Chapter 180

A wave of fire slammed into the worm, causing it to screech in anger but inflicting little damage. If anything, it only made it more aggressive, prompting Nick to pull Rhea back with him as its tail lashed out, slamming where they had been and cratering the earth.The unfortunate wererat that had been attempting to sneak up on them ended up getting squished, but Nick didn’t feel particularly guilty about it.

“What is this thing made of?!” Elia shouted, gracefully landing a few feet from him. She looked confused that her fire had not been enough to kill it, and Nick realized that given how quickly she’d grown over their journey, she likely had no idea how to confront an enemy that could resist her element of choice.

“It probably has fire-resistant armor. It looks rocky to me.” He grunted as he assessed the creature.

It was quite ugly, with its maw of bristling teeth, but more importantly, it also had some kind of tremor sense. The moment Elia touched down, it immediately turned toward her and lunged forward in an explosive motion.

Once again, she evaded and conjured several fireballs, likely intending to burn the monster from the inside out. However, it simply ignored the heat and slammed into the ground, quickly disappearing into it.

Considering that its length exceeded sixty feet, it had to possess some form of earth manipulation ability to move through the ground so quickly.

“Fire of this level doesn’t work on Rock Worms!” Rhea shouted. “Neither do illusions! You need to drive it toward me; I have a potion!”

Elia seemed to take that as a challenge, as she alighted with even more flames. Her foxfire took on a hint of silver, and her eyes began to glow, indicating that she had started tapping into her miko powers.

Nick had never personally encountered a rock worm, but he imagined that Rhea’s knowledge came from Ogden and could therefore be trusted.

Once more, the earth buckled, and Nick had to pull away, taking Rhea with him, while Elia merely jumped up, condensing her flames into a compact ball.

When the rock worm erupted with its maw open, she yelled as she unleashed her stored power.

For a moment, the light became overwhelming, and he had to close his eyes; yet, Nick continued to observe with his senses.

The monster’s reaction to having a bomb detonate inside its mouth was to screech, but while Nick could tell that it had finally caused some harm, it had not been a lethal blow.

Elia was now trapped in the air above it, slowly descending into its still-open maw.

With a grunt, he unleashed a barrage of , as they were the spell he was most familiar with and could conjure the most of at any moment.

Although not nearly powerful enough to harm the rock worm, the kinetic force of their explosions was sufficient to send it tumbling away, sparing Elia from becoming worm food.

“Enough! Pull back!” He yelled, and fortunately, this time she listened.

Meanwhile, the monster had already vanished back into the soil, likely preparing for another attempt.

“I just need to hit it a few more times!” Elia growled, but she didn’t go off on her own. “I melted some of its insides.”

“It would take too long,” Nick replied without breaking his eyes off their surroundings. The worm had shown it could stay hidden until the very last moment. Diverting his focus now would force him on the defensive, and while he was confident he could withstand its bite, there was no point in tempting fate. “That thing is too fast to let us whittle it down.”

Meanwhile, Rhea finally found what she was looking for and pulled out a vial of such a deep crimson that sent a shiver down Nick's spine. There was something about that hue…

“I got it! This is a Transmutation Elixir that Ogden gave me to give me an idea of what to work toward. Without direction, it will break down any element to its base state!”

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In this specific instance, however, it was working in their favor. Nick had several ways he thought might hurt the rock worm, starting with simply binding it with and unleashing his wrath until it finally died, but the damn thing was slippery and very fast.

With the girls there, he didn’t have time to set up a trap either because he had to protect them from both the worm and their own recklessness.

When the ground buckled again, Nick was ready to pull everyone back. Just as he was about to act, his senses screamed, and he spotted a smaller deformation right where he planned to go. As a result, he had to make a much sharper landing in the opposite direction, using to alter their path midair.

The girls screamed, not expecting such a violent turnaround, but Nick was vindicated as he saw only a boulder emerge from the ground where they had been, while the worm itself lunged out of the smaller disturbance.

“That damn thing is smart too! I thought worms were supposed to be stupid,” he muttered, seizing the chance to unleash several .

As expected, they only chipped away at its armor, and the monster was quick enough to react that it was back on the ground by the time the last of the barrage reached it.

“Alright, Rhea, what do you need?” He asked, calculating that using the Transmutation Elixir was probably their best bet to end this quickly.

