Chapter 451 - Far Future Ch. 161 – Blood, Sap, Ichor, Oil, and Other Sanguine Fluids (1/2)

The exploding puff-mouths and lilly-flies were also very unwelcome, especially when we weren't allowed to bring ranged weapons in, for pain of death.

Swords that could throw Sharding attacks against foes using their own ranged attacks were one of those corner cases, however. Smart people had things like returning knives, overlong whips, or throwing spikes to hurl and detonate those kinds of things ahead of time, and of course when our Shards ripped into a cloud of the things and detonated them, sending off a chain-reaction, that was much appreciated.

That said, those who were prepared did pretty well for themselves. They weren't here because they were pushovers, after all.

The urgobs were laying about themselves with power claws and stomping feet, the alchemic treatment on their armor denying the acidic, letting out electrical discharges when the cellulocusts attempted to swarm them.

The drow had sealed up their carapace armor and were moving with lithe speed and grace, blades with monomolecular and fractal edges being deployed, along with monofilament whips and boomeranging blades. Iron-hard bark shells and coverings were sliced clean through, and severed pieces of cellulocusts littered the area they passed through.

Behind those two, a mi-go with six artificial limbs was a cross-cutting buzzsaw, while some humans in power armor were hacking with rotary saw-chakras flitting around them, wielding oversized axes and blades in artificial fists with speed and energy. Reptoids lashed out with glowing, rune-enhanced teeth, claws, and tails, their scales defying the attacks of their enemies, while cyborgs moved with mechanical speed and precision, tearing the 'locusts into cloying chaff and sawdust, ripping, cutting, piercing, and tearing as fast as possible, moving from one, two, and three targets at a time, on to the next...

It was a savage show and melee, and nobody was immune to it. The 'locusts scuttled to surround everyone, and clambered right over those in front to get at those in the back, while the flying ones simply centered on where any clusters were. It was cut and hack and stab without end, moving from enemy to the next, no stopping if you wanted to live.

Nobody beat our kill-totals though, as the four of us chewed through the scuttling scenery, bathed in syrup, sap, poison, acid, slime, and other ichors of various types, to no effect on us. Our kill totals climbed as we ripped through the waves of the weakest with abandon, circles of violence that left nothing alive behind us.

Bush and shrub-sized second-tier 'locusts leapt forwards to engage us. The first one hit Celestia, and was Hewed and Finished before it got a strike off, the two behind it freezing in shock despite supposedly having no fear. The first one that hit Jensa got popped precisely in its nexal network, Banefire ravaged the decentralized cells, and it dropped as she continued right on by. The first one to come up on Keva in her Whirlwind Dance got six different limbs chopped off with Improved Sunder before she opened it up vertically, and with a backfist sent it spinning and slamming into its fellow... who she promptly proceeded to buzzsaw through in the same way.

I channeled my Inner Briggs (who was watching and laughed heartily) and charged my trio.

Chalice was inserted in the one on the right, energies ripping through its nexal network to kill it. My hand went into the second, ignoring the toxicity of its fluids and how steely-hard its bark was supposed to be. The third one I rammed my head into, cracking and shattering its carapace as razored limbs clawed at my back and sides, and acidic venom spewed all over me. I pumped my legs and carried all three of the things back, crushing everything that got under them with my feet coming down like steel spikes, or plowing them out and away as I brought my arms together and cracked their bodies even more.

Countless 'locusts crunched, cracked, and splorted beneath my feet, or were smashed out and away as I covered the distance to the looming mothertrees in command of them all, all of them turning photoreceptors my way to watch me.

I blowed through the tertiary line, literally ramming the shrub-slayers into a gourd-beetle the size of a van, hooking Chalice right through the pulped remains of her victim to impale its head and eject a cellulose-ravaging Shard through its innards as I let go of everything, and sent gourd-beetle and battle-shrubs flying away from me.

One of the mothertrees flicked a fruit grenade at me.

Jensa's Shard streaked overhead and caught it ten feet from the release point. Blunt damage blew the fruit apart, and the concussion effect caught the nearest fruit on the mothertree, while acidic poison goo sprayed everywhere with hissing, organics-eating strength. It seemed the fruit needed to be primed, which was probably done through internal chemicals just before throwing, so it only popped apart instead of exploding as we were hoping... but while the mothertree's resins dealt with the acid, and its limbs merely swayed in the explosion, those 'locusts underneath and around it were still hissing and burning under the impact of the fruit's chemicals.

I lifted Chalice at the mothertrees, as the 'locusts paused all around me, sitting there unharmed while all their poisons and acids dripped off me. Tattooed Whiskers hissed into existence on my cheeks. ”Only a thousand will live. Kill the weak, and wait for the drow masters to descend. You have to kill them if you wish to live.”

Sure, they were plants and a hivemind. Maybe they could understand normal speech, maybe not. But the Whiskers of the Wild made sure they knew exactly what I was saying.

The mothertrees shifted slightly, as if looking at one another, then out over the battlefield where their minions were dying much, much faster than the fleshy and mechanical opponents they were fighting were, where my girls were chewing up the second tier, and I had butchered part of the third without any trouble.

Silently, making no attempt at a reply by any of the various means, the cellulocust swarm turned away, and as they did, the entire 'locust swarm abruptly retreated and flowed after them, to the amazement of those following us. They even made very wide and careful paths around me and the girls.

If only one of the mothertrees lived, that was enough for the locusts. But that probably wasn't going to happen if they continued engaging with us. They would have to spend all their minions to reduce the counts enough, and then hope to survive.

I ignored the cellulocusts as I turned to the right, started that way, and the 'locusts parted around me and the girls as we glided in that direction. ”Goblins!” I called out, and my ki-laden voice was clearly heard by those fighting behind me.

-Jensa, you locate that Marquis yet?- I /inquired idly.