Chapter 209: Prize Catch

Will closed his eyes and mouth so he didn’t get foamed earth in them. who knew how bad it would be once it solidified?

The creature had no less than five independent mouths on the end of tentacle-like protrusions. From the brief glimpse of it’s body that Will had seen while it was breaching, the stomach was…

That way, Will thought, trusting his internal sense of direction, using Phantom Hand and his tomahawk to keep himself attached to the monster’s slimy skin, and not dislodged by the ocean of sticky foam rushing past him.

The thrashing diminished as Will reached the creature’s center of mass, suggesting he was on the right track. The stomach was usually near the center of mass on most creatures.

Under Will’s palm, he felt it:

The desperate thrashing of Climbers swallowed whole, unable to discern up from down.

They just needed a direction to strive for.

Shave and a haircut. Will beat his palm against Attrition’s stomach.

An instant later, a sword burst out of the monster’s belly where his palm had been.

OOOOOOOO

A rumbling groan spread through the entire world and Attrition bucked. An instant later they were sailing through the air, leaving the foaming earth behind.

Will slipped his hand past the blade of the sword, reaching elbow-deep into the monster’s side and grabbing the Climber’s wrist.

“GAH!” with a grunt of effort, Will dragged the Climber out, who had seemingly formed a human chain with the other three Climbers, squirting out of the monster’s side like a watermelon seed.

“Milord.”

“Tank’e.”

“Milord.”

“Feck!”

The Climbers gave him quick nods as they tumbled to the ground, tucking in their limbs and rolling like professionals before leaping to their feet and rejoining the topside groups chasing after Attrition.

Is that not the first time they’ve ever been swallowed? Will thought an instant before Attrition went back underground. There was something to be said about the fact that the average Climber on this Floor was a veteran in their forties.

Will could feel Attrition struggling to dive deep, but the bubbles expanding under it were constantly pushing back on it, forcing it up and draining its energy.

Just need to-OW!

Will hissed through the omnipresent foam and chopped an eel-shaped slimy thing chewing on his forearm.

Attrition breached the ground again and Will spotted black worms flooding out of the wound in Attrition’s stomach.

Will plucked the detached head whose teeth were buried in his arm and inspected it.

A detachment of the Raid Boss ‘Attrition’.

A pale imitation whose only goal is to devour Climbers.

In the instant before they went back underground, Will spotted a massive swarm explode out of the ground, kicked up by Will’s Homeland Advantage. Their mobility was certainly hampered, but there were a lot of them and they had no regard for their own lives, sacrificing themselves willingly to get a single nibble on the Climbers harassing their creator.

It was turning into a massive, messy melee as the Climbers were being assaulted from every direction by the detachments.

If we can drag this engagement North far enough that the Nukers can support us, we can regain control of the situation.

“Keep pushing Nor-“

Back in the foam, forcing Will to snap his mouth shut or learn the taste of foaming dirt and stone.

Will opened the map in his mind’s eye, watching their heading as he crawled blindly along Attrition’s side, orienting himself against the direction of the constant stream of foam, seeking the head of the beast.

As he climbed towards the head, Will bumped into Bee, unable to sense her through the chaotic landslide of foam rushing past them.

Will tapped the Tangled girl on the shoulder and took her hand, indicating which direction he’d like them to steer the enormous eel-squid-thing.

Will and all the Bees attached to attrition yanked to the left and Will watched as their heading creeped further north, nearly getting them back inside the operation’s borders.

If I hadn’t gotten Map, I really would have a hard time coordinating these, wouldn’t I?

Will didn’t really have time to pat himself on the back, because the Attrition juked hard, flaring out the mouth-tentacles on the side, coming to a sudden halt.

MOVE!

Will threw himself out of the way an instant before an enormous mouth swept through the foam where he had just been.

Will sharpened Phantom hand’s armor into a blade and cut a deep gouge into the monster’s tentacle.

A burst of poison gushed past him, and Will felt himself wilt, curling in on himself like a dying spider as the tingling sensation spread through his nerves.

If I feel this bad, how bad is it for everyone else?

Will’s grip slipped on the haft of his axe, and suddenly he was tumbling away. He grabbed himself with Phantom Hand and erupted out of the earth before it could re-solidify.

This punk. The more damage we do to it, the more damage we’re going to take, Will thought as he flew after the trail of bubbles.

It was as if someone had designed the Raid Boss to be as petty and vindictive as possible.

No wonder it got that name. The harder you fought it the more damage it did.

“YEEEHAAAW!” Bee shouted as Attrition leapt above-ground, half of her bodies dangling lifelessly from the raid boss’s side.

Ranged attacks flew in from the south as the Climbers temporarily set aside their defense against the creature’s offshoots and aimed to make it pay for breaching in the short instant before it hit the earth again.

Will enjoyed their enthusiasm, and resolved to make their contributions mean something.

Just like fishing, huh?

Will formed Phantom Hand’s armor into a massive fishhook and shoved it into the creature’s main mouth.

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Despite making the surface area of the hook bigger than a man, it wasn’t quite large enough to drag Attrition around without tearing itself out.

Instead, will tugged on it just hard enough to give the monster a hard time, stopping just shy of yanking the hook free.

The only problem with this method: Will was forced to keep up on his own two feet rather than Phantom Hand to keep up.

Will’s tingling legs rapidly recovered from the poison as he sprinted straight North, tugging the monster’s head northward every time it tried to get away.

Will lost himself in the task, so focused on herding the creature northward that he didn’t even notice when they succeeded in their primary goal

BOOM!

Pinpricks of light streaked from the mountain to the north and landed directly on the line of warriors and scouts, burning away the voracious worms, straight off their skin.

Did Ria arrange that? Will had overlooked the tactic of using a Ring of Consideration to avoid blasting party-members. It was something that he should’ve 100% added to the plan, but he’d simply forgotten in his focus on weakening Attrition’s ability to swim through the earth.

And yet…my people didn’t forget, Will thought as flames rushed over his Climbers, scouring the worms away from them.

Maybe it was standard practice, or maybe someone was looking out for him.

In either case, that marked the turning point of the battle.

Dozens of arrows and spears with barbs and ropes whipped out, catching the enormous monster in the side.

Teams were formed around the thicker ropes, lending their bodyweight to the resistance Attrition was pulling against.

More than once, Attrition nearly escaped the box, only the be blown out of the ground by a ranged attack from the Nukers.

The warriors with lower Resistance gradually escaped the box valley that gradually turned into a stew of poison.

Eventually it was just Will, Bee, Ria, and a few of the names on the ‘I survived the Tank-slayer!’ list in Muriel’s bar, who were able to stay on the ground level.

That didn’t mean the other’s weren’t working.

“HAUL IT UP!” Will shouted, his voice raspy as the poison permeating the valley clawed against the sensitive tissue in the back of his throat.

“HEAVE!”

The man-sized braided rope tightened again as the Climbers at the top of the cliff shouted at once, dragging Attrition up.

More men carrying newly hewn poles made of large trees shoved them down before prying the limp monster’s sides away from the cliffside, forcing it to dangle in midair so it couldn’t foam the cliffside into nothing.

“HEAVE!”

There it is. Will thought as the entirety of the monster was suspended above-ground, thrashing weakly against their efforts.