Chapter 208 - Trial of Persistence

MG404: [System Message | Trial of Persistence | The prince lies in wait. | Clear Conditions: Break.]

The trial cavern had not seen peace in months ever since Kyle began to mine it for arcia crystals, ADCON squads continuously entering and escaping before the waves got too numerous and overwhelming.

Yet this time was different – more than five hundred ADCON soldiers rappelled down the cavern's opening, along with mineral ants carrying heavy defensive barriers to serve as cover. Two Raktor warmachines were lowered down to the cavern’s floor as well, armed to the teeth with turrets designed to penetrate the rock spider’s armor.

As soon as the soldiers landed, the squads split up into their various designated spots, immediately targeting the nearest tunnel holes and collapsing them with explosives, preventing rock spiders from attacking them from any flanks.

The moment the rock spiders poked their heads on, the turrets on the warmachines tore them to shreds, the pellets crashing and twisting through their rocky exterior carapace, maiming them or outright killing them.

Point defense systems whirred into life, green arcia bolts pelting the scene indefinitely, repelling the incoming spikes launched toward the soldier.

Kyle slammed the tip of his Spear of Defiance right through a rock spider, targeting its core directly and piercing it. Yet, to his surprise, there was no EXP to be gained whatsoever, unlike before, where he could continuously reset.

Is it the number of non-System users I’ve brought? With no obvious reward for killing the rock spiders, Kyle instead took a backseat, letting his soldiers do most of the fighting. At the same time, he relaxed, leaning against a barrier while popping a tasty pill into his mouth via the automatic feeding slot.

The pressurized air tube was perfect, albeit slightly too strong, as the pill slammed against the top of his mouth, nearly choking him. Thankfully, I added an adjustment dial for the pressure…

As Kyle fiddled with the settings of the exosuit, his carefree attitude was clearly spotted by Mari, who was doing most of the heavy lifting near the front on his orders. If it weren’t for the tinted visor of the helmet, Mari’s displeasure would be visible from a mile away.

“Mari, focus!” A familiar voice yelled out behind, prompting Mari to immediately smack a rock spider with her arcia-infused glove, slamming its head right into the ground before its legs could jab her.

“Thanks, Ollie.” Mari grunted, focusing her mind on the battle ahead of her. As she squinted to the cavern's edge, the wave of rock spiders seemed like it was never-ending, only building even more and more.

A soldier yelled as a spike bypassed the point defense systems and slammed into his exosuit armor. Still, the strength of the standardized armor proved sturdy enough to reduce most of the impact, though the metal was still dented heavily, restricting his movement.

With the exosuit being of such high quality, the soldiers felt even more confident, each of them ready and willing to take on thousands of rock spiders. Pellets sang through the air along with the blaring fire of warmachine turrets shredding the hordes en masse.

Before long, the second wave melded right into the first wave, and the larger rock defenders began to appear, towering over their smaller allies and marching toward the soldiers who were attempting to push their advantage forward.

More and more defensive barriers continued to be lowered in by the mineral ants, allowing the soldiers to slowly inch forward with proper cover from spike rock spiders that attempted to snipe them. Scouts riding on the back of the mineral ants targeted the spike rock spiders with impunity, blasting them to pieces with their rifles as they swooped in and out of the air, dodging returning spikes with installed point defense systems.

The battle raged for more than an hour, the soldiers started to get exhausted and rotated in shifts, taking breaks intermittently in the safety of the circle that was now formed, though it was not in the center of the cavern.

Unlike the tired soldiers, Mari was instead starting to get bored, looking for a more intense challenge. The tiny rock spiders were proving far too easy to kill, and her desire to reassert herself after the loss of the monster was starting to make her restless.

As her eyes scanned the battlefield, she soon spotted an area where the ADCON soldiers were surprisingly being pushed back - seven rock defenders that were surprisingly managed to provide cover from the warmachine turrets and even explosives.

“Stay behind, I’m going to take down that group of rock defenders,” Mari told Ollie, rushing off before Ollie could offer any form of protest.

She weaved through the waves of rock spiders, her punches and kicks blasting them into pieces, coursing through the field like a raging river, carving a path in a flurry of jabs, white streaks of arcia trailing behind her in a dazzling show.

Channeling the arcia into her legs, the muscles on her thighs and calves tensed up, brimming with strength before she catapulted up into the air, soaring with acrobatic elegance and twirling. As she flipped, the entire chaotic battlefield could be seen beneath her, spikes and pellets whizzing past her limbs as the air rushed alongside her cheeks.

