RinoZ
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Chapter 1560 - Rock Type
🕑 Added 2025-03-10 02:10:09 +0000 UTCThis bad boy isn’t just large, he looks dense. I mean, it’s like a moving wall of minerals, which is fine, obviously minerals are more dense than something like flesh or a carapace. That would be it, if I were back on Earth, but that isn’t the case here. Rock can be more than just rock, it can be compressed, with mana bending the rules of reality, even something like a diamond can be made harder and more pressurised.
This guy isn’t just a rock type, he’s a condensed rock type. This guy has mass. My antennae are going crazy already, detecting such an unusually dense gravitational field coming from a single monster. This guy must weigh in the realm of a thousand tons, if not more.
How’s that spell going? Not there yet. Uh… faster? Please?
My mind constructs are working as hard as they can, and to be frank, my main mind is putting in quite the shift as well, but it’s a difficult spell, what can I say? Also, I haven’t cast it much, so the level of practice and expertise needed to just whip a singularity together isn’t there yet.
Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like our visitor is all that fast. Groaning and grinding away, it does continue to approach the platform. Furious that we’re here? Unlikely, but it’s not like I can let a monster of this size just waltz into the fortress. Weighing as much as he does, he might collapse the darn platform just by stepping on it!
However, the closer the beast gets, the more I can see what’s really happening.
This monster is grumbling and grinding because it’s in serious pain. Nothing can survive the corruption of the fifth, apparently not even sentient rock formations.
It rolls, more than walks, towards us, sections of its body rotating like a rubix cube to propel it forward, its body formed of a gleaming white, semi-transparent mineral with streaks of golden flecks through it. Quite beautiful to look at. At least, it would be, if it weren’t for the mucus, slime and acid eating into the creature. The mana of the fifth has penetrated deep into its body, nearly to the core, dissolving it from the inside out and turning its colour from white to a sickly yellow-green.
It isn’t hard to understand what’s happened here. This poor monster has been forced up out of the sixth stratum and is trying, desperately, to get to the fourth before succumbing to corruption.
The creature isn’t coming towards us to attack, but to survive. The cleansed mana zone is the only thing that has a chance of saving it now. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to extend a face-hand to help them.
Sorry monster. You have my sympathy.
“It’s getting closer. Eldest, are you able to deal with it?” a nearby general calls.
“I hope so,” I reply. “I’m throwing my best spell at it. If that isn’t enough, we can try something else afterwards.”
“Are… are we in danger?”
“What? No! Well… maybe. Just give me a little space, alright?”
“We can do that. Clear back from the Eldest! Boom protocol is in effect!”
All the fighters, ants and humans alike, pull away from me, giving a clear fifty metres of space. As if that wasn’t enough, they start deploying sandbags, creating a temporary wall between me and them.
Excuse me? Boom protocol?! They act like I’m the one who’s done the most damage to the platform! That isn’t true at all!
Probably.
Regardless, I need to deal with this problem. I’ve reached the final stage of the spell, the central structure is complete, all I need to do now is pump both spheres full of a truly unreasonable amount of gravitation mana.
Moving such an absurd amount of energy is difficult. Moving it quickly, is very hard. Moving it quickly and safely is even harder. Letting your mana slip out of control is always a bad idea, and with the equivalent of two gravity bombs floating over my head, things could get very ugly, very fast if my concentration slips.
In the distance, the decaying monster from the sixth continues to wobble towards me, desperately striving to reach the only place of safety in the entire fifth. The grinding and groaning of the monster is growing louder and louder, to the point my mandibles are vibrating from the strength of it.
Mana pours out of me, filling up the spell until the two spheres are crackling with condensed gravitational energy. When it's finally complete, the spell begins to activate. The two spheres of energy collapse in on each other, a decaying orbit that draws them closer and closer over time until at last they begin to fuse.
Right over my head!
In combining, an absurd amount of energy is released, focused into a beam that lances out into the tunnel, a solid bar of white light that tears through reality like a blade.
I’m completely blinded by the spell, the light is simply too strong, but I can sense what happens. My aim is good, thankfully, and the monster is struck dead on. An unfathomably deep groan echoes through the tunnel, as if a mountain had a bellyache.
When my vision clears, I can see that I struck the monster on its right side. Somehow, it’s still alive, but only just. The singularity bored a hole straight through it, but since I missed the core, the wound wasn’t fatal.
Holy heck, that’s some unbelievable endurance!
Sadly, the strike took the last of the monster’s strength. It succumbs to the toxic environment a moment later, collapsing in on itself, overwhelmed by slime and toxin.
Comments
DrDankness
Nooooo get the core dammit. Dont let it get corrupted. Poor rocky boy :(
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
saltyApple
i dont think u can negotiate with the wave-compelled anyways
Gonvas
No XP and we did not get to see its evolution name + tier of evolution :(
CUI13
I think, based on my recollection of what I've read, that the 5th is full of tainted mana that decays and corrupts things it is contact with. It hasn't taken over the 4th because -- outside of a wave, the 5th's mana is too dense to enter the 4th. The mana density is too low for the corruption to spread. It hasn't taken over the 6th because the 6th has its own mana, which is denser than the 5th, and its denser mana resists the corruption long enough to be replaced by its own source.
Fabian
@alt31415 I don't think the 5th breaks down the woofer mana. Instead, they annihilate themselves. Same with higher and lower, both annihilate the 5th mana cause they aren't conductive to self-replication. The 6th is just faster at it, being more dense. The 4th mana takes a bit longer, but due to being replenished continuously, finally also completely annihilating the 5th mana having traveled to the 4th.
Fabian
The whole chapter would be much more sad. Thank god that didn't happen. We don't wanna humanize our way of advancement. NOPE, we really don't.
alt31415
That doesn't make sense. So if the mana is too weak, it can't spread up into it except during a wave. But if the mana is too dense, it breaks down, even though toxic mana is described as THE thing that breaks things down.
Fabian
Mana density. The 5th is self-replicating, but gets immediately destroyed on higher-tier mana. Thats why it also didn't take over the lower 4th.
TheShadowSlayer_
It’s vulnerable, sure, but also it walked all the way up through the entire fifth strata during a WAVE. These things can clearly beat up any slime-beasts they find, especially if they’re using a home field advantage.
Buck
Grab the core before it becomes contaminated!
alt31415
There must be /something/. My guess it has something to do with that Tainted Heart we've heard rumblings about.
alt31415
Noooo, poor rocky. Not even an attempt at a mind bridge. Sadge.
Joshua Moses
Sounds like a pet origin story
Nathan Emerson
So if it's vulnerable to the fifth too that still doesn't explain why the fifth haven't taken over the sixth.
Brandon14754
No it didn't go through the krath corruption ritual, it just died
Grey Knight Lord
Poor rock guy.
Brandon14754
He should at least try to grab the core before it dissolves or is eaten by a monster
Brandon14754
Damn that means Anthony didn't get last hit probably and so might not have gotten the exp
Caleb Herring
Get that core!!!
Aeseof
*Anthony used... Hyperbeam! Critical hit!*
ChillyPepper
Poor rocky :(
TheLostGolem
So... it comes back as a toxic rock monster?
