"No wonder the ants weren't as common closer to the obelisk. There's another species guarding it that's why!" Shiro cursed
Millipedes were different to centipedes. While some may get the two mixed up, there are a few distinct differences.
First off, the Millipede have very short antennae compared to the Centipedes. The physiology of a centipede is flatter compared to a Millipede which supported a more rounded chitin armor.
The centipede's legs are positioned outwards like a razor blade while the millipede's legs are tucked under its body.
In addition to this, the centipede was limited to a single pair of legs per segment of its body.
This is where this huge Millipede earned the name Hundred Blades. Unlike a centipede, the millipede has two pairs of legs per segment. Not only this, each segment is relatively smaller than the centipede's segments.
With each of the legs being composed of a razor sharp blade, Shiro and Iris shivered slightly just thinking about getting caught in those legs.
"Luckily I can teleport and fly... hey you think that those legs would work as a shredder? Just toss in any useless paper and boom! Gone." Iris wondered, floating next to Shiro
"Something tells me that it would work better as a meat grinder, do you think you can handle this Iris?" Shiro asked.
'Iris can fly and stay above the boss, but the armor would make it hard to get any damage in up there.' Shiro thought, not sure if Iris could do this on her own.
"Let me try at least..." Iris replied, looking at the 'Ant'
"We don't know a lot about this enemy, so before full on fighting, try to test its capabilities" Shiro instructed
"Soooooo, how do I do that?" Iris asked, turning to look at Shiro.
"Test how it reacts to things, such as loss of senses, how strong the armor is, and how it attacks." Shiro replied.
"Make sure to stay on the boundary between the danger zone and the safety zone, too far into the danger zone without knowledge can be fatal while too far into the safety zone wont give you enough knowledge." She continued
"..." Iris was just stareing at Shiro, not really getting what she meant by 'Danger Zone'
"Let me demonstrate" Shiro sighed
Preparing herself so her concentration was at her best, Shiro created two daggers for now.
"First, concussive shock. Test the reaction when robbed of its sensory." Shiro said as she dashed towards the millipede.
Twirling the blade by the handle, she threw it towards the short antennas. The speed was decreased dramatically as most of the force was focused on making it spin through the air.
The millipede raised its head as the daggers bounced on both antennas.
*CRR!
Freezing the antennas, Shiro jumped backwards immediately seeing the desired effect.
Without hesitation, the millipede rolled into a ball.
'Is that all?' Shiro thought with a frown.
*KISHIN!
The millipede's blade-like legs protruded from the side of its body while the shell spiked up abnormally like a porcupine's quills.
She wasn't sure how the millipede was generating the forces for it to spin on the spot, but she knew it was preparing to go on a rampage.
Pushing her palms outwards, a ramp was created with scaffolds to support the structure.
*KRKRKRKRKRKR
The sound of blades cutting through rock could be heard as she knew it was rolling around to try hit everything due to a loss of its sensory.
"Robbing the millipede of the senses will increase fight difficulty. Patterns become random as it would try to attack anything and everything." She observed, dismissing the daggers freezing the antennas.
The millipede continued to roll, causing Shiro to frown.
Making a spear of ice, she threw it towards the millipede hoping for it to cause some damage.
Unfortunately, the spear was smacked downwards due to the millipede's roll and crushed under its armor.
"Armor is absurdly powerful. Fighting head on is not advised."
Remaining calm, Shiro retracted all of the Ice as she waited for the millipede to unfurl itself.
It was only after 10 minutes of rampaging did it unroll itself, meanwhile the whole time Iris was silently thankful that she didn't try first herself.
'I would've definitely just completely cut the antennae off!' Iris slightly paled at the thought of having to deal with it rolling around the entire fight.
Shiro's eyes narrowed as she peered past the tens of blade legs it had under its body.
'With the blades being mostly concentrated on its underbelly, it may be a natural defense due to its weakness.'
Raising up her arms, Shiro gritted her teeth slightly as ice started to form under the millipede.
*CCRRRR!!!
The ice raised the millipede into air little by little as it tried to claw away at the ice.
Flexing her fingers, Shiro froze the bladed legs in their place
Making a sharp ice spear, she took aim and threw the spear.
*TSSSSS!!!!
Chemicals sprayed out from under the millipede as Shiro watched all the ice melt visibly.
