273 A hardy guardian (2)

Think, think, think!

And there it is, an idea! It's a dumb idea but I don't have the time to be picky. I use the ground spike spell on myself but change the target from my abdomen to my head.

As the spell activates and I can already hear the chain sickles whistling through the air, I duck.

The ground spikes emerge around me and meet above my head. They now for a sort of rocky tent around me. Not a second after the ground spikes are up, the shinobi's attack makes contact with them and a loud cracking sound informs me that my rock tent has been breached.

However, I discover to my great surprise that the taunt skill is much less effective when my direct line of sight with the guardian is broken. Before, I couldn't redirect my attention away from her. I had to look directly at her at all times.

Now, I can't look at her and all I feel is a very compelling urge to look into the direction where the guardian should be. The urge is compelling, yes, but far from absolute. I tear my gaze away from that feeling and look to the place where the rock tent has been broken into.

Meeting my gaze, the shinobi recoils in shock and her raised weapons halt in midair. She must be pretty surprised that I can look at her while under the influence of her companion's taunt skill. I try to abuse her moment of shock to fire a rock needle at her.

She's pretty close to me but still manages to push herself off the rock tent. Her body soars into the air like a bird taking flight. My rock needle only manages to lightly graze her inner thigh as it passes between her legs.

I immediately touch the spikes on the opposite side of the breach in the rock tent and pour my mana into them. Since the ground spikes rose diagonally towards the center, those opposite the breach point directly towards the air space the shinobi just jumped into.

I treat the spikes like large rock needles and launch them upwards and at the airborne shinobi. Sure, she still has her air step but I sent like five spikes at her. None of them target her specifically so the only way to dodge would be to get out of the entire targeted area.

And she doesn't even manage to do that. The shinobi seems so surprised at parts of the rock tent being launched in her general direction that she doesn't use her air step in time.

Unfortunately, since the spikes were only targeting the general area she was in and she tried to evade by contorting her body, she isn't directly impaled by a spike. Instead, three deep gashes are left on her, two on her legs and one on her shoulder. My combat medic assessment tells me that her arm can hardly move due to her seriously injured shoulder. Her legs however are still fully functional with only a small loss in explosiveness and jumping power.

I'd love to attack again, but by launching half my rock tent at her, my line of sight to the guardian has been restored and I am once again forced to look away from the shinobi and at the now seething guardian.

The armor clad woman is desperately using her arms to push herself up from her shields that has already sunk into the sand. She's trying to keep herself above the sand for as long as possible to keep weigh me down with her taunt skill.

Well, since she's dead set on being a hindrance, she needs to go!

I know almost all my attacks will be useless against her, so I focus on just getting her submerged. I run towards the sandpit, jump and land on her back. My landing is somewhat wobbly but from the groaning below me, my weight is achieving its purpose. When I jumped, the guardian's wrists were already beginning to sink below the sand. Now, it's slowly creeping up her forearms.

I've used up about half my mana by firing all those spells and keeping the sand moving to submerge the guardian. Thanks to the infusion I get from being a monster in the dungeon, I guess I can use some more to make this guardian sink faster.

While I am distracted with the amount of mana I can freely use, the guardian below me suddenly turns her body. I jump by reflex to avoid being thrown off but that wasn't her plan. By turning her body and landing on her back, her hands are temporarily freed from the sand. I land on her stomach, still processing what just happened.

With her now free hands, the guardian shoves my legs away and when I'm falling, she grabs me and pulls me into a hug. At first, I think she's trying to crush me, but her arms only hold me tightly without applying further pressure.

"Mary! I've got this one, don't mind me, find the caster!"

Caster? Oh, they must think there is a second monster present and hiding. The reason she isn't trying to crush me must be that she hopes the second monster will stop trying to submerge her to save me.

While her conclusion is quite far off, I am indeed hesitant to keep submerging her in the sand. But really, I don't need to. With the shinobi otherwise occupied, and the guardian facing me with no distance between us, I can actually get around that armor.

I pretend to writhe in her grip and sneakily draw one of my daggers. Freeing both my arms proves challenging but since she focuses on hugging me and thinks herself invulnerable, I manage.

Then, I quickly use my free hand to open the visor of her helmet and stab at her eyes with the other hand. The guardian doesn't react at all until both her eyes are lost. She screams in pain and I plunge down the bloodied dagger, hitting the back of her throat and doing some serious damage.