Morok had actually cast a fireball right through the open wound and into the innards of the creature, using its own hard shell to trap the powerful explosion inside the beast.
“I like my crab well cooked and now you know where to hit. Time to earn your pay, boys!” He said with a feral smile before moving onto the next opponent.
Lith’s blade, one of the failed prototypes, went for the eyes instead. He wanted to check why Morok had chosen such a dangerous strategy when there was a much easier target.
The answer came in the form of the eyestalks actually being articulated peduncles capable of folding back into the shell in case of danger.
‘Plan B it is.’ Lith thought, putting the blade back inside his pocket dimension. Fusion magic empowered his body as Solus turned into her glove form, fully enveloped by the silver protection of the Orichalcum.
His fist struck the Tek’s abdomen like a jackhammer, lifting the creature off the ground by a few centimeters as cracks spread over its armor. The waves of pain the hit caused made the Tek’s eyes reflexively pop out, allowing Lith to grab them with his free hand and discharge lightning directly into them.
The electricity traveled straight into the brain of the Tek, killing it on the spot. A second creature, incredibly nimble despite its size, circled around its dead companion and released a hail of razor-sharp ice crystals.
‘Water fusion is a game two can play.’ Lith thought.
Now that he knew the two elements that Teks could use, he could predict their basic strategy. Lith sidestepped the attack, letting it harmlessly strike the barrier as a palm strike injected a volley of Plague Arrows inside the enemy.
Seeing that Lith had killed two enemies in the same time he had needed to kill one, Morok clicked his tongue.
“Fine. Let’s get serious. Pick Hammer.” Morok said, sheathing and unsheathing his blades in the blink of an eye. The weapons shapeshifted into one-handed battle hammers that closely resembled Solus’s Forgemastering hammer, having both a hammerhead and a pick.
Morok struck with the pick side of the weapon at the carapace of the closest Tek, but to no avail. His strength wasn’t enough to pierce its rock hard shell. At least not until a second later, when the second hammer hit the head of the first one as if it was a nail.
The pick crushed both the exoskeleton and the heart of the creature, instantly killing it. The soldiers and the Professors were so shocked by the display of raw power in front of their eyes that they stared dumbly at the scene, incapable of moving a muscle.
The Teks started to coordinate their moves, attacking in waves and dying in waves. Morok would crush any pincer that came too close for comfort between his hammers, whereas Lith used water fusion to be as nimble as the Teks and air fusion to be faster than them.
Every one of his palm strikes would send one of the creatures flying against its comrades, spreading his deadly touch to all of them since Plague Arrow’s ethereal nature would pierce through any kind of matter until all of its energy was exhausted.
“Good gods.” Jerth said. She was the second most powerful mage in her unit after Phloria.
“I thought they were just tall, dark, and rudesome, but those two are not human. Are all Rangers like that, Captain?”
“No. There is a reason why unlike the academies the army ranks Monster cadets above Special cadets.” Phloria replied snapping out of her reverie.
“Which one did you date?”
“The less rude one. Now stop flapping your gums and drink your potions, they need backup!” She was right. The first group was already dead, but a much larger one was flooding out of all the tunnels.
“Are we really going to stand here like morons?” Professor Syndra from the Lightning Griffon yelled.
“Captain, buy me five seconds and I’ll close the curtains on this madness.”
Phloria nodded and started yelling orders.
“Stall them with hit and run tactics, there’s weakness in numbers. Darkness magic may be slow, but there’s too many of them. If you shoot at the middle, you are bound to hit some of them.”
“What can I do?” Quylla asked.
“Stay behind me and get ready to treat the wounded.”
There were too many Teks, forcing the two Rangers to stand back to back, on the defensive to avoid being surrounded.
“Nice glove.” Morok said.
“Nice weapons. Also, duck.” Lith replied while clapping his hands and emitting a silvery sound due to the Orichalcum covering them.
“What duck? Oh shit!” Morok kneeled just in time as Lith’s hands released a ring of darkness energy that expanded outwards, mowing through the horde around them.
The spell wasn’t strong enough to kill so many Teks, but it temporarily weakened them. It allowed the two Rangers to escape the encirclement and find shelter inside the array.
Phloria’s soldiers were shooting darkness magic non stop, killing dozens of enemies at once while she unleashed her tier five Mage Knight spell, Boom Box. All the spells in a Mage Knight’s grimoire could be cast with only one hand, making their casting speed exceptionally fast.
Their greatest downside was their very short range, but against so many enemies amassed in the small space between the tunnels and the barrier, there was no such problem.
Five square-shaped ice shields with a side length of 7 meters (23 feet) surrounded the Teks from all directions but below, trapping them. Before the creatures could smash through the ice, a sphere of wind exploded in the middle of the spell.
The thunderclap was followed by a shockwave that rebounded on the ice walls after being amplified by a resonance effect. The shockwaves grew in power every time they hit an ice wall, piercing through all the prisoners after each sonic speed rebound.
The Teks crumbled like sand castles facing a high tide, but more of them came out of the tunnels.
“Everyone, step back!” Professor Syndra said.
He lifted both his arms, conjuring a tidal wave out of thin air that crashed against the Teks both inside the cave and those still inside the tunnels.
“No offense, gramps, but all that water will just make it much easier for them to destroy the array with enough ice to make winter look like summer.” Morok said.
Professor Syndra’s lips curled up in a disgusted expression. It was hard to tell if he was more insulted or annoyed by the Ranger’s obvious remark.
“Once you’re old, you need to eat a lot of fish. It’s good for your memory.”
“Corona Discharge.” Syndra said with a flat tone.
The mother of all lightning bolts erupted from his body, in the wake of the tidal wave. Corona Discharge was a tier five War Mage spell. It used water to soak the opponent so that the following bolt of lightning could bypass all protections and hit the weak spots of an enemy. In the Teks’ case, their eyes.
Like all tier five spells, both the water and the lightning were guided by Syndra’s will, making them impossible to escape from. Over fifty Teks died in an instant, their bodies emitting the characteristic aroma of stewed lobster.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Lith asked.
“Yes, I call dibs on the well-cooked ones. I know we just ate, but all this action made me work up an appetite.” Morok replied.