"It has CHEMICALS too???? Hey do you think anyone would try to harvest that? Those chemicals seem pretty useful to throw at groups of enemies..." Iris said, looking at Shiro
"Not a bad idea actually... but what would you hold the chemicals in?" Shiro replied
Iris created a tiny cube using her holographic creation, and threw it into a small puddle of the chemical on the floor of the dungeon.
It melted.
"...well it was a good idea..." Iris muttered.
Shiro was fairly sure that at her current level her nanobots wouldn't be able to contain the chemical for very long either.
"So, what did you get out of the testing?" Shiro asked Iris
"Well, it has strong armor, chemicals, and well go on a rampage if you blind it... unless you try to overpower it its not going down anytime soon" Iris replied, thinking.
"And how would you try to kill it?" Shiro asked
"Well its weak point is its underbelly, I could use holographic creation to create a spike to stab there..." Iris replied
"But what about its bladed legs? Wouldn't they cut up the spike first?" Shiro continued her questioning
"So I would have to deal with the legs first... uhmmm" Iris was stumped for a second before getting an idea
"I got it, leave this to me I can do it!" She said excitedly.
"Go ahead, its all yours~" Shiro replied, curious to see what Iris came up with.
Iris teleported just out of reach of the the legs of the millipede, creating a big holographic saw.
Iris twisted her wrist as the saw spun rapidly towards the millipede and created two smaller ones
4 of the millipedes legs reacted, parrying the saw away however the second two saws cut the legs before it could retract them.
"..."
"That was definitely on purpose!" Iris said cheerfully, having actually been aiming for the big saw to also do damage rather than be a distraction.
*KREEEE!!!
The millipede screamed, feeling 4 of its legs cut off, the saws weren't quite sharp enough to go through any of the legs that weren't extended.
The millipede spat chemicals at Iris, melting the two smaller saws that Iris had
Iris fazed to avoid the chemicals, and ducked down as the bigger saw whizzed above her head into the opening to the millipedes belly she had just created.
*BZZZZ
The sound of the saw ripping through the softer armor of the millipedes underbelly rang out
Iris teleported above the millipede and fazed, dropping down on it to push its body into the saw
The Millipede swiftly cut up the big saw with 4 more legs, only for those to be cut off by another two small holographic saws
Chemicals sprayed everywhere as Iris kicked off the millipedes head and landed a little away
She swiftly raised her hand as a holographic spike penetrated the weak lower body of the millipede
Because Iris had already cut off the legs of the 2 segments around the spikes, the corrosive chemical sprayed everywhere.
Iris had to teleport back even more and continuously repair the holographic spike imbedded in the millipede.
[HP: 43,000/80,000]
Her efforts weren't unrewarded however as the health was dropping rapidly.
Sensing its doom, the millipede wanted to take her down with it.
Curling into a ball, the millipede's chitin spiked up as Shiro narrowed her eyes from the sidelines
"Oh you M*******!!!" She cursed seeing the abnormal mana density.
"Iris faze! This things going to self-destruct!" Shiro warned, using [Harden].
[Harden]
Harden's your skin for increased defense.
+35 DEF and -20% damage taken -20% AGI
Duration: 30 seconds.
Cooldown: 2 minutes.
Iris fazed and teleported back to Shiro, who had a silver metallic sheen that seems to cover her body.
Shiro placed her palm on the ground and used some of her MP to create a giant wall of ice.
*BAM BAM BAM!!
Layers of Ice walls shot up in front of them as they quickly braced for impact, Iris saw what Shiro was doing and decided to copy, also creating some walls using her holographic creation.
*BOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It felt like the entire Dungeon shook as the millipede exploded.
Despite their distance from the millipede and the walls put up, Shiro still took a bit of damage from the explosion.
After a few moments Shiro got rid of her Ice walls and Iris did the same.
"Fuuu....." Shiro sighed out seeing that there was no danger and checked her HP and MP, Iris looked at her curiously.
[HP: 6900/7300]
[MP: 10,000/11,300]
She was relatively unharmed from the explosion, though shivered to think of what would have happened if she was closer.
What used to be the space for a boss fight was now covered in corrosive chemicals, flesh, blades and armor.
Looking around, Shiro was sure the walls per pushed back by quite a remarkable amount as the explosion must have taken some of the cave walls with it.