With precision, Mari landed right on top of a rock defender’s shell, immediately charging her fist up and punching straight through. The summoned arcia energy shot through the shell, spreading through the rock defender like a diffusing lightning strike, seeking the enemy’s core.

The rock defender staggered but was very much still alive. Mari slid down to the joint of the legs, placing her palm and forcing arcia energy through once more, causing the rock defender to collapse as it lost its footing, slamming into the dusty, rocky ground and crushing its allied rock spiders under its humongous weight.

Capitalizing on the opportunity, the nearby ADCON soldiers immediately attacked, their rifles focused fire on the remaining joints to completely immobilize it. With one taken down, Mari couldn’t stop her face from grinning, knowing she had taken it down as fast as she could.

Just as she turned to look to Kyle for affirmation, a charged arcia beam slammed right into her body, knocking her off center and tumbling onto the floor. Her head rang, but it was no time to take a rest as the surrounding rock spiders lunged at her in an instant like a rabid horde.

Trying to suppress the burning pain on her ribs from the head-on impact, she unleashed a sequence of jabs, trained and honed over the months of training with Kyle at the rock spiders, but her frantic emotions caused her to miss a few, some of the rock spiders on the verge of breaking through her exosuit armor.

Before an unseen rock spider could scratch through, a spearhead slammed through its core, before it was flung unceremoniously towards its ally by another ADCON soldier, saving Mari from being potentially injured once more.

Immediately, two more ADCON soldiers guarded her, allowing her to retreat back to the defensive line to rest. Mari was internally seething at her apparent failure despite taking down one of the rock defenders, chiding herself for not being more aware of her surroundings.

“Hey, you alright?” The ADCON soldier tapped Mari’s helmet. “Nod if you’re good.”

Mari waved him off dismissively, but the ADCON soldier persisted, trying to check her exosuit for any damages. Her eyes glanced towards Kyle, who was still waiting in the rear, who now had his helmet completely off, his unimpressed expression clearly written on his face as he talked with Nox next to him.

“I’m going to prove I’m not weak!” Mari muttered to herself, immediately standing back up and briskly walking towards the cluster of rock defenders, gaining momentum before breaking into a sprint, and rushing past the defensive line once more.

This time, her eyes were wide open, and her senses heightened as she focused more on the highest threats around, ensuring that all her openings were covered. With the help of her arcia vision, she could sense a rock defender charging up yet another arcia beam towards her, the tendrils of energy surging towards a prominent crystal embedded on its ‘face.’

With a dodge akin to precognition, Mari strained her mind as she spun and ducked, avoiding the arcia beams with minimal movements, no longer being caught off guard by the ranged attacks of the rock spiders. Continuing her sprint towards the nearest rock defender, she leaped out of the way as its front legs stabbed down right at her, sliding right underneath its belly before slamming her palms, arcing arcia energy, lancing forward, and staggering it from within.

As soon as the rock defender fell, Mari sprinted out from beneath, lunging out for its leg and ripping it off with her infused strength, using the hardened tip of the leg as a weapon and smashing the nearby rock spiders apart before charging right at the second rock defender in a headlong assault.

The second defender fired an arcia beam right at Mari, prompting her to use the leg to defend, which began to glow red hot from the continuous fire it endured. Making use of the melting hot tip, she leaped again into the air, before slamming the tip of the leg right into its core, instantly killing it on the spot.

With a fury that built up over time, she started to dominate the battlefield, with the ADCON soldiers following in her wake and cleaning up the massacre of rock spiders and immobilized rock defenders, successfully relieving the pressure on the ADCON soldiers on that side.

The cluster of rock defenders now taken apart by Mari, the warmachine turrets could then again sweep across, buying even more time for the soldiers who were now weary from the battle that had been raging for more than two hours.

Just as the battle seemed to enter a lull, a sudden rumbling could be heard from beneath the ground, the shaking violent. The soldiers felt as though they were in an earthquake, but none of them were flustered, having experienced this countless times throughout their continuous mining of arcia crystals.

“Kyle, it’s here!” Mari yelled into her communications, her vision filled with a large arcia signature that seemed to be swimming right beneath them.

“Plan W – Move!” Kyle roared, kicking into action. The soldiers all began to split up, avoiding the center of the cavern while leaving their defensive barriers behind, fighting their way toward the edge of the cavern instead.

Before long, the same rock claws that began to jut out of the ground pierced the ceiling again, forming a pillar before slowly receding back. This time, instead of letting the rock claw recede backward, Kyle rushed forward with the Spear of Defiance, activating its implosion effect right at its base. The explosion caused the bottom of the rock claw to instantly blow out in the opposite direction, a torrent of rocks and flesh erupting in a brilliant blast of smoke and dust.

