Okay, so, calling the Guardian of the Dunes a fish was unfair. It was like calling a dragon a flying lizard. While technically accurate, it was also a downright insult. Because, what stood opposite Matt, was one cool as fuck looking monster.
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Its shape did resemble that of a fish, except it was fully skeletal. Yep, it was one big skeleton with way too many bones that, historically, a similar creature shouldn’t have.
It was around ten feet in length and five in height, with bones that had long lost their white shine, instead taking on a muted yellowish-grey color. A massive horn jutted out of its head, looking brittle and worn as if the passage of time had affected it more than the rest of the body. Finally, nasty-looking teeth filled its mouth, spelling doom for anything caught in them, slightly filling Matt with trepidation about the fate of his precious shoe and scepter.
Oh, it was also floating.
It was a terrifying creature that looked nothing like the ones on the previous floors, one straight out of a horror novel. His punch had done a number on it, cracking at least half a dozen ribs, yet it otherwise looked completely unharmed. It also showed how tough those bones were if all he was able to do was crack a handful of them.
The Guardian stared at Matt, and Matt stared back. It was swaying left and right as it hovered a foot above the sand, filling him with a sense of menace and excitement. He was itching to start, but concerned about his reach compared to the guardian’s much larger and more flexible frame.
Guess I’ll have to dodge like my life depends on it, Matt thought as he started stretching his fully healed left arm. It did cost a lot more mana to speed up the healing, but he had to be ready for whatever came next. Because one thing was for sure, something was about to happen.
As if on cue, the guardian started sinking into the sand, prompting Matt to rush the dozen or so feet that separated them in an attempt to land another hit, yet he wasn’t quick enough.
He immediately started scanning his surroundings, trying to discern any minute changes in the sand that could help him locate the skeletal monstrosity.
A slight shift coming from a few feet to his right sprung him into action. He dove forward and away with all haste, narrowly dodging the guardian as it jumped out of the sand, maw wide open, needle-like teeth threatening to tear him apart, before diving back in again.
Matt got back up on his feet, fully alert, moving his head around erratically.
This time the shift came from right underneath him.
He jumped back and out of the way, taking a blind swing at the emerging figure, but to his surprise it wasn’t the ten foot guardian, but its two foot long horn, penetrating the surface before disappearing back again under the endless sand only for it to appear a second later underneath Matt’s new position.
Matt had to keep jumping back as the horn kept coming for him. The guardian was banking on him making a mistake, so he had to make a move soon.
He felt the slight shift once more, but this time, he took a shorter leap back while kicking at the incoming horn with the bridge of his foot, turning his body to increase the power the kick held the same way he had seen on TV many times before.
A thud sounded as the bridge of his foot landed on the brittle-looking, but remarkably tough, horn, catching the guardian by surprise as it took longer to pull back into the sand this time.
Matt tried to capitalize by doing a quick side kick, which, while it did land, caused him to lose balance and fall to his side.
Much harder than it looks on TV, Matt thought as he tried to push himself to his feet.
The guardian, noticing the shift, jumped out of the sand and towards Matt’s prone body.
Matt rolled to the side as he felt the sand near him move, dodging the guardian’s dive that was aimed exactly where his body had been.
He tried to quickly get back on his feet, but a sudden sharp pain stopped him in his tracks. The guardian’s horn had skewered him right through the abdomen.
The pain was startling, but negligible, adrenaline numbing most of it.
Matt felt a strange sense of calmness as his mind analyzed the situation, and with no hesitation nor a second thought, he grabbed onto the horn sticking out of him with both hands, bending it to the side with all his strength he could muster.
A loud crack echoed through the sandpit which forced the guardian to react as it hastily pulled the horn out before diving back under.
Matt fell to a knee, gritting his teeth.
“Try the heart next time, asshole,” he taunted, hovering a hand over his abdomen while casting [Mend]. It was painful, incredibly so, as all of it came flooding in now that the horn was removed, but it wasn’t something he couldn’t heal. The guardian, however, wouldn’t be able to grow its horn back once Matt broke it off, so he took that as a slight win.
He dove forward into a roll as a giant maw jumped at him from the side, the sudden movement aggravating his injury, sending shooting pain across his body.
That was why Matt was sure he wasn’t a masochist. Because, despite everything he had done so far indicating otherwise, he really hated pain. It did knock some sense into him though, giving him an idea.
Matt shifted the front of his right foot off of the sand, while putting all the weight on his heel. He started channeling mana close to another of the gates, the one at his soles, only letting out a bit of mana at a time.
The guardian, uncaring or unaware of what was happening, kept trying to impale Matt, making it incredibly awkward as he was forced to rely only on his left leg for dodging. The stiff movements only served to agitate his injury further, and the unstable, yielding sand made every step a battle of its own. Thankfully, his wound should heal soon, thanks to the amount of mana he was pushing through [Mend], so that should be one less thing to worry about.
