Its six massive, spiked legs were kicking wildly in the air, thrashing in a frantic, blind panic to right itself. The massive horn on its head gouged deep trenches into the soil.
Sol tightened his grip on the Dreadwing Blade and sprinted straight at the overturned monster.
He didnāt give the beast a single microsecond to recover.
Sprinting forward, he leaped onto the thrashing, overturned underbelly of the Beetle. The air was a chaotic nightmare of wildly kicking, razor-sharp legs, each one thick as a petrified tree and capable of slicing him in half.
This was where the Dreadwingās exceptional sensory enhancements truly shined.
The glare of the sun and the frantic blur of the legs were too chaotic. So, he let the Dreadwingās sensory enhancements take over.
He didnāt even look at the legs. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, relying entirely on the shifts in air pressure. He danced across the beastās underbelly, ducking a sweeping limb by millimeters, twisting his torso to let a spiked joint graze his chest plate, and vaulting over a crushing strike with impossible, fast-twitch agility.
He navigated the lethal obstacle course flawlessly, arriving directly at the beastās chest.
But even its underbelly was heavily armored. He needed a direct path to the scrambled brain.
Sol looked up. The Warchief had originally struck the beast directly between its compound eyes. The massive, gaping wound was still leaking thick, yellowish-green ichor, but because the beast was overturned, the wound was angled awkwardly toward the mud.
He jammed his left hand directly into a crack in the beastās chest plating to anchor himself. The Beetle shrieked, sensing the parasite on its belly, and thrashed even harder, trying to crush Sol against the earth.
Sol engaged the full, tectonic weight of the Lord Great Badger and became an immovable anchor, violently arresting the beastās thrashing momentum with pure, concentrated density.
With his right hand, he raised the blade.
But instead of swinging, he held it in a reverse grip, the sapphire blade pointed straight down.
He waited patiently for the beastās frantic struggling to expose the exact angle.
And finally after getting some good thrashing, the Beetle violently bucked its head backward.
The gaping, ichor-leaking wound opened perfectly.
"DIE!" Sol shouted strainly.
He plunged the Dreadwing Blade straight down, burying the iridescent sapphire saber all the way to the hilt directly into the original wound created by Veylara.
The blade sank deep into the remaining, intact sections of the beastās central nervous system.
But Sol didnāt stop there. He channeled a massive, concentrated burst of his Sun Coreās golden essence directly through the conductive sapphire blade. The weapon hummed so aggressively it made his teeth vibrate.
"Stay fucking down!" Sol roared.
The blade sank deeper, burying deep into the gooey, leaking mess of the beetleās exposed wound.
But Layer 3 beasts didnāt just roll over and die. Their life force was a stubborn, nasty thing.
Instead of dying obediently, went completely, terrifyingly berserk.
A horrific, bubbling screech tore out of its mandibles. Even it seemed to know it was definitely dead today, so, the primal, hateful survival instincts took over.
It seemed to have decided that if it was going to die today, it was going to drag this human bastard to hell with it.
As he was busy stirring the gooey mess, out of the corner of his eye, Sol suddenly saw the shadow.
One of the beetleās massive front legs... thick and ending in a wicked, serrated spike... whipped around in a blind, desperate arc, aiming straight for him.
Solās Dreadwing senses screamed at him to move. To duck. To jump off the shell. But his brain ran countless scenarios in a fraction of a second. And finally came to the conclusion that, if he let go of the blade now, if he dodged, heād lose his leverage, he had worked so hard to get. And the beast would definitely get back up and run straight for the walls to take down as many humans with him as possible.
Even though he wasnāt some self-sacrificing saint or hero, even he knew the gravity of the situation, he continuously shouted for his brain to move, "MOVE!... MOVE!... FUCKING MOVE!" but alas! He didnāt know from where some shred of humanity came, in the end, he didnāt let go, he gritted his teeth, "GOD DAMN IT!!" and tightened his grip and braced for the impact.
BAM.
The massive spiked foot slammed into his side.
Sol coughed up a wad of blood, the air getting knocked clean out of his lungs.
The silver-gray Badger armor took the clean hit, vibrating with a heavy, desperate tectonic hum. It tried to absorb the force, routing the kinetic weight away, but this wasnāt a glancing blow. This was a near-Layer 4 beast putting every last drop of its dying strength into a single, fucking point.
"AAghhhhhhhhhh!" he roared both in pain and anger.
The pressure was so fucking insane. It felt like getting slowly crushed by a falling mountain. He tried to endure, reminding himself that, just a bit more, just a bit more, when suddenly, a sickening sound came in his ears.
Riiiiiiip.
He gulped and looked down with difficulty, and was shocked. The legendary Great Badger hide, the armor that had taken hits from giant apes and boars without a single scratch, started to tear.
Seemingly enjoying his roars of pain, beetle also kept screeching, pushing the spike harder and harder., while Sol prayed to every Single god he ever knew.
"
Zeus,
Big guy with the lightning bolts Thunder daddy, please donāt let me get fried! I swear Iāll stop blaming you for every thunderstorm!
Apollo,
Sun guy, music guy, healing guy.... pick any skill and save me!
Thor,
My buddy itās hammer time! smash my enemies not me! I promise to help you get Jane Foster from Valhalla!
Freyja
Goddess of love, love me enough to keep me breathing... Iāll write you poetry, badly but sincerely!
Ra,
Sun god, dude we are both related to the sun, please shine a spotlight on my escape route!
Shiva,
Destroyer, please destroy my problems, not me!
Kali,
Fierce mama, scare the danger away!
Allah
Oā Great Merciful one! Please mercy me out of this situation!
Yahweh
Big G, save your clumsy child! Jesus Buddy, you walked on water, can you walk me out of here? Sun goddess
Amaterasu
, for the sake of Sun, please light up my path!
Inti
OāGreat Sun god, shine me a miracle!
Great Spirit
, Big spirit, small favor: keep me alive!"
And if I missed anyone... sorry! Please donāt smite me for forgetting your name, you know Iām in a bit of pinch here!"
A.N:
SOS send help, our boi Sol is in serious trouble and need your help, send some castles to help him out *wink*