Third one?

  Ardenidi grabbed him by the back of his neck. “Where?!”

  “Are you blind?” Sip grumbled, swatting her hand away. He pointed in the distance. “There!”

  Sip hesitated.

  There were only rolling hills of sand.

  “Huh. I could’ve sworn I saw something.”

  “I don’t see anything,” Ardenidi hissed, crossing her arms to hide her shaking hands. “Don’t give us a scare like that.”

  I squinted. “Sip? What specifically did you see?”

  “Like a flash of black.” He started walking, sliding down the hill with a puff of dirt. “I swear there was something. Like a lake, almost, but faster?”

  Ardenidi glanced at me. “Should we take this seriously?”

  “Maybe. Yes.” I let out a sigh. “If there’s another nightmare prowling around, we’re going to have trouble.”

  Not that it made much sense. We’d seen the other two monsters rise from the Nightmare’s carcass, so—

  My eyes started widening, frantically skimming over the smoldering wreckage. “Arenidi? Where’s the monster’s body?”

  The Beastmuncher had snapped back to its senses, rocketing into the sky.

  Catania started running. “GUYS!”

  Where was the body? Could another monster have come out of it?

  “Hang on!” I shouted, launching myself down with green orbs, grabbing Catania by the arm. We spun, crashing into a web moments before the Beastmuncher smashed headfirst into the city.

  Toya strained, sling-shotting the three of us back to safety, tumbling down a dune.

  The Aviator tore from its net, staggering as little blue projections danced around the monster’s face. The bird ate a couple, moments before Riot detonated the inside of the monster’s mouth.

  10x{Nightmare Aviator (-10k) 199.9m Hp}

  Down by the bunkers, Soise threw her hands in the air, letting out a whoop.

  “She’s gotten stronger,” I stated.

  That much growth in such a short period of time was honestly impressive, though the monsters everywhere made getting stats pretty easy.

  “You sure took your sweet time!” Catania shouted upward, ripping the webs tangled around her. “What were you doing? You should be fighting!”

  “Grind had it covered,” Toya huffed. “And I was busy with the bird thing. Besides, you had another Guard potion.”

  “That was my last one!”

  Some of her armor had been twisted during her attack, so she grabbed it by the sides, wrenching it back into shape with her bare hands. “Look, I’m physically stronger than anyone else on our team, but just one hit from either of those things would still kill me!”

  She tore off her helmet, revealing the scowl beneath it. “Speaking of which, is it me or are these monsters stupid?”

  The Beastmuncher twitched, still buried up to its shoulders in the dirt.

  I’m pretty sure he fell asleep.

  “Now that you mention it, yes,” Toya muttered. “It’s been bothering me. Judging by the kind of missions Silvers get, each of them could level a city, yet these monsters with no less than ten times their power just…bumble around. They bumble around with very strong, one-shotting attacks, but still…”

  “Haven’t you three learned anything from your studies? It’s a ratio thing.”

  The three of us all looked at the little kid with white hair and red eyes standing beside us.

  Toya flinched, which got Sharon to chuckle.

  “As I told Grind, those nightmares are fat and stupid. Strength is nerfed in the second area, making an equal ration steadily worse the higher those stats are. Kizota is a good example, being big, strong, and slow.”

  “Well—hang on,” Toya snapped. “The silvers have millions of health and strength too!”

  “A master is a silver who spends additional time in the second area, honing their application of power. They know how to use their stats.”

  The Beastmuncher slammed its hands together, vaporizing Soise’s mana constructs in a blast of searing wind.

  Soise tapped her earpiece. “Guys? We’ve got company.”

  Sharon started picking at his teeth. “Anyway, these things have a smattering of internal organs, so break those and the monsters are going to stay pretty weak, though I didn’t come out into the middle of the desert to tell you that.”

  Toya glowered. “Thank you for wasting our time.”

  Sharon crackled. “You don’t have a lot of friends do you? Anyway, I was talking about him. The other monster. He’s a big one.”

  “Another—” Toya and Catania jolted.

  I let out a groan. “Where?”

  My eyes snapped to a flicker of movement in the piles of mostly sludge—

  Piles?

  The city had been flattened.

