Chapter 28: Boss fight part 3

Things kicked off with Karter placing a rock wall between his team and the queen ant as it charged towards them first. Karter hadn't given himself enough time to back up, so when the queen ant reached his makeshift barrier, it broke through easily and kicked the defensive fighter. He tried placing his shield to mitigate less damage, but the kick sent him flying straight to the ceiling, ricocheting off it and onto the ground at last.

Alicia ran up to her teammate, taking out a clear glass bottle with a red liquid and dumping the contents into his mouth. Esteban, along with Vulcan and Lucius, stepped up to cover for the downed tank. Lucius got behind the queen's large leg and swung his sword to cut it off. To his surprise and the others', the sword bounced off the thick exoskeleton and only left a minor scratch. Enraged, the queen did a pivot turn and slammed one of its many fists down where he was. The young man barely had time to dodge, but the debris from the heavy attack had struck him a little bit.

Before the queen could pull its hand out of the hole it created, rock sediment began to grow around it, making her stuck for a moment. Esteban used its back to jump on the queen's head as he smashed downward on the base of its skull. The move wasn't enough to crack its hard armor but enough to have the queen collapse on the ground from the heavy blow.

Vulcan, seeing an opportunity, ran up to its face. Taking out his sword, he began to stab the queen's eyes, trying to make it go blind for a better advantage in the battle.

The ant queen cried out in pain from its many wounds. It was done being attacked by these pests. Rolling over, she tried crushing the one pest off her back. Finally freeing her hand from the earth. As for the one trying to blind her, she grabbed a hold of its legs and flung it against the ground like it had done with her child earlier. When she felt he had gone limp, she tossed the pest into her maw and swallowed the thing whole.

Everyone watched as Vulcan had been eaten alive by the queen ant. They had just lost one of their peak silver stage fighters that easily? A bit of despair crept into their hearts, everyone except Jess as well as the sentries. Enraged at the loss of a teammate, Lucius's body began to glow a golden color. Its blinding light getting the attention of the queen.

"I will avenge my comrade, you worthless insect, DIE!!!" The light that wrapped around his body began to transfer to his sword as the weapon began to glow a golden white and extend 10 meters in size. His attack speed doubled as the slash of the sword cut through its previous hard exoskeleton with ease. Three of its limbs were cut off as well as a deep gash onto its chest and legs.

Feeling its life slowly leaving its body, the ant queen let out one more of its powerful screech attacks. It was successful, but midway, it was hit with a pillar of rock stabbing into its maw. Making it shut up for good. Suddenly, the walls around the queen's chamber began to shake, and large holes appeared everywhere with ants pouring in droves. The sentries, along with Jess, hadn't been doing much in the fight with the queen, so they formed a protective formation around the other fighters. Alicia and Karter joined after the tank was up and moving again.

Esteban and Lucius were pressured to finish the queen before they were overwhelmed by the ant cavalry, but Lucius's earlier attack had drained him. His face was pale as he lifted his sword with difficulty and exchanged a slow nod with Esteban.

Before the two men began their next attack, the queen ant vomited literal pools of green blood out of its maw along with chunks of what seemed like its own internal organs. It began to scratch at its chest desperately as it began to light up with a red hue. A blast of energy cracked through its shell from the inside, beginning from its lower chest and cutting the queen ant to the top of its head. After it had been split in half, the body of the queen fell on its back, its organs and open flesh releasing steam of horrible charred flesh. Seeing some movement within the body of the queen the men prepared, only for a metal fist to resurface. Having a good idea who that was, Esteban jumped on top of the fist and clutched it. Vulcan, covered in viscous green goo, rose from the body. He gave fake coughs and even heaved a small sigh as if he had almost died from being consumed.

"Vulcan, you crazy bastard, we thought we almost lost you. Listen, I know you may be tired, but we got ant reinforcements to deal with, you good?" asked Esteban. As he shook his hand from the nasty goo that Vulcan was covered in.

"Yeah, let's finish this," said Vulcan in a bit of an exhausted tone.

With their main fighters back in the fight and Vulcan coming back from what seemed like an absolute death, it gave the team a morale boost. Even though the ants had gotten enraged at the death of their queen, they began to lose some of their earlier coordination, making them far easier to pick off. Once the last ant was taken down, they finally flopped over exhausted. As to seem more believable, Vulcan laid against a rock to take a breather. Moments later, a large group of adventurers came into the chamber from the many new tunnels. Their expressions and reactions as they looked at the intense battle left them stunned for a moment before the three guild staff leaders ran over to Esteban. They had explained that while they were keeping the ants from reaching the queen's chamber, the things desperately burrowed tunnels to go around their forces. They noticed too late when the fighting got a lot easier, and one of the teams found the entrances. Realizing what had happened, they followed the tunnels and arrived before Esteban's group got swarmed.

It was a win for the humans today. They began to collect body parts off the many ants and even pulled out several glowing monster cores from the ants' bodies. Vulcan had already been mass-hoarding a lot of these cores, but he hadn't found any use for them.

He knew the humans used them for making stronger weapons and armors and to power some of their contraptions. But to Vulcan, they had only been a way to exchange for more money. He didn't have any real magi-crafting skills, so he couldn't work with the materials. Not even the Automaton factory considered them as materials to be used, so for now, he would gather them for future use.

Healers arrived to heal the team, but when they were told that Vulcan's team had some injured, they were surprised to find out that the sentry was back on its feet. In the chaos of the ant reinforcements, it used its nano stim, and Vulcan played it off that they used a healing potion like Alicia had done with Karter when he was questioned about the sentry's quick recovery. Everyone left it at that, as they were plenty tired and wanted to get out of the underground chamber.

Once they reached the surface, it was also as devastated as the inside of the underground queen's chamber. Town guards were harvesting the corpses like the adventurers, but they weren't without any casualties. On a corner of the medic bay, were bodies with white tarps placed over them. They were stained with blood, and some guards could be seen mourning the loss of their friends. They were, after all, a lot weaker than the adventurers, but with their strategies and help from Belmont, they cut the losses to only less than 50. Several parts of the mines looked unrecognizable as large parts of the mine had collapsed on themselves. Belmont called over Esteban for a quick talk, and so Endless Sun and Dark Sentry were let go. The guild master told them to get some rest and to show up at the adventurers guild early tomorrow for their much-deserved payment and for further talks.

Lucius, along with his teammates, decided to stick around and help out with some of the clean-up efforts. They said their farewells and went on their way. During the large battle, he along with his team had received damage to their makeshift armor, so they needed to have that dealt with. They couldn't get one of the many town smithies to repair it, unless they wished their identities exposed. On their way back into town from the mines, they checked their surroundings and veered off the road away from the town.

In a nearby cliff, they uncovered the hover bikes. They rode to a considerable isolated area, far from any main road or adventurer hunting grounds. Hiding over a hill, another group of sentries, along with Vulcan's other black gold rank 3 sentry, were stationed. They were wearing a new set of armor, even bringing along spare clothes and armor for Jess. They led her to a nearby stream where she was able to wash off most of the grime from the battle before changing into the new set of clothes. When she finally came back, they were ready to leave, and the old team changed places with the new team. It didn't matter for her, as it was still Vulcan.

Before they set out, all of the sentries, including the two rank 3 sentries, snapped their attention towards a particular distance in the horizon and stood unmoving. Disturbed by the sudden action from the golems, Jess asked him what was wrong. One of Vulcan's sentries slowly turned its head to her.

"The sentry convoy heading towards the Rodden Kingdom's Capital is being attacked."