The Forsaken Hero
Chapter 309: Battling the Centipede

Chapter 309: Battling the Centipede

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Korra approached the monstrous centipede in a blaze of glory, streaking across the sky like a meteoric raindrop. The centipede reared its head back, sensing the approaching threat, but Fable lunged forward and crashed into one of its titanic segments. The insect’s blade-like legs slashed and stabbed at the wolf, but the Blade Ward protected him long enough for him to clamp his jaws around a leg and pull it back down.

The path cleared, Korra arrived before the centipede’s head leading with her fist. With a low shout, she struck between its eyes. The chaotic dissonance of her art flooded into the creature’s carapace, rapidly consuming the delicate network of defensive mana. It met the responsive pulse from the centipede’s soul in a pitched battle, cutting through it like a knife through butter.

When the raging storm finally died, I let out a pent-up breath and my tail flicked in excitement. The entire section of protective mana had gone dark, creating a gaping hole in the centipede’s defenses. The edges of the blank space were torn and ragged, wavering inward as the monster’s ability continually pressed upon it, but the art’s lingering mana kept it at bay. The hole would undoubtedly close once more, but Korra had no intention of letting this opportunity slip away.

"Armor Break!" Korra cried, striking the centipede’s carapace with another art.

A stream of water accompanied her fist, slamming into the centipede’s head with the force of a mountain. The impact of the attack released a small shockwave, followed closely by a resounding crack, putting my teeth on edge. In the blink of an eye, she struck several more times, each one having the same effect.

The centipede screeched in pain, legs and mandibles clacking, and violently flailed its massive body about. Korra kicked off its head, attempting to flee, but was caught by one of the mandibles. The Blade Ward flared gold around her, absorbing the worst of the blow, but the impact sent her tumbling through the air. In a streak of silver, Fable shot beneath her just in time, catching her in the thick fur on his back.

The two crashed down beside me, shattering the earth with their landing. Breathing heavily, Korra slid off the wolf’s back, an excited, if tired, grin on her face.

"Well? How’d I do?"

I focused on the thrashing insect, eyes tracing the black cracks spiderwebbed across its carapace. "It worked, both the ability and its shell," I confirmed, a sliver of unease creeping into my tone. "But it won’t last forever...a few minutes, maybe less."

Korra let out an exaggerated sigh, a playful pout tugging at her lips. "Honestly, is a little praise too much to ask? I almost got skewered out there."

My gaze flickered to her, and for a moment, the image of her dangling from those terrible mandibles flashed in my mind. A shudder ran down my spine, and I looked away, unable to hold her gaze. "I-I’m sorry...you were amazing."

Her smile was back in a flash, and she ran over and gave me a quick hug. My tail stiffened at the unexpected embrace, but I relaxed as her familiar scent enveloped me.

"Thanks," she murmured. Then, giving me a playful wink, she turned to face the thrashing insect, "Now, what do you say we kill this bug?"

I gripped my staff tightly in both hands. "Korra, I, um...don’t have much mana left. Maybe a fifth-circle spell."

"What?" Her eyes widened, a flash of surprise and disappointment crossing her face before she masked it. "But the fight’s just got started!"

I nodded, my heart a heavy stone in my chest, and I braced myself for her frustration. Instead, she exhaled long and slow, then fixed her gaze on the centipede, which had grown ominously still. The discordant field left its defenses cripples, but its beady red eyes smoldered with unbridled malevolence.

"Even if this bastard left us alone, we don’t have time to wait for your magic to regenerate." Her voice was quiet, matter-of-fact. "Now that it knows we can hurt it, I doubt I’ll get another clean shot like that. Stay back, do what you can. We’ll handle the rest, right Fable?"

My wolf threw back his head and howled in agreement, and a moment later, they were gone. Instinctively, my hand shot toward them, but all I caught was the fierce winds of their departure, which slipped through my grasping fingers and lifted my hair out to stream behind me in crimson waves. After a moment, my hand fell limply to my side, lost and forlorn. I could only gaze after them, eyes blurred with unshed tears, and watch as they confronted a threat that could kill them in a single instant.

