357 Explosive end
Mathew used his penetrating shot thrice and cast his protective veil the same number of times. In total, using those skills cost him a sum of two hundred fifty-five points of mana.
And counting all of the points in mind he had right now, he could barely afford to cast one more penetrating shot before drying all his mana up.
‘This isn’t good,’ Mathew thought, fighting off the nauseating feeling of the lingering memory of his own death. ‘I don’t think we will be able to take it down with just one more shot!’
The fight evened out again. Between Mathew’s shot and the constant pressure the girls put on the monster, they managed to reduce both its mobility and accuracy. Still, even with two out of its eight legs missing, the lobster didn’t seem to lose its ability to shoot beams of concentrated mist, nor its ability to swing its claws around.
In other words, it was as big of a threat now as it was before all the damage it received. But some progress was surely made.
“Line him up for another shot!” Mathew screamed from the bottom of his lungs, forcing his own mental state to accept the inevitability of what was coming.
‘It reacted the moment I was about to cast,’ he thought, running out of his former hideout in hopes that changing his position will give him at least a tiny bit more time to dodge. ‘I really don’t want to enter a shooting contest with it again…’ Mathew thought, dashing from cover to cover, making use of all the perks the destroyed city landscape offered.
In the meantime, the girls worked hard to achieve what Mathew asked of them.
Carol switched from trying to block the lobster’s legs to actively alternating between ice-cold water that would freeze while mid-air and then spewing flames out of her hands.
‘That’s a clever use of physics, alternating heat like that,’ Mathew took notice of the girl’s craftiness.
Mathew’s spell appeared to be the only mean capable of penetrating the lobster’s natural armor. And so, rather than wasting her mana by throwing spells that would simply bounce off the monster’s shell, Carol attempted to crack its armor by applying extreme cold and then switching to extreme heat.
It would take a long time to work, but with enough effort, this method could work.
The lobster couldn’t pay Carol much attention, though, as the rest of the girls kept it perfectly busy.
Daria used her shadowy form to defend Leila from any attacks coming her way, giving her friend the opportunity to look for the monster’s weak points.
And so, Leila would launch herself forward in short strides, and execute one or two swift strikes towards a point of interest before retreating underneath the protective veil of Daria’s range.
On the other side of the monster, Nadia kept up with the movements of its two remaining legs.
She started the fight by making use of her newly obtained saber. Yet, as time went on, her physical prowess quickly made her weapon prove to be a bottleneck, a limiter on the damage that she could dish out.
Holding nothing back, Nadia then threw the saber away, opting to use her own hands instead.
Nadia slapped one of the lobster’s legs away before kicking the other. Losing its stability, the lobster desperately wiggled its legs around, rushing to keep them on stable ground. And in the opening it created, Nadia snuck closer to its side before dishing out a powerful fist!
The crustacean armor cracked while the monster squealed in pain.
Following the rebound that she threw the monster into, Nadia turned herself at her hips only to throw another fist in the exact same place.
Ting!
A strange sound filled the streets when Nadia’s punch went through the cracked armor, giving her fist access to the soft insides of the monster.
“REEEEE!”
The monster cried out before desperately launching itself up. It dropped its guard just to get away from the girl that it now fully perceived as a threat.
‘That’s what I was looking for!’ Mathew screamed inwardly out, gathering the mana into his hands.
This time, however, the task proved to be far more difficult.
With no spare mana coursing in his body, Mathew had to squeeze everything in himself just to gather enough.
The monster twitched the second Mathew started to gather his mana. Yet, still mid-air, it couldn’t do anything about it.
The monster fell down to the ground at the same time as Mathew managed to finally squeeze everything he had.
‘Penetrating shot,’ the young man thought, finally giving all his mana a concrete shape.
The power surged out of Mathew’s hands and towards the vortex created between them.
“NOT AGAIN!” Nadia then screamed from the bottom of her lungs right at the same time as the monster started to bend, hell-bent on punishing Mathew’s attempt with a shoot on its own.
“STOP!” Nadia screamed out, lurching upwards while pulling her right fist to the back.
And then, with the strength derived from all over her body, she punched forth, striking her fist right in the middle of the lobster’s tail.
“REEEE!” another cry filled the streets, sending the monster’s tail back towards the ground and disturbing its casting.
‘Wait, this is…’ Mathew hesitated for but a second.
A strange feeling, a sense of purpose, filled his brain.
p、A,nd A-n、o、ve,1
“GO!” Mathew shouted when a load of mana exploded out of the vortex, cutting through the air as it aimed for a seemingly random spot on the lobster’s body.
The shot went… and penetrated right through the armor. And then, wonders started to happen.
First, the lobster stopped.
Then, the armor on its tail started to swell up at a rapid pace.
“GET AWAY FROM IT!” Mathew shouted, somehow figuring out what was going on before it actually happened.
Everyone fell down where they were.
‘Shit, that’s not enough!’ Mathew despaired.
He clearly hit some sort of organ that the lobster used to launch its projectiles. And now, the same pressure that used to power those shots was building up inside the monster’s body!
‘It’s going to explode,’ Mathew thought, gritting his teeth as he stared powerlessly at the bloating body of the monster.
The power of the coming explosion would be powerful enough to cover the area of all the blocks around. Within this blast radius, not a single soul would be left safe.
“Now it’s my time to shine!” Norbert screamed out, reminding everyone of his presence. And with a single pull of his finger, he shoot the huge rifle that he was so busy piecing together.
Norbert’s shot struck the side of the monster’s shell, chipping away at its weakened armor and creating a small hole.
A hole that then proceeded to pop like a balloon before all of the monster’s insides exploded out of it.
‘Shit!’ Mathew cursed as he hugged the ground, waiting for the worst to happen… Only for the majority of the force behind the explosion to die off in the process of throwing the monster’s insides out.
‘Did that… work?’ Mathew slowly raised his head, looking at the blue-blood-covered scene of the battle. His eyes then moved over to Norbert who exhausted all of his luck with his shot, ending up as the only one covered in the lobster’s insides, even despite how far he was from the actual battlefield.
Mathew gulped his saliva down.
‘Maybe the guns are not as useless as I took them to be?’