Too Stubborn to Die

Book 3: Chapter 53

Aaron could have crossed the plains in basically no time. But progress was slowed, waiting for all members of the supporting parties. And that wasn’t something he wanted to rush, not after the losses from their previous engagement.

There was no time to waste, what with the stakes being what they were. But that didn’t mean he wanted people dying over his reckless behavior.

And so, the group moved with a measured pace, maintaining formation. While everyone’s roles mightn’t have been as glorious as each other’s, they were all important in their own right. After all, the drones could be rather dangerous when springing their little traps, and against strong opponents like the royal guards, it wouldn’t take much to swing the pendulum in the wrong direction.

There was no room for error; this was it. Do or die. And Aaron had spent a little more time and effort preparing this time. Which led to him looking spectacularly bulky, drawing a few raised brows from his companions.

That was a sacrifice he was willing to suffer, and every extra pound he was carrying was extra energy to be thrown against the royal guards. This was especially important as he really wanted to avoid using his true core, or at least using its full power. After all, they were running on a very thin deadline now, with the dungeon coming up. And using the core’s true power meant that he would likely need to recover again before taking on the queen.

That said, his true core wasn’t useless. Even restrained as it was, his true core’s power could generate more than his old faux core.

Surprisingly, though, when they found the swarm, it seemed more scattered than he remembered. Not only that, but it hadn’t made anywhere near as much progress across the plains as last time.

This doesn’t feel like the same swarm at all… It’s weaker. There’s no doubt about it.

As his eyes swept across the swarm, he realized that it hadn’t recovered. It was still huge, but it lacked the density that it once had, and it was moving with a trepidation that had been absent previously.

He felt a wave of relief seeing this. He had assumed that it couldn’t be endless, and if they kept bashing against it, soon its numbers would dwindle. But it sure hadn’t felt like it before.

However, this was proof that even the ant horde had its limits.

It was also a good sign for the upcoming battle, giving him more confidence in their chances. The smaller and weaker the swarm was, the less energy he would waste on it, and the more he could focus on their main goal.

Leading the charge with Talia and Zero not far behind, Aaron slammed into the horde, sending ants flying with each strike.

Despite the fact that it was quicker, and the hive clearly needed more time to recover from the slaughter they had dealt it, it hadn’t been doing nothing. And after a few seconds of combat, he noticed new Skills being used by the drones he hadn’t seen previously.

Aaron shuddered to think that they might be using Skills stolen from fallen members of Dober. But after a quick moment of disgust, it only enraged him further, and resulted in an even more brutal crushing of ant drones.

With the warriors of Dober pouring in from all sides, and the weakened swarm unable to mount a proper defense, it wasn’t long before it was falling back, and the jungle came back into sight.

This was it. The accumulation of their efforts. If they failed now, it likely meant missing out on the dungeon and providing his enemies with the opportunity to loot valuable spoils.

“Now’s our chance, Talia. It’s now or never!”

Talia nodded, swiping away at the horde not far from him. But their support units from Dober weren’t about to leave all the glory to Aaron and Talia, either. And with their targets in sight, a rain of arrows and spectacular bursts of Skill energy flashed across the dwindling ant horde as the squad’s main vanguard crashed into it, sweeping up an entire flank of the ant swarm in seconds as a devastating cascade of attacks broke them apart.

What had been a steady advance quickly turned into a rout and a slaughter. And at its head, Aaron noticed familiar faces. It was the group he had hunted the beaver with, and they shot him a glance as they cut down the enemy, with Carlos saluting, and Yuki waving.

“It seems the cavalry has arrived!”

A feverish pitch filled the battle, and he realized he wasn’t the only one seeking a good bit of revenge for their fallen. And it only drove him harder, and with a final push, he cut down the remaining lines of ants alongside Zero and Talia.

He had been a little worried after the previous fight. The lives of others hang in the balance on his conscience. But this wasn’t like last time. They’d done far more damage far quicker, and the swarm wasn’t in the same shape as it had once been.

