The monster's mana was vast.
Elio could feel his own reserves draining with each attack, and he knew they would exhaust themselves before breaking through that barrier again.
"Enough!" Elio's voice cut through the thunderous cacophony of attacks. His eyes, still blazing with enhanced perception, calculated trajectories and possibilities at inhuman speed. "Stop wasting mana on the barrier!"
They had managed to inflict nearly five thousand points of damage to the artromus in their initial assault, a devastating blow, but not enough for a killing strike.
The numbers danced in Elio's mind: five thousand down, fifteen thousand to go. The math was rciless.
More concerning was how quickly their mana reserves were depleting. If they exhausted themselves now, they would be defenseless against whatever counterattack the monster was planning.
Elio's hands clenched into fists as he watched layer after layer of earth materialize around their enemy, each one thicker and more densely packed than the last.
'One thousand mana points,' Elio recalled the crucial information he'd gained upon reaching level 10. The number haunted him now.
With such vast reserves, the monster could maintain this defense far longer than they could sustain their assault. This wasn't a battle of strength anymore, it had beco a war of attrition.
This artromus was fundantally different from its winged counterpart. Where the wind demon had relied on speed and agility, this one was a fortress unto itself.
Its natural resistance exceeded its predecessor's, and every second they wasted trying to penetrate its expanding defenses was mana they would desperately need later.
Physical attacks would be useless against such a big defense stat. They needed to keep their mana. They needed a different approach.
"Plan B!" Elio called out, his eyes scanning the deposit chamber. But this ti, they wouldn't be retreating through their entry crystal.
"Everyone up and out!"
The group responded like a well-oiled machine, each mber launching themselves toward what had been an enormous crystal cap, now an opened hole in the chamber's ceiling. Below them, the earth sphere continued its relentless growth, transforming their battlefield into a death trap of compressed soil.
The contrast when they reached the exterior was stark and imdiate. The cold air bit at their skin, and the sea of brilliant cores stretched to the city bit by bit, a dramatic change from the earthen prison they'd left behind.
The light from millions of cores created an almost ethereal atmosphere, transforming the battlefield into sothing otherworldly.
Arnaud didn't stop with the others. Without hesitation, he plunged into the sea of cores surrounding the deposit's opening. His resolve was clear; each mber knew their role in what was to co, and he was ready to fulfill his. The cores parted around him like liquid light as he disappeared beneath their surface.
The rest of the group took strategic positions around the opening, their movents precise and coordinated.
The earth continued its inexorable rise like an unstoppable tide, but now they had room to maneuver, space to think, to plan.
The first phase of the battle had ended. What ca next would determine if their preparation had been enough.
♢♢♢♢
"Let's wait until it stops," Elio observed the ceaseless expansion from his position at the edge. "We had the advantage at first, but..."
Frustration colored his voice. The initial assault had been devastating, but the need to recharge mana had forced them to reduce their tempo.
The barrier had begun gaining ground from there, and without the ability to concentrate all their power on a single point, they'd lost both initiative and any hope of continuing to damage the Artromus.
"With the enormous damage we inflicted," he continued, his eyes tracking the patterns in the moving earth, searching for weaknesses, "it probably thinks we're still attacking. If we wait for it to exhaust its mana..."
"We could concentrate on a single point," i completed his thought, already processing the strategy. Her mind was working overti, analyzing angles and possibilities.
Experience tales at m v|l e'-
But the Artromus showed no signs of stopping. The earth continued erging in ever-larger waves, as if the monster was determined to transform the entire chamber into its fortress. The mass of earth had nearly reached the ceiling now, threatening to overflow the crater like an inverted geyser.
"If this continues..." Kriz muttered, watching as earth began accumulating against the opening's edges.
Tension hung thick in the air as they watched the chamber's transformation into what appeared to be an earth volcano on the verge of eruption. The Artromus was making it clear that this would be a very different confrontation from their previous battle.
"There it goes!" Aria exclaid, pointing as the earth finally reached the chamber's limits. Her sharp eyes caught every detail of the transformation.
"Like a plug that's too thick," Valeria observed, her construction experience evident in her analysis.
The structure continued erging through the crater's opening, the earth solidifying into a formation that reached toward the sky. Lila and Taron exchanged tense glances as the column grew.
Then, abruptly, the column stopped at about ten ters height.
"It's restraining itself," Zara narrowed her eyes, studying the formation. "Not wasting mana unnecessarily."
Her assessnt was spot-on, the artromus had perceived there was no more internal space to fill and, apparently, calculated that expanding further upward would be wasteful.
Elio gritted his teeth in frustration. He had been counting on the monster continuing its uncontrolled expansion upward, which would have allowed them to easily infiltrate around the crater's edges after the artromus depleted its mana.
"It's smarter than we expected," Zara murmured, positioning herself beside Elio. Her presence was reassuring, a reminder that they faced this challenge together.
The earth column had completely solidified, transforming what was once a sacred chamber into an improvised fortress. The artromus had converted its initial disadvantage into a defensible position.
♢♢♢♢
The group deployed strategically around the crater. No one wanted the Artromus to escape undetected, regardless of which direction it might choose.
Elio's fingers closed around the scythe, his mana fully charged. The wait might benefit them, allowing them to recover so mana, but the sa principle applied to the monster. They weren't here to waste ti.
"All in position?" Taron asked from the eastern flank.
"Western sector covered," Brok confird, his massive fra ready for action.
"North secured," Aria added, with Valeria backing her up.
A movent in the sea of cores caught everyone's attention.
The brilliant surface began to sink, as if sothing was sucking the cores from below. Minutes later, a tunnel's mouth erged from the depression.
Arnaud was the first to appear, a smile of satisfaction on his face. Behind him, Milo led a column of builders erging like ants from their nest. Dozens of them, determination shining in their eyes as they began scaling the earth formation.
"This ti," i smiled, "we'll compete mana against mana."
The artromus had built its fortress, yes, but it hadn't counted on the humans bringing their own army. The true battle was about to begin.
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