Trial Of Monsters And Summons 31 Ch. 24- Jareth Vs. Juggernaut Centipede

Entering the tier 3 area wasn't much different from the outer area, only slightly denser shrubbery and some larger and more dangerous monsters. They didn't really pose a threat to us with two summons each summoned out, each was at least able to contend with tier 3's if not completely dominate most of them.

I let Emett take a front seat to get some more battles in and Alexis did the same with Holly saying that she would need the practice fighting in closer quarters where air s.p.a.ce is mostly blocked off. Musashi and Brutus were sitting back like doting parents watching their kid play on the playground all the while ready to swoop in and save them if need be. It was an odd image to come to mind, but I couldn't say it was inaccurate.

Holly taking the air and supporting Emett on the ground seemed to be a pretty good pair as could be seen in their first fight where a feathered serpent and a bristled boa pair worked to take down the una.s.suming-looking duo. Obviously the feathered serpent went after Holly with its' poisonous fangs bared to plunge into the harpy if given the chance. The boa slunk its way towards Emett who remained stationary the entire time as if letting the serpent attack first to at least give it a fighting chance.

Neither monster had much luck as the feathered serpent was unable to come close due to repeatedly dodging feather projectiles shot from Holly's wings. The boa managed to wrap around Emett, but not much else happened as it was unable to even shave away the rocks on the golem's surface.

It didn't last much longer than getting an initial attempt at shaving away the skin. Emett seemed to want to finish the fight sooner rather than later and went for the vicious move of prying apart the razor-like jaws of the constrictor and tearing them apart from each other.

The ability to unhinge its' jaws helped the snake at first, until even that limit was being broken with a sharp snap as the bottom jaw was completely removed from the head. The boa attempted to hiss in pain, but it had no tongue to do so, and instead just writhed around in pain until it died shortly after from blood loss.

Holly's fight wasn't over any later than Emett's as the flying snake dove in with a last-ditch attempt at poisoning the humanoid bird. Unfortunately for it, Harpies are experts at fighting and eating snakes, and just as easily caught it within her claws before ripping it in half with heavy tugs from each leg's talon to kill it.

I traded corpses with Alexis as Mira still needed more poison for her experiments, and we continued our way to the inner area of the marsh killing monsters as we went. We managed to kill off about 20 monsters in total within the area, most encounters had more than one monster in a group. This made it easier on us to get monster corpses to sell for when we returned, even if they would still be at a reduced rate, quant.i.ty over quality was what we were going for now.

By the time we made it to the edge of the area which was clearly marked with a barrier of low fog that made it difficult to see far away. We would have to be extra vigilant within this area and so prepared our summon lineup accordingly before entering the ominous area.

I called back Emett and brought out Jareth who seemed to be eager to battle with some strong monsters. I was just hoping he would be able to defeat his unknown foe and evolve, going in this area was risky but necessary for his evolution, I doubt I would have attempted it had I not partnered up with Alexis.

Alexis just had the two summons currently, but just had Musashi at the front now and Holly hanging at the back as support.

"Jareth tells me he's about ready to evolve, so I'd like for him to take point and fight against any monsters we find if he is able to handle them, otherwise please step in and help him fight it off."

"Ok, you hear that Musashi?"

The large insectoid nodded his green triangle-esque head and clattered the pair of mandibles around his mouth in some attempt at communication.

"Musashi says that he'll step back, but only if he gets to fight some monsters later too."

"Fine by me, I just want Jareth to finally evolve, and a dangerous solo battle should do just the trick."

With that agreed on, we walked into the misty bayou with our heads on a swivel, weary of any unknowns. Brutus and his keen sense of smell would be our first line of defense, and Holly with her aerial view would serve as a back up to find any monsters hiding.

Fortunately, most tier 4 monsters within the area were spa.r.s.e and had little concern with hiding themselves as their power was usually enough to fight any opponent they came across. The first one we came across was after 30 minutes of wandering around we found a spriggan that Jareth immediately fought against.

It was a tough battle with the living wood monster controlling plants within the vicinity to attack Jareth ceaselessly. He was strong and fast enough to run through them while smacking away the stronger vines and branches with his mace, his gravity hammer remained at rest on his shoulder.

Without the foreknowledge of knowing what monster he was fighting and that there was a monster near, Jareth likely would have been taken by surprise and drowned before he even knew what hit him. Luckily this wasn't the case and he was prepared to take down the ambush specializing monster.

When he got within distance Jareth sprinted just out of reach of some vines trying to tangle his feet and swung around in a tight circle with the gravity hammer outstretched. At the peak of momentum and right before impact on the spriggan's chest, the gravity ability was activated and what resulted was a giant crash and a gaping hole where the chest of the monster used to be.

I quickly stored the body and after a little searching, the core as well, which had been lost in the final attack. We moved on to avoid being ambushed ourselves and came across 2 more monsters before finally coming across the most dangerous monster I've ever faced to date.

I quickly identified the monster as a juggernaut centipede, which was the length of a bus and about as wide as a tire. It had a red and black-streaked carapace that just screamed violence, and also had about one-hundred legs that were each the size of my arm and pointed at the end for digging into ground or stabbing. It had a large pair of pincers around the mouth and a mult.i.tude of eyes on its head.

The most eye-catching and remarkable part of the body was the thick plates that shifted around the outside of its body like living chainmail. This centipede was defensively focused, and it was difficult for any attacks to even mar the surface, let alone do some real damage.

The giant insect was known for crushing or plowing over its prey with no concern about damage to itself as if it perfectly embodied the concept of being a juggernaut. It was essentially a large and dangerous moving tank and was one of the especially dangerous monsters within the marsh.