A surprising dive into a horn attack from directly under his stationary right foot prompted a hasty dodge from Matt that had almost caused him to trip. He had to use both feet for balance, causing the mana he had been channeling to fizzle out.
“Shit,” he grumbled, regaining his balance while keeping an eye on his surroundings for the next attack. Having to concentrate on channeling mana while staying hyper aware of where the attacks were coming from, all while healing an abdomen wound, was… taxing. His mental faculties were struggling to keep up, and he doubted he could keep it up for long. He had no idea how he was processing all that information, but he was already feeling the drawback in the form of a headache, which was just making it all the more challenging to try to focus. Yet it was still manageable. He liked pushing himself. It made him aware of his limits and shortcomings, and a fight against a strong opponent was the best way to improve.
He started channeling mana once more, jumping and dodging when needed. His abdomen had healed enough for him to stop casting [Mend], leaving his natural regeneration to deal with the rest.
Right away, he could feel the difference. His senses were sharpening, headache fading, and mana control becoming ever so easier. He immediately started pushing more mana towards his right leg, channeling what he could while waiting for an opportunity to see if his idea would work.
Another hop back from an incoming horn, followed by a side step, and finally he got his wish. An opening.
His initial idea was to push all the channeled mana while doing a side kick, hopefully starting the illusive skeleton enough to land a few more hits. However, his previous attempt at the maneuver had shown him why it wasn’t possible.
The problem was the sand. His previous side kick had demonstrated both, how bad he was at martial arts, and how tricky the sandy arena was to fight in. Striking at the gigantic monster only to find himself landing on his ass would probably do more harm than good. Instead, he tried something else.
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Matt felt a ripple underneath where his right foot would’ve been. He instantly raised his foot off of the sand and pushed all the mana he’d been channeling downwards, before following it with a stomp.
Sand erupted from the point of impact as the mana explosion sent it flying everywhere, echoing through the walls and creating a dust cloud while revealing the ever illusive guardian.
Matt grinned as he grabbed the horn with both hands while kicking at its base, trying to weaken it enough to finally break the damn thing off.
The skeleton monster appeared to be stunned for a second before realizing what Matt was trying to do. It pulled back with all it could, trying to free its horn from his grasp.
Matt jumped with both feet onto the guardian’s head, intending to keep a souvenir before the skeleton disappeared once more.
A loud crack filled the sandpit just as the monster was able to finally dive back.
A guttural shriek echoed through the room, the sand reverberating as if hit by an earthquake. The guardian was clearly not happy.
Matt quickly climbed out of the sand hole he found himself in before it could swallow him. Once back on his feet, he scanned the room, searching for any signs of his target.
“Yo! Expired sushi! If you want this, you gonna have to give me back my scepter,” he taunted the skeleton monster while tossing the horn from hand to hand, a wild grin on his face. He knew odds were the guardian couldn’t understand a word he said, but it was still good to get your jabs in when you could.
The guardian, surprisingly, came out of the sand, but not with a dive. Instead, it charged at Matt.
Matt hadn’t expected the monster to do such a drastic shift after losing its horn, yet he was still able to get out of the way, dodging to the side at the last second as to not give the floating skeleton enough time to change course, while throwing a right jab at its exposed ribs.
The guardian missed Matt by a few inches, but still managed to react by whipping its tail at him.
The tail slammed into Matt’s shoulder with surprising power, cracking bone and knocking him off his feet.
The guardian hadn’t come out scot-free though, as Matt’s punch had landed on the already damaged rib bones, breaking a few of them.
He got up and started sprinting towards the reeling monster, [Mend] already fast at healing his fractured and damaged bones.
However, the guardian too was quick to react, diving back into the sand before Matt could reach it.
Matt turned his sprint into a dropkick to try to land any hits on the monster before it could escape.
The kick found the edge of the guardian’s tail, which seemed to be less durable than the rest of its body, breaking a few of its bones.
Yet, there was no time to celebrate. He was still in the open, and the guardian was bound to attack any second now, forcing Matt to be on full alert. And yet, to his surprise, there was nothing.
He waited for a few more seconds, keeping his eyes peeled for any slight shift in the sand, but the cave was once more just as calm and serene as it had been when he first entered.
Matt started slowly moving while stomping at the sand, trying to lure the guardian out, but, annoyingly, it wasn’t taking the bait, creating a big problem for him. The guardian could find him at any time, but Matt didn’t have such a luxury. If it decided to rest and recover instead of attacking, Matt would be shit out of luck.
Is it seriously gonna just run and hide? Matt thought worriedly, racking his brain for anything he could use to draw out the dungeon’s namesake.
A very slight puff came from far behind Matt, disturbing the utter stillness of the sandy cave. He hesitated for a breath, the new sound confusing him, before diving to the side.
He felt a projectile come whizzing by his ear, inches away from impaling his brain, yet his reaction hadn’t been fast enough to dodge the other two that penetrated cleanly through his thigh. He hadn’t even felt an impact. If it weren’t for the gaping hole that was now part of his leg, he might’ve never known.
