Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 338 (Patreon)

Chapter 338 – Shai-Hulud

Bargulg looked at his pets, confirming that they were ready. They had managed to avoid drawing the giant beast’s attention as they crossed the desert, even with the restriction on flight being the same as it was on the floor before. Even those of his pets who didn’t have wings were able to use his [Air Plate] spell to walk just above the sand without touching it. It took a toll on his mana, draining just slightly faster than he recovered it, but that still meant they could walk for hours without him needing to rest.

The only reason they had stopped moving through the desert was because they found the portals to the next floor. No one knew how the portals appeared, or what was the best way to find them. However, they’d quickly figured out that the ‘endless’ desert wasn’t actually endless. Ena’s senses told them that they were getting redirected by a magic field on the walls of the dungeon. It was a simple effect, but the lack of any landmarks made it very effective.

However, now that they were by the portals, he could rest, and let everyone stand on the sand once more. Of course, they had to be careful to move with irregular steps, now, since moving with any kind of rhythm would attract the boss before they were ready. If the great worm came up from under them, for instance, they would be forced to either dive through the portal, or take the escape charms back to the surface. Either way, they would have failed in their attempt to be the first to take down this boss, but he would rather fail and be alive to try again than dead. Especially since it got progressively harder to resurrect people the more powerful they became.

For this fight, they couldn’t just hope to blast the boss from afar until it was dead. It moved too fast for that, and, should it rise up from underneath them, they would have precious little warning, and not nearly enough time to run to the side. Not as the worm’s jaws rose up around them.

So, they had made a plan. A straight fight would be suicide, so they needed to not only bait the worm into a trap, but overwhelm it before it could either escape or turn the attack back on them. It was a simple enough plan, in theory, but actually putting it into practice would be tricky.

The whole thing relied on his being able to use sonic, sensory, and barrier magic at a decently high level, thanks to his War Mage class when he’d been Tier 1, and Ema’s [Ritual Magic] skill, which allowed her to design magic rituals, if she had the knowledge to do so. And she did. That, combined with some sonic spells he could cast, would be the key to the whole trap.

Ema took a breath as she looked around them, doing a final check on the preparations. The girls were all holding censors which gave off a sweet-smelling smoke, as they stood at the five points of a pentagon, with him just outside their circle. The smoke was more than just aromatic. It served as a medium, allowing the girls to pool their power, channeling everything into Ena’s magic. She nodded to him.

Bargulg turned his back to the girls, and concentrated on his first spell. [Aerial View] was a sensory spell that allowed the caster and their party to see an area from a top-down view. The actual radius that they could see depended on the caster, and their power. With Bargulg’s power, they could see the entire floor at once.

Of course, magic like that had its drawbacks. The average sapient wasn’t equipped for viewing things from above like that, while still acting on the ground. Most people switched back and forth between the different views, which still took some training to do without causing vertigo-like symptoms, and its main use in combat was for command staff to see the overall shape of the battlefield, and for artillery (whether magical or not) to find targets. However, the true masters of the spell trained their brains to process both the spell’s vision and what they eyes saw simultaneously, and were highly regarded by any military they served in. Bargulg and his pets weren’t on that level, but they didn’t need to be for this. They just had to catch the signs of the worm’s passage.

Next, to set the lure. [Footfall] was a sonic spell designed to replicate the treading of feet. The actual effect could be changed anywhere from calm footsteps on floorboards to an army marching in parade formation upon the street. It was a common tactic for war mages who wanted to distract enemy forces, and one of the few spells they could easily cast that wasn’t directly applicable to combat.

With his [Far Cast] skill, he targeted the sounds of a parade march to resonate through the sand, a full mile from their position. That ought to be enough that, even if the worm rose to the surface facing them, it would still take it some time to cover the distance on the surface. The longer it was on the surface, the more time they had to try and end it, before things got too dangerous.

It didn’t take too long for them to spot the signs. It began with static discharge on the dunes, coming from that immense mass moving through the sand. As the worm rose closer to the surface, ripples in the sand began to form. They were in luck. The worm was coming from the far side of the floor. And it was going to attack from the surface, rather than coming straight up from below. This was the best-case scenario for them!

The worm breached the surface, and it was all Bargulg could do to keep concentration on the [Aerial View]. Even from this distance, the worm was huge, so large that he could see it clearly with his normal vision. It had to be fifty or sixty meters across! No wonder no one was able to run out of its path when it came up from below!

“Starting the spell,” Ena said, as she focused her will. He knew that, as she spoke, she was drawing the MP out of all the others in the circle, using it to add their strength and power to her own. However, this magic made one vulnerable to counterattacks, since all those involved couldn’t move during the casting, and after the cast would likely be terribly drained, perhaps even barely conscious, depending on how much MP was taken.