Ultimately, though, there was no way of guaranteeing that they wouldn’t suffer more losses. Not without Aaron and the others staying to completely destroy it.

His brow bent, and he continued onto their target. They had done well, and if there were losses regardless, that was just something they would have to accept. After all, every moment they spent held up here against the swarm was another moment the royal guards had to prepare.

And there was always the risk that the hive had more cards up its sleeve.

“Let’s move! Remember the plan!”

However, a slight knot formed in his chest again. No amount of confidence could entirely wash away the sight of the two royal guards looking entirely unbothered by the swarm getting crushed before them.

Time to wipe that smug indifference off their faces!

Hearing him, Talia nodded and skirted around to the right-hand side of Lord Rhino, keeping a wide berth.

The mission was rather simple. Aaron would charge on ahead, while Talia would coax Lord Rhino into attacking her, and kite him away from the centipede.

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And the moment she got within range, she started yelling at the royal guard.

“Hey, you! Yeah, you! The fat one!” Talia taunted, and the two ants looked at Aaron.

Wait, they don’t think she’s yelling at me, do they?

“Leather skin! The one with the ugly horn!”

Lord Rhino finally turned to her as she flew into the sky, waving him on. Luckily, there was no blood mist yet, and Thousand Grand stood staring at Aaron.

“Ignore her!” The centipede growled, its furious red glare shooting daggers at Aaron.

“Come on then! Or are you the other one’s little bitch? Stuck here taking orders? Or maybe you’re just chicken? Just a big, leathery, horned coward? Huh?”

“What are you yapping about, weakling?” Lord Rhino hissed. “I’M NOT SO EASILY ANGERED!”

“Calm down! You’re giving her just what she wants!”

“Haha, really? Mr. Coward is scared of a little girl? A human girl no less. I mean, it’s fair enough. You did get the absolute shit beaten out of you last time. I can’t really blame you for being scared.”

“WHAT?! If anybody got the shit beaten out of them, it was you! How dare you speak of me like that, weak human!?”

“Nah uh. You got beat up bad. It was kinda embarrassing, to be honest. You reckon the queen would be okay making a number five rank? You know, four seems a little high for you, don’t you think?”

“You’ll pay for that!”

“She’s baiting you, you fool. Ignore her. Mother gave us strict instructions!”

“Shut up!” Lord Rhino barked at the centipede. “I’ll show you, I’ll show you all! I’m no number four. When I’m done, nobody will question the might of Lord Rhino again! I DON’T EVEN NEED A NUMBER!”

“A lot of tough talk for a guy too scared to fight a girl.”

And with that, Lord Rhino was fuming, steam basically whistling out of his ears, and shot up into the sky without a second thought. His heavy feet blasted him off the ground with a reverberating shockwave that trembled through the entire jungle.

“Get back here, you fool!”

Thousand Grand moved to join its sibling, clearly reading their plan, but Aaron flashed between them.

“Yeah, nah. You’re not going to be doing that. Your fight is right here with me,” he cracked his knuckles.

Thousand Grand looked over his shoulder, watching as Talia baited Lord Rhino further and further away, with Zero flashing around in the background. It was obvious an ambush was about to take place, and there wasn’t a thing it could do about it.

“What an idiot! Bah, it doesn’t matter. I can deal with you alone, and once I’m done, I’ll rip apart your little friends one by one.”

“Yeah, yeah. Quit yapping.”

Without a further word, the sky turned into a thick blood mist, and Thousand Grand twirled up into it.

It was fairly obvious that this was the more intelligent of the two royal guards, and Aaron had a feeling it would be more careful about engaging him where it lacked an advantage, now that its companion had lost itself to rage and run off.

But that wasn’t going to stop him from beating the living hell out of it.

But the situation quickly turned south. It became painfully obvious that he couldn’t just wait on the ground for the centipede to decide to attack, as the edges of the centipede ant’s many limbs turned into blood edges, and were shot down upon him like a rain of sanguine blades.