He started channeling mana in his hand as he sprinted towards where the spikes had come from, yet no second round was fired. He frantically looked around, trying to locate any shifts or ripples in the sand, but it was motionless, nothing disturbing its peaceful slumber.
A few tense seconds passed with nothing happening, then suddenly, he heard another puff coming from behind him. He didn’t think twice, letting his instincts guide him into a dive that cleanly dodged all three spikes.
This time he hadn’t seen where they had come from. He tsked as he got back up on his feet, only for two more spikes to penetrate cleanly through the shoulder and opposite arm.
Not waiting around, he dashed in the direction they had come from and pushed the channeled mana in his palm out as he slammed it onto the ground.
Sand went flying everywhere, revealing what had been hiding underneath, which was surprisingly… nothing.
Matt’s surprise was short, but not short enough, as pain radiated from his abdomen, the disrupted sand masking the sound of the three new spikes that found their way through his body.
“Not good,” Matt hissed through gritted teeth, clutching at his new wound as he pushed mana into [Mend].
Death by a thousand cuts was a real possibility. A few wounds were fine, but at this rate, it wouldn’t be a few, and he wasn’t equipped for a battle of attrition. His mana was already at 50%.
He needed to find a way to locate the slippery fucker, but what was there to do?
During his fight with the huntress, when he had failed to spot her, he realized he might need some form of detection. He joked about something that could detect mana, but was it really that far-fetched? It had sounded plausible enough at the time, and something that could scan for mana, whether an item or a skill, didn’t seem that complex, at least on paper.
The question was, how?
He dodged three more spikes aimed at his back, once again running towards the source while his mind worked overtime to try and figure out an answer.
If he worked based on his observation from the other day, that the soul had its own manifestation out in the world, then it shouldn’t be all that complicated. The body radiated heat, so the soul should radiate mana, or at least remnants of it. All he needed now was a way to detect it.
In his head, whatever it was would look something like a sonar pulse, but instead of sound waves, it’d sense mana. It sounded simple enough, and it probably was, but his understanding of the mana and how it works was extremely limited.
Another round of spikes came for Matt, this time, all three were aimed at his head.
Twelve seconds between casts. Not sure if it’s a cooldown or some other restriction. The only time it had taken longer was when it had fired five spikes, so twelve was a safe number to work with, he thought as he dodged the incoming salvo of spikes before running towards the location they had come from.
Chasing after the monster was pointless, but he didn’t want the guardian to create a large enough distance between the two of them. The spikes were lightning-fast, meaning the limitation wasn’t their range, but how fast the guardian could move without shifting any sand. Staying on its heels was his best bet for now.
Going back to the mana sense, the biggest problem wasn’t sending the mana wave, he could already do that. It was how to receive the signal. It’s not like I’m connected to the ma…na… his thoughts drifted as realization hit him.
Wait, what if I stay connected to it? When I use mana wave, I push all the mana outwards then close the gate in my palm, effectively separating the mana wave from the one in my body. Now, if I were to keep it ajar, limiting the amount of mana escaping while also not severing its connection to my soul–
More spikes came his way, forcing him to jump to the side. He was starting to get the hang of it, but none of it mattered if the guardian never resurfaced. He chased after the monster, but it was just a useless endeavor as utter stillness fell on the cave once more.
He went back to his idea. If I keep the mana connected to the one in my soul, even if by a simple thread, I should, theoretically, sense if it comes in contact with an obstacle. Ideally, I’d love to map out the entire subsurface, but that sounds like a whole different beast to tackle, even if I wasn’t fighting for my life. For now, I only have to locate it. Thoughts came and went as Matt began to visualize his idea.
Mana started swirling in the palm of his hand as he started channeling it. When the next puff came, he whipped his head around, tanking the spikes but getting a good look of where they had come from, before immediately sprinting to the location. Once there, he closed his eyes, his entire focus on his soul, before lowering his hand, and slowly letting go of the mana he had been channeling, not aggressively the same way he did with mana wave, but as a blanket. It was both slow and arduous, the mana fighting against him every step of the way, wanting to break free from his hold.
His mana control was doing its utmost, and he had to stay intently focused the entire time, tunning out the outside world. It was working, his mana spreading out and covering more and more of the sandy terrain, but there was no way he could cover the 300 foot cave. Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to, because the guardian had never made it more than a few dozen feet away.
.
.
.
“5, 6… come on you stupid oversized leftover cat food, show me where you are,” Matt pleaded, pushing as much mana into what he now was calling mana sense as he could.
.
.
.
“8…9…”
.
Matt opened his eyes and dashed in an instant. He had felt his mana come in contact with… something, thirty feet behind him.
Mana was already channeling in the palm of his hands, ready to be unleashed, and as soon as he was close enough, he jumped, pushing all the mana outwards while slamming his open palm into the sand.
What Matt saw next put a smile on his face. The open maw of the Guardian of the Dunes with three newly formed sand spikes rotating inside of it.
And what followed, was a satisfying punch to that maw.