Aerial bombardment from above using was also an option, as he could likely keep everyone high enough to avoid the damage. However, there was no guarantee he could hit it without seeing where it was, and such immense damage would surely attract more monsters.

As far as he could recall, worms of all types preferred to live alone and chased other members of their species out of their territory, but he wasn’t willing to bet that applied to this one.

“Just splashing it on its skin should be enough to start the reaction, but it might take a while to change enough of its body to kill it. It'd be ideal if I could throw it in its mouth.” Rhea quickly replied, looking around shiftily.

Nick grunted in acknowledgment. The damn thing hadn’t seemed concerned about anything going into its mouth, given how it had eaten Elia’s fireballs without hesitation, so that shouldn’t be too hard to do. The problem was doing it quickly enough.

“I can help with that!” Elia said, opening her arms and summoning a sort of hazy mist all around them. Nick was about to yell at her to quit it, but he suddenly sensed people around them.

A closer look revealed that she had created solid illusions, with replicas of them now surrounding them on all sides. Some were moving around, shifting the air, while others stood still, as if waiting for the next attack.

“Even if the worm is too stupid for illusions of the mind to work, that is not the only kind available to a kitsune.” She explained smugly, earning an amused sigh from Nick.

Once again, the ground trembled, and they braced for the worm to breach. However, their plans were immediately put on hold as massive stones rose instead, erupting from the ground with great force and shattering the illusions that had been struck.

Nick was quick enough to move them out of danger, but the air displacement he felt from the menhir as it flew by told him he didn’t want to be anywhere near the splash zone.

When the stones fell, the ground buckled, and he realized the worm’s trick. “It’s coming!” He yelled, straining to its limits to get them out of danger.

The massive monster rose from the earth exactly where they had been, having completely ignored the remaining illusions. This time, it didn’t seem intent on letting them get away, twisting in the air before falling back toward them.

It was genuinely an intimidating sight. The ability of such a massive creature to move with such agility and strength was enough to establish it as an apex predator, but its capacity to ignore all the harm inflicted upon it made it even more dangerous.

This, Nick realized, was likely one of the most formidable monsters in the entire grassland. Something that had claimed its territory for years, if not longer, and that had fought and consumed who knew how many others to maintain it.

It was relentless. More than most other monsters, there could be nothing but total victory or complete defeat with it.

As Rhea hurled the crimson vial with all her strength, it shattered against its teeth, spilling all its contents inside.

It would die; there was no doubt about it now. Nick knew it would do the job if the potion contained even a fraction of the stone’s power.

And yet, the worm wouldn’t stop. It was already mid-lunge, and while Nick could see some sort of reaction occurring in the back of its maw, it would be too late.

Moving again wasn’t in the cards. A of that power was both difficult to summon at a moment’s notice and likely to seriously hurt Rhea, whose CON was probably quite low.

As the rock worm careened toward them, already dead but too determined to realize it, Nick decided that in a game of chances, he preferred to bet more on his own skill than on his friend’s resilience.

His hand rose almost without his notice. A formed in his palm, rapidly churning into a whirring ball of death, and yet for the first time, Nick felt he could do more.

There was more to his magic than mere elemental fury.

It was what had brought him this far, he knew. He would have never survived the dungeon without his ventures into Wind magic. But in that frozen moment, he was struck by inspiration.

What was an Occultist if not someone who believed in things that weren’t measurable? That couldn’t be understood using common sense?

It wasn’t so much a bolt from the blue as the final culmination of months of experience and observation. Little moments when he had sensed something just teasing his understanding, only to fail to materialize when he tried to grasp it.

Nick would never be able to develop fully if he continued to cling to what he knew worked, whether they were from his old world or this new one. They would always be part of him, things he could rely on, but they couldn’t define all that he was.

The moments when his magic worked best were when he adapted on the fly, infusing it with his willpower, desires, experiences, and understanding. And what was magic if not the imposition of one’s will upon the world?

Nick wanted—nay, needed—the worm to stop. He poured all his emotions into the weave of magic: his anger, frustration, and excitement. The elemental winds ceased to exist, and those of Spirit began to blow.

The that took form this time was simultaneously much less than a regular one, as its winds churned with less vigor, and much more, as a weight to it existed, a density that had been absent so far.

A rainbow of colors danced within, embodying all he was.

What erupted from Nick’s hand was something no one in either of his lives had ever seen before.

It was completely his.