Through fate reading, his own agility, and skill at dodging, Aaron was able to avoid them. It would take more than simple, predictable attacks to kill him.

But he already knew that there was more to the barrage than just a simple attempt to overwhelm him. The blades were ripping through the earth, breaking into rubble, and setting it up for something else.

And he could see what the centipede was planning seconds before it happened. It was shepherding him into rubbled ground where footing was poor as it prepared itself for an ultimate attack. But the ultimate attack was the least of his worries.

It was quite the conundrum. If he attacked now, he would be subjugating himself to the blood mist, and if he kept dodging, he would be granting the centipede free rein in deciding how and when it wanted to attack.

And while Aaron was supremely skilled, far more so than even the centipede. There was a big difference between levels. Each level at D-grade meant more than one at E-grade, and so an additional 53 levels at D-grade meant considerably more than the level gaps he had overcome in the past. The difference between a mid D-grade was considerably more than even a low D-grade and a high E-grade.

And each grade above that only intensified the power gap between levels.

Which meant one thing. If he were going to win this, he couldn’t allow a beast with such a massive power gap to dictate the terms of the fight. And that meant that he couldn’t just keep dodging.

He needed to push Thousand Grand into uncomfortable territory. The only problem was, how would he do that without debuffing himself by fighting in the blood mist?

There were no cheap tricks that were going to get the centipede down to the ground.

As he searched for ideas, the only option Aaron had was to at least fight back. To give Thousand Grand something to think about, even if it had no chance of turning the battle.

So, he did the only thing he could without flying up to meet it in the mist. He fired spectral fists from the ground. Unfortunately, while the attacks had been rather devastating against the ant swarms, the rapid-fire ranged fists did little against Thousand Grand.

In fact, while the royal guard had started to dodge the fists at first, it thus interrupted its own attack. It quickly gave up doing so. Instead, it just decided to tank the shots.

The sight of it was humbling. Against its powerful mid D-grade body and hard carapace shell, the relatively weak attacks practically did nothing.

This wasn’t going to plan, and soon he would eat powerful attacks, and dying without a plan was just a waste of energy reserves.

It was obvious something else needed to be done. And now.

Damn this bastard. I don’t have a choice, do I?

Aaron shook his head, annoyed at the situation he found himself in. But there was no other option. Charging up into the blood mist was giving his opponent exactly what it wanted. He was going to have to use his ace and accept the drawbacks.

Sighing, he drew on his true core and funneled the power into his [ Spectral Bullet Punch ].

It was one thing to shrug off the base power of the attack, and another thing entirely to shrug off several quick bursts of C-grade energy.

And he had accidentally found himself in a very opportunistic situation, as Thousand Grand had well and truly decided Aaron’s attacks couldn’t hurt it.

He hadn’t planned for this. He hadn’t intended to lull his opponent into overconfidently tanking his attacks. In truth, he just wanted to draw the fight to the ground somehow. And if anything, he had wanted to avoid what he was about to do.

But that was exactly how it worked out, and the series of blindingly fast attacks that he shot toward the centipede hit far, far harder than his opponent had expected.

It happened in a flash. Too many attacks to count. Because he knew, if he had to do this, he might as well make it count, and so the blinding rapid-fire series of spectral fists powered by his C-grade core all ripped straight into the undefended chest of the centipede in seconds.

The blast ripped through the royal guard, knocking it straight out of the sky and sending it skidding across the ground.

And Aaron immediately took chase, shooting across the ground with repetitive uses of [ Spectral Rush ].

This was his chance. As long as he could prevent Thousand Grand from getting back into the sky, he could win this. And he bore down on his enemy with a manic grin.

It hadn’t gone exactly to plan, but this was just what he needed. And if he did it quickly enough, he might still have time to recover and beat the queen before the dungeon.

“This is going to hurt!”