Chapter 377: Devil’s Tower
Cody pumped his double-barrel ‘shotgun,’ ejecting two spent capsules that evaporated when they hit the air. Mana merely trickled from his palms into the magical weapon, contrary to the urgency of the situation. Reloading another set of shells took seconds longer than usual. It was an ominous sign that had him chewing his tongue.
He smashed the steel barrels into the toothy jaw of a reptilian monster as it eclipsed the edge of the rock edifice that he was responsible for controlling. The creature was practically smiling at him through a vaguely spinosaurus-like visage, completely unthreatened by his actions.
Cody had his jaw clenched and his lips were pulled back so that his teeth were also exposed when he squeezed the trigger. He wondered if the monster would have changed expressions knowing what was to come.
The gun roared in response, drowning out all the aggressive growls and scrabbling claws for a brief moment. The burst of firepower annihilated the giant lizard’s head, sending scales and teeth flying as its body toppled back down the steep walls it had so aggressively climbed.
Cody leaned over the edge, watching as the body mass crashed into half a dozen other potential threats, dragging them down before fully dissipating into mana. He scowled as thousands more continued scrambling up the sides. There was no end to them.
He leveled his weapon at the nearest target and fired again. The blast ripped its arm off at the shoulder, dislodging it from the wall with a chunk of stone still gripped in its opposite claw. Defeating one more wasn’t nearly enough to make a difference. It was growing increasingly clear that this was their last stand.
The strange golden sands had been thickening for weeks, but until recently they were secondary to the crimson haze that choked the horizon and inundated their world in corrosive mana. They had let themselves be deceived, so focused on maintaining their own superiority against the more immediate threats, they had failed to recognize the building danger.
From their vantage point on top of a 1,000 foot tall igneous rock butte, they were able to keep watch on a huge plot of land. No monsters were capable of catching them by surprise, even as they survived without a civilization shard throughout the assimilation. Devil’s Tower was their fortress.
The Eradication Protocol had reduced that advantage to just the immediate area surrounding the base of their mountain, with the trails leading into red haze instead of toward rivers and the horizon. That was before the sands came, encroaching on their safety in such a passive way they hadn’t even noticed.
At first, the individual motes of almost transparent sand were practically indistinguishable from the crimson energy that dominated their perspective. The grains caught the red in the air and reflected it, indirectly camouflaging themselves within the more immediate threat. The lack of motion was deceptive, but when it grew more concentrated, dramatic movements could force waves in the steady sandstorm, revealing its domineering contiguity.
The more dramatic threat was obviously the monsters that came with the sands. At first, the individual examples of lizard-like hunters were easily destroyed. They were like the untamed Primal Constructs that had hounded them throughout the assimilation, but it became clear that this was an entirely different scenario. For every one they defeated, five more came looking.
The lizards quickly surpassed the strength of their previous enemies, and they were far more persistent. Rather than satisfy themselves with claiming territory, the fact that humans had a stronghold on top of the butte seemed to provoke them. They ruthlessly challenged their position, completely indifferent to their losses.