“Its been a long time since I had the chance to battle myself.” Ayse stretched her hands and legs while Weslie was busy taking notes of the chimaera soldiers that were Kiva literally pulled out of his bag. They were neither the Lion Mantis nor Bat Bottleflies but instead a series of new monster which Jin’s scientists hadn’t encountered before.
Bipedal in nature the purplish-blue monster had narrow eyes, fluffy ears with leather-ish tufts and a short neck filled with jagged teeth. Yes, there was a mouth on its neck. Two large venomous horns were on its forehead and a ridge of spiky spines down its back. Metallic plates covered the entirety of its chest, and stony spine edges were on each side of the elbow.
Each palm had three variable drill looking claws, and the feet had triple hoof-like nails. Not to mention its tail should be a terribly potent weapon in Weslie’s opinion. Given her knowledge of animals and plants, with this kind of length and size, the tail would be capable of smashing, constricting and even breaking the bones of any creature smaller than it. There was no doubt that if either one of them got caught, there was a good chance they could die from it almost instantly.
So what could be worse than one such monstrosity… naturally, it would be two. Soon enough, the second entered the scene from Kiva’s bag of ‘tricks’. He laughed as he watched his two female opponents take a few steps after his Drill Rhinos simultaneously let out an ear-splitting howl. (Truth be told, he hadn’t reacted any better when he gave ‘birth’ to them.)
“I am honestly quite curious how he was able to keep two such monsters in his bag. Void magic? Bag of bottomless storage? But if so, how could the monsters survive?” Ayse queried towards the direction of Weslie.
“Oh my, I didn’t believe my opponent was someone so knowledgeable. This is something I would actually like to brag about. You see, I managed to find a way that allows me to sew a magic circle and incantations of a separate dimensional space onto this particular bag.” Kiva boasted from behind the safety of his Sand Golem.
“So you managed to export air and ground space into this dimensional space allowing them to live inside? Then how do you maintain the mana consumption of the dimensional space?” Ayse nodded as she wrote down his answer while he shook his head.
“That is where you are wrong. This is merely a gateway to that dimensional space.”
“OH! So, you have more than one entry and exit! Or perhaps this is just your exit, and thus you do not need to keep up the mana consumption and just use it as and when.”
“You aren’t entirely correct, but not too far off.” Kiva for once felt happy that someone understood him in a short amount of time.
“That is rather unique. A similar concept to the dimensional dungeon instance but probably without any time delay. Anyway, don’t spoil it all. I am looking forward to discovering the rest on my own. I call dibs on his bag!” Ayse declared as she conjured a lightning fused fireball and threw it towards Kiva.
As expected, the Drill Rhinos were smart enough to block to the projectile for their master and stopped the lightning fireball in the nick of time. Kiva, who was cowering in fear because of the close shave, quickly ordered the Drill Rhinos to attack the two ladies.
Ayse quickly clapped her fingers, and a wave of electricity move straight towards the two Drill Rhinos, paralysing them so that Weslie could follow up. The Scholar of the West used her storage ring to grab a steampunk pneumatic rifle.
“What are you guys staring into space for? Stop acting and protect me properly!” Kiva shouted as he kicked the closest one in his butt. The Drill Rhinos shook its paralysation off and started to stomp at the direction of the armed Weslie.
“Here’s hoping I’ve properly calibrated it to account for the backlash.” Weslie thought as she pulled onto a lever underneath the rifle while magically inserting air into the pneumatic cylinder. Without even aiming, she shot the rifle, and a crossbow bolt flew out of the barrel of the pneumatic rifle’s barrel instead of a metal pellet.
Because of her initial configuration to high power, the bolt was shot out with a loud screeching blast of air and pierced through the first Drill Rhino that was charging towards her. Even with its heavy-duty natural metal plate, the crossbow bolt had managed to penetrate through the Drill Rhino’s defences and even had enough force to fly towards the second Drill Rhino behind it.
But after going through that ton of meat mass, the arrow had lost all velocity, and it merely made a cling sound upon contact with the second Drill Rhino’s metal plates. However, for the former Drill Rhino, the shot incidentally pierced a couple major arteries near its heart, causing massive internal bleeding from within.
Hence, it dropped its speed within seconds and died nearly on the spot after a few seconds. But within that few seconds, the latter Drill Rhino did not stop at his comrade’s demise and continued to charge towards Weslie who had kneeled to fire the Pneumatic Rifle.
“Don’t worry, girl. I got you covered.” Ayse said as she too had whipped out a two-handed rifle which had construction rails at the side of the barrel. Electricity was seen being generated from her hands and subsequently stored into a battery component of the gun before it discharged out and zapped the Drill Rhino.
Yet, this was her first time using the Arc Induction Lance Rifle, a prototype weapon which Ayse had been developing as a side project during her ‘I build my own stuff for my own benefit’ time. And the results turned out to… exceptionally stunning.
While it did not paralyse the Drill Rhino like her thunderclap magic, the Arc Induction Lance Rifle managed to successfully discharge an intense beam of photon-based lightning and practically burnt off the Drill Rhino’s leg, causing it to disappear within an instant.
The Drill Rhino fell before it ever managed to come close enough to either scientist. Ayse was extremely thrilled with the results of her new prototype weapon against a living target.
“Huh, I kind of expected some resistance from them. But not this deadly… Very well, you force my hand too.” Kiva transformed his head into the Raven form and started chanting inexplicable sentences which the two scientists were unable to comprehend.
Suddenly the bodies of the two Drill Rhinos that were in front of them started to vibrate and moved like two magnets attracting each other. “This should be a fair amount of challenge that renders you incapable of incapacitating me!.”
“You sound confident. What’s your estimated survival rate?” Ayse questioned in a haughty tone.
“I’d say 100% but judging by how easily you managed to defeat these two Drill Rhinos, I will give a pessimistic rate of 80-85%.” Kiva conjured as the two Drill Rhinos began merging together.
“You should redo your math. The answer should be zero.” Ayse retorted as she started to induce more charge into her Arc Induction Lance Rifle while Weslie powered her Pneumatic Rifle further, reloading it with another crossbow bolt.
“Hahah! I assure you, I made no such mistake. Anyways, it’s been fun interacting with you all too!” Kiva laughed as he turned his head back into a Bat and instinctively tried to return to the safe zone… only to run straight into Stolas’ barrier once more.
“Damn that Owl Head Prince!”