  Tunnels, mounds, and hills covered the wasteland, pushing up the mounds of scrap metal and busted concrete.

  “It’s in the ground!” I shouted, grabbing my earpiece. “Soise!”

  Everything shook violently.

  Then a chitin drill peeked out of the surface, drawn by floating blue projections. The rest of the worm pulled out, dragging its hefty head along.

  It was enormous.

  Thicker than a city block. Longer than several acres.

  {Medium-Young-Type Excavator Nightmare}

  [400m Hp 90mStr]

  Once the constructs exploded, the monster sank, disappearing like molasses down the drain.

  “Three heads, three monsters spawned on death,” Toya muttered. “The stats are also split three ways, if you include whatever health over a billion the nightmare had.”

  Catania tightened her fists. “You know we don’t have enough potions for this. We barely had enough for two. We’ve lost this before the fight even started.”

  “What choice do we have?” I asked. “Either we win or we die. The number of monsters doesn’t really change that.”

  “Well I don’t want to die!” Catania shouted. She grabbed another potion from her inventory, popping the cap. “There’s still a lot I gotta do..”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  She grimaced for a moment, choking the contents down.

  [Low Osmium]

  {Catania : Axis : Applied}

  [Axis : 1:00:00]

  [Direction of momentum is a controllable aspect.]

  “Still. You’re right.” She grit her teeth, crushing the bottle with an icy snap. “If we want to live then our only option is to kill all three.”

  Soise’s projections were starting to be ignored by the monsters.

  They weren’t anywhere as intelligent as a person, but then again, there was a certain something behind their eyes.

  The bird and the hulking monster were waiting patiently.

  Soise’s voice buzzed in my ear. “MOVE!”

  I grabbed the others, already having orbs beneath our feet.

  And then we were gone, launching into the sky as the ground exploded beneath us, torn apart by the Excavator’s chitin drill.

  It shot after us, climbing higher into the air until its gravity caught up, tugging it to the ground.

  Millions of wings unfurled from the worm’s carapace and it started to fly.

  Toya blinked. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “This one’s mine!” Catania screamed, pushing off the rest of us. “Don’t either of you dare die!”

  I formed another orb, whipping our trajectory to the side. “Toya, think you could handle the bird?”

  He let out a groan. “Absolutely not. But I can make it really, really annoying.”

  “Ardenidi and I can give you a hand!” Soise shouted. “Grind, there’s a monster in its second form, so we’re going to need that thing dead as soon as possible!”

  I threw Toya like a baseball, startling the Nightmare Aviator.

  My momentum halted and, for a moment, I hung perfectly weightless in the air. Then gravity tugged me down, hissing past the cloud layers, into the jaw of the jumping Beastmuncher.

  Those jaws slammed shut.

  One hundred and twelve fields opened up inside the creature’s mouth, blowing its head off in a cloud of vaporized mana. The air around us turned to a sphere of plasma, shooting scalding heat and light in every direction, scoring the earth.

  Soise shouted over the earpiece. “Grind! Do you have any idea how bright your attacks get?! Warn us next time!”

  {Beastmuncher : (-485.5m) 114.5m}

  [Beastmuncher has been executed by damage source [True]]

  He staggered briefly, growing denser.

  {Beastmuncher : (+1b) 1b Hp (+100k) 100k Str}

  The sudden shift in weight knocked the monster off his feet, crashing into the ground.

  I guzzled another potion.

  {Radiant Echo}

  [Increases all transcendent damage by [10] for every full bar of Mana spent.]

  [Current Mult : 38.3]

  “Brace!” I shouted.

  My next attack was hotter and brighter.

  {Beastmuncher : (657.1m) 342.9m}

  [Beastmuncher has been executed by damage source [True]]

  I chugged another potion, preparing myself.

  And then, nothing.

  [Beastmuncher does not meet the requirements for [ReaperHarvest V]]

  Fifty or so Orbs splashed against my feet, busting apart as they collided against one another.

  [(+100k) 960k (Max) Mana]

  [(300k) 1m Hp]

  [(+50k) 89k Str]

  Wait.

  That was it?

  As long as I had mana potions I could deal a thousand times the damage I was supposed to.