I knew this was serious and sent Jareth out to distract the bug for a second while I summoned out Jotun and unsummoned Brutus. This monster would require a team effort to take down, which would be especially hard considering how one hit could spell the end for any of the summons.

"Alexis, have Holly help distract the centipede and have Musashi stay behind, his blade-arms won't be able to get past the bugs' defense."

I had Jotun go out and support Jareth as well with an occasional Ice breath attack. Jareth was holding his own against the centipede by pure merit of being faster than the bug. It was raised off the ground and doing its best to squash Jareth with its body weight or tear into him with sharpened legs pointed down to attack.

It didn't seem to be too concerned about Jareth and was currently toying around with him, this only lasted till Jareth managed to strike the exposed underside of the colossal insect with his gravity hammer attack. It seemed like it managed to go through the tough armor and inflict some internal damage.

The resulting shriek from the monster was like nails on a chalkboard and resulted in almost all of the summons flinching slightly at the sound, luckily the monster was too occupied with the damage it received to take advantage of that moment of vulnerability.

It was now warier and avoided exposing itself unnecessarily while fighting to avoid another incident like before. It didn't seem to be terribly bright either as it was able to be distracted from the feather shards and ice b.a.l.l.s being launched at it. This gave Jareth a necessary reprieve to recover a little from constantly dodging attacks that not even he would be willing to take on despite his high defense.

That's not to say that he wasn't hurt in the fight at all, as there were a mult.i.tude of deep cuts along his body from the legs of the monster, but his increased healing factor was taking care of them for now at least. It seemed like at this point that for every wound healed there were two more that would take its place.

He was covered in blood, but didn't seem to be out of the fight yet. I knew he wouldn't be able to take too much more of this and decided to gamble in order to win.

"Jareth, use your berserker skill! You need to take it down as soon as possible so only bother using the gravity hammer to deal internal damage."

I got a head nod in response as he was too preoccupied to do anything else. He dropped his iron mace which was just taking up s.p.a.ce in his hand at this point and his skin began to have veins of red surging through it.

His face took on a feral expression and he roared out in rage, he turned his head towards the closest moving thing which was luckily the monster and began to viciously attack with no regard to any damage taken.

Swing after swing was given to the bug which was doing its best to avoid the raging summon to no avail, Jareth was too fast and it was too large to effectively avoid his attacks. Seconds pa.s.sed by as heavy damage was given on both sides, each vying to take out the other before they themselves were killed.

Both opponents had given up any attempt at avoiding attacks and were now doing their best to squash the other. Jareth was like a surging tide with the hammer whipping in and out in some sort of ethereal dance of aggression. He moved like a never-stopping spinning top and continued to layer on attack after attack on the now crushed carapace of the insect.

However, it wasn't going down without a fight and had been able to use its' claws to great effect, anytime Jareth got close enough to attack he was pierced or slashed with at least a few. Unfortunately for it, Jareth was unable to feel any pain in this state and only focused on doing as much damage as possible.

It was nearly the time limit for the berserker skill and as soon as that ran out, Jareth wouldn't be able to survive for even a few seconds longer. Luckily the damage acc.u.mulated over the battle from repeated attacks from an enraged hobgoblin was enough to take down the juggernaut centipede before it could take out Jareth.

It fell over after a sharp wail of defeat and remained motionless after that. Jareth, seeing that his opponent was no longer moving looked around for another target to attack in his bloodl.u.s.t and began to charge towards Jotun who was closest to him.

Luckily Jareth only made it about halfway before the skill ran out and he fell to the ground in extreme exhaustion. Alexis and I began to head towards Jareth to check up on him and to secure the monster core for Jareth's evolution.

I brought out my healing salve and used a fair amount covering the mult.i.tude of wounds crossing across the hobgoblin's flesh. Alexis went to retrieve the core for me as I was taking care of my injured summon.

As soon as she retrieved it and handed it to me, I fed the core to Jareth in hopes that the core and the tough battle would be enough to launch him over the evolutionary wall. Luckily it seems to have worked as light began to emanate from Jareth who still remained on the ground.
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Alexis and I backed up and watched the evolution begin. Jareth's form seemed to be growing larger and more rotund, and is even seemed like there was an additional pair of muscular arms growing from his extended torso.

Lights were also flowing into me as the change continued and I felt my strength soar and my skin get thicker. I got the odd impression that I was now fully capable of using either hand like it was my dominant one, this also seemed to extend to my legs as well.

By the end, Jareth was recovered and standing in his new hulking form. He was now an ogre larger than any human with a thick platinum-colored skin that seemed impenetrable, along with that large change was the additional pair of limbs right under his original ones. The official name for Jareth's new form was the 4-armed t.i.tanium ogre, and he was as impressive as the name made him sound if not more so.

It seems the trait of many arms from the centipede pa.s.sed down onto Jareth as he evolved, and the ogre core seems to have done its' job of guiding Jareth to become an ogre. He looked domineering just standing in his new form and exuded a dangerous aura.

His mace seems to have evolve with him and now had jagged and curved tips reminiscent of the centipede's legs all over the head of the weapon, it was definitely built more for tearing and ripping at this point. He picked it up and held the changed weapon comfortably with one hand.

I had gained increased stats to the point of being able to contend with a strong tier 2 monster by myself, and I seemed to have gained a thicker skin and the ability to be ambidextrous from Jareth, probably as a result of him gaining extra limbs to use.

"Congrats Thomas, it seems like you have your first tier 4 summon. That's quite the accomplishment for someone as new as you to summoning. I suppose that monster break must have really pushed Jareth to his limit."

"Thanks, it's still hard to believe that he used to be just a little goblin around knee-height and is now a towering ogre that I have to look up at to see his face. I suppose I owe Musashi a battle or two, so why don't we keep looking for more monsters to fight."

"Sounds good to me."