A throat-rending roar echoed through the cavern, as a humongous hole began to open right in the center of the cavern again, revealing a sizeable worm-like maw with rows upon rows of jagged teeth that lunged upwards. Its diminutive eyes that dotted the length of its hard rock-like skin scanned the cavern, locking onto Kyle.

This better be the damn boss monster. Penchant for Violence!

Kyle was hardly the same as when he first attempted the dungeon – he was now leagues stronger. With just ten leaps, he closed the gap between himself and the worm, easily avoiding the worm’s maw attack as the worm lunged at him, digging into the ground once more.

The worm was extended, its body now arcing through the dungeon high above him. Yet Kyle was not intimidated, instead calling on his soldiers to throw everything they had at the worm. Explosives, Detonation Spears, and pellets rained hell onto the worm. At the same time, Kyle once more used his Spear of Defiance’s remaining arcia crystal to blow the worm up from within, causing massive internal damage.

Death-curdling screams seemed to erupt from within the worm’s body, but the worm still thrashed about with surprising strength, threatening to collapse the entire cavern as it shuddered, loose rocks and pebbles. Kyle retrieved his warhammer, slamming as hard as he could into the now burning and exposed worm skin, trying to kill the worm before it did anymore damage

The pulverizing hit of the warhammer resounded through the body, the aftershocks causing the worm’s innards to bulge and rupture internally with every impact. Kyle kept up the pace, as though he was pounding a piece of meat for grilling, albeit the amount of meat was nearly the size of the cavern.

Each time the worm tried to shake him off, Kyle only changed positions, hitting every single exposed part. The soldiers did not relent either, everyone pitching in to kill the worm through every possible angle.

Rock claws continued to pierce out of the ground, the worm’s attempt to stop the soldiers. Some soldiers were flung into the air, before crashing into the ground, heavily wounded. Luckily for them, the exosuit proved to be sturdy and reduced the casualty rate far more than it would have been originally.

Even as the worm fight was going on, the other soldiers still had to deal with rock spiders and rock defenders continuously swarming them as well.

This is taking too long to kill! Kyle didn’t know how many more hits he had to deliver to the worm, his arms now numb from delivering nearly a few hundred hits with his warhammer and spear, wondering if the worm was even killable in this method. He tried to use his own arcia vision, something he had been training with Mari but did not have a natural inclination to do.

“Mari, where’s the core of the worm?”

[I can’t see! The entire body is brimming with arcia energy!]

“Focus, where is the highest concentration?”

Mari tried to focus, while the battle raged all around her, the sounds nearly deafening her. The entire worm looked like a light show in her arcia vision, unable to tell where precisely the core was, if any. But as she stared longer, her eyes seemed to adjust to the intense brightness the worm emitted, soon showing about seven spots across the worm’s body that served as the core points.

[There! At its head! That’s the first core!] Mari hollered into the communications channel, Kyle immediately kicking into action and leaping across the cavern, the arches of the worm body now seemingly the only thing holding up the shaking cavern as the ceiling began to cave in.

Finally, at the edge of his eye, he caught a glimpse, a glimpse of something that he had only seen once before in his entire time on this planet. Advanced Arcia Crystal! It was right there, prominently displayed as the worm’s eyes, just that it required closer inspection to see that it was not organic but rather a crystal.

Kyle instantly rushed, using everything in his skill set to rip out the crystal without breaking it. He clambered onto the worm's surface, hooking his metal gloved fingers deep as he crawled all the way to the front of the worm, digging his hand into the arcia crystal and ripping it out with a strong pull.

The worm immediately began to lose steam, one of its energy cores lost, weakening intensely. With the worm's movement now sluggish, it was a cinch for Kyle to avoid the slow rock claws and attack the remaining six cores in one fell swoop.

With the cores removed, the worm grounded to a halt, the cavern ceiling now resting on its arched body like the skeleton of a dragon, each arch serving as a support of sorts. The ground of the cavern was now pockmarked and uneven, with numerous rock claws jutting out at random locations in a spike formation.

Kyle’s heart hammered from the strenuous activity, realizing that the original layout of the forward operating base was going to be radically different now.

MG404: [System Message | Killed: [Gigantic Rock Worm] | +100000 EXP]

MG404: [ Level Up: 42 - 46 | All Stats Increased | Bonus Points Granted ]

MG404: [Trial Information | Trial of Persistence (Completed) | The prince has been slain | Conditions cleared.]