It took him far too long to realize it was even doing anything at all, instead assuming the movement he was seeing was nothing more than an extension of the strange, ever-present warping it was going through, but he was wrong. Tendrils of it were stretching out in all directions and in one movement they smashed down, hitting against the earth and sky, bringing a sharp sound of cracking with it that shook Ben to his core and let him alone see the consequences that the seemingly random act had.
More than just its effect of shaking the world around them, knocking down trees in all directions and throwing up plumes of dirt into the sky, each strike resulted in a series of cracks lingering in space itself. Each only existing for a few seconds at most before healing under the universe’s own power but all undeniably there, their existence worrying enough to pull his mind from the unnatural monster before him.
God, I really really don’t want to know what will happen if it keeps doing that.
Seeing it only made the countdown to demise start ticking faster in his head as he directed Thera to get closer, the entire time trying to think about what they could possibly do. The thing was floating in the sky and had to be kilometers across, even if they managed to kill it, bringing it down would likely be devastating to the area around them.
Not that there’s actually a choice in the matter here. Maybe if we manage to get lucky then it will be as light as styrofoam and won’t have an effect similar to dropping a giant meteor on the planet. Which would mean there’d only be a giant uninhabited region that nobody could go to because going anywhere near this huge thing might still break their mind even with it dead. Great. Not to mention what would happen if it undergoes some form of decay and starts polluting the world with whatever it’s made of. Okay, note to self, assuming I live, find a way to get off this planet. For now, back to the task at hand. Thera’s going to be burning a lot of mana for this.
Knowing they were going to need plenty of rainbow mana crystal, Ben broke the enchantment on the soul crystal he’d already made while at the same time getting Thera to cast her new spell, watching as ghosts escaped it, only to be forced into peace meer seconds later, freeing up the resource for his own use as he used his magic to break it down into a few hundred small bullets, each waiting to be enchanted upon as he drove up the speed of his minds to their newest maximum, turning each into a modified version of a soul crystal while adding only a few noticeable differences.
The first was strengthening them to the extreme. He’d made bullets and fully intended to shoot them, meaning the force of firing couldn’t be allowed to destroy them or the enchantments along the way or upon impact. If they couldn’t stay whole then they had no chance.
The second change was more minor in comparison. He’d always built the crystals to light up briefly after absorbing a soul, he just changed that to be a permanent affair, making it so that if any of them really managed to absorb the beast's soul, they should be able to tell.
Finally was the last additional function, one that didn’t come from any of his rings but instead from within his own status. Long ago, he’d practiced and experimented to figure out how to use his bind skill in enchanting and it was time for him to put it to use. Tying its effect into the light enchantment so that the tracking aspects would only activate for the crystal that actually succeeded in its job and materializing a compass to tie the effect to, giving him a way to track it after.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
All that left was the manner in which he’d shoot them as he looked at how far away the beast still was, along with the force it was likely going to take to hit it.
Well, the good news is that as long as I can make it fire far enough there’s basically no chance I miss. The bad news is to get as much force as I think I’m going to need, every shot I make is probably going to hurt. Oh well, one day I’ll get the pain resistance of my dreams.
There was also the question of what would happen to any bullets that ended up in regions of the creature that seemed to be fading into and out of new dimensions of space. If they’d be brought with it then that would be fine, but what if they instead fell out, being left behind in normal space and as a result dropped to the ground?
Just one more of an infinite number of worries, I just won’t use them all at once. Now enough time for stressing, gotta actually do this.
He stole some of Thera’s mana to materialize a gun and apply enchantments to give it more power than he’d ever attempted before and got Thera to finally bring them to a stop in the closest range he felt they could attack from without too much added risk to themselves, feeling his adrenaline spike from having the monster hovering so close to directly over top of them. He could keep putting things off, trying to find the perfect plan to make things actually work for them, but nothing would be as significant as taking that first shot.
So with him acting as the eyes of them both, Thera beside him held forth her staff and ripped giant chunks of stone from the ground below before shooting them out, the blowback from the force of fire kicking up wind around them as Ben watched it strike, not hitting the point he was hoping for but still making contact with the creature itself, with no effect other than seeming to get its attention.
All at once, a tendril that hadn’t existed in normal space only seconds before appeared from nowhere and smacked down towards them as Ben made Thera move, the two going far faster than he’d ever want to when she was driving blind as he took his own turn to shoot, feeling the recoil of his overpowered gun kicking back at his arms as bullet blasted off. Each one was too small to see with any certainty if they’d actually hit, all he could do was trust that the small spasming he was seeing every now and then from the beast was a good sign and hope for the best as Thera fired off another attack, bringing even more tendrils with it as it tried to fight back.
Wait, are we actually doing this? Are we hurting it?
It was a hopeful thought, but one quickly lost to the reality of the situation. Sure, it was swatting at them, but more and more that seemed less like an attack than it did the equivalent of a person knocking away at a fly. At most, it was an annoyance to be dealt with as it continued to lazily drift through the sky like a cloud, uncaring of the destruction it caused along the way.
Which means nothing’s even going to start till I can figure out how to actually hurt it.
That left the question of how. It seemed strong and sturdy and at that size, there was only so much they could be done. While he thought that Thera’s attacks were doing some sort of damage, in the grand scheme of it all it looked like nothing against the scope of the rest of its body. Completely negligible in the face of the scale it existed on. It was like trying to chip away at a mountain.
But even mountains can be worn away. He told himself. Figure out how to do that and then we can worry about just how bad doing anything that could get its attention could be after.
For the time being, he was going to experiment.