Across the canyon, the battle raged fiercely. Korra and Fable took turns playing cat and mouse with the centipede. One bated its attention and kept it distracted while the other maneuvered into a position to assault the weak point on the monster’s head. Again, I was struck by the sheer size of the battle. The centipede rampaged around the canyon, leveling the cliffs, ridges, and rocky monoliths for miles around. Each series of exchanges was a deadly dance, the streaks of blue and silver only a hairsbreadth ahead of the scything legs and vitriolic mandibles.

I clasped my hands together against my chest, tail twitching anxiously with every clash. I was powerless to help, cut off from the battle by my weakness and the mana required to reach such distant combatants. All I could do was cast a few lower-circle buff spells, supporting their already formidable speed, attack power, and luck.

Even so, I felt useless. it stung to be left behind, unable to help those whom I cared for so deeply. Again I cursed the Sun God’s blight, wishing more than ever before I could stand and fight beside them. The Final Star had begun to reclaim some of my lost mana, and my own regeneration was nothing to scoff at. I was far from helpless, even less than Korra assumed, but what did it matter?

After several tense seconds, Fable succeeded in landing the first major blow. His claws came down on the shattered carapace atop its head, ripping and tearing bloody hunks of flesh and exoskeleton free in a short burst of savagery. The centipede screeched and groaned, its legs clacking, as it snaked through a large canyon, seeking to dislodge him with the stony walls. Fable yelped as they smashed through a towering monolith, toppling it and bringing a thousand tons of stone and earth down upon their heads.

A billowing cloud of dust rose from the impact, obscuring all but the back half of the centipede. After a moment, dozens of legs dug into the earth, pulling the monster free of the haze. Though blood streamed from deep gouges between its eyes, there was no sign of the wolf who had crowned its head.

My chest tightened in fear, and I bit my lip, fighting the urge to scream his name. It was weakened, but Fable’s life force pulsed through our bond and the nexus, ensuring he was alive. Instead, my heart jumped for Korra, who had fought hard to chase after them. Her small stature made her agile and nimble, nearly impossible to hit, but over the absurd distances covered by monsters many times her size, she could only play catch up.

With Fable buried beneath a cloud of dust and rubble, the centipede turned its full attention to her. It skittered across the canyons in a wide circle, slowly winding around her with its immense length. Before she could react, it had trapped her in a prison of spindly legs and armored segments. Its head reared into the air, mandibles spreading wide, before lunging downward like a serpent.

Korra vanished beneath the bulk of the monster, hidden completely from my view. The centipede’s body coiled and writhed, drawing ever tighter together, legs stabbing everywhere at once. The terrain splintered like porcelain beneath the onslaught, looking more like a bed of crushed grass than a rugged swathe of stone.

Despite the onslaught, Korra’s soul remained clear and bright, drawing on the strength of the spells I’d cast in the Nexus. Beyond that, my only comfort was the occasional dragon-shaped bursts of water that erupted chinks in the centipede’s surround like geysers. They hung in the air for a moment before losing the mana that maintained them and disintegrating into drops of glittering water high in the air. I could envision her fighting desperately within that prison, narrowly avoiding stabbing legs and dodging the attempts of the insect to crush her beneath its weight.

All at once, a blur of silver burst free of the settling dust, scattering it to the winds. Fable, streaming blood from a multitude of deep wounds, leaped atop the pile of carapace, sinking his teeth into the centipede’s neck. Screeching in pain, the monster reared back and slammed its head against the cliff face, crushing Fable against the unforgiving stone. The wolf whimpered and released his hold, falling to the ground, barely managing to land on shaky feet. Though successful in dislodging the threat, the centipede hadn’t fared much better, having taken the impact directly at the weak point in its armor.

Before it could reorient itself, a small flash of blue escaped the binding walls of its legs, soaring high into the sky. Korra hung in the air a moment, a surge of mana gathering around her fist before she descended on the staggered monster. She was small, a mere mote of light before such a colossal creature, but the centipede shied away from her, beady eyes rolling in terror.

With an exhausted cry, she landed directly between its eyes. A massive water dragon, easily a dozen feet high, coalesced behind her, striking in time with her fist, which shattered what little remained of its carapace. The dragon drove through the exposed crevasse, sinking deep into the centipede’s head. A shiver traveled down the entire length of the insect, and for a single heartbeat, everything was still.

And then the centipede exploded.