh would have burned and dissolved immediately, but his bone armor resisted the caustic slime as he sank deeper.
Just before his head went under, he saw Amarella flying down toward him. Grabbing his hand, her wings buzzed furiously as she tried to pull him out. Her bees had hold of her, adding their wing-power to hers. Milo came free from the sucking morass, and they landed twenty feet beyond it. Freezing rain clouds, courtesy of the Mages from Sigil, quickly washed away the acidic residue. He looked over toward Ursula, noticing that her hatch was open.
"Thanks for the save. That would have been painful. How is the bear?"
Amarella looked worried, then shrugged. "Still a brain in a jar, but I topped off her Bear Juice. She's settling down but is upset that she can't move at all. She doesn't like being broken."
Milo understood completely. "No one likes that. But we can rebuild her. Make her better than before."
"Better?"
"Better... Stronger... Faster. We can make a mechanical bear like the world has never seen before. Ursula will be that bear."