Chapter 24: War pigs

Daniel, Marie, Lucy, Kristoff and Victor arrived at the desert area. They had just arrived at the entrance. All they saw was death. Corpses everywhere of the sand sharks just littering the ground soaking the sand in their blood. They smelled them before they got close to them, the putrid smell of death.

Eyes bulging out and each rotten corpse was riddled with holes... some were just pieces that looked like something burst from within, if you looked close enough... you could see the bite marks littering the corpses. " Oh god" Lucy spoke then made the sign of the cross over herself. " What happened here?" she stared wide eyed at the absolute field of carnage.

"A massacre from the looks of it. This wasn't a fight, it was a completely one sided massacre." Daniel said, surveying the grisly landscape.

"Hard not to be honestly, with how bad they were outnumbered and outsmarted. This has to be our traveling friend. This has some intelligence behind it. Kristoff said. " How do you figure that? Sounded like you spouted a bunch of nonsense after looking all mysterious like at the ground." Marie said laughing at Kristoff assuming he was talking out of his ass. A long sigh erupted from Kristoff as Victor chuckled. " God Marie, you can't possibly be this dense? Look around at the corpses, notice anything about them?" Marie paused and looked at the corpses with a disgusted expression. " They stink..." She narrowed her eyes. " They were corralled.. Oh, they were herded and hunted.. They all died close together." Marie said while looking at Kristoff apologetically.

Kristoff shrugged it off " What we are hunting is smart, and not only that... but efficient. " As they were talking and processing this the group felt the ground start to rumble and it became increasingly hard to stand. " What is happening!?" Lucy yelled to Daniel " Scavengers" he said as he steadied his stance and then yelled "Get in position! Ready yourselves! We have company!"

Kristoff leaped back and readied his bow, the eyes on it seemed to gleam with a murderous intent. Lucy ran to the front near Daniel and pulled her gleaming sword of light from its scabbard and all of the sounds and feelings were drowned out as she said a quick prayer.

Victor got between Kristoff and Lucy and readied his staff, its tentacles waving and grasping at the air in anticipation.

Finally Marie cackled and yelled " Finally! I was getting bored! This girl needs stimulation!" She ran next to victor and readied her wand. It was sparking and then suddenly erupted into flames and rose above her head, it began spewing fire all around Marie, coating Marie in fire.

Just then the ground burst forth and a large shape came from the ground. The shadow covered them and then kept growing, and growing. Until the shadow covered not only the group of hunters but the surrounding landscape. It was gargantuan.

" A Death Worm... great" Daniel said, narrowing his eyes. The said Death worm was staring at them with a greedy look. They can tell because Death worms have human faces, and hair. To trick humans when they are smaller. Under its sandy black hair its eyes looked over its newly found morsels. It had come for the carcasses but beggars being choosers and all that.

Just then its face split into eight pieces all the way up to the hairline and opened up to reveal a cavernous maw filled with razor sharp teeth and tendrils that shot out from its throat. Each piece that had split apart was lined with thousands of sandpaper like teeth for ripping and holding onto prey, as its maw opened it sprayed digestive acid all over the area and it sizzled into the sand as it ate through everything it touched.

The Death Worm then regarded the prey before it and seemed to start drooling even more acid...

It roared and then dove towards the party.

Lucy ran to the front and her whole body glowed and her eyes turned into a more brilliant blue as she placed herself in a stance in front of her team. " Greater Blessing! Lord hear my prayers! Protect us on our journey and smite this monster"

The Death worm hit Lucy's shields with a massive BOOM! It was sent flying back with a blast of blinding light. It roared as it fell backwards. Daniel moved forward to punish it, but instead of falling backwards it bent its body backwards and used the momentum to dive deep below the ground.

"Watch it! It's going to come up underneath us!" Daniel yelled.

Just then Marie got a crazed smile. "Hey Victor? How strong are they shields that you can create around someone? Is it enough to say... survive being stabbed thousands of times?" Victor smiled a prideful smile " Of course! Nothing can pierce them! Wait... what are you going to do?"

Marie smiled and then started to send explosive blasts onto the ground " Get ready!" Victor's eyes widened " What?! Oh no! Shit!" Victor hastily conjured a shield around Marie as a giant maw appeared and swallowed Marie whole. The Worm seemed to have an air of smugness around it... which immediately vanished as flames belched out of the beast's mouth and started burning through its skin.

" Damnit! Quickly, while the beast is down!" Kristoff yelled as he readied his bow and he pulled back on the arrow and the wings on the bow as if the bird was about to take flight. It then launched an arrow that streamed through the air with a rope attached to it. It pierced the worm's burning flesh and then Kristoff anchored it into the ground. He kept loosing arrows upon the monster tying it down. Then Victor summoned a maelstrom of ice that peppered the worm shredding its already burning skin into pieces until the ice started piercing it all the way through.

Daniel and Lucy rushed ahead together and Lucy's shield bashed the monster onto the ground and stabbed into it with her blade of light and it began burning with a holy light from the inside out.

Daniel jumped at the last second and leapt way above the worm and then came rocketing down with a massive concussive force that could be heard for miles around that caved in its head. It weakly roared as they could hear crackling coming from inside the worm? Marie burst from the creature in an explosion of fire sending chunks of meat and the creatures dying scream into the wind.

"Oh man that was a rush!" Marie said, dusting herself off. "Also stupid! You put yourself at risk." Victor said with a snide remark. " Hey..... it worked didn't it?" Marie said, shrugging. " It worked this time, but next time your crazy plans may not work and it will put the rest of the team in danger. We would have brought it down eventually." Daniel spoke up resting his ax upon on his shoulder.

" Marie you need to be careful, we can't afford to lose you" Lucy said resting her hand on her shoulder. Whatever retort Marie had was snuffed out by the group's concern.

"We should send a message to have a team come collect the carcass. Death worms are rare creatures to see, especially that big. More than likely it grew this big feeding on the leavings of the thing we are hunting."

With that Viktor conjured a bird made of water and it took off like a shot back towards the church.