Even cut into three different segments, the millipede was still forty feet long. Wings flickered across its back as it skimmed across the sand, bearing down directly on Velik. He met it on a wide, flat stretch of desert. Mandibles flashed as it reared up and tried to slam down on him, the physical light overshadowed by arcs of mana descending down the curved length to Velik’s eyes.

Seeing the attack coming wasn’t enough to avoid it, and the monster was as fast as anything Velik had ever fought. His new stats were barely enough to get him out of the way, and even then only because he combined the dodge with a deflecting thrust of his spear to angle the millipede’s head down to the side.

It hit the sand so hard that a literal ton of it was thrown into the air. Old Velik would have been completely blinded by the spray and instinctively retreated from the monster until he could get a lock on its position. New Velik was also physically blinded, but not for an instant did he lose track of the millipede. Sensing the essence and mana swirling through its body was enough to see it even with his eyes closed.

His spear whirled about, resisting the drag of sand blasting across it, and scored a line down the monster’s carapace. It caught at the joint where a leg connected to the main body, and Velik bore down on the shaft. He needed to know how reliable his spear was, and this was a good test. The tip bit into the metal, sunk an inch, then caught as something shifted inside the millipede.

Undeterred, Velik shifted the angle he was levering with. The spear slipped free of whatever it had snagged on and sunk in another six inches. Then the millipede flung its whole body sideways, forcing Velik to move with it or lose his weapon. He took three long steps, then activated [Air Walk] for another three before he managed to swing around the shaft.

Feet resting on the metal side of the monster’s body, he heaved with all his strength. Metal screeched as it tore, then the leg joint he’d stabbed into gave way. The limb fell free with a wrenching tear, then buried itself halfway into the churning sand.

So you can be hurt, Velik thought with some satisfaction. You can be killed.

Sand funneled itself into the air all around the battlefield, miniature twisters that scoured the ground down to the bedrock. Threads of mana wound through them, all originating from the millipede as it lifted tens of thousands of pounds of scouring sand up over the span of a few seconds.

Velik could already see what direction the mana was pointed in, but there was nothing he could do about it. The whole area would be blanketed in a sandstorm powerful enough to strip the flesh from his bones, maybe powerful enough to turn the bones to powder, too! Maybe his regeneration could keep him alive, but he’d lose all his supplies.

Can’t avoid it. Can I stop it?

He could see the mana flows. He had a skill literally called [Mana Drinker]. There had to be something he could do with that. There wasn’t a lot of time to experiment, so he didn’t try. He just lunged at the monster’s head, using [Air Walk]

to run next to it when it flared its wings to try to push him away, and slammed his palm down on the metal.

Commanding the skill to activate, he ripped the threads apart. The millipede didn’t sit still and let him, of course, but even the brief moment of contact before streamers of lightning erupted all across its body was enough to kill the sandstorm the monster had been building up.

Velik briefly missed the dampening enchantments that would have blunted the damage the lightning was doing to his body, but all the mana he’d taken from the monster had to go into something, and his regeneration had kicked into overdrive to keep him whole. Other than a constant low-level burning sensation, he wasn’t even inconvenienced by the corona of lightning.

And this is magic, too. Why not snuff it out?

[Mana Drinker] was definitely the right choice. In his hands, it wasn’t just fuel for his other abilities like it had been with the spear. He could see mana patterns thanks to [The Wanderer’s Path], and he could twist them with [Mana Control]. The three skills together made it so that what the monster wanted didn’t even matter. It had as much ability to stop him from disrupting its magic as an apple did to prevent itself from being eaten.

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Sand slammed into him by the buckets as he cut through the millipede’s magic. Some of it blackened or even turned into little molten glass drops when it got caught in the lightning, but Velik had disrupted enough of the spell in his immediate area that he only got hit with normal sand.

The monster wasn’t going to win with magic, and it was smart enough to realize that. It switched tactics so fast that Velik barely reacted in time to avoid being bisected. The monster rolled and twisted, bringing its razor spines into play even as it tried to curl its massive body around him.

Its whole body shrieked in a cacophony of metal on metal, but it was too late to catch Velik. He leaped upward, powering through the torrent of sand still slamming into him and pushing [Air Walk] to its limit to get above the danger.

Normally, that skill was of limited use, something he had to deploy strategically, but now that it was drawing directly from his reserves, he was finding he had no problem taking five or six steps in a row before the cost got too great. And with the massive amounts of mana he was stealing from the millipede, he might have to rethink how expensive was too expensive.

Velik came back down, his spear leading his way. He slammed it point-first into the millipede’s head, only for it to skitter sideways, leaving a long gouge in the metal but not punching through. The curved structure was working against Velik, but he no longer had the ability to shift the shape of his weapon, so it was on him to figure out a way through.

Let’s try something I haven’t used before.

Slamming his spear back down onto the millipede’s head even as it uncurled and lashed about in an attempt to throw him free, Velik triggered [Dread Lance]. Mana surged through him, far more than the skill had ever drawn before, and arcs of energy poured out of the weapon in an explosive burst. Velik himself was thrown back up into the air, but after a single backwards flip, he reoriented himself and darted back forward with [Air Walk].

[Dread Lance] had stripped away a layer of metal off the monster’s head, causing it to flake off and reveal another, paler shell beneath. This new metal was softer, soft enough that his spear bit deep when he struck it. It sank a full foot in before hitting something inside the monster and binding up. At the same time, one of its mandibles popped wide open and quivered with a whining screech while its partner flopped back and forth loosely.

It was the perfect time to deliver another [Dread Lance], this time into whatever mechanical components made up the monster’s head. Mana-formed energy ripped through its internals, breaking the machine monster down. With a sudden jerk, it flopped down to crash into the sides, legs splayed out and wings falling over at jumbled angles.

Velik rolled free and turned to regard the dead monster. There was no essence, no system notification confirming he’d destroyed it. In that way, it was like the golems he’d torn through back at the sky bridge in Ghestal. He eyed the giant metal monster warily, unsure if he’d actually killed it or if it was biding its time for a surprise strike.

Never thought I’d miss system notifications coming at me, but it sure would be nice to know, not just guess.

The heat coming from the monster was fading, and the slight humming he could hear from its body had also died down. It was probably as dead as it could get. Shaking his head, Velik finally looked around at their battlefield. It was as ravaged as he’d ever seen, equaled only by what Tesir had done during their fight.

His own clothes were shredded or gone entirely. Annoyingly, that included his supplies. He’d be foraging once he got through the sky bridge to the other side of the desert, and wrapping himself in stinking animal skins if he wanted to preserve some semblance of modesty.

The spear, on the other hand, had worked beautifully. At no point had he felt any indication that it was on the verge of breaking or that he’d worked it too hard. Other than the sand caking it and fluid stains from whatever reservoirs he’d punctured inside the metal monster, it was pristine.

“Are you going to stand there gawking, idiot?” a voice asked from behind Velik.

Whirling in place, Velik brought his spear up to point at a golden orb of swirling mist. “Tell me you don’t think you actually won. Tell me that humans aren’t so stupid that they forgot what pillars are. You’ve got a minute or two at most before it repairs itself and comes after you. I suggest you not waste that time after I led the other two away to clear your path.”

“Who are you?” Velik asked.

“Come to the sky bridge and find out.”

Then the orb vanished in a puff of quickly-fading mist, leaving Velik alone next to the body of a monster stronger than anything else he’d ever hunted, one that might very well return to life to resume their battle if he stood around and waited.

Velik gave it one last glance, then turned and started running.