It was a known fact that Dungeon walls are one of and if not THE strongest material known ever. The material scaled up in level as the higher level the Dungeon, the sturdier walls.
For the boss to be able to shave off quite a few layers of the wall, shows just how absurd that explosion was.
"Shiro... why did it explode?" Iris asked while looking at the destruction, wondering if she did anything wrong
"Some monsters are able to self-destruct, exploding all of the mana inside of it. It kills them and anything around them" Shiro explained, collecting the body straight away as she knew there won't be a mana stone.
"When the monster self-destructs, the mana stone was used as the source and gathering point. Therefore, there won't even be a shard of the mana stone left." Shiro explained further, looking through the loot.
The loot she got wasn't too bad but she had no use for any of them.
Recycling everything, Shiro went toward the obelisk and told Iris.
"Considering the difficulty of that millipede, the third floor boss is definitely outside your skill level"
Iris was tired, and wouldn't have been able to get through the second floor without Shiro's help, however still wanted to be able to see just how far she could go.
"Probably, but what's the harm in trying? I can help you!" Iris replied, Shiro shrugged and sat down on a nearby rock not covered in corrosive liquid.
Whilst waiting for Iris to rest up, Shiro decided to have a look at her current food stock.
[E Rank Mana Stone x84]
[D Rank Mana Sone x40]
"40 D rank mana stones should last me a while." Shiro muttered as she laid on her back and threw an E rank mana stone for her mouth to eat.
"So, how did I do?" Iris asked
"You did pretty well, though are extremely reliant on your faze to dodge." Shiro replied
"Its not exactly a bad use of the skill, however when you are fazed you cant deal as much damage, when you occasionally fazed on the millipedes back in order to avoid the chemicals, your saw delt less than half of the damage it was before." Shiro pointed out
It seemed that when Iris fazed into her ghosty form, her holographic creations get a lot weaker in turn. It made it a lot easier for the millipede to cut the saw up without getting its legs cut off by the big saw.
"Okay... so try to rely less on fazing to dodge... if I'm dealing damage..." Iris mumbled
"Then how would I have avoided the chemicals? I cant move around easily on top of the millipede and if I just teleported off then then the lack of my weight pushing it into the saw would have made the damage go down anyways." Iris asked.
After all Iris wasn't as experienced as Shiro, Shiro probably could have easily avoided the acid that the millipede spat at her while staying on top of it, but Iris didn't have that kind of balance.
"Even if you slip you can just teleport yourself back on top of the millipede anyways couldn't you?" Shiro replied.
Iris just paused, the thought of just doing that hadn't even crossed her mind.
"Oh..." She muttered
"Don't let the heat of battle block your thoughts, you need to be able to think of all the possibilities. You could have used holographic creation to create a weight on its back and stayed a safe distance away, it probably would have locked the millipede down too." Shiro advised.
Iris stayed silent for the rest of the time until her stamina was back up.
Giving her body a stretch, Shiro opened the obelisk and tapped the final floor. The boss floor.
The room was oddly shaped as it had an open sky that was sprinkled with stars. The surroundings seemed to be the ruins of an open Colosseum as Shiro spotted the boss.
The boss had an armored body like the rest of the ants but there was one HUGE difference.
[Flying Frag Ant Queen LVL 25 – Boss]
HP: 150,000/150,000
MP: 200,000/200,000
The boss hovered in the air was the transparent wings flapped at incredible speeds.
"..." Shiro stared at the boss with a bland expression.
"It can fly..." Iris muttered, looking at the boss.
Flicking her finger, Shiro created a huge ice spike the queen wanted to evade.
Suddenly, the tip of the spike opened up like a flower as the smaller spikes pierced the wings, suspending the queen in mid-air.
"When you expose such weak wings and stay in the same spot, you're asking to be killed." Shiro said without a smile. Her azure eyes bore into the queen's eyes as Shiro created two daggers whilst the queen seemed to be shocked.
*KSH KSH!
Slicing the wings off in a few simple movements, Shiro kicked the queen's head as she leapt off and landed softly.
Enraged, the queen's body started to enlarge as the armor became the color of quartz with a slight rainbow pearlescent tint onto of the quartz.
From the wounds of her old wings, neon blue mana gathered together to form 2 pairs of wings.
"Much better." Shiro grinned at the feeling of challenge.
Iris created two saws again in preparation to fight.