That was the other reason Bargulg was outside the circle. Yes, he needed to maintain his focus on the [Aerial View] and [Footfall] spells, at least until the worm took the bait, but the main thing was to save his MP, so that he could cast barrier magic to try and slow the worm down, if the initial strike didn’t work, and buy time for everyone to escape through the portal. Yes, the spell Ena was creating would be even more potent if he was in there with them, but that would be risking far too much.

He could feel the energy in the air, as the Sorceress of the Infinite Abyssal Flame began crafting the spell, channeling everything she needed into making this piece of spellwork an ultimate testament to destruction. “[Abyssal Flame Lance]!” Her voice called in clear tones, and the spell was unleashed.

Thirty meters in front of the massive worm, a magic circle three meters wide appeared in the air, as Ena used her own [Far Cast] skill. A constant beam of pure abyssal flame launched from the circle, directly into the maw of the sandworm. It was a simple spell, one she’d gotten immediately on taking her Tier 3 class. But, with it being boosted by the others, it took on a whole different tier of power, especially as the ritual allowed the flame to be channeled, rather than an instant blast.

The effect was immediate. The sandworm boss had a thick hide, and a maw filled with uncountable teeth. However, its defenses were on its exterior. Sure, people had tried to attack down its throat before, but none had been able to do enough damage for it to truly matter. After all, most were in the lower stages of Tier 2, if not in Tier 1. The local adventurers simply didn’t have the firepower to attempt something so bold as this.

The boss reared up, trying to pull its maw out of the literal line of fire, but the magic circle moved with it, always focusing on burning its way through the worm. It shuddered and writhed, obviously in pain, but the sandworm had no way to vocalize that agony. The creatures had no means of creating sound on their own. The closest they got was the sound of their breathing as they passed, and the wind it stirred up. And that was not sufficient to convey the pain it must be feeling.

Regardless, the beam of flame soon pierced through the worm, punching holes in its thick hide as the creature thrashed. And still, Ena kept the ritual going. The boss wasn’t dead yet, after all. She couldn’t afford to let things end before either the boss was dead, or the girls were drained of mana.

The boss’s thrashing brought more and more of the beast to the surface. Eventually, Bargulg saw the tip of its tail emerge from the sands, and he gained a new appreciation for the boss’s sheer size and might. It was a dumb, simple creature, as evidenced by how easily they had baited it, but when you have a body nearly two and a half kilometers in length, weighing who knew how many tons, and covered in thick armor on the outside? These things were apex predators in their environment. They did not need cunning when they had such size at their disposal.

And then, it was over. The boss, reared up, one last time, as though trying to swallow the perceived source of its pain, and then began to fall. Only, it was falling towards them!

Ena broke the spell as she saw what was happening, so that it would not bring the [Abyssal Flame Lance] down on their own position. Bargulg was not idle, either. He abandoned [Aerial View] so that he could create the strongest barrier he could, and pour all his mana into it.

As he did so, he ran the numbers in his head. It would be close, but it looked as though the worm would not fall on top of them. Still, he did not let go of the barrier he made. After all, when dealing with creatures of that size, just avoiding the pure impact of such a mass falling on you was only the first problem one needed to handle. An impact like that would literally shake the earth, and would, at the very least, throw sand everywhere. Depending on how damaged the beast was, parts of its hide or some of those teeth might well be sent flying their way by the crash.

And what a crash it was. The impact was strong enough that its sound was like a hammer crushing his chest. To say nothing of the wave of sand or the shaking of the desert below his feet. Without the barrier to weaken it, he had no doubt that the creature’s dying throes would have been enough to seriously wound or even kill them.

Instead, they were all thrown from their feet, and a smell of cinnamon assaulted their noses. Balgurg felt, for a moment, that he could see all of time and space expanding before him as the smell hit him, but then the sensation faded. A Tier 3’s resilience against drugs, which the scent seemed to be some type of, was no laughing matter, unless one brought the proper materials or skills.

FIRST KILL!!

Bargulg Parod and his party are the first beings to successfully kill the boss, Shai-Hulud! For this incredible feat, they gain the Size Doesn’t Matter and Ultimate Destroyer titles!

Size Doesn’t Matter

No matter how large your foe is, you do not hesitate to give it all that you have. Your attacks and damage suffer no reductions in efficacy based on size. You do increased damage to creatures larger than your normal size. This bonus to damage increases the greater the difference between its size and your normal size is.

Ultimate Destroyer

There is nothing you cannot destroy. No foe that you cannot overcome. Your damaging attacks and spells deal 200% more damage to all creatures above your level, save those that are divine in nature.