  A one-shotting attack with stupid versatility and homing projectiles.

  Perhaps it was scummy to use such blatantly game-breaking methods to defeat a monster.

  I just wanted to win.

  I had to.

  I would.

  ‘Real fights’ were overrated.

  The ooze clustered tighter, absorbing the remaining orbs.

  I summoned the fields, firing on the blob before it had even begun to fight back.

  {Sentinel Nightmare (-306.6m) -195.6m Hp}

  {DuneBeast Nightmare (-306.6m) -195.6mHp}

  {Husk Nightmare (-306.6m) -195.6 Hm }

  [None of Fallen enemies meet the requirements for [Reaper Harvest]]

  [All enemies have entered Second form.]

  The monster had split into three again.

  I shouted to the earpiece, unleashing another blast.

  [None of Fallen enemies meet the requirements for [Reaper Harvest]]

  [All enemies have entered Third form.]

  Again.

  On death, it had spawned three more monsters.

  Those three monsters were only a third as strong, growing stronger during their alternate forms. But after a certain point, the monsters got so weak I could separate my blasts to be more efficient.

  After they separated, I would get some stats, which were nice. I toned down the intensity of each attack.

  [(+20k) 1m (Max) Mana]

  [(+30k) 1m Hp]

  [(+50k) 210k Str]

  ~

  [Progression to Silver: (+10000 Monster-type Exp) 34.1%]

  Though the ground melted with every blast, the force from my attacks pushed the liquid rock up, over the edge of the crater, creating a surface of superheated but dry earth, which even my measly durability could handle.

  And then, there was just one left.

  I had absorbed all the monster’s stats, leaving nothing behind to turn into a new nightmare.

  It was a little blob no larger than a snail.

  I crushed it under my heel, wiping the stain on the smoldering crater several acres wide, born from our ‘combat.’

  “Soise?” I called. “I killed one.”

  Her voice crackled, struggling through the mana-dense air.

  Then—

  Soise screamed in my ear. “Grind! They’re heading toward you!”

  I looked up, spotting the bird in a dive.

  Beneath me, the ground was rolling and quaking, draining magma as cracks split the rock.

  At some point, my party had forced both monsters into their second form. Impressive.

  A hundred and twelve fields opened beside me, spitting out my complex purple with grey orbs.

  Unfortunately, they didn’t reach the monsters in time.

  Because there was simply nothing to reach.

  The worm burst from the sand some distance away, cracking against the bird, each monster splattering apart like water balloons, staining the ground.

  It became so quiet that, in the midst of crackling fire, I could hear my teammates laughing and shouting in joy.

  Soise’s voice cut through my mind. “Grind? Grind what happened? Did you do that?”

  “No.” I flung the orbs into the puddle with a harmless fizzle.

  There wasn’t a trace of enemy mana. “This could be bad.”

  The puddle shook, first like a lake, then as an ocean during a hurricane, frothing pale white,

  The sludge from the Beastmuncher turned to ash, along with the splattering remains of the monster. Everything died, all at once.

  The ash cleared, revealing a thin white concrete door, with chipped paint and a rusty handle.

  It swung slightly open, revealing a dark corridor, dark despite the harsh light of fire around us.

  {NOTICE}

  [Devourer Core has been expelled.]

  [Failure to kill Devourer in [1:00:00] will enable devourer to and select a new host.]

  “Grind?” Soise called. “I need you to stay here, okay? Don’t do anything reckless.”

  I pressed my earpiece. “When it says ‘select a new target,’ what does that mean?”

  There was a brief moment of silence.

  “There was a parasite in that nightmare. Since we killed the host, it seems harmless for at least the next hour. We should have time to evacuate and set up some kind of defenses.”

  Cores have shells known as dungeons. Why would a parasite need a shell? Because there was a time when it couldn’t take control of others. That time was only a single hour. But for that hour, this monster would be vulnerable.

  We couldn’t afford to let it go now.

  I tapped my earpiece. “You…you guys can do that, okay?”

  “Grind?” Soise’s voice crackled. “Grind? Did you say something?”

  I closed the pale door behind me, triggering a soft click as locks latched into place.

  // {Notice} //

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